The Sea is a Thief (3 page)

Sweat trickled down the Captain's stiff collar.  In a few moments, just before the noontime meal, he would issue fresh orders to his crew.   

Louisiana
was shipshape.  Every sailor under Henry D. Sharpe's command was keenly aware of his Captain's emphasis on naval discipline and regulation.  The U.S. Navy Operations Manual was their Bible, and each moment of the day was lived according to its procedures.  His veteran boatswain Benjamin Harvey saw to it with a heavy fist and a threatening growl. He had no difficulty giving orders, and assumed that all of them would be executed on the spot.  He was seldom wrong.  Every object on board operated exactly as the manual dictated.  Every button on every uniform was placed precisely where the manual specified. The cannon were polished, the decks were scrubbed, and the coal hoppers were full to bursting.  Captain Sharpe would have it no other way.  It was not for nothing that he had graduated from the very first class at Annapolis.  

Her Captain's meticulous regimen ensured that
Louisiana
stayed perfectly trim without much fuss.  Each sailor knew his part, and performed it from reveille at five in the morning until tattoo sounded at nine p.m., allowing most of the tired crew to retire to their hammocks below deck.  Every man knew that if he and his mates followed the Navy manual to the letter, the Captain would take little issue with anything else they did.  Sharpe's command was pleasant duty for those who met his very particular demands.  

The greatest secret on board was his nickname: Captain Dull.  The seamen, the firemen, the coal heavers, and even the lowest-ranking boys all knew it.  Some of the officer corps surely knew it.  Boatswain Benjamin Harvey may have known it, though he didn't let on for a moment.  Only Sharpe himself could never be allowed to know it, and thus far he definitely did not.  He had earned his nickname not only for his devotion to naval procedure, but also because of the indisputable fact that no ship under his command had seen the slightest military action in the fourteen years since the Mexican War.  The Battle of Cockle Creek had broken that lengthy string, and its outcome had put the Captain in a splendid frame of mind.  Within a day, every line and cleat had been cleaned and made ready for the next encounter.  Now it seemed certain that any such encounter would be distant.

An iron gunship blockading a channel offered its crew only so much work to do.  Not too many years before, attention to sails and rigging took up much of a sailor's day. That had changed.
 Louisiana
carried sails mainly as a backup should her boilers fail, and her pampered boilers were the picture of health.  When she took on coal, the choking black dust blanketed the entire ship, but it was quickly scrubbed away under Harvey's watchful eye.  Bobbing at anchor, no more coal would be needed for some time.  That left spotless decks to be re-cleaned, coiled line to be re-coiled, and gleaming brass to be re-polished.  There were ninety mouths to feed, but Navy food was as simple as simple could be, and the ship's cooks and stewards were old salts who knew their way around the tiny galley blindfolded.  

Knowing all this, Captain Sharpe had formulated a plan.  

New ideas were not his forte; in fact, he avoided them as some men avoided venomous snakes.  To Sharpe they were similar: dangerous, unpredictable, and likely to cause him regret.  If a procedure could not be found within the multiple pages of the U.S. Navy Operations Manual, Henry D. Sharpe took no interest in it.  This, however, was a different sort of idea, with much to recommend it.

In the first place, it had sprung fresh from his own mind, not from that of a rash young midshipman or Lieutenant. Such men were full of untested enthusiasm and a desire to improve the Navy.  They terrified Sharpe.  When they were assigned to his command, their time on his ships was short.  However, when a seasoned commander made a careful decision to depart
very slightly
from standard shipboard practice, motivated by sound judgment, then such an idea might, after proper consideration, be given a try.  

And so the Captain had pondered it, for several days in fact, while he surveyed the Chincoteague channel through his glass.  After long reflection, he still favored the plan.

He would deploy his crew onto the island.

His idea solved two problems, and thus showed double merit.  First, an idle crew brewed trouble, and this crew would be idle.  Many of his sailors were young and away from their boyhood homes for the first time.  Young men confined in a small space could barely avoid trouble under the best of circumstances.  These circumstances were far from the best.  The situation offered little danger to keep them vigilant and even less useful work to do.  An ingenious Captain might fashion training exercises to keep them busy and reduce their natural inclination to misbehave, but Sharpe was not an ingenious Captain.  In time, incidents would take place.  There would be drinking to excess of their daily ration. Where sailors found intoxicating spirits, the Captain never knew, but somehow they always did.   Games of cards or dice, though strictly forbidden, would take place in the evening.  Soon money would be lost and fists would fly.  Grudges would result, and nasty accidents would happen to occur.  Seamen would find their hammocks cut while they slept, or heavy objects dropped on their toes as they worked.  Soon Benjamin Harvey would spend his days settling disputes and meting out punishments.  That was no way to run a ship during wartime.

The second problem had taken root in Captain Sharpe's mind as he observed the comings and goings of the people of Chincoteague.  They appeared innocent enough as they went about their daily business.  Rough and simple as they were, he imagined them to be pleasant, industrious people.  A large crowd had gathered to witness his victory over the
Venus
and then quickly dispersed.  The few men he had sent ashore for provisions had reported no ill feelings.  The people of the island were grateful for the presence of his gunboat, or so he had been told.  Still, he wondered.  In some sense, the islanders were citizens of a conquered nation.  They were southerners and Virginians.  Virginia, oldest of the colonies and proudest of her heritage, was in open revolt on the mainland, not five miles distant.  Though a few representatives had travelled to Hampton Roads in search of Union support, there must be others on the island whose loyalties lay with their Rebel brethren.  What was their opinion of the gunship in their harbor?  Were they even now plotting some maneuver against him?  The questions disturbed his sleep, and spurred him to action.  

He would send his crew to assist them, and thus to befriend them.  In doing so, he would ensure the safety of his men and his vessel.  

Captain Sharpe fitted his dark blue cap onto his head, slipping the strap beneath his chin.  It was an excellent plan indeed, he thought, as he buttoned his coat and ascended the ladder to the deck.  A superior plan.  He emerged into bright sunshine and a breeze that had freshened, driving away most of the biting insects.  His crew were neatly arranged in three rows.  Each man's tunic and pantaloons were neat and his boots shone glossy black.  Their eyes looked straight ahead, shielded from the glaring sun by their broad, flat caps, set at a uniform angle.  The embroidered gold inscriptions filled Sharpe with new pride:
Louisiana,
they chanted silently.  
Louisiana.
  His ship.  Victor of the Battle of Cockle Creek, one of the first naval battles of this war.   Benjamin Harvey stepped smartly forward, his boatswain's mate and master-at-arms close behind him, uniforms impeccable.  Harvey addressed the assembled crew.

“By order of Captain Henry D. Sharpe of the USS
Louisiana,
given this day in the year of our Lord 1861, all enlisted seamen and other members of the crew shall modify their duties in this fashion:

 

“At the hour of eight a.m., watches shall be changed to allow for a number of the crew chosen by the Captain or the boatswain to go ashore for extraordinary duty, returning before tattoo at nine p.m.;

 

“such duty for the purpose of assisting and rendering service to the residents of Chincoteague Island, that they might more readily welcome the presence of the gunship
Louisiana
in local waters;
 

 

“residents to be chosen by local clergymen according to their need, that is, widows, orphans, the aged and infirm, and so forth;

 

“no money or other compensation to be received by the crew member, but he is to express his eagerness to be of assistance on behalf the United States Navy and Captain Henry D. Sharpe of the
Louisiana
;
 

 

 “those found guilty of laziness or inattention to his assignment, drunkenness, fraternization, or other poor moral example, to be deprived of this privilege and punished as seen fit, by the boatswain.”

 

Harvey stepped back.  The Captain fingered the hilt of his sword with its blue-and-gold tassel.  Officially, the use of the tassel was suspended in wartime, but his remained in place.  Harvey continued:

“These eight men chosen for today's service will depart immediately after the meal: Carpenter Dreher.  Carpenter's Mate Platt…”  Six more names followed, but Sam Dreher paid no attention.  He sneaked a sidelong glance at Ethan Platt, and both indulged in a fleeting smile.  Harvey blew his ever-present boatswain's whistle and saluted the captain crisply, and with that the crew fell out towards the mess.  Sharpe proceeded to the officer's mess, pleased with himself.  It was done.  A pleasant aroma met him.  Beef today, and fresh vegetables.

Sam Dreher ate all his meals quickly; that way, he stayed a step ahead of the boatswain, and out of trouble.  When he and Ethan Platt ate together, it was common for him to elbow his friend, hurrying him along.  Ethan liked to linger over his food, simple as it was, but today both men felt the urgent call of the launch that would take them to land. “We're goin'
ashore,
Sam!” Ethan crowed, “and not Port Clinton, either.”  He and his longtime friend had enlisted in the Navy for different reasons, but they shared a desire to leave the town of Port Clinton behind them.  Sam stood, sopping up the last of the beef drippings with his biscuit.  “Aye,” he replied. “I won't mind leaving this tub for a while.  Let's be off.”  They packed their sea bags quickly with tools and fistfuls of hardtack.   In minutes they were at the oars of the launch with six companions, headed for the main wharf of Chincoteague.

 

After a long time at sea, land feels strange to a sailor, but welcome all the same.  So it was that Sam Dreher, Ship's Carpenter, and Ethan Platt, Carpenter's Mate, happily set foot for the first time on the sandy soil of Chincoteague Island.  Many weeks had passed since they left their little Pennsylvania town, where a river and a railroad met and quickly disappeared towards sunnier and more inviting places.  Neither was sure where the United States Navy might take them, but both were willing to throw the dice.  

The Philadelphia Navy Yard was their first berth: three weeks on a creaking old sailing ship to learn their way around the decks and rigging, then on to Hampton Roads and berths on the
Louisiana,
one small cog in the great Anaconda Plan intended to blockade Southern ports and strangle the rebel war effort.  The ship lingered at various positions in the Chesapeake Bay, always on its guard for a skirmish with the enemy, but none came.  One morning, without much notice, all hands scrambled to make her ready to head farther south—and now, not many days later, they were clambering out of the launch onto the dock.  

For the two young men accustomed to the mossy forest groves and steep-sided rocky glens of Pennsylvania, Chincoteague was an entirely new sort of place.  Life in the tiny junction of Port Clinton revolved around the railroad and the river.  Sam lived with his aunt and uncle. The family farm that his father and mother worked a little farther south near Shoemakersville was too small to support their four growing boys.  When he was of an age to learn a trade, Sam's father arranged for his apprenticeship in Port Clinton.  Sam's Aunt Margaret and Uncle Walter ran a store and carpentry shop, supplying provisions and making repairs to the boats that carried freight on the Schuylkill Canal.  Boat traffic on the canal was steady, and growing.  The work had become too much for his uncle.  He needed another hand, and Sam fit the bill well.

 Though the shop hummed with activity, the town didn't offer much to a young man.  It was a dark and dull little place, tucked in a hollow between two mountains of the Appalachian range.  Along the ridges high above the river, thickets of tall, sticky-blossomed mountain laurel flowered, but down in the valleys towering hemlocks blocked the sun much of the day. A stubborn patch of snow that fell into the perfect stony crevice could last until May.  On an idle summer or autumn afternoon Sam and Ethan would scramble up one of the craggy outcroppings along the Kittatinny Ridge.  Lying on their backs in the sunshine, drinking in the sweet air, they watched hawks spiral upwards on motionless wings, riding the warm currents rising from the mountainsides.  Those times were few; most of their days were spent in the damp shadow of the hills, working and wondering about the rest of the world.

Now their small party of Northern boys had come ashore in Virginia—loyalist Virginia, but Virginia nonetheless.  The familiar outline of the
Louisiana
looked uncomfortably distant across the sparkling ripples of the channel.  Only one man brought a rifle, and that as an afterthought.  The crew was confident of a warm reception.  They were going to aid the town, not to invade it.  Surely they would be welcomed.

They docked between two sharpies, both oystermen, their crews busy sorting the day's catch.   Barefoot, clad in canvas pants and broad hats, the crews nodded to them and returned to their work.  The Union sailors headed towards the main street.   They passed three fishermen mending a net, a stout woman emptying an iron kettle into the water, and a yellow dog; only the dog paid them much attention.