How Dark the Night (25 page)

“I quite agree. And he will not receive such an order.”

“Then with respect, sir, where does that leave us?”

Smith gave him a ghost of a smile. “We
could
employ
Nautilus
against the British squadron in Lynnhaven Bay. That would tweak King George's nose, eh?”

Nautilus
, constructed at the Perrier shipyard in Rouen, France, by an American inventor named Robert Fulton, had recently come into American hands. Compelling in design and functionality, the prototype submarine constructed of copper sheets fitted over iron ribs had caught the attention of the French minister of marine and Napoléon Bonaparte as a possible counterbalance to British sea power, especially after a mine
Nautilus
was dragging on one of its first test dives successfully blew up a 40-foot vessel. British spies soon caught wind of this invention, and the Admiralty enticed Fulton across the Channel with a cash payment of
eight hundred pounds. Although Whitehall had at first expressed interest in the 21-foot craft that could sail on the surface via a collapsible mast and prowl underwater via a hand-turned screw propeller, Admiral Nelson's stunning victory at Trafalgar had, in the Admiralty's judgment, rendered such a fantastic weapon superfluous. Discouraged, Fulton had sailed to America in October 1806 to offer his invention to the U.S. Navy.

“Indeed, I am intrigued by what Mr. Fulton has accomplished,” Decatur said, his enthusiasm shining through. “I understand that
Nautilus
can dive to a depth of twenty-five feet and remain underwater for an extended period. And she carries multiple explosives. However, sir,” he added more darkly, “as you can appreciate, deploying such a weapon in such a manner could well bring about the war that our government is endeavoring to avoid.”

“So it would, Stephen.” Smith concurred, the twinkle returning to his eye. “So it would. You must not always take me so seriously. I was speaking with tongue in cheek.” His brief stab at levity ended abruptly. “Our agreement with Britain requires us to surrender seamen who are fugitives from justice,” he said matter-of-factly. “It mentions nothing about alleged deserters. Of course, we cannot rely on that agreement. ‘Might makes right' as the saying goes, and the British pay that agreement no more mind than they do any other directives of which they do not approve, even if they are the ones who imposed them! Mr. Erskine makes it quite clear in his instructions that if we do not cooperate, the British are prepared to take matters into their own hands. He doesn't specify what he means by that, although I daresay he doesn't have to. We have recent history to go by, don't we.”

“Unfortunately we do, sir,” Decatur bitterly agreed. “A nation that would defy international law by maintaining a naval squadron in American home waters in order to blockade two French warships also stationed in our home waters will not hesitate to violate our neutrality; indeed, it already has. What are we? A toy of Europe?”

“Calm yourself, Stephen,” Smith soothed. “Remember: the British are here at our invitation. Or if not that, at least our tacit approval.”

Decatur ignored that. “Are these not the same British who fired point-blank into an American merchant vessel just a mile offshore from our naval base? If they had the audacity to do
that
, they have the audacity to do just about anything else we might imagine.”

“I have to agree. So to answer your original question, where this sorry state of affairs leaves us is in what we must pray are Commodore Barron's capable hands. Whatever happens now, the mantle of responsibility
falls on him. My advice to Mr. Gordon,” referring to Master Commandant Charles Gordon,
Chesapeake
's captain, “is to get his ship ready for sea with all due haste, even if that means putting to sea short-handed. This very evening I will instruct Commodore Tingley to put every available man at Gordon's disposal. You shall see: once
Chesapeake
clears the Capes and is out into the Atlantic, the British will forget the matter and the threat will pass.”

T
HE
R
OYAL
Marine guard rapped purposefully on the door of the warship's spacious after cabin.

“Enter,” a gruff voice responded.

Moments later, Midshipman Seth Cutler stood at attention before his captain and snapped a crisp salute. “Mr. Morse's duty, sir, and we have spotted an American frigate in Thimble Shoals Channel. She is heading for sea.”

Salusbury Pryce Humphreys laid his quill pen on the desk before looking up at Cutler. “
Chesapeake
?”

“Aye, sir.”

“There can be no mistake? No possible room for error?”

“No sir. She is flying the American ensign and Commodore Barron's pennant flies from her masthead.”

“Commodore? Jumping the gun a bit, wouldn't you say, Mr. Cutler?” Humphreys smiled at his turn of phrase. “In my experience, one ship does not a squadron make.”

“No sir,” Seth agreed.

“Very well,” Humphreys said, picking up his pen and dipping it into the ornate inkwell on his desk. “You may send Mr. Morse my compliments and advise him that I wish him to weigh anchor immediately and follow the procedures I have prescribed.”

Seth Cutler snapped another salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

As the senior midshipman turned on his heel and departed the cabin, Captain Humphreys picked up the dispatch he had received ten days earlier from the commander of the North American Station in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Here, in his hand, was the ultimate justification for what he was about to do. He had a direct order from a superior, and that order required Humphreys to do whatever was necessary to bring the three deserters from HMS
Melampus
to justice. Vice Admiral Sir George Berkeley had instructed his clerk to twice underline the words “whatever is necessary.” I may have let down my conscience from time to time during my career, Humphreys mused as he reflected on the text of the dispatch.
That, alas, is often the fate of a post captain serving in His Majesty's Navy. But hell will freeze over and I will die a thousand deaths before I let down my commanding officer.

He noted the time and date in his log—five bells, forenoon watch, June 22, 1807—just as his steward opened the cabin door and poked in his head.

“I understand we are about to weigh, Captain,” the steward said in a fine patrician accent that could rival that of the vice chancellor of Oxford. “Will you be requiring dinner at the usual hour? Or shall I expedite?”

“The usual hour will do, Langley,” Humphreys said. He had already computed in his mind the logistics of time as a function of distance divided by a speed that was easily approximated in these relatively light westerly breezes. “We should not see much excitement for another few hours yet.”

“Very good, sir,” the steward said and set off to the captain's galley.

When evolutions for weighing anchor were completed, the 50-gun
Leopard
slipped past the 36-gun fifth rate
Melampus
and the 74-gun third rate
Bellona
, the two other warships in the British squadron in Lynnhaven Bay, and headed out past Cape Henry Light into the open sea. She was headed south-southeast on a course that followed in the wake of
Chesapeake
, which was out ahead of her by a good three to four miles. The day was cloudless and sunny, affording excellent visibility to lookouts stationed high up in the British cruiser's rigging, their long glasses trained on the stern of the Yankee frigate. Below, on the berthing deck located beneath the gun deck and above the orlop, sailors took their dinner according to their watch, the customary ration of rum having been denied to them as well as to every officer serving in the ship. It was highly irregular in everyone's memory for Captain Humphreys to issue such an order.

At four bells, halfway through the afternoon watch, First Lieutenant Bradford Morse ordered
Leopard
's royals raised and studdingsails set aloft and alow. The extra press of canvas increased her speed by several knots and allowed her to close the distance between her and her prey. Midshipman Cutler, stationed at the base of the mainmast to relay messages aft from lookouts secured in the crosstrees more than a hundred feet above him, estimated that
Leopard
was nine, perhaps ten miles east of the Virginia Capes. His base of reference was the empty water to the west. His study of mathematics as a midshipman had taught him that the distance to the horizon at sea was roughly equal in miles to the square root of the height of the observer multiplied by a factor of 1.2. From
where he was standing, the shoreline to the west had disappeared below the curvature of the earth more than an hour ago.

At five bells Captain Humphreys ordered his crew to clear the decks for action, but quietly—Marine drummers were not to beat the crew to quarters. Sailors crept through the evolutions of preparing a ship for battle and then stole to battle stations, as they had been previously instructed to do. Seth Cutler led the way down to the upper gun deck and took command of number two battery. Because at that point he did not know which side of his command would be presented first, he assumed position amidships between the four gleaming black 12-pounder guns assigned to him, two to a side, still run all the way in behind closed ports. Directly above, through the main hatchway, he could hear boatswain's mates directing sailors aloft in the rigging to prepare to furl up the main and fore courses and otherwise reduce sail to slow the ship and put her in fighting trim. He pulled his gilded watch from a waistcoat pocket and noted the time: 3:35.

Leopard
slowed. Minutes ticked by. Seth could sense almost no forward motion of the ship when he heard the voice of Lieutenant Morse on the weather deck above him. He was speaking through a trumpet, requesting Commodore Barron to heave to and allow him to come on board to deliver dispatches. Such a request was not unusual. Since the Jay Treaty of 1794 had repaired damaged relations between Great Britain and the United States, American and British warships had routinely carried dispatches to foreign stations for each other. Seth realized, however, that the communications Lieutenant Morse would deliver to James Barron in the captain's after cabin were meant for Barron alone, and were communications that the American commodore would not wish to receive. There were, in fact, two communications, or so
Leopard
's officers had been informed. One was a copy of the letter sent to Captain Humphreys by Vice Admiral Berkeley. The other was a personal message from Captain Humphreys to Commodore Barron expressing the hope that this matter could be “adjusted without undue incident” and without harming the “amicable relations that exist between His Majesty's government and the United States.”

Cordial and reasonable enough, Seth had thought to himself when he heard the text of the letter read to the ship's officer corps several days earlier. But he was as convinced now as he had been then that it would not serve. At the Washington Navy Yard Commodore Barron had flatly refused to turn over the seamen in question and had stated that he would never authorize the search of a ship under his command—by the British
or by anyone else. And he was known as a proud man loathe to back down from a publicly stated position.

Seth heard a ship's boat splash into the water, larboard side. That sound was soon followed by the patter of lightly shod sailors clambering down the hull into it, and followed in turn by a louder stamping of hard-bound shoes—a squad of Marines, undoubtedly—and then by the more authoritative stomp of a sea officer's boots. With the coxswain's distinct cry of “Back oars, larboard side,” then “Down oars, starboard side,” the ship's boat was under way toward the hove-to U.S. Navy frigate.

Again the minutes ticked by. Seth strolled up and down, back and forth, within the small square space of his command. He had his hands clasped behind his back as he conferred with individual gun captains to ensure that all was primed and ready. A deathly silence had pervaded the upper gun deck. The gun crews pricked up their ears for any telltale sound from the outside; the meager light provided by a few strategically placed lanterns and two open gun ports toward the bow of the ship and another two toward the stern cast an eerie glow of dancing light that illuminated the expression of keen expectation on the face of every man jack on that deck, from lubberly waisters to battle-tested veterans. This was history in the making. Even the dullest of the dullards among the ship's company appreciated
that
.

In too brief a span of time, Seth again heard the cry of the coxswain. “Ease all,” he shouted moments before the boat brushed against the larboard hull. The process of boarding was repeated in reverse. First up the tumblehome was the sea officer, followed by the Marines and then the sailors according to rank. Seth listened intently. The shouts above on the weather deck had nothing to do with making ready the hoisting tackle on stays and yardarms that would haul the ship's boat back on board. It was left where it was, the bitter end of its tender presumably secured to the larboard mainmast chain-wale. Seth softly let out a breath, forcing himself to display no outward signs of emotion or concern over what his roiling intestines suggested would happen next. That the boat was not hauled on board meant that the three deserters remained in
Chesapeake
and that Captain Humphreys expected a repeat visit to the American frigate, this time under very different circumstances.

A tense interlude of silence intervened before Second Lieutenant Trevor Elliot, commander of the lower gun deck, and Third Lieutenant Robert Larkin, commander of the upper gun deck, clambered down the wide companionway ladder. Lieutenant Elliot continued down another companionway ladder to the lower gun deck. A minute later, in almost
perfect synchrony despite standing on separate decks, the two officers shouted out, “Trice up both sides. Run out, starboard side! Make ready to larboard!”