Rough Passage to London: A Sea Captain's Tale (10 page)

“Why did you attack us?” Morgan angrily asked one of the pirates who seemed to be looking in his direction.

At first there was no response, and then the man grunted a reply.

“Cos yer bloody Yankees, that’s why.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Morgan.

“We workin’ English got to stand up agin’ ye Yankees. We got nothink, no money, no bed, no job. We’re ’ard up we are. Yer ship is in England now, and as yer in English waters, it’s fine and proper that yer should share yer wealth with poor Englishmen like us.”

At that point, the man turned to his compatriots for support, and they nodded their heads in agreement. Morgan tried to get more information from them about how they chose the
Hudson
, but they weren’t talking. He had his suspicions. He had heard of spies in Portsmouth on the lookout for cargo ships that they could later plunder on the slow-moving run up the Thames. But who would have been their informant in Portsmouth?

An obliging steamer came and threw them a line, and they began the twenty-five-mile journey upriver to London. Morgan came up for air from the dank steerage just as the ship wound its way past a shipyard near Tilbury. They passed barges stranded in the mud, and he could see the tips of masts reaching over the rooftops of warehouses. He stood by the bulwarks, gazing out to some waterside stairs that emerged from the foggy gloom. He was lost in his troubling thoughts as the ship wound its way toward the Isle of Dogs. The haunting sight of Brown in the midst of the fighting stayed with him.

By afternoon, they had reached the busy section of the river. A parade of small boats followed them in and around the constant flow of barge traffic. Word had gotten out on the Thames that a Yankee packet had been attacked by some scuffle hunters. Just a few miles south of Blackwall, he returned to his guard duty, relieving Icelander. He was left alone with his half-dozen prisoners. He looked at one man with a pigtail hanging down his back, and yellow and blue gewgaws dangling down the sides of his curly hair. His left eye was closed shut from a blow he’d received. His shirt was open, revealing tattoos running across his chest and down to his arms. On his hands, swollen knuckles; a silver-colored skull ring on one, and a deep scar from a burn on another. Morgan’s eyes paused suddenly. The tattoo of a scaly red serpent spiraling down one of the man’s white arms caught his attention. Not expecting any reply, Morgan threw out the question he’d been asking around the London docks for months now.

“Ever heard of William Blackwood?”

“What if I ’ave? What’s it to ye, Yank?”

“I heard he was looking for sailors,” Morgan replied quickly, too stunned to say anything more.

“Why yer asking about Blackwood,” another man asked suddenly, clearly suspicious. “’Ow’s it yer know about my old China Bill? Ye be a copper’s nark?”

“What’s a copper’s nark?” Morgan asked innocently.

“A Blue Bottle’s blower? Is that what ye are, Yank?”

The man with the pigtail glowered at Morgan with undisguised disdain. His one good eye seemed clearer, a sharper, more intelligent tool than moments before, as if suddenly it had spotted an opportunity.

“If ’e’s in London you might find ’im down by Wapping Old Stairs,” the man volunteered with a malevolent grin. “’E’s got some ale’ouses there ’e frequents. One of them is called the Frying Pan Tavern on Vinegar Lane just north of the ’ighway in Shadwell.”

9

The drizzle was now a drenching rain. Lightning flashed to the west over Tower Hill, illuminating London’s skyline off in the distance. Morgan watched from the sodden foredeck as several burly constables with the Marine Police kicked and shoved their prisoners off the ship onto the London docks. The river pirates who could walk slinked and shambled in the steady rain past the stern of the ship, their heads down and their hands manacled. The other three were thrown into a small wagon and carted away. Morgan spotted the man with the pigtail who had told him where he might find Blackwood. He whispered softly as he went by, “Say ’ello to Bill for me when ye find ’im.”

A horse-drawn wagon waited to carry them away to what some of the sailors said would be a dark hole in a watch house, probably in White-chapel or Bethnal Green. Morgan had heard about these places, narrow dungeons with dirt and gravel floors steaming with stagnant air reeking of human feces. Poor wretches, Morgan thought to himself, even as he recognized them for what they were, mean and squalid creatures from London’s unforgiving streets.

Morgan knew well enough that these crime-ridden places surrounding the docks were haunts where sailors sometimes disappeared forever. Still, he fully intended to go there to follow this latest lead. Before that, he wanted to talk to Hiram about his suspicions. He hadn’t had a chance to talk with his friend since the attack on the ship. He watched the wagon loaded with the prisoners lurch and rattle its way out of the well-guarded dock area into the streets, the heavy-set truck horses straining at their leather harness. Once it had disappeared, and the heavy, creaking iron gates had closed behind them, he found Hiram and told him what he’d seen during the attack.

Hiram wanted to confront Brown and report him to the captain, but Morgan convinced him that he wouldn’t get justice that way. “The captain would never believe you,” he told Hiram, “and besides, Brown would just deny it.” They decided to confide in a few other sailors. The Spaniard, once he was given a translation of what Morgan had seen, wanted to slit the mate’s throat, “Cortarle el cuello come el cochino, hijo de puta que es.” Icelander wanted to keelhaul him or string him up in the yardarms. It was Whipple, the ship’s carpenter, who gave Morgan the idea of what to do.

Henry Whipple was a Connecticut River man, an old sea dog who had been on many deepwater voyages and was full of just as many stories as the days he’d spent at sea. He had a simple face overloaded with a wild, unkempt growth of graying whiskers, a dull, gauzy shade of blue in his eyes, and a wide sloping forehead, cracked and uneven like a New England stone wall. His hair was thinning at the top of his head, so he’d drawn it back in a Chinaman’s pigtail. After the suddenness of the river attack, Captain Champlin had told Whipple he wanted a way to hear what was happening on deck in the privacy of his cabin. Whipple mentioned this casually by way of making conversation. A group of sailors were drinking water at the ship’s scuttlebutt when Whipple volunteered the latest task he was doing for the captain.

“He’s got me building a speaking tube contraption with one end in his cabin and the other end coming out by the cabin house at the stern of the ship,” Whipple said dolefully as if he were making a confession.

“That so,” one of the sailors replied. “What’s that for?”

Whipple explained that his hollow tube would allow the captain to hear everything going on at the helm area, and if necessary, make his voice heard from his cabin if the sails were shaking or luffing. It was also a good protection against a mutiny or a surprise attack by river pirates.

Whipple’s uneven brow furrowed as he realized that he was talking too much.

“The cap’n didn’t want me to tell a soul, so don’t let on you know anything about it,” he said anxiously, his voice noticeably distressed.

When Morgan heard what Whipple was doing, the outlines of a scheme to get rid of the second mate slowly began to take shape in his mind. The plan was set in motion days later when the captain returned and Mr. Toothacher left the ship. Whipple had finished installing the new speaking tube. That night Champlin retired to his cabin after dinner as was his custom, and Morgan and his cohorts gathered on the quarterdeck. Morgan and Hiram weren’t the only ones who wanted to get rid of the second mate.

At eleven o’clock, Morgan began his preparations. He picked a spot right next to the helm where he could speak into one end of the hollow tube, the other end of which was right next to the captain’s berth, just several feet away from his head. Morgan and Hiram then began speaking in a hoarse whisper, knowing that their voices would be sufficiently loud enough for the captain’s benefit.

In a dramatic hushed tone, Hiram described the unspeakable horrors he’d seen down in the rum barrels, sparing no details, adding a few revealing sounds he hadn’t actually heard. Morgan played along as if he’d never heard this salacious story before. He also piped in with his own story of foul dealing about Brown. He told how the mate had contacted the scuffle hunters in Portsmouth, striking a deal with them, and then, once they’d boarded the ship, directed them toward Hiram, their intended victim. This was part fact, part guesswork, and pure theatrics.

Soon other sailors joined in on the discussion. A mock fight ensued as the sailors pretended to argue about what they should do to Brown. At that point, down in his cabin, the captain would have heard muffled shouts, the stomping of feet on deck and a plethora of cursing. All this was being done for his benefit. In actual fact, there were now about six or seven sailors who were pretending to have a fight, all in the interest of luring the volatile mate back to the helm area. Right on cue, Mr. Brown showed up wielding his favorite weapon, a belaying pin, and began hitting and striking any and all of the sailors involved in the fighting.

“Mr. Brown!” Morgan shouted directly into the hollow tube above the din of the shipboard brawl. “Why is it that you didn’t fight like this when the scuffle hunters came over the side of the ship? One of them told me it was you who invited them on board.”

An irate Brown lunged at Morgan with his long, powerful arms raining him with blows of the belaying pin. As Morgan raised up his elbows to fend off the blows, Hiram started shouting into the hollow tube again.

“What is it that you did down in the darkness of the hold, Mr. Brown? Did I hear what I thought I heard amongst them rum barrels?”

Brown’s face became beet red, and he flew into an even more intense rage, wheeling and turning on Hiram like a wild animal, growling and snarling. He had Hiram by the throat with his head up against the helm. He was strangling him when the captain, dressed in his silk pajamas with his head still bandaged, emerged from the companionway wielding his two pistols.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Champlin shouted as he rushed into the melee. His eyes fell on Morgan and he demanded an explanation.

“Is this a mutiny, Mr. Morgan?”

“No, Cap’n, there is no mutiny. Just a difference of opinion with the second officer.”

“What might that be, Mr. Morgan?” the captain asked sharply.

“There are certain of us who believe that Mr. Brown had something to do with the scuffle hunters that boarded us.”

The captain looked around at some of the other sailors from Connecticut whom he trusted, Horace Nyles and Ezra Pratt, two of the more experienced seamen from the river. They were nodding at him, acknowledging that they agreed with Morgan. He turned to his second mate and addressed him directly.

“Mr. Brown, what explanation is there for these libelous statements?”

Brown had by now released his hold on Hiram’s throat and was standing over him like a cat with a mouse, his explosive anger still red hot.

“It’s nothing but malicious gossip, Captain,” the mate said with an authoritative voice, his restless eyes moving about the deck. “Pure tattle and obloquy.” He gestured angrily toward Hiram and Morgan saying, “These sailors should be cobbed and then manacled below decks. They deserve a proper floggin’, sir.”

Morgan held his breath. It looked like the plan had failed.

Champlin paused, his two pistols still at the ready. He’d heard all the accusations through the hollow tube into his cabin, but it was very difficult for a captain to rebuke one of his own mates in front of the men, and these accusations were severe. At that point, he might have backed down if it hadn’t been for the sudden surprise appearance of Dalrymple. The new cabin boy stepped into the light of the lantern at the helm, immediately drawing the eyes of all the others. The boy’s pasty-white face was stricken with fear. A silence suddenly fell on the quarterdeck. No one expected what happened next. Dalrymple spoke clearly and in a straightforward fashion.

“All of that is true, Cap’n.”

“What’s that, boy?” Champlin asked with astonishment.

“It is true,” the boy repeated in a quiet, restrained voice. “I was made to be an accomplice to Mr. Brown. When the ship was off of Ramsgate on that last night before we sailed into the Thames, Mr. Brown ordered me back aft to send a signal with the lantern on the port side of the ship. He told me to tell no one, but some men would board the ship in the morning and they would take care of things.”

Champlin pulled on his earlobe, rubbed his nose, and then fired off a question to his second mate.

“Mr. Brown, why did you have the boy send a signal, and who were you sending it to anyway?”

Clearly flustered, his face reddening, Brown stammered a response as he stepped away from Hiram.

“I was just signaling other ships in the area, Cap’n,” he stammered. “The fog was so thick. I was just trying to avoid a collision.”

Champlin’s eyes passed from the smooth, hairless face of this blond-haired boy to the scruffy, weather-beaten face of his second mate. He looked at the silent faces of his crewmembers. Justice was never easy to determine on board a ship, where truth was a frequent casualty. As a veteran shipmaster, he couldn’t always tell when a man was lying, but he had learned to sense fear and guilt in a man. He saw both of those emotions in the weaselly black eyes of his second mate. He turned to Nyles and Pratt.

“Put Mr. Brown in irons and bring him down below.”

Brown tried to make a run for it, but a dozen tattooed arms restrained him and forced him facedown onto the deck. Icelander and the Spaniard helped manacle the second mate and bring the enraged man down below.

“Put him in one of the passengers’ suites for now,” Champlin said. “Mr. Morgan, you and Mr. Smith will stay here on the quarterdeck. I think we have some matters to discuss.”

The next morning the American consul came on board with a number of soldiers and, after a long conversation with Captain Champlin, a manacled Jack Brown was led off the ship for the last time. The crew was told later that Brown would be shipped back to New York, where he would stand trial for mutiny and attempted murder. No mention was ever made of the rum barrel incident. That was one of the secrets that stayed on board ship. Champlin did not want to run the risk of a scandalous story like that becoming known. His ship’s reputation was at stake.

During those last days in port, stevedores were busy loading cargo onto the
Hudson
, everything from Kendall cottons to blankets to bundles of pans and spades. The sailors attended to more last-minute repairs, fixing the rigging and mending the sails. At dusk, on one of the last days in port, Morgan and a small group from the packet walked out of the garrisoned London Docks to the freedom and danger of the city’s crime-infested East End. Morgan persuaded them to head for the Shadwell area, where sailors liked to say there was a whore for every twelve men. He was determined to get to the Frying Pan Tavern, even though he realized they were now walking through the roughest part of London.

Once they’d done several twists and turns through squalid riverside streets and crumbling stone archways, they found themselves in the alleyways near Prince’s Square, not too far from Wellclose Square. Morgan watched as men, women, and children lined up to pump water into pails close by the common privy, its foul-smelling contents spilling into the streets. A woman dressed in rags lay in a heap on the street, her baby crying and screaming. A thief was picking through the pockets of a drunken man lying unconscious at the foot of some stairs. Morgan yelled at the robber, shaking his belaying pin, which he had brought along for protection. A good-looking middle-aged woman hung out a second story window in a suggestive, revealing way and laughed at him derisively.

“Ain’t you the gentleman now sailor boy. Ye be my knight in shinin’ armor, my own sweet prince,” she cried out in a throaty voice. Then she leaned further out the window, her face breaking out into a lurid smile. “Come up ’ere and I’ll make ye a king.”

Her laughter echoed into the small courtyard. A few blocks later there were more women, standing by doorways, calling out to these men like seductive sirens. One by one, the sailors disappeared; even Hiram left him when two young buxom women with dark seductive eyes approached them, their loose-fitting, wide-necked blouses leaving little to the imagination. It was too much for Hiram to resist.