Rough Passage to London: A Sea Captain's Tale (25 page)

The thought of seeing his father again made him anxious. Eliza had not stopped asking questions about his family. She wanted to know all about his sisters and his brother Josiah, and what life had been like growing up in Lyme. Without telling her about the conflict-ridden relationship he’d had with his father, he’d tried to let her know that his return home would not be without its emotional complications. He had told her about his search for Abraham and how disappointing it had been. He thought how little he really knew about what had happened to Abraham. So many years of searching for his brother and all he had were more suspicions of foul play. Josiah would certainly want to hear about any new information. What could he tell him? He didn’t even know what had happened to John Taylor. He had searched for the man over the years, mentioning Taylor’s name at some of the New York boarding houses more commonly frequented by sailors, but there was no trace of him. He supposed that the sickly man had most likely died in some hidden alleyway, his dark secrets forever lost.

The breakfast bell interrupted his thoughts. Lowery was just going below with the milk pail. Eliza now reemerged on deck, taking a look at the misty gray world that they were sailing through. Visibility was less than half a mile. He could see from her furrowed expression as she looked toward the bow of the ship that she was hoping to catch a glimpse of land.

When the
Philadelphia
arrived in New York after twenty-seven days at sea, Eliza rushed off to see her parents while Morgan oversaw the unloading of the cargo of fine woolens and cottons and assorted farm tools and hardware. The night before they arrived, when the ship was off Long Island, she had asked him again about establishing a residence in New York, and sensing that he had no choice, he had agreed.

“I’ll still be sailing with you,” she had reassured him, “just not on all the passages.” Then she repeated again, “It would mean so much for me if we have our own home, just like the Leslies.”

The thought of sailing without her made him sad, but Morgan chose not to think about that. While the dockworkers loaded up the wagons, he walked over to inspect one of the Black X Line’s newest ships built by Bergh & Company that spring. She was called the
Toronto
. He now held ownership shares in this 630-ton ship, as well as in the
Philadelphia
and one other. As soon as this new ship set sail, and he received his share of the earnings, he told himself, it would mean that he and Eliza could begin looking for a residence ashore. It also would mean he would now be viewed by some of the other owners as not just a ship captain, but as an important investor in the Black X Line. They would have to see him as one of them.

It was later that week, after a late-night meeting with Mr. Griswold and some shipping agents at a local tavern, that he saw a shadowy, solitary figure on the other side of the street. The man had a southwester cap over his head and a sailor’s pea jacket. He was standing at the corner of South William Street underneath a street lantern looking directly at him. Morgan noticed him when he walked into the tavern where they were meeting and then later at ten o’clock when he came out. At first he paid little attention. Just another drunk, he thought, but then some instinct told him he should be careful. At night, the wharf area around South Street, with its many alleyways and dark corners, was thick with thieves. He looked back over his shoulder and then quickened his pace. He thought the man was following him.

Morgan walked toward Wall Street and then turned down toward Coenties Alley, where he hoped he would lose the man in the crowds. He stayed mostly in the shadows, avoiding the streetlights. The horse-drawn wagons were already arriving to unload the ships on the piers, so the streets adjacent to the docks were filled with noisy activity. He slipped behind a wagon being pulled by a large mule, ducked underneath another, and came out on the other side of the street. He hunched over as he walked beside a horse, turning onto a small alley, which took him to Cherry Street. He kept looking back. Perhaps he was just imagining this man following him. After all, the streets were filled with people. He looked again. There was nothing, but he quickened his pace all the same.

On the corner of Fulton and Water Streets the noise of scraping fiddles, strumming banjos, and screeching parrots spilled out of a brightly painted building with the name Jolly Tar hanging from the doorway. A man holding a drunken woman under his arm, muttering senseless gibberish, passed close by him. He kept his distance and walked even faster, pulling his hat down more firmly over his head. He passed a brick house known for some of the more popular blood sports at the time, dogfighting and rat baiting. He could hear the shouts and yelling of wagers inside.

Just then, he saw a quick glimpse of the man’s cap. Perhaps he was mistaken, but another look back and he knew he was right. The man was walking across the street, his face turned in his direction. It was too dark to see any of his features. The shape of his thin body, hunched shoulders, southwester cap, and blue pea jacket convinced him this was the same man he’d first seen off South William Street. Morgan became concerned. His well-tailored clothes made him a possible target. He was dressed like a ship’s merchant with a long-skirted blue coat, top hat, and Wellington boots. Still, whoever was following him must have more than money on his mind. Why else would he stalk him so intently through so many different crowded streets? No, he said to himself, this was personal. Someone was targeting him and he began to think of Blackwood.

When he saw wagons moving toward Peck’s Slip, he followed them as far as South Street. He hadn’t brought his pistols and felt vulnerable. He did have his sheath knife, which he always carried when he came ashore, and he fingered the handle with his right hand for reassurance. He was thinking of stopping and turning to confront his pursuer head-on when he heard a nervous, slightly hesitant voice behind him call out his name.

“Captain Morgan? Would that be you, Captain Morgan, brother of Abraham?”

Morgan quickly turned, knife in hand, and looked to the other side of the narrow street, but all he could see was a silhouetted figure.

“Who’s there?” Morgan asked, a slight tremor in his voice.

“It’s John Taylor, Captain.”

“John Taylor?” Morgan asked in astonishment, stammering. He paused for a second as he tried to think how to react. “The John Taylor who sailed with my brother Abraham?”

“That would be me, Captain Morgan, the man you saved from a watery graveyard all those years ago, the one who wrote your mother about William and Abraham.”

Morgan could hardly believe his ears. He walked over to this voice in the semidarkness, still somewhat suspicious.

“I thought it were you because of the way you walked,” said the shadowy figure with the southwester cap. “I knew you were here.”

Morgan stopped. “Why didn’t you just approach me?”

“You were walking so fast, I almost lost you several times.”

Morgan could now recognize the man under the dim light of a street lantern. He remembered his unmistakable thin, hollow cheeks and his weak jaw that fell inward toward his neck. He walked closer until he could see the weather-beaten face in front of him. Somehow the man with his droopy shoulders seemed even more thin and frail than he had been years earlier. His eyelids were red. He was dressed in a torn, battered pea jacket caked with mud, which told Morgan the man had either passed out or was sleeping in the street. The lines in his thin face and sadness in his eyes told the story of his troubled life.

“I’ll be dammed if I ever thought I’d see you again, Taylor,” Morgan said finally. “I thought you would be dead by now.”

Taylor gave a slight start, but he said nothing, his features frozen, his taciturn face showing little emotion. He kept glancing backward nervously, and then looking back at Morgan and staring at some point beyond him. Morgan turned around quickly. A row of houses on the other side of the street was empty and dark, but in the distance the faint light of a grog shop revealed human shapes.

“What’s wrong, Taylor? Is someone following you?”

“I thought I saw Big Red,” he replied in a hoarse whisper.

“Big Red?”

“The mate who sailed with Abraham and me. Tom Edgars. He is the one who has been chasing me all these years, he and Blackwood. They was recruitin’ sailors in some of the grog shops down on Cherry Street, but they been looking for me, making inquiries down at the docks. I been hiding and sleeping in the stinking wet gutters because they been trailing me.”

“But why were you following me?”

Taylor made no reply, the tips of his fingers on his lips as he looked down at the cobblestones on the street. Morgan suddenly clenched his teeth as he felt his patience wane. He stepped forward to grab the man, coming close enough to his face to smell his rummy breath and a foul, vinegar-like smell that seemed to be seeping from every pore of his saturated body. The man’s hollow cheeks were ashy white, his eyes bloodshot. The crushing memory of going back to see Taylor in the boarding house where he had brought him so many years ago, and finding his room empty, descended on him. As he stared into John Taylor’s twitching eyes, which seemed to be lost in some other world, he remembered the man’s cryptic remarks about Blackwood, the blood boat, and the foul dealings.

“Pull yourself together,” Morgan said in an urgent tone. “What’s done is done. You can’t undo it. Now for Lord’s sakes, tell me what you want. Do you have information about my brother?”

It was then that Morgan noticed Taylor was carrying a satchel. The man remained silent, but he now transferred his stare from the street to Morgan’s face, extending his arms, his trembling hands holding out a package as if it were some priceless treasure.

“Captain Morgan, take this. I cannot have it near me anymore.”

“What is it?” asked Morgan in a somber voice.

“Take it and leave me be, Captain. Your brother gave it to me after they locked him up. You and your family should have this.”

“What is it, damn ye! Stop talking in riddles!”

“I am unable to tell the story about Abraham, Captain, even though it lives with me every waking hour. I have much to atone for. I am trying to forget all those scenes of violence.”

Morgan took the satchel even as he sensed the man’s desperation and loneliness. He looked straight into Taylor’s haunted eyes and enlarged pupils that seemed to stare into nowhere.

Morgan thought Taylor was about to tell him more when a noisy group of drunken sailors came around the street corner, surrounding them. They wanted the captain to buy them a drink. Two of them draped their arms around Morgan. By the time he threw them off and looked around, Taylor was gone. He ran to the street corner, but there was no sign of anyone. He called out his name frantically even though he recognized the futility of finding this man in the alleyways off South Street.

He walked back toward Wall Street and dropped into a small quiet tavern a few blocks from Broadway. There in a dark corner surrounded by white walls smudged with dirt and covered with chalk marks, Morgan sat alone, a decanter filled with rum on the table. He slowly opened the satchel. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. He pulled out a well-worn book with yellowing pages and began leafing through its water-stained contents. Most of the writing was smudged, the ink splotched, but much of the first section was readable.

We bin left here in Bridge Town with no ship for days now. Taylor and I bin swilling rum, I spied a man eyeing us pretty close today. He come up and fell into discourse with us.

Morgan was almost certain it was his brother’s handwriting because of the way he curled his capital letters. He quickly read on.

The man sounded us out, he did. Said he belonged to a beautiful topsail clipper named the
Charon
just come into Bridge Town harbor. He wanted to know if we were lookin’ for a berth.

Just the mention of the
Charon
made Morgan’s heart beat faster. He thumbed through the journal, gingerly turning the crumpled and wrinkled pages so as not to damage them. He read on.