Rough Passage to London: A Sea Captain's Tale (29 page)

24

1845

With the late afternoon summer sun shining directly in his eyes, Morgan struggled to make out who was in this incoming lugger. He was standing on the large quarterdeck of the
Victoria
with a spyglass held to his left eye. Beyond the small boat, he could just make out the glistening tips of the masts of Nelson’s old ship,
Victory
, from the Battle of Trafalgar, barely visible over some of the roofs in Portsmouth. The harbor was full of Royal Navy ships, everything from corvettes and sloops of war to frigates and three-deckers. He’d seen the fleet come in earlier, their translucent sails extending across the Solent like a giant white curtain. He had stood there on deck powerless as they bore down on the anchored
Victoria
, veering off at the last minute. They had come so close he could see the barrels of the cannons and the leering faces of the British sailors. At the sound of a cannon, dozens of sails dropped simultaneously in a perfect display of naval discipline, the ships’ anchors dropping into the water with a rumbling crescendo that resembled thunder. Morgan had stood silently, his eyes scanning the variety of ships until his gaze stopped at one in particular. It was a three-masted sloop of war, one of those fast ballyhoos that had run him down off the coast of Africa years ago. It looked like the same ship, but he couldn’t be sure.

He now turned his attention back to the small one-masted boat. It was definitely sailing in the direction of the
Victoria
. His cabin passengers weren’t due to arrive until the following morning, so he was puzzled as to whom this could be. The one passenger was wearing a pea jacket with the collar pulled up over his face. A wide-brimmed white hat was pulled down low over his ears, a strap fastened under his chin. His first thought was that the stewards were taking on a fresh supply of meat and vegetables, but a check with Mr. Lowery discounted that possibility. He then thought that perhaps this was one of Portsmouth’s police officers, who was preparing to search the packet in pursuit of criminals in steerage. But as he looked through his spyglass at this passenger, it seemed unlikely that this hunched-over figure was a policeman. He looked more like a sailor.

As the small lugger neared the
Victoria
’s anchorage near the sloping shore of the Isle of Wight, he could see the spray splatter on the man’s face as the lee rail dived in the water. Suddenly, the mystery passenger moved over to the windward side of the boat, and Morgan got a good look at his profile for the first time. “My Lord,” he breathed out slowly. He couldn’t believe what he saw. He had to look several times before he acknowledged that his first impression was right. The man coming to see him had changed a great deal. The full beard was gone. His round face was now framed by bushy whiskers that extended down to his jaw. He was wearing a white duck frock, and blue pants typical of some Royal Navy sailors. As the boat got closer and closer there was no doubt that it was his old friend, Hiram Smith, alive and to all appearances well.

With the practice of hundreds of boardings, the waterman at the tiller luffed the small lugger into the wind, the single sail flapping and banging, and before the two ships touched, Hiram grabbed the rope ladder with the firm grip of a sailor and began climbing up the fifteen-foot-high sides of the packet. Morgan was there with an outstretched hand to pull his friend over the bulwarks and onto the deck. He couldn’t believe his old bunkmate in the fo’c’sle was alive.

“I’ll be dammed if I ever thought I’d set eyes on you again, Hiram,” Morgan stammered with a slight quiver in his voice.

“I’m greatly pleased to see you, Ely,” Hiram said, before correcting himself, “or Captain Morgan, I should say.”

The two of them gave each other a prolonged bear hug and then stood apart looking at each other. Morgan silently stared at his old friend unable to speak. Conflicting emotions swept over him. So many years had passed. Hiram had changed. There were flecks of gray in his temples and his brown, weathered face was now lined and creased with wrinkles. He was still the same man with his stocky torso and muscular, tattooed arms, the round, snub-nosed face and dimpled chin, but the deep furrows on his forehead and the dark bags under his eyes told the story of a hard life.

Morgan suddenly was overwhelmed with guilt.

“How many years has it been, Hiram?”

“Near on seventeen I would say.”

“Way too long. I can’t believe it,” Morgan said with a smile, looking at his old friend quizzically, shaking his head in disbelief. His eyes had that droopy, rum-filled look he’d seen on many veteran sailors.

“Hiram, I want you to know I never meant for you to be in harm’s way.”

“That was long ago, Ely. It wasn’t your fault.”

“But it was my decision to go into that tavern, Hiram. I have blamed myself for whatever happened to you there.”

Before Hiram could answer, he was surrounded by some of his old shipmates. A small group clustered around him, slapping him on his back, pushing and shoving him playfully. There was much joking when they discovered he was now sailing British. There weren’t that many of the old crew who had sailed with him on board the
Hudson
. Old Scuttles was still there, but on the foredeck, the only veterans who had sailed with him were Icelander, the Spaniard, and Whipple. Dan Stark, the first mate, and Josiah Lord, the second mate, both from the Connecticut River, were new arrivals.

After Hiram caught up with some of his old mates, Morgan invited him down into his cabin. Hiram was looking all around as he stepped inside. Morgan studied his old friend. He seemed nervous and edgy. There was a bitter, sad smile on his lips that Morgan didn’t recognize, a look of faded hopes, perhaps. Morgan motioned to him to sit down in the armchair on the other side of the cabin, but he ignored that offer and continued to walk around, his gaze wandering from cabin sole to the overhead skylight. Morgan pulled out his box of Havana cigars and offered one to Hiram before taking one himself.

“Sit yourself down and tell me your story. Why don’t you start by telling me what happened all those years ago when they grabbed you in the White Bull.”

Hiram’s gaze seemed disconnected. He scratched his head and pulled at his side-whiskers before he responded.

“When the fighting started, Ely, all I remember is the sharp pain in my head and then everything went dark. They must have drugged me. When I woke up I was in a cold, dark fo’c’sle on a British Indiaman headed for Canton.”

“What about Blackwood? Did you meet him?” asked Morgan incredulously.

Hiram shook his head.

“Never saw who it was that crimped me.”

There was an awkward silence as Morgan studied his old friend, observing how his eyes wandered around the cabin as if he was purposely trying to avoid looking at him closely. Morgan felt a pang of guilt as he thought about Hiram’s life of roaming. He imagined the hardships he had suffered, and he held himself responsible. Hiram would probably still be with the Black X Line if it weren’t for him. He felt sympathetic as he looked at his changed old friend.

Finally Hiram stopped his nervous pacing around the cabin and looked out the porthole. He rolled a cigar in his fingers and lit it.

“Did you ever find out what happened to your brother, Ely?” he asked dispassionately. “Or have you given up that search?”

Morgan explained about the journal that Taylor had given him, and how he now knew that Abraham had been shanghaied onto a slaving ship. He described the accounts of the storm in the diary, saying he assumed this was probably the last he would hear about his brother.

Hiram listened restlessly but didn’t seem overly curious.

“You got any rum, Ely?” he asked bluntly, while smiling in a gratuitous way. “I have a sudden hankering for some grog.”

Morgan poured him a generous drink and watched his friend grab the glass.

“A man’s not a sailor without his rum.”

In one thirsty motion he gulped it down, wiping his chin with his trembling hands.

“Of course, you being a shipmaster now you might have changed?”

“I reckon we all have changed, Hiram.”

“Not me, Ely. I’m a foredeck sailor, always been one. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He held out his mug. “Just a bit more, what do you say?”

Morgan poured him another drink.

“Why don’t you tell me how you come to be sailing British in the Royal Navy of all places.”

Hiram now seemed more relaxed after the rum began to numb his brain.

“It’s a long story, Ely. I ended up staying with that British merchantman. Wasn’t too bad. Then did the opium smuggling trade for many years. Wandered around the West Indies on trading schooners. I been with the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron now for a spell, currently on a ship called the H.M.S.
Resolve
, one of them fast Bermuda-built sloops of war they call ballyhoos. We’ve been chasing down blackbirders these last few years from the Gulf of Guinea down to the south of the West African coast toward Benguela.”

“I know that ship,” Morgan exclaimed excitedly.

“How so?”

Morgan volunteered his own story about his encounter with the H.M.S.
Resolve
so many years ago. He told Hiram how Captain James Stryker had run down the old
Philadelphia
with the rescued African slaves on the deck.

“He fired cannon at us to make us square our yards. He thought our ship was a blackbirder.”

Hiram didn’t comment. An awkward silence filled the cabin.

“How is it that you are here in Portsmouth now?” Morgan asked.

“We are on maneuvers,” Hiram replied, “part of the Royal Navy’s Experimental Squadron.” He puffed on his cigar and then smiled suddenly, his voice becoming more energetic.

“Man alive, it is sure good to see you, Ely! I was looking for you once a few years back when I came to New York. You wasn’t there, but that’s when they told me you’d gone and made shipmaster. I also heard you’ve gotten hitched and now have a fine comely missus.”

They both laughed, and after congratulating him on “getting hitched,” Hiram continued his story. Morgan thought he saw a glimpse of the old friend he had known and trusted. He looked expectantly at him. Hiram paused and started to say something. His face turned more somber, but when he took another drink he seemed to retreat back into some other private place. Morgan again tried to encourage him to talk. He thought about the group waiting for him in the saloon. Some of the Sketching Club artists and their friends had accompanied him on the two-day passage from London to Portsmouth. Leslie, Stanfield, Landseer, the Chalon brothers, Stumps, and Uwins were on board. So were Thackeray and Lord Nanvers. Dickens, who had just returned from Italy, had been too busy “trodding the boards” with his amateur theater group.

“I have a group of English friends waiting for me in the saloon who I know would want to hear your story, Hiram. They are fervent in their antislavery zeal. What do you say? How about a few words about the West Africa Squadron and the British crusade against slavery?”

Hiram looked dubious, in fact somewhat fearful, but Morgan was insistent so he reluctantly agreed to follow him into the saloon. The main course was just arriving at the table as they walked in. Lowery was carrying in a large platter of roasted English grouse cooked whole, heads and all, even as Sam Junkett was removing the bowls of cold potato soup. Landseer was expounding on the famine in Ireland, and how he felt the ungrateful Irish cats deserved their misery and hardship. Leslie was expressing his concerns over the growing tensions between England and America over the Oregon Territory. He asked Thackeray about the saber-rattling salvos in
Punch
. The writers had warned that if America dared to seize the Oregon Territory, the English would arm the slaves. At that point, Lord Nanvers jumped in.

“Arm the slaves! Those are fighting words, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Thackeray? Imagine England arming America’s slaves. I must say that’s a terrible thought.”

The conversation stopped as Morgan and Hiram entered the saloon. Hiram looked around at the well-dressed men seated at the table. He didn’t say anything, his gaze traveling from face to face, and then he sat down. Morgan again could see the discomfort and suspicion in Hiram’s smeary, rum-soaked eyes. He could also see the surprise in the faces of his English friends, who were clearly not expecting a common sailor to come into their midst.

Lord Nanvers, whose appetite seemed to be stimulated by the sight of the roasted grouse, had already speared one of the tiny bird’s heads with his fork and was crunching and chewing in contentment. Morgan raised his glass to toast the end of the voyage for his passengers, praising them for braving the discomforts of the North Sea, and then he introduced his old friend.

“Gentlemen, this is Hiram Smith. He and I started sailing together when we were boys. We came in through the hawse holes as they say. We’ve slushed masts and been slushed ourselves by some bucko mates. We’ve slid down the forestays and swung out on the yards more times than we care to remember. We’ve seen our share of ice fields and Atlantic storms. Hiram saved my life at least once when I almost fell from a yard, and I did the same for him when we fought off some scuffle hunters on the Thames. He may be sailing British, but he’s a Yankee tar from down Penobscot way as they say back home. Anyway, we haven’t seen each other for quite a long time. It has been more than fifteen years since we last sailed together, hasn’t it, Hiram?”

“Yup, I suppose that’s about right.”

“The reason I brought Hiram down to the saloon is that he has come here tonight to tell you about the gallant mission of the famous British cruisers that patrol the Guinea coastline to try to end the slave trade. He is a sailor on one of the Royal Navy sloops of war in the harbor.”

“Hear, hear!” they shouted, raising their glasses in unison. “Truer words were never spoken.”

The stewards then arrived with the next course of boiled potatoes and creamed peas and onions. Lord Nanvers directed his attention to the incoming dishes, sniffing appreciatively and giving them careful scrutiny before raising his glass to Morgan.