“Aye, Mr. Jarvis. Jamaica. What you're looking at are the Blue Mountains. Port Royal lies on the other side.”
Activity on the weather deck brought John Rodgers up from the wardroom dressed simply in buff breeches and a white cotton shirt that billowed about him in the breeze. As custom dictated, Richard offered him the speaking trumpet, the symbol of authority. As custom suggested, Rodgers declined the honor.
“Carry on, Mr. Cutler,” he said.
“A change of course, Mr. Waverly,” Richard said to the sailing master. “Bring her southeast by east, a half east. Once we've cleared
Morant Point, go large on a course due west. Mr. Jarvis, signal the convoy to follow.”
Waverly repeated the order to the two quartermaster's mates at the helm. Boatswain's whistles twittered along the weather deck as Jarvis proceeded aft to the signal locker near the taffrail. Sailors in the waist adjusted sheets, tacks, and yards, and for the first time in three days
Constellation
tightened sail from a broad to a beam reach. Four hours later, at Waverly's command, her stern swung through the wind until it rested on her starboard quarter. The weather clew of her mainsail was hauled up, and she ran free due west to Kingston, the convoy trailing in her wake.
At eight o'clock that evening, with the sand spit running east to west across the entrance to Kingston Harbor in clear view, all hands prepared the ship to drop anchor. Sailors aloft clewed up the courses, reducing canvas to jib, topsails, and driver. Those on anchor duty removed the hawse-buckles on her best-bower, leaving the great wooden-stocked, fluked anchor cradled to the bows by a single ring-stopper. Astern, at the double wheel, quartermaster's mates made ready to put the helm down and round the frigate into the wind.
As the crew went about its business, Richard brought a glass to his eye. He noticed first an immense bastion at the entrance to the harbor at the western edge of the spit. Built in the 1650s, it had originally been named Fort Cromwell in honor of Oliver Cromwell and his anti-royalist Roundheads. In 1660 the name was changed to Fort Charles after word was received from London that Charles II had restored the Stuart line to the British throne and had ordered the corpse of the erstwhile Lord Protector of England to be dug up, hanged in chains, and beheaded. Whatever its name, Richard thought as he swept the glass along the thick stone parapets, admiring the long black muzzles of cannon protruding out between them, this bastion would give pause to any enemy bent on assault.
Beyond the fortress, within the town of Port Royal proper, he could make out little of note amid the clusters of low buildings. Past them, by the northeast shore of the town, he brought into focus a white stucco building of greater significance, and beyond that a copse of masts: the frigates, brigs, three-masted sloops of war, and other warships that maintained British hegemony throughout the Greater Antilles. Among them, one ship stood out: a first rate with a broad red pennant fluttering from her mainmast truck. HMS
Queen
was the flagship of Vice Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, commander in chief of His Britannic Majesty's
naval squadrons in West Indian waters. The ninety-six-gun vessel was a floating fortress so vast that it could house and feed the entire population of a fair-sized English town.
Constellation
coasted alone in the lee of Port Royal, her convoy having parted company to follow a more northwesterly tack before swinging southeastward into Kingston Harbor. When she rounded to and lost way, Fort Charles erupted in a thirteen-gun salute.
Constellation
responded with a thirteen-gun salute of her own.
“Let go!” First Lieutenant Rodgers shouted through the trumpet. A whistle shrieked, the ring-stopper was released, the anchor cable rumbled through the hawse-hole, and the frigate's five-thousand-pound wrought iron anchor plunged into the salty depths, bringing an end to this leg of the cruise.
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EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, with the sun barely up above a naval base already stirring to life, a clinker-built ship's boat approached
Constellation
where she lay at anchor off the white stucco building, downwind of the British naval squadron. Eight men worked the oars, four to a side. Each was dressed in blue-and-white-striped jersey, flawlessly white trousers, and a wide-brimmed straw hat adorned with a blue ribbon. In the stern sheets, beside the coxswain, sat a British sea officer, the brilliant gold lining on his uniform coat reflecting the early morning sun.
“Boat ahoy!” a junior midshipman chirped from the weather deck of
Constellation
.
“Flag,” the coxswain in the gig called out. Instinctively he held up four fingers, four being the number of side boys required by ceremony to pipe a flag officer on board ship.
When the gig bumped gently against the larboard hull of the American frigate, the British officer seized hold of two ropes leading upward between steps built into the frigate's side. At the entry port he was met by Lt. Andrew Sterrett, standing at attention.
“Welcome aboard, Captain,” he said, having recognized the British officer's rank by the gold-tasseled epaulet on each shoulder. “Please accept my apologies for not having a side party prepared in your honor. We were not expecting a visitor this early in the day.”
The officer returned the salute. “Be at your ease, Lieutenant,” he insisted. “I am not here in any sort of official capacity. I have come to visit a fellow officer of yours whom I believe to be on board.”
“Oh?” Sterrett remarked, hiding his relief. “Which officer, Captain?”
“Richard Cutler. He is your second, is he not?”
“He is, sir. Are you an acquaintance of Lieutenant Cutler?”
“I daresay I am. Otherwise I would not be here at this moment, would I?”
Sterrett flushed red, although the British captain's smile removed the sting. “Well then, Captain, I am doubly honored to meet you.” He bowed slightly. “I am Lt. Andrew Sterrett, sir, at your service. I am
Constellation'
s third. I shall have Lieutenant Cutler summoned on deck right away.”
“That is considerate of you, Lieutenant, but might I request permission to go below? I realize my request is somewhat irregular, but I would ever so much enjoy a look about your ship. She is the envy of every sailor in my squadron.”
“I am pleased to hear it, Captain,” Sterrett said, puffing up a bit in pride. He glanced at John Dent. “Please see the captain below to the wardroom.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Dent, saluting. “If you will follow me, Captain,” he added with a note of self-importance.
Down below in the wardroom, American commissioned and senior warrant officers were lounging about the dining table or in front of their cubicles. When the British officer entered, everyone snapped to. Except for one, who came slowly to his feet, his mouth slack-jawed.
“Hugh? Is that you? Is it possible?”
“Good morning, Richard,” the officer said cheerfully. He doffed his hat, slid it under his left armpit, and said, with a bow to the wardroom at large, “And a good morning to you gentlemen. Pray forgive me for intruding upon your breakfast. I'm afraid I could not restrain myself. On behalf of His Britannic Majesty King George III, I welcome you to Port Royal. Now please carry on with whatever you were doing. Pay me no mind.”
Such a command was impossible to obey. Wardroom officers continued to stand at attention, their eyes shifting from the British captain to the American lieutenant. After an awkward pause, Richard found his bearings.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I introduce you to Capt. Hugh Hardcastle of His Majesty's Ship
Redoubtable
. Captain, may we offer you some coffee or tea? Some breakfast, perhaps?”
“Thank you, no, Lieutenant. Nor, alas, can I remain aboard for any length of time. Might I thus trouble you to arrange a brief word with your Captain Truxtun? And, if possible, a quick tour of the ship? As I indicated topside to Lieutenant Sterrett, this frigate has every British sailor in port gawking. When I departed my own ship a short while ago, every member of my crew on duty was at the railâand not to see me off, I assure you.”
Richard grinned. “Yes, of course. Mr. Dent, please inform the captain that Captain Hardcastle will pay him a visit in . . . shall we say, half an hour?”
Hardcastle nodded his acquiescence.
“Damn, Hugh, it's good to see you,” Richard enthused a few minutes later when he and Hugh Hardcastle were alone in the cockpit on the orlop deck. They were seated on two apothecary chests, the deckhead above being too low to accommodate their six-foot frames. Directly forward they could hear muffled chatter coming from the midshipmen's mess, an occasional giggle or two, then a loud belch. A raucous fart brought a more enthusiastic round of high-pitched giggles, followed by a very distinct and harshly plaintive, “Good
Christ
, Harry!” Within the hour the dank, unventilated cockpit would become man-eating hot. For the moment, though, it was bearable, and one of the few places on the ship affording privacy.
“I had no idea you were here in Jamaica,” Richard said. “I thought you were still attached to the Windward Squadron.”
“I am. Admiral Hyde summoned me here two months ago on special orders. For reasons you will better understand when we meet with him this afternoon.” He withdrew a linen handkerchief from a coat pocket and dabbed at beads of sweat popping up in his thick, blondish-brown hair. He still wore it clipped short around the edges, exactly as he had when he and Richard had first met back in '80 when Richard and Katherine had taken up residence in the Cutler compound on Barbados. Although eighteen years had since passed, Hugh Hardcastle remained every bit the handsome man of grace, wit, and charm whom Richard had so admired back then.
“No doubt you have a host of questions for me,” Hugh said as he returned the handkerchief to its pocket. “As I have for you, and we have no time now to ask them. This evening we will, I hope. Please dine with me in Kingston. I will arrange for a table at a favorite spot of mine, as well as a carriage to get us there and back. What do you say to that?”
“Of course, Hugh. I can't imagine anything I'd rather do. Subject, of course, to my captain's approval.”
“I have no doubt that you shall have your captain's approval. Now, time is getting on and we should set about our tour. I suggest we start off by stirring things up in the midshipmen's mess.”
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THE ROYAL MARINE SENTRY stationed before the admiral's quarters banged the bronze-plated butt of his musket smartly on the deck and fired a crisp salute as Captain Hardcastle and his party approached the captain's suite from the entry port located directly ahead amidships.
Hugh Hardcastle returned the salute. “Captain Truxtun and Lieutenant Cutler of the American frigate
Constellation
to see Admiral Hyde,” he said.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The Marine pivoted sharply, opened the door ajar, and repeated Hugh Hardcastle's words verbatim. A voice on the inside acknowledged. Footsteps faded aft, then returned. “Please show Captain Truxtun and Lieutenant Cutler in,” the voice stated.
The sentry swung the door open to reveal a liveried servant resplendent in the impeccable fashion of the English aristocracy, from his ruffled linen neck stock to his brocade coat and vest, down past a pair of spotless white breeches and stockings to his silver-buckled shoes. He bowed low before them. As he did so, Richard caught the pungent scent of a perfumed wig, its color as pure white as the servant's breeches.
“If you will follow me, please,” the servant directed.
Following last in line behind his captain, Richard tried to keep himself from gawking at an opulence he had never before witnessed on board a ship. In other English warships of his acquaintance, one entered the captain's day cabin first and his private quarters second, and then only at the captain's invitation. Here, the design was different in a space three to four times the equivalent space on board
Constellation
. By the mizzenmast, which according to Richard's visual calculation from the cutter on the way over was near the break of the quarterdeck and poop deck above, was the admiral's sleeping cabin, followed by a pantry and dining cabinâin area roughly equivalent to Captain Truxtun's entire day cabinâand finally the admiral's day cabin in the very stern of the ship, a sizable space well lighted by rows of stern windows and two layers of quarter-gallery glass that wrapped around from the stern to the quarter on each side. The entire deck within the admiral's suite was spread with a thick white-on-black diamond-patterned rug, and
the elegant furnishings seemed more in keeping with a stylish English country manor than a vessel of war. Directly above under the poop deck, Richard assumed, one would find a similar if slightly less spacious configuration to accommodate the ship's captain.
At the jalousie doorway leading into the day cabin, the liveried servant announced the names of the visitors. As the man stepped aside to allow them to enter, Sir Hyde Parker, Vice Admiral of the Red and Commander in Chief of the West India Station, rose to his feet beside a long writing desk set off to the larboard side between two gleaming black 24-pounder guns. He had been dictating correspondence to his clerk, a scrawny, mouselike man who appeared almost embarrassingly diminutive beside the elegant gentleman in the perfect-fitting gold embroidery of a full-dress British admiral's uniform.
“That will be all, Seaver, thank you,” the admiral said. The clerk gathered up his papers and slipped unobtrusively from the cabin.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” Hyde greeted his guests cordially. He motioned to an area on the starboard side where a cluster of blue-on-white wingback chairs and a sofa had been arranged in a circle, each piece of furniture with a long-legged, delicate side table placed within easy reach. Before the sofa a middle-aged sea officer stood waiting. The gilt linings on his full-dress coat were only a shade less resplendent than the admiral's. The U.S. Navy might resemble the Royal Navy in many ways, Richard thought to himself as he watched the pleasantries unfold, but certainly not in the majesty of its uniforms.