Sworn for Mackinaw Page 2

  “Sir,” cried Phipps, boathook extended. “It’s a woman, sir!”

  The surprise caused all to focus on the Sailing Master just as Captain Fleet emerged from the companionway hatch, demanding for all to hear, “Who has countermanded my order? Why are we returning to that damnable river and why is the mainsail not set?”

  “Sir,” began the Sailing Master, “we have sighted wreckage and a survivor and have rounded up to investigate and give assistance.”

  Captain Fleet held his tongue just long enough to appreciate the wreckage now alongside and took in the leather clothing and dark hair of the exhausted, if not lifeless form now being lifted up from the channels by two of the waisters.

  “You infernal knave! You allowed this ship to stray from her course and mission for a heathen native and a pile of scrap birch bark? I suspected you a nuisance; you have confirmed you are a fool! Get this ship turned north’ard immediately. Cast aside that debris, alive or no, and Sailing Master, into my cabin on the instant. Mr. Dunlap, take the watch.”

  With all having heard the outburst, the Sailing Master’s pride was once again wounded. He approached nonetheless deferentially and spoke in a low enough tone so to assure the Captain knew he did not intend to confront him publicly, but just loud enough for the very nearest crew to overhear. He knew well the Ship’s Company would have a word for word replay before the next bell. “Sir, would you have the men see their Captain abandon a helpless, innocent woman, leaving her with this offshore breeze to a certain death?”

  Captain Fleet appeared, as usual, confused, near incoherent and on the verge of exploding with anger. He caught the horrified look in his men’s eyes and gathered the way out, the rescue line thrown him by his impertinent Sailing Master: “Woman?” He looked more closely. “Well, had you given me a full report…,” he blamed the Sailing Master once again while convincing no one. “Very well. Bring her up and get underway.” He turned to go back down the hatch and warned for all to hear, “You stray from my orders again and I’ll have you in irons!”

  The Sailing Master watched him retreat and descend. Captain Fleet, having exchanged no more than two words with him in as many days since his greeting in the Captain’s cabin upon coming aboard, could now be considered a sworn enemy. Men like Captain Fleet, though unable to recall much of what they should, their minds dulled and confused by constant and debilitating drink, never forgot who they regarded as having challenged or embarrassed them in front of others. Men such as that were far too afraid, while far too vengeful, to allow men such as the Sailing Master, calm and secure under the assault of his drunken tirades, to come to no harm, somehow, sometime. So be it.

  As the Sailing Master resolved to double his guard, the men presented him with a young, dripping, thoroughly exhausted and nervous native woman. She was gasping and barely able to stand, shaking from the cold. As she met his eyes, her face was backlit by now brilliant sunlight. It broke under the clouds, ever lower though more vivid in the late autumn day. He made with some will to cover his first impression that she was the most beautiful creature he had seen in his life.

  “Mr. Dunlap, as our survivor will not likely be greeted with the traditional hospitalities from the Captain, nor be offered his cabin, I suggest she take our bunks as we alternate the watch. As I am on now, would you be so good to take her below and warm her with tea and blankets?”

  “Certainly, Sir.” Dunlap had never called him ‘sir’ before and while not uncommon as a courtesy, such was never required given their respective rank. Dunlap took the passenger below. The Sailing Master shrugged and thought young Dunlap had likely never seen anyone stand fast before the Captain. He had better take care, indeed.

  * * *

  The crew shouted joyously as Hope weathered an exposed rock by 30 feet, passing it to starboard. Had a wave as large as so many of them now marching toward her hit just seconds before, the hull would have been thrown back upon the rock and smashed through. The Sailing Master congratulated the helmsman, calling back, “Pretty work, Mr. Sullivan.”

  “Shall we try to go about again, Sir?”

  Hope had been tacking back and forth for at least two hours as the backing wind blew stronger from now south by southwest. The changing wind, all while growing stronger, combined to trap the vessel on a lee shore, the most dreaded position. He shouted back, “I advise against it; in these seas we have not the power and will find ourselves in stays. Take the group of rocks dead off our bow to larboard.”

  At that moment, another breaking wave smashed against the bow, confirming the Sailing Master’s advice, and doused them with what seemed solid airborne water; ending all discourse. The Sailing Master was most concerned not with the patchwork of rocks, both exposed and just hidden amidst the roiling surf, but rather the shoaling depth. His plan, such as it was, entailed finding that course that would take Hope as close to shore as possible. He assumed many would not make the swim otherwise.

  The Sailing Master had been on deck less than five minutes. He had been shaken awake by young Dunlap, who had the watch, to the fearsome words, “I think we are in some danger.” He had not even fully emerged from the companionway when to his horror he realized they had held their course far too long, slid far too leeward of his intended position and sailed into the grips of a gradual, dish shaped bay on the approach to Detour Passage.

  He looked incredulously at Dunlap and whispered almost accusingly, “You did not tack as I suggested?”

  “The Captain would not permit it.”

  The Sailing Master turned and launched himself down the companionway steps, landing heavily on the wardroom floor. Behind him, Dunlap continued, “He desired to make good more distance, this tack being by far favored to our destination.” One glance at each of the watertight boxes, holding the sliding keels confirmed the Sailing Master’s worst fears. He shot back angrily, “The winches have not been loosed! The keels are not lowered?”

  “The Captain refused your suggestion!”

  “You knew the course required good westing! We have slid upon a leeward shore, on your watch and without even calling for me!” The Sailing Master, now muttering, was more disgusted than accusing as he had heard all he needed. He started up the ladder again, promising Dunlap, barely nineteen and who though younger, still out ranked him, “I will have it out with the Captain, by God!”

  “He is not on deck…,” Dunlap admitted, his voice trailing off, his gaze dropping. Just then a shriek came from the Captain’s cabin and the sharp crack of a blow together with a dull thud. Dunlap’s eyes confirmed the Sailing Master’s suspicion. He instantly changed direction and headed for the cabin door.

  The shriek and thud having just faded, he wondered if the men on deck were aware or had heard. His hand depressed the latch and he shifted his weight forward to open the cabin door just as Hope struck. There was a long, tortured scrape, as though a rock bottom was determined to open the entire garboard seam. Hope slowed suddenly, slewed around to starboard and seemed then to loose herself from a shelf and fall into the deep trough of a large wave.

  The Sailing Master, having depressed the latch and leaning forward, was flung into the cabin, smashing his knee into a frame as it rose from the counter and met the side panel of the Captain’s bunk. As he flew across the room, he saw Bemose also flung aft and to starboard from the larboard bunk, back across the top of the small table to land on the starboard settee near the small stern gallery window. Books, papers, tableware and the sextant launched themselves: projectiles without direction and all a potential danger. Captain Fleet lost both his grasp of Bemose’s arm and his feet beneath him. He landed on the cabin floor nearly under the table. Bemose, her bruised eye nearly concealed by the terror on her face, looked to the Sailing Master with desperate hope he would survive the impact of his fall and regain his feet. The bottle spun around in the center of the small cabin spilling its distilled contents, rendering the floorboards slick and dangerous.

  The Sailing Master was not even sure the Captai
n noticed his entry into the fray. The Captain flung the table aside, crawled on his knees to the settee. Bemose attempted to dodge his advance. He grabbed at her leather blouse and pulled downward, ripping the stitching from her left shoulder to near her navel, the resulting display of her skin feeding his aggression still more.

  The pain in his knee subsiding, or the rush of adrenalin masking his injury, the Sailing Master stood, grabbed the Captain by his left shoulder and the back of his neck and flung him back against the forward section of the larboard bunk. The Captain slipped on the slick flooring as he was flung back, grasped the coat of the Sailing Master. His grip could not hold. He went down on his knees, catching himself with his right arm on the larboard bunk, his hand just inches from his ever present and loaded pistol.

  The Captain grabbed his only hope. He swung his arm around pivoting on his elbow supported by the bunk. Despite his legs still being off balance, he brought the weapon to bear as he muttered under his drunken breath, “You bastard…”

  The Sailing Master did not wait. As Bemose instinctively shielded herself behind him, he kicked the Captain’s left leg out from under him. The pistol rose just as the Captain fired, burying a ball in the overhead deck beam. Before the flash left the pan, the Sailing Master grabbed him by his collar and flung him forward, driving his skull into the rudder post. The Captain slumped to the cabin floor.

  The Sailing Master looked aft, assuring the confrontation was over and Bemose slid out the door before him. As he closed the cabin door and flung himself up the companionway steps behind the young woman, he observed solid water now gushing up and spurting out from the trunk of the sliding keels. The boxes were split, the garboard plank sprung and Hope was sinking while rushing headlong toward her final insult.

  The Sailing Master assessed the situation on deck from the rail, just forward of the binnacle to larboard, arms locked around the rail cap. The only real question was when and where Hope would ground or be stove in, and how close to the irregular, rocky shore and alongside which of the many inlets she would come to finally rest. As directed, the helmsman took the rocks just ahead to larboard. Within two deck lengths, a larger breaker than had been seen thus far struck nearly abeam, rolled the ship dangerously to starboard, then again hard to larboard as the crest passed under her damaged keel. Hope descended into a trough, which everyone on deck instantly realized simply left far too little water to support her draft and tonnage. She slammed hard, first by the stern, jamming the rudder off of her gudgeons, smashing through the planking near the counter, heaving the rudder post up through the splintered deck and leaving the helmsman horrified as the tiller was now free and useless in his hands. The Sailing Master was amazed. For whatever reason, of all possibilities, he never considered that scenario as the beginning of the end.

  In an instant, the next wave struck the larboard bow and, despite the usual tendency to round up with no rudder, the sails were ill trimmed and nearly all way was taken off the vessel from her striking bottom. The bow instead turned to starboard, to the shore and downwind. As the wave passed, Hope rolled hard to larboard and her main boom, canted high in the air, swung across the deck like an angry scythe. The Sailing Master ducked, pulling Bemose down with him. The helmsman was struck. He threw his arms around the boom in attempt to absorb the crushing blow to his chest while hanging on as it continued its wild arc. Within a split second, the helmsman was vaulted off of the quarterdeck and dunked into Lake Huron. As the boom came crashing against the larboard backstay, snapping it instantly and fetching up on the shrouds, it stopped so suddenly as to catapult the helmsman across a wave crest like a skipping stone.

  As the tremendous energy of the accidental gybe was absorbed by the shrouds, the starboard bow was stove in by a submerged rock. The crash was distinct, the sound of smashed planking instantly followed by rushing water. The wild ride of H. M. Schooner General Hope ended with her masts, boom, gaffs, yards and all sails and rigging cracking, toppling and crashing to the deck in near unison forward over the bow and foredeck. Upon her final expiration, she slid half a length back off of the submerged rock, wallowing now near awash, back broken, dismasted, blocks and rigging a tangled mass, canvas torn. Still more breaking waves marched onward to assault the now lifeless carcass of a near new and well found ship. A few bobbing heads were visible on both sides of the ship off the bow, ship’s company either vaulted off of the foredeck from the force of the impact with the submerged rock or who were quick enough to jump just before the dismasting.

  The Sailing Master’s arms were still locked around the rail cap. He slammed his jaw upon it and could taste blood in his mouth. The gaff fell to larboard and smashed his thigh. Bemose was still clinging to his leg, from below his knee, pulling hard, unaware of the excruciating pain her grip was inflicting upon him. She pulled herself up onto the quarterdeck, realized his agony and crawled on her knees past him. She hauled him aft on the quarterdeck using the lapels and collar of his short wasited wool coat. Gravity favored her effort, as Hope was settling by the stern, and he realized she was attempting to pull him into the water. His arms were still of use and he used his elbows and the heel of his good leg to scrape himself along to assist her efforts. He slid into the cold, breaking seas head first, facing the sky, and flung his arms about clumsily, not believing his young guardian could possibly have much effect. He was wrong.

  Bemose wrapped her arm under his, keeping his chest facing up, and swam strong and hard. He gasped for air, trying not to swallow water and choke, and assisted in what little manner he could with his arms. Slowly, now aided by the waves which just moments ago had been their dreaded enemy, they wallowed toward shore, though at a curious angle from the starboard bow which he could not then fathom. Soon, he could tell she was propelling them by jumping in small steps from the bottom, gradually taking longer, more productive steps and finally strides. She turned him over and he used his good leg with her propping him up and together they emerged from the roiling surf. They dropped from exhaustion on the rock strewn shore under the shade of pines and cedar in the fading late afternoon light.

  Near instantly, the cold set in; the shivering and the overwhelming desire to sleep, despite the throbbing pain. Before they could fully take inventory of themselves, their condition and reserves, the Sailing Master looked over to another peninsula, just off the port bow and much closer to the wreck itself than that upon which they had landed. The peninsula was on the opposite side of a wide and deep inlet. Indeed had Hope lasted just another few minutes, but for the strong southerly wind and large breakers she may have been able to navigate many lengths up into the inlet before it narrowed with the forest encroaching and shoaled to a stream.

  Intuitively, the Sailing Master, a Navigator by training and appointment, understood Bemose’s course in swimming from Hope: a course purposefully set solely by her in a moment of crisis to all, but even more dangerous to them. It was now as obvious as it was impossible, given their state of exhaustion, for any of the other survivors to even think about joining the Sailing Master and their former passenger. The inlet was too deep, too wide, too long for any to attempt to rejoin for some hours, until their strength returned.

  The Sailing Master propped up on his elbows and looked down at Bemose lying on her side, lungs yet heaving and struggling to control her overextended breathing. As she gasped and coughed, he returned his study to the other peninsula and noted several men were prostrate, exhausted, utterly spent. Only one other man had noticed the strategic implications of their relative positions.

  Lieutenant James Fleet, no longer a Captain, was on his knees, pointing accusingly and shouting in a pitch that suggested near madness. The Sailing Master drew Bemose’s attention and motioned her to help him rise. He did all he could to help her stand even while leaning upon her. It was time for them to go, at least get out of sight.

  As he attempted one small painful step at a time, wholly relying upon her for strength and balance across the rocky shore and toward the tree line and
dense forest, 30 yards distant, the Sailing Master heard Fleet’s ominous threats even above the wind and breaking waves.

  ”By God, I will see you hang. Oh yes, I shall have you dance on air, Mr. Lee!”

  Chapter 2

  April 1811

  (Six years later)

  The colors were vivid but the shapes were indistinct and unfamiliar. In a state of semi-consciousness, he was first intrigued with bright greens, blinding reflections, sharp lines of deep browns against a black background. It was time to focus. Upon what, exactly, he was as yet unsure.

  Mere thought brought pain: a deep throbbing ache emanating from the back of his head and down his neck. As he gradually became more alert, he took stock of a sharp ache across the left side of his lower back. The fingers of his left hand were chilled to the point of losing sensation altogether. Still, while the pain was distracting, his focus was sharpening. Blades of marsh grass, protruding up through… yes, the reflection was from a liquid; a pond or river perhaps.

  A yellow daffodil was beginning to open and reveal itself in the cool, morning sunlight. The sudden realization of his fingers, well numbed from soaking through this late April night, caused him to yank his hand upward. He had let his hand soak in the River Rouge while he slept. He heard the drips of water, yet felt not the slightest sensation of water spilling from his skin. He forced himself to move those fingers, hoping to improve the circulation and add some warmth so to aid his stiff muscles.