Chesapeake (116 page)

But the man who gained most from this last evening was not seen by either the guests or the crew. He was standing onshore, in the darkness provided by a tree, watching the ship he had known so well. When he had first marched to it in chains, the gangplank had been on that side. He had spent his learning days chained to the bulwark on this side. His first pen belowdecks must have been back there. The second, where he plotted with Rutak, had been below that.

There was the hold from which he had stormed with Luta … When he thought of her, always in chains until her dead body was cut loose, he could think no more. Only his eyes continued the memory. Over that railing he had thrown her into the sea. He had to sit down. His head sank so low he could no longer see the ship.

After a long time he looked aft, to the tiller he had mastered and the
compass whose secrets he had unraveled. How tremendous those days had been, sailing north. He rose to his feet in great excitement and imagined the sails being raised at his command: Rutak! The ropes! And up the topmost sails had gone, and he had sailed that ship.

Transfixed by the beauty of his vessel, he stayed in the shadows, tending it until the anchor was raised. He watched as it made its way back to the wharf, and he named each guest who departed down the gangway. Then the night fell silent, except for the half-hours when the bells sounded. How well he knew them! In the darkest hours, chained to the bottom of the ship, he had followed the bells; their stately rhythm had governed his life.

Midnight struck, and two and four, and the ship lay sleeping at the wharf. He watched as the summer sun began to rise, back up the Choptank, throwing its rays deeper and deeper into the river. Voices drifted softly across the water, and soon townspeople began to gather along the shore to watch their ship depart.

Lafe Turlock came to remind his myriad grandchildren that once this ship had belonged to them, and the anchor was raised for the last time, and Captain de Villiers appeared on deck, and slowly the beautiful corvette entered the river and sailed away. But the man who had once really owned this ship, by right of capture, remained in the shadows, watching till the tips of the masts vanished from sight.

Captain de Villiers left Patamoke with the opinions of everyone who would be involved in the forthcoming struggle—except the slaves and the freed blacks. It had never occurred to him that he might have sought their judgment, too.

When the dinner guests disembarked, two remained behind. Captain de Villiers insisted that Paul and Susan Steed spend the night in his cabin. ‘I will deposit you on Devon Island, then head for France.’ So these two went once more to that cabin which had been the scene of their scandal.

‘It seems so long ago,’ Susan said as the door closed. ‘But our lives have not been wasted.’

Paul could think of no appropriate response, but he was so restless that he did not yet wish to retire. ‘I was so proud when you said you wouldn’t need the chair tonight.’

‘I would not want to come aboard this ship …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘I thought the conversation on these two nights … No wonder my ancestors preferred France.’

‘You’re just anti-British, Paul. Always have been.’

‘There’s something in the way a Frenchman wears a uniform …’

Susan sank down upon the bed she had once known so well and stared at the cabin door. ‘The terror this ship has known.’ She reflected on this,
then said, ‘It just occurred to me, Paul. I didn’t see Cudjo or Eden on the wharf.’

‘Probably didn’t even know it was in the harbor.’

‘Do you suppose he really did capture it? And kill …’

‘Somebody did.’

‘Would a gang of uneducated black slaves be able …’

‘They sailed it, didn’t they?’

‘I suppose you were aware that Captain de Villiers was probing us?’

‘His government wants to know. A hundred years ago France made all the difference on the Chesapeake. It may do so again.’ He thought about this for some moments, then added, ‘I think we planters got our points across.’

‘He spoke as if war were inevitable.’

‘I think it can be avoided. If only we could muzzle agitators like the Paxmores.’

‘I wonder what they told him? You know, he saw them separately, last night.’

‘From something he dropped, I judge they bored him to death. They don’t drink, you know.’

Susan could not sleep, and in the darkest part of the night she walked by herself to the door, opened it slightly and looked out toward the spot where one of the men said that Captain Matt had been overpowered. She wanted very much to go out and touch the planking, but she was dressed only in her shift and deemed it best not to startle the night watch.

‘What you doing, Sue?’

‘Paul, as soon as they drop us at Devon tomorrow I want your help on one thing. Have Eden and the boys take me up to the roof. I want to see this ship go down the bay.’

‘That’s reasonable,’ Paul said, and Susan came back to bed and they fell asleep.

In the morning they sent a boy to fetch Eden; she could ride back to the island with them. She boarded the ship with pride, surveying everything so that she could later report to her husband, and when the French captain bade farewell to the Steeds at Devon, she marked his behavior. He noticed this and gallantly helped her onto the wharf, but in an instant she was gone. Her mistress had given firm orders during the passage: ‘As soon as we touch land I want you to instruct the boys to carry me to the roof.’

She was there when the
Ariel
passed down the channel and into the bay. It was not the ship of old; she could not decipher what changes had been made in the sails, but it was still a vessel that ventured upon the great oceans, and its slow passage down the bay excited her as nothing had done in years.

‘What grace,’ she said. But as it disappeared behind a distant headland
a powerful new ship came north on its way to Baltimore, and she was transfixed by its majesty. It was one of the four-masted clippers used in the China trade. It had been built in New Bedford, and carried twice as much sail as any ship ever built on the Choptank.

‘Look at it!’ she gasped as it moved resolutely up the bay, and when Eden wanted her to leave the roof, she insisted upon staying. ‘Look at this tremendous ship, Eden!’ They stood side by side for nearly an hour, and as they watched, the breeze fell, whereupon the sailors hoisted what Choptank people knew as ‘the light airs,’ those ballooning stunsails attached to the ends of the spars; when they were added to the full complement already aloft, they gave the ship an appearance of being decorated with lace, floating in an indiscernible wind.

‘It’s so lovely,’ Susan said. ‘And so very big.’

‘They builds ’em up North,’ Eden said.

The four-master disappeared too, and Susan said, ‘You may call the boys now,’ and when, exhausted, she was tucked into the big bed, Eden feared that she might never rise from it again, and tears welled in her eyes.

‘What is it, Eden?’ the frail old lady asked. When no answer came, she said, ‘To see a ship like that … Two ships like that … It’s enough for a lifetime.’

When South Carolina proved its willingness to fight the North by bombarding the federal positions at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, a thrill swept the plantations of the Eastern Shore and responsible men assumed that Maryland would quickly join the rebellion in defense of freedom. As Paul Steed told the other planters, ‘The governor’s from a town not far from Little Choptank. His heart’s in the right place.’ So Patamoke waited for the declaration of war.

It did not come. The slave-owning counties realized that their destiny lay with the South, but the greater bulk of Maryland lay close to Pennsylvania and had been corrupted by northern sentiment. Then, too, since the capital at Washington was completely surrounded by Virginia and Maryland, it was imperative to the northern cause that Maryland at least remain in the Union; incredible pressures were exerted, especially by the new President, Lincoln, and it looked as if the state would be torn apart.

This did not happen. Through vacillations, which Paul Steed watched with dismay, Maryland inclined first this way, then that, and in the end wound up on the northern side.

That is, the official posture was with the North, and a regiment from the Eastern Shore even fought in blue, ‘to their everlasting disgrace,’ Steed said, but honest plantation owners and their supporters sided with the South, as did the marsh folk. For emotionally, Maryland was a
southern state, always had been; its traditions, sympathies and economic interests lay south.

Therefore, when northern regiments were formed, partisans of the South retaliated by surreptitiously shipping volunteers into Virginia, where they proudly enlisted in the southern armies, and it was on a mission of this sort that Colonel Rupert Janney started out from the Rappahannock to consult with his distant cousin, Paul Steed, up the bay.

He sailed furtively, on his own vessel of one hundred and ten tons, because federal gunboats had already begun to patrol the Chesapeake, and it was assumed that many of the major battles in the forthcoming war would be fought there. With his map cocked on his knee, he directed his captain how to find the Choptank and negotiate the channel into Devon Creek. As soon as the gangplank was down, he leaped ashore in full uniform, crying, ‘Where’s Steed?’

Colonel Janney was a handsome man, some forty-five years old, slim, clean-shaven, gracious of manner. ‘I’m really in the cavalry, Paul. Like my forebears before me. I was named, you know, after Prince Rupert, your ancestor and mine. He never wavered and I’m sure you won’t, either.’

Janney was an intense man, inspirited by the looming battles. ‘I’m serving with a man named Jeb Stuart, the Prince Rupert of our day. He knows horses, Paul. And tactics. We shall cut the Yankees to ribbons and be off before they know we were there.’

It was difficult to keep Colonel Janney pinned down to one topic; he had read Steed’s book of letters and his important pamphlet on the economics of slave ownership. ‘I’ve been proud to call you cousin. You see things so clearly. Imagine a renegade like Helper arguing that slaves are a financial detriment, when you and I know that our plantations … Is it true that you own nearly a thousand slaves? Incredible.’ He paced the large dining room, then asked abruptly, ‘What’ll you do now … this big house and all … Susan gone?’

‘My son Mark …’

‘He’s the one I came to see.’

‘You want to take Mark with you?’ Paul asked the question without betraying the emotion it caused.

‘He’s the type we seek. If gentlemen don’t lead, the rabble won’t follow.’

‘I’m sure Mark will want to aid the cause of freedom.’

‘Exactly. Paul, what you said in your book … That was a damned good book, Paul. Summed things up rather neatly, I thought. You and I are fighting for human freedom. It’s all in the balance—the good life, the decent management … When can I see Mark?’

‘He’ll be in the office.’

‘He wasn’t when I landed.’

‘Probably checking the slave row.’

‘You’ve got to watch ’em.’ He strode about the room, then came to rest with his second important question: ‘How many effectives you think I can take back with me?’

‘You mean from this region?’

‘Exactly. I hear you have some great riflemen over here. I want ’em all.’ He spoke with such enthusiasm and had such energy that Paul wondered how he could have allowed his plantation to remain in a state of disrepair.

‘I should judge that most of the watermen would want to join you. They’re excellent with guns and they love battles.’

‘Will you help me enlist them?’

‘Anything for the cause.’

‘Good. Jeb Stuart’s goin’ to need horses.’

‘He’ll have a hundred from me. Send me the papers.’

‘Paul, I knew as I came up the bay … When can we enlist the men?’

‘Today.’

‘Damn it, Paul, if you were younger and …’ He looked at his cousin’s twisted neck. ‘What happened?’

‘Fell off a roof.’

‘Jesus Christ! You mendin’ your own roof? What you got slaves for?’ He looked at the neck and the shortened leg. ‘Wonder you weren’t killed.’

‘My leg caught on the spout.’

‘We’ll put that down as a miracle.’ When Mark returned to the office, Janney bombarded him with reasons why he should join the southern cavalry, but Mark cut him short: ‘I’ve already joined the infantry.’

‘What?’ his father asked.

‘Yes, I’ve written to Beauregard in Richmond. I’m to be a major, and I’d like to cross the bay with you, sir.’

‘First we’ve to enlist the troops.’ So the three gentlemen sailed to Patamoke, where Colonel Janney harangued a rousing assembly at the wharf: ‘Men, the freedom of this nation depends on you. The decency we have known is being challenged by forces of repression. I invite you to join me in our crusade to protect the rights of honest men.’

Sixty-seven men, a fourth of them Turlocks, volunteered, and as they were making their marks on the enlistment rolls, Janney saw Bartley Paxmore and two Starbuck boys looking on. ‘They’re fine young men,’ he said to Paul. ‘Why aren’t they joining us?’

‘They’re Quakers,’ Steed explained.

‘Hmmm!’ Janney snorted. ‘Won’t fight for us and afraid to fight against us. A sad lot.’

When the enlistees were marched aboard, and all was prepared for the dangerous run to Richmond, Colonel Janney faced the captain of the ship, saluted and cried, ‘Move down the river. We hazard the crossing in darkness.’ He then went to the railing, a handsome man in pearl-gray
uniform with a bright red sash about his waist, and saluted Paul, who saluted back. He then strode to the bow of the ship, where he stood erect, the wind in his black hair, memorizing each maneuver against the day when he might, for some unforeseen reason, have to take a Confederate ship down a river. He almost glowed in the afternoon sun, an efficient, daring officer eager to get back on his horse and ride north.

Like every man aboard that ship, he was convinced that he was engaged upon a sacred mission to defend human liberty. Of the sixty-eight men who left the Choptank, counting Mark Steed, only two owned slaves, but all were persuaded that only by enforcing slavery permanently could the freedom of the nation be preserved.