Chesapeake (127 page)

It was a gray day, with the wind blowing, as it did so often, from the northwest. The bay threw muddy spray, and the dredges were stowed port and starboard, having crawled across the bottom for three unbroken months. Everyone was tired and even the buy-boats had retreated to their summer anchorages. The long voyage was over and the oystermen were heading home to divide their spoils.

Tim Caveny was in the cabin, his books spread on the table, explaining to Pflaum how the money would be divided. ‘We had a good season,
thanks much to you, Otto. We handle the money like this. One third to the boat, which is only proper. One third to the captain. One third to you, and young Turlock and the two niggers, with ever’body throwin’ in somethin’ extra for the cook.’

‘That’s fair. Best cook I ever sailed with.’

‘I’m now going to pay you in full—’

‘All hands!’ Captain Turlock shouted as a tremendous clatter echoed on deck.

Later Caveny confessed, ‘It could of been my fault. You see, I knew the call was comin’, so I didn’t react. In a flash Otto saw I had no intention of goin’ on deck, even though there was supposed to be an emergency. So he give me a look I’ll never forget, hitched up his pants, pushed his right hand into his belt and went slowly up the ladder. You know what happened when he reached the deck.’

What happened was that Otto knew the boom would swing in upon him; he was ready when it came, grabbed it with his left arm, swung far out over the bay as it swept past, and with his right hand produced a pistol, which he aimed at Captain Turlock’s head.

‘One of the most devious tricks I ever saw,’ Turlock said later, for as the boom rode out to starboard, Otto Pflaum slowly made his way forward along it till he reached the mast. With great caution he lowered himself onto the deck, walking slowly aft toward the cabin. He kept his pistol aimed at Captain Turlock’s head, and when he drew even with Jake he said, ‘I stay in cabin. Alone. You take this boat to harbor. Quick.’

With calculated steps, feeling his way as he went, he backed to the cabin door, opened it, shouted down the hatchway, ‘Caveny, you got two seconds to get out or I kill you!’ He waited for the terrified Irishman to scramble onto the deck, then descended slowly into the cabin, locking it behind him.

For a day and a half the five men on deck went without food or water. They sailed the
Jessie T
as rapidly as possible back to Patamoke, angry and cursing at the duplicity of this German who had pirated their boat, and when they docked at the wharf, and Caveny had been allowed back into the cabin to pay Pflaum his wages, the big German crawled up the ladder, pistol in hand, and made his way slowly to the side of the skipjack. Without a farewell of any kind, he gingerly stepped backward off the boat, still pointing his gun at Turlock’s head, and made his way to a waterside bar.

‘How I catch a ship to Baltimore?’ he asked the girl waiting tables.

‘Queen of Sheba,
’ the girl explained. ‘When she comes down from Denton.’

She was exceptionally pretty, a girl of nineteen who prided herself on her appearance. ‘What’s your name?’ Pflaum asked, flushed with his share of the oystering wages.

‘Nancy Turlock. My father owns that skipjack.’

‘He’s a fine man,’ Pflaum said. And for two days he remained at the bar, waiting for the
Queen of Sheba,
telling extraordinary yarns to Captain Turlock’s daughter.

On the final afternoon as Otto Pflaum purchased his ticket to Baltimore, with Nancy Turlock at his side in the yellow cape he had bought her, he noticed a commotion on the roadway leading to the wharf, and went with Nancy to see what was happening.

It was an amazing sight. A teamster, his cart loaded with casks, stood in the middle of the road near the heads of his two horses, while an elderly woman dressed all in gray and wearing a peculiar style of cap berated him so vigorously that Pflaum thought she might actually strike him with her furled umbrella. It was bizarre. The drayman cowered before her onslaught, even though he weighed twice what she did. The horses whinnied at the excitement. Children gathered in clusters to enjoy the scene. And the frail old lady moved about with a vigor that would have been surprising in a young man.

‘What is this?’ Pflaum asked, bewildered by the confusion.

‘Just Rachel,’ the Turlock girl said.

‘Rachel who?’

‘Rachel Paxmore. She taught me to read. In the old days she made speeches about freeing slaves. We think she’s nutty, but no one tries to stop her.’

Slaves having been freed, she had taken to reprimanding teamsters caught abusing their animals.

Whatever slight reputation the
Jessie T
might have earned by her good oystering was destroyed when Otto Pflaum loud-mouthed it in the Patamoke bars that Captain Turlock had tried to drown him and that he, Pflaum, had been forced to capture the skipjack and hold it against five opponents for more than a day.

‘Jake botched it,’ the other watermen said, and again none would sail with him.

Normally, Turlock and Caveny would have gone to Baltimore to shanghai a crew, but they were afraid that Pflaum might be lurking there, so they swallowed their pride and permitted Big Jimbo to sign up another of his blacks. Thus the
Jessie T
became the first Patamoke boat to have three whites and three blacks; it was a cohesive crew, for Big Jimbo disciplined his recruits, warning them, ‘You do right, they gonna be lots of black watermen. You mess around, no niggers never gonna see inside of a skipjack.’

But any pleasure Captain Jake might have found in his crew was dissipated when he brought the
Jessie T
into port one Saturday in late
December to learn that his daughter Nancy had run away to Baltimore. ‘I grew suspicious,’ Mrs. Turlock said, ‘when she started ironing her clothes. Then I noticed that whenever the
Queen of Sheba
came to the wharf she asked a lot of questions. So I kept a close watch on her, but last Tuesday she fooled me by ridin’ up to Trappe and takin’ the packet there. She’s gone, Jake, and do you know who with?’

‘Lew?’ Jake asked. Turlock girls had a habit of running off with Turlock men.

‘Would to God it was. It’s that Otto Pflaum.’

‘God A’mighty!’ Jake cried, and he was all for sailing immediately to Baltimore to recover his girl, and Tim Caveny encouraged him, but they were prevented from leaving by shocking news that reached them. Two skipjack captains had sailed into Patamoke with the superstructures of their boats chopped up. ‘We was drudgin’ proper in our waters off’n Oxford when the Virginians swept in.
Sinbad
leadin’. They like to shot us clean outa the water.’

‘You mean, they came into our river?’

‘That’s where they came.’

‘Anybody hit?’

‘Two of my crew in hospital.’

‘What are we gonna do?’ the embittered skippers asked.

‘Do? We’re gonna drive them right out of the Choptank.’

On Monday morning the
Jessie T
sailed out of Patamoke with a grim crew. All six men were armed, and Big Jimbo assured Captain Jake that his two black sailors were first-class squirrel hunters. If there was to be battle, the skipjack was ready.

But it was hardly prepared for what the Virginians did. Four of their power-driven boats lay off the point of Tilghman Island, and as the
Jessie T
moved down the Choptank, these adversaries, led by the
Sinbad,
moved in upon her, judging that if they could knock Jake Turlock out of the river, they would have little trouble with the rest of the fleet.

It was a most uneven fight. Captain Jake stayed at the wheel, while his five crewmen, including Big Jimbo, stationed themselves along the rail. The Patamoke men fought well, and some of their fire pestered the Virginians, but the invading boats were too swift, their gunfire too concentrated.

On one pass, bullets ripped into the stern of the
Jessie T,
and Captain Turlock would have been killed had he not dropped ignominiously to the deck. Infuriated, he bellowed for Ned to take the wheel, while he crouched behind one of the dredges to fire at the
Sinbad.

At this moment one of the Virginia boats swept in from the port side and rained a blizzard of bullets at the skipjack. Jake, kneeling behind the dredge, saw one of Big Jimbo’s men spin in the air, lose his rifle overboard and fall in a pool of blood.

‘Christ A’mighty!’ Jake cried, forgetting his own safety and rushing
forward, but as he did so, sailors from the blue
Sinbad
fired at the wheel, thinking to gun down the captain. Instead they hit Ned Turlock, who stumbled to one knee, clutched at the wheel, sent the skipjack turning in a circle, and died.

It was a terrible defeat, and there was nothing Captain Jake could do to retaliate. He had to watch impotently as the Virginia Squadron raced on, seeking other skipjacks that might want to contest its presence. None did.

As the
Jessie T
started her mournful retreat to Patamoke, the four survivors gathered in the cabin for prayers, and Caveny thumbed through his Bible for that passage taught him by an old sailor with whom he had first served on the Chesapeake:

The
Jessie T
would have to find a new crew, and gloom was deep upon the Choptank as its watermen studied what they must do to repel the invasion from Virginia.

Jake Turlock was gray with rage. He showed the fury that had sustained his forebears in their dogged fights against pirates and British warships, for not only had he been forced to witness the murder of his two crewmen, but he had also seen the insolent Virginians invade his own river. He took a violent oath to be revenged, and with his whole being engrossed in trying to come up with a plan, he forgot his dog, paid no attention to the geese inhabiting his marsh and even allowed his long gun to go unattended.

But it was crafty little Tim Caveny who devised the tactic whereby they could punish the
Sinbad,
and it was so bizarre and daring that when Jake heard it, his jaw dropped. ‘You think we could handle it?’

‘Positive,’ Tim said, his eyes dancing with joy as he visualized the surprise he had fashioned for the Virginians. ‘But since they operate with four powerboats, we better find five or six Choptank crews willing to work with us.’

When Turlock approached the other skipjack men, he found them
hungering for a final showdown. ‘And that’s what it’s gonna be,’ Jake assured them. ‘They can have their engines. What me and Tim’s got cooked up is better’n engines.’

But as New Year’s Day approached, with the start of the winter dredging, Turlock had to face up to the fact that the
Jessie T
suffered from one deficiency. ‘Tim, we got to have up front a man with no nerves.’

The two watermen fell silent as each reviewed the strategy, and finally Jake said hesitantly, ‘What we really need—’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Caveny broke in. ‘Otto Pflaum.’

‘The same. And damnit, I’m gonna swallow my pride and go fetch him.’

They crossed to Baltimore, going straight to the Drunken Penguin, where they elbowed their way in. Big Jimbo, of course, could not accompany them inside, but he did wait in the shadows nearby, in case things got out of hand. They were seated innocently at their customary rear table, drinking beer like two ordinary Eastern Shore watermen, when Otto Pflaum appeared. He still wore his extra-thick pants, his heavy sweater with the double roll at the neck, and he looked formidable. As soon as he saw the Choptank men he assumed that they had come to take his girl away, so he did the prudent thing. Without taking his eyes off his enemies, he grabbed a bottle, smashed the end on a table, kept it pointed outward from his right hand, and advanced. Then, with his left hand, he broke the end off another bottle. Thus armed, he approached, whereupon Caveny asked in a voice of gentle Irish reasoning, ‘Otto, dear friend, don’t you trust us?’

The big German said nothing. He moved closer, placing himself in a position from which he could jab a jagged bottle into each face. Then he stopped, keeping the bottles close to the eyes of the men who had tried to kill him.

‘Otto, sit down and talk with us,’ Caveny pleaded.

‘You want to hire me again?’

‘Yes!’ the Irishman said eagerly.

‘Same wages as before? A swingin’ boom?’

‘Otto, you misunderstood …’ Caveny was eager to explain that a failure in communication had been responsible, but the German pointed the broken bottle at him and growled, ‘Shut up.’

‘We need your help,’ Turlock said.

‘Doin’ what?’

‘Sit down. Put the bottles away.’ Jake spoke with such authority that the big sailor obeyed. ‘How’s Nancy?’ Turlock asked. ‘She’s pregnant.’

‘You married yet?’

‘Maybe later.’

‘Otto, we need your help. You got to sail with us again.’

‘Plenty sailors, why me?’

‘The Virginians. They’re drivin’ us from the bay.’

Turlock had said the only words that could have excited this giant. Pflaum had seen the arrogant
Sinbad
and had fought against her, so he relished the prospect of renewed combat.

‘This time, no boom?’

‘There was none last time,’ Caveny said gravely. ‘A sudden wind.’

‘This time, pay before I leave Baltimore.’

‘Wait a minute!’ Caveny exploded. To make such a demand was tantamount to an accusation against the integrity of the
Jessie T,
but Pflaum was adamant: ‘We give the money to Nancy. But she gets it before we sail.’

This was agreed, and on the last day of the old year the
Jessie T
returned to Patamoke for the unusual fitting out that Jake and Tim had contrived.

When Otto Pflaum saw the magnitude of the big gun that Jake proposed for the bow he was staggered. ‘That’s a cannon!’ Jake said nothing, merely pointed to the small cannonballs intended for the gun, and before Pflaum could comment, he showed him three more long guns, several kegs of black powder and larger kegs of lead pellets.