Chesapeake (68 page)

The
Whisper
became known as ‘the schooner with the red-headed boy,’ for several captains reported that when the American freebooters stormed aboard they were accompanied by a young lad who kept goading them. ‘He wears a woolen cap pulled over his ears and speaks in a voice unusually deep for a child his age. At first I thought him to be a dwarf, but when he marched up to me and said, “Captain, you are taken,” I found him to be a child. Remarkable.’

Captain Turlock had only a vague understanding of how the war was progressing; he knew that General Washington was pinned down somewhere in the north and that the Americans seemed to lose more battles than they won, but when a captured English sailor said defiantly, ‘When this war’s done, traitors like you and Ben Franklin will be hanged,’ he asked, ‘What ship does Captain Franklin sail?’

To the surprise of his crew, the war taught him caution. Not for him the gallant foray into enemy ports, or the futile contest against superior strength. The
Whisper
had speed and maneuverability, and these could be used best in hit-and-run tactics; he was not afraid to run and was perfecting at sea the same strategy that American generals were adopting on land: the sudden thrust, the quick retreat, the waiting, the cautious move.

For in any planning he had to bear in mind that whereas the
Whisper
could depend upon her speed to escape from the average English ship, three duplicates with identical capacity had been captured by the enemy and now flew English colors. His constant fear was that some day in the Caribbean the three other Paxmore schooners would converge and hunt him down. That explained his caution and why he sometimes returned to the Chesapeake empty, and sometimes even with expensive damages that had to be corrected.

And then early in 1777, when prospects were most bleak, Mr. Steed had an opportunity to observe at firsthand the skill of his barefoot captain.

A Lieutenant Cadwallader had come south from New York with an urgent message from General Washington, whose prospects for holding out against the English were fading: ‘The general feels certain we can’t
survive another year unless France joins us. And with substantial assistance, mind you. Steed, you must go to France.’

‘I thought Franklin was there.’

‘He is. Doing excellent work in Paris. But the business leaders—the solid men in ports like Nantes—they’re convinced we’ve no chance of winning.’

‘I’d not be effective,’ Steed said, thinking of his own uncertainty about the war.

‘But you could talk to them. You must go.’

‘I’ll try.’ And after Cadwallader had moved on to the southern ports, Steed thought: How ironic. The English Protestants of Philadelphia and New York always sneered at us Catholic boys who went to school at St. Omer’s—‘Why not attend a true college like Oxford?’ But now it’s the Frenchman who becomes essential. He had no stomach for this mission and no hope that it would succeed. He believed the colonies to be doomed and wondered only what kind of peace England would grant. But he had a high sense of duty, and since he had been handed this ticklish job, he would do his best.

It was easy for Cadwallader to say, ‘Go to France,’ but it was not easy for Captain Turlock to get there, for when the
Whisper
reached the exit to the Chesapeake she found waiting a cluster of English guard boats, each with two heavy guns—‘Seven of ’em,’ young Matt called from his position forward.

‘I see ’em,’ his father replied.

‘What do we do?’ Steed asked.

‘We wait.’

‘For what?’

‘The precious moment,’ Turlock said, and they waited.

For five tedious days the
Whisper
sailed slowly back and forth inside the protection of the headlands, while the British vessels held to the open sea. On two occasions American privateers arrived from the east, spotted the British guard boats and retreated to try other ports along the coast, but the
Whisper
could not employ that stratagem. She was trapped in the Chesapeake, and until her captain devised some trick for escape, she had to stay trapped.

During this grating delay Simon Steed conducted himself like the patient negotiator General Washington had assumed him to be. He was forty-seven years old, stiff, erect, proper, deeply wounded by the flight of his wife and desolate over the absence of his daughter. He never complained. At the start of the voyage he had told his captain that speed was essential, and he assumed that Turlock appreciated this. It was now the waterman’s responsibility to break through the blockade, and no one aboard the
Whisper
knew better than he how to accomplish this.

‘What we’re waitin’ for, Mr. Steed, is a stout wind from the west, risin’ at two in the mornin’.’

‘What will that prove?’

‘You’ll see.’

And on the seventh day, at dusk, Captain Turlock met with Mr. Semmes as the sun sank over Virginia, and they studied the clouds, and Turlock said, ‘Tonight, I think.’ They went to the owner and said, ‘Maybe tonight. It’ll be risky.’

‘Cannon fire?’

‘Much,’ Turlock said, and as darkness fell he alerted his gunners, who moved extra balls into place and additional bags of powder. At midnight Steed could see no alteration in the wind, but at one o’clock, with a waning moon showing in the east, he felt a slight agitation moving across the calm waters of the bay, and then a scattered gustiness, followed by dead calm. He supposed that the long-awaited night wind had died down, but Captain Turlock, long familiar with the Chesapeake, moved among his men to say, ‘Before dawn. We’ll be in the middle of them.’

What he was counting on was that if the wind rose sharply, as he was certain it must, it would strike the Chesapeake thirty or forty minutes before it reached the Atlantic; indeed, in the darkness the British would not even know it was on its way unless they were more weather-wise than he, and without visible indications, that would be unlikely. In that half-hour of superior wind, he proposed to have his schooner at top speed, bearing directly down on the middle of the blockade. If he collided with some enemy vessel, the fight would occur there, with always a possibility of escape. What he hoped was that the
Whisper
could snake her way through the congregated ships and kick her heels in the broad Atlantic.

At quarter to two the wind rose substantially and Turlock told his men, ‘At four it’ll be near gale. We go.’

All practical sail was raised, that is, the three jibs forward, the two fore-and-afts and the two lower square sails. The two peak squares would be held in reserve until the last minute, when top speed would be needed; raising them in the strong wind that seemed about to break would prove dangerous, and Turlock did not want to run that risk until the moment of flight. Then he would risk everything.

At half past three he stood just west of the entrance to the bay, hiding as it were among the low Virginia hills, but now he swung the
Whisper
directly east, and as she picked up speed in the pale, moonlit darkness he cried, ‘Mr. Semmes, all sail!’ and young Matt hauled on the lines as the square topsails rose majestically into canvas-snapping position.

‘Man the guns!’ Turlock cried, and with his ship as ready as it would ever be, he sped eastward toward the open ocean.

It was four-twenty that morning before the British blockaders became aware that a major schooner was bearing down upon them. Bugles blew
and orders were shouted, but with their mainsails down, the watching boats could not respond quickly, and there was confusion. On came the American vessel, nine sails aloft in the heavy wind, her deck awash, her bow cutting the choppy waves.

‘Fire!’ the English captains bellowed, and cannon roared—to no effect.

‘Hold fire!’ Turlock cried. His job was not to sink or damage blockade boats, all he wanted was to avoid them; and this he did with matchless skill until that moment when the captain of the seventh English boat, seeing in the pale light that this daring fool was about to escape, ordered his helmsman to put about and throw his ship directly into the path of the escaping schooner.

‘Cap’m!’ Matthew screamed.

There was nothing Captain Turlock could do but forge ahead, hoping that his superior weight and expanse of filled sail would inflict greater damage than he received. ‘Stand to crash!’ he shouted, and Simon Steed, owner of this fine ship, winced.

But at the last moment, when the bowsprit of the
Whisper
was practically jabbing at the larboard flank of the English vessel, Turlock spun the wheel as violently as he could to starboard, an action which in the open sea would surely have capsized the schooner, considering the huge spread of sail she was carrying in this wind. But now, as he had calculated, his swift schooner crashed sideways into the smaller English vessel, larboard to larboard, and there was a crunching of timber as the blockader held the
Whisper
erect. The impact was so sudden, and of such brief duration, that the
Whisper
seemed to bounce away, largely undamaged.

Now Captain Turlock spun the wheel again, this time to larboard, and as his ship scraped clear of the sorely wounded enemy, with the wind almost abeam and strong enough to throw the
Whisper
down, the bow turned majestically; the pressure on the sails abated, the ship righted itself, and Turlock told Mr. Semmes to fetch his son. When Matt appeared, flushed with victory, his father said, ‘At the start of the fight I thought, “My son’s a damned fool.”’

‘Why?’

‘Standin’ in the bow like a stupid figurehead. But when it came time to hoist the sails, there you were, workin’ the ropes.’ Matt smiled. ‘And when the cannonballs came crashin’ through, you didn’t hide.’ Captain Turlock reached down and rumpled his son’s red hair. ‘You’re goin’ to be a sailor.’

Toward the end of the voyage Steed suffered one bad day. He was casually inspecting a chart showing the entrance to the Loire River, on which Nantes stood, when it occurred to him that at that moment he was
only a short sail south of England, and he began to see the pleasant images that name evoked: his English wife, his daughter, the honest men at Fithians, the serenity. He thought how startled Captain Turlock would be if he said, ‘Let’s sail north two days and we’ll be in England.’ And he thought: When the war’s over I may move to England. Jane would be happy there, and Isham could run the plantation.

And as soon as he formulated these thoughts it became clear that he was visualizing not the total victory that Lieutenant Cadwallader had spoken of, the kind that General Washington apparently wanted, but a kind of negotiated truce, from which the relationships that existed before the war could be reestablished: That’s what I want. The colonies and England back together, but on a better footing. And then he acknowledged why he wanted it: Because we can’t defeat England. We’re destined to live with her. And I wish this damned war would end. He looked north and muttered, ‘England, England!’

In the meantime he was obligated to wheedle from France as much help as possible, so that the colonists could win some battles and appear at the bargaining table in good posture. I’ll do my job, he promised himself, unaware that even at this critical moment he still called his new nation
the colonies.
He was destined to be a poor ambassador.

He was standing there, aloof and overwhelmed with loneliness, when young Matt Turlock left his lookout position and came to talk with him. ‘We’ll soon be sighting France,’ the boy said. Steed ignored the comment, so Matt asked directly, ‘Didn’t you live in France?’

‘I did.’

The red-headed boy was not abashed by this cool reception. ‘Up there’s England,’ he said. The lonely figure made no response, so Matt continued, ‘They’d like to know where we are. They’d like to capture this ship.’ Again no response, so the boy babbled on, ‘I sailed to England once, Mr. Steed.’ Silence—except for the cry of a seagull. ‘Remember, I took Mrs. Steed and Penny to London.’

At the mention of his daughter’s name, Steed lost his indifference. ‘Did she sail well?’ he asked.

‘She stayed in a basket forward. I guarded her.’

‘You did? No one told me that.’

‘Yes, Mrs. Steed kept to her cabin, sickly I think. But Penny and I stayed forward day after day. She loved the sea.’

‘And you cared for her!’ Steed shook his head, then fumbled in his pocket, producing at last a bright half-joe. ‘I should like to give you this for your trouble,’ he said, handing Matt the coin. The boy offered no mock protestation; he knew the value of a Portuguese joe and pocketed it with a big ‘Thank you, Mr. Steed.’

‘Where did she stay?’ Steed asked.

‘The basket stood here. I brought it out every morning.’

And for the rest of that day Simon Steed remained in the fore part of
the ship, looking first to the north toward England, then to the deck where the basket had rested.

They entered the Loire at St. Nazaire, where a rude fort pretended to guard the integrity of the river, but it was doubtful if the guns so proudly visible could deliver much weight. A French pilot came aboard to help them negotiate the beautiful river, but he added to Steed’s pessimism by reporting, ‘We give the colonies little chance. It’s ships that will prevail, and England has them.’

When they reached the wharf at Nantes they found that French merchants were vigorously excited about the caviar he was bringing but contemptuous of his principal mission. ‘We see no hope for the Americans. Actually, Steed, we think you’d be better off remaining with England.’

‘Then why do you fight to protect your independence? War after war, and always against England.’

‘We’re a nation. With an army. With ships. Your destiny is colonial.’

Wherever he went in Nantes it was the same. Every French merchant hoped that something evil would befall the English, and if the colonies chanced to be the agency for the disaster, fine. Steed heard many expressions of brotherhood and good will, followed by hard-headed calculations that England must win the war. When he dined with the Montaudoins, dictators of the Loire economy, their nephew, who had known Steed as a student, had copious praise for the southern colonies: ‘Gracious land, splendid people. We’re so happy to have you with us, Simon.’