Chapter 18 #2
The girls laughed and squeezed him, their chatter bubbling again as they walked on. Jon looked skyward, whispering thanks for blessings far greater than prizes or silver.
As soon as Jon opened the front door, his daughters rushed into the parlor and Hannah blurted out to Martha and Silas, “Papa is going to marry our governess! Mrs. Mason will be our mother!”
Jon cleared his throat. “Martha, Silas, I was going to tell you but it seems the news cannot wait.” With a smile he could not resist, he added, “Mrs. Mason has agreed to be my wife.”
Martha’s needle froze in mid-stitch, then she sniffed, her eyes suspiciously bright. “Well, it’s about time. I saw it in the way you looked at her. The girls will thrive for it.”
Just then, Mrs. Mason came down the stairs. “They know,” Jon said to her, “and the girls are delighted.”
Polly rushed up to her. “What do we call you now?”
Jon spoke for her. “She’ll remain Mrs. Mason out of respect until we are wed. Then you can call her Mama if you like. And, of course,” he said to Martha and Silas, “if she permits it, you could call her Eunice then.”
“Mama would be the happiest name I could ever carry,” Eunice said softly. “And, yes, by all means Martha, Silas, call me by my given name.”
Silas puffed once, slow and thoughtful. “Captain, this is the bravest course you’ve set yet. And the right one. Congratulations.”
Eunice blushed. Jon took one of her hands in his own, meeting the gaze of the old seaman.
“It gladdens me to have your blessing,” he said.
“You’ve had it all along,” Silas replied gruffly. “We were just waitin’ for you to find your tongue.”
Martha chuckled, rising to stir the fire. “Now sit yourselves down and take a cup. There’s a weddin’ to think of, even if we must wait until the sea gives the captain back to us again.”
Jon glanced at Eunice, her smile lit by the firelight, and thought there was no sea storm fierce enough to drive him from this course now.
Salem, 10 November 1780
THE HARADEN HOUSE stood quiet in the gray dawn, frost silvering the windows, as Jon watched Silas loading Jon’s sea chest on the cart. Soon after, they set off for the Derby Wharf, Mrs. Mason and the girls accompanying them.
Once there, his men relieved Silas of the chest, and Jon turned to his daughters, their sad faces lifted to him. He kissed Hannah and Polly, then bent to whisper in their ears, promises of something from the Indies and of his safe return.
Eunice Mason stood a pace apart, her hands folded in front of her.
When at last he came to her, he held her gaze as though to fix it in his memory.
He touched her hands briefly, all he dared with many watching, and said low, “Keep me in your prayers and may the Good Lord bring me back to you, my bride to be.”
She smiled then. “I will be waiting, Captain.”
“Godspeed, sir,” said Silas with a salute.
Around Jon, the air was sharp with cold.
Merchants and seamen bustled about the Pickering, canvas straining as the ship readied for sea.
Jon waved to his family and Silas, then strode aboard and took his place on the quarterdeck with Lieutenant Thorndike.
He saluted Derby and Williams who had come to see him and the ship off.
Bobby hurried up with a steaming cup. “All is ready in your cabin, sir.”
“Thank you, Lad.”
The wind freshened, snapping the rigging. Jon looked aloft, the call of the open sea stirring in his chest. “West Indies, Mr. Thorndike.”
“Aye, Captain,” Thorndike turned to the deck and lifted his voice. “Hands to the capstan! Heave away! Loose the topsails aloft!”
The deep thrum of voices rose in chorus as the men bent to the capstan bars. Wood groaned, iron clinked, yards rose, and sails unfurled with a crack swelling white against the pale sky. Lines were cast off, and the Pickering eased into the channel.
From the wharf rose a cheer, wives and sweethearts waving. Hannah’s and Polly’s small hands fluttered like birds. Eunice Mason drew her dark green cloak close, her hand lifted, her face turned to him. That single glimpse would have to sustain him through the long months ahead.
The harbor bells tolled farewell as the ship slid seaward, carrying him once more into war.
Two weeks later, as they sailed south, the Pickering fell in with a humble Yankee trading schooner that had been to the West Indies with lumber and was sailing home with the beggarly proceeds of the voyage. As the schooner approached, her captain signaled Jon and put out a boat to come to the ship.
“Whatever he wants,” said Thorndike, “he’s one of our own.”
“Aye, he is,” said Thorndike, “and given the poor state of his schooner, her rigging in tatters and her sails ripped, we will do all we can to help him.”
The schooner’s captain came aboard, hollow-eyed and his clothing bedraggled. Bowing his head to Jon, he introduced himself. “Captain Kendrick of the schooner Marianne out of Harwich, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. I’m in desperate need of your help, sir.”
Jon offered his hand. “I am Captain Jonathan Haraden of Salem, and this is my First Lieutenant, Israel Thorndike. What happened?”
“There is much to tell,” said Kendrick.
“Come,” said Jon, “let us retire to my cabin where you can tell us what plight you have suffered.” Turning to his Second Lieutenant, Jon said, “Lieutenant Carnes, you have the deck.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Carnes before ascending to the quarterdeck.
Once seated at Jon’s table, Bobby offered Kendrick a cup of steaming coffee, which he gratefully accepted.
At first, his words were halting, and then they rushed out like a fountain.
“We were overhauled by a British letter of marque schooner, and ill-equipped to resist her many guns. They boarded us and robbed me of my quadrant and compass and our provisions, then stripped the Marianne of much of her rigging. With a curse and a kick from her captain, they left us to drift and starve.”
Jon’s jaw tightened as he shared a look of disdain with Thorndike whose face bore a scowl.
“To treat a sailor so,” said Jon, “’tis piracy, not war.
Worry not, Captain. You have fallen in with honorable Patriots.
We will see your schooner re-rigged, your cabin and forecastle provisioned, and I will personally loan you instruments with which to work your passage home. ”
The man’s relief was clear on his face. “I thank God for you, Captain Haraden. You are an answer to our prayers.”
At once, Jon ordered Thorndike to send men over and see all he had promised accomplished. “Gladly, sir,” said Thorndike.
Back on deck, Jon watched with the schooner’s captain as provisions and instruments were rowed to his ship and his rigging came back to life. Kendrick’s eyes brimmed as he clasped Jon’s hand. “You’ve given me back my life, Captain.”
Jon’s reply was curt but kind. “You’ll reach your home port safe. I will go in search of the British miscreant who did this thing and I welcome you to accompany me. With Providence guiding us, the British ship will soon face Yankee justice.”
“I will gladly go with you,” said Kendrick.
The next day fortune favored them, as the Pickering fell in with the very letter of marque that had robbed the Yankee trader. Under threat of burning his ship to the water, the British captain struck his colors.
Jon dressed himself in his best and, to add dignity to the occasion, summoned the arrogant, erring British captain to his cabin where Thorndike and Captain Kendrick waited. With his hands clasped behind his back, Jon told the man coldly, “You have dishonored your profession.”
The British captain, who Jon judged to be of an age with him, blustered, attempting to defend his actions. “This is war!”
“Even in war, there is honor,” replied Jon.
“A sailor does not rob a brother sailor of the means to live. And, for doing so, you will face American justice. On behalf of the Marianne, my men will take their reprisal, as is their right. They will leave you afloat, but marked with shame enough to remind you what honor demands of a sailor.”
Turning to Thorndike, he said, “Whatever pleases their fancy,” said Jon, his eyes never leaving the British captain, “see it done, including kicking and cuffing the offending seamen the length of their deck.”
Thorndike smiled. “Aye, Captain. The men will be glad of it.”
Jon added, “Tell them to take what you deem fit, but leave her hull afloat. She’s not worth sinking.”
Thorndike shook his head, grinning. “A hard hand in battle, a steady hand in justice. There’s the measure of you, Captain. The Salamander in action.”
The British captain stared at Jon. “The Salamander? The one who stood against the Achilles at Bilbao?”
“The very same,” said Thorndike, a gleam in his eyes.
Jon said nothing, only held the British man’s gaze. In his heart he knew that honor was the only ballast to keep a sailor steady in war, and he would carry that weight so long as the sea called him.
When at last the Marianne stood ready, Kendrick clasped Jon’s hand once more. “You’ve given me back my ship, my honor, and my hope.”
Jon’s reply was simple. “Then take them home, Captain. And remember, a Yankee never sails alone.”
Leeward Islands, the Caribbean, January 1781
THE SEAS JUST north of the Leeward Islands heaved under a blazing sun, spray flying as the Pickering closed the distance to a king’s mail packet, stout-hulled and homeward bound from the Indies. The two ships squared off, and the contest began in earnest.
For four hours they battered each other, broadside for broadside.
Thunder rolled across the water, smoke boiled skyward, and the air reeked of brimstone and salt.
The Pickering’s rigging was torn in half in a dozen places, braces shot away, her decks littered with splinters and shattered blocks.
Men staggered under the recoil of the guns, sweat streaming down their powder-blackened faces.