A Call to Arms (8 page)

“Why well seasoned?”

“Leaving a ship's frame exposed to the elements helps to season her timbers. The harsher those elements, so goes the rule of thumb, the more seaworthy she becomes.”

“Well, we certainly want that, don't we? But how forgetful of me. I recall you telling me that some time ago. So, when will she be ready for sea?”

“Late this year, I should think. By then this war in the Mediterranean may well be over. Agee and I will have missed the entire affair. Not to mention Jamie.”

“Well, we certainly don't want that either, do we?”

He made a face in response.

Just then, Diana Cutler and Mindy Conner walked in the front door, rosy-cheeked from the cold wind. “Hello, everyone,” Diana said as she closed the door behind them. She propped one hand on her friend's shoulder and slipped off her snow-caked boots. “Mother, is it all right if Mindy stays for supper? It's all right with her mother. And is there hot chocolate in the kitchen?”

“Yes, to both questions,” Katherine replied. She smiled at Diana's friend, a shy, coltish girl with blonde curls. “Hello, Melinda,” she said, using the girl's given name. “How are you?”

“I'm well, Mrs. Cutler. Thank you.” She saw that Jamie was in the room and blushed.

“How was school today?”

Mindy giggled and glanced at Diana, who remarked with smug satisfaction, “Tommy Preston got his backside paddled good and hard by Mr. Evans. He was so mean to Debbie Patterson that he made her cry. He's always doing that. He hates girls. He had it coming.”

“I'm sure he did,” Katherine mused, recalling a similar incident when Will first attended the school. Derby Academy, which opened in 1791 as
the first coeducational private elementary school in the country, was still very much an experiment. “You girls get some hot chocolate and then come back in and warm up by the fire.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cutler,” Mindy sang out as the two laughing girls raced to the kitchen.

Jamie watched them go, then said, “Father, here's a thought.” He folded his playing cards on the table; Will followed suit. “You want to sail to Portsmouth to inspect your ship, don't you?” His father nodded. “Well, I want to accept Captain Preble's invitation to visit him in Portland. You read his last letter. He's quite anxious to meet you. Why don't we combine the two trips into one?”

Richard gave that notion only a moment's thought. “That's a capital idea, Jamie. I'll write Captain Preble today and try to arrange a visit for mid-April. This cursed snow should have melted by then, even in Maine.”

F
EBRUARY AND
M
ARCH
crept by at an intolerably slow pace. That naval action was taking place across the Atlantic while he sat shore-bound on the other side was unacceptable to Richard. The Navy Department dispatch that confirmed a midshipman's berth for James Hardcastle Cutler in USS
Constitution
under the command of Capt. Edward Preble was some comfort. The dispatch that confirmed the promotion of Agreen Crabtree to the rank of first lieutenant, to serve in USS
Portsmouth
under the command of Capt. Richard Cutler, actually made him smile.

The Boston newspapers offered some comfort as well. The Federalists were outraged that President Jefferson had allowed American sailors and Marines to sail into harm's way in the Mediterranean without proper support and without the authority to engage an enemy that had declared war on the United States. Commodore Dale's squadron was impotent to do much beyond a halfhearted blockade of Tripoli's harbor. It was, the Boston press jibed, more a “squadron of observation” than a fighting force. Thus far, to what Richard privately confessed to Agreen came as a relief, there had been only one meaningful naval engagement: a single-ship action between Master Commandant Andrew Sterrett, captain of the 12-gun sloop of war
Enterprise,
and a more heavily armed Tripolitan corsair. Sterrett had taken the corsair as a prize, claiming after the fact that he was in compliance with the president's orders to retaliate only if attacked. Dale had refused to convene a court of inquiry to investigate the incident despite a storm of protest raging from the bashaw's castle in Tripoli.

Jefferson, for his part, continued to insist that he had sent Dale's squadron to the Mediterranean to chastise the bashaw of Tripoli, not to bribe him—or any other Barbary ruler who might also have a mind to challenge the United States. He had stated publicly that while America would pay ransom money to free captured American sailors, under no circumstances would the nation pay tribute to any Barbary state. And he was flexing American military muscle strictly on his own authority. Congress had been neither consulted nor informed about any of his decisions.

“Is that legal?” Agreen asked one sunny April day when he and Richard finished reading an editorial on the subject.

Richard folded the paper. “I have no idea, Agee,” he replied. “At the moment the answer probably depends on who you ask. I'm no constitutional scholar, but my understanding is that only Congress has the power to declare war. But if we're attacked by some other country, the Constitution authorizes the president to act to protect our national interests. It was the same situation in the Caribbean, remember? President Adams acted entirely on his own accord. Congress never did declare war against France. And I don't recall anyone in Congress protesting after the war was over. So the issue remains open to debate. I suppose it's in the hands of future generations.”

T
HE PICTURESQUE TOWN
of Portland, Maine—or Falmouth, as it was originally called—held a special place in Richard's heart. It was where his older brother, Will, had taken his last steps on this earth before being flogged and hanged for striking a king's officer on a Royal Navy frigate into which he had been impressed. It was also where he and Agee had renewed their friendship after the war with England, and where Agee had signed on as
Falcon's
sailing master for the cruise to Algiers. To Richard, Portland had always seemed like a smaller version of Boston, but with cleaner air and water and an ever-present aroma of pine-scented forests mixed in with heady scents of the sea.

On a day in mid-April, as the Cutler sloop
Elizabeth
sliced through the island-studded waters of Cape Elizabeth and Casco Bay, Richard and his son Jamie stood together on each side of a forestay that they clutched for balance. The air was bitterly cold despite the bright sunshine, and Jamie shivered in his thick woolen sweater and wool-lined sea jacket. But he would not go below and risk losing the exhilaration singing in his veins.

“That's the port dead ahead, isn't it, Father,” he said, as a statement more than a question. The contours of the coastline and of the town itself
were becoming ever more distinct. Directly ahead they could make out a wharf similar in design, though less imposing in structure, to Long Wharf in Boston, with a multitude of bare masts and yards clustered close by. They could see only one vessel under sail—a brigantine with two square sails on her foremast and a massive fore-and-aft sail on her mainmast—and she was standing to eastward, making for Bath or Castine perhaps, or maybe the Canadian Maritimes.

“It is, Jamie,” his father replied. “See that tall, white steeple over there?' He pointed it out. “It's on Congress Street, near where we'll be meeting with Captain Preble. It's an easy walk from the docks. Let's hope he has a fire going.”

In fact, Edward Preble had three fires going downstairs in the dwelling he and his wife used whenever they came to Portland from the family farm in rural Capisic. When Mrs. Preble showed the Cutlers into the parlor where her husband held court, Jamie reveled in the delicious warmth.

“May I bring you something hot to drink, gentlemen?” she inquired.

“Tea for us both, thank you, Mrs. Preble,” Richard answered.

She turned to her husband. “And your usual, my dear?”

“Yes, please, Mary.”

Edward Preble rose from a chair. “Welcome to Portland, Mr. Cutler.” He offered his right hand, which Richard took in his. “I am honored to meet you.”

“The honor is mine, Captain,” Richard said.

“And it's good to see you again, my boy.” Preble shook Jamie's hand. “I must say, Captain Cutler,” he said as his gaze lingered on Jamie, “your sons are two fine, strapping young men. I imagine they send the young ladies of Boston into quite a tizzy.”

“That they do, Captain,” Richard confirmed, much to Jamie's embarrassment.

As Preble took stock of Jamie, Richard took stock of Preble. What he saw was a plainly dressed man of about his own height and age with a rather thin face, thin lips, and a tapering chin. He had a prominent nose, and his brown hair was combed forward as if to conceal advancing baldness. Thick sideburns grew down below his ears to a clean-shaven, square jaw. The skin on his face and hands was fair, almost sallow, the mark of a man who had spent too many recent months indoors. But the look about him, as his dark blue eyes swung from Jamie to Richard, bespoke intelligence and experience that served to justify his reputation as a hard-bitten sea officer who demanded the highest levels of loyalty
and performance from his officers and crew. “Tough but fair,” was how those in the know described him.

“Please, have a seat,” he said, adding, after the Cutlers had complied, “You had a swift voyage from Boston. I was not expecting you until tomorrow morning, although you are most welcome here today.”

“We had unusually fair winds,” Richard acknowledged. “Fifteen-knot westerlies. If this wind holds, we'll have a harder time of it tomorrow beating down to Portsmouth.”

“Where is your crew?”

“On our sloop. I brought three men with us. I should say four, since Jamie did much of the sail-handling.”

Preble glanced at Jamie. “So you're at home in the high rigging, are you, son?”

“Yes, sir,” Jamie said proudly.

“That is to be commended. It's imperative for every midshipman to have that ability and confidence, although many find it difficult.” He turned to Richard. “Your crew can spend the night in the sailors' home by the docks, Captain Cutler. It's warm, and there are cots for sleeping. As for you and your son, I hope you will stay here with Mrs. Preble and me.”

“That is most kind, Captain.”

Mary Preble appeared just then carrying a pewter tray that held two steaming mugs of tea and a glass of white liquid. She gave the glass to her husband and handed the mugs to her guests, then smiled and left the room.

Preble held up the glass. “Warm milk,” he explained, “for what ails me.” He took a sip. “My diet consists mostly of milk and vegetables. It's a hell of a note, but it's about the only tune I can sing these days.” He smiled ruefully at what Richard suspected was an oft-repeated witticism.

“How
is
your health, sir?” Richard inquired. He was aware that Preble suffered from multiple disorders, including typhoid, which he likely contracted while imprisoned aboard the notorious British prison hulk
Jersey
during the war with England.

“Depends on the day. Some days I actually feel like my old self. Then there are days so bad that I want nothing more than to resign my commission and be done with it. I actually did that not long ago, but Secretary Smith refused to accept my resignation. He granted me a furlough instead. In retrospect, I am glad he did. I am feeling better now that spring is in the air, and I long to get back to sea. The Navy lifestyle suits me.”

“When might you be coming to Boston, sir?” Jamie asked.

“As soon as I am able. I am informed by my first lieutenant that
Constitution
is in need of major repairs. That should come as no surprise to anyone. She has been laid up in ordinary for years. In the meantime, I intend to man her with a caretaker crew. My first lieutenant is Charles Gordon from Connecticut. He has signed on ten sailors and a boatswain's mate—I should say, kept them on, since they've served as her caretaker crew in recent months. I also want two midshipmen as part of that crew: you, James, and a lad your age named Ralph Izard. He's from South Carolina and comes highly qualified. He'll be joining you in a month or two. Now, I warn you,” he added sternly, “you will likely not find the superintendent of the Charlestown Navy Yard very cooperative. His name is Samuel Nicholson, and for a reason that escapes me he holds the rank of captain. I'll stop at saying that he has a rather large chip on his shoulder and an ego that could fill this room.”

Richard was not pleased to hear Nicholson's name. He knew the man's reputation. Nicholson was the first commander of USS
Constitution
during the war with France, and Agreen had served under him as third lieutenant. He accomplished nothing of note during his tenure as captain, and Navy Secretary Benjamin Stoddert replaced him with Capt. Silas Talbot. Ignominiously dismissed to shore duty, the embittered Nicholson retained considerable influence among the rich and powerful in Washington nonetheless. And he was the uncle of the wife of Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin.

“If he makes trouble for you,” Preble concluded that topic of conversation, “he will have to answer to me. And I assure you he will not find
that
a pleasant experience. But under no circumstances are
you
to cross him. Leave that to Lieutenant Gordon. He will deal with him until I arrive. Is that understood, James?”