A Call to Arms (9 page)

“Yes, sir.”

With that, the conversation drifted inevitably toward the war in the Mediterranean. And on that subject Preble had surprising news.

“Commodore Dale's squadron is being recalled,” he announced. “A second squadron is now on its way across the Atlantic. It's a more powerful squadron and it most definitely has the authority to wage war.
Chesapeake
is serving as flagship to Commodore Richard Valentine Morris. I don't know much about him. Do you, by chance?”

Richard shook his head. “I've heard of him, sir, but that is all. I believe he served with some success in
Adams
during the war with France. He has a good reputation, as far as I'm aware.”

“Yes, well. Apparently that reputation involves an appreciation of the good life, which he is able to maintain due to the ‘interest' he commands in Washington. Much like our friend Nicholson, I fear. These days and all days, that's the quickest way up the promotion ladder. So we'll just have to wait and see about the man. By the bye, your former ship
Constellation
is part of that squadron.”

Richard had heard rumblings of this but as yet had received no official dispatch from the Navy Department. Preble, apparently, had. The fact that
Constellation
sailed with the squadron inspired a question.

“Was Captain Truxtun offered the post of commodore, sir?”

Preble nodded. “He was, for the second time. But again he declined the honor. He insists that if he is to serve as commodore of a squadron, he must have a captain assigned to his flagship. To allow him to devote full time to a commodore's duties, you understand.”

“I so understand, sir, and I agree with him,” Richard said.

“Do you? As it turns out, so do I. Tom Truxtun is a dear friend and a damned fine officer. He's the right man for the job, as you have seen at first hand. But while you and I might agree on this, our opinions don't carry much weight in the Navy Department, eh?” For the first time that day he smiled broadly.

“Will
Constitution
and
Portsmouth
be joining Commodore Morris's squadron?”

Preble shrugged. “Any answer to that would be pure speculation at this point, Captain Cutler,” he said brusquely, but then added, with a curious glint in his eye and a twist to his mouth, “But I daresay it's a speculation worthy of our mutual attention.”

T
HE SOCIETY PAGES
of Boston's newspapers couldn't say enough about Will Cutler's wedding to Adele Endicott. Among those gracing First Parish Church—in such numbers that not everyone found a seat—were the elite of South Shore society decked out in Sunday finery. Intermingling among them was the more heady cream of Boston society, led in regal procession down Main Street by the Endicott and Cabot families settled imperiously in park drag carriages replete with coachmen, postillions, and footmen in immaculate livery. It was, most agreed, a sight never to be forgotten. Quipped Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, at nearly seventy years of age Hingham's most distinguished citizen and war hero, as he took in the majesty of the occasion from the front steps of the church, “I have never so much as glimpsed royalty—until today.”

Will and Adele remained oblivious to the rustling crowd and excited whispers around them as they faced each other at the altar. Adele had eyes only for Will, and Will for Adele, dressed in an elegant lavender taffeta dress with a white fichu and a delicate white lace shawl draped across her shoulders, her long ebony curls tumbling across it down to her waist. As the background rumblings, coughs, and throat-clearings quieted, the Reverend Henry Ware stepped forward and launched into a wedding service that many in attendance could recite by rote. As the questions were put to the bride and groom, and as they answered in firm young voices, Katherine, seated by the end of the front pew next to Lizzy and Agreen,
stole a glance across the aisle at the Endicotts. Not to her surprise, she noticed Anne-Marie dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Even Jack Endicott seemed, for once, to be moved by something other than black ink in an account book.

Katherine glanced back to the altar, at her husband standing beside Jamie as attendant to the groom, and at Frances and Diana attending the bride. She gave Richard a brief nod and Richard gave her one in return, those two simple motions acknowledging the twenty years of trials and tribulations and untold joys that defined the unique privilege of raising a son like Will, from the day he was born on the island of Barbados to this sanctified moment.

Soon after Reverend Ware had declared Will and Adele husband and wife in the sight of God, the wedding party proceeded en masse to Caleb's house on Main Street. Tents had been erected on the lawn and pits dug to roast the meats and vegetables comprising a feast of gargantuan proportions, for the entire town had been invited and the entire town had accepted. They came for the food and drink, but mostly to take part in a grand affair hosted by one of Hingham's most beloved families. Men, women, and children participated in the dancing and especially the games: lawn bowling for the seniors; quoits, sticks and hoops, and tag for the younger set.

Will and Adele made the rounds greeting their guests, but they did not linger longer than propriety and etiquette dictated. Nor did anyone expect them to.

“Well done, Will,” his father said as the Cutlers and Endicotts gathered by the elegant coach-and-two waiting on Main Street to deliver the bride and groom to the Hingham docks. There they would board a specially reconfigured sloop that featured an expanded galley and, in the after cabin, an accommodation that would please an English lord—a snug room with a large bed with choice linen sheets and goose-down pillows. Four hand-picked sailors, an experienced and discreet ship's master, and a cook in the Endicotts' employ—all hands paid triple wages for the next four weeks—would sail the bride and groom through the wonders of Chesapeake Bay, putting into whatever port and cozy inn the newlyweds might desire to visit. The entire expense, including the purchase and outfitting of the sloop, was Jack and Anne-Marie Endicott's wedding gift.

Before the newlyweds entered the coach, Richard took the bride aside for a warm embrace. “Welcome to our family, Adele. We are so very proud to officially call you our own.”

Adele returned his embrace and added a buss on the cheek. “Thank you, Mr. Cutler,” she replied. “The pride is mine.”

“Thank you for everything, Father,” Will said. “And you, Mother.” He embraced them both, Katherine holding on, for a precious moment, to a dear life. “I'll check in at our office in Baltimore,” he promised as he assisted Adele aboard the carriage, referring to a small shipping office that Cutler & Sons maintained on Fleet Street in Baltimore to facilitate the shipment of sugar and molasses and other produce into the rapidly developing interior of the United States.

“You will do no such thing, Will,” his mother-in-law admonished with mock gravity. “You've more important work to attend to.” Anne-Marie gave her daughter a final embrace. “Go with God, my dear, dear child,” she said softly, reverently. “Go with God and with my love, forever.”

“Good-bye, everyone,” Will exulted. As the carriage lurched forward, he waved out the window. “It's your turn next, Uncle!” was his parting cry.

Caleb Cutler drew his flaxen-haired intended close to his side. “Indeed it is,” he whispered to her. “And I am counting the days.”

The wedding party trickled back inside to the festivities and familiarity of neighbors and friends. Except for one, who politely dismissed those around her, including her husband. “It's quite all right,” she assured them. “I just need a moment. Please.” That moment dragged into many minutes as Anne-Marie stood alone in the silence of her private thoughts, staring down Main Street. The newlyweds' carriage had wheeled through the heart of the village, across South Street and North Street, and was visible on a road in the distance leading to Crow Point. She remained until long after the carriage had disappeared from her view and the dust in its wake had settled.

W
ITH
W
ILL GONE
and Caleb's upcoming wedding in the capable hands and financial resources of the Cabot family, Richard turned his attention to preparations for war. The week after Will and his bride sailed south for the Chesapeake, he and Agreen sailed north to the Portsmouth Navy Yard on Rising Castle Island.

There, to their satisfaction, they found
Portsmouth
fully planked with New Hampshire white oak along her hull, her railing up, and her bowsprit and jib-boom firmly in place. She lay on a cradle, the fine sheer of her hull braced upright by stout beams that looked like giant oars sweeping out from her starboard and larboard sides. Tubs of tallow had been placed nearby. When the time came—and that time had to be soon, else the tubs
would not be there—the tallow would grease the ways to ease her slide off the cradle into the deep river water.

Once afloat, she would be brought alongside an old hulk equipped with a sturdy mast and sheer-legs, and the supporting tackle necessary to lift and lower the frigate's three masts down three decks where they would be stepped into locked position on her keelson. Only then would begin the arduous and finely detailed tasks of getting a ship ready for sea, from sending up her upper masts and yards, to roving mile upon mile of running rigging, to installing her ship's bell and brightwork and stove and wheel and binnacle, to furnishing the officers' cabins, and finally, with some fanfare, to hauling aboard her twenty-four 12-pounder long guns, twelve on each side of the gun deck, and twelve 6-pounders on her weather deck, six to a side.

“When do you expect to launch her?”

Richard posed that question to the superintendent of the yard, who, judging by his white hair and beard, wrinkled flesh, and yellow teeth, might have observed the launch of Richard's first ship,
Ranger,
from this very spot twenty-five years ago. The rasp of a two-man saw drew their attention to a large sawpit nearby, where they could see one man standing above a large, thick log; his partner was out of sight below in the pit as they fashioned strakes for the construction of yet another naval vessel. The air about them was rife with the pungent yet pleasing scent of freshly hewn wood.

The superintendent cast an experienced eye on the frigate. “I'd give her a month yet, maybe two,” he replied. “We'll need to paint her, and her masts could use a bit more seasoning.” He pointed, unnecessarily, to a circular pond in the distance where the resinous ship's spars were seasoned underwater to keep them sound and resilient. “She should be ready for her shakedown cruise, oh, by the beginning of September.”

“May my lieutenant and I go aboard?”

The superintendent grinned. “She's your ship, Captain.”

“Right, then.” He turned to Agreen. “Shall we?”

Richard led the way up a ladder on the frigate's larboard side. When he reached what would soon define the ship's entry port and swung his legs over the still unpolished and unpainted railing, he jumped down onto the weather deck between the slightly raised quarterdeck aft and the more pronounced rise of her forecastle forward. Agreen followed him.

There wasn't much for them to see as they gazed along her 140-foot length and 26-foot beam. Anyone else standing where they stood would see a wooden platform propped up on a cradle on land, the blue of sea
visible only in the far distance down the fairway of the Piscataqua River, past the harbor town of Portsmouth on its south bank and the village of Kittery on its north bank. Richard, however, saw his first command as a captain in the United States Navy. This was
his ship;
try as he might, he could not quell the surge of elation cascading through him like a raging springtime river swollen with winter melt.

Agreen watched him with a blend of amusement and understanding. “Are you plannin' t' just stand there and gawk all day?” he asked at length. “Or are we actually goin' t' get somethin'
done
?”

Richard grinned. “Right you are, Lieutenant. Where do you suggest we start?”

“I suggest we take a gander belowdecks, then proceed aft and sit on the deck of your palatial cabin and figure out how in God's name we're goin' t' man and employ this ship. She requires three hundred officers and crew, and so far all we have are her two senior officers and the few sailors from Cutler & Sons.”

“At least we have those. Caleb insists he can't spare more than the twenty-five who have volunteered, and I have to agree with him. And remember, Cutler & Sons has pledged to make up the difference in pay for those volunteers. Gallatin's policy of slashing sailors' pay to ten dollars isn't doing us any favors.” Richard had been outraged when the treasury secretary had recommended cutting the monthly pay of able-bodied seamen in the Navy from seventeen to ten dollars—a recommendation grudgingly accepted by President Jefferson and Navy Secretary Smith. “Most merchant companies today pay an ordinary seaman more than twice that amount. If you or I were in Gallatin's position, I daresay we could find a better way to manage expenses than by taking it out of the hide of the common sailor. That's just plain stupid. And it makes recruitment that much more difficult. All the Navy can offer is the possibility of prize money,” referring to the profits shared among a ship's crew, prorated according to rank, realized from the sale of a captured enemy vessel.