Rough Passage to London: A Sea Captain's Tale (13 page)

The next day, an irate Captain Christopher Champlin ordered Morgan to report to his cabin. Fearful of what awaited him, Morgan gingerly turned the white porcelain handle and stepped inside the stateroom adjacent to the two officers’ cabins. He’d never been inside the captain’s quarters before, so his eyes were busy scanning the room. The only source of light was a bulkhead lamp on gimbals with a sooty flame. Champlin was standing beside one of the portholes across from his desk, his hands behind his back with his feet broadly spaced apart as if he were bracing for a storm.

“Come in, Mr. Morgan, and shut the door behind you. Sit down over there, if you please.”

“Yes, sir, Captain.”

He pointed to the only wooden chair in the room across from him. Morgan took his seat and waited for the storm to follow the silence that pervaded the room. Champlin at last cleared his throat and began to speak in a slow, ominous voice.

“My brother told me you might be trouble, Morgan, but I never expected this. I reckon you got some explaining to do. My pistols have been stolen. Four of my men have been banged up right fine in a tight scratch with some drunken English sailors and river scum. The tavern owner wants to be compensated. One of my best men, Hiram Smith, has been kidnapped or dead, and it looks as if my first mate is the one who brought these sailors into harm’s way.”

Champlin paused, his eyes boring into Morgan’s face.

“I ought to have you put in irons.”

A humbled Morgan handed over the pistols, and speaking in a subdued voice, began telling Champlin about his quest to find out what had happened to his brother.

“I thought I’d found the man who did harm to my brother, Captain. It was something I needed to do, and the men wanted to help me. Hiram is my friend. There isn’t anyone who feels more deeply troubled about him than me.”

Champlin listened quietly, and then paced around the room, his voice steadily rising as his anger mounted.

“Listen up, Morgan. I’ll only tell you this once. You’re the first officer on my packet ship, and that’s all I care about. I’ve got a ship to run, I’ve got a schedule to keep, cargo to load, and passengers to look after. I don’t give a donkey’s ass about your ill-founded quest for your brother. That’s your business. If you want to go looking for trouble down in the East End, go ahead, all-possessed, limber and lively as the Devil, you go ahead, but not from my ship. Have you got that, Mr. Morgan?”

Morgan nodded.

“From now on, those whoremongering taverns in the East End and quim-filled boarding houses are off limits for you. When we’re in London you’re confined to the ship.”

“But what about Hiram, sir? He might be in danger. I’ve got to find him.”

“I reckon Smith is either dead with his throat slit or in the fo’c’sle of a British merchant ship headed for Calcutta. Either way there’s not much you can do for him.”

A chastened Ely Morgan turned to leave Champlin’s cabin with a heavy step when Champlin called him back.

“I need to know, Mr. Morgan, that nothing like this will happen again.”

Morgan paused as he shuffled his feet. He didn’t say anything.

“I need to know, Morgan, do you hear?” he said emphatically. “I need that guarantee!” He stood up with his red face inches from Morgan’s nose. “If you don’t have the answer by the time we back our sails off Sandy Hook, then I reckon you’ll be looking for work on another ship.”

On that cold January voyage back to New York, Morgan went about his duties like a man in a trance. He felt guilty that he had left London without looking for Hiram. He could have chosen to leave the ship and stay in London to look for him, but he hadn’t. What kind of friend was that? But then what could he have done? He didn’t know where to begin to look. For all he knew, like the captain said, Hiram had been crimped and dumped aboard another ship bound for a distant port. It was Icelander who talked him through his problems during one late-night watch. They were somewhere east of Newfoundland. The weather had turned cold and miserable with the winds blowing from the west and forcing them to double-reef the topsails. Morgan had put several men on watch up in the bow of the ship. The rigging and the ratlines were lined with a sheath of ice, and the decks were covered with a thin coating of freshly fallen snow.

Morgan was smoking a cigar amidships on the lee side as he thought about whether to give the order to tack to the south. He felt the bitter cold bite into his skin, but he didn’t care. After nearly three weeks at sea, his face was unshaven, his hair covered with salt, and his canvas trousers stained with tar and grease. He leaned up against the bulwarks and looked down in the blackness, where he could hear but not see the rush of the waves against the side of the ship. His mood was as dark and as bitter as the cold night wind. In between his weighing the decision whether or not to change course, he was also thinking about whether he should quit the trade. His despair was real even if his thinking was filled with uncertainty. His life had been filled with conflict. He had always met challenges that confronted him head-on, but this was something different. This time the conflict was within himself as he struggled to grapple with an enemy inside. He had always believed in himself, in his own strength, but now he was facing crippling self-doubts. Perhaps he should return to Lyme and seek penance from his father. He wondered if it was too late for that. What did he want to do with his life? Maybe his father was right after all. A life at sea can only lead to tragic loss, pain, and suffering. He thought of his mother, her drawn face, so empty and so tired, and he wondered if he was risking his life in the cruelest way.

Just then, a familiar voice penetrated the darkness and interrupted his thoughts.

“These are perilous conditions, Mr. Morgan, and if we continue further to the north the weather will likely get worse.”

He turned to see a large form looming over him. It was Icelander. To conform to the ship’s rules governing the relationship between sailors and ship’s officers, he now called his old shipmate Mister, but it was a formality. The two men had close bonds after so many years sailing together. Morgan didn’t say anything, continuing to smoke his Havana.

“Icelander, wait for the end of the watch when we have all men on deck and we’ll tack southward as you suggest.”

The quiet giant nodded, his white eyelashes blinking quickly. He started to move away when Morgan asked him a question, uncharacteristically using the man’s real name, perhaps as a way to show him mutual respect.

“What do you do, Mr. Rasmussen, when fate deals you a sharp blow?” Icelander was surprised by this unexpected, probing question and didn’t answer. Morgan continued with a follow-up question. “What do you do when your actions have caused terrible consequences for others? What do you do when someone you thought you cared for betrays you?”

An awkward silence followed. Morgan was one of the few sailors that Icelander had confided with about his own personal trauma that had sent him into painful exile. After a few more minutes of silence he finally spoke, his thin lips barely moving.

“There are always detours on a man’s road which may seem to take him in a direction he doesn’t want to go,” he said.

“Pray tell, what is that supposed to mean, Rasmussen?” asked Morgan impatiently. “Stop speaking in riddles, man.”

Icelander lowered his voice to a whisper, an indication that this was intended as a private conversation.

“You’ve told me what Captain Champlin said to you. It may be that you don’t want to listen to him. That’s understandable. He’s only interested in his ship. I suppose what I am trying to say is, if one day you were to become captain, Ely, then you wouldn’t have so many detours. You could do pretty much as you pleased.”

Morgan didn’t say anything, so it was Icelander who finished the conversation.

“What I mean to say, Ely, as someone who has worked beside you for many years, in many storms, on many rough passages, is that your road in life lies on the Atlantic highway. You are drawn to it. Just like some men are rooted in the earth, you are a creature of the sea. That’s my way of thinking anyhow. That’s what your brother would have wanted you to do. He would not have wanted to see you quit. Maybe he’s somewhere up there looking down on you wishing he could do what you’re doing right now. Maybe he’s still alive and he needs your help. Did you ever reflect, Ely, on what your brother might want you to do?”

Morgan said nothing, but continued puffing on his Havana, looking down over the leeward side of the ship into the cold dark river of rushing water several feet from his face.

PART V

The captain, in the first place, is lord paramount. He stands no watch, comes and goes as he pleases, and is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything, without a question even from his chief officer.

—Richard Henry Dana,
Two Years Before the Mast

12

1831

Morgan looked out at the murky molasses-colored East River and the harbor beyond. He spotted the
Hudson
among a fleet of towering ships, the Black X flag flying from the main mast. It hardly seemed possible to him that he was now the
Hudson
’s commander. He was the master of his own ship at the young age of twenty-five, a rare accomplishment in the packet trade. He pushed his way past anxious hotelkeepers trying to quickly settle accounts while newspaper boys shouted out the headlines of the latest edition. A cacophony of tearful farewells, hysterical sobbing, and nervous laughter surrounded him. The cool April air was alive with men yelling, horn blasts, and whistles from ships. That morning, New York’s South Street docks were filled with rushed arrivals and hurried departures as mule-drawn wagons and pull carts crossed paths with finely varnished carriages.

The clatter of wheels and clop of hooves echoed in his ears. Coachmen helped finely dressed ladies with their colorful bonnets and shawls step out onto the cobblestone streets. Many of them were bound for Europe in search of the latest spring fashions. Morgan had been told his ship was full. Not only did he have a main cabin of twenty passengers, but the ship was loaded with nearly one hundred tons of cargo. He was carrying everything from casks of hides and horn tips, to several hundred hogsheads of flaxseed, to more than a hundred bales of cotton. They would be riding low on the water this trip, his first voyage as captain.

The
Hudson
’s departure had been delayed now for days because the winds had been easterly. Now that they’d come round to the southwest, he hoped to be off soon. All this delay due to the unfavorable winds created more chaos down at the docks. There were many ships ready to sail outward bound, some more anxious than others. The Havre packet
Francois I
was berthed near Old Slip; the Black Ball Line’s new ship, the
Hibernia
, at the foot of Beekman Street; and the Blue Swallowtail Liner the
Napoleon
had just pulled into Peck’s Slip. All were tied up at their docks loading freight and passengers, and would be ready to depart soon for England and France. New York’s shipyards were building ten new packet ships that spring, all bigger and faster than the old
Hudson
.

Morgan squeezed his way among carts and wagons filled with luggage until he reached the small steamer that would take him out to the ship. He took a deep breath of ocean air. For the first time in his life, he actually could look forward to earning several thousand dollars a year. He had never thought of himself as overly ambitious, but after his run-in with Captain Champlin and the stern warning he had received, he had made up his mind to be a shipmaster and become his own boss. A cold wind gusted in from the East River, causing him to tighten up his jacket. He wondered if his family in Lyme were getting this same weather. Josiah had written, “Word around here is that you’re going to go master pretty soon and have your own ship. Everyone in town is congratulating father. He doesn’t say anything. Mother is so proud.” He suddenly felt lonely as he thought about how much he missed his family.

Josiah had written him that he was intending to buy his own farm, and he had his eye on some land owned by Judge Noyes overlooking the river. He was waiting to see if the judge would sell at a more favorable price than forty dollars an acre. He’d gotten married a few years back to Amanda Maynard, and Morgan had already written him back that he would help with the purchase of the land. Now that he was a captain he could afford to do so. As first mate he had been making forty dollars a month, but as captain he was entitled to five percent of all freight earnings, twenty-five percent of cabin passenger fares, and whatever was received from carrying any mail. At two cents a letter, that usually amounted to about one hundred dollars a voyage.

He looked out across the East River to Brooklyn and then out to the harbor. Two incoming ships from China carrying the blue-and-white checkered flag of Nathaniel and George Griswold at their mastheads were waiting to dock. A tug, clouds of black soot spouting out of its smokestack, was on its way to tow one of them into the docking area. Several coastal packets from New Orleans and Savannah were also in line to unload their cargoes of cotton by the slip at the foot of Wall Street.

He picked out Christopher Champlin’s new ship, the
Sovereign
, just in from London, already tied up at the Pine Street docking area. The
Sovereign
was twenty feet longer than the
Hudson
and slightly wider. Morgan had heard that her posh interior with polished mahogany tables, brass and mahogany railings, and carpeted floors was a far cry from the
Hudson
’s more spartan cabin area.

He spotted the familiar figure of Captain Christopher Champlin now walking down the gangway as he headed for the offices at 68 South Street. He remembered what Champlin had told him the day he’d given him the surprising news that he was turning the
Hudson
over to him.

“Mr. Morgan,” he said, “in my mind, you need a good deal more seasoning, but my brother and the other owners have decided to make you a captain. I’ve been overruled. With the ownership shares my brother has in almost all the ships, he has more clout than I do. I will say that you have a lot yet to learn. You’ll soon find out that a packet shipmaster’s job is as much about people as it is about the wind and the waves. I reckon that’s why the owners picked you from all the others. You have a way with people and they think the cabin passengers will like you. Maybe so, but I venture to say after a few voyages you may prefer to stay above deck than face the stormy complaints from the passengers down below. You will be serving a good many of the English on your voyages. Can you handle that Morgan?”

Then he’d laughed and patted him on the back.

“Who knows, Morgan? Maybe now that you’ve abandoned that foolhardy mission of yours to find your brother, you’ve developed the sound judgment to be captain. We’ll see. I’ll be keeping my eye on you.”

Morgan had thanked him, never mentioning that he hadn’t forgotten his mission. To do so in his mind would have made him a quitter. He’d merely become more discreet in his search. In fact he was still more determined than ever to find Blackwood, but the man had disappeared, leaving no trace. It was as if he’d dreamed the whole chain of events leading up to the attack at the White Bull. He’d tried to find Hiram, but he had come up empty-handed.

Several months after the incident, he’d gone back to the tavern disguised as a fish porter from Billingsgate Market. He wore a stiff flat leather hat with an upturned brim pulled down tightly over his face, and a coat that smelled like ripe haddock. The smell alone served to deflect any overly inquiring glances. He sat for hours alone in a dark corner drinking swipes, looking for any of the men who had attacked them. From this shadowy corner, he watched as the tavern’s customers stumbled out onto the street. He waited until Molly left with the servant girls and then walked over to the bar, where a perspiring, oily-faced Bull Bailey was wiping the bar counter. He grabbed the portly, bald-headed man by the shirt and pressed the tip of a knife blade into his rib cage.

“Start talking, Bull. Tell me what happened to my shipmate. Where did they take him?”

Dazed and disoriented, Bailey just shook his head. Then he recognized Morgan and his confusion turned to fear.

“There was nothin’ we could do. That man Blackwood said ’e’d kill us all if we didn’t help ’im find some Yankee boy. ’E offered us money, real sovereign coins. We had no choice.”

“What did he do with the man he grabbed? Where’s my shipmate?”

“I don’t know. They took ’im away, maybe to the
Charon
. That’s Blackwood’s ship.”

“Who is this Blackwood?”

“Can’t say.”

Morgan tightened his grip on the knife handle and leaned in toward Bailey until the man squealed with pain.

“Enough. Enough. Some say ’e’s an opium trader. All I know is when ’e comes ’ere to the tavern, his pockets are always full o’ money.”

“What does he look like?”

“Big, tall, powerful bludger with curly black hair, square face with strange squinty eyes, almost like a Chinaman. That’s why they call him China Bill.”

That conversation was on his mind as he stepped on board the smelly, sooty steamer that would shuttle him to the
Hudson
anchored in the middle of the East River. He wondered if he would ever see Hiram again. He spotted the ship’s new steward surrounded by a storehouse of supplies and crates of chickens and geese.

“How are you, Mr. Lowery?”

“Fine and dandy, Captain.”

Morgan’s eyebrows rose in surprise. It was the first time that anyone had called him captain. It took him a moment to recover.

“You and Mr. Scuttles making sure we won’t starve on this trip?”

“Yes, sir, Captain Morgan. We’ll be sailing with full stomachs all the way. Plenty of belly timber on board from smoked Virginia hams to pickled oysters and barrels of potatoes and turnips.”

Caiphus Lowery was a colored freedman from New Orleans, a tall, handsome-looking man with gray eyes and a bushy head of curly black hair that tumbled over his forehead and ears. Morgan had met him at Peck’s Slip one day when he was playing the bones alongside a couple of fiddlers. He was the steward for one of the other London packets with the Red Swallowtail Line. Morgan had heard that the man knew how to cook finely seasoned French dishes, New Orleans style. He thought that those culinary skills might come in handy in the cabin to supplement the generally bad food that Scuttles cooked. So he offered him the job of steward and was surprised when the man accepted.

Soon the steamer was crowded with passengers and their mountains of chests, trunks, and bags. The small ferry chugged and puffed up to the sides of the packet. Morgan was first on the ship, climbing the fifteen feet up the rope ladder to the top of the bulwarks. He looked around him, surveying the decks of the ship on which he’d sailed so many voyages. There was an awkward moment of silence as he stepped on deck. He felt the eyes of the sailors turn in his direction.

Two men who were lounging by the fife rail jumped up like rabbits and began swabbing the decks. Another man bending over the scuttlebutt looked up like a startled deer, his face dripping with water. Still another quickly hid his small bottle of rum in the folds of a greasy rag. Some of the sailors, particularly the newcomers, showed him deference by taking their hats off. Others glanced away with downcast eyes or glared at him with a defiant look. By the foremast, a few sat together with crossed arms. Many of these foredeck hands were new to him, but some of his old shipmates had stayed with him, including Icelander, the Spaniard, Scuttles the cook, and Whipple the carpenter. His ship’s officers, Horace Nyles and Ezra Pratt, the two old-timers from the river, met him at the gangway.

With his gray, whiskery face and large, smoky eyes revealing nothing, Nyles welcomed Captain Morgan aboard the ship. Morgan knew that the man must resent him, as he had been passed over for shipmaster time and time again.

“Good to have you aboard, Cap’n,” echoed the smaller, bearded Pratt with a note of insincerity in his hoarse voice. Morgan again felt awkward.

“Muster the men, Mr. Nyles,” he ordered with a slightly uncertain voice. As the chief mate read out the names, each sailor muttered, “Here” or “Yes, sir,” and shuffled forward. Morgan sized up the two dozen men who would serve under him, taking a good look at each face. Sullen, solitary faces, weathered and unsmiling, others with friendly broad grins and whiskery beards, young and old. These were the sailors under his command, a mixture of men, several stooped-shouldered newcomers and deep-chested veterans, their leathery faces, taciturn and defiant, chewing their quids of tobacco. These hardened packet ship men could outsail any others, but Morgan well knew that they were hard to discipline.

As the twenty passengers came on board he was introduced to them one by one as they emerged above the bulwarks. Most of them clambered up the ladder on the ship’s steep sides as he had done, but some of the ladies had to be lifted on board, their long dresses billowing up to reveal their ruffled undergarments in a moment of temporary embarrassment. They were the usual mixture of well-dressed men and women, many of whom traveled with servants. Just by their puckered expressions and the stiffness in their step, he could pick out the Englishmen. Most of them were in America seeing to their investments in the cotton industry and the canals. A few even came over on hunting trips for moose and bear in the woods of Maine.

A stout, red-haired man of imposing height who gave his name as George Wilberton, the third Earl of Nanvers, introduced himself as if an important event had just occurred. Dressed in a mustard-colored vest, cream-colored pants, and a green coat, he strutted on board like a proud peacock. He was traveling alone on business, he told Morgan, and was now anxious to get home to “good Old England.” There were only a few Americans: a minister, his wife, and daughter from Philadelphia and a salesman from Baltimore. One loquacious, middle-aged English woman by the name of Mrs. Elizabeth Bullfinch, who had come to America on a business trip with her much older husband, was complaining that the crates containing her delicate porcelain china plates and tea set were still on deck. The center of the ship was already cluttered with human beings, baggage, and animals.