Annapolis, page 35
Mackenzie stepped closer to him. “You told Wales you carried in your neckerchief a list of conspirators. You asked him if you could add his name. He came to me instead.”
Spencer lowered his head. “It was a joke.”
“A witticism for which you are under arrest.”
PHILIP SPENCER WAS shackled, hands and feet, and taken to a corner of the quarterdeck by the arms chest, because there was no room to keep a prisoner anywhere else.
Then they searched his locker and found a sheet of geometry lessons, on the back of which was written a list of names in Greek, which Mr. Rodgers was able to translate.
Spencer listed four men as “certain” when he took over the ship, and ten as “doubtful,” though he believed that four of them would join before the “project is carried into execution,” and the others would not be far behind. There were eighteen more to be kept nolens, volens—whether they wanted to be or not—like Surgeon’s Mate Leecock. The rest, Mackenzie assumed, were to be thrown overboard.
To the senior officers who saw the list, the case seemed watertight. Mackenzie decided to leave the “certains” and “doubtfuls” at large, but closely watched. He did not think they would act with their leader in irons. Besides, there was no room to hold fourteen manacled men on deck.
But in the following days, a fever of suspicion burned as hot aboard the Somers as tales of piracy had burned in Spencer’s imagination.
If a sailor was seen to look at an officer for too long, or with any defiance, it was perceived as evidence of mutinous intent.
And when the brig lost her main topgallant mast, it seemed to Jack an accident. But Mackenzie said it was a diversion created to free Spencer, who sat in his chains on the quarterdeck and watched intently—hopefully?—as the mast was repaired.
Though no attempt was made to free Spencer, Mackenzie arrested two of the men who were on the maintop when the mast went by the boards—Elisha Small and Bosun’s Mate Cromwell. Small’s name was on Spencer’s list, but the only other evidence against Cromwell was that he had been seen many times in conversation with Spencer.
As burly Cromwell was led to a spot opposite Spencer, Jack heard Spencer say to Mackenzie, “Cromwell is innocent. That’s the truth, sir.”
Was this Spencer’s admission of guilt? Jack did not know. He was more concerned with the suspicious looks that some officers were now casting in his direction.
ON A SHIP where a hopeful gaze had become hard evidence, suspicion seemed to burn even hotter as the days went on and the three supposed mutineers sat like rejected figureheads at the stern.
The officers expected an attempt on the tiny ship with every watch change, every sail change, every movement of men on deck. Finally, on November 30, tensions grew too great for Mackenzie, and five more arrests were ordered.
It was then that Jack Browne was called to the wardroom.
Mackenzie was sitting at the little table, his head lowered, his voice strained. “I sailed with your uncle, Jack. I sailed against the Caribbean pirates.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mackenzie looked up. He had spent three nights on deck, watching the crew, and exhaustion was closing in. “I never thought your name would be on the list.”
“My name? But—”
“I’m arresting the four I consider the most dangerous, and the only other officer named. We must make examples of officers who stray.” Mackenzie held up the sheet and pointed to Jack’s name. “Spencer lists you as one who will join before the thing is done. You must have given him a clear signal.”
Jack swallowed back the sudden sickness boiling in his gullet. “I… I talked with him about pirates.”
“Then you admit a conversation with him when we passed the brig America?”
“I—”
“Don’t lie. Mr. Rodgers was there.” And before Jack could answer, Mackenzie pulled out the picture of the pirate brig. “And you admit to this?”
Jack realized that his things had been searched. “Spencer drew it. I should have destroyed it, but—”
“You didn’t. At least you admit to your conspiracy.”
“I admit that we both like the same books.”
“You read Fenimore Cooper… a mountebank.” Mackenzie plastered a smile on his face. “Read better books, like mine. And tell the truth. It will go better for you.”
“But I have told the truth.”
MANACLED AND LEG-IRONED in the bright, hot sun.
What would his father think? And his uncle Jason?
He was seated by gun number four on the port side, some thirty feet from where Philip Spencer sat at the stern. Only Spencer could save Jack’s reputation, but for the hour since Jack had been brought out, Spencer had kept his head resolutely lowered.
Suddenly Jack Browne, who kept his mouth shut and did as he was told, who read Cooper and liked to talk about pirates, was leaping to his feet and screaming at Spencer, “I agreed to nothing. Tell them, Spencer! Tell them!”
Mackenzie ordered someone to quiet the boy.
And Surgeon’s Mate Leecock hurried over to him. “It does you no good, Jack,” Leecock whispered, “no good to carry on.”
“But I’ve done nothing.” Jack looked into Leecock’s calm and gentle face. Then the emotion came, first in his throat, a familiar tightening, then in his chin, and then he dropped onto the deck in an effort to ball himself up and stop the tears from coming. But he was still a boy, and boys sometimes cried.
Leecock crouched down next to him and kept whispering. “Get ahold of yourself, Jack. Get ahold.”
“But… but I did nothing.”
Leecock looked around. “The crew are all watching. You’ll never command men who see you cry.”
And Jack tried to get his breath. “Aye.”
“This will all be over soon.”
Jack wiped his eyes, sniffed back the strands dripping from his nose. “Aye.”
Leecock gave him a gentle pat on the back. “I’ll speak well for you this afternoon.”
“This afternoon?”
But Leecock stood up without explaining and walked away.
THE SUN ROSE higher and burned hotter.
Jack found that Leecock’s talk and his own tears had calmed him. But they could not calm the fire of worry consuming him as he watched sailors one by one descend into the wardroom and emerge some time later, their eyes always fixed straight ahead, never on the prisoners.
During this time, the only senior officer to be seen was Commander Mackenzie himself. All others were below, and it was clear to Jack that the fates of the accused were being decided. But all that night, there was official silence.
JACK AWOKE SOMETIME before dawn, and for a moment it was just another day at sea. His mind was at peace. Then the fist inside his stomach punched upward, sickening him with despair.
That morning the other prisoners encouraged one another, said that this would all be over soon. And none spoke hopefully of what the captain feared most—a mutiny to save them before the ship reached Saint Thomas.
But Jack barely heard their talk. He was counting—counting the links in the chain on his manacles, the clouds that passed the sun and sent shadows racing across the deck, the hairs on his arm, the number of times that his father had spoken of the dangers of naval thinking.…
Sometime around eleven o’clock, he heard a commotion. Crewmen were bringing up thick rope and new sail blocks from the forward compartment. But there was no need for new sail blocks. And rope? What was the rope for?
Commander Mackenzie once more appeared in full-dress uniform.
The boys in the rigging stopped to watch.
The petty officers did not shout at them, because they were watching, too.
The rush of the wind in the sails seemed to soften. The waves stopped hissing on the hull. The world went strangely silent.
And Jack began to pray.
Mackenzie went over to Spencer and spoke so softly that no one else could hear.
After a moment, Philip Spencer fell to his knees and cried out, “You cannot do this, sir. You cannot hang me, please.”
To which Mackenzie answered, “Do you fear death? Do you fear a dead man? Are you afraid to kill a man?”
And those questions, which Spencer had asked Jack himself, drove the knife of terror into Jack’s belly.
“Get up,” Mackenzie was saying to Spencer. “Show those you’ve corrupted that you can die like an officer.”
And now the words screamed in Jack’s head, screamed so loud that they deafened him: Die like an officer.
Mackenzie turned away from Spencer and spoke to Cromwell, who tore at his manacles and proclaimed his innocence.
Then Mackenzie came down the port side, past Seaman Wilson, who was manacled beside Cromwell, toward Seaman Small, at gun number five, and Jack at number four.
In his terror, Jack tried to understand Mackenzie’s method. Spencer was an officer, Cromwell a petty officer. Both would be hanged. Wilson was a seaman, passed over. Small was a seaman.…
We must make an example of officers who stray.
AN HOUR LATER, three men stood on the roof of the trunk house, their hands bound, and ropes around their necks. The ropes ran through the three new sail blocks on the yardarm, then back to the deck, where the crew stood in two long lines, each man with a hand on a rope.
When the cannon fired, the colors would be run up the mast and all hands would haul forward. Any who did not would be flogged.
Mackenzie stood on the middle of the trunk house and solemnly announced that each condemned man could make a statement.
Spencer’s voice quavered. A stain had spread on his breeches, because he’d wet himself when they lifted him onto the trunk house, but he managed to get out the words, “Some have called me a coward. Judge for yourselves whether I… I die a coward or a brave man.”
And a black hood was placed over his head.
Bosun’s Mate Cromwell, convicted by opinion but not by evidence, said, “Tell my wife I die an innocent man.”
And a black hood was placed over his head.
The third condemned man, Seaman Elisha Small, said, “Shipmates, take warnin’: I never was a pirate. I never killed a man. It’s for sayin’ I would I’m about to die.” Then he turned to Mackenzie. “You only do your duty, sir, and I honor you for it. God bless that flag and all who sail under her.”
And a black hood was placed over his head.
After a moment, during which Mackenzie let Small’s generous remark sink in, he gave Spencer the option of calling the moment when the cannon would fire.
From beneath the black hood, Spencer’s weak voice said, “Yes, sir.” The hood shook, as though the head under it were shaking. And after a moment, his muffled voice was heard, “I… I cannot, sir.”
“Very well,” said Mackenzie coldly. “Fire!”
The cannon thundered, blasting gray smoke into the wind.
The crew ran forward with the ropes.
And the bodies shot upward like puppets, twitching and twisting toward the furled mainsail and the sky beyond.
Mackenzie stood in the shadows of the three bodies until they stopped swaying. Then, like a sanctimonious preacher, he made a lesson of them—three wasted careers, three wasted lives. He told his crew to take heed. Then he called for three cheers for the flag.
And the sound those boys made burst louder than the cannon shot.
But one boy did not shout. He was curled in a ball, his manacled hands covering his ears, his teeth gnawing on his chains.
vii
Speechless
Captain Jason Stafford heard about the mutiny on the same day as Johnny’s parents, because Mackenzie had dispatched a messenger to Washington the moment he dropped anchor at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
By December 20, Jason was in New York.
He found Gideon and Antonia where they always stayed, at Doniphon’s boarding house, near the Battery.
Antonia threw herself into her brother’s arms. “I knew you’d come.”
Gideon threw Jason the newspapers, which were filled with approval for wise Commander Mackenzie. “They’re calling my son a mutineer.”
“We’ll get the truth.”
THE DAY WAS raw and gray and cut by a sharp wind that pounded against the bow of the East River ferry. The Brooklyn countryside looked brown and December-bleak, but the bleakest sight they could see was the little brig, tied up next to the receiving ship North Carolina, its bare masts like spindles snatching at the clouds.
“What do you know about Mackenzie?” asked Gideon.
“He served with us against the Caribbean pirates in ’24. He seemed a good officer, though a trifle full of himself.”
“Aren’t all officers?” asked Antonia.
“This one decided he could hang mutineers without a court-martial, when only a general court-martial can render the death penalty, and only a flag officer can authorize a general court-martial.”
“Will Johnny be court-martialled?” Gideon stood close to the vent stack, which radiated heat from the steam boiler.
“It’s as likely,” said Jason, “that Mackenzie will.”
Antonia did not care who was court-martialled. She only wanted her son back.
The accused mutineers had been imprisoned on the North Carolina, under the command of Captain Francis Gregory, an old friend of Jason’s, with a ramrod spine and an unsmiling face, known to be officious yet fair-minded. He invited Jason and Johnny’s parents to his cabin and sent for the boy. Because receiving ships did not go to sea, they were equipped with comforts not known in most naval vessels, like the coal stove breathing heat in the corner of the cabin.
“I’ve taken the irons off the accused men,” said Gregory. “Each of them has his own small cabin on the orlop deck.”
“Isn’t that below the waterline?” demanded Antonia. As far as she was concerned, Gregory was one more wheel in the machine oppressing her son.
“For two weeks of North Atlantic winter, madam, your son was kept on the quarterdeck of the Somers, with no more than a blanket to keep him warm, and cold iron at his wrists and ankles. I’m sure he prefers his present situation.”
Jason reached across the table and patted his friend’s arm. “We know you’re being fair, Frank.”
“Yes,” added Gideon, “we do.”
Antonia could say nothing, because her son was appearing in the doorway.
Her first thought was that he had grown taller.
He had, but he had grown gaunt, too, and that added to his age. He wore a clean shirt and breeches, and his hair was combed straight back. But boyish pimples covered his chin and blossomed above his eyebrows, and the fear in his eyes was the fear of a boy faced with unyielding authority.
Johnny glanced first at Gregory, then at the dress-blue uniform of his uncle, then at his father.
Captain Gregory excused himself, and with a gesture of the eyes, suggested that Jason step outside as well.
“He hasn’t spoken to any officer since he came aboard,” Gregory explained in the little gangway outside his cabin.
“Frightened speechless?” Jason swallowed back his anger. How could they do that to such a wide-eyed and innocent young boy?
“They’re all frightened. But none of them are mutineers, if you ask me.” Gregory withdrew from his inner pocket a sheaf of papers. “Mackenzie left his log aboard. I had it copied.”
“Copied? By-the-book Frank Gregory copies a log?”
“I think Mackenzie wanted us to read it. He was proud of his discipline. In less than six months aboard the Somers, he records over two hundred floggings.”
“Does he explain the hangings?”
“He said he feared for the safety of the ship. He said the crew had grown agitated, and—this is a quote—‘full of angry looks.’”
“Angry looks and a boy’s ciphered list.” Jason leafed through the sheets of tight script. “May I keep this for a while?”
“I take no comfort in ruining the reputation of an officer. But I’m writing my opinions to Commodore Jones. Read this; then do what you will.”
Just then Gideon Browne clomped out of the captain’s cabin, red-faced and furious. “Do you see what they’ve done to my son, Jason?”
“How is he?”
“Ruined in reputation, ruined between the ears.” Gideon held his fingers to the bridge of his nose, to try to pinch back the tears of fury.
“We’ll save him.”
“I warned him,” Gideon went on. “I told him there were officers who were more dangerous to their own men than they could ever be to an enemy. I told him—”
“Calm yourself, Gid.”
“Calm myself, hell. All he can say is, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t do it. I’m sorry.’” Gideon banged his crutch on the deck. “I should be shot for letting him join.”
“I’ll go and talk with him.”
Gideon grabbed Jason. “Leave him with his mother. Maybe she can reach him. She’s… she’s reached ruined men before.”
THE SOMERS WAS the sensation of the month in sensation-hungry New York, and the court of inquiry, scheduled to begin on December 28, had reporters apoplectic with excitement.
On the night before the court was to open, Jason made his way through the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the home of Matthew Perry. The commandant was not at home, but it was his houseguest that Jason wanted to see.
Mackenzie received him at the expansive oak desk in the study, beneath a heroic painting of the frigate President, which had been built at the navy yard. He stood and extended his hand. “Captain Stafford. A pleasure.”
Jason kept his hands folded behind his back. “You’re a disgrace to the navy.”
Mackenzie took a more formal tone. “If you come as my superior, I will address you with the proper respect. If you come as an old shipmate with an ax to grind, allow a subordinate the leeway to defend himself.”
“A leeway you did not give Philip Spencer, or my nephew.”
“Your nephew is still alive.”
“And he will remain alive.”
“That’s up to the courts. Don’t beg from me.”
