8
Beans and Flour
In his sea cabin with Sam, Bliven found himself blessing Thomas McKinney of New Orleans for supplying them with a decent chart of the long, arcing Texas coast. Without it, they might have attempted to pursue ships directly into the port of Cópano and reduce the place as he had done Tripoli thirty years before. With a chart, however, they recognized instantly the impossibility of such a scheme, for upon further review Cópano was doubly and then trebly inaccessible to a vessel of their size.
For more than a hundred miles, the Texas coast itself was shielded from the Gulf by Padre Island, a barrier of sand that was the longest of its kind in the world, and in most places from one to three miles wide. But whether it existed as a single island or was broken and breached by Gulf waters changed and shifted with the caprices of hurricanes that blew over it every few years.
Cópano, the oldest and deepest port in Texas, established by the Condé de Gálvez in the 1780s, lay 160 miles southwest by south from Galveston. Like Galveston, it had in its earlier days been the refuge of pirates, but its situation bore a greater resemblance to Lafitte’s buccaneer capital of Barataria deep in the Mississippi Delta by reason of its sheer inaccessibility from the open waters. In its northern reaches the great sand barrier broke into smaller but still formidable islands. One of the dependable cuts through them, between Mustang and San José Islands, was at Aransas Pass, a narrow, north-turning, five-mile defile that opened onto Aransas Bay. To reach Cópano then required a ten-mile sail northeast, skirting a shallow oyster reef, then a turn to the northwest into Cópano Bay, avoiding a second, even shallower oyster reef before reaching the port on the northern shore. A near impossibility for a vessel drawing twenty feet of water.
“Where are we now?” asked Bliven.
“Well, when we left Galveston you were out of your head for that couple of days. We made good time, we are proximate to Cópano now. I aimed to put us out far enough to intercept the Gulf trade but close enough to stop anyone from turning in.”
“Yes, good.”
With the windows of the sea cabin opened for the fresh air, they heard the cry far above them. “Ahoy the deck! Ahoy!”
“Who has the watch?”
“Mr. White, but I will run up.”
“Good. I will join you in a moment.” Bliven made a stop in the quarter gallery outside his berth, put on his coat and picked up his bicorne, but then felt dizzy and thought it better to sit down.
“Good morning, Mr. White,” said Sam on the quarterdeck. “What do we have?”
“Good morning, Mr. Bandy. Lookout has sighted a ship about three miles southeast. He can’t see square sails; we think it may be a schooner, sir.”
“Where is she headed?”
“Toward us, sir.”
“Very well, keep us informed.” Sam clattered back down the ladder and knocked lightly even as he entered the captain’s cabin. He strode straight to the door of Bliven’s berth and found him seated on his mattress. “This could be our lucky day, Captain: we have a sighting.”
“Yes, I will be right up.”
“How are you feeling?”
Bliven paused as though taking stock of his various functions. “Not too bad, actually; stronger than yesterday. Where away?”
“Three miles southeast, sir.”
“How is the wind?”
“Fairly strong, varying east to northeast.”
Bliven stood again, then stumbled. “Oh!”
Sam reached out and caught him. “Are you all right?”
“I stood too quickly, I fear. It’s all right, it has passed.” Ross entered the small compartment, standing in the door to the quarter gallery, ready with Bliven’s bicorne and spyglass. Sam made certain to follow him up the ladder, to be able to break his fall should he stumble again. On the quarterdeck Bliven assayed things quickly as Yeakel joined them. “Helm, make northeast to open some distance, then northwest. We can angle up to him and have the weather gage. We must try to speak him. Mr. Bandy, I dislike to do this, I am sorry, but take down your Texian flag and raise the American flag. It is sure to make us more approachable and ease the conversation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then beat to quarters. I want everyone ready just in case. Where is Mr. McKay?”
“Sleeping, sir. He had the night watch.”
“Well, wake him and have him join us. I want Mr. White at the guns and McKay at the wheel.”
Sam was below and back on the quarterdeck in a few moments, and the blue flag with the gold star slid down from the spanker boom, replaced by the Stars and Stripes, to which he gave a long look. “Excuse me, Captain?”
“Yes, Mr. Bandy?”
“If we raise the American flag, and then if we have to start shooting, will that not cause the very incident we are ordered to avoid, in giving the appearance of American involvement in the revolution?”
“No fear. If we have to start shooting, we will show our true colors first, and they will know it was a deception.”
Sam smiled, slowly at first but then broadly. “Good. If it is a Mexican ship, I want them to know who they’re dealing with.” As the two ships closed at a gradual angle, the schooner unfurled a Mexican flag from its mainmast. “And so now we know.” Sam pointed.
When they were a hundred yards apart, Bliven put the speaking trumpet to his lips. “Ahoy, Mexican schooner! What ship are you and where bound?”
After two minutes of silence, plenty of time for the Mexican captain to have a trumpet in hand, Bliven repeated his question and timed out the continuing silence. “Well, to hell with this: our orders are to interdict their commerce. Raise your own flag, Mr. Bandy! Ahoy, Mexican schooner! This is the Texas warship Gonzales. Come about and lower your sails. I say again: Come about! Mr. White, open your gunports and get ready to put a shot across his bow if he—”
Suddenly the air snapped with three sharp concussions: small guns, they could tell—six-pounders. Their gazes snapped back to see the schooner’s rail obscured by smoke, and they saw at the same time her profile diminish as she sheered away to port. At only a hundred yards they heard the small balls sing overhead through the rigging and heard and then saw a hole pop open in the main top staysail. “You son of a bitch,” Bliven whispered in amazement, “you shot at me! Who do you think you are? Mr. White, get your guns out and fire!”
White flew down the ladder, roaring to open the ports and roll out the guns. In the twenty seconds it took for the creaking carriage wheels to fall silent, the schooner was halfway through his turn and presented to them little more than his spoon-shaped fantail. They heard White’s bellow to fire, and a second later the deck trembled beneath them with eleven heavy explosions over a two-second period. The flame and smoke began to dissipate just in time for them to see a shower of splinters and spray erupt from low on the schooner’s starboard quarter, and they knew they had holed her between wind and water. A second geyser of wood erupted from her taffrail, and two holes popped open in her sails. Several seconds later they saw numerous splashes several hundred yards beyond her. As quickly as she turned away, two hundred yards later she came northwest, running before the wind and straight for Aransas Pass.
“Did you see that, Sam?” asked Bliven. “Blast me if she is not a nimble little thing. She turned away to give us a smaller target; now she is making a dash for the port. That is no merchant captain. That is a naval officer who knows what he is doing, and he made a fool out of me.”
“Shall we pursue?”
Bliven lowered his glass and tapped it into his open hand. “No. Damn! He is faster than we are, and he knows it. His ship is more maneuverable and can sail closer to the wind than we can, and he knows it. If we chase him, he will but laugh at us. No, he foxed me, and now we have lost our chance. Damn! Damn!” He peered upward, regarding the sails and Regina Ferraro’s green silk pennant as White rejoined them on the quarterdeck. “Mr. White, you did not stop him but you hit him. Well done, sir.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What the hell, we cannot catch him, but why don’t you run forward and see if you can send him off with a hit from our bow chasers before he gets out of range. Helm, come three points to port and see if that gives him a straight shot.”
Bliven and Sam leaned out from the port rail, keeping the departing schooner in the center of their glasses as White pointed the twenty-fours on the bow. Their deep, majestic booms were simultaneous, but they saw the balls fall one forward of the schooner and one off to her starboard. Even with the miss, it was comforting to know that they were the only ship in these waters with such guns.
Bliven pursed his lips and shook his head. “Well, hell. Mr. Bandy, resume a southerly course under easy sail. You and Mr. White and Mr. Yeakel gather in the wardroom, if you please, and have your lunch. I will join you presently and we will consider what to do next.”
In his cabin he donned a fresh shirt before descending to the berth deck. In the wardroom he discovered that Hoover had served them reconstituted salt beef, sliced thick and fried in butter, served with potatoes that he had mashed and whipped into a froth and buttered, and peas. From the galley Hoover observed Bliven enter and followed him with a similarly loaded plate.
“Gentlemen, you should not have waited for me.” He sat and they ate in silence, waiting to see what he would have to say. “Well,” Bliven said at last, “I think that I will not be contradicted if I say that encounter did not go as we hoped. In fact we, or more to the point I, botched that rather badly.” He paused for a comment, but there was none. “I had hoped that our first contact would be a ship coming out of Cópano, not going in. Perhaps we might have captured some dispatches or even some officers going back home. As it is, our presence here will very shortly now be known, and we may safely assume that alarms to that effect will be on the way to Urrea and Santa Anna, wherever they are, and a courier sent posthaste to Matamoros warning them to dispatch no more shipping to Cópano until the threat we pose has been countered.”
“What else could you have done, Captain?” asked Yeakel. “I suppose you could have opened fire and sunk him by surprise even as you changed the flag, but that is the kind of thing one expects from Santanistas, not from us.”
“We don’t know what cargo he was carrying,” added Sam, “but a two-masted schooner is not large enough to haul the amount of artillery we are watching for. Those little popguns he fired at us when he sheered off, I would bet you that’s the only armament he had; indeed, they are typical for an armed schooner. I know if I was carrying anything bigger, I would assemble at least a couple of them and have them ready to use.”
“Yes, perhaps,” said Bliven. “Well, now, looking at things as they are, the Mexicans know the port of Cópano is blockaded as long as we are here. We know it will take a couple of days for a rider to reach Matamoros, and I am wagering that those guns were loaded and put to sea before now. My greater fear is that they may have left the port soon after the Titania’s captain saw them there and may already have landed in Cópano. If that is the case, then our whole errand is wasted.”
“Did your British captain say what kind of guns and how many?” asked Sam.
“A couple of dozen at least, he said. He took them for twelve-pounders, but he gathered from their carriages that they were short-range field guns, not long twelves of the naval type.”
“Wait, sir,” said Yeakel. “If they were on their carriages, they would have to be dismounted before being lowered into a hold, and then they would have to stow them very carefully, with that much weight. From what he saw, I do not believe they could be underway in less than three days from that time. I don’t see how they could be here already.”
“Thank you, Mr. Yeakel. That is a comforting assessment. We shall maintain our blockade and remain hopeful of accomplishing what we were sent here for. We shall just have to ride the winds as best we can to stay outside the pass, and hope we are not blown away by a strong offshore wind.”
It was in the middle of the next afternoon that the call came down. “Ahoy the deck!”
It was Sam who had the helm, with Bliven keeping him company. “What do you see?”
“A ship, sir, coming up from the south. I make her three miles off, perhaps a little more. Hard to say; she is a large brig, pretty close inshore.”
Bliven and Sam exchanged stares, at once excited but cautious. “This could be it,” said Sam. “What shall we do this time, sir?”
Bliven stalked back and forth, eyeing the thin line of the coast, the direction of their pennant, and the bearing of the brig. “Mr. Bandy, do you remember Gibraltar and the Meshuda? She was untouchable as long as she was in port, and poor Barron had to sail the Philadelphia up and down the bay of Algeciras to keep her there.”
“Yes, I do recall it.”
“Well”—he pointed out to the brig bearing distantly down upon them—“this is just the opposite case. If this is the ship we expect, he wants into Cópano; there is no place else he can go. And if we make a move to chase him, he may outrun us and do it. But he cannot go through us. Let him posture and gyrate how he will; we will cover the entrance to the pass. Mr. Yeakel?”
“Sir?”
“You have had the foretopmast that broke in the Bahamas lying at the rail ever since. Part of it is now our bowsprit. Do you think you can use the night to cut down the rest of it and rig a new sprits’l? Do you think the bowsprit is strong enough to take it?”
“Perhaps, sir. It has stood the strain of the jib and forestaysail well enough. The weight of a spritsail yard will be exerting down, however. You are thinking that you may want some extra speed tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“I understand, but I would not want to set a very large one.”
“Agreed. Get busy and do what you can. And one thing further, I want you to lash on your stuns’l spars and furl stuns’ls on them. I want them there at the instant we may need them.”
Yeakel saluted himself away. “Aye, sir.”
“Ahoy the deck?”
“What is it?” Bliven shouted.
“Sir, I make the brig two miles away. She is turning seaward.”
“Is she running?”
“No, Captain! She is still coming on but placing herself further from shore. She is slow and low in the water. She is flying the American flag!”
“Do you think it may be a false flag?” asked Sam.
“I do not. The Mexicans have no ship of that size; that would be pointless. An American trader, I’ll wager, chartered to Mexican service. He is flying the flag for its protection, most likely.” Bliven stalked back and forth, eyeing the shore with the pass just visible, the pennant showing a freshening north wind. “Mr. Bandy, make sure to come in toward the shore while we are still on the east side of the pass. If he tries to come in from the south, even he must tack into this wind and show us both sides to shoot at. If he gets brave and makes a run in straight from the east, his speed won’t help him. He must slow down to be sure of hitting the channel. He would never survive our broadsides.”
Bliven studied all their circumstances for several minutes more. With their yards on the port tack Sam steered them as close to the wind as he could, edging them closer to the shore. “Mr. Yeakel, shorten sail, if you please. I do not wish to lose the advantage of our present position until we see what he is going to do.”
“Ahoy the deck!”
“What do you see?” called Bliven.
“That brig is still in sight, sir. I make him a mile and a half. His course is now northeast, sir.”
“Tacking?” puzzled Sam.
Bliven found the tiny sails in his glass. “Tacking, and stalling. He is milling, Mr. Bandy! The poor bastard does not know what to do; he is coming out of the desert and we have seized the waterhole. That tells us a great deal.” He stopped to think. “Although that makes a very poor metaphor, considering we are on the ocean . . .”
“It tells us that he truly wants to enter Cópano.”
“Exactly. If he had business elsewhere, he would go there. If his cargo were innocent, he would come on and hail us and learn our business.” He laughed suddenly. “Our flag alone should excite his curiosity. Remember, it has never been seen before.”
“Well, sir, he might hail us and he might not.”
Bliven lowered his glass and looked at him. “How do you mean?”
“An American ship under Mexican charter, sir, if he has to stop and be boarded, he would be expecting to have to pay a bribe to continue on. That is the way things work down there. Within the past few years the Mexican government opened customshouses at our Texas ports, and paying bribes over and above the duties became quite the required way of commerce.”
Bliven stared at him. “No one has told me this before. If it is as you say, then that alone is cause enough for a revolt.”
“I say it only to explain why he might not wish to be boarded.”
The dance continued through afternoon and evening, the Gonzales patrolling the entrance to Aransas Pass, the lumbering brig milling one to two miles offshore, until as dusk approached he passed out of sight to the northeast.
“Now where is he going? Do you think he will try to get inshore of us and slip in under cover of night?”
“It is all too possible. The moon is approaching its last quarter. Do you know what time it will rise?”
“Not later than nine, as I believe, but I will run down and check the almanac.”
“Yes, please do. Mr. Yeakel, my compliments to Mr. White. His gun crews are to sleep at their stations tonight, gunports open, guns run out. I want them ready for instant firing.”
Yeakel saluted himself away. “Aye, sir.”
Indeed, the moon rose before nine, arced overhead, and was halfway to sinking in the west at the change of the morning watch, the lookouts having searched the water between them and the beach the entire night without result.
“Ahoy the deck!”
“What do you see?”
“It is our friend, Captain! Crawling down the coast under a single tops’l.”
Sam ran to the starboard rail and raised his glass. “Sir, look! He is trying to pass inshore of us. The wind is with him, but he can’t trust the depth.”
“Mr. White, can you get a bead on him?”
“I can, sir.”
“Point your guns carefully, and when you are ready, fire a two-gun ranging salvo. That will let him know that we mean to shoot, and he can never survive a run by us.”
“I don’t understand,” said Sam. “Why not just let him have it?”
Bliven spoke with some impatience. “We can’t sink him at this range, and if he gets behind us, we can’t bring our guns to bear. And if we did sink him, then those guns would be easily salvaged. No, we must drive him out to sea and deal with him there.”
The flash of the two forward-most twenty-fours was blinding in the predawn gloom, and the eruption of flames had barely dissipated when the lookout cried down again. “Ahoy the deck! He is turning to sea and raising all sail!”
“Damn, I knew it!” cried Bliven. “This was his last card to play at getting into Cópano. He means to run back to Matamoros; they are going to haul the guns overland. Mr. Yeakel! Make all sail; set your stuns’l and sprits’l. I will have that little wretch if it’s the last thing I ever do! Mr. Bandy, come down. Let us study the chart.”
Mr. McKinney’s chart of the Texas coast remained open on the mahogany table, and they refreshed their mind’s eye of what must happen. The brig’s captain would not hug the coast but run south by west just as fast as he could go, straight to the mouth of the Rio Grande, and Matamoros.
In the time it took to raise the sails and come to that heading, the brig had opened a lead on them of perhaps a mile. Back on the quarterdeck as morning brightened, Bliven looked above the main topgallant and saw their green silk pennant snapping straight as a ruler toward the bowsprit. He did not need to pay out knots to know that they were racing full and by, the standing rigging pulled taut as fiddle strings. He shot his glance far forward to the newly rigged spritsail and saw it bellied out into a hemisphere—and there was the ultimate confirmation that the present quarry must be the one they sought: they were gaining on her. A brig running before the wind was a swift ship; she must be very heavily laden.
Bliven stole a fitful glance down at their new spritsail, relieved to observe it regularly showered with spray from their bow splash. “Look there, Mr. Yeakel, if the muzzle blast from the chasers does not pass completely over it, it is wet enough not to take fire.”
“Yes, sir, but how do we know the blast itself will not wreck the whole apparatus?”
“Yes, you are right. Station some men forward with axes in case the whole thing is wrecked and they have to chop it all free.”
“Aye, sir.” Yeakel trotted back to the ladder and quickly down.
Bliven pointed back out to the fleeing brig. “What do you think, Mr. White?”
White studied through his glass and then without. “I make her a mile and a quarter off, sir; that is about twenty-two hundred yards. Still a bit far to try a shot.”
“M-hm. Too far to hit him, perhaps, but not too far to fire and let him know we mean business. He can see as plainly as we that we are closing on him.”
“True, sir.”
“Mr. White, with your elevation ramps that Mr. Bandy devised, and by firing as the bow lifts up in a swell, do you think you can make a ball fly for a mile?”
“I think, sir, probably yes, but if not, the splashes will rise close enough to him to make him think about it.”
“Good. Fire then on my order, and keep firing at intervals until he drops his sails or until I order otherwise.”
“Aye, sir.” White saluted as he left. Bliven walked aft, leaning into the stiff north wind that, contrary to becoming warmer as the sun rose, acquired an ugly chill.
White employed his chasers skillfully, firing them alternately every quarter hour, the splashes falling closer and closer to the fleeing brig. At six hundred yards their quarry gave up the flight, furled her courses and driver, and rolled slowly along under topsails. “Mr. Yeakel,” said Bliven, “you may begin to shorten sail. We do not wish to overshoot her.”
Yeakel timed his slowing perfectly, coming a hundred and fifty feet off the brig’s port beam and matching her pace.
Bliven was prepared at the starboard rail with his speaking trumpet. “Ahoy, American brig. What ship are you?”
The answer came back at once. “I am Captain Carroll, American trading vessel Five Points! Who in hell are you and what in hell do you mean to arrest us in such a way?”
The Gonzales’s officers smiled among themselves. “We are Texas warship Gonzales. You are sailing in our war zone. Trade with the Texas ports is under blockade. You ran from us after trying to enter Cópano. What cargo do you carry?”
“I am an American ship in international trade. Your flag is not recognized, and you have no right to stop us.”
The hard north wind had raised a considerable swell, and the ships each lifted from the stern as they were pushed southward. It was impossible not to take some prideful fun in having run down their quarry. “Our flag, sir,” shouted Bliven through the trumpet, “will be recognized soon enough. My twenty-four-pounders give me the right to stop you. I ask again: What cargo do you carry?”
“Sawn lumber and foodstuffs, you blackguard. Do you mean to come over and steal it?”
Bliven held the trumpet away from his mouth so they could laugh among themselves and raised it again. “I thank you, we are well provisioned. We shall board you and inspect your cargo. If it is as you say, you may proceed back to Mexico, but not to Cópano.”
“Come aboard, then, you rebel.”
“Five Points?” asked Sam. “What are the Five Points? Is it from some kind of declaration?”
“No,” Bliven answered with a smile. “You see, her home port is New York. The Five Points is a square in the city where five streets come together. It’s in the immigrant portion of the city with a reputation for violence.”
Yeakel got the cutter down, making certain that it was rowed by men in uniforms. “Mr. White, I leave you in command. Mr. Bandy and I will go over. We will take McKay with us. Have your starboard guns quoined up and trained at her waterline. If one of us shouts the order to fire, tear her side out. We can swim well enough.”
“Aye, sir.”
The brig Five Points had no boarding ladder, but netting was thrown down from their waist. Her captain and officers were waiting there as Bliven swung himself over the rail, followed by Sam, McKay, and two of their crew. “Good morning, Captain. I am Captain Putnam, Texas Navy. Do you not have any better judgment than to pile on more canvas after you are challenged by a warship in a war zone?”
“By God, you are an American!” Carroll was nearly as tall as Lieutenant White, with coarse black hair and green eyes of a calculating expression. “What right have you to stop an American ship?”
“We are Texians, if you please, Captain—although it is true nearly all of us did start off as Americans. We hope not to detain you long. May I see your manifest?”
Carroll had it in hand and thrust it out, and Bliven read it over and handed it to Sam. “What do you think, Mr. Bandy?”
“Milagros,” he read. “Masa. As he said, it’s beans and flour, and I see lumber.”
“Very well, Captain Carroll. Let us have a look and you may be on your way.”
Carroll led them to the ladder and down. “I still say you have no right.”
“Your protest will be faithfully noted.” They descended through the one crew deck and entered a deep hold, where there were two lanterns lit at the foot of the ladder. They found the cargo properly stowed, the sawn lumber flat on the deck, topped by small barrels stenciled Masa, the beans in large sacks of burlap.
“Captain Carroll”—Bliven stood by him—“your cargo appears to be in order. I will tell you what, I will give you thirty dollars in silver for two sacks of your beans. How you report it is up to you. Mr. McKay, have your men take two sacks topside.”
Carroll glowered. “Captain Putnam, you may be sure that every word we have exchanged will be reported faithfully.”
“Mr. McKay, sir! Jesus, we cannot lift these sacks of beans. They weigh a ton.”
McKay regarded the burlap bean sacks piled amidships against the mainmast footing. “Daft, man, that sack should not weigh more than fifty or sixty pounds.”
“Then, by God, you lift it!” the man shouted. “I ain’t giving myself no rupture trying to carry that thing.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, man.” McKay strode over and bent down to heft the sack onto his shoulder, but it did not budge. “What on—Mr. Bandy, there is something peculiar about this.”
Sam joined them, pulled his Bowie knife from its sheath, and slit through the burlap, and before he had finished the cut a cascade of dried beans of light brown, with dark brown flecks, flowed through the rent with a dry rattle onto the decking. Looks were exchanged around, and when the beans stopped falling he enlarged the rent. The further outflow of beans left them staring at the round leaden curve of a twelve-pounder ball. “Will you look at that,” said Sam softly. He reached in and started to pull it free, but it required both hands. “Well, now, that’s some mighty big beans you got here, Cap’n.” He held it up for Carroll’s gaze. “How long do you have to cook one of these things, anyhow?”
Carroll shifted his weight, rolled his eyes, and made no reply.
“Mr. McKay,” said Bliven, “please to break open a few barrels of this flour. We shall inspect it.”
McKay set his lantern on the nearest one and removed a crowbar from a stanchion to assault the top of one of the barrels.
Carroll stepped forward. “Stop! Unless you want to blow us all to kingdom come. Very well, yes, there is powder in these barrels. You do not wish to hack at them and perhaps make a spark.”
“We thank you for your good sense, Captain Carroll,” said Bliven. “And now finally it occurs to me that the lumber that lines the bottom of your hold rises considerably above the curve of your bottom. Could it possibly be that there is some additional commodity lying beneath these boards—something heavier, perhaps, serving as ballast?”
Carroll resumed his silence.
“Sam? Have a look, please.”
Sam stepped down onto the raw boards, pulling up one and then another, leaning them aside against the ship’s ribs. McKay joined him, holding the lantern. They noted the boards carefully cut, as though premeasured for reassembly. After removing lumber from a layer four boards deep, they beheld the dark glint in the lamplight of bronze, and further effort revealed the five-foot barrel of a twelve-pounder field gun.
Bliven stepped down and joined them. “Mr. McKay, will you hand me your lantern?” He knelt on the barrel, running his fingers around the breech as he inspected it closely, then stood. “Come, gentlemen.”
As they rejoined Carroll, Sam asked, “Where do you suppose they got these?”
“Boston,” said Bliven bitterly. “I am ashamed to say I know the foundry marks well. They are produced by the Cyrus Alger Company, a very leader in the production of improved alloyed field weapons.”
“Captain Carroll,” said Bliven, “will you tell me now how many of these guns you are transporting?”
“Thirty,” he answered, “to unload at Cópano to forward to the Mexican army.”
“Well, that is what we need to know. Let us go back up.”
“Captain, sir?” asked Sam. “A word in private, if I may?” The two of them walked forward toward a small warren formed by the sail room and paint lockers. Sam laid a hand on Bliven’s back and whispered, “Well, now that we’ve got these guns, what in the hell are we going to do with them? The barrels alone weigh seven or eight hundred pounds apiece. The cutter could never get them over to our ship.”
“I know. That is not practicable, and even if we got them to Galveston, there is no transport to get them to General Houston. And further, if that awful Potter fellow has started organizing his navy department, he will be doing it in Galveston, and he needs to be kept as deep in the dark as can be managed. He surely knows about us now because of the small arms we delivered there, and if we land again he may try to extend his authority over us and expose our whole game. I am understanding now why Houston told us to remain at sea.” His lips tightened in fast thought. “Go back to the Gonzales and tell Mr. White to follow us closely. Return with a dozen men. We will sail her into deeper water and consign the whole business overboard.”
Topside, as Sam was pulled back across, Bliven saw Carroll standing sullenly at his wheel. “One thing puzzles me, Captain Carroll, so perhaps you will gratify me. What was the need to try to disguise your cargo at all? If you are going to carry cannons and shot and powder, why not just get on with it?”
Carroll looked down the deck of the ship he no longer commanded. “The Five Points is an American merchant vessel. We are not supposed to take part in armed conflicts. Our company, however, chartered us to the government of Mexico, and for the vessel to remain insured we were required to mask any cargoes of war matériel.”
“Ah, I see. Thank you.” An American cannon foundry, and the American insurance companies again. They had been a burr under his saddle since the commencement of this whole operation. Their lack of regard for fellow Americans fighting for their freedom in Texas was odious enough, and now, to know they were minimizing their risk by cloaking their cargoes on vessels in Mexican charter, made it clear that they lacked political sympathies to any party whatever. They were in it purely for the profit to be made in the war and bloodshed. Yet corporations did not act from their own sentience; they were run by men. What species of men had so little conscience?
Sam returned with the carpenter and his sounding line. There was no speaking for the next hour as they steered the Five Points due east with the Gonzales following in tandem.
“Excuse me, Captain?”
“Mr. Caldwell?”
“I just wanted to let you know, the sounding is no bottom.”
“Thank you, Mr. Caldwell. Please to have Mr. McKay take in the sails and begin hoisting the bronze guns out of the hold and over the side.”
“Yes, sir. It does seem a terrible great waste, though.”
“I know, and I agree, but we cannot take them with us.”
Thirty times, Sam and Caldwell, down in the hold, made fast lines around the guns’ trunnions, with McKay cranking the windlass, each five-foot barrel slowly twirling its way up through the hatch, where other crewmen from the Gonzales guided it to the boarding gate, unfastened the rope, and let it fall eight feet into the Gulf waters, the bright bronze visible to a surprising depth as it shot to the sea floor. Then came the carriage assemblies, and the balls that were passed from hand to hand up the ladder, the men discovering in the doing not just solid shot but grape and canister as well.
“Captain Carroll,” said Bliven at last, “our duty here is nearly finished. Your guns and ammunition are now at the bottom of the sea, and we have taken your powder for our own needs. You are a neutral ship, so I do not claim you as a prize—although I believe that an admiralty court would sustain me if I chose to do so. I am hereby returning your manifest to you.”
He handed it over, and Carroll accepted it without comment.
“However, the military shipment that you went to such pains to deliver must have been accompanied by letters or dispatches to those who were expecting them. Will you give those over to me, or shall we be compelled to search for them?”
Carroll shrugged. “They are nothing to me now; come to my cabin and you shall have them. I cannot return to Matamoros now in any event. The higher up in the Mexican army you go, the more suspicious the officers become of everyone and everything, because no one knows who will be denounced and shot next. Today Santa Anna is on top; tomorrow, who knows? No, Mexico has seen the last of me.”
In his cabin he opened a desk and produced a leather pouch packed tight with documents in Spanish, elegant with rubrics.
Bliven tucked them into his coat. “I am sorry for the position in which you have put yourself. If it is any consolation, I believe you have tried your best to carry out your responsibilities. You could not have known that you were sailing into the path of a vessel that would completely overmatch you, and we thank you for your cooperation. May I advise you to put into a port at your first convenience and take on some ballast? Our operation has left you high in the water. I wish you fair sailing. Good-bye.” Carroll’s expressionless gaze followed him as he grasped the netting and swung over the side and down to the cutter.
No sooner had they sent the Five Points on her way east than Sam joined Bliven on the Gonzales’s quarterdeck, watching her slowly recede from view.
“Mr. Yeakel,” said Bliven, “we cannot go north into this wind. Let us beat eastward until it is more favorable.”
“Captain,” said Sam, “I know we did the right thing, but dropping all those guns overboard just rubs me the wrong way when our boys need them so badly.”
Bliven rested his forearms on the railing, finally unbending from his blustering posture in this ticklish business. “I know, Mr. Bandy, I know. But it was manifestly impossible to take them with us, and certainly not to Galveston.”
“Yes, sir, I do understand, of course. But now, do you think we can assume that those thirty field guns were the entirety, or nearly so, of all the artillery that the Mexican army was expecting to land in Santa Anna’s support?”
“Yes, I would think so, most surely.”
“Then, sir, General Houston as he retreats, either because he is luring Santa Anna within range of the American army in Louisiana or because he finds himself at an insupportable disadvantage, has no way of knowing that he can now engage Santa Anna with no fear of being slaughtered at a distance by artillery.”
“Yes, that is true.”
“You and I are the only ones who know what strategy he is truly following, and you must stay with the ship. May I recommend that you put me ashore as soon as we can manage it, and I can get this intelligence to him?”
Bliven considered it. “But where? We don’t know how far the Mexicans can have advanced. If what we heard in Galveston about the loss of the Alamo is true, he might have already swept the country clean.”
Sam thought for a few seconds. “You can put me ashore on Galveston Island at night, west of the town. I can just walk in and excite no comment; no one knows me there. If the town is occupied, I will be just one more of the citizens there; if it is still in our hands, as I believe it must be, I can learn where the army is and get to them.”
Bliven thought hard about it. “Are you sure you are willing to risk this?”
“I see no other way. Besides, it is not as though my own livelihood is not at hazard.”
“Very well.” Bliven saw the bosun forward by the capstan. “Mr. Yeakel, a new course!”
The Gonzales came around east-northeast, her yards snapped hard on the starboard tack, hauling as close to the wind as she could take. Galveston Island might be four days away, two and a half days in a better wind.
They aimed to put him ashore unobserved, but close enough to Galveston that Sam would not be waylaid by foraging Karankawas who might think a man alone, be he ever so heavily armed, was worth the risk to attack. The norther eventually lightened, replaced by a light east wind that then swung to the south; they approached the western tip of the island from the south, aiming to raise San Luís Pass just at dusk, shortening sail and shortening sail again. Having lost the foretopmast in the Bahamas, the Gonzales crept along under main and mizzen topsails and the staysails between them. Carpenter Caldwell called out the soundings without pause until his voice took on a tone of urgency at five fathoms. With only ten feet of water beneath his keel, Bliven ordered a turn to the northeast, edging up the coast for ten miles more, ever alert to sheer back to deeper water at the first sign of an unknown shoal or wreck. These waters had had three hundred years to collect the bones of ships that ventured too close to the beach’s never-ending combers; Bliven envisioned their ribs rising like fishhooks to catch the unwary.
For the last five miles Sam waited on deck in civilian clothes, with Yeakel standing by to lower the captain’s gig and row him ashore. It was two nights after the new moon; the beach of fine, pale, fawn-colored sand that would have shown him in stark relief in moonlight would now offer him good concealment. He should have no difficulty blending into the town without raising comment.
Bliven came up behind him quietly and tested the knapsack strapped to his shoulders. “Well, how do you think you’re going to manage this?”
“Start with that lieutenant where we left all the small arms, I guess. Houston sent him there, so he is the safest guess to be in Houston’s confidence.”
“Quite right, but I wouldn’t just march right in. It’s been a while, as we said Mr. Potter will likely be in charge now. You might visit that lawyer of yours across the street and talk about your will. You can keep an eye out the window and see who comes and goes, maybe catch that Besanson fellow on the street and learn the lie of affairs.”
“That’s just what I was thinking. Have you a report you wish me to hand to General Houston?”
“No, your report must be oral. In the unlikely event that you fall into Mexican hands, we don’t want any papers on you.”
The inky night made the gig hard to make out only a hundred feet from the ship; Bliven and Sam raised their hands in farewells, and he ordered a lantern hung from the main fighting top to guide the gig in its return.
It was then, after Sam was out of sight, that Bliven found himself able to think more clearly about matters that had troubled him for days. He sent Ross to bring him tea with rum and sugar and quinine water. As soon as the gig returned and was hoisted up and secured, he ordered easy sail to stand south-southwest, angling away from the coast, so that by morning they would be in safely deeper water but would still be in the shipping lanes. Almost alone on the deck but for Lieutenant White, who had the watch and the wheel, Bliven sat himself on the hatch cover, elbows on his knees, his hands wrapped around the oversized porcelain cup of tea and medicine.
What cleared for him was the realization that these Texians, in their revolution fought on however shabby a scale it was, might well be acting out the very questions of duty and morality he had put to himself, though in abstract, two years previous. With the American administration now captured by the scheming, vulgar Jackson, he had asked himself then where one’s duty lay when the government to which he had always been loyal became a grotesque of itself.
Could Santa Anna be such a monster as he was portrayed? According to Austin, still sick from his year and a half of confinement without trial or charge, he was. Bliven had himself heard of Santa Anna, of his abrogating the constitution, of the massacre of thousands of civilians in Zacatecas, long before he was so unceremoniously sent to New Orleans or had any connection with these Texians. Had not Jefferson himself famously written that the tree of liberty must be watered now and then with the blood of patriots—and tyrants? Surely if there was a tyrant now in power in the New World whose blood could properly water the tree of liberty, it was Santa Anna.
Yet there were elements of the Texas revolution that smacked merely of rhetoric. Did these Texians really think they should claim as a justification to revolt that they had been denied religious freedom when few of them had any intention of going to any kind of church anyway? Besides, they had accepted this condition when they entered the country. Most had never laid eyes on a priest. Might not these Texians merely be venting the same anti-Catholic hysteria that he had seen in Boston, not just shared but personified by someone as supposedly urbane and educated as Lyman Beecher?
And there were elements that remained unspoken. Slavery was illegal in Mexico, and it was the state government in Coahuila, not the national regime, that permitted its existence in Texas, so as to allow the creation of a cotton economy the same as in the American South. It caused him to wonder now whether there might have been something to the articles he had read in the Whig newspapers back home claiming that America’s sympathies were being fraudulently invoked to support an incipient new slave state. If that were true, then he himself was playing a part in the furtherance of slavery, the thought of which made him nauseous beyond the malarial fever working in his blood.
Or perhaps elements of all of these things were true, just as it was true that Mexico had granted these American colonists vast tracts of land—more land than any New Englander would know what to do with—to leave their mother country behind. They had forsworn their American citizenship and pledged their allegiance to Mexico. Surely Mexico was reasonable in requiring that they leave behind as well their American expectations of the almost boundless personal liberties they knew at home, and adapt to life as it was known to millions of other Mexicans.
On the other hand, is not the right to self-government so fundamental that it cannot be bartered away? The twenty-five or thirty thousand Americans now in Texas—no one knew exactly how many, for there had never been a census—had pledged their loyalty to a constitutional government that no longer existed. The question then reduced itself to whether the American colonists’ obligation to Mexico ended when that country sank into chaos and despotism.
Bliven sipped the last of his tea and nodded slowly; he could leave the argument there and perform his duty as he was ordered with a clear conscience—but with the proviso that if it became clear that American policy was using him to aid slavery, he would resign his commission and go home to stay. More fundamentally, he recognized now how Providence had been rubbing his nose in slavery, and Catholicism, since Jamaica, and Haiti, and the Castillo de San Marcos, and the nunnery that had burned down in Boston. For some purpose, he was supposed to understand all this.