Northern coast of Cuba
1:17 a.m., Sunday
30 September 1888
Rork regarded me quizzically upon my return to the wheelhouse. I knew what he was thinking—Wake looks completely done in—so I answered before he could ask.
“Just a bit tired, Rork. I’m fine. Got the engine going again, but we’ll need some more stoking. Get Mena on that, then spell him in fifteen minutes. What’s the situation around us?”
Mena disappeared below as Rork reported, “Cruiser’s gone the long way ’round them reefs an’ looks about to come out o’ the bay, sir. Think we’ll have five miles on her, out o’ range o’ her guns an’ that light beam fer now. No other vessels in sight, exceptin’ the passenger steamer about two miles or so up ahead. She’s doin’ maybe ten knots, an’ now we’re movin’ again, we’re forereachin’ on her quick.”
I looked south, toward the jagged coastline silhouetted in the night. We were passing Punta Guano, and the shore had trended south and was a good three miles away. We were doing ten knots and increasing our speed but still had a long way to go. If we ran the cutter ashore and tried to escape overland—a very perilous proposition—we would reach the rocky coast at the same time the cruiser would reach our present position. The gamble that they wouldn’t see us was a long shot, indeed.
That passenger steamer was much closer, however, and a dicey scheme chose just that moment to enter my head. I looked aft and saw Reina Regente’s navigation lights moving fast as she swung to a westerly course, her search light panning back and forth toward us but still too far away. Doing some fast arithmetic, I reasoned my new scheme would have a better chance of success.
“Rork, I’ll take the helm. Get into one of these Spanish sailor’s uniforms, then get below. Help Mena stoke the boiler as much as you can before you return topside. I want everyone, including Andrés, in a Guardia Costa sailor uniform as soon as possible and ready for action in five minutes. Mena and I will be in the officers’ uniforms. You, of course, will be a bosun.”
“Aye! Takin’ that steamer, are we? What’s yer plan, sir?”
I briefed him, watching his eyes flare when he learned his part. Most men would have winced, but Rork laughed and slapped the chart table. “Ooh, ’tis a capital notion, sir—them Spaniardo bastards’ll be madder than hell when they finally figure it out.”
With strength born of desperation, everyone went about his tasks and got ready. We soon came along the port side of the steamer, which I saw was the single-funneled City of Washington, one of the Ward Line’s newer ships. An officer on the steamer’s bridge wing leaned out over the railing, examining our unusual flag with great interest.
Mena shouted up to the officer in Cuban-accented English and demanded a Jacob’s ladder be put down from the main deck for us to board and inspect, explaining that the cutter belonged to the Guardia Costa of the new and independent Republic of Cuba. Rork reinforced the demand by sighting along the barrel of the Nordenfelt gun, which was aimed squarely at the officer. Right then, the steamer captain appeared on the bridge wing. Visibly perturbed by this latest example of Latin American arrogance, he gruffly ordered his crew to slow the ship and comply with our demand.
Mena and I were the first aboard, followed by our sick and lame colleagues. Once on the main deck, my companions and I assumed the stance—or at least attempted to—of serious maritime revenue men inspecting a potential violator.
Rork was still aboard the cutter, down below in the engine room. Once we disembarked, he engaged the shaft clutch at full speed ahead and then raced topside to securely lash the helm on a course slightly to the south of west. That would take her gradually away from the steamer and eventually onto the rocky coast of Puerto Escondido and the lighthouse at Canasí. There she would lamentably shipwreck with an apparent loss of all life. Having finished those tasks, my friend nimbly stepped off the deck and onto the Jacob’s ladder, waving a salute to the now-deserted vessel as she embarked on her final chore for us: to occupy Reina Regente’s attention.
Mena and I had reached the bridge by then and were gladdened to see the cutter bounding forward. All of this mayhem was too much for the steamer captain, naturally, who dispensed with the usual niceties extended to revenue officers and demanded, “What the hell is going on here? And just who the hell are you?”
Good questions, both of them, but I couldn’t answer immediately, since the captain was surrounded by his officers, all of whom were as displeased as their master. Mena followed our unwritten script and echoed what he’d told the Spanish lieutenant on the cutter. “Captain, my colleague and I must talk to you in private.”
This new impudence got even more of a scowl from our host, so Mena upped the ante by appending, “It concerns one of your passengers.”
The captain, who had yet to introduce himself, stormed off down the ladder to his cabin just below the bridge deck. Mena and I followed and were joined by the newly arrived Rork, who looked mighty pleased with himself as he shifted his eyes meaningfully toward the cutter. I noted with pleasure that the cutter had gone ahead of the steamer, moving at a good clip toward Havana, and was now held squarely in a beam of light emanating from the east.
In the confines of the captain’s cabin, I shed my Cuban pretense and spoke for the first time since aboard. I was counting on him to be the kind of man we needed.
“Captain, allow me to explain candidly and quickly. I am Commander Peter Wake, an intelligence officer of the United States Navy, and I need to appeal to your patriotism as a fellow American, in command of an American-owned ship, for some assistance.”
His jaw gaped open. “So you’re not Cuban rebels or the Spanish Guardia Costa?”
I continued. “Neither. It was a double-false flag ploy. Several of the men I just brought aboard are, however, victims of the Spanish regime in Cuba. As master of this ship, you frequent the island and know what the government does in its occupation of Cuba. Our action tonight has been a ruse de guerre to escape from that cruiser, for if these men are caught they will suffer a terrible death—and our country will be ensnared in an international embarrassment. You can prevent that.”
“What do you want from me?” he asked cautiously.
“Captain, I know you are scheduled to put into Havana tomorrow morning on your regular port call. But I think you should head for Key West instead.”
“Oh, really? And, pray tell, why is that?”
Displaying my most sincere face, I explained. “I’ve detected a disturbing thumping sound coming from your engines, captain. Perhaps a feed water pump is about to overheat and cause considerable damage to your compound condensing engine. Therefore, I would suggest the most prudent thing for you to do is alter course to the north and put in at the nearest American port, where a detailed examination can be done while safely at anchor. Naturally, that would be Key West.”
Before the captain could respond, I waved a hand leisurely, as if the detour would be only a minor inconvenience for him. “Of course, once you’ve ascertained the pumps are fine, which will be as soon as you reach Key West and we get a boat to shore, you can then steam across to Havana. The stop will cost you only twelve hours at the most, but I can assure you it will gain you several very sincere friendships in our nation’s capital—providing all this is kept as quiet as possible.”
Admittedly, I’d given the man a lot to take in at almost two o’clock in the morning. The captain, whose name was still unknown to me, uttered, “Well, I’ll be a . . .”
He didn’t complete his reply, for out the captain’s doorway we saw Reina Regente thundering bravely past us, rushing after the distant cutter. At the same time, a far off flash erupted near shore.
I looked at Rork, who woefully wagged his head. “Ooh, lookee there, sir. Them Spanish sailors’re careless as a Chinee on opium, always leavin’ powder charges lyin’ about. Bet one o’ ’em just went off accidental-like on that cutter.”
“Rork, I thought the plan was for her to run onto the rocks—a shipwreck while escaping ashore.”
“Aye, that was the plan, sir. But that bloody damned cruiser was gainin’ on us a bit too fast—she’s as quick as they say—an’ they could’a gotten alongside an’ seen we wasn’t aboard the cutter. Then they’d be addin’ two an’ two an’ comin’ up with us boardin’ this fine ship. Well, we couldn’t have them Spaniardos botherin’ the fine American folks here, could we? So me decision was to end it all a bit sooner. An’ now the dons’ll think we’re all deader than hell an’ scattered in wee bits across the sea.”
After joining us in laughter, the steamer captain made his own decision to improvise. He whistled in a nearby brass speaking tube and called out an order to the officer of the deck.
“Captain to the bridge! Increase revolutions, Mr. Dozier, and lay a course nor’-nor’west to Key West.”
The steamer master then went to a side locker and produced a tray containing a large bottle of good, old American bourbon and a set of small glasses.
Pouring a round for all hands, he asked, “As a veteran of the U.S. Navy’s Mississippi River Squadron during the war, may I offer a toast, gentlemen? To the confusion of the enemy!”
