St. James was entering upon one of those glorious days that Wake loved in this part of the world. He had never seen anything like it sailing the North Atlantic off the New England coast. There the sea’s beauty derived from a terrible majesty, but here it was the intermingling of the clear and delicate water colors with the soft forms of the islands and reefs that lent a beauty that could not be described adequately in letters back home to his parents in Massachusetts.
St. James was east of the Tortugas Islands, sailing directly into a rising sun on a close reach with the trade winds sending a gentle, but steady, flow of air from the south southeast. She had almost all of her wardrobe showing as the sails took in the wind provided and pulled her forward through the emerald seas around her. It was one of those mornings that makes a man thankful to be exactly where he is, and Wake took in a lungful of the clean warm air, stretching his lanky frame to its furthest extent. The feel of the sun and wind on his face, combined with the smells of the galley and the salt air, made him feel alive. The toes of his bare feet flexed on the smooth wood of the deck and his fingers wrapped around the tarred main shrouds that rose up to the mast cap high above. Wake felt all of his senses heightened, reveling in them as he looked around to see what was what since he had gone off watch eight hours earlier.
His survey of the decks this morning took in McDougall, the gunner’s mate, and his party cleaning the bore on one of the twelve-pounder deck guns. McDougall was a quiet and serious man, of more years than anyone else aboard, who knew his business with cannons. His graying hair and low growling voice showed his authority far more than any insignia of rank. He had sailed in all the seas of the world and would occasionally tell of things he had seen and done, especially on the Anti-Slavery Patrol in the forties, inspiring silent reflection in all who heard. McDougall and Rork, both Catholic Irishmen, were the two senior petty officers aboard and the solid pillars around which the rest of the crew formed.
Farther forward, Beech, the spindly framed cook, was emerging from the foredeck hatch with a pot of coal ash cleaned out from the galley fire below, preparing to toss it leeward. He nodded to his captain as he made his way across the heeling deck.
Wake was glad that he had Beech. The man was a decent cook who made the provisions they were issued actually edible, unlike most of his counterparts in the navy. More importantly, he made the fish, crab, and lobster they caught aboard while patrolling taste absolutely delicious, the stuff of fine dining establishments, which is exactly where Beech used to work in New York City before joining the navy in an effort to avoid dying in the mud somewhere in Virginia or Tennessee for some intangible Union cause.
Wake still remembered the all-night poker game at the Rum and Randy Tavern, a rather jaded establishment on Turner Lane in Key West, where he had won Beech from the lieutenant commanding the ordnance ship stationed in the harbor. As the game neared dawn, the other remaining man at the table had exhausted anything of value to bet with. He finally said that he had a cook aboard his ship who had been a chef up in a New York dining room. The final bet of the game was the cook’s assignment versus Wake’s case of Cuban rum and forty-two dollars, which itself had belonged to the ordnance ship captain at the beginning of the evening. Wake smiled at the memory of Beech reporting aboard the following day. The cook had not been happy at all about his new assignment on a small schooner, nor the method of his transfer to her, that took him away from the comforts of Key West.
Wake turned his view to the after deck of the ship, where four seamen were rubbing the deck spotless with holystones near the port main shrouds. Patient explanations of how to steer a “small” course were being made to a new seaman at the helm by Faber, the bosun’s mate. Faber was something of an unknown quantity to Wake, having just shipped aboard three weeks earlier. Somewhere around twenty-four or so, with a face that looked perpetually pained, Faber had so far shown the competence of an experienced seaman if not the leadership of a veteran petty officer. He had made bosun’s mate a month before reporting aboard and had last served on a steam gunboat in Tampa Bay. Serving aboard a schooner in the Florida Keys was certainly quite different.
All of this activity and invigorating atmosphere reminded Wake that he had not yet had anything to eat. As he descended to his cabin for a bite of breakfast, he saw Rork coming aft on the main deck and motioned for him to follow below. Wake wanted to go over the provisions with him.
Seated at the small chart table in the commander’s cabin both men started at the grouper fish, potatoes, and gravy laid out by Beech. Wake, fork in hand, was the first to speak.
“Rork, wher’re we at on the provisions? Especially water.”
“Aye, Captain, we’re down to six o’ the small casks, plus the wee one in the schooner’s boat, o’ course. Other provisions are still good. Not sure how many, but I’m sure that we have at least ten o’ the salt pork left, and as many o’ the biscuit. Fruit, o’ course, is gone. A wee bit o’ the beer left. Water’s the thing, sir.”
Wake didn’t like that. They had used up too much water already. But in the heat of the tropic summer, the men had to consume more water or die.
“All right, it looks as though we’d better put in at the squadron for more water. How are those casks doing? Are we losing some through leakage?”
“Aye, sir. Some, but not as bad as we’ve had before. I just looked at the six o’ the little devils still full. Nary a drop around ’em leakin’.”
“Right then, back to Key West. Weather should hold.”
“Captain, with this lovely little wind she’ll do nicely. Key West by the morrow’s night perhaps, I’m a thinkin’. A bit o’ a beat upwind if the wind goes back to the east, but she’ll point high enough if we’re behind the reefs in the calmer water.”
With this decision made, Wake returned to what was left of the meal before him, swilling down a mug of coffee and then wondering how much water was used to make it. If the weather changed for the worse, or the wind died, all hands would be put on short rations by tomorrow morning. Six small casks of water for twenty-five men would not last long.
***
Sunset in this part of the ocean was always an event. As they roared along eastward, heeled over and beating upwind in long tacks toward Key West, the men of the St. James stopped in their work to admire the free display of God’s artistry spread out on the horizon behind them. Wake never halted this practice, for he believed that enjoying the tranquillity of a tropical sunset was one of the few benefits available to men subjugated to the disciplines and dangers of naval service.
This was one of the memorable ones. There were just enough cottony trade wind clouds to provide a moving canvas for pastel colors to be projected upon, and the luminescent glow of the sun as it slid downward made the waters to the west dance like glittering jewelry. Even the toughest of the men appreciated this demonstration of beauty and appeared to be pondering inward thoughts as they swayed with the movements of the ship and gazed far off into the receding light.
Wake always wondered what they were thinking, but no one ever talked during the last few minutes of a sunset. It was as if each owned a part of it, possibly the only thing of beauty he had ever owned, and it was an unspoken taboo to disturb his communion with the sun’s last moments.
Close to the horizon, golden hues were giving way to bright rose and faded pink, while at the zenith above, the colors were turning from darker royal blue and greenish-gray into violet-black. On the upper eastern arc of the sky the first, and brightest, stars were starting to glimmer in the early night void. Only two or three initially, then more as the blackness spread. Almost touching the bowsprit forward, the moon, seemingly twice as big as when seen from land, started to erupt from the sea, a faded spot of orange tinged with yellow. It was as if the watch had changed in the heavens,
