Haley - The Devil in Paradise: Captain Putnam in Hawaii

1

Blivens eyes snapped open at the first rap on his cabin door, the first of threealways threeand he knew it was his steward. Enter! His voice was hoarse, and he coughed out a small clot of phlegm into the handkerchief that stayed by his pillow. He had slept soundly, the sea swell directly astern of them, powerful, gentle, rhythmic, and as he had fallen asleep it seemed to propel him forward into his dreams.

Good morning, Captain.

Good morning, Mr. Ross. His steward was a short man, of gracile build, with very wavy ash-blond hair, slightly dish-faced but not unpleasantly so, and with hazel eyes beneath woolly brows so heavy that they seemed always knit in worry. He bore a wooden tray with water, coffee, and a covered plate.

Bliven rubbed his eyes, rose stiffly from his berth, and entered his sea cabin. I am eating alone this morning?

SirRoss scooted aside a chart of the southern coast of Cuba that lay on the great mahogany table and prepared to lay breakfastthe lookout sighted a sail just a moment ago. The officers are already on deck.

Where away?

They make her three miles, sir, northwest.

Bliven paused to enjoy the morning sun streaming in the stern windows. Toward the reef.

It would seem so, sir.

M-hm. If it was a pirate or a slaver, he was doing just what he needed to: trying to draw them into shallow water. Well, as dearly as Bliven would have loved to take a slaver out of the trade, he would not be drawn in. Even after more than a decade it made his gorge rise to think of how Bainbridge lost the gallant Philadelphia at Tripoli, racing into shoal waters where he had no business going.

Ross set his breakfast down next to the still-open logbook in which Bliven had been writing the night before. Even before his first sip of coffee he took up the pen, flipped open the inkwell, and dipped the nib. He paused to wake up a bit more, for if there was one thing that had come to irritate him, it was an inconsistent hand in the captains record of the ships operation.

October 20, 1817. At dawn, sail sighted three miles northwest, toward the reef. Suspicion of illicit activity, will give chase and investigate, but not enter Spanish territorial waters.

Bliven cleared the pen with a tidy rubric and set it in its stand. How is the wind?

Easterly, sir. We have our will of him.

Maybe. Yes, they held the weather gage, if they chose to use it. Bliven rose and walked stiffly across his great cabin and closed himself into the privy. In the old design of ships he would have had to exit onto a narrow quarter gallery to access it, and as in the old design the close stool itself emptied over the open water, but for this new generation of ships the architects had reworked the whole design of a captains accommodation. Now it was divided by partitions into a six-compartment suite, with separate areas for working, sleeping, hosting guests, all surrounding the great sea cabin with its fine mahogany furnitureheavy, polished, elegant, but no longer fashionable and no doubt appropriated from some earlier vessel now stricken from the listfor dining and entertaining. Along the after bulkhead of his study, which lay to starboard and was matched by a guest berth to port, reposed the ten-foot assemblies of twenty-four-pounders on their carriages, their gunports closed against the weather. They served as reminders that in a battle even the captains suite fought, and one feature of the new architecture was that its partitions were collapsible. In beating to quarters, the partitions were lowered and the captains furnishings were stowed below in the wardroom, shared by the other officers at the stern of the berth deck. Thus the working frenzy of the gun deck in battle extended the whole length of the ship, from stern windows forward to the sick bay in the bow. Then, after the fight, even if the ship was ravaged by raking fire through the large, sunny windows, the partitions could be raised again and the furniture brought back up, and the captain and his guests could still dine in elegance and privacy.