The Eagles Legacy

Chapter Five

Firth of Clyde

There were three ships on the Firth of Clyde. Two were steamships that lay anchored in the harbor. But one was tied up against the docks, and it was the Hiawatha, a three-masted, square-rigged, sailing ship.

There was a sailor standing watch on the dock-side of the ship, which meant Duff was going to have to get onboard without the man on watch seeing him. As he considered how best to accomplish this, he saw a skiff tied up about one hundred yards down the dock.

Looking around to make certain he wasn’t being observed, Duff untied the skiff, then rowed it out a short way before turning back to approach the Hiawatha from the opposite side. There he climbed up the side of the vessel, over the railing, then into the shadows of the ship. Finding a dark, out-of-the-way place on deck, he settled down to wait and see what would happen next.

He had almost gone to sleep when he heard the sheriff’s voice.

“You, aboard! Sailor on watch! I’m Sheriff Somerled. I would have a word with you.”

“I ain’t done nothin’ that would draw the attention of a sheriff,” the sailor called back in a flat, twangy, American accent.

“Still your concerns, sailor, ’tis not yourself I am questioning,” the sheriff replied. “Has a man come aboard seeking passage to America?”

Looking out from behind a large stanchion, Duff followed the conversation between the sailor and Sheriff Somerled. On the dock with the sheriff, Duff noticed, was Deputy Malcolm.

“Sheriff, this here is a merchant ship. We ain’t got no passenger a’tall.”

“I’m looking for a murderer. He is a big man with light hair, brawny arms, and shoulders the width of an axe handle. He would have come on only in the last few minutes.”

“Like I told you, we ain’t got no passengers a’tall. We got nothin’ but wool, bound for New York.”

“Maybe he boarded without you seeing him,” Sheriff Somerled suggested.

“There ain’t nobody what’s come onboard, Sheriff, by that or any other description,” the sailor replied. “Not while I been on watch.”

“Lower the gangplank. I’m comin’ aboard to see for myself,” the sheriff said.

“There ain’t nobody comin’ onboard this here ship without the cap’n sayin’ he can.”

“Then do be a good man and inform the captain that Sheriff Somerled wishes to come aboard.”

“I ain’t wakin’ the cap’n for you or nobody,” the sailor said.

“Very well, I shall return in the morning and speak with your captain.”

“We’ll be pullin’ anchor with the mornin’ tide,” the sailor on watch said. “Won’t do you no good to come back, ’cause we won’t be here.”

“Come,” Sheriff Somerled said to Malcolm. “The brigand cannot have gone too far. I’ll see him hanged before sunrise.”

Duff had stayed very quiet during the exchange and remained in place until the sheriff and his deputy were well away from the dock. Not until then did he improve his position, crawling from behind the stanchion into a tarp-covered lifeboat.

The ship was well under way when Duff awoke the next morning, lifting and falling, rolling from side to side as it plowed over the long, rolling swells of the North Atlantic. When he looked out from under the tarp, he could see the sails of the Hiawatha shining brilliantly white in the bright sunlight, and filled with a following breeze. The propelling wind, spilling from the sails, emitted a soft, whispering sigh.

The helmsman stood at the wheel, his legs slightly spread as he held the ship on its course. Working sailors were moving about the deck, tightening a line here, loosening one there, providing the exact tension on the rigging and angle on the sheets to maintain maximum speed. Some sailors were holystoning the deck, while others were manning the bilge pumps.

Because all were busy, no one noticed Duff when he crawled out of the lifeboat. He approached a sailor who was twisting a turnbuckle to increase the tension on a line.

“Pardon me, but where might I find the captain?”

“Lord ha’ mercy, where did you come from?” the sailor asked. “And who are you?”

“I am,” Duff started, then he paused in mid-sentence. “I am Captain Duff MacCallister, and I wish to speak with the captain.”

“How did you get aboard the Hiawatha, Cap’n?” the sailor asked.

“Please. Your captain?”

“You wait here.”

“Yes,” Duff said. “Where else would I go?”

Duff walked over to the rail and looked back. In the distance he could barely make out the shoreline.

A moment later the sailor returned with another man whom Duff took to be one of the ship’s officers.

“Are you the captain of this vessel?” Duff asked.

“I am Mr. Norton, the bosun. Who are you?”

Whereas Duff had used his reserve rank of captain with the sailor, with the bosun he was more direct.

“My name is Duff MacCallister,” he said.

“Jiggs said you called yourself a captain.”

“Aye, in the Scottish Reserves I am a captain. I am sorry if the sailor misunderstood. I wonder if I might speak with the captain of this ship.”

“Look here,” the bosun said. “How did you get onboard this ship?”

“I don’t know,” Duff replied.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

Duff put his hand to his forehead. “I had a great deal to drink last night,” he said. “I remember leaving the pub, then I remember nothing until I woke up on this ship this morning. Methinks some of my friends may have played a trick on me.”

“I think we had best see the captain,” Norton said. “Come with me.”

“Aye, such was my request,” Duff replied. “I would like to purchase passage to New York.”

“How did you know this ship was going to New York?”

Duff had heard the sailor on watch the night before say that the ship was bound for New York, but he could not say that or he would give away the fact that he was aware last night that he was onboard.

“I don’t know that you are,” he replied. “I know that many of the ships that leave from the Firth of Clyde are bound for New York. I assumed that was so with this ship. Have I erred in my assumption?”

“No, we’re going to New York, all right,” Mr. Norton said. “Come with me.”

Captain Powell drummed his fingers on the taffrail and glared down from the quarterdeck at Duff and his bosun.

“Who have we here, Mr. Norton?” he asked.

“We found him aboard this morning, Captain.”

“What is your name, stowaway?” Captain Powell asked. It was obvious from the tone of his voice and the expression on his face that he was displeased with seeing Duff.

“The name is MacCallister, Captain. And ’twas not my intention to stow away,” Duff replied.

“It was not your intention to stow away? Then, pray tell, MacCallister, how is it that you are on my ship?”

“I was drinking with some friends,” Duff said. He put his hand to his forehead. “I woke up on the ship this morning. They must have thought it good sport to put me here.”

“It matters not how you came aboard. The point is, you are aboard, and that makes you a stowaway.”

“I’ve nae wish to be a stowaway. I have enough money to pay for my passage, and would be happy to do so,” Duff said.

“That might be good if we were a passenger-carrying ship,” Captain Powell replied. “But we are not. We are a merchant ship, and you are unwanted cargo.”

“What shall I do with him, sir?” Norton asked.

“Confine him to the brig for the duration of the voyage,” Captain Powell said. “When we reach New York, we will give him an opportunity to buy passage back to Scotland.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Norton said. He started toward Duff, then paused, and turned back to the captain. “Cap’n, if you would permit a suggestion?”

“You may do so.”

“Peters did not return to the ship ’ere we weighed anchor. We are short one man in the starboard watch. Perhaps . . .”

“You would replace Peters with the stowaway?” Captain Powell asked.

“Aye, sir, if you be willing,” Norton said.

“Have you ever been to sea, MacCallister? Could you do the work of an AB?”

“I’ve been to sea, Captain, and fare well without becoming sick. I have never worked as a sailor, but I learn quickly.”

“From your dress, you have the appearance of a man of means,” Captain Powell said. “Are you a wealthy man, MacCallister?”

“I have land and livestock,” MacCallister replied, but even as he was saying the words, he realized that he would never see either again.

“Would you feel the work of an able-bodied seaman beneath a man of your station?” Captain Powell asked.

“Captain, as you have pointed out, and as I readily admit, I am a stowaway on your ship. My alternative to working, it would appear, would be to spend the entire voyage in the brig. I would consider honest labor to be far superior to that condition.”

Captain Powell laughed out loud.

“Very well, MacCallister, you may work for your passage. Mr. Norton, assign him to the starboard watch. Did Peters leave his chest?”

“Aye, sir, he did.”

“MacCallister, you are a bit taller than Peters, and a bit broader in the shoulders I would say. But I think you could wear his clothes. I advise you to do so, for your current attire is ill suited for the task at hand.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Duff replied.

“Mr. Norton, take MacCallister below, get him properly dressed, then muster the crew.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

It was dim belowdecks, though not entirely dark as the sun filtered down through the hatch above, falling in little individual squares of light on the floor of the deck under the fo’castle. Duff saw several men, bare from the waist up, sitting on chests or coils of rope. They looked around in curiosity as Duff and the bosun stepped into their midst.

“Men, this is MacCallister. He’ll be takin’ Peters’s place,” Norton said.

“He don’t look like no sailor man to me,” one of the men said. “He looks more like what you would call a gentleman.”

“Whatever he may look like, he is hired on as a sailor, and a sailor he will be,” Norton said. He looked toward Duff. “Get changed into working clothes.”

“Aye, sir. And thank you, Mr. Norton, for providing a way for me to avoid the brig,” Duff said.

“Just see to it that you do your work, for I’ll not be making excuses for you to the captain,” Norton said as he started back up the ladder.

After Norton left, none of the others spoke to him. The sailors were not purposely ignoring Duff, but neither were they inviting him into their circle. Duff knew from his few voyages, the most recent being to Egypt with his regiment, that a ship’s crew was a close-knit group. He wasn’t going to fit in right away; indeed, perhaps not for the entire voyage. But, as he told the captain, this was better than being in the brig, and it was infinitely better than hanging, which fate awaited him back in Scotland.

As Duff went through Peters’s sea bag, pulling out clothes, he was very aware of their pungent odor. Steeling himself to it, he pulled on a pair of pants and a blue-and-white striped shirt. Once dressed, he looked around the fo’castle, which would furnish his quarters for the voyage. It was filled with coils of rigging, spare sails, and items of machinery, many of which were foreign to him. He saw a hammock hanging from one hook, just above Peters’s kit. Looking to his left, he saw another hook and deduced that his sleeping would be accommodated by stretching the hammock from one hook to the other. He was about to stretch out to see how it worked when the hatch was opened and Norton shouted out to the men below.

“All hands on deck! All hands on deck!”

At Norton’s call, the sailors made haste to climb the ladder and spill out onto the deck. Duff went up as well, and started toward the left side of the ship when he emerged on deck from the top of the ladder, but one of the sailors reached out for him.

“Here, lad,” he said. “You’ll be starboard with us.”

“Thank you,” Duff said, thankful not only for the information but also because the sailor had spoken to him.

When all had come topside, they gathered toward the stern and looked up toward the quarterdeck. There, Duff could see the helmsman still at the helm, his hands securely on the wheel spokes, his eyes staring straight ahead. The vessel was leaned over, racing swiftly before the wind, and Duff could hear the noise of the water streaming back from the bow. He could also feel the pitch and fall of the deck beneath him as it rolled with the swell of the sea. He was glad that he had been to sea before, because he was confident that he would be able to complete this voyage without getting sick.

The captain stepped up to the rail forward of the quarterdeck, then looked down at his gathered crew.

“Men, we had a good crossing coming over, and I expect an even better crossing on the return. You know me well by now, and you know that when you perform your tasks as you have been assigned, you find me a pleasant enough captain. Shirk in your tasks and, I assure you, you will find me most unpleasant indeed. Mr. Norton?”

“Aye, sir?”

“Post the watches.”

“Aye sir.

“Port watch topside, starboard belowdecks.”

Duff went belowdecks with the rest of the starboard watch, and when he saw a couple of them stretch out their hammocks for a nap, he decided to do the same thing.

One week at sea

If Duff thought the life of a sailor at sea would be easy, he was quickly disabused of that notion. The ship’s officers found much for them to do, and while Duff initially thought it might merely be a means of making work to keep the sailors busy, he soon realized that all the work was necessary. Whenever any of the standing rigging became slack, a condition that seemed to be constant, the coverings had to be removed, tackles tended to, and tension put on the rigging until it was drawn well taut. Afterward, the coverings had to be replaced, which, Duff learned, was no easy thing to do.

Even the work caused work, because one rope could not be adjusted without requiring an adjustment to another. One could not stay a mast aft by the back stays without slacking up the head stays. In addition to the constant attention to the ship’s rigging, there was greasing, oiling, varnishing, painting, scraping, and scrubbing to be attended to, plus furling, bracing, making and setting sail, pulling, and climbing. Duff found that there was much to occupy him.

“Them that sails on the steamships don’t do all this work,” a sailor named Kelly said.

“They ain’t hardly what you would call sailors neither,” Jiggs said. “Them that sails on the steamships ain’t nothin’ but passengers goin’ along for the ride. You ain’t a real sailor ’lessen you are on a wind ship. Sails, that’s where the word sailor comes from.”

Those who were close enough to overhear the exchange laughed, but the work continued.

As the voyage progressed, Duff discovered that the business of running the ship was much to be preferred over the long, silent hours of night watch. That was because it was during those hours of night watch when he most felt the pain of Skye’s death.

More than one time he was sure that he heard her voice.

“Duff, my darling Duff, I am here. Can you not see me?”

Duff would turn with a small cry of joy and a smile on his face. But the smile would be replaced by an expression of sorrow as he realized that what he was hearing was the whisper of the wind from the sails or the murmur of water slipping by the hull, and no more.

Sometimes, too, he would see her flashing eyes in the green light of the luminescent fish that would keep pace with the ship. Such experiences were bittersweet for him. On the one hand, it kept the memory of Skye ever fresh in his mind; on the other, it kept the pain of his loss ever aching in his heart.

Toward the end of the second week at sea, the starboard watch was below when Duff heard the raindrops falling on deck thick and fast. He could also hear the loud and repeated orders of the mate, trampling of feet, creaking of the blocks, and all the accompaniments of a coming storm. In a few minutes, the slide of the hatch was thrown back, which made the noise from above even louder.

“All hands on deck! All hands on deck! Topside, me hearties, we are into heavy seas!” Norton shouted down.

When Duff reached the deck he saw, firsthand, what it was like to be running before a storm at sea. The heavy head sea was beating against the Hiawatha with a noise that sounded as if someone was taking a sledgehammer to the hull. On one particularly large plunge, the bowsprit dipped and poked through a large swell. The wave broke over the bow and threw its spray the entire length of the deck.

The wind was blowing with gale force as the ship crashed through the waves. Suddenly the great mainsail on the main mast ripped open from top to bottom.

“MacCallister, Kelly! Lay up to furl that sheet before it blows to tatters!” Norton called.

“Aye!” Kelly replied. “With me, MacCallister!”

The two men climbed the mast and began working on the torn sail, but no sooner had they finished with it than the topsail tore loose and began flapping in the breeze, threatening to pull away and take with it the topgallant mast, which was now vibrating like a wand.

“We’d best get to the to’sail!” Kelly said, starting to climb even higher.

Duff had not yet climbed to the topsail, even in calm weather, but he started up one side of the mast as Kelly climbed the other side. When they reached the topgallant, the wind was of near hurricane velocity, and the mountainous waves were battering against the side of the ship with the impact of a cannonball. The Hiawatha would be lifted by one swell, hang quivering over the trough between the waves, then slam back down into the sea, only to be caught up by another, even larger wave.

Up here, too, Duff experienced firsthand the geometric principle of fulcrum and arm. The ship was the fulcrum, the topgallant mast was the farthermost part of the arm, thus making the gyrations aloft three or four times more severe than what those on deck were experiencing.

When he reached the top, he realized that he didn’t really know what he was supposed to do. Kelly realized that as well, so he called out to him, his voice thin in the howling gale.

“We have to pull in the sail! Wrap your leg around the t’gallant yard so’s you can hang on!”

Duff did as Kelly instructed, and fighting hard to overcome the flapping pitch and yaw, the two men were able to pull in the loose sail, then furl it at the bottom, securing it with line.

“We can go back down now!” Kelly shouted, but at that very moment a severe roll tossed Kelly free and he started to fall. Without thinking, Duff let go with his hands, and holding himself secure only by his legs, almost as a trapeze artist, he swung his torso down and managed to catch Kelly by one hand, at the last possible moment.

The next roll of the ship pitched Kelly into the mast and he grabbed it with both arms. Duff pulled himself back up, then grabbed the mast and scrambled back down to the deck just behind Kelly.

“Well done, lad, well done,” Norton said to Duff.

Back on deck, and with all the sails furled, there was nothing left to do but ride out the storm. The deck heaved up, then fell to starboard, then dipped sharply to port. The roll to port was much longer and deeper than the roll to starboard had been, and Duff feared for a moment that it might just keep on going until the ship capsized. But his fear was unfounded as the ship slowly returned to the upright position, only to roll back to starboard again.

Finally the storm ended, and while it left the sea a dirty green, jagged looking and frothy, at least it wasn’t boiling as it had been. The sky was gray with low-lying, scudding clouds that were no longer dumping rain. The deck was a shambles and men were lying exhausted on every space available, paying little attention to the wet boards. There were broken fixtures and dangling stays, but the storm sails had been replaced with the regular sails and, once more, the ship was making all good speed.

Some time later, Duff was standing at the rail looking out over the sea when Kelly came up to him, carrying two cups of coffee.

“I thought you might like a cup of coffee,” he said, extending one of the cups to Duff.

“Aye, thank you, a bit of coffee might be bracing now,” Duff said, accepting the cup.

“You saved my life,” Kelly said.

“You would’ve done the same for me.”

“I might have tried, but I ain’t no ways near ’bout as strong as you, so I don’t know if I could have done it,” Kelly said. He took a swallow of his coffee, then stared for a moment at Duff. “Did you really kill someone?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You are the one the sheriff was looking for the night just before we left port, aren’t you? I was on watch. The sheriff said you killed someone.”

“How do you know I’m the one he was talking about?”

“You came aboard that night. I don’t know how you did it. I sure didn’t see anyone, but that must have been when you done it.”

“Yes, I came aboard that night,” Duff admitted. “I borrowed a skiff, came up alongside opposite the pier, then climbed up.”

Kelly chuckled. “I thought it might be something like that. Who did you kill?”

“I killed two of the three men who killed my fiancée,” Duff said.

“I’ll be damned. Killed your fiancée, did they?”

“Yes.”

“Then they needed killin’,” Kelly said.

“Indeed they did.”

Kelly took another swallow of his coffee. “I’m glad you did it. And don’t worry none about it, because your secret is safe with me, MacCallister.”

“I appreciate that.”

Duff’s feat in grabbing and saving Kelly’s life gave him entrée into the close-knit bond of the crew, and for the remaining voyage, he was treated as one of their own.

By the time they reached New York, Duff was an accomplished seaman. He went aloft with the rest of them to reef the sails on orders. He climbed down over the side to hang but inches above the water to apply pitch to the side. He holystoned the deck. He performed every task assigned cheerfully and ably. Now, as the ship sailed into New York Harbor, he was standing on the mizzen mainsail yard as the ship was met by a tugboat. With all sails furled, and forward propulsion being provided by the steam-powered tugboat, they were brought up snug against one of the piers. There, from the pier, small lines, attached to huge hawsers, as big around as a man’s arm, were thrown up to sailors fore and aft on the ship.

“Make lines secure, fore and aft!” Captain Powell called.

The sailors, fore and aft, looped the hawsers around the on deck stanchions.

“Lines secure, fore and aft, aye, sir!” Norton called back

“Drop anchor!”

The windlass let the anchor down as the crew scrambled to check watches and see who had won the pool on the exact time the anchor would drop.

The Hiawatha, its crew, and Duff MacCallister were in the United States of America.