“Mr. Pate!” Taylor cried again, his voice laced with frustration and anger. The redoubtable privateer captain he had been during the war with England would not permit him to give up the ship without a fight. “Obey my order, damn your eyes!”
Reluctantly, Pate complied. With her sails set to counteract each other,
Mary Beth
drifted to a standstill as her crew, freed from their sailing duties, loaded and ran out her guns. Presenting her puny broadside to the oncoming brig, she bobbed up and down on the dazzling blue sea like a tiny cork of defiance.
The brig's captain dispensed with the formality of demanding surrender. Veering off the wind, he brought his larboard guns to bear and opened fire in rapid sequence.
Mary Beth
answered, the high-pitched bark of her guns drowned out by the ominous roar of her tormentor's. Iron balls and grapeshot shrieked into the schooner, smashing through bulwarks, chewing up rigging, butchering anyone caught in their path. A sailor stationed by the foremast was struck full in the chest by a round shot. In a fraction of a second his tanned and sinewy torso was pulverized into splinters of bone and flecks of gore.
“Sweet Jesus, Captain!” Pate implored as the brig swept on by, wore ship, then made ready her starboard guns to deliver another glimpse of hell. “We must strike!”
Realizing the hopelessness of further resistance, Taylor nodded his agreement. He ordered the American ensign hauled down and watched helplessly as the brig backed her topsail and maneuvered into position alongside his schooner. Bare-chested sailors heaved over ropes, the iron claws at their ends banging onto the schooner's deck. The claws gripped the bulwarks and the two vessels were pulled close together. As the brig's captain stepped on board
Mary Beth,
Taylor prayed silently that these pirates would somehow be different from others of his experience.
His prayer went unanswered. Furious at being shot at by these upstart Americans, the pirate captain ordered Taylor sent below under guard. Taylor sat in the dank hold, his back against the hull, teeth clenched and eyes closed, but unable to escape the horror of the screams erupting from up on the weather deck. The screams were followed by the sound of bodies splashing into the sea just a few feet away from where he was sitting, to be followed by more screams and then horrible gurgles as the waiting sharks circled in and struck, drawn by their keen sense of smell to waters made bloody, Taylor suffered no doubts, by jugular veins slashed open with a knife.
When all was quiet and Taylor had fought back the urge to shriek like a madman at the inhumanity of it all, he began to contemplate his own fate. He was to learn that fate some time later when he was seized by guards and strong-armed topside. At the larboard entry port he was dispatched below into a boat in which four pigtailed sailors sat waiting with oars raised before a heavily armed coxswain at the tiller. Once Taylor was secure on the after thwart, his hands were tied loosely behind him.
As he was rowed ashore to what appeared to be a small, deserted island, he tried to determine, based on approximate time elapsed and probable speed, where he was. His best guess was somewhere within one of the southern archipelagos of the Bahamasâthe Exumas, perhaps. Wherever he was, he could bet it was far removed from the Old Bahama Channel and other well-traversed sea-lanes.
When the bow of the boat hissed onto the sand, he was summarily dumped overboard. He splashed onto the wet sand and shallow water, then battled himself to his knees and upright to face his captors, to stare them in the eye.
“
Au revoir, Capitaine
,” the coxswain sneered. “
Appréciez votre séjour sur cette belle île
.” That remark set the four oarsmen to laughing. The American captain was very unlikely indeed to enjoy his sojourn.
Before shoving off, the coxswain gently lobbed a dirty canvas bag up onto dry sand.
Taylor's gaze never left the boat as he slowly twisted his hands free of their binding. Only after the boat had been hauled on board the brig and the brig was making sail in company with
Mary Beth
did he turn to look about him. What he saw was not encouraging. The island was indeed small, a mere speck of land surrounded by a vast expanse of glittering blue sea. At first blush it appeared bereft of anything to sustain life.
He picked up the canvas bag and pulled apart the opening. Inside he found a half bottle of dark rum wrapped in rags. A further search revealed a small pistol, together with powder and ball to fire one shot.
Two
Boston, Massachusetts September 1797
Y
OUNG WILL CUTLER saw them first: two glints of white on the distant horizon beyond Outer Brewster Island, the massive outcropping of bedrock at the entrance to Boston Harbor. He turned the lens of his long glass to bring the glints into sharper focus. She was a double-topsail schoonerâthat much he could determine from the two massive fore-and-aft sails now beginning to take shape beneath the furled topsailsâbut he could not yet see her hull despite his elevation on the roof of his family's counting house on Long Wharf. He could see that her course was north-northwesterly and that she was making for the Graves, as though intending to bypass Boston. But the sailor in Will knew that counted for naught. Although the fifteen-knot southwesterly breeze hit squarely abaft her beam, the schooner had taken in her topsails, which she would not have done had she intended to carry on to some farther destination. Boston was her destination. Will was convinced of that. Once she sailed past the Graves up toward Nahant, she would swing her bow through the wind on a new course that would take her southward between Deer Island and Long Island Head.
As the schooner rose higher on the horizon, Will waited in agonizing suspense. He had a strong hunch, but it was only a hunch. He would not know for certain until he saw her hull, more specifically the color of her hull. When the mainsail took full form just above her deck, he held his breath and stood on tiptoes, as though those extra few inches
might make all the difference. Almost there . . . almost there . . .
yes!
A brilliant flash of yellow reflected the sun, and Will whooped for joy. He knew of only one yellow-hulled, double-topsail schooner sailing in these waters, and that beautiful and graceful vessel sailed in the employ of his family.
“Jamie!” he shouted down to his younger brother lolling about on the wharf below, inspecting the merchant vessels nested tight against each other, their yards a-cockbill to avoid entanglement. The boy glanced up. “Get Father! I see her! She's coming!”
Jamie Cutler looked up, shading his eyes. “You see her, Will? Are you sure?”
“Of course I'm sure, you twit. Now hurry! Father's at McMurray's, with Mr. Hunt.”
“I know that!” Jamie took off at a full sprint. At the age of thirteen he was, like his brother, a fine physical specimen, consistently finishing first or second in footraces against his classmates at Derby Academy in Hingham. Within minutes he was across from Faneuil Hall and inside McMurray's, an establishment renowned for the quantity and quality of its shepherd's pie. He found his father in the dimly lit oaken room sitting by a window and having dinner with George Hunt, the diminutive, soft-spoken, and yet highly competent administrator of Cutler & Sons.
“Father!” Jamie cried out, bursting into their conversation. Patrons chatting at nearby tables stopped in mid-sentence to take note of the excited lad dressed in ordinary brown trousers and open-necked white shirt. “It's
Falcon,
Father! Will's seen her. She's coming! She's almost here, Father!”
A blond-haired man in his mid-thirties placed a large hand on Jamie's shoulder, the sky blue of his eyes boring into the rich hazel of his son's. They were expecting
Falcon.
All of Boston, all of New England, all of America was expecting
Falcon
. Her imminent arrival was the reason he had allowed his sons to abandon school and sail with him to Boston from Hingham every day this week, and would continue to do so until the day
Falcon
arrived. But could today really be that day? She was a fast ship. No one understood
Falcon'
s sailing qualities better than Richard Cutler. But could Agreen truly have sailed from Algiers to Boston in just five weeks?
Answers to those questions were obvious in the eager expression on Jamie's face and the way he kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other, edging toward the door. Richard stood up. “Will you settle this, Mr. Hunt?” he asked, meaning the bill.
“That will not be necessary, Mr. Cutler,” a voice cut in. “Today your meal is on the house.” In a loud voice of authority the headwaiter proclaimed to the tavern at large, “On this glorious day, all food and drink are on the house, compliments of Mr. Charles Wheeler, proprietor of McMurray's Tavern!”
That announcement was met with a round of applause reinforced by whistling and shouting and stamping of feet. Some patrons bolted for the door.
“You go on, Mr. Cutler,” George Hunt said amid the din. “I'll be right along. At my age I'm not as fleet of foot as you and your son.” He smiled warmly at Jamie.
Richard bowed in appreciation to both Hunt and the waiter and followed his son out the door. The dazzling hues of early autumn struck his eyes, and a refreshing breeze ruffled his hair. Bells began to toll, first from one church, then from another, then from another and another and another until it seemed to those gathering on and near Long Wharf that the joyous peals must go far beyond the confines of Boston and Cambridge, all the way to the western frontiers of the young republic.
A large crowd was gathering on the waterfront. Wives, parents, siblings, and sweethearts had waited ten years for this day, and they would not be denied. When word had arrived almost a year ago that a treaty had been signed in Algiers, hope soared that every American sailor held captive in Barbary would soon be home. As always, however, the devil was in the details. Another ten months would pass before the disorganized U.S. government could raise the agreed-upon ransom and hammer out those details to the satisfaction of the Arab rulers of North Africa and the advisers and magistrates and self-seeking connivers lurking in their courts. It was not until early June, three months after the Treaty of Tripoli had been ratified by Congress and signed by President Adams, that American vessels were allowed safe passage along the Barbary Coast. Even then, bureaucratic inexperience and ineptitude caused one delay after another, adding to the national sense of anger and despair.
Finally, in mid-July, a special communiqué was relayed to the European ministers and American negotiators in North Africa. After holding Americans captive for more than a decade and forcing them to labor on barely sustainable rations, the dey of Algiers, along with the bey of Tunis and the bashaw of Tripoli, grandly announced that on August 10, 1797, all prisoners held in the Barbary States would be released. On August 7 Agreen Crabtree, the most trusted ship's master in the Cutler merchant fleet, set sail on board
Falcon
to Algiers from Gibraltar,
where he had been biding his time for three weeks in the cordial company of Richard's brother-in-law, Jeremy Hardcastle, a senior post captain attached to the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Squadron.
Â
RICHARD AND JAMIE wove their way along Long Wharf through the throngs of citizens straining to reach the spot where dockhands were clearing a space for the schooner to tie up. Some in the crowd recognized the elder Cutler and made room for him and his son to pass through. More than one reached out to touch him in gratitude, for the men returning home on board this particular schooner were in the employ of Cutler & Sons. Muslim pirates had seized the company's brig
Eagle
in the Mediterranean in August 1787. Since then, Cutler & Sons had done what it could to secure the release of its sailors, sending Richard Cutler and Agreen Crabtree to Algiers with $60,000 in ransom money raised from family members on both sides of the Atlantic. Although that ransom attempt had failed to achieve its primary purpose, the imprisoned Americans at least knew that their country had not forgotten them and that their employer had not forgotten their families. Speaking on behalf of the Cutler family, Richard had promised
Eagle'
s crew prior to leaving Algiers that Cutler & Sons would look after their families for as long as necessary. Although the cash squeeze on the shipping company had been extreme at the time, the Cutler family had kept its promise.
Will Cutler dipped and bobbed his way over to his father and brother when he saw them wending their way to the Long Wharf counting house. “See, Jamie, I told you!” he crowed.
“Mr. Cutler! Mr. Cutler, sir!”
Richard turned to see a small-boned, thirty-ish woman in a faded blue cotton dress and plain white mobcap coming toward him. Her face was familiar, but her name escaped him. “I'm Jane Reed,” she said, sensing his uncertainty when she was close to him, “wife to Jim Reed.”
“Yes, of course, Jane. I'm sorry. It's been a few years, and in all this confusion . . .”
“Mr. Cutler,” she interrupted him, “I've something to say to you.” Taking a deep breath and fighting back tears, she leaned in so that he could hear her amid the clanging of bells and the bustle at dockside. “Thank you,” she said, her voice breaking. “Thank you and your dear family for all you have done for me and my Jim. You, sir, are a saint.” She swiped away tears and then reached up to kiss him on the cheek.
Richard had to fight the lump in his throat to reply. “I'm hardly that, Jane. It's God's blessing that
Eagle'
s crew has come home to us today.”
“His, yes,” she agreed, “and yours, Mr. Cutler.” She touched his arm before moving off into a crowd that was growing ever more jubilant as
Falcon,
lying a short way off the quay with her bowsprit facing toward the east whence she had come, made ready to be warped in. Sailors at her bow and stern heaved coiled ropes to dockers stationed fore and aft on the merchant vessels bracketing the space cleared for
Falcon
along the half-mile stretch of Boston's longest commercial wharf. The dockers caught the ropes and, aided by deckhands, ran the bitter ends through hawser holes and onto cylindrical capstans bolted amidships on each of the two vessels. Once the end of each rope was secured to a capstan and a signal given, men stationed in a circle around the giant winches pushed hard on the metal bars at the top, taking in first the slack of rope and then the full weight of the schooner herself, coaxing her slowly inward toward the wharf.