Deadly Shoals Read online

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  For Laura Langlie, loyal agent,

  faithful friend, and Wiki’s first fan

  Author’s Note

  On Sunday, August 18, 1838, the six ships of the first, great United States South Seas Exploring Expedition, commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, set sail from Norfolk, Virginia, headed for the far side of the world. The goal was the Pacific, but over the next four months the fleet surveyed the Atlantic Ocean, various calls being paid at Madeira, Cape Verde Islands, the northeast coast of Brazil, and Rio de Janeiro. The final Atlantic landfall was at Patagonia, for a survey of the shifting shoals of the Río Negro. This is the setting of the fourth Wiki Coffin mystery.

  While the background is based on true events, the real people in the following list of dramatis personae are treated novelistically, while other characters are imagined, some of them being the crew of the equally fictional seventh ship of the fleet, the U.S. brig Swallow.

  List of Several of the Officers and Men Attached to

  The United States Exploring Expedition

  UNITED STATES SHIP VINCENNES

  Charles Wilkes, Esq.

  Commanding Exploring Expedition

  Thomas T. Craven

  Lieutenant

  Lawrence J. Smith

  Lieutenant

  Christian Forsythe

  Lieutenant

  Edward Gilchrist

  Surgeon

  John Fox

  Assistant Surgeon

  Robert R. Waldron

  Purser

  Joseph P. Couthouy

  Naturalist

  UNITED STATES SHIP PEACOCK

  William L. Hudson, Esq.

  Commanding

  Oliver Hazard Perry

  Lieutenant

  Silas Holmes

  Surgeon

  James Dwight Dana

  Mineralogist

  Titian Ramsey Peale

  Naturalist

  Horatio Hale

  Philologist

  UNITED STATES SHIP RELIEF

  Andrew K. Long

  Lieutenant-Commandant

  UNITED STATES BRIG PORPOISE

  Cadwallader Ringgold

  Lieutenant-Commandant

  transferred to Sea Gull for the Río Negro survey

  UNITED STATES BRIG SWALLOW

  George Rochester

  Passed Midshipman, Commandant

  Constant Keith

  Junior Midshipman

  William “Wiki” Coffin

  Linguister

  James Stoker

  Steward

  Robert Festin

  Cook

  Dave Meagher

  Gunner

  Sua, “Jack Polo”

  Seaman

  Tana, “Jack Savvy”

  Seaman

  TENDER SEA GULL

  James W. E. Reid

  Passed Midshipman, Commandant

  TENDER FLYING FISH

  Samuel R. Knox

  Commandant

  One

  Off the coast of Patagonia, January 24, 1839

  Wiki Coffin was in the saloon of the U.S. brig Swallow when he heard the man at the masthead call out for a sail. The Swallow was flying south on the breast of a favorable nor’west wind, so he assumed the sighting was of a homeward-bound ship passing on the opposite course. However, it was the first sign of company on the seas for the past eight days, and so he ran up the companionway to the deck and then climbed the mainmast to see what it was all about.

  It proved to be a whaleship, about five miles away but coming down fast from the east, with all sails set but flying no flags. Her four boats were triced up in davits on the outside of the vessel, ready to be lowered at an instant’s notice if whales were sighted, but her canvas was pristine white, unmarked by tryworks smoke, an indication that she hadn’t done any whaling of late. Even from this distance, Wiki could discern a glint of copper under her foot as she crested the top of a wave, so knew that this was no northbound whaler deeply laden with oil.

  Instead, she was racing to come up with them. Looking about the empty sea from his lofty vantage point, Wiki frowned, touched with uneasiness. They were off the Patagonian coast, with the shoal-ridden estuary of the Río Negro on the western horizon. It was notorious as a hotbed of revolutionaries, having been deliberately impoverished by General de Rosas, the tyrant of Buenos Aires. Wiki also knew that de Rosas was currently waging war with the French over his territorial ambitions in Uruguay—and had heard rumors in Rio that the French were issuing letters of marque to their merchant vessels on this coast, which included a number of whalers. He swung down a backstay to the quarterdeck.

  Captain Rochester was standing on the weather side, one fist gripping the starboard shrouds. He was scowling, too. The instant he sighted Wiki he said, “What do you reckon, old chap?”

  “Her captain seems determined to intercept us, but he isn’t flying any signals—not even his ensign.”

  “Do you recognize her?”

  Wiki grimaced. For the past seven years he had drifted from one American whaleship to another, deserting at exotic landfalls whenever he had become heartily tired of whaling, or fed up with the captain and officers, or simply wanted to get back to the Bay of Islands to pay a call on his whanau—his folks in New Zealand. However, this made him no authority on the identity of individual whalers.

  He said, “It’s infamously hard to tell one whaleship from another, George.”

  The trouble was, they were all built for the same purpose, with no variety in the pattern. There had been one captain of his acquaintance who had painted his command in a myriad of colors just to make himself different, but most of his crew had promptly jumped ship, declaring that their garish appearance frightened off the whales. Accordingly, the old spouter master had returned his typically beamy old tub to her former livery of black, interrupted with one white streak painted with black squares to fool innocent savages into thinking she had gunports with cannon behind them. And, with that, she had returned to being indistinguishable from the rest of the whaling fleet.

  “So how do we know she’s American?”

  Wiki, who’d had the same thought, said flatly, “We don’t. She could be French. If she is, she could be a privateer—which seems likely, as she looks far too clean to be a working whaler.”

  “Then let’s make sure that her master knows beyond doubt that we’re a United States Navy brig,” Rochester decided. “Bo’sun,” he hollered. “Get the biggest ensign aloft.”

  It took just a moment to comply, and events followed fast. No sooner had the bright flag been run up to flicker from the gaff of the Swallow, than smoke puffed up from the stranger’s foredeck, and a cannonball screamed across the rapidly diminishing gap between the two ships. “He’s fired a shot across our bows!” George exclaimed in shocked disbelief. “Beat to quarters, by God—beat to quarters!”

  The stunned silence fore and aft turned into commotion. Sua, the brig’s Samoan dru
mmer, rushed into the forecastle for his drum—a length of log—and set to hammering out a primitive, blood-stirring rhythm even before he arrived back on deck. Rochester’s youthful second-in-command, Midshipman Keith, raced up from below, the off-duty watch tumbling hard on his heels. As usual in any emergency, Wiki, who was the best helmsman in the ship, took over the wheel.

  Every man was at his station; every head turned to watch the captain. “Wear ship, Mr. Keith, if you please,” instructed Rochester. Not only would this bring the brig around so that the two chaser cannon on the deck at the stern would come to bear on the stranger, but the Swallow would present a much smaller target.

  “Sta-a-a-tions!” Keith yelled, and hands clapped on to the weather braces and the spanker sheets. Men tailed onto lines, orders were shouted, and the spanker was hauled in with muscular jerks. Wiki heaved the wheel to leeward, and the Swallow’s fine bow turned away from the wind. His broad back suddenly chilled as a splash lifted over the taffrail and wetted his shirt.

  “Brace round foresails!” Down went the helm as Wiki shoved on the spokes, and round the brig came. When he looked over his shoulder the whaleship was firmly in their sights. Crews hauled manfully at train tackles to drag the guns inboard, and powder and shot were rammed home. Then, with the cannon run out again, they were ready for action.

  It had been a matter of mere moments. “Let’s return the compliment, and fire a shot across his bows,” Rochester suggested to the gunner, Dave. “Let’s see how he likes being brought to,” he added, and received a broad grin.

  There was a huge explosion, the gun carriage screeched backward across the planks, and the cannonball whistled across the bows of the whaleman with wonderful precision. The result was both dramatic and effective—to Rochester’s immense gratification, the spouter captain came up into the wind and backed his fore and mizzen topsails in a panic-stricken hurry, slowing to a near standstill.

  His blood being thoroughly up, however, George Rochester was determined to teach the impudent stranger yet another lesson. In response to his orders the brig luffed up, rounded to with a flourish, hastened up the wind, and bore down on the whaleship with all sails set. Moments rushed by in the creaking of rigging and the swish of water, and then Wiki could see the expressions on the faces of the men who were standing at the rails of the whaler. They were staring paralyzed with horror as the brig tore down upon them.

  Just as impact seemed inevitable, “Ready about!” George bellowed, and around the Swallow came. Losing speed fast, the brig sheered past the whaleship’s stern, while the sailors who could read called out the name on the sternboard—“Trojan of New London, Connecticut”—to those who could not. Their voices were incredulous. A fellow national had fired at them—a countryman! Oaths echoed from all about the decks, and the boatswain hollered for quiet.

  Like most American whalers, the Trojan had a hurricane house built over the stern, which was designed to shelter the helmsman, and contain such amenities as the sail locker. The master was standing on the flat roof of this, his fists propped on his belt, and his wide-brimmed leather hat crammed well down on his head. He was a middle-aged, deeply tanned, extremely wrinkled character, wearing a New Bedford beard—a fringe of short whiskers around the edges of his cheeks and chin—and a deeply wounded expression.

  Such had been the precision of Rochester’s maneuver, the captains were able to converse without speaking trumpets as the brig slid slowly past the whaleship’s stern. According to protocol, this chat should have been an exchange of formal details, such as names of ship, captain, and last port, but instead the spouter skipper inquired in unmistakably aggrieved tones, “Why the hell did you fire a gun at me, sir?”

  “I could say the same to you, sir,” Rochester replied.

  “Well, ain’t you a United States Navy ship?”

  “U.S. brig Swallow—and I’m uncommon glad you recognized me as such,” Captain Rochester said dryly.

  “So why didn’t you respond to my flag of distress?” the other demanded. “You carried on without giving me a chance to run down and speak! All you did was send up a bloody big ensign—as if you wished to taunt me! What choice did I have but to fire a gun to make you pay attention?”

  There was a moment of utter silence, disturbed only by the swish of the sea. Then George queried gently, “What flag of distress?”

  The spouter master visibly started, then stared up and about his own rigging. Wiki, still at the helm, saw him push back his hat to scratch his head, and distinctly saw his lips move in the words, “Well, goddamn it.” Someone on board the Trojan who had neglected to follow orders was going to be in big trouble, obviously—once the encounter was over.

  The gap between the two ships was widening. Rochester lifted his voice, yelling, “Come on board and explain yourself, sir!” and then they had sailed on past.

  The Swallow stilled a half-mile downwind from the whaleship, her mainyard brought aback so that the sails worked against each other, keeping her in more or less the same spot as she waited for her visitor. Then, everyone on deck watched the whaleboat cross the sparkling stretch of water, a process that evidently took long enough for the master to remember his manners, because when the boat touched the side of the brig, he stood up and hailed, “Ship ahoy!”

  George arrived at the rail. “U.S. Exploring Brig Swallow, Rochester, five months from Norfolk, Virginia, last port Rio de Janeiro.”

  “Whaleship Trojan of New London, Stackpole, twenty-five months out, last port Montevideo, eight hundred barrels,” said the other. His expression was dour as he rattled off the information, and Wiki grimaced in understanding. After a two-year voyage eight hundred barrels was a truly miserable report, indicative of long months with no glimpse of whales. No wonder, he thought, the Trojan’s sails were so clean.

  The whaling master went on, “Permission to come aboard?”

  George Rochester cast an all-comprehensive look at the boat and the ship beyond. Apart from the usual knives sheathed in their belts, the oarsmen were unarmed. Their ship floated quietly in plain view, the sun shining on her pale canvas. However, he decided to keep his crew at battle stations, so said to the boatswain, “Tell the men to stand fast.” Then he nodded, and stepped back from the rail.

  Stackpole reached out, grabbed a dangling rope, and walked his way up the side of the brig. Close up, he didn’t appear any less confrontational. Like all seamen, he first cast a comprehensive, professional look at the sails and rigging. Then, after glancing suspiciously about the decks where men waited alertly with their pistols and cutlasses, he challenged, “What do you mean, exploring brig?”

  George was studying him with his head tipped a little on one side, his hands linked loosely behind the seat of his white trousers, his muscular calves pushing out the legs at the back. He said, “We’re part of the United States Exploring Expedition.”

  “The—what?” Stackpole’s face was quite blank.

  “The U.S. Exploring Expedition,” George repeated, eyebrows high. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.”

  “Well, I haven’t,” confirmed the other, as hostile as ever.

  “But that’s amazing,” said Rochester, obviously wondering where this chap had been all these years. “It took a whole decade of heated discussion in clubs, salons, and conference chambers to get the mission going, and then, when the seven ships finally departed from Norfolk, Virginia, back in August, it was a national sensation.”

  “Well, I wasn’t there, was I? Seven ships?” Stackpole repeated, and whistled. “That’s quite a fleet. Who’s the commodore?”

  “Lieutenant Charles Wilkes.”

  “A lieutenant?”

  “It’s complicated,” said George. Wiki, listening from the helm, thought it was more than that—even though Charles Wilkes was called “captain” out of respect for the position he held, the fleet commander was understandably aggrieved that the Navy Department had not thought fit to endow him with a rank to suit the demanding job. Furthermore, it
made the situation devilishly difficult at times, what with having to hand down orders to men who were actually higher than he was on the Navy List, which had a bad effect both on his temper and on general shipboard morale.

  “But I do assure you that the mission is a grand one,” Rochester assured his listener. “We have instructions to explore and survey the Atlantic and Pacific, promote the honor and dignity of our nation, forward the interests of science, further American commerce, and protect American whaling adventures.”

  Stackpole did not look impressed. Indeed, Wiki thought that his expression had become more suspicious than ever. He repeated, “Seven ships?”

  “Seven,” repeated George, whose patience was starting to fray. “The flagship is the sloop of war Vincennes, and the other six ships are—”

  “So how come there’s only one of you here?”

  George said stiffly, “The others aren’t far away, I assure you.”

  “But why ain’t you sailing as a squadron?”

  “There was an unfortunate incident as we were leaving the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, involving both the Vincennes and the second-in-command, the sloop Peacock, and—”

  “You mean they got into a war, or something?”

  “Absolutely not. They merely ran afoul of a merchant brigantine.”