Chapter 4: The Ague

October 1800

There were not many repairs to perform in Cormorant after the rather uneventful passage, apart from a thorough revision of her running rigging, and after just a week, Theodore Grey could report his sloop ready to sail. With no convoy currently assembled, Sir Hyde Parker, the commander in chief, detached Cormorant to patrol and cruiser warfare around Hispaniola. With the unfortunate Island torn between the Black rebels, the pockets controlled by White French loyalists, and the Spanish forces trying to fight off the rebels in the eastern parts, there was no centralised control, allowing privateers and pirates to use small harbours and coves as their land bases, to safekeep their loot and to repair their ships. It was Cormorant’s task therefore to patrol the waters around Hispaniola.

Since privateers often carried supernumerary crews for manning prizes, Theodore Grey conferred with the Port Royal arsenal and exchanged four more six-pounder long guns against twelve-pounder carronades, for added, short range fire power. This also required a change of the ammunition stores, and it took two days for everything to be ready.

Then, two weeks after her arrival in Kingston Harbour, Cormorant weighed anchor, sailing eastward. Immediately after leaving port, the hands were piped to quarters and the gun crews and powder boys exercised with the changed armament. The now six carronades on the gun deck, three to a side, were grouped amidships under the command of a midshipman, and Thomas found himself assigned to run the cartridge bucket for them. He did not mind that — it was one companionway less to climb up and down — but he was smart enough by now to see that his father wanted him off the exposed quarterdeck.

He was not the youngest on board anymore since a boy four months younger had joined the crew from the Port Royal parish orphanage. Jerry Jones was slight even for a eleven-year-old and struggled with the cartridge bucket he had to carry. Thomas and his friend Willie Smith, the latter fully recovered from his broken arm, resolved to take turns helping the boy until he grew some meat on his protruding bones.

Thomas had grown by an inch since joining Cormorant, and running to and fro on the decks all day for his duties, he had become stronger, too. No longer did he have to fight tears if hurt or scolded. Under the well-meant tutoring of Tim O’Leary and his mess mates, he was growing into a tough young fellow, able to look after himself. With Tom Watkins now assigned to the mizzen mast division as sailor, Thomas became the top dog amongst the ship’s boys, not the least because of his guardian angels, O’Leary, Wilkerson and Burton, who were respected and a little feared on the lower deck.

Over the next days, the exercises continued, and after passing the Windward Passage and turning to East, Cormorant and her crew were prepared for their task. Sailing along the northern shores of Haiti and San Domingo, they inspected Tortuga Island, of former Buccaneer fame. The island had long ago lost the importance it had once had, and they found nothing but fishing boats there.

Continuing their cruise along Hispaniola’s northern coast they encountered little shipping until approaching Cap Haitien. Fishing boats were plying their trade, but there was no sign of seagoing shipping. Moreover, the place was likely controlled by the Black rebels, and they had orders to avoid confrontations with them. Indeed, as they sailed past, the tricolour flag with vertical stripes, the flag of the rebels, was raised over a small fort protecting the bay.

They reached the next port, San Fernando de Monte Christi three hours later, but again, no signs of seagoing ships were seen, and they kept their easterly course, but shortened sail over night. When, after the short dawn of the tropics, the sun rose brilliantly from the sea, the lookout hailed immediately.

“Ship ho! Two points to larboard, heading south. Two masts, ship-rigged foremast, fore-and-aft rigging on the mainmast. Looks French, Sir!”

Mister Duncan jumped for the rigging and climbed up with a spyglass. From the topgallant cross-trees, he hailed down.

“Sir, French-built brigantine, heading for the coast. We can head her off, Sir!”

“All hands, all hands make sail!” Theodore Grey shouted, and the boatswain’s mates picked up the order. Not a half minute later, the topmen streamed up along the shrouds, and not long after, Cormorant was lying over under the press of all plain sails and darting forward. Like all ship-sloops of the Swan class, Cormorant was exceedingly fast at a half wind, and she was showing it on this morning. The strange sail was visible from the deck now, and to the officers and crew it became quickly clear that the outcome of the race was not in question, barring some unforeseeable change of the wind or damage to the rigging.

The captain of the strange ship must have seen this, too, for she changed course to east, trying to outrun the British sloop. It was futile to the onlookers, but perhaps he hoped for some miracle or a divine intervention in his favour. None was coming though. By 6 bells, Cormorant was only two cable lengths behind the fleeing ship and soon, the foremost six-pounder gun sent a shot across the stranger’s bows. Their quarry doggedly kept her course. Of course, the crew was at stations already, the gun loaded but not run out, but Theodore Grey knew his business and would not waste a carefully loaded broadside at such a distance. Instead, he had his ship keep up the chase, gaining steadily.

When the ships were only a half cable length apart anymore, the fleeing captain tried the last card in his sleeve and tried to go to the wind, masking his intent as well as possible. Yet, performing the manoeuvre under full sail and without preparation became his undoing. When he put his helm alee, the abused brigantine lay over precariously when the full wind caught her from abeam, and her helmsmen did the only thing possible, namely fall off, bringing her right into the path of the charging Cormorant. Months of sail drill paid off when, within a minute, the courses and the mizzen sail were furled and they were only a pistol shot apart.

In the whole confusion of the botched turn, only one of the other ship’s gun ports opened, but that gave Cormorant’s captain good cause to order a broadside. Wooden planks were flying and sails were torn, and the damaged ship turned into the wind, since her bowsprit with the staysails had been shot away. Theodore Grey manoeuvred his ship abaft of their quarry, ready to rake her from stern to bow, but he took his speaking trumpet.

“Strike or be damned!”

Some man on the quarterdeck lifted a musket, obviously trying to defy the British, and with a sigh, Captain Grey blew his whistle. When the smoke disappeared, the man was gone, probably torn to shreds, but somebody else appeared, his hair wild, waving a cross-bone flag and throwing it over board, in an obvious gesture of surrender. Cormorant then hove to a pistol shot away, her guns ready, whilst Lieutenant Duncan took longboat and cutter with the marines and most of the starboard gun crews and boarded the brigantine from her fire lee.

“Hope it’s not some bloody trap,” one of the carronade crews spat. Like the others, Thomas watched with bated breath as their men boarded the ship, but soon Mister Duncan showed and waved his arms.

“We have possession, Sir!” he shouted over the noise of wind and sea, and the remaining crew on board the Cormorant exhaled with relief.

It was a decided disadvantage for a curious boy to serve in the waist of the ship and not on the quarterdeck, since he could hear nothing of what Mister Duncan reported to the captain an hour later. Nevertheless, word filtered down to them, whilst they were securing the guns, returning the powder cartridges to the magazine and scrubbing the traces of the gun battle away from the deck planks.

According to the rumours, they had indeed caught a privateer-turned-pirate, originally named Egalitè, of 12 guns, but rechristened to La Vipère, with a severely decimated crew of twenty-four of the original sixty-one, having suffered through an outbreak of a deadly fever. The remaining crew had survived the fever, but were emaciated and weak.

“The easier to string the vermin up,” gunner’s mate Metcalf opined, and that seemed to be the prevailing sentiment amongst Cormorant’s crew. It also reflected the decision made by Commander Grey, since shortly before dusk, the captured pirates were hanged from the yards of their ship, with Cormorant’s crew watching with morbid curiosity. Thomas, too, saw the twitching bodies being run up to the yard arms and then unceremoniously dropped into the sea below after the twitching stopped. Normally, Theodore Grey would have preferred to bring the prisoners to Kingston, for a trial and public hanging, but the risk of bringing the fever to Cormorant was too high. As it was, Mister Jordan, the ship’s surgeon, was sent over to fumigate the lower decks of the captured ship, whilst the prize crew scrubbed decks and everything else with fresh seawater.

It took until noon in the next day before the prize crew was able to hoist the fore topsail and set the gaff mainsail for the return to Kingston under the command of Master’s Mate Yates. Three days into their return, Mister Duncan turned sick, developing a fever and violent dysentery with his skin turning a waxy colour. Only hours later, two men of the original boarding party showed the same signs. It was clear that in spite of their caution, they had the yellow fever in the ship.

Over the next two days, the stench coming up from the lazaretto became unbearable. Fortunately, two dozen of the crew, including their captain, had lived through the yellow fever before, and that nucleus of a crew kept the ship going. Thomas was locked into the chart room and not allowed to leave by his worried father, yet, when they cast anchor in Kingston, flying the yellow flag to warn other ships, Thomas, too, became sick.

His fever rose alarmingly and voiding his bowels under cramps became almost unbearable. The surgeon tried the treatments he knew, but they had not worked on poor Mister Duncan, who died only hours after they cast anchor. His father stayed with Thomas at all hours, feeding him tea and hard tack, but the boy could not keep down the food and the drink, and soon he became delirious.

Theodore Grey was beside himself in his worries about his only child, and in his desperation violated the Navy quarantine regulations. Jim Wilkerson was one of the men who had come through the yellow fever before and was assumed to be hardened against it. In that second night at anchor, he was called to the cabin.

“Wilkerson, I need your help,” the captain started. “My son has caught the fever, and it’s killing him slowly.”

Wilkerson looked his dismay, but the captain continued. “There’s a witch-doctress in Port Royal Parish, Cubah Cornwallis. She can heal where our surgeons are powerless. Take these five pounds and bring Thomas to her. The jolly boat is right under the stern windows, and it’s only a cable length to the shore. Will you do it? I can’t go. With Mister Duncan dead, I must stay on my post, but help me get my son to Cubah.”

Wilkerson just nodded. “I’ll do it, Sir. You was fair to us, and the lad is our mate. I’ll do it.”

Minutes later, the jolly boat quietly made its way to the shore whilst the watch on the quarterdeck was distracted by the sudden appearance of their captain. Stealing a glance at the black water behind them, Theodore Grey saw the small boat getting close to the shore, and he took a sobbing breath. His only son’s life depended on the healing powers of a former slave.

Thomas never woke from his unconsciousness during the short boat ride and neither whilst the limping Jim Wilkerson carried him towards the witch doctress’s dwelling. Fortunately, the sliver of moon cast a weak light on his path and even of the front of the dwelling. Mindful of the late hour and the night watch men, Wilkerson rapped softly against the wooden door.

“Ahoy, the house! I’ve got a sick boy here! Ahoy!” he announced as loud as he dared. He knocked again, and then again, and finally the flickering light of a tallow lantern could be seen from underneath the door. A deadbolt was worked, and a woman as black as the night around him, showed in the door, a white hood covering her hair. Holding up the lantern, she looked at the limp body in Wilkerson’s arms.

“You’re from Captain Grey’s sloop?” she asked.

“Aye, Mistress. The Captain’s son took ill, day before last. The yellow jack got ‘im bad.”

“You had it before?”

“Aye, Mistress, I had. Even if’n I hadn’t, I would’ve come. The lad saved me when I caught a splinter in me leg. I owe ‘im.”

“Bring him in. How long you say since he fell ill?”

“Two days, Mistress.”

“What was done for him?”

“Wet cloths with vinegar, same as the others.”

“Anything to eat?.”

“Not since the morning when he became like this.”

“There’s cot over there. Lay him down there.” The doctress ordered, already feeling the wrist of the boy for a heartbeat. Then she put the back of her hand against the forehead. “We’ve no time, sailor. Undress him. If I can’t get his fever down now, he’ll die. See that tub? Take the bucket and fetch water from the well. Fill the tub, and be fast!”

Wilkerson moved as fast as his sore leg permitted. He tried to be quiet filling the bucket in the well, but he hurried, and after a few minutes, the tub was filling. The doctress lifted the boy up gently and laid him into the cool water. More cold well water was added, until most of his body was covered.