Rough Passage to London(120)

Over the next few days, the winds of the North Atlantic favored the packet ship and they were able to make up for lost time. The breeze stayed constant, eventually settling in from the southwest. The weather conditions were excellent, with cloudless skies and cool air. The tributaries of the Gulf Stream, moving at half a knot, were also helping to pull them eastward. With every possible sail set, the packet ticked off the miles as she sped eastward toward the continent at fourteen knots. It was about one hundred miles from the southwestern edge of Ireland that the cry came out from the lookout on the mainmast.

“Smoke on the horizon!”

Morgan grabbed his spyglass and sure enough he could see a trail of black smoke hanging over the far eastern horizon. A steamship was no more than ten miles ahead of them. The sun was just setting to the west, ominously coloring the skies a brilliant red.





The next morning Morgan could barely make out the Royal Navy flag flying off the steamship’s mizzenmast. The first mate held the spyglass to his eye, and then turned toward him.

“Something strange there, Cap’n,” he whispered. “That steamship. It almost seems like she slowed down overnight. Might be she’s having engine trouble?”

A seed of doubt crept into Morgan’s mind. If this steamship ahead of them was Stryker’s ship, the Hydra, he couldn’t possibly hope to accomplish anything by coming closer. His instincts told him to raise even more sails and give the steamship a wide berth, but some force he didn’t understand wanted to see if this was Stryker’s ship. Anger, pride, revenge, friendship, and loyalty were all bubbling inside of him. He reached into his pocket with his left hand and felt his brother’s old pennywhistle, and in that moment he put his doubts aside. Like a sudden strong wind taking control of the sails, he felt unable to resist where he was being pulled. At that moment, it was Abraham, not Hiram, who was on the Royal Navy steamer ahead of him.

“Let’s swing closer, Mr. Moore.”

Within a few hours, they had moved to the windward of the paddle wheeler, still trailing by a mile. Morgan calculated that the steamer was moving along at about nine knots, slower than usual. The two ships were almost at the western edge of Ireland now. In the distance he could see the breakers crashing onto the rocky shoreline of the islands near Dunmore Head, with the bright green edge of the cliffs and mountains in the distance. The Southampton had left New York slightly more than eleven and a half days earlier. It was not just a fast passage. It had the makings of a record passage.

Morgan could see the individual paddles churning in the water and hear the roar and thumping of the engine arising from the guts of the steam frigate. With the spyglass, he could just make out the name of the ship on its transom. It was the Hydra. At the sight of the packet outracing the bigger 208-foot-long steamship, the delighted American passengers on board the Southampton were now singing “Yankee Doodle” and waving their white handkerchiefs triumphantly to signal that they would soon be saying good-bye to the smoky steamship.

The packet ship came even with the steamship’s paddle wheels on the windward side. The two big ships were now just three hundred yards apart. If Morgan hadn’t come that close, it’s possible he might not have seen the scuffle on deck. A man dressed in a simple work shirt with blue dungarees was swinging an oar he’d picked up from one of the lifeboats. The man was surrounded by the frigate’s officers, who were ducking and weaving.

“Bring us closer, Icelander. There’s something strange happening on the deck of the Navy ship.”

Morgan held the spyglass firmly to his left eye and tried to follow the action occurring at the stern of the Hydra. It took him several attempts to steady the glass, but he was finally able to focus on the man who was causing so much trouble. His face and arms were black with soot, and he was wielding the oar like a sailor who had rowed many a dory in a rough sea. He’d already knocked down two men. The ghostly vision of Abraham faded as Morgan looked more closely. It was definitely Hiram. He had grown a full beard since he’d seen him last.

At that moment, he saw the image of Stryker appear in his bouncing lens. The man’s face was livid with rage. Next to him was another man he knew. His large head and body and his small, black eyes hidden beneath fleshy eyelids made him unmistakable. It was the same man who had led the attempted mutiny against him on the Philadelphia years ago. He breathed out slowly even as he felt a chill go down his spine. “Blackwood.” The man’s black hair was now streaked with silver, but otherwise he was unchanged. Standing next to him was a man with beet-red hair and an eye patch. “Big Red,” he whispered.