“Steamer ho!”
A plume of black smoke billowing up from a ship signaled trouble. A steamer flying the British colors headed straight for them, her bow covered with armed British sailors. Morgan picked up his spyglass, fearing the worst. He looked for the faces of Stryker and Blackwood on the ship’s deck, but he couldn’t find them. The ship steamed into the harbor at close to her full speed. Morgan could now see the figure of the ship’s captain standing up on the arched paddle wheel, the smoking funnel directly behind him. He expected the steamship to come alongside, but instead the frigate steamed by, hardly noticing them. It wasn’t Stryker’s ship, the Hydra. It was another Royal Navy paddle-wheel frigate built to the same specifications. Once all the passengers were brought to shore, Morgan wasted no time in calling for the Southampton’s anchor to be raised.
29
Morgan arrived at Pine Apple Place just as his friend Charles Leslie was coming in from the garden. After a three-day-long passage from Falmouth, he had docked the Southampton at St. Katherine’s that morning, and had decided to consult with Leslie about the events in this last horrendous passage to London. The cheery, beaming face of Leslie greeted him at the front gate. He had a basket of fresh lettuce and tomatoes from his garden under his arm. The artist was busy painting a scene from Much Ado About Nothing, one of several Shakespearean-inspired paintings he had been commissioned to work on that year. Leslie showed him the almost completed portrait of the Morgan family and promised him that it would be done when he returned in the fall. Leslie was eager to hear the captain’s news about his record-breaking passage. He said they would throw him a party to celebrate his accomplishment. But it was Leslie’s news that filled most of their conversation. Had Morgan heard about the shipwreck of a Royal Navy steam paddle-wheel frigate off the coast of France?
“It was the H.M.S. Hydra, just returning from a tour of duty in the West Indies,” exclaimed Leslie. “She crashed onto the rocky shore of the French island of Ushant. I think the French call it Ouessant!”
“What!” Morgan exclaimed. “Are you sure? What happened?”
Leslie’s eyes glistened with the excitement of this horrific story.
“Some local people standing on the southwestern edge of the island said they saw men being swept off the decks by crashing waves that engulfed the entire ship.”
“Were there survivors?” Morgan asked, his voice quavering.
“The local fishermen couldn’t help them. They were afraid the high waves battering the coastline would sweep them away.”
“Were there any survivors?” Morgan asked again more emphatically. Leslie quickly found that day’s copy of the Times and read it to him.
“It says here ‘no survivors, but amazingly the ship’s hull remained intact. The Admiralty has sent a special team to investigate, and see what they can recover.’”
Leslie dropped the paper and looked directly at the captain.
“Can you imagine that, Morgan, watching all of those people die?”
“Oh, my Lord!” Morgan gasped.
“Did you see that ship by chance on your way up the Channel?”
Morgan winced slightly. “We did see a ship steam up from the south as we entered the Channel,” he said cautiously, tugging at his earlobe. “It followed us past the Scillies and Wolf Rock. Then it disappeared.”
Leslie nodded soberly as he continued to look at the newspaper.
“It says here that this ship was in Bermuda and had been newly assigned to the West Africa Squadron. It had gone to New York to refuel at the coaling station over in New Jersey.”
Morgan kept his feelings to himself, not wanting to reveal too much, even to Leslie. He was reeling with the horror of the news. He felt so badly for all those sailors. His mind was awash with contradictory emotions of shock and sadness, mixed with relief and triumph. He imagined all those men being swept off the decks into the churning water. He felt a wave of nausea, but then he saw the faces of Blackwood, Big Red, and Stryker, and he felt no empathy, only a strange sense of freedom. He decided to change the topic. Soon they were talking about the Royal Academy and how Leslie’s son Robert had exhibited at the academy this year with a painting called A Sailor’s Yarn inspired by one of his passages across the Atlantic with Morgan.
“It was one of the few contemporary paintings at this year’s exhibit,” the artist rattled on.
Morgan nodded with only moderate interest. He was used to Leslie chattering on for hours about the London art world. He was reading the newspaper’s account of the shipwreck, wondering what information about his own complicated life and the dangers he faced he could share with Leslie.