Rough Passage to London(8)
Foster piped in, interrupting Morgan. “Sounds like they were shanghaied by John Bull.”
Morgan nodded. “That’s what the old tar told me. He never laid eyes on my brother again, but he’d seen Taylor three years later in one of them grog shops on Cherry Street. He described him as a much-changed man, old beyond his young years. Said Taylor looked like he’d seen the Devil himself. He was fired up pretty well with the grog.”
Morgan had a rapt audience at this point, with Captain Foster and his men settling into the small cabin for a night of storytelling. The air was moldy and the wooden cabin sole was still wet from all the seawater that had poured in through the hatchway. They had no fire to warm themselves so the men kept passing the rum bottle.
“Did that old tar ask Taylor about your brother?” Foster inquired.
“He did,” Morgan replied. “He said he flat out asked Taylor whatever became of Abraham.”
“So . . .”
“Marshall told me that when he asked about Abraham, Taylor got all scared and shaky and started to whisper, ‘I ain’t supposed to tell, but I tell ye what, it was foul play of the worst kind, the Devil’s own mischief.’ Marshall said Taylor kept holding his hands over his ears and talking about the voices he was hearing, voices from hell he called them. He said something about how Jonah should have been cast forth into the sea.”
Morgan pulled his coat more tightly around him.
“Sadly, that’s all I know,” he said shaking his head despondently before continuing with his tale. “I know I need to find out more. Abraham would have wanted that. Whether my brother’s dead or alive, I need to get some answers. And if by some miracle he’s alive, I need to go find him and bring him back home.”
“Where you reckon you’re going to find him, boy? The world is a mighty big place.”
Morgan was silent. He looked down at his feet, and then his jaw tightened and his face took on a more determined look. “I don’t rightly know how I will find him, but make no mistake, I will. I got me a berth on a John Griswold ship going to London.”
The captain shook his head, spitting a squishy wad of tobacco out a porthole into the water. “Sounds like one of them new American ocean packet ships. You know about them packets, don’t you, boy?”
Morgan felt intimidated, but managed to stammer a response.
“They’re mail boats, ain’t they?”
“That’s right, but these new ships are full rigged with three masts. Square-riggers on a schedule, that’s what they call ’em. The Black Ball Line is sailing regular each month with fixed dates from New York to Liverpool these past few years. They’re carrying cargo and passengers as well as the mail. I seen the letter bags with the packet’s name on it hanging down by the Tontine Coffee House. No serious man of business is relying on those slow British brigs to deliver the mail anymore. The smart merchants are sending their packets of mail on ships flying the stars and stripes.”
Morgan had no idea about any of this, but he nodded knowingly.
The man paused and looked at him with a bemused expression on his face. “Speaking truthfully boy, if I was you, I’d turn around and go back where you come from. Your brother, he’s probably long ago dead. That’s just my cogitations, mind you. You rackety youngsters always do as you please.”
Morgan shook his head. “What if my brother is out there? He could still be alive. Maybe he’s hurt? Maybe a prisoner somewhere? Or he could be sick? Ain’t that right, Captain?”
The Block Island captain paused in thought as he ran a calloused hand through his bushy head of silver hair, then turned to Morgan with a smile. “You might be lucky, boy. Who knows? You might find that critter John Taylor down in them quim houses along Cherry Street in New York, or the alehouses on the East End of London. I venture to say sailors and sewer rats never stray too far from those two hellholes, no matter how much they roll and tumble around the world.”
After that bit of sage advice, the captain punctuated it with another stream of tobacco juice he squirted, into a spittoon this time. He then hitched up his pants and picked up the rum bottle, giving all hands another round. The next day, with the wind dead aft, the coastal schooner sailed with the tide into the East River. For Ely, who had only gone as far as New London and Hartford, the great booming port of New York was a wonder. The masts of ships were stacked up like a leafless forest. Hogsheads of sugar, chests of tea, and bales of cotton, wool, and merchandise were strewn all around the wharves. Swarthy stevedores pushed squeaky wheelbarrows loaded with outbound barrels of flour and corn. He could hear the shouts of wagon drivers blending in with the noisy clatter of horses’ hooves on cobblestones. He began to despair. How could he possibly hope to find any trace of John Taylor in the midst of all of this confusion?