Page 11 of The Salamander

“Captain Gutteridge is dead, sir. The bos’n as well.”

“And his papers?” Jon asked.

“Overboard, before we struck. Those were our orders.” His voice was firm, but there was raw bitterness in his eyes.

A quick tally showed eight carriage guns, twelve swivels, twenty small arms, sixteen pistols, twenty cutlasses, powder, and shot, everything in good order despite the fight. In addition to the captain and the bos’n who’d been killed, seven crewmen on the Dispatch were wounded.

“Return to the Tyrannicide,” Fisk ordered Jon. “Set a prize crew on her and assess our damage. I’ll join you shortly.”

Jon appointed Lieutenant Stockman as prize master. He, in turn, selected several crewmembers to go with him. “Take a gunner,” said Jon. “You’ll be sailing the Dispatch into Salem.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once Stockman and the prize crew were aboard the Dispatch, Jon was joined by Fisk on the Tyrannicide. “The damage report, Jon?”

“One crewmember dead and ten wounded being tended by the surgeon. The ship has shattered spars, torn sails, a damaged topmast and a hole in the gunwale. I recommend we return to Salem.”

The captain gazed around him. “I agree. Still, not bad for our first prize. And we can take the weapons we found aboard the schooner and her cargo of flour and rum. Let Lieutenant Stockman know he’s to follow us.”

That evening, Joshua Trask, the captain’s cabin boy, delivered cod-and-beef stew to the captain’s cabin where Fisk dined with Jon, Chaplain Marsh and Surgeon Malcom.

“What is the state of the crew?” asked Fisk.

“The wounded will recover,” Malcom reported.

Marsh inclined his head. “I’ll conduct services for our dead, and for Captain Gutteridge and the Dispatch’s bos’n, if the surviving officers wish it.”

“Very good, Chaplain,” said the captain. “We can offer.”

Salem Harbor, 16 July 1776

THE TYRANNICIDE ROUNDED Marblehead Neck under shortened sail, her pine tree flag lifting in the light morning wind. Ahead lay Salem’s wharves bristling with masts and rigging. From the quarterdeck, Jon saw gulls wheeling, dockhands rolling casks, and the fishwives’ stalls glittering with the morning catch.

The peal of the bells from the Old North Church rolled across the water, not the slow toll for a funeral, but a quick, jubilant clamoring.

“They’ve heard,” Captain Fisk murmured, a wry smile tugging at his mouth. “Word of the Dispatch’s capture has run ahead of us.”

Jon thought it strange. They’d made all speed from far out in the Atlantic where they’d met the Dispatch, yet somehow news had beaten them home. Still, in a harbor town, word could travel on the wind.

The captured schooner, under Lieutenant Stockman’s command, had followed them in, her patched rig drawing stares and pointed fingers from the crowd. Murmurs swelled into cheers, hats raised and waved.

As the Tyrannicide eased alongside Derby Wharf where the state’s ships docked, lines were tossed ashore and caught by waiting dockhands. The crowd pressed close to the edge of the planks, waving hats and shawls, the hum of voices rising to a roar.

Jon followed Fisk down the gangplank into the crush, the smell of tar, salt, and drying nets mingling with the warm scents of bread and molasses from the market. Someone clapped Jon on the back. Another called out, “Well done, lads!”

“Haraden!” A familiar voice cut through the noise. Jon turned to see Silas, grinning. “Have you heard the news, sir? We’re free men now, right as a fair wind!”

“What’s that?” Jon asked, though the glint in Silas’ eyes and the shouts all around hinted at the answer.

Silas thrust a folded sheet of the American Gazette into Jon’s hands. The bold heading leapt out: In Congress, July 4, 1776. Beneath it ran the words of the Declaration, printed in tight columns.

“They read it aloud not an hour ago in Town House Square,” Silas said. “Straight from Philadelphia! No more petitions, sir. We’ve declared our independence!”

Jon’s eyes traveled over the page as the breeze tugged at its edges. Men he had fought beside, men he had buried, seemed to stand with him in that moment. The words struck like the crack of a broadside. …that these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States. He felt the familiar salt sting at the corners of his eyes, though whether from wind or pride, he could not say.

“Mr. Haraden!” The call was lighter, warm. Eunice Mason came through the crowd, her bonnet ribbons fluttering, her eyes alight.

Hannah was gripping her right hand. “Papa!” she shouted, waving.