Page 38 of The Salamander

But as the Tyrannicide rocked gently in Bilbao’s harbor, her new guns secure and her crew refreshed, Jon felt the pull of home stronger than the sea wind. The prizes were already consigned to the merchants’ agents ashore, their cargoes to be sold for the profit of state and crew. Now his duty was to carry his own ship, lean, fast, and ready, safely back across the ocean to Massachusetts.

Nantes, France, 21 May 1777

JOHN FISK SAT in his cabin on the Massachusetts, quill in hand, careful not to smudge the ink as the ship’s motion jostled his hand. He paused, staring out the stern windows at the Loire, crowded with masts and French merchants bustling on the wharves.

He’d reached a safe harbor, but there was no word of Captain Haraden. He had put off his report to the Board of War as long as he could. Now, he wrote steadily, though his hand tightened on the page.

I regret I do not have the pleasure of advising you the Tyrannicide is here with me. On the seventeenth at nine in the morning we gave chase to a ship standing to the eastward and came up fast. At three we got within two miles of the ship, then saw three sail in the N.E. bearing down to us, and then the whole squadron appeared. One of said sail hoisted English colors. I bore away and made sail from them; the ship gave me chase. Captain Haraden bore away also, chased by another ship. The ship came up with us fast. At nine at night, I hauled my wind; Captain Haraden bore away before the wind. At half after nine, I lost sight of Captain Haraden and soon after, lost sight of the ship. At ten, I saw three flashes of guns, which I suppose the ship fired at Captain Haraden. I am afraid the ship took him, as I have not heard nor seen anything of him since.

Setting down the quill, he pressed his brow with ink-stained fingers. Rumors had already reached Nantes that the mighty Foudroyant, a Royal Navy ship of the line, had been seen patrolling the coast. Fisk almost fancied he could hear her guns in memory, echoing across the Bay of Biscay, thunder that had not yet spent itself.

He shook the thought away, blotted the page, and sealed the letter. A French clerk waited discreetly at the cabin door to see it delivered to the packet bound across the Atlantic. Soon the words would make their own perilous voyage, and in Salem they would fall like shot through the heart: Captain Haraden lost, the Tyrannicide taken.

Salem, early June 1777

THE NEWS CAME first in murmurs at the wharves, carried ashore from a coaster out of France. By evening it was on every tongue: the Tyrannicide had been chased by a British squadron off the Bay of Biscay, and Captain Haraden was lost. Some swore a ship of the line had taken him, the dreaded Foudroyant with her towering guns.

By morning, the talk reached the market at Essex and Central Streets. Martha heard it from the fishmonger, who shook his head as he wrapped her cod. “They say your captain’s gone, Martha. Taken, or worse.”

She snapped her head up. “No. Jonathan Haraden’s too sharp for them, you’ll see. He’s bested worse odds.”

But the fishmonger only sighed, and Martha’s voice faltered as the denial turned to dread. She came back to the house with her basket heavy, her step heavier still.

Mrs. Mason was in the parlor with Hannah and Polly and the Gloucester Haraden girls. Martha blurted the rumor before she could stop herself.

Hannah froze, eyes wide as saucers. “Papa? Taken?”

Mrs. Mason was on her knees in a moment, in front of the child’s chair, drawing her close. “Hush, love. We do not know the truth yet. Rumors run faster than fact. Your father is cleverer than most men afloat. If there is a way clear, he will find it. God will guide him.”

“She has the right of it,” said Martha, wanting to encourage the child.

The next day was Sunday. The pew was full. Andrew and Lydia Haraden sat close with their brood, their faces solemn. Martha in her best cap, lips pressed tight, sat next to Silas.

Hannah clutched Mrs. Mason’s hand and her locket in the other. Polly leaned into the governess.

The reverend’s voice carried from the pulpit: prayers for the sick, for the soldiers in the field, and for those at sea, “especially Captain Jonathan Haraden, master of the Tyrannicide, and his men, whose fate we know not but commend to the keeping of Almighty God.”

“Amen,” Silas rumbled, his seaman’s growl breaking the silence, and the congregation echoed him, a low murmur of assent.

Mrs. Mason bowed her head and Martha bowed hers, too. Around them, the children fidgeted in silence. Martha prayed as hard as she ever had, that the captain lived, that Providence watched over him, that the whispers of capture would prove only shadows.

When the hymn rose—“O God, our help in ages past”—the Haraden pews sang with the rest, voices thin but resolute, clinging to the promise that God’s hand still guided those on the seas.

Marblehead Harbor, 23 July 1777

THE MASSACHUSETTS CAME to anchor off Marblehead on a clear summer morning, her sails worn thin from weeks of hard weather. Captain John Fisk stood at the rail, watching the town stir along its narrow streets and crowded wharves. Here was home, though not quite. Salem was where his hearth lay, but Marblehead was where the ship belonged.

“Strike the colors and furl her neat,” he told his men. “We’ll make her tidy before the yardmen set eyes on her.”

The brigantine had come in lean, her crew thinned by prize crews sent off, her timbers sorely in need of a carpenter’s care. John wasted no time once they dropped anchor. He dispatched a runner to Boston with his official report for the Board of War. Clerks and shipyard hands came aboard to tally goods, and he gave orders to strip out tired cordage, mend spars, and bring in provisions for the next cruise.

Pausing on the quarterdeck, his gaze lingered toward the northwest, where Salem lay only three miles distant. Duty first, always. But when the Massachusetts was squared away, he meant to ride to Salem at once. Word had reached him in France and must be carried: Captain Haraden was not captured or worse, as rumor had it, but safe at Bilbao, his brig refitted and prizes in tow.

The wharf was crowded with townsfolk craning for a glimpse of the Massachusetts’ captain and crew. A boat was lowered, and John came ashore, shoulders stooped with weariness, his coat salt-stained from the Atlantic. Yet there was a brightness in his eyes that belied his grave manner.

The people pressed in around him, voices clamoring:

“Captain Fisk! What of Haraden?”