That morning he had reported to Gardiner all that had transpired at the dockyard the night before, including Captain Warner’s insistence that Gardiner come ashore and speak with him. Gardiner had laughed when he heard of Wake’s incident and his bluff out of it. His impending retirement allowed Gardiner a certain degree of freedom from anxiety, though he counseled Wake to be very careful and expect some sort of repercussion once Washington finally heard about this situation three months in the future.
Sitting in the great cabin they pondered what it was that the British were hiding. “Whitehead” was a name that rang a bell in both their minds. Then Wake remembered.
Gunner Durling, a gunner’s mate who had served under Wake in the war, was currently assigned to the U.S. Navy’s new torpedo development station at Newport, Rhode Island. In mid-1873, Durling had told Wake in a letter that he was working with a Lieutenant Commander Howell on developing a better version of the Whitehead torpedo and that they were getting close. The Whitehead torpedo was fourteen feet long and Howell’s newest “automobile torpedo” was almost twenty feet long—bigger and faster, with a more powerful explosive than any other torpedo in the field, with a range of over 3,000 feet.
Wake also remembered why Invincible was familiar to him. He had heard from a Royal Navy officer at Nassau in August that she had just come out to the West Indies from the Royal Navy’s Portsmouth Naval Base, home of their new torpedo base, HMS Vernon.
Gardiner added that he now recalled reading in Harper’s Magazine that a man named Whitehead, presumably the very same one, was an Englishman with a naval ordnance factory in Fiume, on the Adriatic Sea. He had developed, then sold, torpedo technology to the Royal Navy and other European navies. Gardiner remembered that an officer named Fisher was the Royal Navy’s lead man on the controversial project. The same article mentioned that Inconstant had been fitted with experimental torpedo carriages and that other ships would be also.
One more thing bothered Wake that morning in Gardiner’s cabin. The crate he saw through the window at the dockyard was far longer than fourteen feet. It appeared more than twenty feet long. The wagon’s bed was also that long. An uneasy question emerged.
“Sir, do you suppose Whitehead could have gotten a copy of the American plans, built his own version and given it to the Brits?” he had asked Gardiner.
“Ill-gotten gains? Hmm, I think that’s a possibility, Peter. A very real possibility. Otherwise, why would they go to such great lengths to hide it there?”
“Precisely what I was thinking, Captain. And the information about the speed trials was a deception? The real work is on torpedoes!”
“Hmm, yes. Could very well be.” Gardiner exhaled loudly as he folded his hands under his chin. “Quite the situation we’ve landed in.”
As the rector droned out a prayer from the pulpit before them, Wake remembered that after thinking for a few minutes that morning Gardiner had begun to grin. “You know what, Lieutenant Wake? This is the most fun I’ve had in years. I’m going to enjoy our little religious opportunity ashore this afternoon.”
Wake hadn’t shared Gardiner’s enthusiasm at the time, and sitting there in the church he worried about what would happen next. He was sure there would be a confrontation at some point, a feeling reinforced by Warner’s behavior in the pew next to him.
***
After the service a traditional Christmas dinner was served in the rectory. So far, nothing but the obligatory courtesies had been exchanged between the two senior naval officers. That ended after dessert when Warner and the governor asked Gardiner to step into the rector’s study, away from the crowd. Once inside, Warner quickly closed the door and turned to Gardiner.
“Your man Wake was spying at our naval station, Captain Gardiner,” Warner began without preamble. “I don’t know why or on whose orders, but I do know it was deliberate and very foolish. This is a minor naval station and there is nothing of real value here except the legacy and memory of Admiral Lord Nelson.”
“Yes, Captain Gardiner, and in addition, your country’s consul here has been soliciting inside information regarding the station from local workers,” chided Governor Habersham, his double chin shaking. “That too has been deliberate and foolish and an insult. I am sending an official complaint to the Foreign Office in London, requesting your consul’s immediate expulsion and official censure against your Lieutenant Wake. Do you have anything to say about that, sir, before I send it?”
Gardiner walked slowly to a window, then looked back and smiled at the two Englishmen—they had done exactly as he had expected and prepared for. “Well, gentlemen, I’m glad you brought that up. And yes, Your Excellency, I have these few things to say about that. . . .
“Lord Nelson, that greatest sailor of the Royal Navy, must have quite a ghostly power here at Antigua, for he makes ships disappear. Ships like the Invincible, which just arrived, and like Inconstant, your new torpedo ship. And speaking of torpedoes, how are they working out for you down here? Especially the big new American prototype design you got through Whitehead—how’s that coming along in your secret tests? You know, gentlemen, the one from the United States Navy’s Newport Torpedo Station.
“By the way, how exactly did you get that design, gentlemen? That’s a question that I think Washington—particularly President Grant—will want to know, since it hasn’t been put into production and Commander Howell, the designer, hasn’t got the patent just yet. Forget your little old foreign office bureaucrats, Governor—these are all things Prime Minister Gladstone himself will most definitely hear about. From the highest levels of the government of the United States of America.”
Captain Warner was about to speak but stopped when the governor shook his
