It was one of those moments that only a sailor knows—the kind that never failed to exhilarate him.
***
Omaha’s captain, Lieutenant Commander Lewis Gardiner, was pleased as he sat in his upholstered chair in the dimming light of his great cabin. He was on independent duty and his ship was well provisioned, topped with fuel, and had an experienced crew. They were bound south on a routine patrol of the West Indies in the dry season and would stop at Antigua, Martinique, and Barbados before turning west and running downwind to Panama and then up to Jamaica. In four months’ time they would return to Key West, and then sail on north to New York before the fever season in the tropics started. Gardiner fingered his beard and thought about that. With luck he would be at home with Josephine in Philadelphia on final leave by mid-May.
Veteran of African coastal anti-slave patrols, battles against Chinese pirates, and Porter’s squadron on the Mississippi, Gardiner was getting ready to leave the navy after twenty-four years. He was tired, and the navy’s deterioration in stature, ships, and equipment after the war simply accelerated his desire to get out. Gardiner thought he might try his hand in business back home and turn over the navy to younger men like Wake, who weren’t quite so pessimistic. He liked Lieutenant Wake, thought he was a good officer, and had recommended him for promotion and command of the Omaha, but knew that wouldn’t happen.
Wake had several things going against him. He was not a naval academy graduate, he had no influential relatives, and most of all, his record was marred by his involvement in that unfortunate Canton affair back in sixty-nine when he had forcibly relieved his captain of duty. Through some sort of legal mumbo-jumbo the court in effect had cleared him of wrongdoing, but Gardiner knew that naval officers were still divided in their opinion of Wake’s action in that case. Some said he was a hero for saving the ship from a drug-addicted, lunatic commander; others said it was mutiny and he should have been hanged. Either way, it made him controversial, and controversial officers usually didn’t get promoted.
Controversy makes peacetime admirals uneasy, Gardiner told himself bitterly. Better to ignore problems and let them fester for years than to confront them. That’s why I’m leaving. We’ve lost the warrior ethos, he grumbled to himself.
A knock came from the door to his cabin, followed by Wake’s voice. “Sir, watch has changed and all’s well.”
“Very well, Mr. Wake. Come in and sit awhile. Relax.”
The sunset sent golden shafts of dusty light swaying across Gardiner’s spacious stern windows as Wake entered and took the offered seat at the gallery bench. A moment later Gardiner’s steward silently entered, carrying a tray of coffee.
“Mr. Wake, would you care to share a coffee with me?” asked Gardiner.
“Yes, thank you, sir.”
After the steward poured the coffee and left, Gardiner held up his mug of coffee.
“So, Peter, how is everything going?”
Wake respected Gardiner’s professionalism and liked his personality. Occasionally the captain would invite Wake for a cup of coffee in his cabin and they would talk of the ship’s officers and men, and of their own families back home. Wake knew, as a former ship commander himself, how very lonely it was for a captain and that the executive officer was usually the only man aboard a captain could confide in, or even relax with. It was obvious that Gardiner needed to talk.
“Everything appears to be going well, sir. The coal needs to be rebunkered and they are starting on that. We used about four tons getting to windward of San Juan and the rest hasn’t really settled down yet. I want to make sure it won’t shift in the bunkers and—”
“I know that, Peter. I was talking about you. How’s it going for you?”
“Me? Well, sir, I guess it’s going well for me. I have no complaints.”
“I want you to know that I’ve recommended you for promotion and command. In fact, I recommended you to command the Omaha after I go ashore in May.”
Wake was touched. He knew Gardiner was leaving and it meant a lot that the man’s last promotion recommendation would be for him. “Thank you, sir. I am very honored by your recommendation. But I wish you wouldn’t leave us. We need good leaders, especially these days.”
“No, I’ve had enough of the political pantywaists in Washington, Peter. Can’t take it anymore. Time for dinosaurs like me to leave while there’s still someone who wants me to stay. What’s that old saying from the stage? Always leave ’em wantin’ more.”
Wake didn’t know what to say to that, so he uttered the age-old safe reply to a superior. “Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’m sorry to say that my recommendation may not be enough to make it happen. You’ve had a tough career and you’ll need more than merely my good words to get promoted up. But, by God, I still have five months to go. And in that time I want to try to get you noticed by the diplomatic types in the Caribbean so they’ll send back complimentary reports on you to the secretary of state, who will hopefully pass them along to Secretary Robeson at the Navy Department.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Peter!” Gardiner’s face transformed into a mischievous grin. “I’m going to send you to all the fancy-pants parties ashore so that you can deal with those pompous fools. I just don’t have the patience anymore. I might hurt one of those two-faced, pin-striped, Froggie talking, diplomatic bastards.”
Wake laughed. “I’ll do my very best not to hurt them, sir!”
Gardiner’s grin faded as he brought up a difficult
