“Linda wants me out. She doesn’t mind me going to sea but doesn’t want me in the navy. She thinks the navy’s treated me badly. Says I have no future here and should go back to the merchant fleet.” He shrugged. “One of her arguments is that the pay is better.”
“Aye, a disgruntled wife weighs heavy on a man’s mind. You need to solve that dilemma, Peter. Get her aboard with you for your career or you won’t have the right attitude even if you do stay in. Don’t get into a situation where you have to choose between her and the navy. You lose either way on that kind of deal.”
Wake understood completely. He had seen other men go through that and they were miserable afterward, no matter what they decided. “My leave comes up in June, sir. I’ll go home and be with her at Pensacola for about two months while Omaha is in Philadelphia on refit, so we’ll have time to work it out then.”
Gardiner smiled and raised his coffee mug. “Aye, then we’ll have a rumless toast to your wife and your navy, Peter Wake. May the two live in peace.”
“Thank you, sir.” They drank to the toast and Wake raised his mug again. “And here’s to your last cruise, Captain. May it be your best.”
Gardiner started to raise his mug, then stopped, his eyebrows cocked and then grinned back. “We’re in the West Indies, Peter. I don’t know if it’ll be the best cruise of my career, but I do know it won’t be a dull one!”
3
Antigua
Her Most Britannic Majesty’s customs cutter Hudson rounded up into the wind off the Omaha’s starboard beam and a speaking trumpet brought forth the word that Omaha was not to enter the Royal Navy station at English Harbour, but instead to sail around to St. John’s, the capital of the colony of Antigua. No explanation was given.
“Damn Limeys,” muttered Gardiner as Wake yelled out an acknowledgment to the British cutter. “The sun’ll set in two hours and I wanted to have the hook down and secured. It’ll take at least that long to get around the island to St. John’s, and we can’t enter at night through those reefs. Mr. Wake, we’ll sail around under the lee of the island, heave-to until dawn and enter then.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Wake as he checked the chart. “We should be off Fullerton Point by sunset. That’ll be a good place to loiter for the night.”
Gardiner shook his head while watching the cutter sail back toward English Harbour. “They’ve allowed us to enter English Harbour before. I wonder why not now?”
***
When Omaha let go her anchor at St. John’s Harbour on the northwest coast of Antigua the next morning, it wasn’t five minutes before the governor’s launch arrived at the port side with a message for the captain. The officer of the deck, Lieutenant Laporte, brought it to Gardiner in his cabin where he had just started to go over the monthly supply reports with Wake.
Gardiner tore open the envelope and read the note, then looked at Wake. “It seems that His Excellency, Governor Gilford Habersham welcomes me to Her Majesty’s Crown Colony of Antigua and would be delighted if I and one of my officers could attend dinner tonight at the governor’s residence.”
Wake was surprised, not by the invitation—it was routine for local leaders to invite visiting naval officers to dinner—but by the timing. They had just dropped anchor and the local American consul’s greetings to the ship hadn’t even arrived yet. “Something odd’s going on, sir. Why were they in such a rush to get a standard dinner invitation to us?”
“Perhaps embarrassment over denying us entrance into the naval station at English Harbour? Who knows, Peter? I understand that culturally they’re our cousins but I’ll be damned if I understand them sometimes.”
Wake shook his head. “I don’t understand that denial or the timing of the invite, sir. Coincidence? I think not, Captain.”
Laporte knocked on the door again, walked in, and delivered another envelope, this one with an embossed eagle on the front. It was from the American consulate. Gardiner nodded for Wake to open and read it aloud.
Captain Lewis Gardiner, Lt. Cmdr, U.S.N.
Commanding Officer
U.S.S. Omaha
West Indies Flotilla
Home Squadron
22 December 1873
My Dear Captain Gardiner,
Allow me the honor of welcoming you to Antigua. I fear I must impose upon your valuable time and request that we meet at my office at 107 Long Street, here in St. John’s. There are matters of national interest that we should discuss and due to factors beyond my control I cannot visit your ship this morning.
The mail for your ship, and also some for other consuls in the area and for Panama, is here and ready for your custody when you come by.
I regret the appearance of impropriety in this request, but assure you that upon your arrival you will conclude this unusual missive is justified.
Please acknowledge via the courier that brought this note.
Respectfully,
Gustavius Williams
Consul in Antigua for the
United States of America
“Well, that’s a bit unusual! What do you make of it, Peter?” asked Gardiner.
“I have no idea, sir. But this is getting very curious. Do you want me to go to the consul’s office?”
Gardiner slyly nodded. “Yes, I think I do. Go to both of these events and tell them I’m indisposed. Report back to me what you find. In the meantime I’ll finish my letter to Josephine.”
***
Wake made his way through the confusion of St. John’s congested waterfront, then through the market and up St. Mary Street. At Market Street he declined a tout’s gentle invitation to enter a tavern and forty feet further refused a courteous offer to “parlay with a lady” in an upstairs room. Continuing on while marveling at how sophisticated the vice-purveyors were in this British colony, he crossed over to Long Street and made his way along the narrow sidewalk until
