The Watermen: Selections From Chesapeake by James A. Michener
‘Lew?’ Jake asked. Turlock girls had a habit of running off with Turlock men.
‘Would to God it was. It’s that Otto Pflaum.’
‘God A’mighty!’ Jake cried, and he was all for sailing immediately to Baltimore to recover his girl, and Tim Caveny encouraged him, but they were prevented from leaving by shocking news that reached them. Two skipjack captains had sailed into Patamoke with the superstructures of their boats chopped up. ‘We was drudgin’ proper in our waters off’n Oxford when the Virginians swept in. Sinbad leadin’. They like to shot us clean outa the water.’
‘You mean, they came into our river?’
‘That’s where they came.’
‘Anybody hit?’
‘Two of my crew in hospital.’
‘What are we gonna do?’ the embittered skippers asked.
‘Do? We’re gonna drive them right out of the Choptank.’
On Monday morning the Jessie T sailed out of Patamoke with a grim crew. All six men were armed, and Big Jimbo assured Captain Jake that his two black sailors were first-class squirrel hunters. If there was to be battle, the skipjack was ready.
But it was hardly prepared for what the Virginians did. Four of their power-driven boats lay off the point of Tilghman Island, and as the Jessie T moved down the Choptank, these adversaries, led by the Sinbad, moved in upon her, judging that if they could knock Jake Turlock out of the river, they would have little trouble with the rest of the fleet.
It was a most uneven fight. Captain Jake stayed at the wheel, while his five crewmen, including Big Jimbo, stationed themselves along the rail. The Patamoke men fought well, and some of their fire pestered the Virginians, but the invading boats were too swift, their gunfire too concentrated.
On one pass, bullets ripped into the stern of the Jessie T, and Captain Turlock would have been killed had he not dropped ignominiously to the deck. Infuriated, he bellowed for Ned to take the wheel, while he crouched behind one of the dredges to fire at the Sinbad.
At this moment one of the Virginia boats swept in from the port side and rained a blizzard of bullets at the skipjack. Jake, kneeling behind the dredge, saw one of Big Jimbo’s men spin in the air, lose his rifle overboard and fall in a pool of blood.
‘Christ A’mighty!’ Jake cried, forgetting his own safety and rushing forward, but as he did so, sailors from the blue Sinbad fired at the wheel, thinking to gun down the captain. Instead they hit Ned Turlock, who stumbled to one knee, clutched at the wheel, sent the skipjack turning in a circle, and died.
It was a terrible defeat, and there was nothing Captain Jake could do to retaliate. He had to watch impotently as the Virginia Squadron raced on, seeking other skipjacks that might want to contest its presence. None did.
As the Jessie T started her mournful retreat to Patamoke, the four survivors gathered in the cabin for prayers, and Caveny thumbed through his Bible for that passage taught him by an old sailor with whom he had first served on the Chesapeake:
‘ “The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.”
‘Almighty God, what have we done to deserve Thy wrath? What can we do to regain Thy love? Blessed St. Andrew, patron of fishermen, accept into thy care the souls of Ned and Nathan, good watermen of this river. Blessed St. Patrick, dry the tears of their women, and protect us.’
The Jessie T would have to find a new crew, and gloom was deep upon the Choptank as its watermen studied what they must do to repel the invasion from Virginia.
Jake Turlock was gray with rage. He showed the fury that had sustained his forebears in their dogged fights against pirates and British warships, for not only had he been forced to witness the murder of his two crewmen, but he had also seen the insolent Virginians invade his own river. He took a violent oath to be revenged, and with his whole being engrossed in trying to come up with a plan, he forgot his dog, paid no attention to the geese inhabiting his marsh and even allowed his long gun to go unattended.
But it was crafty little Tim Caveny who devised the tactic whereby they could punish the Sinbad, and it was so bizarre and daring that when Jake heard it, his jaw dropped. ‘You think we could handle it?’
‘Positive,’ Tim said, his eyes dancing with joy as he visualized the surprise he had fashioned for the Virginians. ‘But since they operate with four powerboats, we better find five or six Choptank crews willing to work with us,’
When Turlock approached the other skipjack men, he found them hungering for a final showdown. ‘And that’s what it’s gonna be,’ Jake assured them. ‘They can have their engines. What me and Tim’s got cooked up is better’n engines.’
But as New Year’s Day approached, with the start of the winter dredging, Turlock had to face up to the fact that the Jessie T suffered from one deficiency. ‘Tim, we got to have up front a man with no nerves.’
The two watermen fell silent as each reviewed the strategy, and finally Jake said hesitantly, ‘What we really need—’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Caveny broke in. ‘Otto Pflaum.’
‘The same. And damnit, I’m gonna swallow my pride and go fetch him.’
They crossed to Baltimore, going straight to the Drunken Penguin, where they elbowed their way in. Big Jimbo, of course, could not accompany them inside, but he did wait in the shadows nearby, in case things got out of hand. They were seated innocently at their customary rear table, drinking beer like two ordinary Eastern Shore watermen, when Otto Pflaum appeared. He still wore his extra-thick pants, his heavy sweater with the double roll at the neck, and he looked formidable. As soon as he saw the Choptank men he assumed that they had come to take his girl away, so he did the prudent thing. Without taking his eyes off his enemies, he grabbed a bottle, smashed the end on a table, kept it pointed outward from his right hand, and advanced. Then, with his left hand, he broke the end off another bottle. Thus armed, he approached, whereupon Caveny asked in a voice of gentle Irish reasoning, ‘Otto, dear friend, don’t you trust us?’
The big German said nothing. He moved closer, placing himself in a position from which he could jab a jagged bottle into each face. Then he stopped, keeping the bottles close to the eyes of the men who had tried to kill him.
‘Otto, sit down and talk with us,’ Caveny pleaded.
‘You want to hire me again?’
‘Yes!’ the Irishman said eagerly.
‘Same wages as before? A swingin’ boom?’
‘Otto, you misunderstood …’ Caveny was eager to explain that a failure in communication had been responsible, but the German pointed the broken bottle at him and growled, ‘Shut up.’
‘We need your help,’ Turlock said.
‘Doin’ what?’
‘Sit down. Put the bottles away.’ Jake spoke with such authority that the big sailor obeyed. ‘How’s Nancy?’ Turlock asked.
‘She’s pregnant.’
‘You married yet?’
‘Maybe later.’
‘Otto, we need your help. You got to sail with us again.’
‘Plenty sailors, why me?’
‘The Virginians. They’re drivin’ us from the bay.’
Turlock had said the only words that could have excited this giant. Pflaum had seen the arrogant Sinbad and had fought against her, so he relished the prospect of renewed combat.
‘This time, no boom?’
‘There was none last time,’ Caveny said gravely. ‘A sudden wind.’
‘This time, pay before I leave Baltimore.’
‘Wait a minute!’ Caveny exploded. To make such a demand was tantamount to an accusation against the integrity of the Jessie T, but Pflaum was adamant: ‘We give the money to Nancy. But she gets it before we sail.’
This was agreed, and on the last day of the old year the Jessie T returned to Patamoke for the unusual fitting out that Jake and Tim had contrived.
When Otto Pflaum saw the magnitude of the big gun that Jake proposed for the bow he w
‘What you tryin’ to do, destroy the Sinbad?’
‘Exactly,’ Jake said grimly. He then invited Tim Caveny to show Otto the real surprise, for onto the skipjack the Irishman had lugged three of his deadly spray guns, each with a battery of seven barrels and a capacity of many pounds of shot. Otto was captivated by the ingenious manner in which Caveny intended igniting his guns, and cried, ‘You must let me fire one,’ and Caveny said, ‘Our plan is for you to fire two.’ But Jake interposed, ‘No, we’d better save Otto for the two big guns forward.’
‘Do I aim at the cabin?’
‘At the water line. I’m gonna sink her.’
So Jake spent the first two days of January training his accomplices; practice rounds were fired far up Broad Creek so no one could spy, and when he was satisfied that his men could handle their arsenal, he headed for the Choptank.
The guns were kept under tarpaulin, so that the Jessie T looked like merely one more Maryland skipjack trying to earn an honest living. The plan was for two relatively unarmed boats from Patamoke to move in the van in a casual approach to the oyster beds that were in contention, and to allow the Sinbad to drive them away. Then, when the Virginia vessel came at the Jessie T to complete the sweep, it would be Jake’s responsibility to bring his boat as close as possible to the enemy, keeping the blue Sinbad to port, for the guns were concentrated on that side.
This would be a risky maneuver, because the Sinbad sailors had proved they would not hesitate to gun down the opposition, but Captain Turlock had anticipated the most dangerous moment: ‘You men at the guns stay low. It’ll be hard to hit you. I’ll stay at the wheel and take my chances.’ He had improved the risk by building about the wheel an armored semicircle behind which he could crouch; his head would not be protected, but as he said, ‘If they’re good enough to hit me in the head from their shiftin’ boat, they deserve to win.’ It was a confident crew of eight—four white, four black—that entered the bay and headed south.
Two days passed without incident, except that the Jessie T caught so many oysters it was an embarrassment. ‘We cain’t side up to a buy-boat, or they’d see the guns and the extry two men. On the other hand, if we pile them arsters right, they’ll form us a fort.’ So the deck was rearranged to permit the gunners to hide behind their catch.
On the third day the ominous blue Sinbad entered the Choptank, prowled the edges of the Patamoke fleet, then made a direct run at the two lures set up by Captain Turlock. As expected, the Virginia boat drove the smaller skipjacks off, then came directly at the Jessie T. ‘Thank God!’ Turlock called to his men. ‘We pass her to port.’
The hidden gunners kept low. Jake hunkered down behind his iron battlement, and the two boats closed.
The first fire came from the Sinbad. When its crew saw that the Jessie T was not going to back off, their captain cried, ‘Give them another whiff.’ Shots ricocheted about the deck, ending in piles of oysters. The fusillade accomplished nothing except to anger the Choptank men and make them more eager to discharge their battery.
‘Not yet!’ Jake called, and his men stood firm while the Sinbad grew careless and moved much closer than she should have. ‘Wait! Wait!’ Jake called again, kneeling behind his armor plating as bullets whined by him.
As he hid, he caught the eye of Otto Pflaum, finger on the great gun once owned by the master-hunter Greef Twombly. He saw with satisfaction that Pflaum was not only ready with this gun, but prepared to leap to its lethal brother propped against the bulwark.
‘Now!’ Jake shouted, and from the entire port side of the skipjack a blaze of powder exploded, sending a devastating rain of lead across the deck of the Sinbad and punishing her at the water line. Those Virginians who were not knocked down were so confounded that they could not regroup before Tim Caveny fired at them with another of his seven-gun monsters, while Otto Pflaum leaped to a second long gun and aimed it right at the gaping hole opened by his first.
The Sinbad, mortally wounded, started to roll on its port side and its crew began leaping into the water and shouting for help.
‘Let ’em all drowned,’ Turlock snapped, and with grand indifference the Jessie T, her centerboard side-assed, as her detractors charged, withdrew from the battle.
It was a triumphal return such as few naval centers have witnessed, for the victorious vessel came to the dock laden with oysters, and as Tim Caveny called out details of the battle, Otto Pflaum counted the iron buckets as buyers on dock hauled them ashore: ‘Tally three! Tally four! Mark one!’
At the close he informed his fellow crewmen, ‘Damn near record. Thirty-nine and three!’ But the Jessie T had earned more that day than one hundred and ninety-eight bushels of oysters. It had won the right to say that the riches of the Choptank would be harvested in a responsible manner.
The victory of the Choptank men led to a series of events that no one could have imagined.
The fact that Captain Turlock was now able to berth each weekend at Patamoke allowed him and Caveny to go duck hunting, with such good results that the two watermen accumulated surplus income in the Steed bank.
Since Jake Turlock had grown sick and tired of hearing the men at the store downgrade his boat—he loathed especially their contemptuous description ‘the side-assed skipjack’—he decided to get rid of her and buy the partnership a real boat with its centerboard where it ought to be. When he approached Gerrit Paxmore with this proposal he found the Quaker willing to listen. ‘I’ve been pondering this matter, Jacob, and have concluded that I’ve been obstinate in refusing to build in the new manner. There is a difference between an ocean-going schooner, whose keel must be kept inviolate, and a skipjack destined for bay use only, where the strain is not so great. I’d like a chance to build thee one to thy design.’
When the contract between Paxmore and the Turlock-Caveny partnership was drawn—‘a first-class skipjack with centerboard trunk through the keel, $2,815’—Gerrit Paxmore asked the owners of the Jessie T what they intended doing with their present skipjack, and Turlock said, ‘I suppose we’ll find a buyer somewheres, even if she is side-assed,’ and Paxmore replied, ‘I think I can take it off thy hands,’ and Caveny asked, ‘You got a buyer?’ and Paxmore said, ‘I think so,’ but he would not divulge who it was.
So the new skipjack was built, superior in every way to the Jessie T, and when it had been launched and given a couple of trial runs out into the bay, Jake and Tim concluded that they had bought themselves a masterpiece, and the former said with some relief, ‘Now we can hire a white crew. You, me, three Turlocks and Big Jimbo in the galley.’
‘Them niggers wasn’t so bad,’ Caveny recalled.
‘Yes, but a white crew’s better. Less likelihood of mutiny.’
‘The niggers fought well.’
‘Yes, but a white crew’s better.’ Jake paused, then added, ‘ ’Course, I’d not want to sail without Jimbo. Best cook this bay ever produced.’
But when he went to Frog’s Neck to advise Jimbo that the new skipjack would be sailing on Monday, he found to his dismay that the big cook would not be assuming his old place.
‘Why not?’ Jake thundered.
‘Because …’ The tall black was too embarrassed to explain, and Turlock heckled him, charging cowardice because of the gunfight, a lack of loyalty to his crew mates, and ingratitude. Big Jimbo listened impassively, then said in a soft voice, ‘Cap’m Jake, I’m takin’ out my own skipjack.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Mr. Paxmore done sold me the Jessie T.’
The information staggered the waterman, and he stepped back, shaking his head as if to discharge evil invaders. ‘You buyin’ my boat?’
‘Yes, sir. From the day I could walk my daddy tol’ me, “Git yourse’f a boat.” He had his own
‘What ship did Cudjo ever have?’ Turlock asked in disgust, and Big Jimbo thought it best not to pursue the topic. What he did say was this: ‘He tol’ me, time and again, “When a man got his own boat, he free. His onliest prison the horizon.” ’
‘Hell, Jimbo, you don’t know enough to captain a skipjack.’
‘I been watchin’, Cap’m Jake. I been watchin’ you, and you one o’ the best.’
‘You goddamn nigger!’ Jake exploded, but the words denoted wonder rather than contempt. He burst into laughter, slapped his flank and said, ‘All the time you was on deck, doin’ extry work to help the men, you was watchin’ ever’thing I was doin’. Damn, I knowed you niggers was always plottin’.’ In the old camaraderie of the cabin, where these two men had worked together, and eaten and slept, Jake Turlock punched his cook in the back and wished him well.
‘But you got to change her name,’ Jake said.
Big Jimbo had anticipated him. When he and Captain Jake went to the Paxmore Boatyard to inspect the refitted Jessie T they found the old name painted out, and in its place a crisp new board with the simple letters Eden.
‘Where you get that name?’ Jake asked, admiring the condition of his old boat. ‘That’s a Bible name, ain’t it?’
‘My mother’s name,’ Jimbo said.
‘That’s nice,’ Jake said. ‘I named her after my mother. Now you niggers name her after yours. That’s real nice.’
‘She give me the money to buy it.’
‘I thought she was dead.’
‘Long ago. But she always collectin’ money … fifty years. First she gonna buy her freedom, and the Steeds give it to her. Then she gonna buy Cudjo’s freedom, and he earned it hisse’f. Then she gonna buy her brother’s freedom, and Emancipation come along. So she give me the money and say, “Jimbo, some day you buy yourse’f a boat and be truly free.” ’
In October 1895 the skipjack Eden out of Patamoke made its first sortie on the oyster beds. It was known throughout the fleet as ‘the side-assed skipjack with the nigger crew,’ but it was in no way impeded, for Captain Jimbo had to be recognized as a first-class waterman. There was, of course, much banter when the other captains gathered at the store: ‘Eden like to went broke last summer. Cap’m Jimbo tooken her up the Choptank to fetch a load o’ watermelons to the market in Baltimore, but when he got there the crew had et ever’ goddamned melon.’