Honorable Mention Read online

  Front cover

  The Honor Series

  By Robert N. Macomber

  At the Edge of Honor

  Point of Honor

  Honorable Mention

  A Dishonorable Few

  An Affair of Honor

  A Different Kind of Honor

  The Honored Dead

  The Darkest Shade of Honor

  Honor Bound

  Honorable Mention

  the continuing exploits of Lt. Peter Wake United States Navy

  Robert N. Macomber

  Pineapple Press, Inc.

  Sarasota, Florida

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2004 by Robert N. Macomber

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Inquiries should be addressed to:

  Pineapple Press, Inc.

  P.O. Box 3889

  Sarasota, Florida 34230

  www.pineapplepress.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available upon request

  E-ISBN 978-1-56164-522-0

  Print and ebook design by Shé Hicks

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to

  Robert Clay Glancy

  1927–2003

  My Friend

  Promoted and transferred Home

  Resting in Peace

  Map

  Puerto Rico, Spanish Empire

  —from an original 1860 chart

  Map

  The Lower Florida and Western Cuba area of operations for the U.S.N.’s East Gulf Blockading Squadron

  —from an original 1860 chart

  Preface

  It is October of 1864, and Lieutenant Peter Wake has been in the United States Navy for eighteen months since he reluctantly volunteered and was immediately assigned to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron based in Key West, Florida. In that time, Wake, a third generation New England schoonerman, has learned about leading men in combat and the consequences of wartime decisions. At first commanding the small armed sloop Rosalie, and subsequently the schooner St. James, Wake has spent most of his duty along the coast of Florida, in the dirty and frustrating work of close inshore patrol, where the difference between friend and foe in a civil war can be elusive.

  Since this squadron operates in such close proximity to the empires of Spain, Great Britain, and France, Wake has also experienced some international intrigue. Demonstrating a flair for initiative that came to the attention of the squadron’s admiral, Wake has been given the unusual and difficult tasks of gathering intelligence in Cuba and the Bahamas about the blockade runners and their organizations—missions completed with his customary thoroughness.

  But Peter Wake’s experiences in this tropical site of the war have embraced more than conflict and intrigue with the Confederate enemy. Inadvertently, he found the love of his life in Linda Donahue, daughter of a staunch pro-Confederate family in Key West. Ostracized by both sides of the war, they have nevertheless boldly married, with Linda now living in an isolated pro-Union refugee camp at Useppa Island up on the southwest coast of the peninsula.

  In spite of all these problems, both personal and professional, Peter Wake is not content to merely do his duty and wait for events to unfold. Wake is the type that makes his own luck. This translates to victories which gain Wake a reputation for action within the squadron and the notice of certain quarters in Washington. His experiences also persuade him that the life of a naval officer is his natural calling, and he makes the fateful decision to make the U.S. Navy his life’s profession. Success translates into a tangible reward when Wake, originally a volunteer for the duration of the war with a temporary officer’s commission, receives the rare compliment of a regular commission in the United States Navy. He knows that his career won’t be easy, since, unlike most of the regular junior officers around him, he did not graduate from the naval academy. But Wake also knows that results outweigh pedigrees, and he is a born leader of sailors who can get the job done.

  Eventful as the past eighteen months have been, the next fifteen promise to bring even more action, intrigue, challenges, and victories. Lieutenant Wake has been given command of an armed ocean steam tug, the U.S.S. Hunt, which will require this lifelong canvas sailor to learn and master the new technology that is transforming the navy.

  Wake’s love for Linda, his anchor of normalcy, deepens with their marriage and the inevitable responsibilities that come with it. He is no longer a man alone in the world, and his every decision now affects more than the lives of the men of the Hunt.

  Wake will encounter war in ways he has not previously seen or even imagined—from the chaos of a defeated society falling into anarchy, to the depths of an inhuman hell that some men inflict savagely upon others. And then, just when the seemingly endless war appears to be drawing to an end, the ultimate battle nightmare begins to come true for the unprepared squadron. Lieutenant Peter Wake, U.S.N., will need all his skill and strength to overcome what is dead ahead.

  Stand to. It’s time to steam into harm’s way with Peter Wake once again.

  —Bob Macomber

  Off the coast of Florida

  15 June 2004

  1

  Exigencies of War

  Lieutenant Peter Wake, newly appointed commanding officer of the United States Navy armed steam tug Hunt, could sense the tension in the humid October air around him. As he passed the young Marine sentry at the front doorway to the Naval Headquarters he could see the fear in the eyes of the men and hear it in their strained voices. They could stop the Rebel threat, but they were powerless against sickness and storm, and it scared them. Wake understood that completely. It scared him too.

  The squadron, devastated by yellow fever for the previous two months, had many ships dangerously shorthanded. Washington’s demands to keep the blockade tight and also assist the army in its coastal raids had become absurd. Many ships’ crews were too sick even to weigh anchor, much less enforce a blockade, and weathering a hurricane was not even a question if the crew was too weak to work the ship. But Wake knew that the national election was pressuring Secretary of the Navy Welles to provide more victories like Farragut’s at Mobile Bay, for 1864 looked to be the crucial year to determine the political will of the Union. Lincoln was campaigning for the total defeat of the Confederate states and needed to show the weary people of the North it could come soon. The fevers and storms of Florida were not considered valid excuses for failure.

  Wake made his way through the outer rooms and into the moldy warren of the squadron’s clerical staff. Exhausted, uniform soaked with sweat, he felt unprepared as he walked toward the insignificant-looking den of one of the most powerful men in the squadron. Wake would have preferred to face a Rebel cannon than fight the bureaucratic battle of wills he was about to enter. He slowed his gait and considered the factors.

  The situation of Wake’s ship was desperate, and therefore, he was desperate, or he wouldn’t have come to this office. Instead of raw courage, this battle would take the skill of a poker player, he counseled himself as he stopped short of his destination. He heard heated words within. They confirmed his worst fears, and he covertly looked around the corner at the confrontation inside. “Kindly do not confuse your rank . . . with my authority, sir. The answer is still no, sir. You cannot get those men for your ship. They are allocated for another.”

  The yeoman’s words were weighted with fatigue, even though it was but one o’cl
ock in the afternoon. From his vantage point in the doorway, Wake saw the effect this statement had on the lieutenant standing in front of the chief yeoman’s desk.

  But Wake could see that it was more than just the senior enlisted man’s words to the officer. Delacroix Yves DeTar, chief yeoman on the admiral’s staff of the United States Navy’s East Gulf Blockading Squadron in Key West, had not even looked up from his ledger when he made his comment, which aggravated the message. The scene was even more incongruous with DeTar sitting down in his shirt-sleeves behind his battered and paper-covered desk, while the lieutenant was in full uniform. The final spice to the statement came with DeTar’s softly drawled Virginia tidewater accent, an aspect slightly unsettling to some in the Union Navy—but DeTar was a veteran of twenty years of naval service and loyal to the Stars and Stripes, a point he had proven to a number of men in barrooms over these last three years of civil war.

  The officer, a man Wake knew only as the commander of a newly arrived large schooner in the squadron, reacted to DeTar’s words as if he were having some sort of seizure, for a moment the commander looked as if he might reach across the desk to strangle the petty officer sitting there who made such a statement to a commissioned officer—not to mention the captain of a naval vessel. The lieutenant’s face contorted and turned a dark hue of red, while his eyes opened widely and glared at DeTar.

  “Confound it all, man! Did I just hear gross insubordination to a superior officer, Yeoman? Aside from the manning issue that I am here to solve, kindly tell me why I should not have you brought up on charges immediately! Or perhaps a little sea time on a working, fighting, schooner would be more appropriate, especially since we are so short of experienced men such as yourself?”

  Wake observed that the chief petty officer didn’t flinch at hearing such dire threats. DeTar looked bored as he put down his pencil and ledger and stood up to face his accuser, slightly nodding in Wake’s direction to acknowledge his arrival in the doorway. DeTar was not a large man, but when he stood to speak the room appeared to diminish in volume, an illusionary effect, Wake was sure, that came from his bearing and not his size.

  “Lieutenant Martin . . . I am under personal orders from the admiral commanding the East Gulf Blockading Squadron himself, to prioritize assignments of personnel according to his wishes, and not to be induced or coerced by anyone, including lieutenants who refuse to understand the squadron-wide factors involved. Now, sir, if you would care to make that charge of insubordination, then the squadron chief of staff’s office is in the next building. I can show you the way right now, sir, since you are so new to the squadron.

  “However, Lieutenant Martin, I should add before we go there, that number one—I was simply explaining that my authority comes personally from the admiral and therefore your rank cannot override it. Number two—I did render the proper respect due your rank and say ‘sir.’ And number three—your making a complaint such as this would merely show the admiral that I am doing precisely as I have been ordered, and thus be beneficial for me. The effect for you, however, might not be so positive.

  “And oh . . . sir, the admiral will not allow me to serve on a schooner, or any other ship on the blockade. He feels that I am needed right here, working for him, trying to solve the manning requirements of the many ships under his command.”

  Lieutenant Martin, recently of the blockading forces in the Chesapeake Bay region, was stunned. He backed a step away from the desk, his eyes continuing to stare at DeTar, his head shaking slowly as if to clear something from his mind. Martin’s voice had lost its edge when he finally spoke. He sounded incredulous at being refused his request for more trained seamen.

  “Well, I’ll be damned, you’ve got me stammered, Yeoman. Damn your hide if you ain’t taken my wind. No men to man the vessels—not a single one, you say! An inexcusable situation. Never heard of that kind of thing in my last squadron. In fact, in all my days in the Navy I have never seen or heard such a thing as that.”

  DeTar smiled pleasantly at the lieutenant, his next words coming out almost paternally, especially couched in his accent. “Lieutenant Martin, I’m sure you haven’t seen anything like it here. I’ve been in this navy, man and boy, for over twenty years, and I haven’t seen anything quite like it myself, sir. This squadron is at the tail end of everything, from supplies and equipment, to coal, to ships and men. Key West is the end of the world, Lieutenant, and you are now a thousand miles from that last squadron. Welcome to your new home.”Martin didn’t reply, so Chief Yeoman DeTar went on. “Now, how about you let me work on this manning problem with your schooner, sir? I’ll send a messenger boy to you in a while with what information I can find. It won’t be all you need, or very many at all, but maybe I can find you one or two if they become available in a few weeks.”

  Martin just shook his head again—not angrily but in wonderment. As he turned and left the Spartan room filled with boxes and filing cabinets, he cast a quizzical look at Wake, mumbled something, and walked down the hallway still talking to himself.

  Wake stepped into the room and smiled as he greeted the petty officer. “Well, good morning, Chief Yeoman DeTar. I take it from what I just saw that you are having a particularly vexing day today.”

  “Aye, sir. No rest for the weary, and I’m feeling pretty weary already today. They always have the same complaints, and the same threats if they don’t get their way. Makes one hope for at least a novel threat. No innovation anymore, sir. No interesting coercion that could stimulate a man’s mind with the complexity of it. No, just the age-old blunt instrument of insubordination or sea duty. Boring, sir.”

  Wake laughed at the ridiculous notion of lamenting the lack of intriguing threats from superiors. DeTar was one of a kind, even in the arcane world of navy yeomen.

  “You really are a renaissance man, Chief Yeoman DeTar. You need more Machiavellian challenges, don’t you? A true gentleman, misassigned to this backwater of the navy. I cannot imagine what they were thinking in Washington. You could have had some very interesting challenges there. Why, I’d wager you could have been Gideon Welles’ right-hand man. The secretary of the navy needs a man like you.” DeTar nodded thoughtfully at that idea. “Captain Wake, I believe that I could do old Gideon a valuable service in Washington—the petty officer assignments at the Bureau of Navigation could certainly use some semblance of logic to them. In fact, at the beginning of this sad war I was at the navy yard there. Following that damnable affair at Sumter I immediately gave some wise but unappreciated suggestions to my section officer about which Southern officers to retain—and found myself gone the next day. Been stuck in this fever hole ever since. Ordered me to write my own orders, those crass naves did. They took some joy in that, I could tell. Obviously, they wanted to get this non-commissioned true gentleman—an oxymoron according to the navy—out of their sight. I believe that the location of my birth had more than a slightly prejudicial effect in the matter. But you are a busy man, sir, and must need my services for some weighty issue. How can I help you?”

  Wondering for a brief moment what really had happened in Washington between the educated Southern-born petty officer and the entrenched naval leaders, Wake nodded his agreement that he was there for some assistance. He proceeded with his request, pulling out of his inside coat pocket a damp sheet of paper—authorization from the squadron chief of staff to draw any available men from the naval station.

  “Same as every other ship captain, Chief Yeoman. I need men for the Hunt. I’ve been ordered to sea and have the authorization here from the chief of staff to draw some replacement men if any are available. Of course, now that I’ve been assigned to a steamer, I need some different kind of men than I usually ask for.”

  DeTar sat down and motioned Wake to the chair in front of his desk, his familiarity an apparent lack of respect, but actually quite the opposite. He liked Wake and his dry humor, and he respected Wake’s considerable record so far in the war in Flor
ida. Peter Wake had made a name for himself by being decisive and innovative. The whole squadron had heard of him. An experienced New England schooner mate, Wake had become a naval volunteer officer a year and a half earlier, in April of 1863. Since that time, Wake had shown himself to be a very capable small ship captain, and in January of this year had been given a rare promotion from volunteer master to a regular commission as a lieutenant. DeTar had personally written the admiral’s recommendation to Secretary of the Navy Welles and knew the details, some of which were secret, of what Wake had accomplished. It included some intriguing missions to Cuba and the Bahamas that very few men in the navy knew about.

  In addition to being the type of man who got things done against the enemy, Wake also was known as the type of ship commander who cared about his men, and one of the few who actually had men asking to serve under him. DeTar was glad that Wake got the regular commission and was going to make the navy his life’s career—they could definitely use some decent officers. That Wake was respected by the senior petty officers of the squadron was a rare compliment. DeTar didn’t know of many in that category.

  “Captain, please sit down and let’s see what we can do. What exactly do you need?”

  “Well, Bosun Rork advises that for the deck we need six more ordinary seamen, two able seamen, and a landsman or two. Gunner Durlon requests two quarter gunners. My engineer officer needs three coal heavers and a fireman or boiler tender. And I need a yeoman clerk—the records and reports in this new command are twice what I had on the St. James.”

  “I see, sir. You need quite a few men.”

  “The yellow fever that went through the Hunt before I got her absolutely ravaged the crew. We’re very short on the assigned complement and I need far more than what I’ve said here this morning—but I know how short the squadron is, especially right now with the fever rampant, and there’s no sense in requesting men who aren’t there.”