Captain Tucker

“ At the end of Sept. 1812, the Cherub returned to England with ninety-six sail of merchantmen under her protection. Captain Tucker was immediately ordered to refit her for foreign service; and in a little more than two months he sailed for the South American station. During the time that his ship was in dock, at Portsmouth, her crew were allowed a month’s leave of absence to see their friends; and although they were aware that she was again going abroad, not a man was absent from his duty at the time of her departure. ”

“ I’m after the frigate Boston to take that rebel Tucker. I’ve sworn I’ll earn the price set on his head, and am bound to carry him dead or alive into New York. Have you seen him?”
“Well,” rejoined Captain Tucker, “I have heard of him. They say he is a hard customer.”
During all this conversation, he had been quietly manœuvering to bring his ship into a raking position, so as to sweep the decks of the English frigate. He had every man at his post, his guns shotted, and his gunners with lighted matches in their hands all awaiting his orders. ”

“ When that time arrived, not a man appeared in the galley to claim the meat for his mess, nor was a single piece of it taken away even after it had been surveyed and reported “wholesome food, fit for men to eat.” The first Lieutenant was then desired by Captain Tucker to allow it to remain in the cook’s charge until the usual hour for mustering at quarters, and then to throw whatever remained unclaimed overboard. On the 2d, 3d, and 4th days, the meat was cooked as before, but still no demand was made for it by any of the messes, the ship’s company preferring to dine on biscuit and grog alone. ”

“ He settled into a chair and closed his eyes, and appeared to doze. The dog, ever watchful, lay at his feet.
Captain Tucker left the room, and presently, in another part of the police station, a typewriter began to click. The captain came back grumbling and out-of-sorts. The doctor’s devious, subtle methods always provoked him to a show of ill-humor. The telephone rang sharply—there had been an automobile crash near the bridge. A minute later a motor roared into life in the alley beside the station and a motorcycle patrolmen sped away. The blind man did not stir. ”

“ Tucker's quiet face did not betray the fact that this second visitor was even less interesting than the first. In her heart she did not like Captain Poindexter. With a clever woman's instinct, she had early detected the fact that he had a superior, stronger nature than her husband; as a loyal wife, she secretly resented the occasional unconscious exhibition of this fact on the part of his intimate friend in their familiar intercourse. Added to this slight jealousy there was a certain moral antagonism between herself and the captain which none but themselves knew. ”

“ The next year Captain Tucker was put in command of the frigate Boston, and in 1778 he took John Adams to France as envoy from the United States.
It was a voyage full of incidents. They passed through days of storm, which nearly wrecked the ship. Many vessels were seen, and the Boston was chased by three men-of-war.
She ran away from these, and soon after came across a large armed vessel, which Captain Tucker decided to fight. When the drum [86] called the men to quarters, Mr. Adams seized a musket and joined the marines. ”

“ The officer on board the schooner incautiously permitted his vessel to touch at the government wharf, when some of the crew, having the opportunity imprudently afforded them, jumped on shore, and reported that the British had already commenced hostilities.
Upon this the Surinam was detained, and Captain Tucker was ordered on shore, and informed that he must consider himself a prisoner of war. At first he was not put under strict surveillance, and he therefore employed the weary hours in taking plans of the forts and batteries of the island. ”

“ Two Algerine corsairs, their decks crowded with men, their long low hulls cleaving the waves like dolphins, had given chase to the merchantman. The captain of the threatened ship grew faint-hearted: he sought courage in liquor, and soon became unable to manage his vessel. Tucker took the helm. He saw that there was no chance of escape in flight, for the corsairs were too fleet. There was no hope of victory in a battle, for the pirates were too strong. But the trim New England schooner minded her helm better than her lanteen-rigged pursuers, and this fact Tucker put to good account. ”

“ I shall defend myself to the best of my ability.” Though we had not yet spoken a word with him, he inspired us with a feeling of profoundest respect.
Had we been without our distinguished passenger, we should have hastened to the attack. But our first duty was to care for his safety, though there had been nothing in Captain Tucker’s orders to prevent him from taking a prize [177] if she fell in his way. Confident that the ship ahead of him must contain a valuable cargo, or she would not be so heavily armed, our commander felt it would be a grave mistake to allow her to pass unmolested. ”

“ All know how hot and furious the war was. The Anglo-Saxon race, the first and foremost people on earth, are wise in counsel and fierce in war. Fighting commenced at once. Captain Rochelle was placed under the command of Captain Tucker, on the James river, on the war steamer Patrick Henry, and with the Merrimac fought the Monitor and wooden fleet of the North in Hampton Roads, the first naval battle in which armored ships were used. That engagement covered the new and little Confederate Navy with glory. ”

“ The stakeholder, anxious to keep on good terms with his stomach, declined it.
“You've both got your moorings up, I s'pose?” he inquired.
“Got 'em up this evening,” replied Tucker. “We're just made fast one on each side of the Dolphin now.”
“The wind's light, but it's from the right quarter,” said Captain Berrow, “an' I only hope as 'ow the best ship'll win. I'd like to win myself, but, if not, I can only say as there's no man breathing I'd sooner have lick me than Cap'n Tucker. He's as smart a seaman as ever comes into the London river, an' he's got a schooner angels would be proud of.” ”

“ As the doomed vessel flew, as if relieved to have the strain withdrawn and the matter settled, towards the cruel rocks, the breakers that were dashing scores of feet high above the bar revealed how slender was the hope of one man escaping to tell the tale of the last of the Mimosa. The line of breakers, stretching two miles in each direction, dead ahead, seemed but a hundred yards off. For one second the captain grasped the doctor's hand as he passed, with eyes, still staring into the yeasty Maelstrom before them. ”

“ Finding she could not escape us, she now prepared for a fight, and as she carried twenty guns and a large crew, she was no mean antagonist. Captain Tucker attempted several times to grapple with her, desiring to throw a boarding party on her deck, but she avoided him every time, and poured a broadside into us. We returned the fire, and both vessels had received considerable damage when a mistake by the Englishman’s pilot caused her to foul with us. Here was the opportunity for which we had been looking, and in another minute our boarders poured over her rail and down her deck. ”

“ It must be allowed by all who have any knowledge in these matters, that prompt, determined, and decisive conduct is absolutely necessary in such cases; but justice demands that we should not attribute the conduct of the Cherub’s crew, on the above occasion, to a mutinous spirit, but merely to the disgust occasioned by the beef’s intolerable smell when moistened by the rain. Their attachment to Captain Tucker may be fairly inferred from what we have stated in the first paragraph at p. ”

“ On the 21st June, Captain Tucker arrived at Manado, and sent a summons to the governor of fort Amsterdam, on which and some neighbouring batteries were mounted 3 twelve-pounders, 5 eight-pounders, 10 sixes, and 32 pieces of smaller calibre. The terms offered were immediately accepted; 102 Dutch officers and soldiers laid down their arms, and 11 seamen were also taken prisoners. ”

“ Spencer Tucker. It was retouched, refined, and idealized in the highest style of that polite and diplomatic art. As Captain Poindexter looked upon the fringed hazel eyes, the drooping raven mustache, the clustering ringlets, and the Byronic full throat and turned-down collar of his friend, a smile of exhausted humorous tolerance and affectionate impatience curved his lips. "Well, you are a fool, aren't you?" he apostrophized it half audibly.
He was standing before the picture as she entered. Even in the trying contiguity of that peerless work he would have been called a fine-looking man. ”

“ Then I heard a sound as though one was rising from a bed, and the next instant the man came over where I was with rapid strides.
“I am Samuel Tucker, a sea captain from Marblehead, in the colony of Massachusetts,” he announced much to my astonishment. “Now tell me who are you?”
“Captain Tucker!” I cried, ignoring his question in my surprise and joy. “Captain [101] Samuel Tucker of Marblehead, and I came across the ocean to find you! Who would have thought we should meet here—in a cell of the Liverpool jail!” ”

“ I never saw any one more scared than was old Captain Tucker that night. We dragged over the outer bar and into Bootle Bay, and there we lay, the ship full of water, and everything gone above the monkey-rail. The only place we could find to stand was just by the cabin gangway. The 'Moscow' was built with an old-fashioned cabin on deck, and right there we hung, all hands of us. The old man he read the service to us,—and that wouldn't do, he was so scared; so he got the black cook, who was a Methodist, and made him pray ”

“ Captain Tucker expects great results from certain newly-invented submarine inventions, which he thinks are sure to succeed. He told me that, in the April attack, these two gunboats were placed in rear of Fort Sumter, and if, as was anticipated, the Monitors had managed to force their way past Sumter, they would have been received from different directions by the powerful battery Bee on Sullivan's Island, by this island, Forts Pinckney and Ripley, by the two gunboats, and by Fort Johnson on James Island—a nest of hornets from which they would perhaps never have returned. ”

“ Ann hadn’t thought of that; of course, a man who was willing to buy smuggled goods was exactly as dishonest as the person who sold them. It made it seem to her as though Captain Rand wasn’t quite as—as—— She didn’t like to say “bad” even to herself, for surely a man couldn’t be really bad if he had made his dog so fond of him that the dog had rather starve than go away from the place where he’d last seen his master.
175 As they left the wreck Warren Bain flashed his torch into the face of the figurehead, high above them as they stood on the beach. ”

“ A huge wave lifted the fragile Mimosa on its breast, and just in the nick of time, turning the vessel, as with unseen hands, fairly hurled her through the narrow opening.
A cheer, such as Englishmen alone can raise, even when death stares them in the face, rang out above the Titanic thudding of the breakers claiming their prey. The little vessel glided across calm waters within the bar.
"If the lagoon runs round clear to the lee, we need not even beach her," the captain exclaimed. ”

“ I am sure we shall learn that the captain lost track of where he was and came in too close to shore.”
Ann’s doubts showed in her face. “But the crew and cargo have disappeared.”
“You mustn’t be superstitious, Ann. There is always a logical explanation for everything that seems strange and unnatural. There must be a good reason why that boat had no cargo and probably we shall learn all about her this summer before we go back to Boston. Some of the people about here may know more than they care to admit and have purposely kept it secret from Jo and Mr. Bailey.” ”

“ Every man who is willing to fight go down the starboard gangway; all others can go down the larboard." Every soul of them took the starboard.
He manœuvered so that in a few minutes the vessels lay side by side. The Englishman opened with a broadside that did little damage. The Thorn replied with a destructive fire, and kept it up so hotly that within thirty minutes a loud cry came from the English ship:
"Quarters, for God's sake! Our ship is sinking. Our men are dying of their wounds."
"How can you expect quarters while your flag is flying?" demanded Captain Tucker. ”

“ Lieutenant Tucker accompanied Rear-Admiral Totty to the Baltic and West Indies, in the Zealous 74, and their old ship, the Saturn. On the 28th May, 1802, he was appointed acting captain of the Excellent 74, bearing the broad pendant of Commodore (now Sir Robert) Stopford; and we subsequently find him commanding the Hornet and Surinam, sloops, in which latter vessel he was sent by Commodore Samuel Hood, to demand the liberation of two British officers, who had imprudently thrown themselves into the power of the brigands at St. ”

“ Tucker had promised that he would oblige Captain Pratt to let the boy come ashore at Minchin's Island, where he should have a home for a time at least.
Relying on that promise, Bobby had gathered all the boys of the town together to give Tim a proper welcome, and all had been hidden behind the shed when the steamer came in, so that the surprise should be as great as possible. By what means Mr. Tucker had induced Captain Pratt to part with the cabin-boy he was "breaking in" no one knew, and no one seemed to care, since it had been so successfully accomplished. ”