Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
fault, giving orders, countermanding orders. He was authoritarian to
the point of barbarity and suspicious to the point of paranoia. He
was indecisive in crisis and often wrong in matters of routine ship
management. Yet, in the way of men whose shoes are too big, he
could not take advice. Any contradiction smacked to him of insub-
ordination and incipient mutiny. Officers constantly felt the lash of
his tongue and men the cut of the cat. Incidents like the following
were commonplace: one night Wilkes, shouting from the deck of the
Vincennes,
ordered the schooner
Flying Fish
to heave-to. The captain,
Robert Pinkney, could not hear the command above the howl of the
wind and came in closer to clarify his instructions:
Wilkes repeated the order and Pinkney, knowing that to heave-
to in this position would result in collision, waited for the opportunity
to comply. Wilkes shouted a third time, 'Why don't you heave-to Sir,
heave-to immediately.' Pinkney did so and the schooner shot up into
the wind across the Vincennes' bows, just clearing the latter's flying
jib boom, and clearing it, not through the prompt action of Wilkes,
who did not act at all, it was noted, but of Lieutenant Underwood in
stopping the way of the Vincennes. Bustling forward and stamping the
deck, Wilkes sang out through the trumpet,
'What do you mean, what do you mean by such conduct as this. I
never saw the like of it in my life.'
'I hove to in obedience to your orders,' replied Pinkney.
'God damn it Sir,' the commander shouted, fairly dancing in his
fury, 'I never ordered you to heave-to under my bows.'
8
Little wonder that the only common bond between officers, ci-
vilians and crewmen was their dislike of their skipper. During the
cruise one hundred and twenty-four sailors deserted, a fact which
obliged Wilkes to fill the gaps with a motley collection of harbour
riff-raff - yet another cause of friction.
