The war maker

by Horace Herbert Smith

My last real adventure had ended with the burial of the “Leckwith,” for there had been nothing thrilling in the delivery of the arms I had carried to Montenegro and Peru, and I was hungry for some new excitement, the very essence and sole enjoyment of my life. While casting about for something to satisfy my appetite the recollection of the Yarmouth outrage came over me and I decided to steal a ship and let the underwriters pay for her, as partial compensation for the one they had stolen from me. After a survey of the available supply, following my return to London from Peru, late in the Summer of 1879, I hit on the “Ferret,” a handsome and fairly fast little passenger steamer belonging to the Highland Railway Company, which was lying at Gourock Bay on the Clyde. They would not let her out on a general charter, which was what I wanted, so I concluded to charter her for a year for a cruise in the Mediterranean, with the option of purchase for fourteen thousand pounds at the end of that time. All of the negotiations were conducted and the deal closed by Joe Wilson, my trusted aide, and I was careful to impress him with the necessity for the insertion of the option of purchase clause. I had so much confidence in him that I did not closely examine the charter papers and not until it was too late did I discover that he had neglected to cover the one vital point. My plan was to go back out East and dig up the guns which Frank Norton and I had buried on a little island when we left the China Sea, and perhaps, if I found that I could stand it to revisit the scenes of the supreme joy and sadness which had come to me with the discovery of the Beautiful White Devil, resume the unholy occupation of preying on the pirates between Singapore and Hong Kong. I wanted the option of purchase clause inserted in the charter partly as a sop to my conscience and partly with the idea that if we were, by any remote chance, apprehended before we reached the China Sea, I could announce that I had exercised my option and was prepared to pay for the ship. I was not sure that my conscience, for I still had one, would let me carry the deal through, and I figured that I could comfort it, if it troubled me too much, with the assurance that I might really buy the ship after all, though I am frank to say I had no such intention.

With the delivery of the charter, in proper form as I supposed, I made a great show of fitting the ship out for a yachting cruise, at the same time smuggling on board two small cannon and a lot of rifles and ammunition. Lorensen, my old captain, was seriously ill, so I took on as sailing master a man named Watkins. He was well recommended but it later developed that he had a strain of negro blood and a well-defined streak of yellow. Tom Leigh, one of my old men, was first officer, and next to him was George Ross, another new one. We coaled at Cardiff and cleared for Malaga. We passed Gibraltar late in the afternoon, as was intended, and signalled “All well” to the observer for Lloyds’. As soon as it was dark we headed over toward the other shore for twelve or fifteen miles and then stood straight out to sea again. As we made the second change in our course we stove in a couple of our boats and threw them overboard, along with a lot of life preservers. I wanted to make it appear that the “Ferret” had foundered, and we ran into a heavy blow which dovetailed beautifully into my scheme. At daylight we were well clear of Gibraltar but within sight of the Morrocan coast. I called the crew aft and addressed them to this effect:

“Taking advantage of the option of purchase clause in the charter, I now declare myself the owner of this ship and will pay for her, as stipulated, at the end of the period for which she is chartered. We are going on a very different trip from that for which you signed. It will be attended by some danger but, probably, by profits which will more than compensate you for the risk you run. Those of you who wish to go with me will receive double pay, a bonus of fifty dollars for signing new papers, and a share of the profits from the trip. Those who do not care to go may take a boat and go ashore.”

Every man agreed to stay with me. I thereupon rechristened the ship the “India,” a name legitimately held by a vessel on the other side of the world, as was indicated by Lloyds’ register, fired a gun and dipped the flag and declared her in commission. At the same time I rechristened myself, a ceremony to which I was equally accustomed, and took the name of James Stuart Henderson. I presented the ship with a new log and certificate of registry and other necessary papers, from the counterfeit blanks I always carried, and all of the men signed the new articles. We then headed for Santos, Brazil, with the idea of keeping clear of British waters until the loss of the “Ferret” had become an established fact. On the way the brass plate on the main beam, showing that the engines were built for the “Ferret,” was removed, and the new name took the place of the old one everywhere about the ship. The chart room and wheelhouse were taken off the bridge and rebuilt over the wheel amidships. Some of the upper works were stripped away and the whole appearance of the vessel was changed to such an extent that even her builders would hardly have recognized her.

At Santos I bought outright a cargo of coffee and headed for Cape Town, South Africa, where I consigned it to Wm. G. Anderson & Son, with instructions to sell it for cash, and quickly. On the trip across the Atlantic, Ross, the second officer, who had been one of the boldest at first, all at once became very anxious regarding the outcome of the trip and his future welfare. Watkins, the sailing master, who had shown a domineering nature that I did not like, also hoisted the white feather. Griffin, too, the chief engineer, displayed some symptoms of cold feet, but he was a brave man at heart and his trouble was easily cured. I allowed Ross to return to England from Cape Town, and Watkins caught the gold fever and started for Pretoria. I had no fear that either of them would engage in any unwise talk, for both had signed forged articles with their eyes wide open. I made Leigh sailing master and we cleared light for Australia, with a short stop at the Mauritius for coal. We coaled again at Albany, West Australia. From there we went to Port Adelaide, South Australia, and then on to Melbourne, where we came to grief. Off Port Philip Head we signalled for a pilot and a canny Scot came aboard. He seemed suspicious of us from the first and I noticed that he was studying the ship closely as we steamed up to an anchorage off Williamstown. Two young royal princes had just arrived on a British fleet and there were gala goings-on when we entered the harbor.

I landed at once and went to the Civil Service Club Hotel to recuperate from a bad case of malaria which I had contracted at the Mauritius. While not alarmed by the apparent suspicion of the pilot, I was impressed by it, and gave strict orders to Leigh to allow no one to come aboard. Leigh’s one weakness was drink and to guard against his becoming helplessly intoxicated I instructed Wilson to either remain on board or visit the ship every day. My fever grew worse after I went ashore and in two or three days the doctor decided that I should have a nurse, as I was all alone. The doctor was with me when the nurse arrived and as he entered the door the doctor made a quick movement as though something had startled him, and looked from one of us to the other in amazement. I could not imagine what had happened until he said: “That man looks enough like you to be your twin brother. I never have seen such a resemblance between two men.”

I surveyed the nurse more critically and saw that we did look strangely alike, even to the scarred face. He had a scar on his left cheek, whereas mine is on my right, and it was shorter than mine, but it served to heighten our resemblance. We could not have been more alike in build if we had been cast from the same mould, and any one who did not know us intimately could easily have been excused for taking one of us for the other. The nurse said his name was William Nourse and that he had arrived in Melbourne only two or three days before from Tasmania, where he had worked in the Hobartstown hospital. As we got better acquainted he told me he had had a run of hard luck in Hobartstown; that his wife had deserted him and he had taken to drink and lost his position, and that he had come to Australia to make a fresh start.

While I was recovering at the hotel events were transpiring in connection with the ship which tended to dissuade my spirit from becoming overproud. Wilson, it developed, soon relaxed his vigilance and gave himself up to pleasures ashore but without coming near me, whereupon old Leigh blithely betook himself to his beloved bottle. After a few days the shrewd Scotch pilot paid the ship a friendly visit, found Leigh full three sheets in the wind, encouraged him to proceed with his potations until he fell asleep, and then went over the ship at his leisure, taking measurements and making observations. Naturally, her measurements corresponded exactly with those of the “Ferret,” which had been reported as missing with a probability that she had gone down in the Mediterranean, and he reported his suspicions and the result of his investigation to the authorities. Being a Scotchman he was not actuated so much by honesty and a desire that right should prevail as by the expectation of a substantial reward. The ship was promptly seized for some technical violation of the port regulations, which gave the officials an opportunity to make a detailed inspection and take all of her measurements, and Leigh and the few members of the crew who were on board when the seizure was made were detained there. Leigh refused to say a word but one or two of the crew, believing the fat was in the fire and wishing to save their own bacon, told enough to confirm all of the suspicions that were entertained regarding us. Leigh was then formally placed under arrest and search was instituted for Wilson and me.

I was greatly surprised when, late one afternoon about ten days after our arrival at Melbourne, I received word from Joe that the ship had been recognized as the “Ferret” and seized, that he had taken to the bush and that I had better disappear as quickly and quietly as possible if I wished to escape arrest, for the officers were looking for both of us. Fearful, for the first time, that Joe had made a mistake, and cursing my carelessness, I dug into my papers and discovered that the charter contained no option of purchase clause. That made it serious business and I understood why Joe had taken such precipitate flight. I knew if I stayed at the hotel my arrest was only a matter of a few hours and that if I sought to escape, the chances were that I would be caught, but I determined to make a try for it. By that time I was able to be up and walk around my room, though I had not left it, but I had Nourse pass the word around the hotel that I had had a serious relapse and was in such a precarious condition that I must not be disturbed by visitors nor by any noise near my rooms.

I told Nourse that a warrant was out for my arrest on some technical violation of the port regulations and that, while I had no fear of the result of a trial, I did not feel strong enough to go through it, and therefore I intended to leave at once and secretly and stay away until the trouble blew over. He agreed to go with me and soon after dark we left the hotel quietly by a rear entrance which opened onto an alley. I left behind all of my luggage except a bag in which I carried about five thousand, five hundred pounds in gold and Bank of England notes, and a few articles of clothing. We engaged a carriage and drove to a suburb on the railroad running to Sydney, where we stayed all night, as all of the evening trains had left. My idea was to get to Sydney or Newcastle, where I hoped to bribe the captain of some outgoing ship to take me on board as a stowaway. We took the morning train and rode as far as Seymour, about seventy-five miles from Melbourne. There we hired a rig and drove across country to Longwood, where we picked up the railroad after it had passed an important junction point which I wished to avoid as I feared the officers would be watching for us there. On the long drive to Longwood I became convinced that my capture was certain, for the country was so thinly settled that we were sure to attract attention and be easily followed, if we undertook to drive through it, while if I stuck to the railroad I was sure to be apprehended. In seeking some new way out of the dilemma I conceived the idea of having Nourse take my place. There was no reason that money could not remove to prevent him from doing so, for neither of us was known, and a physical description, such as the police would have, would fit either of us. I was becoming more and more apprehensive of danger and as we neared Longwood I put the proposition up to him.