Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [106]
The contents of the first caused his face to widen into a vast, satisfied grin. Here was his long-delayed promotion to the rank of Commodore and an assignment to a new post, one he had coveted for years.
He allowed himself a glass of port wine, stood before the mirror, and toasted, after a long period of self-indulgent admiration, “To Commodore Percy Poindexter Holifield, the next superintendent of the United States Naval Academy.”
Returning to his desk, he studied the balance of his communications. After a week’s layover for necessary repairs in Cork, the Quinnebaug was to proceed with all deliberate speed to Portsmouth, England. There she would join an international flotilla of naval vessels, as America’s representative at Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.
Thereafter, he would be relieved of his command and was to return forthwith to the United States, to the Academy.
The Quinnebaug, a sail-and-screw corvette of nineteen hundred tons, with a complement of two hundred officers and crew, was part of a two-ship squadron that constituted the European Station. For three years Percy Holifield had sailed her on a round of endless ports of call to “show the flag.” Her route had taken her to such unlikely places as Samos, Zante, Villefranche, and Latakia and the steamy route down the west coast of Africa to the likes of Monrovia, Junk River, and Libreville. A graveyard of a career had just been redeemed.
He scrawled his signature on an order for shore leave. The Irish members of his crew, who constituted almost half of his men, would receive five days’ liberty, while the others would make do with three days ashore.
Holifield ran down a list of what would be needed to spiff up his ship, to make certain she would proudly represent America, and wrote out detailed repair and maintenance orders.
He went to his sea chest and dug down to the bottom, where he had carefully stowed a bolt of blue Navy cloth, several rolls of gold braid, and packets of buttons. From these he would have crafted a new commodore’s uniform.
There was endless socializing with the ships’ captains of the various European navies. Despite America’s great strides in naval warfare during the Civil War, the Europeans continued to look with disdain at the Yankees, particularly at their spartan uniforms. Well, he’d make them eat their epaulets, by thunder!
Having attended to his ship and men, he ordered a carriage and made for Cork with his bolt and buttons and braid and a number of photographs of the commodore’s uniform. The carriage stopped at Callaghan and O’Brien, the city’s finest men’s haberdasher on the Grand Parade, Cork’s main shopping thoroughfare.
Devastating news was delivered to him by Mr. Callaghan himself. “Terribly sorry, Yer Excellency, but there’s absolutely no way such an elaborate furnishing can be done in under a month, and we’re badly backlogged.”
“You understand, of course, that this is for the Queen’s flotilla.”
Callaghan tilted his head, bit his lip, and sighed in sympathy. “Aw, I’d be after lying to you, sir, if you were an Englishman, but I’d not do such a thing to the skipper of an American vessel such as yourself. I have many relatives in America, sir, and I wouldn’t be treating you that way.”
“But Lord, man, look at these rags I’m wearing. They’re all but rotted out from the west coast of Africa.”
“Pity, sir, pity. Hold on just one moment,” Callaghan said and consulted sincerely with his partner, then returned to the disconsolate commodore.
“There is a chance, just a chance, mind you, but there is a Jewish tailor in Queenstown, where your ship is tied up. He specializes in naval uniforms, enlisted men, mainly, but why don’t you give it a go?” and with that he wrote the name and address of one Moses Balaban on a slip of paper.
The commodore drove back to Queenstown