Reefs and Shoals (37 page)

Dammit, it had been grand; not as large and imposing as its neighbours, the other manses that lined the streets or fronted upon the green public-squares, but it had been impressive enough.

And it didn’t look as if there were any plasterers or painters workin’ on it, either,
Lewrie fumed;
It was a lot finer than Mister Cotton’s at Charleston. And, just how much
does
a consul get paid on a foreign station?

Britain’s public services, and government offices, were rife with jobbery, graft, and “interest”. There was good reason for families to wheedle a minor clerk’s job for their sons, for aspiring men to spend as much as £5,000 to gain a government post that paid no more than £300 or £500 a year. Once in place, and assured a life-long living, the sky was the limit on how much they could earn on the sly in bribes. Christ, they even knighted some of the bastards at the end of a long career!

Lewrie wondered if Hereford’s eagerness to see him off quickly was due to catching him asleep in his offices, and most remiss in his duties overall, or did Hereford fear that he might learn something criminal about his dealings if he stayed a night or two?

Hereford could be a haughty, useless fool with a private income from his family in England, or have umpteen thousands in the Three Percents and a slew of annual interest, Lewrie considered. The British pound sterling was worth a lot more than any unit of currency that the United States could ever issue, so an hundred pounds could go a very long way towards purchasing, or running up, a house. A private income, plus his annual pay and expenses for a residence and offices, could be a more-than-tidy sum.

Or, he could be a shifty criminal in league with his country’s enemies! At the very least, making money on the side by looking away, not looking at all, from the dealings of a Savannah businessman.

Damme!
Lewrie chid himself of a sudden;
If I hadn’t been so angry, I should’ve looked up … what were their names?

During the Quasi-War ’twixt France and the United States over high-handed French boarding and seizure of American merchants who were
not
trading with France, there had been a “hostilities only” bought-in ship, the U.S. Armed Brig
Oglethorpe,
fitted out and armed by eager public subscription in Savannah, and crewed by merchant masters, mates, and sailors, for the most part, with a sprinkling of U.S. Navy officers who had no ships in which to serve. She, Captain McGilliveray’s
Thomas Sumter
, and the U.S. Frigate
Hancock
, had formed a squadron in the West Indies to protect their country’s shipping, and seek out any French merchantmen they could find, and, most honourably, fight and take any French warship or privateer they encountered, too.

And
Oglethorpe
’s captain had been a Savannahan gentleman seafarer named…?
Randolph!
Lewrie recalled;
If I didn’t have my nose outta joint, I could’ve looked him up and asked
him
a few questions! Too damned late, now!

Lewrie also glumly considered that Randolph might have stayed in the sea trade, and might have been halfway to Canton, China, or he might have passed away of something; a lot of people whom Lewrie had known from his time round Jamaica, and at Nassau, as he’d learned from his recent call there, had joined The Great Majority.

Toulon and Chalky had abandoned his lap and thighs and gone to the middle of the settee to groom themselves before supper, so Lewrie could get to his feet and stroll aft to the larboard side to step into his quarter-gallery toilet to relieve himself of beer. The upper sash-windows were open for the sundown breeze, and
Reliant
had swung on her single anchor to face her stern up-river, so he could savour another fine sunset as he piddled.

I
have
t’re-join the squadron off Saint Augustine,
he thought;
I’ve already been away too long. But, if Darling, Lovett, and Bury say that blockadin’ the place ain’t worth a candle, what’s t’stop me from bringin’ ’em back up here t’prowl the Georgia coast for a bit? Maybe poke into the St. John’s River in Spanish Florida on the way? And, do we use some o’ those boats we captured at Mayami Bay, and keep well to the Spanish side o’ the Saint Mary’s…? Hmm.

As he did his breeches’ buttons up, he stepped to the aft windows for a last peek at the sunset, and a deep, appreciative breath of cooler evening air. The larger merchant ships that had been anchored off Cockspur Island the night before, on the Southern side of Tybee Roads, were reduced in number. There had been four, but now there were only two, surrounded as before with lighters nuzzled alongside like a pack of nursing piglets. Up-river, nearer Turtle Island and Jones Island, the night lanthorns had already been lit on the clutch of smaller brigs and snows, also attended by lighters. Some of the lighters sat lower in the water than others, evidently still full of exports or chandlers’ goods, to be laded in the morning.

And, coming down-river was a pair of those stout and dowdy cargo barges under two masted lugs’l rigs with single jibs. With the sun low on the Western horizon, almost lost in the trees, the sails glowed amber against the red band of sunset, and tiny, glim-like lanthorns at their binnacles and sterns winked a cheery yellow. Quite pretty, Lewrie thought, in all.

Lewrie left the quarter-gallery and shut the door behind him, and took seat upon the upholstered transom settee to continue watching the sunset through the transom sash-windows. The lower halves of the windows were kept closed at all times, so one, or both, of his cats on a romp or gambol in the night, did not fall out and be lost at sea; they needed a cleaning of salt-air rime on the outside, and smudges of paw prints on the inside. He had to stand again to watch through the open upper halves.

The sailing barges stood on, bound for the larger ships which lay off Cockspur Island, almost passing out of view as they neared the starboard quarter. But, they weren’t reducing sail.

What the Devil?
Lewrie wondered, going over to the starboard side of his cabins to open the door to the other quarter-gallery, which was used for storage, so he could follow the barges’ progress.

They weren’t stopping at the large ships’ anchorage; they were bound out to sea!

Where the bloody Hell are
they
goin’?
Lewrie asked himself;
At this time o’ night?
Pettus and Jessop hadn’t bothered to clean the window panes in the starboard quarter-gallery, since it was not used as a lavatory, so Lewrie had to pull out his long shirt-tail to scrub himself a clear patch, but all he accomplished was a worse smear. His curiosity piqued, he dashed for the door to the waist and ran up the ladderway to the quarterdeck in his shirt sleeves.

“Captain’s on deck,” Midshipman Warburton cautioned the idling quarteredeck watch, and the officers who had come up before their own supper for a smoke, or a breath of air.

“Glass, Mister Warburton!” Lewrie snapped.

“Something amiss, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked, coming to the starboard bulwarks a step behind his captain.

“Those two sailin’ barges yonder, sir,” Lewrie said over his shoulder. “They’re not closin’ with those anchored ships; they’re on their way to sea. Lading’s done for the day, so where are they goin’, I wonder. Why are they bound out just at sundown, not…? Thankee, Mister Warburton,” he said as the requested telescope was fetched.

He couldn’t see all
that
much, even if the barges were only a mile or so off. The telescope was a day-glass, with little light-gathering strength. A night glass would have shown more detail, but its assortment of internal lenses resulted in an image that was upside-down and backwards.

“They look t’be about fourty or fifty feet, or so, two-masted, and…” Lewrie muttered. “Do they look like the run-of-the-mill barges you’ve seen, Mister Westcott?”

“I
suppose
so, sir,” the First Lieutenant admitted sheepishly, “I fear I’ve not given any of them more than a passing glance. Just work-boats,” he said with a shrug.

“Have any of you seen any o’ them goin’ to sea, or entering the Roads from seaward?” Lewrie asked.

His sudden appearance on the quarterdeck had drawn the other two Lieutenants, and the Marine Officer, from the idle gathering, and to stand near him by the starboard bulwarks in a befuddled pack.

“I cannot say that we have, sir,” Lt. Spendlove, the most earnest of them, confessed.

“As Mister Westcott said, sir … just work-boats,” Lieutenant Merriman seconded. “Strings of them come down-river each morning, and return to Savannah in the afternoons, mostly.”

“Or, they spend the night alongside the merchant ships, then sail the next morning, sir,” Lt. Spendlove added.

“Is their going to sea suspicious, though, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked. “There are plantations on almost every island along the coast, I heard, so … they must get goods from Savannah somehow.”

“After
dark
, though?” Lewrie pointed out. “It’d make more sense to sail from the Savannah docks at dawn, and get to Saint Simon’s, or Jekyll Island, or Brunswick port, in late afternoon, in safety, and not risk the barges to the shoals and such in the dark.”

“Even goods required instanter, sir?” Marine Lt. Simoock asked.

“Instanter, my foot!” Lt. Merriman scoffed with a laugh. “It would take a whole day to send an order by boat from Brunswick, and a day to fill it, then a third day, weather permitting, to ship it down to them.”

“Instanter’s what you have at hand, and snatch up quickly,” Lt. Spendlove added.

“Well, I’m no mariner, I will admit,” Simcock replied, “so I will trust to your seasoned judgement.”

“There
is
the possibility that those two barges are from one of the Sea Islands further South, sir, or belong to a Brunswick merchant, returning home,” Westcott slowly speculated. “If their masters know the waters well enough, and stand far enough offshore during the night, they may not think a night passage all
that
much of a risk.”

“An everyday or weekly occurrence, then, sir?” Lewrie asked, lowering his telescope, and wondering if he was grasping at straws in the need to discover
something
criminal to justify the days that he had so far wasted chasing after Will-O’-The-Wisps. “Possibly,” he allowed … grudgingly.

Wish I could send a cutter in chase of ’em,
Lewrie thought;
or shadow ’em and see what they’re up to.

He closed the tubes of the telescope with a thump and heaved a deep sigh, partly in disappointment, and partly to calm his excitement and appear “captainly” to his officers and men. He turned and handed it back to Midshipman Warburton with a polite “Thankee.”

I send a cutter t’board ’em in the dark, or lurk so bald-faced in American waters, I could halfway start a war!
he told himself.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Lewrie said to one and all, on his way to the head of the starboard ladderway, then paused at the top. “There will be some of those lighters alongside with the Purser’s goods tomorrow. Without appearin’
too
curious, let’s take her measure, and ask about the barge trade. And, keep a closer eye on the traffic in the Roads, hey?
Bon appetit
!” he bade them on his way to his supper.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The sailing barge from Savannah came alongside
Reliant
in the middle of the Forenoon, and Lewrie made sure that he was on deck for her arrival, as were his off-watch officers, Bosun Sprague, and his Mate, Wheeler. Lines from her bow and stern were taken aboard to be bound to the frigate’s mizen and foremast chains, and the barge crew heaved over great hairy mats of ravelled rope to cushion the contact between the hulls.

There were light articles of cargo on the barge’s deck, containing live chickens and layer hens, some squealing piglets, and sides of fresh-slaughtered beef in jute sacks, sacks of flour and cornmeal, and casks of spirits, along with wooden cases of goods for the officers’ wardroom, the Mids’ cockpit, and the captain’s cabins.

Lewrie stood idle by the mizen mast shrouds to look down into her. The barge was closer to fifty feet on the range of the deck than his earlier estimate of fourty, very wide-beamed, and flush-decked with a single cargo hatch between her masts, and smaller crew hatches at bow and stern. Her master was White, as was her helmsman, though the rest of the small crew were Black, most likely slaves.

“We’ll have the light goods, first,” Bosun Sprague bellowed to the barge crew. “Lines comin’ down, and we’ll drag them up the loading skids.”

“Is she about the same size as the barges you saw at Savannah, Mister Cadbury?” Lewrie asked the Purser as he stood on the quarterdeck with a ledger book and a pencil, to cheek off each bought item as it came aboard.

“About average, sir,” Cadbury told him. “There are some smaller, thirty or thirty-five feet or so,” Cadbury told him. “I would say that this one is representative of the bulk of the barge trade. Many of them serve plantations and hamlets up the river, as well. As for the barges you noted leaving port last evening, sir, they
may
have been bound for the Sea Island plantations landings, for the channels behind the islands.”

“Out to sea just long enough to enter Wassaw or Ossabaw Sounds, then go up the other rivers?” Lewrie asked, leaning most “lubberly” on the bulwarks where the quarterdeck ended and the larboard sail-tending gangway began, with his arms crossed.

“Very likely, sir,” Mr. Cadbury agreed with a primly happy expression, glad to be of assistance. “While I am not a ‘scaly fish’ of experienced seamanship, this barge does strike me that its upper rails are tall enough to weather a stiff beat to weather, well heeled over, long enough at least for a short sea journey from one sound to the next.”