Reefs and Shoals (46 page)

“The others, you say?” Lewrie asked them. “
What
others?”

“Well, there’s the
Otarie,
what means t’e ‘Sea Lion’, for one,” Evans confessed. “T’en t’ere’s t’
Furieux,
but her captain’s a real Tartar.
Sea Lion
’s captain…”

“Mollien,” Lewrie stuck in.

“Aye, sir,” Evans said. “He’s good at it, but can’t hold a patch t’Captain Chaptal. T’at’s why we signed aboard her, sir, for he’s t’e most successful, young t’ough he be.”

“There was a Spaniard, too, now and again, the
Torbellino
,” Innis told Lewrie. “Moighta been a Catholic-run ship, but there’s no way Oi’d
ever
take articles with a
Don,
sor!”

“We nabbed her,” Lewrie boasted. “Here now, lads … how would you two like
not
to hang?”

“Well, o’
course,
sor!” Innis exclaimed.

“Do anything, sir!” Evans swore. “A Bible-oath I would!”

“Lieutenant Lovett?” Lewrie said. “I’d admire did you take these two prisoners back to the prize, so they can fetch their sea-chests and determine if they possess worthless Consular certificates, or genuine papers.”

“Very good, sir,” Lovett replied, sounding as if he would have relished a hanging instead.

“Then bring them right back here,” Lewrie went on, turning to face the pair once more. “I want you to tell me everything you know about your so-called ‘Prize-Court’ trade, who arranges it, and where, and how it’s conducted. If your certificates are genuine, you
could
be imprisoned at Nassau like the rest of your crew.

“But,” he insisted, raising a finger in warning, “if you tell me all, I’d be of a mind t’let you two volunteer into the brigantine yonder. Lieutenant Darling, her commander, told me he’s two hands short. Not
pressed,
but allowed the Joining Bounty. Think upon it. You’ve no hopes of even
tuppence
of what pay, or shares in captured ships, you were due. You have your kits and sea-chests already, so
Thorn
’s Purser can’t charge you much if you volunteer.”

That beats prison hulks, or a ‘Newgate Horn-pipe’
, Lewrie told himself;
but not by much,
recalling what Dr. Samuel Johnson had said of sea-service—that it was like a prison, in which one has the chance to drown!

“Why, t’at’d be more t’an fair, sir!” Evans exulted, whooshing with relief. “I’ll do it, and tell you all you wish!”

“If Oi kin have some’un wroite me fam’ly an’ tell ’em where Oi be, sor,” Innis quickly agreed.

“Off ye go with Lieutenant Lovett, here, then,” Lewrie said. “And when you return, we’ll have a good, long talk, hey?”

Good God above, they’re in in up to their
necks
!
Lewrie thought in joy;
They’ve seen the whole scheme from the
inside
! By sunset, we may be able to “smoak out” the entire enterprise, and put an end to it!

He did feel a moment of trepidation, though. Those two might not really know all that much. Or, could he really get that lucky?

He could almost hear Dame Fortune laughing in the wings.

CHAPTER FORTY

“I find them most convincing, sir,” Lt. Bury said after he and Lewrie had looked the certificates over in
Reliant
’s great-cabins, as the two sailors in question, Innis and Evans, stood before the desk in the day-cabin portion, nigh-shivering as their fate was determined.

“Good bond writing paper, not ‘flimsy’,” Lt. Westcott agreed as he held them up to the light of the overhead lanthorns to squint over them, “and the letterheads are embossed. If they
are
sham, they are the best I’ve seen. Aye, like Bury says, they seem genuine.”

“Let’s accept them at face value, then,” Lewrie decided. “Lads, I believe you when you say you’re American citizens of Georgia. You’ll not hang, not this year, at least. Now I’ll ask ye to fufill your part of the bargain.”

In vino veritas,
Lewrie thought;
or, in
beer
veritas. Get ’em ‘wet’ and loose-tongued. Where
…?

“Mister Westcott, let’s you and I take the chairs; Lieutenant Bury, do you drag one from the dining-coach, and you two have a seat on the settee yonder,” Lewrie bade them as genially as he could. “Pettus, please draw us five mugs of beer. Innis … you said you worked on the barges out of Savannah, first?”

“Aye, sor, Oi did,” the fellow said, grinning in relief, but a bit hesitant in his response. It might have had something to do with being seated like an equal with officers. Even in a looser, more easy-going Society like America, there were still lessers and betters, and enough who would insist on deference from one like him. “First off, Oi was bargin’ timber from the mills to Savannah, and goods back, but that was low-payin’ and boresome, and … like Davey told ye … Oi wanted t’see a bit more o’ the world. Went t’work for the Tybee Roads Tradin’ Comp’ny for more pay, but that was just river-work from Savannah down t’the Roads and back.”

Lewrie looked over at Bury, who had been scouring the captured privateer’s ledgers during the time it took to take Innis and Evans to the prize and return; Bury gave him a sage nod. The name of that company featured prominently on the meticulously recorded receipts.

“Did that for about a year, afore,” Innis went on, pausing as a foaming pint mug was offered him, and he took a deep swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sighed, and said “Ah, that’s toppin’, thankee, sor! The barge master, he took me aside one ev’nin’ and asks me, would Oi care t’make five or six dollar more a week, and o’
course
Oi said I would, but that’d depend on if Oi could keep me mouth shut, and not go blabbin’ did I get a skin full in the taverns. Then, Oi got on the coastin’ barges … down t’the Cumberland Sound and up the Saint Mary’s or the Saint John’s. Not all the time, maybe one trip or two ev’ry two, three months.”

“And what was secret about those trips?” Lewrie casually asked, not wanting to press him too sharply, but mightily intrigued.

“We’d meet the privateers, sor,” Innis almost happily admitted. “They’d’ve fetched their prizes into the rivers, and needed supplies … vittles, mostly. We’d break-bulk the prizes’ holds o’ what they carried and put it aboard the barges t’run up t’the warehouses in Savannah, leave the most o’ the captured goods aboard, and bury ’em in lumber, rice, cotton, tobacco, whatever’d be welcome in Havana or the French islands.”

“T’at’d be so, did one of our ships be stopped, boarded, and inspected by a ship like yours, Cap’m sir,” Evans contributed. He had been silent up to that point, but had downed half his mug of beer and was almost youthfully eager to relate their doings. “There’d be false manifests, like the whole cargo was export goods, not loot.”

“So … when the prizes made port, the valuable British exports from the West Indies … or British goods sent
to
the West Indies … would earn more money from the French or Spanish Prize Courts?” Lewrie hesitantly summed up, “more than if the prizes were full of Georgian produce?”

“Aye, sor, that’s the way of it,” Innis agreed, grinning like a loon. “And the stuff from England, aye! Sterling and plate, crystal and china, bales o’ ready-made stuff, bolts and bolts o’ foine cloth, pianers and furniture? Kegs and crates o’ wine and brandy?”

“A grand market for a share of that in Savannah, too, if snuck past t’e Customs House,” Evans added, “or, put aboard one o’ the company ships bound for t’e Chesapeake, Philadelphee, Boston, nor even New York! T’at’s what I was doing, workin’ the ships t’Charleston, Port Royal, and ports North and back. We’d be lyin’ in t’e Roads awaitin’ a wind with local goods aboard, when the barges’d come alongside in t’e nighttime and load t’e good stuff, and no matter how innocent we were told t’play it, we knew
somet’in’
was queer!”

“That’s what Oi wished t’do, aboard the ships loik Davey was workin’,” Innis told them. At Lewrie’s wave, Pettus brought round a fresh pair of mugs for their “testifiers”. “And, after a while, when the bossmans thought Oi was trustworthy, that’s what Oi got. Or, Oi
thought
Oi did.”

“Bossmans?” Lt. Bury asked with a quizzical
moue.
“What does that mean?” He had been taking notes in a ledger of his own.

“T’at’s what all t’e Cuffies say do ya ask ’em somet’in, sir,” Evans easily breezed off. “T’ey say ‘yas, massah’ or ‘yas, bossmam’,” he mimicked in slave
patois.

“So, eventually, the both of you ended up crewing the prizes to French or Spanish Prize-Court ports. On the same ship every time?” Lewrie asked “Where you became mates?”

“Not all that many the bosses’d trust, sor,” Innis said with a shrug. “Not all that many who could keep their stories straight, too!”

“Stories?” Lt. Westcott asked in a skeptical tone.

“Well sir, afore we could set sail for Cuba, or t’e French islands, a clerk’d come down from Savannah and give t’e captain his new papers,” Evans took up the tale. “Oncet a prize come in, she’d need a new name, so we’d rip the quarterboards or transom boards off or paint out t’e old and paint in a new … get rid of a figurehead was it too fine or somone might recognise her by it? Some’d say t’ey were owned by t’e Tybee Roads Comp’ny, some by others.”

“Altamaha Comp’ny, the Ogeechee Comp’ny,” Innis recited as if by rote, “or named after the squares in Savannah. Some o’ the ships were s’posed t’be Charleston ships, Boston ships, God knows where-all, sor. Faith, ye’d o’ thought they’d
flog
ye half t’death did ye not be able t’keep your wits about ye, if we got stopped and inspected.”

“And did that happen often?” Lt. Bury enquired.

“Not all that often, no sir,” Evans assured him, “and when we were, except for fear o’ bein’ pressed, we were let go right easy, comin’ and goin!”

“With supposedly innocent cargoes each way?” Lewrie mused.

“Innocent as all get-out on t’e way back, for sure, sir!” Evans said with a laugh. Lewrie summoned Pettus for more beer, all-round. Listening was dry work!

“And, what about the profits from the sale of the prizes?” Lt. Bury softly queried, looking up, at them with solemn eyes. “How were they handled, or concealed? In French or Spanish coin, or by draughts from one bank to another?”

“Niver saw any o’ that, sors,” Innis said with a puzzled shrug after a moment or two of thought. “Us
sailors
got paid at the end of a voyage, at Havana, say, or after we got back to Savannah.
Good
pay, it was, for as long as it lasted.”

“And all gone by t’e time we shipped aboard a comp’ny ship for t’e return voyage, sirs,” Evans said with a sad shake of his head over the quickness with which it went. “French or Spanish inn-keepers were more t’an glad t’see us, and t’e ladies, too, for certain. But, by t’e time come t’sail, we were mostly ‘skint’.”

“Savannah publicans’d leave us ‘on the bones o’ our backs’ as good as the Frogs and Dons, too, sor,” Innis ruefully told them.

“That’s every sailor’s complaint,” Lewrie commiserated.

“I’d like to ask a question,” Lt. Westcott said, still looking grim and distrustful. “It sounds like you could play the innocents on either leg of your journeys with the prizes, but … how were the crew and mates of the prizes concealed on the way to Havana or other ports?”

Innis and Evans looked at each other as if where those people had gone had never come to mind. Both cocked their heads in wonder, then turned to look at the officers, and shrugged.

“I can’t recall any of t’em bein’ aboard when we took charge o’ t’e prizes, sir,” Evans said. “T’ey might’ve been slung below in irons aboard t’e privateers. Weren’t t’ere when we were, sirs.”

“Mayhap they’d a’ready been sent down, t’Saint Augustine,” Innis supposed. “When we put into the Saint John’s River t’take charge of a prize, Oi just assumed they’d been marched off t’Saint Augustine. We niver saw hide nor hair of ’em, nor their sea-chests, neither, roight, Davey?”

“All t’eir beddin’ and’ kits were cleared out like t’ey never were t’ere,” Evans agreed. “By t’e time we went aboard a prize, she was painted up new and re-named like she was fresh from t’e builder’s yards, ’cept she was loaded and ready t’sail.”

Lewrie shared a suspicious look with Westcott and Bury.

“One wonders, Captain Lewrie, if their prisoners were landed at
all
,” Lt. Bury icily accused, peering hard at the two sailors. “Might I enquire if, during your time aboard the
Insolent,
you brought the master, mates, and sailors in with a prize … or, were they murdered and put over the side?”

“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!” Innis erupted in shock. “Nary a hair on their heads was touched once they’d struck! Swear that on me sainted mither, sor!”

“Hardly anybody was ever killed, nor even
hurt
when we took ’em, sir!” Evans hotly protested. “T’is t’e rare master’d put up any kind o’ fight when we overhauled ’em wit’ t’e guns run out, guns o’ t’eir own aboard or no! Cheese-parin’ masters never sign on hands enough for a fight, ’less t’ey’re an Indiaman!”

“Cap’m Chaptal niver messed with the prisoners, sor, other than pennin’ ’em up below oncest they was taken, and soon as we put in, we sent ’em off with all their kits,” Innis bubbled out in a rush to show his innocence. “He wouldn’t let no man mess with any wimmen, neither.”

“Women?” Lewrie barked.

“Wives o’ t’e masters, sometimes, passengers now and again and t’eir maids and such,” Evans told them. “Some real fine ladies.”

“But, what happened to them once landed?” Lt. Bury demanded. “Who took charge of them?”