Reefs and Shoals (47 page)

“Well sors, did we land ’em in the Saint John’s River, there was dry land handy, and there’d be Spanish-lookin’ fellers, some Free Cuffies with guns, or Indian-lookin’ men’d show up with horses and a cart’r two, and they’d march ’em off South. There’s a good road down t’Saint Augustine. Did we put into the Saint Mary’s, we’d put ’em in Comp’ny barges and sail or row the prisoners sev’ral miles up-river t’where there’s solid land, and there’d be armed guards waitin’. Don’ know if
they
was Comp’ny men or not, but we’d land ’em and that’s the last we saw of ’em, honest. Ain’t that right, Davey?”

“T’ey’d put any wounded, t’e women, and t’eir sea-chests on t’e carts, kind and gentle as anyt’ing, sir!” Evans assured them.

Lewrie sat back in his chair and gazed levelly at them.

I hope to God they
ain’t
lyin’,
he thought;
Maybe they believe what they’ve been told, and are too simple t’question it. Or they’re too in-curious to bloody
care
! I
still
don’t like the smell of it.

“You never heard any talk, or wondering, about their fate?” Lt. Bury pressed. “No sidelong glances, or warnings to hush?”

“They wasn’t any o’ our bus’ness after we landed ’em,” Innis replied with a shrug, and another deep swig of beer.

“Right, then,” Lewrie said as he sat his empty beer mug down on the brass Hindoo tray-table with a click of metal on metal. “Whenever your Captain Chaptal brought in a prize, and the prisoners were taken away …
wherever
 … how did he send word that he was back, in need of supplies and such?”

“Well, sor,” Innia croaked, still shaken by new-found, dread suspicions, “most o’ the time, the barges was already
there,
waitin’. There was only the oncest we came in off-schedule and had t’send one o’ the mates up the Darien Road t’Savannah by fast horse.”

“And why would they be waiting so long between the arrivals of the privateers?” Lewrie further queried.

“Every two or three month, sor,” Innis told him. “At the dark o’ the moon, ev’ry second or third month, when I was working barges. Reg’lar shipments o’ vittles and such, exports’d be sent down ev’ry new moon, and if they had any special orders t’be filled, a barge’d go back t’Savannah t’fetch the goods afore
Insolent
’d sail, or one o’ the prizes’d sail when we were workin’ that side o’ the trade.”

“And does the place change with the timing of the new moons?” Lt. Bury asked. “Every second month the Saint Mary’s River, and then the Saint John’s River on the third, say?”

“In t’e beginnin’,” Evans confessed, “but t’e Saint Mary’s is handier, closer t’Savannah, and if anyone ever stumbled over us when we were there, we’d just shove off, hug the Spanish side, and sail or row up far enough t’strand anyone chasin’ us on shoals.”

“If it was an American Revenue cutter, aye,” Innis added, “but if someone like you, your honour, sor, caught us, we’d hug the
other
bank, Georgia bein’ neutral and all, and if we had to, we could slip over the side and swim or row to American soil and be safe as babbies.”

Lewrie lowered his head and rested his upper lip on the forefinger of his right hand, mulling all that he’d been told. At last he lowered his arm and looked to either side at Westcott and Bury.

“Do any of you gentlemen have any other questions for these men which might further enlighten us?” he asked. “Any part of their tale that needs further explanation?”

“How long had your privateer been at sea?” Lt. Bury thought to ask. “Were you due in the river soon, or would your Captain Chaptal wait ’til he had a prize?”

“We was in two month ago, sor, with our last prize,” Innis said, looking as if he would care for a fresh mug of beer. “In any case, we can’t stay out much more’n three ’til the rum, whisky and beer runs out. We’d just started prowlin’ the Bahamas for pickin’s, coz your Navy’s convoy escorts is gettin’ too strong.”

The last thing that a privateer ever wanted was a hard scrap with a warship, or even a well-armed merchantman with a master determined enough to put up a fight, which might cripple the raider and cost her captain, owners, and investors a steep repair bill. Against a warship, the only thing a privateer could do would be to flee, and pray for a clean pair of heels. Even a well-armed privateer’s guns were more for show to daunt the desperate, not for a slugging match.

“So, the next new moon would be the next ‘rondy’?” Lt. Westcott asked, shifting in his chair hard enough to make it squeak, sounding canny and eager. “For you, or another privateer?”

“Well, aye, sor,” Innis said, looking surprised, that anyone
had
to ask; it was plain as day to
him
!

Westcott sat back with a smile on his face, quite satisfied.

“Anything else?” Lewrie asked, smiling contentedly. “No? Then I suppose we’ve kept these men long enough. Mister Westcott, would ye kindly pass word for a Midshipman of the duty watch, and arrange for a boat to carry Innis and Evans over to
Thorn
?”

“Of course, sir,” Westcott agreed, rising to go to the door to the weather deck. Lewrie stood, too, as did Bury.

“You two are gettin’ off by the skin of your teeth, ye know that,” Lewrie told the sailors. “Ye’ve been up to your necks in an evil trade. I’m still not satisfied that the crews off the prizes are safe … or even alive. Understand me? Aye, you think upon that, and thank God I can’t link you to their fates. Volunteeering for the Navy’s your second chance. I strongly advise the both of you to make the most of it, obey orders chearly, and sing small. It may not pay as good as merchant service,
or
‘lays’ in a successful privateer, but pay it is. Don’t make me, or Lieutenant Darling, regret givin’ you the benefit of the doubt!”

“We won’t, sor, cross me heart an’ hope t’die!” Innis swore.

“A fine gentleman ye are, sir, and a merciful one!” Evans said.

“Off with you, now,” Lewrie gruffly ordered, shooing them to the forward door. Once they were gone, Lewrie cast his eyes on the overhead and let out a long, weary sigh.

“Lieutenant Darling will not thank you for them, sir,” Lt. Bury softly said. “They’re ‘King’s Bad Bargains’, if ever I saw any.”

“I expect you’re right, Bury,” Lewrie grudgingly agreed, “but I made a bad bargain of my own, to get them to talk so freely, and I have to keep to it, no matter my personal feelings.

“You suspect that the people off the prizes are dead, the same as I do?” Lewrie asked as he turned to look at him.

“I hope not, sir, but it does not sound promising,” Bury said most gravely. “But for the most scrupulous Prize-Court officials, the muster books listing crew members suffice, so for a privateer captain, the temptation to save rations and money by eliminating them is quite strong, and saves him the trouble of guarding and sheltering them, yet … I cannot imagine that being done by even the most cold-blooded and piratical. There
are
rules of war, after all, a code of gentlemanly conduct, of
honour
! Those two, Innis and Evans, saw the prisoners being marched away, so they
were
brought in. If they were to die, why not kill them far out at sea?”

“I hope you’re right,” Lewrie moodily replied, “but, this insidious scheme hangs on secrecy. If the prisoners were kept in some holding pen out in the wilds, even in a warehouse at Saint Augustine, there’s always the chance that a few might escape and make their way to American authorities, and the entire enterprise falls apart, with arrests and trials all round. Even held
incommunicado
’til the end of the war, whenever that’ll be, they’d have to be released
then,
and if evidence of what they witnessed comes to light, a lot of people would be ruined.”

“But perhaps it is not the French privateers who would stand to lose the most, sir,” Bury sagely pointed out. “To men like Chaptal, what matters most is
operational
secrecy, and a way to dispose of his prisoners and prizes quickly, and remain on his ‘hunting grounds’ without a long and risky voyage to do so, or putting them all aboard a neutral ship for a
cartel
to land them in a neutral port or return them to a British port.”

“And, thumb his nose at us,” Lewrie sourly added.

“That, too, sir, but … who runs the greatest risk of having his activities in support of a belligerent exposed?” Bury asked. “Who is more liable to be ruined and imprisoned?”

“Whichever bloody American is running this arrangement for ’em?” Lewrie realised.

“And, sir … if the American behind it wishes even more profit from it, why waste funds on marching the prisoners all the way to the Spanish authorities?” Bury continued. “It costs to build holding pens for prisoners, to feed them, and guard them. Captain Chaptal and the other privateer captains might not know the fate of their captives once landed, and might not much care. Despite our long-held distrust and loathing for the French, for the most part they fight a gentlemanly war, whereas an unscrupulous American man of
business
 … might
not.
”

Someone
not
a soldier, or Sea Officer,
Lewrie thought, sneering;
just a bloody
“tradesman”,
with his soul bound in double-entry account books! No,
no one
could be that cold-blooded!

“Marching ’em to the Dons’d be a cost of doin’ business,” Lewrie said with a grimace. “Once at Saint Augustine, they’re no longer his concern, either, and he’d let
them
feed and guard ’em.”

“If he could run the risk of exposure, sir,” Bury said.

Bury had risen at the dismissal of the two captured sailors and still had his beer mug in hand. He looked down and seemed surprised to see it. He took a sip and set it down on the brass tray-table and exchanged it for the captured stack of Captain Chaptal’s books, sorting through them to find a journal.

“Despite the haste required to look through Chaptal’s accounts, sir, I noted that he was meticulous about listing his prisoners, by name and numbers, and how many were turned over,” Bury said, flipping through the pages. “He was also most secretive, referring to where he landed them as either ‘Loire’ or ‘Saône’, instead of the Saint John’s or the Saint Mary’s Rivers, with no way to know which is the correct river, or rendezvous. He noted how ‘
mon vieux
’ met him with proceeds from previous sales.…”

Bury fumbled to pick up a second ledger, eager to impart what he had learned.

“Sit, Bury, so you don’t spill ’em,” Lewrie kindly offered as he sat himself back down on the settee.

“Thank you, sir,” Bury replied, his attention rivetted on finding the right references. “Ah. ‘
Mon vieux
’ is his code for the man behind it all on the American side, and the firm in question he calls just ’
la compagnie’
! But
here,
sir…!” Bury excitedly said, picking up that second book and flipping through it, “are his meticulously-kept accounts for the owners and investors in his ship, to prove how successful he’s been, and how much he’s earned them, less demurrage in Prize-Court harbours, in Proctors’ fees, less operating costs and repairs, and those are
not
in a personal code.”

“So, you think you have an idea of who’s guilty, Bury?” Lewrie asked, sitting up straighter and scooting to the edge of the settee.

“I do, sir,” Bury said with a sly smile. “All his payments are to one firm, the Tybee Roads Trading Company, of Savannah. I also … here,” Bury went on, laying aside the accounts ledger and picking up a thicker book, nigh the size of a thick dictionary. But when Bury opened the cover, it was revealed to be a box. “To prove to his investors and owners that each purchase and outlay was legitimate, Captain Chaptal kept signed receipts. While some are signed by various factotums of the Tybee Roads Trading Company, a great many, as well as receipts from Prize Courts at Havana, Fort-de-France and Basse-Terre, are signed by a Mister Edward Treadwell, who styles himself as President of the firm. This Treadwell and his firm appear to make over ten percent of each prize, plus Chaptal’s ship’s needs. There are stacks and stacks of them, seemingly filed in this box in neat, chronological order. Though…”

“We know the firm, we know the company, and we know the bastard behind it!” Lewrie crowed in glee. “Do we take these books to the authorities in Savannah, they’ll hang him!”

“Though, sir, there may be a second unidentified man,” Bury said, frowning in puzzlement. “For the most part of Chaptal’s journal he refers to ‘
mon vieux
’ as his principal dealer, but in the last two references to prizes brought in, he mentions someone he calls ‘
coton
’, so there may be another company, and without corroborating account books, I cannot—” Bury was cut off by Lewrie’s peel of laughter, by his rocking back onto the settee’s back and slapping his knee.

“‘My old’, and ‘Cotton’, and Treadwell, are one and the same, Bury!” Lewrie hooted, loud enough to make his cats start. “Chaptal calls him ‘
mon vieux
’ not in the ‘old friend’ sense, but because this Treadwell
looks
old, no matter he’s no older than me. He calls him
coton
because he has a very full and curly head of white
hair
, as white as carded and washed
cotton
! My Purser, Mister Cadbury, met him at Savannah, and remarked on his appearance. Now!”

Lewrie sprang from the settee and went a bit forward to the starboard-side chart space, fetching a book off the fiddled shelf to bring back into better light. He sat down and opened it, running a finger down the tightly spaced entries, squinting over the wee type.