Havoc`s Sword

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Admiralty Prize Court on Dominica was ten miles or more to the south of Prince Rupert Bay and its tiny settlement of Portsmouth, at the lee-side port town named Roseau, from the times when the French had owned the island. Lewrie had been forced to trade his smart gig for a humbler but larger cutter and sail down to confer with them.

Dominica had been one of those isles infested with Carib Indians so battle-mad and death-defying that every European power that colonised the Antilles had sworn off the place in 1748, but that hadn't lasted long. Britain took it in 1763, the French got in back in 1778, then Britain again at the end of the American Revolution. The steep, fern-jungle mountains were simply stiff with Caribs, making it a real "King's Bad Bargain."

So was the Prize Court. A greater pack of ignorant "ink-sniffs, thieves, drunkards, and paper buccaneers Lewrie had never laid eyes on! And it was no wonder that they'd greeted his arrival the same way some gang of adolescent London street imps would welcome the sight of a pie-man with a tray of fresh goodies.

Half-literate, spouting "dog-Latin" legalese, their accents an echo of Cockey "Bow Bells," "half-seas-over" on cheap rum or strong "stingo" beer, and sporting mementos of their last half-dozen dinners on greasy cuffs, waist-coats, or breeches, unshaven and unwashed-Lewrie suspected their experience of law had come from the wrong side of some magistrate's bench. He'd have rather dealt with Mr. Peel, who still sulked over their contretemps; it would have been safer, and he would not get gravy-spotted off the furniture, nor would he depart infested with fleas! Besides, this court would refer everything back to Antigua, and reams of paper, gallons of ink, and pounds of stamps and paste would be used up before he, his officers and warrants, or his sailors saw tuppence… sometime in 1810, he sourly suspected. Maybe his grandchildren might have joy of his latest capture's profit.

After that experience, which had taken up most of the morning, and a horrid dinner at a tumbledown dockside tavern, Lewrie walked out the long single quay that speared at least one hundred yards out from the beach before the waters at low tide would allow a ship's boat to come alongside, then rambled on all ramshackley for a good fifty yards more. His cutter, with its single lug-sail furled, was the only one in sight, at present, positively handsome compared to the few scabrous and half-abandoned fishing boats drawn up on the sands.

He paused to fan himself with his hat and belch biliously from his repast. The purported squab had most-like been seagull, and the "Roast Beef of Olde England" had most-like barked at the moon and run after cats before its luck had run out! The infamous two-penny ordinarys of his native London had nothing to fear for their reputations by comparison; and they had most-like not poisoned half as many patrons. He might have tried the pork roast, but the natives on the island were reputed to be cannibals, and he'd not put it past the publican to buy a side of "long pig" (as they said in the Great South Seas) and serve up the loser of some Carib feud.

"You men have eat?" Lewrie enquired of his boat crew after he finally reached them. He had let them step ashore for a meal, and the usual "wet," with instructions for everyone to be back in two hours… and sober, mind. A quick nose-count assured him that no one had been daft enough to take "leg bail" in such a no-hope port; no one appeared "groggy," either-well, no more so than usual.

"Think it was food, sah," his Coxswain, Matthew Andrews, dared to josh with him from his privileged position and long association as his sometime confidant. "It was burnt, and it come on plates."

"Law, Missah Gideon, he b'ile wood chips in slush, it would o' eat bettah, Cap'm sah," little Nelson, one of his recent Black Jamaican "volunteers" further ventured to say.

"Sorry 'bout that, lads," Lewrie commiserated, "but I do think my own dinner was pot-scrapings worse than yours. Let's shove off."

"Back to de ship, sah, aye," Andrews said, shipping the tiller-bar atop the rudder post while Lewrie was offered a hand or two on his way aboard the cutter, and aft to a seat in the stern-sheets.

Two hours later, though, as the cutter bounded close-hauled into Prince Rupert Bay, Lewrie shaded his eyes for a look round. There was HMS Proteus, as pretty as a painting, with her prize moored close by; there was the Yankee stores ship, attended by boats come to fetch out supplies; there was USS Sumter… but there were some new arrivals, too, including a "jack-ass," or hermaphrodite, brig that flew a small blue Harbour Jack right-forward, sprinkled with thirteen white stars, to show that she was an American man o' war; another of their bought-in and converted "Armed Ships," not a vessel built as a warship.

There were three merchant vessels flying the "Stars and Stripes" anchored in the bay, as well. Two were very large three-masted tops'l schooners, with their tall masts raked much farther aft than Lewrie had ever seen before, lying near the new-come armed brig. Farther out in deeper water, and unable to anchor closer to shore for being deep-laden, was a proper three-masted, full-rigged ship, equally as impressive a specimen of the shipbuilders' art, and "Bristol Fashion" smart.

"Damme, but those schooners look like they'd be fast as witches… even to windward," Lewrie commented. "Even with the full cargoes they seem to bear. Ever seen the like, Andrews?"

"Masts raked so sharp, dough, sah… dem Yankees mebbe crazy," was Andrews's assessment. "How dey foot 'em to de keel-steps, an' not rip right out, I'd wondah. Wadn't here dis mornin'. T'ink dem 'Mericans be makin' up a no'th-bound 'trade,' at las', Cap'm?"

"It very well could be," Lewrie agreed. "I think we'll satisfy my curiosity, before we go back aboard our ship. Steer for Sumter, if you will, Andrews. It appears there's a gaggle o' boats alongside of her already."

"Aye aye, sah."

"Besides, Captain McGilliveray might have something with which to settle our mis'rable dinners," Lewrie added with a chuckle.

"Captain Lewrie, sir!" Midshipman Desmond McGilliveray said at the top of the starboard entry-port, stepping forward past the Marine Lieutenant in charge of the side-party that had rendered him honours. The lad was almost tail-wagging eager to greet him, though constricted by the usages and customs of his navy to the doffing of his hat and a bow from the waist.

"Mister McGilliveray!" Lewrie cried with too much heartiness of his own, his eyes equally agleam, and his carefully stern expression creased by an involuntary smile. "Well met, young sir."

"We saw you come in with your prize, sir!" the lad exclaimed in joy, plopping his tricorne back on his head any-old-how. "Did she put up much of a fight, sir? Did she resist very long, or…?"

Once his own gilt-laced cocked hat was back on his own head, he astounded the boy by extending his right hand for a warmer greeting; a hand that young McGilliveray took with a puppyish delight and shook in return, right heartily.

"Steered right up to her, yardarm to yardarm, in the dark, and only fired one bow-chaser, just t'wake 'em long enough to surrender!" Lewrie replied, proud for a chance to boast and preen. "I'll tell it all to you later, should we have the chance. But I have come to see your Captain first."

"He is aboard, sir, and aft," Midshipman McGilliveray informed him, only slightly crest-fallen. "I shall tell him that you have come aboard, Captain Lewrie. This way, please."

Lewrie's arrival alongside, though, had created enough stir to draw Sumter?, First Officer, Lt. Claiborne, from the great-cabins aft to the gangway, minus sword and hat.

"Ah! Captain Lewrie, good," Lt. Claiborne said, coming over to greet him, as well. "You got our captain's note, I see."

"Uhm, no Mister Claiborne, I came direct from Roseau and the Prize Court offices," Lewrie told him.

"And you escaped with your purse, Captain Lewrie? Congratulations," Claiborne replied, frowning for a second. "My captain is now in conversation with several of our merchant masters, and wished to speak with you, regarding their informations. A glad happenstance, you came to call on us. If you will follow me, Captain Lewrie?"

"Lead on, sir. Talk to you later, lad," Lewrie promised to his newly acquired "offspring."

He was led down a ladder to the gun-deck, then aft into the cabins under the quarterdeck, clutching the hilt of his hanger in one hand and his hat in the other; suddenly self-conscious to be ogled like some raree show, with many faint, fond, almost doting smiles to every hand. Lewrie could only conclude that Sumter's, people had gotten a whiff of rumour concerning his relationship to Midshipman McGilliveray, who was obviously a "younker" well thought of aboard that ship to begin with.

Damme, even that hawk-faced Marine lieutenant goggled me like a new-born swaddlin' babe! Lewrie groused to himself as he was admitted to the day-cabin, where the air was close, hot and still, despite the opened windows, coach-top, and wind-scoops; where several men ceased their conversation and rose to greet him. Lewrie blinked to adapt to the dimness of the cabins, after the harsh brightness of the deck.

"Captain Lewrie, thank you for responding to my request for a conference so quickly," Capt. McGilliveray said, coming forward to take hands with him. He gave Lewrie no time to explain that he had not gotten McGilliveray's note, but began to introduce the others present.

There was another U.S. Navy officer off the hermaphrodite brig, an almost painfully tall and gaunt, dark-visaged fellow in his middle thirties, named to him as one Captain Randolph, of the Armed Brig USS Oglethorpe.

"Proudly commissioned in Savannah, Captain Lewrie, suh," Capt. Randolph told him with a warm smile, "an' named f r one of your English lords, James Oglethorpe, who founded th' Georgia colony, he said in addition, and in a liquid drawl even rounder and deeper than South Carolinian McGilliveray's, were such a thing possible.

"And ya know what they say, Randolph," McGilliveray japed him, "that all the rogues went t'Georgia', ha ha!"

"Proud of it, suh, proud of it!" Randolph happily rejoined.

"And Captains Ezekiel Crowninshield and Gabriel Crowninshield, McGilliveray continued, indicating a pair of stouter and younger men who were, at first glance, as alike as a pair of book-ends; gingery-

haired and florid. "Their schooners are outta Mystic, Connecticut, magnificent and fast sailers, the Iroquois and the Algonquin."

"Twins, as well, sirs?" Lewrie asked of them after a greeting.

"Built side-by-side in the same yard, Captain Lewrie," he was gladly told in a much harsher "Down-East Yankee" nasal twang. "First swam within a week of each other, too." One brother said.

"Raced him hyuh," the other boasted. "Beat him all hollow."

"And last but not least," McGilliveray said further, "Captain Grant, off the Sarah and Jane. Captain Grant, Captain Lewrie, of the Proteus frigate."

"Your servant, sir," Lewrie politely said, though the name was nagging at him; the ship and her captain, both, as he stepped closer to take Grant's hand. "Oh! 'Tis you, sir. Well met, again."

"Why, bless my soul, if it ain't that little pop-in-jay laddy, who gave me so much grief in the Bahamas!" Grant exclaimed. "Ruint a whole cargo o' Caicos salt on me, too… eighty-six, was it? Just a Lieutenant, then, ye were, in yer little converted bomb-ketch…?"

"Alacrity, Captain Grant," Lewrie supplied him. "But, then… you'd not have lost so dearly, had you obeyed the Navigation Acts and steered wide o' me. And the salt wouldn't have been used for bulwarks and your ship not commandeered as bait if you'd stayed in the Turks Islands and testified 'gainst Calico Jack Finney's pirates as I asked you to." Lewrie still held Grant's hand, though they were done shaking; his smile could have been mistaken for courteous, but there was a definite frost to his voice.

"Well, we live an' learn, do we not, Captain Lewrie," Grant at last said with a wintry smile of his own, almost pulling himself free.

"We do, indeed, sir," Lewrie replied.

"Whatever happened t'Calico Jack Finney?" Grant had to enquire.

"I chased him into Charleston harbour and killed the bastard," Lewrie told him in a casual, off-hand way, still grinning.

"Dear Lord, that was you, Captain Lewrie?" Capt. McGilliveray said with a gasp of wonder. "Why, I watched the whole thing from the Battery! My my my, will wonders never cease. That we've crossed each other's hawses, if ya will, more than once. In so many things, well!"

"Life is funny that way, aye, Captain McGilliveray, I grant ye," Lewrie answered, glad to turn his direction and dismiss Grant.

"Ever'body says that," Capt. Randolph of the Oglethorpe mused. "but usually with long faces when they do," he japed, solemn-faced.

"If you'll have a seat and join us, Captain Lewrie. A glass of something cool? We've cold tea, or…" McGilliveray offered.

"Cold tea'd be capital, thankee, sir," Lewrie said as he seated himself. "I take it that you were discussing some matter concerning a mercantile nature, sirs?"

"Missing ships, sir," McGilliveray intoned as his cabin servant fetched Lewrie a tall tumbler of tea, with the unheard-of luxury of a chunk of ice in it!

"Walsham, Massachusetts," one of the Crowninshields boasted to him. "The Dons an' the Dutchies're mad for th' stuff, our New England ice. Can't pack it outta the Andes mountains 'fore it melts, I guess. Mule train's too slow."

"Too-small packets, 'Zekiel," the other Crowninshield quibbled. "Has t'be stowed in bulk, in chaff an' sawdust outta sunlight. Keeps itself frozen, ya see."

"We've lost a ship, mebbe two," the brother Lewrie now knew to name Ezekiel baldly announced, stealing McGilliveray's "thunder," as the Yankee Doodles would say in their colourfully colloquial way.

"Down South," the one dubbed Gabriel stuck in. "Sailed behind us. Had 'em in sight for a piece…"

"Older schooners. Slower'n ours," Ezekiel chimed in. "And we were racin' each other, like I said, so we sailed 'em under. Mohican was t'put in at Saint Lucia, but that'd only delay her two days or so, no more, and…"

"And Chippewa was t'come inta Roseau t'meet us," Gabriel grumbled, "but we've laid over almost a week now, and there's neither hide nor hair o' either one of 'em, Cap'm Lewrie, and we're getting worried, I'll lay ya. Coasted up hyuh t'ask of 'em, but…"

"Powerful worried," Ezekiel Crowninshield butted in. "Wasn't a speck o' foul weather on our passage, and nary even a squall astern of us did we see t'upset 'em."

"Trusted, salty masters and mates, good an' true Mystic lads in the crews, too, so…" Gabriel Crowninshield interrupted, shrugging in mystification.

"So, no mutiny or buccaneering," Lewrie surmised, sipping at his tea, already suspecting the worst.

"Gentlemen, I fear that those ships have been taken by French cruisers," Lewrie was forced to tell them. "When I took my prize last night, we learned some things from our prisoners. That captain of whom I spoke, Captain McGilliveray, that Guillaume Choundas? We took away his best frigate a few weeks ago, but he still commands two corvettes and now has converted a schooner and a brig as privateers, and our captives told us he'd sent 'em South, to prey on American ships in particular. To hurt your commerce as sorely as you've hurt theirs. And make himself and their Governor-General, Victor Hugues, a pile of 'tin.' If he can't challenge American warships round Hispaniola, and further up North, he intended to put all four vessels to sea beyond your immediate reach, and purge you from the oceans, as you made passage home with all those rich cargoes of yours. Sorry."

And who 'd prefer lumber, ice, and barrel staves to sugar, coffee, and cocoa? Lewrie thought, scorning American exports and the products of their limited industries. Well, they do ship rum, and decent beer!

"Onliest place they can take 'em is Guadeloupe!" Captain Grant spluttered, breaking the stunned, sad silence following Lewrie's revelation. "Bless my soul, can't ya blockade 'em, can ya not dash back an'… try to…"

"Intercept 'em, ayup," one of the Crowninshields supplied.

"Aye, intercept 'em," Grant gravelled. "Catch 'em before they fetch 'em into Basse-Terre or Pointe-a-Pitre. Get word t'your other warships, Cap'm Lewrie. Ya can't be th' only frigate in these parts!"

"Three days, into the teeth of the Trades to Antigua, and then what, sirs?" Lewrie demanded, spreading his hands at the futility. "I am heartily sorry for your losses, gentlemen, but do I haunt either or both harbours in hopes of re-capturing your ships, any Americans taken as prizes, I'm not fulfilling my proper duty. Better I…"

"Damn my eyes, Lewrie!" Grant exploded. "And here I thought ya were a fire-eatin' scrapper!"

"Better I take Proteus South, sir," Lewrie reiterated with his teeth on edge, "for do I lurk close inshore of Guadeloupe for weeks, what's happening to a dozen, two dozen other American merchantmen down South? How many ships will make it here to form a convoy, if the damn' French are free to run riot? Nossirs… I'm away down the Windwards, this very evening, as far as Caracas if I must."

"Sumter'll clear port, as well, sir," Capt. McGilliveray vowed. "Randolph, you want to take charge here, and wait for the promised frigate t'come in? Or would ya prefer t'sail in company with me and find a proper fight for a change?"

"Let our consul keep an eye on things here, Cap'm McGilliveray " Capt. Randolph cried, leaping to his feet (though careful not to knock his head on the overhead beams or planking), "for sure as there's God in his Heaven, my sword, my right arm, and my ship are yours! I'd be that eager t'show those swaggerin' Monsoors what it's like to tangle with a pack o' Georgia wildcats! Bring 'em on… yee-hah!" he ended with a shout, a Red Indian warrior's feral battle-scream, that made Lewrie's hackles and nape hairs stand on end.

Aboard Sumter, that howl caused her crew, and Capt. Randolph's boat-crew laying alongside, to raise a screeching wolfs chorus of their own, as they suspected that they would no longer swing idle round the moorings to await the plodding drudgery of convoying, but would be going out to look for a proper stand-up fight, at long last.

"Uhm… given this sudden, and un-looked-for, turn of events," Lewrie carefully began to say, once he had recovered his aplomb, using caution before the unwitting civilians not privy to their government's, or his and McGilliveray's covert arrangement, "and since it is British as well as American merchantmen at peril… and, notwithstanding the lack of a formal pact 'twixt your President and the Crown, perhaps we could, ah… aid each other in our respective searches for the French privateers, Captain McGilliveray?"

"An excellent suggestion, Captain Lewrie," McGilliveray replied, shamming the utmost surprise at such a generous offer. Then, amid the enthusiastic "Huzzahs!" from Randolph and the merchant masters, he gave Lewrie an enigmatic smile, and the tiniest incline of his head as a reward. "I, and my government, stand forever in your debt for your open-handed and cooperative spirit!"

Lost in the cheering and toasting, however, was the fact that no British ships, or very few at most, were in danger; they didn't trade on the Spanish Main or with the Dutch isles, with both nations allies to France!

A toast was raised to Lewrie's alacrity and support, and while it was being drunk, and he posed all disparagingly "Aw, Pshaw" modest, his mind was mildly ascheme.

No matter what Pelham wanted, what his London masters wanted, it made eminent sense, and to the Devil with Saint Domingue and who owned it! America and Great Britain, he marvelled; sworn enemies not fifteen years past. Despite the lingering grievances and distrust created during their Revolution, their burgeoning commercial competition, and rivalry, they were going to war as temporary allies,! on the same side for a blessed once! Could this lead to better things, he speculated?

And what allies they'd make, too! Even if they were so ruled by their enthusiasms, so… un-English in revealing their feelings, such as their screams, howls, and cheers at present.

Well, so was he, when you came right down to it. Wearing a public mask of blase boredom definitely did not become him. In fact, he rather liked the freedom to howl, and wished he possessed it!

Oh, Lord, he thought, Peel's sure t'go off like a bomb!