“Boat, ahoy!” was the shout from Reliant ’s quarterdeck.
“Aye aye!” the cutter’s bow man called back, showing four fingers in sign that a Post-Captain was aboard. It was absurd, really, for the boat was one of Reliant ’s cutters, manned by Lewrie’s usual boat’s crew, and had left the frigate not half an hour before, and it would take a blind man not to see Lewrie seated aft by Cox’n Desmond in all his shore-going finery.
The bow man hooked onto the main chain platform with his gaff, and the oars were tossed vertically, then boated. Lewrie carefully made his way to amidships, stood on the gunn’l briefly, seized hold of the after most stays, and stepped aboard by the chain platform, then up the boarding battens. Bosun Sprague’s silver call piped, the crew on watch faced the entry-port and removed their hats in deference, a side-party of seamen and Marines greeted him… and the ship’s dog, Bisquit, went mad with joy, barking, yipping, and dancing about, daring to stand on his hind legs and put paws on Lewrie’s midriff, his tail whipping like a flag in a full gale, and his tongue lolling.
“Welcome back aboard, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, doffing his hat in salute, and trying not to laugh out loud.
“Thankee, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said, ruffling Bisquit on his head and neck with his left hand and doffing with his right. “I would stand upon my dignity,… if I could find it. Now, now! Get down, sir, and behave yourself.”
“My apologies for cutting your time ashore short, sir, but, the French schooner began preparations to sail, and-” Westcott began to explain.
“And, you’d’ve preferred to go after her, instanter, but thought leavin’ me behind’d look bad?” Lewrie interrupted, grinning.
“Something like that, sir,” Westcott replied, shrugging. “She made up to a single bower, and hauled in to short stays, beginning about an hour ago. She’s just taken a pilot aboard, and looks ready to weigh, sir.”
“You sent for a pilot, sir?” Lewrie asked, removing a telescope from the compass binnacle cabinet, and going to the larboard side for a closer look at the French vessel.
“I did, sir, but so far-” Westcott said.
“But none have responded, so far, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie posed, sounding tongue-in-cheek and more idly amused than upset. “And, ain’t that just uncanny!”
“Aye, sir.”
“As I suspected,” Lewrie told him over his shoulder, his attention focussed on the activity aboard Mollien’s schooner. “Do we confer with the Sailing Master, I believe we’ll find that she’ll be crossin’ the Charleston Bar just at the peak of high tide, right at slack-water, and, by the time a harbour pilot responds to our request, the tide’ll be on the ebb. We might squeak over the bar… not that Mollien needs that much depth under his keel, but we do, more’s the point. Captain Mollien will think himself a ‘sly-boots’… but, he ain’t.”
“Mollien, sir? Is that the French captain’s name?” Lt. Westcott asked.
“Aye,” Lewrie told him, shutting the tubes of the telescope and turning in-board to face his First Officer. “Met him last night, him and a brace of his larger sailors. He almost ruined a most pleasant and congenial supper party,” Lewrie said with a laugh, filling Lieutenant Westcott in on the confrontation, and on how Mollien had had to slink away with his tail between his legs, fuming. “Lieutenant Gordon of the United States Navy contingent, and his wife, accompanied Mister Cotton and me back to the Consul’s residence afterwards, just in case Mollien felt pettish enough t’waylay me, but nothing happened. I had a good night’s sleep, after that.
“Damme, what’s the dog doin’ on the quarterdeck, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie demanded of a sudden, noting that Bisquit had slunk from the sail-tending gangway to shelter by one of the 32-pounder carronade slides.
“Well… I expect he followed you, sir,” Westcott replied. “He adores everybody, you included,… and has come to expect that anyone coming off-shore has a treat for him.”
“Well, I do,” Lewrie gruffly confessed, “but he’ll get it on the weather deck, not up here. Mister Munsell, attend me, if you please.”
“Aye, sir?” the Midshipman perkily replied.
“See that the dog gets this,” Lewrie directed, digging into his shore-going duffel, “but not on the quarterdeck, hmm?”
“Aye, sir.”
Too late! The aroma of fresh-fried ham on fresh-baked bisquits with gravy, carefully wrapped up in a packet of tarred sailcloth, got the dog to its feet. Instead of peeking longingly from the shelter of the carronade slide, Bisquit sprinted forward and began to prance and whine round Lewrie. Midshipman Munsell took him by the collar to tow him to the starboard ladderway and then to the main deck to feed him his treats.
“The rest of your time ashore went well, dare I ask, sir?” Lt. Westcott enquired.
“Main-well indeed,” Lewrie told him with a pleased expression, further explaining that their Consul, Mr. Cotton, and his supper guest, Mr. Douglas McGilliveray, from one of the great trading houses in the state, and a man who had his finger on the pulse of Charleston commerce, did not suspect that any aid and comfort was being provided to French or Spanish privateers, and that vessels such as Captain Mollien’s Otarie rarely called, at all. “No, I think we’ll have to search further South of here, Mister Westcott-Hilton Head Inlet, Stono Inlet, Port Royal, or Savannah, Georgia.”
“Beg pardon, sirs,” Midshipman Rossyngton intruded, “but, the French vessel’s anchor is free, and she’s hoisting sail!”
“Calmly, Mister Rossyngton,” Lewrie cautioned him. “There’s not a thing we can do to stop her. I meant to ask, Mister Westcott,” he went on, turning to the First Officer once more, “if there’s anything out of the ordinary to report whilst I was ashore?”
“Everything went well, sir, with nothing out of the ordinary,” Westcott told him. “Mister Cadbury did say that he and the working-party that went ashore with him did get some mild bother from some of the locals, and from a couple of seamen whom he suspected of being off the French schooner, sir, but, after getting a look at your Cox’n and Seaman Furfy, it came to nothing. Some foul looks and a comment or two about Mister Cooke, being Black and all, but Mister Cadbury said that there were many Free Blacks doing business who went about their trades un-molested.”
“Free Black sailors off American ships are one thing, sir, but, a Free Black in Navy uniform, British uniform, is quite another, I do expect,” Lewrie breezed off. “So! If we have to wait ’til the next high tide, what do ye suggest we do with the rest of this day, sir?”
“Uhm, there’s some minor painting, sir… touch-ups, mostly,” Westcott speculated. “Minor sail repair, some blocks aloft I’d desire to be greased, and one or two lines in the running rigging that need re-roving, that sort of thing.”
“Mister Cadbury saw to it that we took extra fresh water aboard yesterday?” Lewrie asked, itching to get out of his finery, and back to his usual sea-going rig.
“Aye, sir,” Westcott told him, “with more in the offing, if we desire.”
“Paint and mend, the rest of the Forenoon, then let the ship’s people do their laundry, and ‘Make and Mend’ ’til the end of the First Dog,” Lewrie decided. “I’ll be below.”
Before he could quit the quarterdeck, though, there was Mister Cadbury, the Purser, with his ledger book, and a list of the victuals he had purchased ashore.
“Turnips, Mister Cadbury?” Lewrie enthused. “I’d suppose that it’s too much to ask if ye found Swedes.”
“No Swedes, sir, sorry to say,” the Purser said with a moue of disappointment, “but your garden-variety ’neeps. Garden -variety, hah! Lashings of rice, of course, and I obtained field peas, in great quantity… odd ones called black-eyed peas for the black spots on them, along with sweet potatoes. Ehm…” Mr. Cadbury said more softly as he leaned forward, “Cooke tells me the reason they are in such quantity, and available at such low prices is that they, along with their rice, are considered slave food, sir. I’m not sure if the hands need to know that… might upset them that we feed them on such?”
“As they say in the Bahamas, though, Mister Cadbury, ‘it eats good’,” Lewrie said with a chuckle. “With fresh butter, baked sweet potatoes will be a treat, and with ham hocks or salt pork, the boiled peas will be hot and filling.”
“Very good, sir,” Mr. Cadbury agreed.
The French schooner’s fore-and-aft sails were fully hoisted by then, and she was beginning to make a slow way, with some musicians aboard her skreaking or thumping out their revolutionary anthem once more, and her crew roaring the words, hurling the bellicose words, at HMS Reliant.
On-watch or off-watch, Reliant ’s people would not stand for it, and began to jeer and hold up their fingers aloft in insult, shouting a cacophany of curses across the cable that separated their ships.
Lewrie would not dignify her departure with the use of a telescope, though he did stand and watch her go, with his hands clasped in the small of his back.
“ Au revoir, sangliants! ” came a shout from Otarie, amplified through a brass speaking-trumpet. Captain Mollien was having the last word.
“Oh, sir!” Midshipman Rossyngton gasped. “ Sangliant refers to womens’, ladies’… monthly…!”
“The French are crude, sir,” Lewrie stiffly told him. “And I’m surprised ye know of such.”
“ Au revoir, Capitaine, vous salaud!” Mollien shouted. “ Pedale!”
“Trumpet, Mister Rossyngton!” Lewrie snapped, and one was fetched from the binnacle cabinet.
Up forward, Lt. Spendlove and Lt. Merriman were beginning to lead the crew in a lusty, though not very musical, rendition of “Rule, Britannia”. Lewrie hoped that Mollien could hear him over that din.
“Hoy, Mollien!” Lewrie shouted to the schooner, “ Vous absurde petit bouffon… vous ridicule petit merdeux! Va te faire foutre! ”
Midshipman Rossyngton burst into peals of laughter, though his cheeks and ears turned red from shock; it was not every day that one heard a dignified senior officer call someone “an absurd little clown” or “a ridiculous little shit”, and certainly not telling another-even a Frenchman-to “Go fuck yourself!”
“Ye see, Mister Rossyngton,” Lewrie said with a feral smile as he handed the speaking-trumpet back, “sometimes ye have t’match crude with crude.”
Didn’t know I could string that much French together, Lewrie congratulated himself. And when we do run him down and take him, I’m going to ram those insults of his down his God-damned throat!
“That’s enough,” Lewrie ordered as the French schooner sailed beyond easy earshot. “That’ll do, Mister Westcott. Let’s get people back to their duties.”
“Very good, sir,” Lt. Westcott crisply responded, though still grinning over the crew’s response, and Lewrie’s surprising outburst.
Lewrie went down the starboard ladderway to the main deck, and turned aft to enter his cabins, already tugging at the knot of his neck-stock. Bisquit leaped to his feet, his feast done, looking for more, for Lewrie still had some sliced ham in his duffel for the cats. He planted himself in front of the door, tail thrashing, and Lewrie took time to pet his head and shoulders, and ruffle his neck fur, before reaching for the door. The Marine sentry presented his musket as Lewrie opened it, and the dog darted in in an eye blink.
“Oh no, dog, that’s off-limits!” Lewrie snapped, pursuing him inside. “That’s quite enough! Pettus, catch him and shoo him out!”
Bisquit did a quick trot round the forbidden cabins, sniffing at everything, as if he knew his time was limited; the carpets atop the chequered deck canvas, the canvas itself, the desk in the day-cabin, the hanging bed-cot, the upholstery on the transom settee and the starboard-side settee and chairs, then into the dining-coach, where Lewrie’s cats had dashed in panic to take shelter atop the side-board and hiss and spit. When the dog paused long enough to put his paws on the side-board and utter playful noises to entice the cats, Pettus caught him by the collar and led him, only a bit unwillingly, to the door. Damned if the silly beast wasn’t grinning, tugging towards Lewrie and looking up at him with mischief, and gratitude perhaps, for his shore treat, before Pettus put him outside and shut the door.
“He likes you, sir,” Pettus said with a lop-sided grin.
“He likes everybody,” Lewrie growled, “the Bosun, the Master-at-Arms, the ‘duck fucker’ of the manger, even the Purser’s Jack-In-The-Breadroom-anybody who’ll give him the time o’day.”
“’E’s right clever, sir,” Jessop, the young cabin servant, shyly piped up. “Been teachin’ ’im tricks, I has.”
“Not in here, I trust,” Lewrie said, peeling off his neck-stock and shucking his dress coat.
“Oh no, sir, never!” Jessop swore.
“Cool tea, sir?” Pettus asked.
“Coffee,” Lewrie decided, removing his sash and un-buttoning his waist-coat. “Do stow all this away, and lay me out my comfortable old clothes, Pettus.”
“Aye, sir,” Pettus said, summoning Jessop to assist him, “Care for a bite of something, sir?”
“Our Consul sent me off with a solid breakfast, and his house servants washed and ironed most o’ my things,” Lewrie told him. “All I care for is coffee. I’ve a letter or two to write before dinner.”
The supper party had gone past ten of the evening, and Lewrie and Mr. Cotton had sat up past eleven in discussions, over balloon snifters of brandy, before retiring. Lewrie had slept extremely well, but had risen early, had rewarded himself with one last shore bath, and had wolfed down fried ham, scrambled eggs, thick toast, and piping-hot hominy grits with cinnamon, sugar, and butter. If he didn’t get started on his letters, he feared he might nod off over his pen.
There would have to be one letter to Admiralty to report upon what Reliant had done so far, and what he and their Consuls had discovered. A copy of that letter would have to be sent to the British Ambassador in Washington City. Once the official reports were done, there would be time to write his father, Sir Hugo, his sons Sewallis and Hugh-though if their respective ships were at sea it might be months before they received them-a letter to his daughter, Charlotte, who still lodged with his brother-in-law in Anglesgreen, and a fond one to Lydia Stangbourne. And one to his bastard son, Desmond McGilliveray.
It had been hard to find even a brief moment of privacy with Mr. Douglas McGilliveray to ask about Desmond, and unsure whether even a guarded enquiry might upset Mrs. McGilliveray, who might, or might not, know that Lewrie was young Desmond’s true father, not her husband’s late younger brother of the same name, who had been the family’s agent to the Muskogees Indians, and guide to a fruitless expedition into the Florida Panhandle to bring the tribe into war against the Americans, an expedition of which Lewrie was a part. That Desmond had claimed both the baby, and his mother Soft Rabbit, a Cherokee slave to the White Clan, after Lewrie had sailed away, marrying her at the next Green Corn Ceremony the next Spring. The elder Desmond and Soft Rabbit had both died of a smallpox outbreak not long after, and the baby had been sent to Charleston to be with his White kin by the White Clan elders.
It was bad enough for young Desmond to be half-Indian in haughty Low Country Society; for him to have a British father might have made things worse for him, were it known! Hatred for England and all things British were still alive, as Lewrie had already seen. Best all round for the lad was for the people of Charleston to believe that Desmond’s sire had been a daring and resourceful, Oxford-educated, “far-trader” and frontiersman, one of their own kind and class, and the inconvenience of his late mother’s race could be dismissed.
Thankfully, Mr. Douglas McGilliveray had provided an opportunity to speak, inviting Lewrie to join him in the tavern side of the establishment so he could savour a cigarro grown and cured Up State on the Piedmont and rolled in Charleston. Before Lewrie could declare himself a non-smoker, McGilliveray had tipped him a very broad wink.
“You wish to know how Desmond fares, I expect,” McGilliveray had begun. “He’s gotten your last two letters, but has been a tad busy to respond promptly. He’s at the North in the Chesapeake.”
Young Desmond was now a full-grown young man of twenty-two years of age, and had wangled a way to stay in the fledgling U.S. Navy after the short Quasi-War ’twixt America and France had ended, intending to make a career of it if he could. McGilliveray had proudly related how Desmond had already stood his oral examinations and had passed on the first try, making him a Passed Midshipman, eligible to be commissioned a Lieutenant in the future, should there be an opening.
“Promotion may come soon,” Mr. McGilliveray had said, winking once more, and blowing a cloud of smoke at the ceiling of the tavern. “President ‘Fool Thomas’ Jefferson just won’t see that we need a sea-going navy. Soon as he took office, he laid up all the good ships to rot away, and had all these damned coastal and river gunboats put into service. Lieutenant Gordon’s poor pair are lucky to live, out past the bar, on a gusty day, and wouldn’t be much of a deterrent to an enemy expedition. What little we still have in commission worth a thing are over in the Mediterranean, confronting the damned Barbary Corsairs. You know we lost the frigate Philadelphia. A shameful business! Stranded aground in Tripoli Harbour, and captured. Oh, we managed to board her and burn her, but it’s pitiful how weak we are. The idea of sailing gunboats to Tripoli is laughable! Pressure is growing that we build newer, bigger, better-armed frigates, sloops of war, and brigs to scour the Barbary Coast and stop their foul business, once and for all! All the poor, murdered American sailors, all those captured and enslaved, forced to denounce Christianity and turn Muslim? Pah! They cry out for freedom, and vengeance!”
“So, Desmond could be posted to a new ship, as a Lieutenant?” Lewrie had asked.
“A very good possibility, Captain Lewrie,” McGilliveray had imparted with a pleased smile. “Do you write him, send your letters to the brig o’ war Daring. She’s fitting out for the Mediterranean at Baltimore.”
Lewrie suspected that Desmond wrote his Charleston family more often than he wrote him, and had pressed for more information on how he was truly doing… gingerly asking how the young man was being accepted, despite his antecedents. McGilliveray had turned sombre, leaning closer. Charleston Society would always look upon him as an exotic oddity, no matter the backing and full acceptance of his kin. His prospects of making a decent match, someday, would be bleak, but up North Desmond’s Indian-dark hair and complexion could be mistaken for Huguenot French, for many of them had settled in Charleston and the South Carolina Low Country before the Revolution. And, having Lewrie’s grey-blue eyes was a plus. His bastard son was strong and slim, and finely moulded, his manners impeccable, his seeming sense of place and his confident air of competent, gentlemanly leadership, and his proven courage and skill with weapons, actually made Desmond a welcome guest… in the states above Virginia, at any rate.
“He could come back to Charleston, someday, with a New England bride?” Lewrie had gawped. “What would the city think o’ that?”
Mr. McGilliveray had at that juncture heaved a heavy sigh and had slowly shaken his head, before saying, “I fear that Desmond might never return to Charleston, at all, unless the Navy orders him here. He’s become more a citizen of our whole country than he is of South Carolina, despite his family’s desires that he stay a part of us.”
Poor chub, Lewrie thought as he fetched out a fresh sheet of paper and dipped his pen in the ink-well; though it may turn out for the best for him. And nothing that I could cure.