The French Admiral

"We do not dig," Burgess replied. "We are light infantry."

"Then we both stand an equal chance when it comes to getting our deaths," Alan said. "Not much to choose between them."

"You speak from experience, sounds like." Burgess sobered suddenly. "Tell me of it."

Alan did not mind bragging on himself, so the rest of the ride passed on the way back to their position in the hills as he related his successes in Ariadne, Parro and Desperate, even touching on the duel with the infantry lieutenant on Antigua over Lucy Beauman's honor. By the time they dismounted and turned their horses over to an orderly before seeing to their own supper, Burgess Chiswick was mightily impressed with his new companion as a fighting man who had seen more action than Burgess, or even his older brother Governour, who had been with the colors longer. But then Alan was, by that time, pretty impressed with his own prowess as well. And after a filling game pie and a mug or two of Burgess's corn whiskey, he was absolutely convinced of the fact that he was a devil of a fellow!

CHAPTER 9

"They are still there," Alan said, borrowing Burgess's telescope to stare downriver. They had gone for a morning ride over to the river bluffs near the Star Redoubt to survey the work of the fireships. Cornwallis had filled four schooners entrapped in the anchorage with all the straw and flammables he could find, and had placed them under the command of a Loyalist privateer captain. The fireships had gone downriver and had frightened the hell out of the French for a time, driving them away from the mouth of the York, but the privateer captain's schooner had been set alight much too soon, and all the others lit themselves off at the same time as though it were the correct signal. One had blown up, one had gone aground in the shallows after being abandoned by her very well-singed crew of volunteers, and the total effect was nil.

"Well, a brave effort, damme if it wasn't," Burgess said.

"We might try it again in a few days, though I doubt if they'll stand for it a second time," Alan said, closing the telescope with a heavy click of collapsing tubes and handing it back to Ensign Chiswick. "Wouldn't have done us much good, anyway. No one had called us to fetch back the artillery or prepare to evacuate with the fleet."

"The bulk of the army would have gotten away to the eastern shore, but we could have still crossed over to the Gloucester side in barges and joined Tarleton to cut our way out," Burgess informed him. "Lauzun's Legion is perhaps six hundred men. Mayhap eight hundred French marines landed from the ships, and the Virginia Militia surely can't be much. Our troops used them like so many bears back in the spring. Still, I don't see what's stopping us from going downriver. There are only three enemy ships."

"A third-rate 74, and two large frigates," Alan told him. "They're anchored so they can sweep all the main channel. And what you see as open water is really shallow. Even at high tide, it's not enough to float a ship of any size. You can see where the schooner went aground, and she didn't draw a full fathom, loaded as she was. We try to force them, make them cut their cables, they'll fire off signal fusees, and we'd never make it to the far shore before the main fleet near Cape Henry caught up with us."

"But they cannot come up the river."

"Thank Providence for small favors. I'd not attempt it without an experienced pilot, and then only in the smallest craft."

"Then there is nothing for it but to put all our trust in Clinton and your Admiral Graves to get back here and rescue us," Burgess said.

"Whenever that may be," Alan spat, tugging at the reins of his mare to turn her about to face inland once more.

"Any guesses on that?" Burgess asked. "I heard Colonel Hamilton say General Clinton had assured Lord Cornwallis that over four thousand men were ready to embark from New York, now there's no threat to the city."

"Hmm, if Graves departed the coast on the tenth or so," Alan said as they walked their mounts down from the bluffs to the Williamsburg road. "With favorable winds, he would have gotten to New York on the fifteenth, even beating into a nor'east breeze. Ten days to refit and embark those troops… if he can work back across the bar off New York with all his ships. He could have departed yesterday on the twenty-fifth, and could be here by at least the thirtieth. Say the second of October on the outside. But he would still have to fight his way into the bay against the French as he should have the first time."

"So by the second, we shall have four thousand more troops, more artillery and supplies and might succeed in forcing the French fleet to take shelter up the James River, reversing the odds against us."

"Bide a minute, Burgess," Alan said, pulling his mount to a stop. "What did you mean about New York no longer being threatened. De Barras and his troops in Newport never threatened New York directly."

"Oh, I am sorry, I thought you had already heard," Burgess apologized. "Washington and Rochambeau have abandoned their positions around New York and are reputed to be on the march for Yorktown."

"Jesus Christ!" Alan shrieked, startling both mounts, who jumped about for a few minutes before they could calm them back down, tittuping and side-paddling and farting in alarm.

"I wish you would not frighten the horses so, Alan. This plug is skittish—not my usual mount," Burgess complained.

"Fuck the horses. You just frightened the devil out of me!" Alan shot back. "Is there anything else on the way you have not told me about? No expeditionary force from the Grand Moghul of India with fifty war elephants? No Mameluke cavalry from the Ottoman Empire?"

"From Clinton's letters, which were passed on to the colonel for his information, we should be about even in numbers and much stronger in cavalry should we needs break out," Burgess said.

"Jesus Christ," Alan repeated, though much more softly than before. "We're going to get our arses knackered. We're going to lose this damned war if we keep this up. This is the last army of note in the Americas."

"And the last Parliament would raise, most like," Burgess agreed, so stoically calm about their future chances that Alan felt like hitting him. "So there is no way that Graves or Clinton would leave us hanging in the balance for very long, is there?" Burgess reasoned. "We can hold until relieved and sooner or later the hurricane season will force the French to sail away, and all this affair will be just another campaign that almost achieved something but didn't. Washington will have to go back north to the New York area, eventually, or stand still for General Clinton to rampage all over the upper Colonies and destroy all their work."

"That sounds… logical, at any rate," Alan had to admit, though he remembered his talk with Lieutenant Railsford in Desperate on their way to New York, and Treghues's rant about fleet strategy before the Battle of the Chesapeake. That had sounded eminently logical, too, and look where that had gotten them.

Regardless of the circumstances, there was still duty to be done. The half-battery had to be manned, patrols had to go out to forage or to scout, their position had to be constantly improved, and watches had to be stood much as at sea, with some of the gunners by their pieces at all times. Knatchbull was not an imaginative man, but he was a competent one and practically ran the battery for Lewrie, presenting a going concern to his midshipman each morning with all the care of a first lieutenant doing the same for his captain. Sighting shots were fired with round shot out across the fields to let the gun captains find how far they could reach and improve their chances when a real foe presented himself. Gun drill was carried out every morning, just as aboard ship, and the midday rum ration was doled out at eleven-thirty in the morning, corresponding to the seven bells of the forenoon watch, followed by dinner. Alan led cutlass drill himself to keep the hands sharp and out of trouble with so much idle time. A corporal from the North Carolina Volunteers led the musket practice, and the men, with nothing other to bet on, began to improve at targets, being forced to load and fire faster than they ever had before.

Alan kept the men working on his gun carriages. Using the trucks as the base, he found enough seasoned wood to form axles and trails, and the more creative gunners did the rest. There was little that an English seaman could not make with his hands, if properly stimulated to the work, and soon he had spokes and greenwood wheels abuilding. The wheels would not have iron rims—they could not aspire to that with limited materials—but he could shift his guns more easily once the labor was finished.

The camp rang with hammering and sawing and the rasp of carpenters' planes and files. The naves began to sprout spokes as new platforms were nailed to the bottom of the trucks, and the trails were bolted on.

"Lookin' proper, Mister Lewrie," Knatchbull informed him. "I'd still use the breechin' ropes an' the side tackles an sich, just in case. That's greenwood an' pine at that. Takes good oak or ash ta do it right."

"Still, it eases the work of running out to the gunports in this redan." Alan was pleased with the handiwork of the first piece to be converted and emplaced. "We could cut down two men from each gun crew and send them back aboard ship."

"Aye, sir, but iffen we had ta get outa here in a hurry, I'd not be sendin' 'em back ta the ship anytime soon," Knatchbull replied.

"I shall write the captain a letter about it, anyway," Alan decided. If Treghues was in a better mental state, it didn't hurt to piss down his superior's back and let him know that at least one of his midshipmen was being diligent and creative in adversity—one he could not quite remember clearly since his trephination, but one whom he should get to know once more on much better terms.

"Guess we better test-fire the bugger, Mister Lewrie," Knatchbull said. "Full cartridge an' round shot."

"There is nothing at present to our front. No scouts out this morning this late. Let's do."

A gun crew came forward, while the rest of the men and some of the Hessian Jagers and North Carolina troops who were free of duties came to gawk; at a reasonably safe distance, Alan noted. Since it was his idea, there was nothing for it but to stand beside the gun crew as the piece was loaded.

"Charge yer gun," Knatchbull intoned. "Shot yer gun. prime yer gun. Quoin in. Don't wanna hit no poor bastard off in them woods."

"Aim for that clump of shrubbery three cables off," Alan ordered. "Excess crew take cover. I'll touch her off."

The side-tackle men and the powder boy scuttled to the rear, and the rammer man, shot man, and gun captain headed out to the flanks in the trench on either side of the gun platform.

Alan lowered the smouldering length of slowmatch gripped in the claws at the end of the linstock to the priming quill and took a deep breath. He touched the quill and there was a flash of powder smoke and a sharp hissing sound as the fine-mealed powder in the quill took light. Then there was a sharp bang, and the piece recoiled to the back of the platform right smartly, snubbing at the extent of the breeching ropes and slewing a bit on the new high wheels. It reared a bit on its trail, then thumped back down heavily, but after the smoke cleared Alan could detect no cracks or splintering of the new carriage.

"Check her over, Knatchbull," Alan said, letting out his breath. Still got my nutmegs intact, he exulted.

A ragged cheer rose from the hands and the onlookers, and Alan took a theatrical bow to his audience while Knatchbull and several of the men closely involved in the carriage's construction looked it over.

"Sound as a fifty-guinea horse, so 'tis," Knatchbull judged.

"Musta skeered that fella ta death, Mister Lewrie," the gun captain laughed, pointing off into the fields where a rider could be seen at full gallop, heading their way.

"We didn't put a ball near him, did we?" Alan worried.

"Nah, didn' come nowhere close, sir," the gun captain told him. "Put the ball dead square in that clump, mebbe a furlong shy, anyways."

Alan unslung the telescope by the gun and took a look at the approaching stranger. He was wearing the uniform of a British officer, but that was about all that could be discovered until he had reined in his mount by the outlying sentries and shouted his news, panting dramatically as though the world hung on his next word.

"Washington's army," he gasped. "On the Williamsburg road. On their way here, about ten miles off. They'll be up to these positions by nightfall! Have you a fresh mount? Mine's done in."

"Good God a-mighty, Mister Lewrie," Knatchbull muttered, his craggy face dark with concern at this new development.

"Yes, Knatchbull," Alan replied calmly, having been apprised of the possibility days before. "Now, even more reason to continue work on the new gun carriages, is it not? Rum ration at the usual time."

He took out his pocket watch and opened the face as though the question of rum was really more important.

"Aye, sir."

"And I want the second gun mounted by nightfall at the latest. So work 'em hard after dinner."

"Aye, aye, sir." Knatchbull nodded, calmed by the sangfroid of his immediate superior, and went off to do Lewrie's bidding without another thought.

There, that'll show the bastards I can be as cool as a post-captain, Alan thought grimly. Mister Railsford, wherever you are over there on the Gloucester side, thanks for the warning about showing calm.

After dark, Alan could hear the enemy army on its approach march. He was certain that the army could be heard as far back as Yorktown itself. Chains jangled from artillery caissons, axles squealed and screamed as heavy guns and supply wagons made their way over the poor roads. Even the grunting and neighing of horses could be heard, and the bawl of oxen in their yokes being goaded forward and, now and again when the wind was just right, the solid tramp of many marching feet. There was nothing to be seen to the front, even with a fairly full moon; only the silent hills and the silvered forests that brooded in their alienness.

"Think they'll attack tonight, Mister Lewrie?" Knatchbull asked.

"They've covered at least ten miles today, maybe twenty," Alan told him, repeating what little he could pick up from the talk at supper with the Chiswick brothers, their captain, and the Jager officers in a pavilion back near the end of the draw. "We would know if they had attempted to scout us, so it's sure they don't know where our fortifications are, for now. They'll scout tomorrow, but we've nothing to fear for this evening. Still, make sure the guns are loaded with round shot and canister to boot, run out ready to fire with tompions in to protect the charges against the night damp until time to fire. Post two men from each gun crew as sentries with muskets. They are not to fire at anything unless strictly ordered, or I'll have the man who did it tied to a tree and flogged, if a grating can't be found."

"Four-hour watches, Mister Lewrie?"

"Aye. You can use a watch?"

"Ah, I ain't no scholard, Mister Lewrie," Knatchbull admitted in the darkness. "But I got the hour glass."

"Good enough, then," Alan said, making a production of yawning for Knatchbull's and his men's benefit. "I'll turn in. Send a man to wake me if there is an alarm, and without fail at the end of the middle watch."

Alan wandered back from the ramparts of their new post and found his small tent tucked away under a grove of trees snuggled up on the right side of the draw. Cony had a small fire going that was barely flaming to see by as he stripped off his coat and waistcoat, loosened his neckcloth, and slid off his shoes.

"You turn in, Cony," Alan told him. "Knatchbull will send someone to wake you for lookout before dawn."

"Aye, Mister Lewrie," Cony replied, spreading a hammock for ground cloth by the fire and arranging his blankets.

Alan crawled into the tent and found his own bedding. He stretched out and flung a rough blanket over his body so he could lie in the dark and watch the tiny flickers of the fire on the wall of the tent, wide awake and staring up at the faint shadows of the boughs over his head as they swayed in the faint wind and moonlight.

"Sir?" Cony said softly from beyond the tent flap.

"Aye, Cony."

"They's a flask o' rum by yer head, sir, ta help ya caulk the better," Cony told him, already rolled into his own blankets against the damp night chill.

Thank God, Alan thought, fumbling about until his hand fell on a small leather bottle and withdrew the stopper. Neat rum was not something he normally preferred, but tonight it was welcome. He took a small sip and winced at the bite of the rum and its sharp odor.

The bedding rustled as he lifted the bottle to his lips once more, and Alan could swear he could already feel the tiny movements of the many bugs drawn to him by his warmth, his scent, and the hope for blood. That was one of the worst parts of serving on land—being awakened by the bite of something too small to be fought, or finding the welts in the morning and feeling the fleas begin to shift about in his clothing. He had already had several ticks withdrawn from his skin; each time he was filled with loathing at the brutes and the way they had swelled by feeding on him. At least the Navy did not have to put up with the bastards and could fumigate and rid a ship of most lice, fleas, and other insects. Roaches were the main worry on a ship, along with the occasional brave rat that ventured out of the orlop and bilges.

God, I wish I could just scream, or something! he thought; instead of having to sham all this cow-stupid calm! I swear! All these bugs, the filth and ordure… sleeping on the cold ground? Do I get back aboard Desperate and out to sea, I'll never complain about Navy life again!

Realizing how desperate he was to make such a vow, he could have pinched himself to see if he was not already dreaming. But he had to wait a long time for sleep to come that night, while the ground trembled ever so gently with the vibrations of the approaching army.

"Pull out?" Governour Chiswick spat. "Damme, that's a wrench."

"Pull out to where?" Burgess asked.

"Back into the inner fortifications closer to Yorktown," Governour informed them, waving a feeble hand toward the east.

"Bah, das ist…" Heros von Muecke searched for the right word in English but failed to find anything suitable. "Sheiss!" he finally spat. "Ve here der bastards can skin!"

"The Star Redoubt can control the western approaches to the town and everything else is either marsh or ravine," Governour said. "They don't think our position is favorable. It's not just us, mind. The entire outer defense line is being pulled back. On the other bank of the creek's ravines there's high ground… where we can dig in. Lord Cornwallis doesn't think he has the spare troops to man such a long perimeter."

"The hell we can't!" Burgess bragged. "Just let the shits try!"

"We have our orders," Governour said.

Alan, who had been sitting back in the pavilion and listening to the argument, had only one thought: to get his artillery evacuated. Then there might even be a chance to reembark the guns into Desperate, take a much-needed bath, and get aboard ship and away from this nightmare.

"My guns," he said. "I need horse teams and limbers."

"Will those carriages hold up?" Governour asked.

"Of course they will," Alan snapped. "For the two guns mounted on them, that is. The third gun needs a heavy wagon to take the barrel and a second to take the truck and gun tools."

"I'll send a rider to ask for them, then," Governour said. "That means we have to stay here 'til Mister Lewrie's guns are out of here, though. I'll tell the staff that, too."

This time there would be no thought of dismantling the ramparts.

The tents and shelters were taken down and folded up, the personal gear was bundled into field packs, the magazines emptied once more and the guns rolled out of position, ready for the horse teams to arrive. But the third gun could only be held in abeyance. It took the effort of all the naval party to lift the weight of a long nine barrel from the gun truck with heavy tackle slung below the piece, then laid out on the ground on a section of heavy netting.

When the teams did arrive, it was a scrawny pack of beasts that had been despatched. The grazing had not been the best, and the corn and oats were directed to the troops' diet instead of the horses. With the third barrel in the wagon, finally, it took a double team of eight of the horses to draw it, and the men had to assist the remaining animals with their own muscle power, up through the draw, down the back side, along the edge of the marshes to the main road, sometimes unharnessing some horses to double up whenever a gun bogged down.

They rolled into Yorktown and were left on their own after the North Carolina troops and the Jagers were sent off to their new quarters. Alan bade everyone a hearty good-bye, even von Muecke, and then sat down by the side of the road to wait for instructions since the army staff seemed to have forgotten about them completely. After getting thoroughly bored with an hour of inactivity, Alan wandered off to the docks.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, doffing his hat to a naval lieutenant who was directing the work of a party loading barges to supply the troops across the river.

"Yes, what is it?"

"I am in charge of three guns from Desperate, sir," Alan said. "And we were posted on the far bank of the creek until this morning. Now no one has a clue about what we are to do with them. There are three long nines, two on field carriages and one still on a naval carriage."

"Well, why do you not ask the teamsters?"

"They only want their animals and wagons back and have no instructions as to taking us anyplace else, sir."

"Damme, what a muddle!" the lieutenant swore. "Trust the army to have the brains of a crop-sick dominee do-little! See the headquarters, back of the town."

"Aye, sir."

He had not gone a hundred yards, though, before he ran into David Avery and gunner's mate Tulley, and gave a great shout to get their attention.

"Alan!" David cried back. "How do you keep?"

"Full of fleas but main well, considering," Alan replied, very glad to see someone from the ship once more. "Look here, the army has no idea about what to do with my guns, and…"

"Gawd a-mighty, Mister Lewrie, wot ya been doin' wi' my guns?" Tulley exploded, seeing the impromptu field carriages.

"I wrote the captain of them," Alan snapped. "He seemed most impressed, Mister Tulley." Treghues had indeed replied to Lewrie's letter with a most kind answer, giving faint praise for his initiative and creativity, but it was praise nonetheless, and that from a man who had recently been willing to feed Lewrie to the fires of hell and help shovel some good, hot-burning sea-coal into the bargain, so Alan was having none of it.

"Damn, there's two guns wot we'll never get back now!" Tulley spat.

"Get back?" Alan asked, perplexed.

"Captain Treghues asked for some of his artillery back, since we were the only ship left in harbor of any size that was even partially armed," David explained. "When Cornwallis decided to withdraw into the inner defense line, the staff said we could have them, since they were on naval trucks and unsuitable for a siege work. But now…"

"Even the smashers?" Alan wondered, asking about the carronades.

"Well, no, they do want to hold onto those," David said, taking a keen interest in the field carriages himself. "Even so, we are leaving four pieces on the Gloucester side, but we got my nine-pounder back aboard this morning, and we can refit your third gun. But these…"

"What if we can get them back aboard right away?" Alan pressed, eager to get off the land. "We can knock the trails and limbers off, put them back on their own small wheels and axles. What would you wager the army doesn't even know of them?"

"They know," David said sadly.

"Damn," Lewrie groaned in misery.

"They thought it most clever, and if we still had access to all that timber across the ravines, they might convert more. So these two guns stay with the army."

"Damn," Alan expostulated, even more miserably.

"Along with the nacky cock who came up with the idea."

"Oh, hell!"

I have done it again, Alan cursed himself; I got just too bloody sly for my own good! There's no bloody justice in this world, I swear. Damme for being clever, damme for doing something stupid, it's all one. If I tried to do something dumb, I'd get a caning for it anyway!

"Surely, one midshipman is much the same as another," Alan said. "They could bring Forrester over. Let him take some glory."

"You want to appear keen, do you not, Alan?" David queried, looking at him askance. "Captain Symonds put it in his reports and asked for you by name."

"Oh, did he?" Alan said, raising his eyebrows.

Well, perhaps that is a different kettle of fish. When the fleet gets here to relieve us, I could gain favorable interest from Hood and Graves. That couldn't hurt my career.

"I am told," David Avery told him in a softer voice and from a much closer distance, "that the captain is in his right mind once more, and was flattered that Symonds asked for you. Even commended you for the effort to convert the pieces to field use. Much as he may have liked to do something good for Forrester, you are the one in favor at present. I should make the most of it."

"It's simply that land service is so depriving, so dirty and full of bugs and such," Alan insisted, finding another reason for his reluctance to stay ashore. "I could use a good delousing, David. Our army is not the cleanest lot I've ever served with."

"I spent a few nights sleeping rough myself, so I can sympathize." His friend laughed. "It's most fortunate we ran into you so we can take the third gun back aboard ship this evening. If there is anything you need from your chest or from our mess to ease your burden, do let me know, and I'll see you get it."

"That's very kind of you, David," Alan said, hiding the bitterness he felt at being the ship's perpetual orphan, banished ashore until old age, it seemed, while Avery could loll about with few duties onboard Desperate. Tulley was still incensed about this gun, but he was glad to take charge of the disassembled piece and move it toward the docks, along with a third of Alan's shore party. Alan had no choice but to sigh and direct the teamsters to tow his converted field guns into town, where an army artillery officer was expecting his arrival. They were shoved into the line on the east side of the town, overlooking the river and the docks, almost on the edge of the bluffs.

The inner defense line, for all the work done on it by slaves and soldiers, wasn't much better than what he had seen out in the hills. The rampart was low enough to jump over, and the trenches behind it were not very deep, either, though they were rooved with scrap canvas and tents to keep the rain and sun off the men, and there were small zigzagging trenches about waist high that snaked back into the town through which rations and relieving sentries could communicate with the ramparts. The line was also zigzag for much of its length facing the enemy forces, which would lead attackers into cross fires from front and sides. In some places easier to approach, the fortifications had been given a crenellation in the form of a small redoubt that jutted out onto a higher piece of ground, or one indented to take advantage of a ravine where the foe could congregate and be struck from three sides, instead of only two.

The walls, though, were not three feet high anywhere, barely able to shelter a man standing in the trenches, faced with abatis, strung with chevaux-de-frise to deter cavalry in the easier ground. There were also some outlying redoubts beyond the ramparts as strongpoints, especially on the south-east end of the town, nearest the French landings on the James River, a few clustered to the south corner above the ravine by the Hornwork, a large redoubt that overlooked the open ground around Wormsley's Pond and the creek of the same name, and even one still across the York Creek, but better sited than anything Alan had been involved with.

The town was just behind them, close enough to retire to from the ramparts through the communications trenches and to rest there in the abandoned buildings or homes that had not been commandeered for use already.

"Your guns shall go in here," the army officer instructed, showing Alan two vacant gunports in the east wall. There the wall was mostly straight, with an extended crenellation to their left. The area of the rampart around the gunports had been built up with fascines and gabions, and wooden ramps were already in place so the guns could rest or recoil smoothly. "Nice work you did, getting these naval pieces converted for field use."

"Thank you, sir. What do we do here, though?"

"Cover the river," the officer shrugged.

"I can't reach the French ships from here with a ball, even at maximum elevation, sir. Unless they come farther up…"

"Then you can fire to your heart's content."

"Well, I was thinking that we would be more use further west or on the north face, sir. A long nine could drop shot into that big battery the French are building. Or cover the Star Redoubt."

"No point in that. The Star Redoubt is being abandoned as well. And we have mortars of our own to deal with that battery."

"With a long nine, sir, I could reach Gloucester Point as well. With so much artillery being put in on this side, it would seem reasonable to expect that we could use our more accurate pieces to provide a counterfire. On solid land, naval gunners can be devilishly accurate."

"And they could teach their grannies to suck eggs." The officer frowned. "We have six-pounders and infantry redans to cover the road from the Star Redoubt, and guns enough to cover the river above the town and strike that battery they're building. So why don't you just get your guns into position and leave the planning to your betters, eh? There's a good lad. More experienced men than you have already made allowance for any contingency, so why not just obey orders?"

Burgess and Governour have the right of it, Alan thought sourly as his gunners began to wheel their charges into the emplacements. Our regular army is a pack of idiots. I don't think they've had an original idea since Cromwell died. We ain't fighting on the French border with Marlborough. We're surrounded and short of powder already.

Still, once in place, Alan was relieved to find that the troops who supported him were mostly marines who could be trusted, so he would not have to share the same rarefied air as the army.

It is a truism that warfare consists mostly of marching off to the possible site of battle, and being thoroughly miserable in the process. And once there, it consists of waiting for that battle to begin and, depending on the climate, the availability of amusements, and the amount of worrying one does while waiting, a pretty miserable process as well. Each morning they rose early and stood to their guns, much as at dawn quarters. Each morning the sea was empty beyond the capes and only the French ships could be seen from the town bluffs or the top of the ramparts; the ones beyond the shoals at the mouth of the York, or the ships far out in the bay blockading the entrances. Inland, they could watch the enemy march into positions; positions in the outer defense line that they had abandoned days before and were now redug and improved to their own detriment, and the joy of their foes.

September ended, and Graves did not come. The first days of October passed by in enforced ennui, with the town now thoroughly invested by both French and Rebel troops. More and more artillery wheeled into position, whole parks of guns. Not just light field pieces, but heavy siege guns and howitzers and mortars that could throw fizzing shells of up to sixteen inches that would burst with great thunderclaps, should they ever cut loose with them.

The American Rebels made a brave show from the ramparts, marching in what seemed very good order, their muskets slung precisely and their step quick and lively, their striped Rebel banner with the starry blue canton and their regimental flags flying. The drums rolled and the fifes whistled thinly, like a man sucking air through his teeth; mostly they played Yankee Doodle, which was about the most nonsensical song Lewrie had ever seen written down, even dumber than most, such as Deny Down or When the World Turned Upside Down. The French troops wore white with rose, purple, green, or black facings. The Rebels looked natty in dark blue and buff with white breeches and various regimental trim.

The Rebels and French bands serenaded them as their troops dug and countermarched and drilled, or toiled with improving artillery positions, and the marines paraded before the ramparts as well, playing Heart of Oak and Rule, Britannia, until Alan was sick of hearing them.

At night, the land across the ravine of Yorktown Creek, the woods and the fields were swarming with small squad fires in a glittering arc from the York River down to below Moore's House, out of reach of rifle fire or small arms Strangely, both sides held their fire, even though the artillery could have put the fear of God and British gunnery up the Rebels and their allies. There was a rumor making the rounds that those insane Rebels had gotten up on their own ramparts of a freshly dug parallel and performed the manual of arms in Prussian style, and it was such a good show that not a shot had been fired, though their Colonel Alexander Hamilton could have been handed his arse on a plate for forcing his troops to do such a stunt. And through it all, Graves and Hood and General Clinton and his four thousand reinforcements were also only a rumor, for they did not come. The skies clouded up and rained occasionally, and the nights were becoming chillier, the days less warm—more like home back in England in late summer, when the apples were ripe for the plucking, ruddy with the first frost.

The forage situation for the thousands of horses was getting desperate, and with too many animals in the fortifications providing a sanitary problem, many were turned out to crop the late summer grass on their own, between the lines. They would not be called upon to haul guns or wagons, not for weeks to come, it looked like, and they were already half-famished for want of good corn or grain. Come to think of it, so were the troops, and their needs came before horses and mules.

Making the situation even worse when it came to rations, there were thousands of black faces in the fortifications; slaves from the many plantings in the Chesapeake and the Tidewater region who had been dragged off as moveable property confiscated for the Crown, or had escaped from their masters and were hoping for eventual freedom from their Rebel owners if the British were successful in withstanding the siege. Their labor was handy to dig and improve the defenses or serve as bearers from the warehouses and armories to the guns.

Alan ended up with half a dozen to help tail on the tackles to run out his guns and to keep a supply of shot and cartridges coming from his magazines. A more miserable lot he had never seen in his life; the blacks in the Indies were freemen, at least the ones he had seen around the ports. There were many who had signed aboard King's ships after their European crews had succumbed to the many fevers, and they were rated as landsmen or ordinary seamen, paid the same wages as an English sailor. Some of the younger ones even made damn good topmen and able seamen after a few years. But this lot were as thin as wild dogs, clothed tag-rag-and-bobtail, poorer than even the worst-off gin drinkers in some London stew. They responded to the cheerful friendliness of the British sailors with caution and cringed like whipped pups if anyone even looked sharp in their direction; Alan thought that had a lot to do with the lash marks on their backs that their thin clothes could not cover. When he allowed them a scrap of sailcloth to make a snug lean-to near the battery, their gratitude was so humble and heartfelt that he was almost repulsed by their suddenly adoring neediness.

For his part, Alan had the use of a bedroom in a small house within one hundred yards of his battery on the rampart, shared with an officer with Symonds's marines from the Charon; the house itself full of officers sleeping three to a bed, on the floors and furniture, even bedding down on top of, and under, the dining table. They were all young and junior and had access to lots of spirits and personal stores they shared together for their informal mess. Alan could return to a dry bed, Cony's ministrations with his uniform and kit, a glass of hock, rhenish, red wine, brandy, corn whiskey, or rum toddy. There was cider, some captured local beer, and plenty of food and condiments to make it palatable as long as their caches held out. There was a privy in which he could take his ease (which was rapidly filling up, though, with so many people using it). There was an outhouse with a large wooden tub where Lewrie could take an occasional bath in warm water when the stewards and orderlies were not using it to wash clothes.

So he waited like the others, rising for the rare alarums and diversions as a battery would fire on the enemy digging a parallel down south-east, or light off a rocket at night, sure that a party of infiltrators had appeared, but for a desperate war, it was a chore to even keep interested in it most of the time.

WHEEE-BLAM!

Alan jerked involuntarily in his sleep, savoring the most lifelike dream of fondling and undressing Lucy Beauman. Her father was at the door, crying out for his daughter's virginity and slamming his fists on the door. WHEEE-BULAMM!

"Sufferin' Christ!" his bedmate said, rolling off the high mattress and taking refuge under the bed frame with the chamber pot. The other officer who shared their bed had already gone out the window. "Lewrie!"

"Umm?" Alan mazed sleepily. It had been so warm and snug, bundled in between the other officers, each wrapped in a good blanket with a quilt spread over all three of them. WHEEEE-BUBLAMMM!!

This made the entire house shudder, and Alan came awake in the afterglow of the explosion of a large-caliber mortar shell that felt as though it had struck in the next room.

"What the hell is it?" Alan said testily. He was never at his best just awakened, and the dream had been so damned good.

"Well, it sounds mighty like the end of the world," his bunkmate said from below him. WHEE-BLAM! A strike farther off, but still close enough to blow in the drapes and stir the air in the room.

"Who opened the fucking window?" Alan said. "It's cold in here."

"Gad, you're a cool 'un," the marine told him.

"Holy shit on a biscuit," Alan blurted, suddenly realising what was happening. "Where are you?"

"Down here," came the muffled reply.

Alan tried to disentangle himself from his bedclothes as the WHEE of another descending shell could be heard in the distance, rapidly drawing closer with a menacing wail. He finally gave it up and rolled out of bed like a human caterpillar and thumped heavily to the floor to wriggle under the bed as well, just as there was another apocalyptic BLAM!

The house shuddered once more, and the sound of running feet was making the floor bounce like a drumhead. Voices shouted what sounded like arrant nonsense in a cacophony of questions, statements, yells of terror, and demands for silence and order. Trumpets brayed in the camp, the Highlanders got their bagpipes working and filled the air with the hideous screech of war marches, and drummer boys beat loud but shaky rolls to call the troops to arms, as if they had not considered a shelling enough incentive to head for the ramparts and the guns.

"Mister Lewrie, sir?" Cony called, bursting into the room. There was another shriek in the air as one more shell descended, and Cony found room under the bed for himself as well. "You alright, sir?"

"Bloody grand, Cony," Alan muttered as the shell struck close enough to raise the dirt and dust puppies around them. "Let's get the hell out of here."

He dressed in the dark, Cony passing him waistcoat, shoes, neckcloth, coat, and hat, one item at a time, like a conjurer who knew exactly where the chosen card was all the time. His pistols were shoved into his hands, and while he was stuffing them into his breeches pockets, Cony was hanging his dirk on the frog of his waistband.

"Yer hat, Mister Lewrie," Cony said in the darkness.

"Seen my orderly?" the marine officer asked.

"No, sir, I ain't," Cony replied, flinging open the door to the dining room and parlor. "They's the flask in yer coattail pocket, sir, an' I'll see to yer breakfast later, if ya don't mind, Mister Lewrie."

"Not at all." Alan headed out into the darkness. Well, it was not entire darkness. There were enough fires burning to light up the encampment where a fused shell from a high-angle piece such as a mortar or howitzer had set fire to the hay stands for the remaining animals, or shattered a house and set it alight.

"God!" Alan gaped at the night sky. There was some low cloud that night turning pale gray on the bottom from the fires already set and from the bright bursts of flame of the guns in the artillery parks and redoubts that had finally begun the bombardment of Yorktown. Hot amber meteors soared up from the countryside and howled across the sky under those clouds to arc down and burst with horrendous roars and great stinking clouds of expended gunpowder. It was an awful sight, of such complete and stunning novelty that he stopped short and just stared for the longest time. Solid shot could almost be seen as quick black streaks that crossed the eye before they could be recognized and followed. Heated shot moaned in all colors, depending on the bravery of the gunners who had rolled it down their muzzles; either blue-hot or yellow-amber, like a half-made horseshoe on a forge, but sometimes a dull red from those careful souls who did not want to deform the shot in the barrels or set the propellant charges off with the heat of the projectiles before the crews could stand back for safety.

Fused shells, those filled with powder and designed to burst and rend anything near their impact with shattered iron balls, came flicking in slowly, their fuses glowing like tiny fireflies as they descended to the earth to thud into the ground, hiss malevolently, then blow up and raise a gout of clay and rock. Sometimes the fuses were cut too short and the ball exploded before it hit the ground, scattering death about it below the burst, and no one in a trench could be safe from such a blast.

The guns worked over the north end of the town for a while, then shifted further south, allowing Cony and Lewrie to run for the safety of the trench beside their gun platforms.

"Everyone well, Knatchbull?" Alan asked his senior gunner. He had to take hold of the man's shoulder and almost shout into his ear. Either Knatchbull had been concussed or deafened or frightened out of his wits.

"Two samboes gone, sir," Knatchbull finally replied. "Shell damn near got 'em all back there. Daniels had ta go ta the surgeons. Hit with splinters, sir."

Daniels. Alan remembered that he had been in his boat crew the night they had burned the French transport. "Is he much hurt?"

"In the lungs, sir."

So much for Daniels, Alan thought grimly. A lung wound was sure death within days… perhaps even hours, if Daniels was fortunate. He could get drunk one last time on the surgeon's rum and go quickly.

"Nothing on the river?"

"Nothin', Mister Lewrie," Knatchbull said with a shake of his shaggy head. "They kin keep this up fer days afore tryin' us direck."

"Then what's all the fuss about, then?" Alan said with a smile he did not feel. He went along the parapet to his gunners, those keeping a watch with muskets and those clustered by the nine-pounders, clapping a shoulder here and there, telling them to rest easy and keep their heads down until they heard something, assuring them no one in their right minds would try a frontal attack, not tonight at any rate.

Their own guns were firing in response, flinging shot and shell into those artillery parks out in the darkness, measuring the fall of shot by the glows of their own fuses, though it seemed that Cornwallis's batteries were not as numerous, or not firing in such a hasty volume as the enemy's. It would make sense, Alan realized, to conserve the powder and round shot they had in the fortifications until they could find a good target, for they could not be resupplied until their relief force arrived, and the French had most likely brought tons of the stuff and could get more from the 36 or so warships in the bay.

There was nothing else to do but wait some more, no longer in so much suspense, but wait in terror and trepidation for the next burst of shell. Narrow ramparts were hard to hit with mortars and howitzers firing blind at night at high angle, so except for that one lucky shot (which was all it would take) they would stew and fret at every wailing infernal engine that the enemy fired in their general direction squat down when it sounded close, and stand up and grin foolishly after it had struck away from them. Had it not been for the screaming, it would have been almost a game that they were watching.

Hideously wounded soldiers were screaming their lives away back in the town in the surgeries and dressing stations. Horses and mules were screaming in terror as they dashed back and forth through the fortification's enclosures, dashing from one end of their pens to another, or were out in the open, galloping away from each new sound and bloom of dirt and smoke, only to be hewn down by the shells and then bleed to death, with broken spines, broken legs, spurting wounds in innocent, dumb bodies, entrails hobbling them as they tried to run; always screaming and neighing in fright, wondering why their masters did not make the noises and the lights stop, why no one could make their screaming stop.

At first light Alan called his gunners to quarters to stand by their guns and parapets. He kept his blanket over his shoulders to ward off the early morning chill and joined them from the trench in which he had tried to rest during the night.

From their eastern wall he could see the Star Redoubt, not much pummeled and still flying a French flag, and the huge battery further west. With a glass he could see that the positions on the Gloucester side had gotten the treatment, too, but not as heavily. Those positions had not changed much.

The town, though, had suffered from the shelling, and crushed buildings showed like newly missing teeth from the order of the day before. The fires had burned out and a haze of sour smoke lay over the entire encampment, thick with the stench of charred wood and expended gunpowder.

Going on tour along the north and west walls, Alan could see that there was nothing to their fronts. The redans guarding the road into town were still there, as were the ramparts, battered but still whole, and the fields before their positions were empty of threat. Nothing stirred in the ravines of the ceek, and not a bird fluttered in the woods.

"Knatchbull, see to breakfast," he said upon returning.

"We're a might short, sir," Knatchbull told him. "Nought but gruel an' some biscuit, an' this ain't no Banyan Day, Mister Lewrie."

"Nothing left from supper?"

"Nossir, they ain't." Knatchbull was almost accusatory.

"Send two men back for meat, then. Enough for the slaves, too."

"Ain't none o' ours, Mister Lewrie," Knatchbull complained.

"By God, they stood by as scared as the rest of us, and if they serve powder and shot to my guns, they are ours, even if they were creatures from a Swift novel," Alan snarled, too testy and exhausted with a night of fear to be kind. "Feed 'em. Ration for a half mess."

"Aye, aye, sir," Knatchbull quavered, never having seen Lewrie on any sort of tear against another man. He had been too junior, too hard pressed himself by the officers and warrants in Desperate, but now Lewrie had the look of a quarterdeck officer; the grime of the night did not improve his looks much, either.

Knatchbull returned half an hour later with a sack filled with meat, two four-pound pieces to be shared out by the two gun crews, another four-pound piece for Alan, Knatchbull, Cony, and the four remaining blacks.

"Tis horse, Mister Lewrie," Knatchbull apologized. "They's shorta salt beef 'r pork. Ain't never eat horse afore."

"Ever go to a two-penny ordinary in London?" Alan teased.

"Aye, sir."

"Then you probably have eaten horse, and in worse shape than any you'll sink your teeth into today." Alan laughed. "Boil it up."

"Yer coffee, Mister Lewrie," Cony said, seeming to pop up out of the ground with a steaming mug in his hands. It had been battered in the bombardment, but Alan recognized it from the house.

"Goddamn my eyes, Cony, this ain't Scotch coffee!" Alan said, marveling at the first sip. "This is the genuine article!"

"Them marines fetched it offa Guadeloupe, Mister Lewrie an' I sorta fetched it offen them in the rush an' all, like." Cony grinned.

There was a sudden loud shriek in the air of an incoming shell as French or American gunners began to work over the north end of the town once more. Everyone ducked as the sound loomed louder and louder and changed in pitch, howling keener and higher like a bad singer searching for the right note. BLAMMM!

They stood up to see the ruin of the kitchen outhouse of the abode Alan had been using as his quarters. The entire back porch of the house was gone in a shower of kindling, and there was a new crater in the ground that steamed furiously with half-burned powder particles.

"I hope you liberated a power of it, Cony," Alan said, brushing dirt from his sleeve. "That may be the last good coffee I'll see for some time."

"Never fear that, Mister Lewrie. I made off with nigh about a pound an' a half. Might have ta make do with that corn whiskey fer yer spirits from now on, though."

"I imagine I could cope," he allowed with a taut grin.

Cony was waiting for Lewrie to say something more, such as "Cony, what would I ever do without you; be my steward in the midshipmen's mess and my servant when I am commissioned." It would be a soft job for the young man, but Alan was not about to promise that much, especially since getting back aboard ship and out to sea where he could pursue his career was looking more like a forlorn hope each day. Besides, he did not want the man to feel he was too beholdened to him that early on. Cony would make a fine gentleman's servant, but one did not let them know it until one could settle on a decent wage and conditions.

"Ye'll be needin' a shave, Mister Lewrie," Cony volunteered. "I have yer kit safe an' snug, an' can put an edge on yer razor while yer breakfast is acookin'."

Alan was not so far advanced in his adolescence to need a daily shave, but his chin did feel promisingly raspy, so he nodded his assent.

Flattery will get you nowhere, Cony, Alan thought happily, glad to have a domestic situation to think about rather than the anonymous terror of the continuing bombardment.

And when it became plain that the main effort of the enemy gunners was on the south and west corner of the town ramparts, he could almost enjoy his breakfast in peace, looking forward to a clean shave and another cup of real coffee.

Besides, if Admiral Graves did not come from New York soon, his domestic arrangements might be the only thing he could contemplate with any hope as he lounged in some Rebel prison after the whole horrible muddle fell apart.

CHAPTER 10

The brutal cannonading went on for days, and the French and American batteries were prodigal with shot and shell. During the day their guns began to strike directly on the ramparts from a range of only six hundred to eight hundred yards, pounding the earthworks into ruin, smashing the fascines and gabions that reinforced them and dismounting guns that attempted to return fire. At night, high-angle shells burst with regularity in a firestorm horrendously loud and unceasing, shattering the night and everyone's nerves, flinging men about like straws if they happened to be too close to an explosion, sheltered in a trench or not.

Alan had been into town along with the marine officer he had once shared quarters with to search for fresh horsemeat for their men. They had located two once-magnificent saddle horses, now reduced to skin and bones, their heads hanging low in utter exhaustion. Hard as it was going to be, they would lead these once-proud blooded steeds back near their positions to be slaughtered for food. The corn and oats were almost gone, so dinners would be mostly fresh meat and biscuit, what little of that was left. What they had gathered and foraged had been eaten days before.

They had barely taken charge of the animals when there had been a manic howl as a huge sixteen-inch mortar shell came whistling down nearby, and Alan had dived to the ground in mortal terror. There had been a huge and deafening blast of sound, giving him the feeling that he was swimming in air and being pelted with rocks, and then he had found himself several yards away from where he had lain, covered with damp earth and blood, his uniform in tatters. The horses were splattered about the street like fresh paint and his companion had been shredded into offal as well, only his lower legs remaining whole. His smallsword was turned into a corkscrew that smoked with heat.

Badly shattered by the experience, Alan had almost crawled all the way back to his battery to find what comfort he could in others of his own kind, no matter how menial they were. Cony tended him, fetched out fresh togs, and put him to bed to sleep it off, which he did, in the middle of the deafening roar of bombardment.

It was the ships burning that finally broke his spirit.

After two days and nights of steady terror, Charon and Guadeloupe took advantage of the fact that they had been ignored so far and tried to maneuver further out into the river to make a stab at escaping, hoping that Charon, minus her artillery and stores, would be shallow enough in draft to make it between the shoals.

With twenty-four-pounder guns and heated shot, the big French battery on the enemy left on the York River had opened fire. Charon had been hit and turned into a heartbreaking torch, burned to the waterline. Guadeloupe had gotten under the town bluffs into safety, but several outlying small warships and transports had also been set on fire and abandoned. Their own ship Desperate had been hit twice with red-hot shot, and smoke had billowed from her, but there had been enough hands to put out the fire and work her up alongside Guadeloupe, where she would be safe.

If Alan's morale had finally given way, then he was not alone. He could not cross the camp without discovering drunken British, Hessian, or Loyalist soldiers who had broken into spirits stores and were deeply drunk for what they felt was the last time before death. Troops still held in better discipline by their officers served as field police to keep the vandalism and defeatism from turning ugly, but one could smell the fear on every hand, see the stricken expressions, the sense of loss in every eye. Cornwallis's force was an army waiting to die.

There were caves below the town bluffs and eastern entrenchments, where many well men sheltered from the continual firestorm without shame among the wounded. Even Lord Cornwallis and his staff had moved into a cavern, surrounded with their lavish creature comforts.

Had there been any liquor left within reach, Alan would have happily gotten besotted as the lowest sailor or soldier. He had worried before about the possibility of capture and imprisonment; now that was a fond wish, preferable to being blasted into so many atoms by the impersonal shells that drenched the garrison round the clock. The money he had hidden in his sea-chest could not buy him a single moment of life more, and his sense of loss about it was nothing more than a pinprick. There would be no escape from this debacle, and all he could do was curse the fools in New York who had not yet come, who now looked to never arrive in time to save the army or the remaining ships.

His men were not in much better condition. No amount of japery was going to put much spine back into them, and he knew it. They had that same haunted look he had seen in the soldiers and only went through the motions of duty, diving into the bottom of the trench and their new additional dugouts below the earthworks every time a shell came anywhere close and stayed there underground as long as possible no longer even much interested in the rum issue, not if it had to be taken in the open.

Alan himself was in the bottom of the trench, just at the edge of one of his gun platforms. So far, they had not suffered a strike so near that their guns had been dismounted, but that was not for want of trying on the part of the foe. They had been concentrating on the western wall and had reduced it to an anthill from which a stubborn flag still flew on a stub of pole, though its guns had been mostly dismounted and its continued usefulness was much in doubt.

"Lewrie?" an older marine captain called. "This army officer has need of your remaining powder. Give it to him."

"But what shall I defend my guns with, sir?" Alan asked, is voice a harsh rasp. The fog of powder smoke that seemed much like a permanent weather condition did not help.

"Doesn't matter much." The marine shrugged. "Keep back enough charges to fire a dozen canister shots to repel a landing. Let them have the rest."

"Aye, aye, sir," Alan said, rising from the trench. The army officer mentioned was the same goose who had so blithely positioned them alone in the hills in their first days of the occupation, still a dandy prat in clean breeches and waistcoat, his red coat still unstained and his gorget and scarlet sash bright as the day they were made. Alan took a sudden and intense dislike to him.

"I have to retain some charges premade for my swivels, sir," Alan said wearily. "And my hand's personal powder horns and cartouches. I can give you the rest."

"Hurry with it, will you?" the man snapped. "We're running low on every wall and no one would attack this rampart."

"Knatchbull, open up the magazines and supply this gentleman with all our kegged powder."

"And your gun cartridges," the officer added. "You have no need for them. There are no other nine-pounders still in action, so they will have to be emptied and resewn to proper size for our guns."

"Retain a dozen, Knatchbull."

"I ain't no scholard, sir," Knatchbull said. "Could ya count 'em out fer me, Mister Lewrie?"

"My God, how did you become a gunner?" the artillery officer said. "I said I want them all."

"My immediate superior said to retain a dozen, and that is what I must do, sir," Alan told him, almost too weary and too lost in a really good case of the Blue Devils to argue. He just wanted the man to go away so he could silently contemplate his chances of survival 'til the morning meal and perhaps perform his litany of revenge on his father who had put him into the Navy so he could end up in such a mess.

"Goddamme, you'll give me all or I'll have you put under close arrest," the officer threatened. He motioned to his gunners to aid him.

"With the best will in the world, I could not, sir. How could I destroy my guns without charges when the time comes?"

Not that they've been worth a groat the past few weeks, Alan thought. He had dragged them from pillar to post and done nothing of value with them since; never fired a round in anger—for lack of opportunity at first and then for lack of powder and shot in the second instance. Might be satisfying to burn the fuckers and unbush them at that.

"When what time comes, sir?" the artilleryman shouted over the sound of the barrage. "What do you mean by that sort of croakum?"

"When the Rebels and the French have pounded us to bits, sir, and come over the walls," Alan calmly said.

"Never heard such insufferable nonsense. Now order your man to give me all your powder, all of it, mind, and be quick about it."

"Will you also give me a signed order to destroy my guns at the same time, sir?" Alan demanded.

"Who is your captain, you puppy? What ship?"

"Treghues… the Desperate, sir," Alan replied, thinking fast. "If you take all our powder and cartridges, then there is no point in keeping two valuable naval guns ashore. Would you object to our taking the pieces back aboard without powder?"

Go on, Alan thought, give me an excuse to get out of this before it all falls apart.

"Damn you, and damn your insolence!" the officer raged his hands straying near his pistols. "Sergeant, take everything in the magazines to the carts. I'll thank you not to hinder us, if you won't help."

"Take what you like, then, sir," Alan said.

The army officer's party made quick work of scavenging everything in the magazines—all the small kegs of loose powder, all but a handful of firing quills, most of the tin canisters of musket balls for antipersonnel shot, and all the bundles of grapeshot, leaving only three charges per gun with the useless round shot. They trotted away with it in their small carts, dodging the shell bursts.

"And may you be blown to Perdition!" Alan called after them, once they were almost out of earshot and he was finally able to vent his true feelings.

"Thort he wuz gonna shoot ya, so I did, Mister Lewrie," Knatchbull finally said after he had regained his normal breathing.

"Not his kind," Alan sneered, very relieved that the man had not done that or had him dragged off to a summary court, which would have resulted in the same thing. "Who do we have who's a good runner?"

"Runner, sir?" Knatchbull cogitated. "Well, Tuckett's not bad, sir."

"Have him come up here while I write a note to our captain," Alan said. He sat down next to his small jute bag and dug into it for some scrap paper and a stub of pencil. "How would you like to get back to our ship, Knatchbull?"

"God, that'd be grand, Mister Lewrie!" The man beamed. "Kin we do it?"

"We serve no useful purpose here any longer, not without powder. We can't help the marines, except to leave them the swrivels. There's a chance we may be ordered to take these two guns of ours back into Desperate. And us with 'em."

"Right away, Mister Lewrie!"

Cornwallis's harried staff saw no sense in two useless guns left ashore to be captured, so they spent the rest of the day knocking the extemporized field carriages apart and taking the guns and the remaining round shot back aboard.

Desperate still was shy her two carronades and the four 9-pounders on the Gloucester side, but she had fourteen guns back in place should she be called upon to fight her way out, with enough reserve gunpowder from the bottom-tier kegs to make a short but spirited engagement of it.

Everyone from Lewrie's party, and Alan most of all, was greatly relieved to be back aboard. The men were once more in the bosom of their mates in relatively more comfortable surroundings; though the rations had deteriorated in quantity and quality there was still enough rum. They felt oddly safe in the understandable world of the Navy, instead of in the dubious clutches of the army, eager to embrace the rigid discipline of a ship-of-war, especially one that was not being fired at. Under the bluffs and free of direct observation by French or Rebel batteries, they could sit out the bombardment without fear for the first time in days.

Alan found his sea-chest and clean clothes, a hammock man ready to tend his needs and wash up the clothes off his back, a bucket of hot river water in which to scrub up, and a peaceable sit-down supper with Carey and Avery, with the last of their personal wine stock to drink in relative quiet. The barrage continued through supper, petering out for a while as he rolled into his hammock and bedding and discovered all over how easy it was to sleep snug and warm, free of the ground.

Almost before his head touched the roll of sailcloth that was his pillow, he was dead to the world. So he slept through the assault by the French Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment and an American regiment under the ambitious Colonel Alexander Hamilton that took Redoubts number Nine and number Ten, the last bastions before the smashed ramparts on the southeast end of Yorktown. He slept through the counter-battery fire from the British lines, snoring so loudly that Carey tried to wake him to make him stop, but Alan was too far gone to even respond to vigorous shaking.

It was only at 4:00 a.m., when all hands were piped on deck to begin the ship's day and scrub down her decks, that he awoke, and the barrage was so loud that he did not hear the British sally to try and retake the redoubts, for drums and musketry could not carry over the roar of the cannonade. Events on shore, even unsuccessful ones, touched him no more.

I should hate this bloody ship like the plague, Alan thought as dawn painted the decks with faint light, revealing the sameness of a warship that held no surprises after long service on those very decks. But damme if this don't feel hellish good.

"Good mornin' ta ya, Mister Lewrie," Monk said.

"And a good morning to you, Mister Monk," he replied cheerfully, even glad to see Monk's ugly physiognomy and ungainly bulk.

Treghues was pacing the weather side of the quarterdeck deep in thought, as he usually did, speaking to no one until he had had his coffee and breakfast. He seemed much leaner than before, but Alan put that down to the plain commons everyone had been reduced to lately. He met Alan's eyes only once and nodded a silent greeting, which Alan returned with a doffed hat, but there was no malice in those haunted eyes for once.

Temporary the respite might be; the army was on the very last dregs of endurance, and the best defenses had been ripped away during the night. The enemy guns still did terrible duty on the bluffs above their heads, and it was hard to determine if any British guns were still firing in response. Another day or two might see the end of everything, and Desperate was still trapped in the river, and in the bay. Yet she still seemed safe and womblike. Over one hundred guns were in action, but she drifted in a sour haze of powder smoke and flung dirt as though nothing could ever touch her, or hers.

Around ten in the morning, Lieutenant Railsford came aboard from his post on the Gloucester side, bringing some of his gunners with him. There were only two 9-pounders left in operation now with Tarleton and his dismounted cavalry troopers in their fortifications, and the other two had been smashed. Railsford conferred with Treghues, and then they both went over to the shore to talk to Symonds.

"Something is up, I fear," Avery said softly by Alan's side.

"Surrender," Alan surmised. "There's nothing left of the fortifications that a lazy cripple couldn't scale."

"Is it that bad ashore?"

"Yes, by Heaven, it is," Alan told him, wondering where the hell David had been the last few days. "I wonder how anyone still lives at all."

"That will mean our surrender as well." Avery shuddered.

"Most-like," Lewrie cold-bloodedly replied.

"This has changed you terribly, Alan, I swear. You are so cold and hard now, I hardly know you any longer."

"I believe it has, too," Alan said, thinking back on his behavior of the last week or so. "Well, you cannot be a child forever. I hope it's merely something that will wear off when I get enough sleep and some decent food. Perhaps a few weeks in a prison before being paroled will do it."

Treghues and Railsford were rowed back to the ship just before midday and went aft immediately, passing the word for Mister Monk and his charts of the York River. Shortly after, all senior warrants and midshipmen were summoned aft to the captain's cabins.

They found their officers peering at a chart, and were bade to draw near and look at it carefully.

"Lord Cornwallis has ordered Captain Symonds to gather boat crews, to transfer the army to the Gloucester shore tonight," the captain began, tapping on the chart with a brass ruler. "We're going to evacuate Yorktown before the enemy overcomes our defenses. We're to start embarking troops here, on the beaches and the docks, at ten o'clock. The artillery has to be abandoned, along with the remaining stores, but we can save the troops and their personal weapons. With so little resistance facing Tarleton and Simcoe there's hope we can break out into Maryland or Delaware, and make a quick march away, before the French or the Rebels can begin pursuit. Carry on, Mister Railsford."

"Here, on the right of our positions," Railsford lectured, gesturing at the map, "there are French marines there, with artillery enough to break up any landings, so you had better not venture into this inlet or risk being shot to pieces. Steer west of north for the point, or the cove just to the west of the point. You'll want to be careful of the boats; it's a rocky shore thereabouts. At ten o'clock there will be a making tide, but the York flows swift enough to almost cancel it out. Once out from behind the bluffs at the tip of the town, remember to put a little starboard helm on, even if it takes you farther west than you think proper. The Virginia Militia is on the left of the lines, not far past the entrance to the cove, so don't bear too far north. There is to be a small light at the back of the cove to mark the entrance for you. Look for it, for your lives."

"What about the ship, sir?" Coke the bosun asked.

"We have Captain Symonds's permission to try and break out after most of the troops are across," Treghues said. "So don't be late in getting back here once you have ferried your last load. I doubt if any of you want to spend any more time with our army than you have in the last few days, so if you do not want to march right out of your shoe leather or end up eating bark and berries, return to Desperate on time."

Treghues was in fine spirits once more, making his little jokes and exercising the use of his voice, which he had always been most fond of hearing during his briefings and lectures and Sunday services.

"But, if we cannot break out past the French ships at the mouth of the river, we shall have to burn her to keep her from capture," he said soberly. "The ship's boats are not big enough, for the most part, to take as many troops as necessary, so we will be using those recently constructed barges."

There was a groan at that. A few weeks in the water had not done anything to improve their watertight integrity, or their handling. They were heavy, ungainly, hard to steer and row, even with a dozen oarsmen aboard, and they leaked like a sieve. What was worse, they were fairly flat-bottomed compared to a boat built with love and care, and made leeway as fast as they could be propelled forward on a windy day.

"I would admire that Midshipman Forrester be called off-shore to help with the barges," Treghues said, making sure that his cater-cousin would be close to him at the end, whatever transpired. "He will take one boat. Mister Lewrie, you take another. Avery takes a third, and Carey will supervise a fourth. Mister Coke, the cutter and the launch from Desperate's complement shall be employed as well. Give one to my coxswain, Weems the other. Mister Monk, it would be best if your master's mates stay aboard ready for departure, but the midshipmen could use the quartermaster's mates to assist in pilotage."

"Aye, sir."

"No outward preparations until after dark, which shall be before seven this evening. No sign of what we are attempting must come to the attention of the enemy, or there is no point in trying. The army is counting on us to save them." Treghues concluded, saying, "I do not intend to let them down for the last time as…"

Treghues choked off his possible comments about Graves and the other leaders who had never even shown a royal yard over the horizon in all that time and had muffed the battle at sea that had led to this hopeless condition.

"We'll get 'em safe across, sir," Railsford promised.

"We must," Treghues said vehemently, his eyes clouding up with emotion. "We must!"

"The night seems perfect," Railsford said, sniffing at the wind by the entry port soon after the hands had been fed an early supper. "Be as dark as a cow's arse."

"Just as long as we can see where we're going, sir," Alan said. "If we cannot show a light, even to peek at a boat compass…"

"Steer for the shelling and you'll come right," Railsford told him, clapping him on the shoulder. "Off with you now, and pray God for our success."

"Aye, sir, thank you."

Alan scrambled down the battens by the manropes and dropped into place at the stern of one of the hastily built barges. The night was indeed perfect for clandestine activities; there was no moon, and if it had been even a sliver, would have been lost in the thick cloud cover that had blown in during the afternoon. There was a slight breeze from the west that predominated over the sea breeze as well, which would require careful balance on the tiller to counteract it and the current of the York.

"Toss your oars," Alan commanded softly. "Ship your oars. Quiet, now. Who is senior hand here?"

"Me, sir, Coe." One of the older men spoke from the darkless, leaning forward to be recognized.

"Rowports muffled with sailcloth?"

"Aye, sir."

"Very well. Shove off, bowman. Out oars. Give us way, larboard."

Desperate was lying athwart the river, anchored with bower and stream hooks, her guns manned to prevent any French spy boat penetrating the upper river. Leaving her starboard entry port, the barge was quickly taken by the current, and by the time they had come about to aim for the town docks, they had lost over a hundred yards downstream.

"Gonna be 'ard rowin', sir," Coe commented from his position of stroke oar, near Alan's knees.

"The tide's making," Alan told him. "The rowing will get easier as the night goes on."

They reached the town docks about nine-thirty in the evening and joined a formless pack of ships' boats and barges that were queuing up to the various piers and gravelly beaches to pick up troops and load them for the trip across the river. By companies, the battalions and regiments were lining up to depart. To avoid confusion, only one regiment or battalion was permitted near the docks at any given time. There were artillerymen whose pieces had been smashed to ruin or who had run out of powder and shell, now armed with muskets taken from the dead and wounded and most uncomfortable in their new role as "light infantry." There were troops from the Brigade of Guards—the 17th, the 23rd, the 33rd, and the 71st Highlanders, those that had survived the bombardment and the sickness that had finally struck the camp, as sickness would decimate any large military gathering sooner or later. There were troops from the brigade of light infantry, the 43rd, 76th, and 80th regiments. There were German and Hessian mercenaries from the two battalions of Anspach, the Hessian Regiment Prinz Hereditaire, Hessian Bose Regiment, the Jagers, now not much more than a company of about sixty men remaining, and the provincials from Alan's friends, the North Carolina Volunteers. But nearly two thousand men were in hospital still in Yorktown, and they would not be evacuated since they could not march and fight, nor survive on the poor rations or forage expected after the army had cut its way through the French and Rebels on Gloucester. They would be left behind to the mercies of the victors.

Alan's boat ground ashore on the beach with a rasp of sand and pebbles, and he was immediately swamped with troops intent on escape.

"Avast there a moment," Alan said as loud as he dared. "Now, this barge is a lump of shit, and I can only take thirty men with the usual kit and gear or we'll founder out there. Is there an officer or sergeant here?"

"'Ere, sir," a red-coated non-com answered from the darkness. "A comp'ny o' th' 23rd preesent an' haccounted fer, sir. Thirty-h'eight privates, one corp'rl en' me, sir."

"Give me your corporal and 29 men then. Count 'em oft and the next boat will take the rest," Alan said. "Tell 'em to sit in the middle on the bottom and not get in the way of the oarsmen."

"Right, sir," the sergeant replied, disappointed that he would not find immediate rescue, but still in charge of his poise and his men.

"Wy we gots ta wait, sarge?" a plaintive voice wailed from the night. "They's plenny o' room!"

"My arse on a bandbox there is!" Alan said sharply. "Want to drown out there wearing all that kit? Now hurry up and get aboard with the first thirty."

Once in the boat, and the boat back out on the black waters, the troops sat still as mice, breathing shallowly as they sensed how unstable and ungainly the barge really was in the grip of the current.

This is going to be a muddle, Alan thought sadly, realizing how companies were going to be separated upon landing. Even with one regiment or battalion transported at a time, where they would land on the far shore was up to the vagaries of the individual coxswains of the boats involved, with part of one unit landed in the cove, on the point, to right or left of the area still held by Tarleton and Simcoe. They would also be landing into the teeth of a shelling, and it would be hours before each unit sorted itself out into proper military order for the breakthrough at bayonet point. It would be dark, and regimental facings and distinctive uniform trim would be almost lost to the harried officers, who would be searching or their people. Alan was supposed to link up with all the boats under command of a lieutenant from one of the disabled ships who would lead all the boats bearing one unit to a single landing, but in the almost total darkness, he would be lucky to tag onto any group of boats.

"Twenty-third over here," a strained voice called over the sound of the continuing artillery barage. "All boats with 23rd regiment here!"

He could only guess as to the direction of the voice, for sound could do strange things on the water at night, as he'd already learned to his detriment from his first experiments in boats. Hoping for the best, Alan put the tiller bar over and steered in the wake of a gaggle of boats who were already under way. The current would not allow any stop for cogitation. Sitting up on the high stern thwart of the barge, he could barely espy the boat ahead and the boat astern of him.

Once the tide began to flood and counteract the current of the river, the rowing did become much easier. They made two round trips in the first hour while the men were still strong and unwearied, but that slowed down as the night drug on. The only rest was on the beach or beside the pier, and the troops loaded too quickly to allow much.

"Easy all," Alan called as they drifted into the York side of the river for the third time. With the barge empty, it was not so hard to row, but the very devil to fight across the current. The tide was now pushing them upriver without his having to countersteer, and when Lewrie dipped a hand into the water, he could scoop up a mouthful of very salty water instead of the fairly fresh water of earlier.

"Boat your oars, stand by to ground."

Men splashed into the shallows to take charge of the bow and drag it up onto the strand. His crew slumped down in exhaustion as the hull ground and thumped against the shingle.

"Everyone ashore," Alan said. "Coe, break out the barrico of water. We need a rest."

"Aye, aye, sir," Coe said with some enthusiasm.

"Might rotate the larboard men for the starboard men, too, Coe," Alan ordered. "Keep 'em from cramping."

"Aye, sir, 'at it would. Water, sir?"

"Aye, I'd admire a cup."

Another boat ground alongside his, its crew bent low over their own oars with weariness, and seeing what Alan's crew was doing, went over the side for a rest as well.

"Here, stop that!" a thin voice cried.

"Carey?" Alan asked out of instinct.

"Lewrie? They just got out of the boat!"

"They're worn to a frazzle. Let 'em take a rest for a few minutes. How are you doing so far?"

"Main well, I suppose." Carey sulked on his stern thwart, still too unsure of himself to exert much authority with the hands, and smarting from being countermanded.

"We're making good progress." Alan sighed, sipping at his water. "Most of the Brigade of Guards across by now. My last trip was light infantry, I think. Hard to tell in the dark."

"Mine, too," Carey said. Then, in a wheedling tone, "Lewrie, may we trade boats?"

"Is yours sinking?" Alan chuckled, stepping ashore and looking as close as he could at Carey's barge. Carey scrambled ashore to stand with him so he could speak privately.

"They won't work for me, Alan, not like they'd work for you. I have Fletcher as senior hand, and he simply ignores me half the time. I… I think they have some rum. I could hear them giggling and getting groggy."

"Fletcher, that farmer," Alan said. "I expect the troops have some small bottles on them and they're sharing out. You put him straight right now."

"Who's your senior man?"

"Coe. One of the foresheet men. Good and steady."

"Then why don't we trade boats? I can get along with Coe, Alan, but I can get nothing out of Fletcher, he's such a surly bastard."

"No," Alan said, after thinking about it for a long moment.

"But, Alan, I…"

"Look here, Carey," Alan whispered, reaching out in the dark and taking the younger boy by the upper arm. "Most of the seamen I've ever met have been surly bastards. They're not your favorite uncles, so one senior hand is just as good as another. If they won't work for you as chearly as you want, then it's up to you to make 'em do it. You're not in the mess now. You're a midshipman in the King's Navy, so why don't you start acting like one? Avery and I are not here to cosset you anymore. You're on your own bottom, and you have a job to do, so you had best be about it the best way you can."

By God, I'm sorry I said that, Alan told himself as Carey took himself off, for a quick weep most likely. But it had to be said sooner or later. We've been shielding him long enough and letting him get away with his puppy shines, 'stead of putting some spine into him.

"What is the delay here?" a cultured voice called fruitily.

"A short rest, sir," Alan called back. "We've done three trips so far and the hands are fagged out and thirsty."

"There's no time for that," the owner of that plumby voice dictated. "It's near midnight and there are thousands of troops still waiting to get across. Here, corporal, begin loading these two boats."

Several infantrymen began approaching Alan's boat laden with an assortment of boxes and bags. Alan could hear the clink of metal and glass from them.

"Military stores, sir?" Alan queried with a lazy sneer.

"Of course they are, sir."

Alan stopped one of the soldiers and took a heavy canvas bag off him. He undid the knot at the top and pulled it apart to reach down into the burden and see for himself what was in it. He smiled in the dark.

"Silver candlesticks might make good langridge if cut up, I suppose, sir," Alan drawled archly. "They're a bit too expensive to be melted down in a bullet mold, and I doubt anyone would appreciate being so expensively shot, sir."

"Now look here…"

"No, sir. I am taking troops only. No personal baggage."

"Do you know who I am, sir?" the fruity-voiced officer snapped.

"A suddenly much poorer man, sir," Alan shot back. "Other than that, I could not give a fart who you are. Take your loot somewhere else, sir."

Thwarted, the officer railed for a few minutes longer, then made off up the beach for the piers to try other boats, pressed by the urgency of escape before dawn.

"That's enough rest," Alan called out. "Fletcher, Coe, fetch your men back to the boats."

"Aye, sir," Coe replied. "'Ere, lads, back ta work, now."

"Jus'a minute more, Mister Lewrie?" Fletcher whined, as usual. "We bin 'ard at it, sir, an' it's 'at tahred we are."

"Come here, Fletcher," Alan commanded with a good imitation of a quarterdeck rasp. The man approached, close enough for Lewrie to smell the scent of rum on his breath.

He took him by the front of the shirt and drew him closer. "You will assemble your boat crew and get back to work right this instant, and you will work chearly for Mister Carey or I swear to God above, I'll see you flayed open like a Yarmouth bloater for drunkenness and insubordination, if I have to chase you down in hell!"

"Aye, Mister Lewrie, sir. Aye, aye, sir!" Fletcher bobbled, agog at being seized and shaken so roughly. His perennial game of baiting, of walking the fine edge of insolence, had never gotten a response such as that.

"Very well, carry on, Fletcher."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"How many boats here?" someone asked from the dark.

"Two."

"Three!" another voice said. "That you, Mister Lewrie?"

"Aye, that you, Mister Feather?"

"Aye, sir," the quartermaster's mate replied, beaching his boat.

"Three, then," Alan said as an officer approached him.

"Lieutenant, bring your people down here. There are three boats for you." The officer was calling out to a pack of men further up the beach.

"How many men in this unit, sir?" Alan asked. "I can normally take thirty in each boat, but the tide is slack and the current is getting stronger. And I don't care for the wind, sir."

The wind had indeed been rising in the last few minutes, stirring the boats to grinding on the shingle and making tiny whitecaps appear on the dark water, reflected in the glow of fires and shellbursts inland. There were also some flashes in the sky to the west that were not man-made, a display of lightning every few seconds that portended very nasty weather before morning.

"Some sixty all told, I believe," the officer said, coming up within visible distance. He was a major from Cornwallis's staff, one Alan had seen briefly the time he and Railsford had gone ashore together.

"Perhaps twenty men per boat would be best, sir, considering."

"Very well. Ah, here you are."

"Hello to you, sailor, how do you keep?" Lieutenant Chiswick cried, reaching out his hand to shake with Alan.

"Lieutenant Chiswick, sir, how good to see you!" Alan replied. "Is Burgess well?"

"Aye, just behind me a bit. Von Muecke and some of his Jagers, too. Do you have room for us all?"

"Only twenty men to a boat this trip, sir, sorry. But I believe there are more boats up toward the piers should we run short of room."

"Good. Mollow, eighteen men and yourself in this boat," the Loyalist officer said, pointing to Alan's boat. "I'll take passage with you, if you have no objections, Mister Lewrie."

"None at all," Alan told him, genuinely glad to see the Chiswicks once more, even if they and their unit did appear even scruffier than they had in past acquaintance.

"Burgess, it's Lewrie, come to ferry us 'cross the Styx," Governour told his brother. "Do you take eighteen men and the corporal with you in this next boat. Sar'n't, there's a boat to the left for you and your men."

"For me, bitte?" Von Muecke asked.

"Up near the piers, Mister van Mook-ah," Alan instructed.

"Fon Mehr-keh, gottverdammt!" the man complained, and Alan was sure he was wetting down that famous mustache in the dark, once more.

Alan noticed that in most cases, the North Carolina troops were each carrying an extra Ferguson rifle as they boarded the boat and settled down amidships. "Dead men's weapons, too valuable to leave," Governour informed him. "We'll be needed back home and there's no way to get more rifles. Else the new troops we raise will have to do with Brown Besses."

"You'll be marching the wrong way for the Carolinas."

"If any troops are going to get all the way to New York, it will be us," Governour assured him. "I cannot speak with any hope for the rest of this army."

Alan shrugged, unwilling to face the thought of total defeat and surrender of the last army England would raise, or could raise, for the war in the Colonies. What the Chiswicks would face in an America with Rebel forces victorious did not bear thinking about, so partisan was the prevailing mood on both sides.

"Loaded, Mister Lewrie," Feather told him. Carey admitted the same. There was nothing for it but to shove off for another trip across the York.

"Your crew is rested, Feather?"

"Aye, Mister Lewrie, on t'other side. I 'ave a boat compass."

"You lead off, then, and we shall steer in your wake. Shove off!"

The boats were manhandled off the beach and the men sprang back aboard, wet to the waists as the current plucked the barges right from the start and began to swirl them about like wood chips. The oars were shipped into the rowports quickly, and they had to stroke hard just to regain the distance they had lost.

Once out from behind the shadow of the northernmost spit of land and into deeper water, Lewrie realized they were out on a new and more dangerous river. The current was building up, possibly the result of a heavy rain inland from all that lightning and thunder that had not been distinguishable over the sound of the cannonading. Whitecaps were more prominent now, and the barges made a lot more leeway than they had on the last crossing. Alan took hold of the tiller bar with a firmer grip in fear of the water and the tendency of the ungainly barge to want to tip to leeward, steering more westerly to keep them from being blown out into the wider reaches of the river below Gloucester Point.

"You soldiers, shift your weight to larboard!" he shouted.

"Up 'ere, you silly buggers!" Coe directed. "Up ta the 'igh side."

There was a flash of lightning that lit up the entire river, and Alan could see that he was already to leeward of Feather's barge. He added a bit more lee helm to the tiller, pinching up the bows more toward the wind, which was also rising and beginning to moan across the water.

"Put your backs into it!" Alan ordered his oarsmen. "Pick up the stroke, Coe!"

"Aye, sir," Coe grunted.

They had barely gotten a quarter of the way across the narrows, and then the thunderstorm burst on them for real. Lightning crackled across the sky with greater and greater frequency, and the claps of thunder that followed seemed shockingly loud and close behind the flashes. The wind got up even more, strong enough to strip hats from people's heads, strong enough to hinder free breathing. And the wind smelled ominously wet, pregnant with rain to come.

Oh, Jesus, I am going to drown out here! Alan thought for the first of many times that night, his face as white as his waistcoat in his rising terror. He could easily see Feather's boat now in all the rivulets of lightning that split the darkness, pointing almost fully upriver to try for an eventual landfall on the distant point. They had the point on their right abeam, but were not making much headway, he realized, hard as the hands might strain at the oars. Governour Chiswick sat in the middle of the sternmost thwart before Lewrie, and even he was looking a bit worried.

"Should we put back in?" he shouted.

"Best to keep bows on to this," Alan shouted back. "We're committed now!"

He took off his cocked hat before he lost it overboard and stowed it under the stern thwart, just as the first truly fat drops of rain began to pelt at them with some force. Lewrie looked astern to Carey's boat and saw that he was close up still, with another boat behind him bearing what looked like a party of Jagers. The lightning was so continuous that he now had no trouble seeing in any direction.

"Goddamn!" Alan cried as the rain began in earnest. It came down in buckets; rather, it did not come down, but slanted in from the west at such an acute angle that he was almost blinded, and he envied the oarsmen who had their backs to it. His clothing was soaked right through in seconds as though he had just plunged into the river. Lightning or not, he was blinded by the force and volume of the rain and had to mop his face with a sodden sleeve. The wind picked up velocity and began to whine, and the boat began to pitch most alarmingly as it butted into the wind-driven waves rolling downstream. There was no way of seeing the face of his watch, but he judged it about midnight, and the tide was at the peak of the flood. Slack water from seaward could not even begin to counteract this sudden spate. He tasted once again over the side; it was fresh.

He looked up with alarm, squinting in panic, having as much trouble seeing in the teeming rain as he would opening his eyes in the middle of a stinging wave of seawater. He could not find Feather's boat ahead of him. All he could see was a tumbling field of whitecaps and small rollers. He was in the middle of the channel, he thought, right where it narrowed down and the rushing river gained speed from being confined by the bluffs and the shallows beneath them.

"Boat compass," Alan shouted to Governour, pointing at the box between his feet. "Hold it up for me to see!"

The soldier did as he was told after Alan had shouted himself hoarse three times. Alan leaned over it closely, mopping his face with a free forearm. He took hold of the mahogany box and swung it about to establish north.

Goddamme, I'm headed due west! he thought, unable to establish his position or direction now that the rain acted like a curtain beyond the reach of the oar looms. I have to bear off, maybe two points, no more, or we'll broach. Oh, what a goddamned cow this barge is. She's going to kill all of us!

He sat back and put a bit of larboard helm on, and the effect was immediate and terrifying. With the slightest small increase in the bow's freeboard exposed to the wind, she slopped crazily and began to broach to starboard, bringing cries of alarm from all concerned. He steered back to starboard to bring her bows back into the wind—it was all the direction the poor excuse for a boat would stand.

"Stroke!" Alan wailed. "Coe, drive 'em hard!"

For that brief near-broach, the men had lost the stroke, and it took precious seconds to disentangle the confused men, to get the oars back into the water again or retrieve them when they had been snatched out of the rower's hand by the rush of the current. It took too much time to get the men coordinated once more, stroking together to bring the most efficient force to bear against the elements.

Alan motioned for the boat compass again and peered into the box. They were back to a westerly heading, which was all they could manage.

"Chiswick, keep an eye on it," he ordered. "Tell me when I am not heading west."

"Right!"

For the most part, he could discern that the storm was coming out of the west, and if he kept the boat right on the eye of the wind and the worst rain, he was heading aright. He was enough of a sailor by then to feel the difference in pressure on each cheek by rotating his head back and forth, and correct his steering by that until Chiswick would shout at him with an additional correction.

"Stroke, damn you! Stroke like the devil!"

They were flagging, even if failing did mean their lives. Too many trips had sapped their strength, and too much was being demanded of them now. With the best will in the world, the men were slowing down and no longer able to pull with their full force. Alan could feel how the barge was beginning to wander to either side between strokes, only kept head-to-weather when the oars were dug in.

"Coe, make some of the soldiers to double up on the oars!"

It didn't help much. The soldiers were not experienced with boats or the heavy labor of a seaman's life. Their effort didn't crab anyone.

But that was about all that could be said of them.

The lightning still crashed down without pause, pulsing great pale blue glows in the curtains of rain, and the rain still came down heavy enough to sting the skin, even through a broadcloth coat.

"Makin' water, Mister Lewrie!" Coe gaped, pointing at the bottom of the boat. There was about three inches of water sloshing about in the bottom that had not been there before. "A little salty, I thinks!" Coe concluded after lapping at a handful.

Sufferin' Jesus, what else tonight? Alan shuddered. It was not bad enough they were in the middle of a storm the like of which he had not seen even in the middle of the ocean, but the quickly slapped-together barge was now working her seams and beginning to leak.

"Bail!" Alan commanded. "Use hats, anything!"

That took the soldiers off rowing duties so they could fill their wide-brimmed hats to scoop up water and fling it overboard, but it put all the onerous and aching burden of rowing back on the crew's exhausted hands.

Oh, shit, Alan thought as the boat began to yaw once more after a particularly laggard stroke. "More way, starboard!"

There was finally no holding her. The barge rose up over a roller and sloughed off to starboard with a trembling that ran right through her. Then they were broaching to, no matter what anyone could do at oars or the tiller. She tipped wildly, almost going onto her beam ends before putting her bow downwind and throwing everyone into a pile of thrashing bodies and screaming throats. Without thought, Alan put the tiller over up to windward to ride her through and succeeded in keeping her from spinning about like a leaf in a millrace. She came back to an even keel.

"We're headed… east-south-east!" Governour told him.

"Thort we woz goners fer sure!" Coe panted, his eyes wide in his fear. "God a-mighty, praise God!"

There was enough way on the barge that Alan could steer easily as she was driven by wind and current. He experimented back and forth, peering over the compass box, then sat back on the sodden stern thwart.

"We'll be pooped if we keep on like this, won't we?"

"Don't know why the stern hadn't been driven under arready, sir." Coe shuddered. "If we could get bows on, I'd put out a sea anchor."

"Make one up now, then," Alan ordered. "Give me six hands keeping a hard stroke to keep us faster than the current until you're ready with the drogue. Let the others have a rest."

Coe's sea anchor was three oars lashed together into a complicated cross, with a wooden bailing bucket lashed to the point of intersection so it would sink once over the side and provide more of a drag through the water. There was plenty of line from the light boat anchor up forward to use for lashings. As Coe and another man worked, and the six unfortunate oarsmen stroked away to outrun the creaming river waves that threatened to swamp the stern of the barge, everyone else sagged down in abject misery, keeping their faces out of the wind and driving rain, which was still coming down thick and hard enough to choke the unwary who looked up to see where they might be. In the quick flashes of lightning, Alan could see only with difficulty without drowning in the open air, but he was alarmed to note that landmarks or groves of trees were sliding astern at a fair clip. Not that he recognized a damned thing, but the scenery was continually changing as they raced the river current for survival.

Finally it was done.

"Ahoy, there!" Alan yelled. "We're going to be coming about. Coe is going to put over a drogue, and then we are going to have to turn her into the wind. Easy all for now, but stand by!"

"I'll trail the line from the starboard side, sir," Coe told him. "We'll need everythin' from larboard!"

"Stand by to give way, larboard! Stand by to back water, starboard!"

"Over she goes!"

The contraption hit the water and began to drift away out of sight behind them as the bucket filled with water and the barge continued on, too big and exposed to the wind and moving much faster downriver. Coe eyed the remaining line as it ran out. "Ready!"

"Helm's alee!" Alan cried. "Give way, larboard! Back water, starboard! Pull, men, pull!"

Just as the drogue began to exert pressure on the tow line, the boat swung about, drawn by the effort of her crew, and finally by the drag through the water of the drogue. She slewed about and ended up with her head into the wind once more.

"Easy all!"

They had to wait to see if the drogue would be effective. Alan could feel the tiller kicking from side to side like a live thing. With a sternway on her, they could lose the rudder if they were not careful; the pintles and gudgeons were never made to steer a boat going backwards for very long.

"What now?" Governour Chiswick asked finally.

"We fuck about out here until the wind dies," Alan told him, getting some of his courage—and his color—back after the barge had steadied and no longer threatened to go arse over tit. "And don't ask me where we are, because I ain't got a clue. Best I can say is out in a boat on the water."

"Wish we'd liquored our boots before this journey," Governour said with a sudden grin. "Do much of this?"

"First time for everything," Alan confessed.

"Scared me so badly I would not have trusted mine arse with a fart," Governour said. "I'm not a strong swimmer."

"You're doing better than I. I can't swim a stroke. Most sailors can't," Alan replied. Unconsciously his hand crept into his shirt to feel the small leather sack hung around his neck. On Antigua, Lucy Beauman had given it to him after one of her more trusted older slaves, Old Isaac, had made it for him. It was reputedly a sure protection against drowning or other dangers of the sea. He had been leery of it, since it smelled somewhat of chicken guts and other cast-off organics when first presented to him, but for her sake he had tied it about his neck and had forgotten its presence until then. Whatever it contained, it was desiccated and only rustled now and again when jostled. Not that he was exactly eager to inspect the sack's contents. Some things were best left unknown.

"Coe, can we get the hands back on the oars for a while? Just to keep from being blown out to sea?" Alan shouted over the howl of the wind.

"Aye, sir. Mebbe four at a time'd be best."

"Do so, then. I don't like making sternway this fast."

"Four men ta the oars, smartly now. You four."

There was no sign that the storm was going to cease, though. It blew as hard as a hurricane, and the rain sheeted out of the sky as though it had been flung by a hateful god. Even when the lightning zigzagged on either hand, they could not see far enough to find anything familiar. The barge might as well have been driving up the Loire River in France for all they knew.

"Wossat?" one hand at the bows called, waving off into the night in the general direction to larboard.

"Where?"

"Two points offen th' larboard bow!"

As Alan peered hard into the driving rain, he saw a shadow appear, a shadow that looked taller and wider and thicker as it approached.

"Coe, out oars now!" Alan screamed when he determined what the strange object was. "Row for your lives!"

It was a ship, perhaps blown free of her anchors upstream in the anchorage and running wild for the sea under the press of wind. And it was headed directly for them. If they did not get out of the way, their barge would be trampled under her forefoot and snapped in two.

"Row, damn you, row! Ahoy, the ship! Ahoy, there! Have you no eyes, you stupid bastard? Anyone have dry priming? Fire into her!"

No one did; all the firearms in the boat were soaked. All they could do was scream and thrash with the oars. The barge was under the jib-boom and bowsprit. An oar was shattered on the hull of the strange ship. The stern bumped into her hull just below the larboard forechains, and a white face appeared over the ship's rail, staring down in surprise. Then they were seized by her creaming bow and quarter wave.

The barge thumped her stern heavily on the ship once more before being swirled out of reach, shoved aside like a piece of floating trash, and the ship proceeded on. In a flash of lightning, Alan could see that she was not running free, but was under way, with a foretops'l rigged loose, the yard resting on the cap of the foretop, and the sail billowing and straining against a crow-footed "quick saver" to keep the sail from blowing out too far to the horizontal.

"Ahoy, you duck-fucker!" Coe shouted from leather lungs.

"Ahoy!" came the answering cry through a speaking trumpet.

"Give us a line!" Alan called, but before anyone aboard that ship could respond, she was almost out of reach. There was one more flash of lightning that illuminated her stern. And there, in proud gilt letters below the transom windows of her captain's cabin, was the name "Desperate."

"You planned it this way, you sonofabitch!" Alan roared, quite beside himself. His ship was getting away, and he was not in her! They had been given permission to try, and the storm would be a great opportunity to blow past the guarding frigates if they were even able to remain on station in such a gale. There would be a spate of water over the shoals, and the tide had peaked and was now ebbing out into the bay. The night was black as a boot, and it would take an especially vigilant Frog lookout to even see her until she was close aboard. And she had most of her artillery to crush anyone who crossed her hawse as she flew on by, invulnerable to any answering broadside. "Forrester, you bastard, you're aboard, I know it! Why not us? Why?"

"Easy, Mister Lewrie, sir. Le's just 'ope she makes it."

Yes, he thought. They'll think I'm raving if I keep on. But how calm do I have to be now? We're left in the quag up to our hats, and we'll end up in chains for the rest of the war.

"Ease your stroke, Coe," Alan ordered after taking a few deep breaths. "No sense in killing ourselves now."

"Er, Lewrie," Governour Chiswick said, raising one foot out of the water sloshing in the boat, "it's getting a bit deep."

"Christ!" Alan exclaimed. "We must have been stove in. Coe, we're leaking aft, I think."

"'Ere, sir," Coe said after kneeling down to feel the side timbers. "They's a plank busted."

"Take a soldier's blanket and staunch it. You soldiers, start bailing again."

And thank you very much, Captain Treghues, for kicking me up the arse in passing, Alan thought miserably. Christ, how much worse can this get, I wonder?

The wind finally began to drop in intensity, and the rain turned into a steady downpour. The lightning and thunder drifted off into the east toward the Atlantic, and the night became generally black once more. Alan peered into the face of his watch and could barely discern by the last lightning to the east that it was after four in the morning. The water was no longer set in rollers, but was beginning to flatten out under the press of rain, and the rudder no longer kicked like a mule.

"Coe, wake 'em up," Alan ordered, reaching over to shake his senior man awake. "I think we can begin to row in this."

Coe woke up, sniffed the wind, and dug a hand over the side to take a taste of the water. He spat it out quickly. "Real salty, Mister Lewrie."

"We must be far down the river, almost in the bay," Alan said. "More reason to get going quick as we can."

There was a ration box of ship's biscuits in the barge, along with the barrico of water, and they all had a small breakfast and a sip of the water to wake them and give them a little strength for their labors. The soldiers had small flasks of corn whiskey to pass around generously, and that woke the hands up right smartly.

They rowed up to their drogue and pulled it in. The salvaged oars were most welcome, since three had been shattered by their collision with Desperate as she had blown past them. As they got a way on once more, the rain began to ease off to an irritating drizzle. The river was still in spate, though, from all the rain that had been dumped into it from the swollen streams inland, plus the tidal outflow, and they made painfully slow progress. There was just the first hint of grayness to the night when Alan next looked at his watch; half past five in the morning and dawn was expected at quarter past six.

"We shall have to hurry, or we shall be spotted by the French batteries on the right, where Mister Railsford said the marines were," he urged, though what the point of their efforts was, he did not know. Yorktown would be abandoned by then, and the Rebels and French would be ready to probe the silent redoubts and ramparts. The troops ferried to the Gloucester side during the night would probably be breaking out now.

They would miss the boat; the army would charge into the few Rebels and French on the north side and would be well away by the time Alan and his crippled barge could make it, and they would land in a hornet's nest of aroused soldiery who had been robbed of final victory. Their reception did not bear thinking about. Neither did the fact that he was in a boat slowly sinking from under him, possessing only what he had on his back or in his pockets. He had left his valuables in his sea-chest once he had gotten back aboard ship and had not come equipped for a long stay. Alan had thought there would be time to get back to Desperate to be part of her attempt to break out. Soon, someone unworthy would be rifling his possessions, looting his gold and thinking him dead or captured while they sailed away, showing the French a clean pair of heels.

False dawn came, a gradual relieving of the gloom, and Alan took a good look around to try and discover where the hell they were. He had to admit that nothing looked familiar.

"Land, sir, ta larboard," Coe said.

"Yes, but damned if I can remember anything like that," Alan said under his breath. "Here, Mister Chiswick, you have a spyglass with you?"

"Yes," Governour replied, rousing himself from a half-sleep to offer it.

"Coe, take the tiller. Mister Chiswick, do hold me upright for a piece, if you would."

Alan took a good look at the land to the south. It was below Yorktown, that was for sure. Further east, his wandering eye espied some islands, and he began to get a queasy feeling. He turned his body to peer south and south-west.

"That is Toe's Point," he told them, sitting down on a thwart, and idly pointing to the landmark.

"Is that not near the mouth of the river?" Governour asked.

"Truly," Alan replied. "And to starboard, that is Jenkins Neck, an arm of Guinea Neck between the York and the Severn. We were blown all the way out into the bay. We're at least five miles from Yorktown and the narrows. One, perhaps two hours at the rate we're moving."

"The army has gone without us, then," Governour sighed. "They're to attack at first light, and we'll never catch up with them now."

"Don't soun' like it, sirs," Coe stuck in, cupping an ear to hear sounds from the west. "They's still at it, 'ot an' 'eavy."

The faint sound of cannon fire could barely be heard, but it was still going on, over one hundred guns pounding away like a far-off storm.

"Jaysus!" one of the further forward oarsmen spat. "We's makin' warter up 'ere, too, Mister Lewrie."

"Stuff another blanket into it and hope for the best."

"We're makin' pretty fast, now, Mister Lewrie," Coe whispered to him as they sat together by the tiller bar. "Th' 'ole damn wale musta been smashed. Might not make five mile. An' even agin easy current, th' 'ands is 'bout played out."

"Might consider putting in and resting first?"

"Could be, Mister Lewrie," Coe agreed.

"Sail ho!" one of the oarsmen shouted, pointing aft. Alan turned to see a tops'l above the horizon. That would be a French frigate beating back to station in the mouth of the York, he decided. They might have an hour to get under cover before even a boat so low in the water could be seen.

The French and Rebels are around York, and the Frog ships are to the south and east. We'd best go into Jenkins Neck. Only foragers there.

"We'll put in on Jenkins Neck," Alan announced to his weary crew. "We have to make repairs before going back to Yorktown. Ashore, we can dry out and get some rest. It will be dark before it's safe to be seen this far down the river, so you all can get some sleep."

Alan put the tiller over and urged his men to ply their oars for one more effort. They were shivering cold and resembled a pack of drowned rats worn down to the bone by all that had been asked of them during the night, and by their fears. But they were seamen, which meant that they were resilient, and if allowed time to rest up and get some warm food down, could do it all over again the next night.

They steered in for a small, marshy island at the tip of the tiny peninsula known as Jenkins Neck. Alan kept trying to picture the chart that Mister Monk had shown them the night before. They had concentrated on the region of the narrows and the Gloucester Point area, but it had been fully open on the desk, and Alan had glanced at it. The east end of the Gloucester peninsula was all salt marshes and low sandspits, threaded with creeks and rills like a river delta. There was a low island, known as Hog Island, ahead of them. A little further upriver was a tiny spit of hard sand known as Sandy Point, a tiny cay connected by a tidal flat to Jenkins Neck; and to the western end of the neck, there was a large creek or inlet—two actually, one being grandly named Perrin River merely because it was a broader inlet than the other. Alan remembered seeing some tumbledown wharves along the shore; tobacco loading docks for the many shallow coastal traders who worked the Chesapeake during the growing seasons. He knew there would be less than three feet of water along that shore, even at high tide. They would have to be careful not to ground their barge on the mud until they had found some place sheltered in which to hide the boat and lay up while it was being repaired. There would be enough scrub pine in the thickets to cover them, and further inshore there might be something they could use to caulk or plug the holes in the barge's side.

"Mister Chiswick, give me your studied military opinion about something," Alan requested of the weary infantryman, which brought Governour's head up from his bleak study. "We could land on this shore along the river, but there are wharves, as I remember, and we might not wish to draw much attention to ourselves. Or, we could head north about Hog Island here and land in the marshes or on the far side of Jenkins Neck. Which would you prefer?"

"Each wharf is connected to a plantation," Governour told him. "That means Rebels. It might be better to hide in the marshes, but then I doubt if you could find what you need to repair the boat in those. I'd try the marshes, though, if we can find some high ground that is dry. My powder is soaked, and we could not fight off a pack of children now."

"Very well, the marshes it is," Alan agreed. "There is sure to be an inlet that leads to dry ground somewhere. And it's out of sight from those Frog ships in the river."

Once more, he turned the tiller to larboard to steer the boat into the gap between Hog Island and another sandspit whose name he could not remember. There would be immediate cover behind them, at least.

"Boat, sir!" the bowman croaked.

"Hellfire and damnation!"

"Looks like it's stuck in the mud, sir."

Lewrie rose to his feet to use Chiswick's telescope once more as the hands ceased rowing for a much-needed respite.

"Looks like one of our barges," Alan said. "Canted over in the mud on yonder tidal flat, but there's no one about it."

"Spare plank, sir." Coe brightened. "Ready-cut an' shaped."

"Right you are, Coe." Alan laughed. "Men, we are about to take a prize. Doubt if an Admiralty Prize Court would give us tuppence for her, and no head money, but she's ours. Give way."

They rowed up close enough to the stern of the abandoned barge so that a hand from up forward could splash into the water and wade over the mud flat to the barge. He clambered into her and poked around.

"One o' ours, she is!" he called back. "They's blood on her, sir."

"God save us," Coe muttered softly.

"Hoy!" a man called from the low sandspit beyond the abandoned boat, standing up from the sedge and sea oats and waving a musket. "Hoy!"

"That's a British sailor, by God!" Alan exclaimed. "Hoy yourself!"

"Mister Lewrie, sir?" the stranded seaman yelled back. "Mister Feather, 'tis one o' our boats come fer us!"

They turned about and stroked to shore on the sandspit, grounding the bow into the beach as more of the boat's party came down to the shore to greet them. Feather was there, his head now wrapped in a bandage, some North Carolina Volunteers half caked with sand and mud, and half a dozen sailors from Desperate. Alan was relieved to see Burgess Chiswick, too.

"What happened to you, Mister Feather?" Alan inquired after they had gotten their own boat firmly beached.

"When 'at gale blew up, I got lost, sir," Feather admitted.

"So did we. We were blown all the way out into the bay."

"We got ashore on Gloucester, but 'twas beyond the lines on the right, an' we tangled with them French marines. Nobody's firelocks wuz worth a shit, an' they like ta cut us ta pieces with bayonets an' such. We drove 'em off an' got away, but I lost 'alf a dozen men adoin' it, an' mebbe 'alf a these soljers. Only 'ad the five oars left, so we couldn't do nothin' 'bout gettin' back upriver, an' tried ta 'ide in 'ere, but we grounded when the tide started agoin' out," Feather reported.

Alan looked at his watch, then studied the set of the tide over the mud flats. It would be at least an hour, maybe two, before they could expect the tide to refloat Feather's barge, hours in which they would be exposed as naked and helpless as foundlings to the full view of the French blocking ships now working back to their stations in the York. "We'll have to man-haul her into deeper water, then head for those marshes over there." Alan sighed wearily. "I have nine oars left. We'll share them and the crews out and find some place to hide."

"That's where I was agoin', sir," Feather agreed, careful not to nod his head too energetically. "They's a deep inlet round that second point ta the left, an' ya kin see the forests. We lost our water and biscuit, so me lads ain't 'ad nothin' since last night. We wuz gonna see what we could scrounge up afore 'eadin' back."

"We have some, not much. Share it out with your men, but be sparing," Alan told him.

"Aye, thankee, sir."

"Seen anyone else?" Alan asked. "Ours or theirs?"

"Mebbe two er three o' our barges went by upriver just 'bout dawn, but too far out ta 'ail. Frog ships're back in the mouth o' the river, but no patrol boats yit, sir."

Good as it was to know that they were not alone in their isolation, their situation had not been improved by the addition to the party.

Alan looked about the beach as he sat down at the high tide line among the screening sea oats. There were eighteen sailors, plus Feather the quartermaster's mate and Coe as steady senior hands. There were not thirty soldiers, including officers. They had one barrico of water, which would not make more than a taste for each man, one box of biscuits, which could not sustain life for more than a day or two, two boat compasses, and two leaky and unseaworthy barges. Their powder was soaked, so they could not hunt, and if they did get some game, they might not be able to light a fire to cook with. His sailors had come away with only jackknives and cutlasses for weapons. Lewrie had two pistols on him, both sure to misfire after all the rain, his midshipman's dirk, and a cutlass. Not exactly daunting prospects if they ran across Rebel troops ashore on the neck. Alan cocked his head to listen to the sound of the far-off cannonade around Yorktown. Bad as it would be back within the lines, they would be better off there than out in the wilds on their own so poorly equipped.

"Morning, Alan," Burgess Chiswick said, plopping down next to him on the sand as though it were merely another morning back in the redoubt.

"Burgess," Alan replied, "glad to see you still among the living."

"Not for want of trying on the foe's part, I assure you. The very devil of a quandary we're in here, is it not?" Burgess said.

"Goddamn Admiral Graves." Alan sighed. "He'll never come now."

"Nor will General Clinton, so goddamn him, too. Have a sip on this," Burgess said, offering a flask of liquor; it was corn whiskey.

"We must really be in trouble," Alan quipped after sliding that liquid fire down his gullet. "I'm beginning to like this."

After a brief rest, there was enough water over the tidal flat to try to drag Feather's barge off. They shared out the hands to give equal rowing strength to both boats and started heading up north again, close enough together to talk back and forth. Feather, now that he felt rescued, was talkative and full of lore about the Chesapeake.

"Over ta starboard, that's Guinea Marsh." He pointed. "An' that's Big Island beyond. Now, ta larboard, we'll turn west inta this 'ere inlet. Round t'other side o' 'Og Island, ya'll see solid land. I 'member they's a cove, runs back like a notch offa this inlet. Damn near cuts Jenkins Neck inta an island, an' marshes on either 'and afore we gets to woods an' 'ard ground. No reason nobody'd come down 'ere alookin' fer us, an' mebbe not a dozen farmers down 'ere anyways."

"Been here before, have you?" Alan asked, weary of the garrulous lecturer. He wished fervently that Feather would shut the hell up and let him be as miserable as he wanted to be.

"Did some tradin' 'ereabouts 'tween hitches, afore the Rebellion," Feather went on. "Sweet li'l barque outa Boston, an' we'd row in ta pick up baccy an' whatnot an' land trade goods. Mind ye, 'twern't strictly legal, Mister Lewrie, 'cause the King's Stamps wasn't on everything but…"

"Is this your cove off the inlet?" Alan demanded, pointing to the left at a narrow waterway that led back almost to the south.

"No, sir, that's a false cove. Good beach fer smugglin' at low tide at the back of it, but we got further ta go. Now like I said, we wuz…"

I wonder if anyone would mind if I shot him? Alan asked himself.

At nearly nine in the morning they discovered the cove that Feather went on (and on) about, a long and narrow tongue of open water between salt marshes and some higher ground with scrubby coastal forest on it. Alan could tell Feather to shut his gob in case there were enemy lookouts about, which brought a blissful silence, broken only by the sound of the oars and the birds, and the continual barrage that was by then a natural background sound, much like a ship groaning as it worked across the sea while they slept. It was shallow, and the barges dragged on the bottom now and then and had to be poled across in places, though from the detritus on the shore they could see that there must be at least three feet of water at high tide.

"Lots of trash washed up." Governour was pointing. "Once we put in we can cut some brush and cover the boats easily enough. You couldn't spot 'em 'til you stumbled across 'em."

"Thank God for that," Alan said.

They came to the end of the cove. To the west there was still salt marsh and some barren sand humps broken by stunted scrub growth. On the left hand, to the east, there was firmer beach and a long finger of green land to screen them from the sea. A small creek poured down into the back of the cove and meandered off to the south and west, too shallow to be navigated. All about were thick stands of trees.

"Put in to the east of the creek," Alan said softly. "Fill that barrico first thing, if it's fresh water."

"My men can fill their canteens, and then we must needs reconnoiter," Governour said. "Your sailors should wait near the boats, just in case, ready to shove off. Wait as long as you can, mind."

"I'll not abandon you, whatever you run into," Alan swore.

"God bless you, then," Governour said, readying his arms.

Almost as soon as the barges stuck their bows into shore, the Loyalist soldiers were off and gone as silently as smoke going up a chimney, rifles on half cock and long sword-bayonets fixed in case their cartouches and primings were bad. They faded off into the woods and the underbrush and disappeared, scouting like savages in all directions.

"Coe, take a party to fetch water. Feather, stand ready to cast off in case they run back here and say it's not safe."

Feather was silent and yawning with nervous trepidation now that they were back ashore in hostile territory, which was a blessing for Alan. The men clutched their cutlasses, those ashore squatting down near the high tide mark, those in the boats flexing their muscles to leap out and push off at the first "View Halloo."

Alan sat down on the bow of his boat, feet resting on the sand and carefully scraped the caked powder from his pistols' priming pans. He shook some loose powder from his powder flask and rolled it between his fingers to determine how dry it was, and reprimed his weapons. The pine plugs were still in the barrels, so there was a good chance that the charges were still dry in the muzzles. Both ends of the plugs were dry to the touch.

Mollow came creeping back through the scrub, bringing a gasp of alarm from the tense sailors, who were so keyed up even the sight of a red coat could frighten them.

"Mister Governour says 'tis clear," Mollow reported to Lewrie with his usual lack of formality. "But they's a plantation over yonder."

"Anyone about?" Alan asked as calmly as he could, repocketing the pistols.

"Looks ta be. Some house slaves, not so many," Mollow muttered. "That means somebody there ta keep 'em in line. Nothin' stirrin', though. Nobody in the fields, an' that rain las' night wouldna done that tabacca no good. Not much o' hit been harvested. Shoulda been dryin' in barns weeks ago."

"Big place?" Alan wondered aloud.

"Bigger'n some," Mollow allowed with a shrug, then busied himself with his damp canteen. "Water's frayush, iffen ya go up the crick a ways."

Burgess came drifting back to the cove and waved Alan to him.

"Quiet as a country church." He grinned as he offered his full canteen to Lewrie. "Looks to be only one farm this far down the neck, and it's a big one. Twenty, thirty slave cabins t'other side of these woods. Lots of corn and beans, and a fair tobacco crop gone to rot if they don't get it in soon. Looks like they tried. Most of the slave cabins are empty."

"Run off?"

"Probably. There's smoke coming from the house and the kitchen shed, so somebody's to home. Only slaves I could see were dressed good."

"House servants, your man Mollow suspected."

"Aye, most like. Nice big house, too. And barns and sheds. Four wagons but no stock other than a saddle horse or two, maybe coach horses. Livestock enough."

"Lumber and tools." Alan brightened at the possibilities. "No one would come this far to forage, would they?"

"Hard to say exactly. But we could be gone in a day," Burgess told him. "The cove here almost cuts the neck in two. There's one poor road to guard, and we could see anyone coming across the fields from the edge of the woods. It's not three hundred paces to the far shore, and half of the distance is marshy. It'd be a killing ground for a dozen riflemen."

"By God, let's do it!" Alan said. "We can take the place and use whatever they have to repair the barges. There's meat on the hoof and a whole parish full of vegetables to eat, plus whatever else we may find for our use."

"Let us allow Governour to decide," Burgess cautioned. "He's senior to both of us, and more used to this sort of thing."

Governour Chiswick took another quarter of an hour to make his way back to the beach, his rifle cradled in one arm but no longer at cock. His walk was looser, less concerned with ducking at the first odd noise as he had been when he left.

"I went as far as the far shore," he began. "Do you notice anything?"

Alan wondered what he was talking about. He looked the same as he had when he had departed on his scout; filthy and unshaven, just like the rest of them, and stinking of tidal flats and wet wool.

"Listen," Governour said. "The bombardment has stopped."

Once it was pointed out, Alan could notice the sudden absence of the muffled drumming of artillery. It had been such a part of their lives for the last few days that he had quite forgotten what dead silence was.

"One can see Yorktown from the far shore, just barely," Chiswick said. "After the smoke blew away, it's fairly clear. Dead as a grave."

"Then the army's gone on without us," Burgess said, sagging in weariness and defeat.

"I did not say that." Governour frowned. "As far as I can see, the army is still there, but there is no more shelling. I thought I saw boats ferrying men back from Gloucester to the Yorktown side. Now what does that suggest to you?"

"They could not break out," Burgess surmised.

"I believe that Lord Cornwallis's plans were upset by that storm last night, and he may be evacuating Tarleton and Simcoe's men over with his to make a last stand where he at least has entrenchments enough for all of them."

"No point to that. It was break out or go under last night," Alan said bleakly. "Maybe the French and Rebels stopped shelling because there is nothing left to shell. Why shell beaten troops ready to…"

"Surrender," Governour agreed softly.

"Does that apply to us?" Alan felt a chill.

"It had better not," Governour said. "Oh, your Navy men would get decent treatment, but I have little hopes for Loyalists once the regulars march off and leave us in the care of militia or irregulars."

"Then we don't surrender." Burgess smartened up. "Alan, you're a sailor, you have boats. You can get us out to sea, can't you?"

"Of course, I can," Alan promised, wondering to himself just how he was going to accomplish that miracle. Still, they were at liberty, and no one knew where they were… yet.

CHAPTER 11

They took possession of the plantation in the middle of the afternoon, after watching it for hours to see if there would be any surprises in store. They crept up through the empty slave cabins to the back of the house, exploring the barns and sheds as they went. As one party under Burgess Chiswick guarded the road and open ground to the west, the rest of them burst onto the grounds suddenly like a fox in a hen coop, raising about as much commotion until the sight of their weapons silenced all resistance.

There were about thirty-odd slaves, all women and children or very old men worn down to nubbins by a generation of hard work in the fields. There were perhaps half a dozen finer-dressed house slaves to do for their masters, including a cook, maids, and manservants.

There was an overseer, an older man with white hair who had been snoring away under the influence of a stone jug of rum, with a lusty black wench in his tumbledown shack near the main house.

"It's almost like home," Alan observed after they had secured the place. The house was magnificent, a homey, pale brick construction with a split-pine shingle roof; it was two stories tall and as imposing as any prosperous farmstead back in England. There was a squarish central core, the original house, and two wings extending to either side so that it made an imposing sight facing the York River and the wharves. There was a brick-laid terrace in back that led to various storehouses and the stables. There were six matched horses there, sleek and glossy and tossing their manes as though they were ready for a brisk canter up the road to the west to see the sights. There were also a few saddle horses, as well as a pen of mules for field work. The coach house held an open carriage and a closed equipage, both as freshly painted and shiny as any duke's coach in London, obviously not locally made, and imported at some expense.

Entering the house reminded him even more of home. The floors were tight-laid oak parquet, covered with fine Turkey carpets. Heavy satin and velvet drapes hung by the large windows, and the walls were papered with what looked like new China paper. The quality of the furnishings—the brass and crystal, the framed pictures and the bright painted woodwork—was astonishingly good. The ceiling in the foyer had been painted into an imaginative scene replete with cherubs, clouds, and birds in blue and gilt by an artist of some talent as well. He was lost in admiration of the foyer when the mistress of the house and her entourage came down the stairs to see who had disturbed her peace.

"Well?" she demanded primly, her chest heaving in anger. "To what do I owe this invasion of my property? Who are you… banditti?"

Alan suddenly felt dirtier and shabbier than he had felt moments before, after being soaked all night, muddied with silt and sand.

"Lieutenant Chiswick, ma'am, of the North Carolina Volunteers. And you might be?" Governour said, sweeping off his wide hat to make a decent bow to her.

"Mrs. Elihu Hayley," she replied. "And was it necessary to come bargin' into my land and my house at the point of a gun, sir?"

"I assure you, ma'am, were circumstances different we would have come calling decently. You have nothing to fear as long as we are forced to remain, which shall not be any longer than necessary. We shall attempt not to discomfort you and yours, as much as the situation will admit of."

"I have quartered soldiers before, sir," she said, warming to the situation but still a bit peeved. "My husband is a captain in the Virginia Militia, or should I say, he was. Had I known, or been asked…"

"Hmm." Governour colored. "I fear you do not quite grasp our identity, ma'am. We are a Loyalist unit. This is Midshipman Lewrie of His Britannic Majesty's Navy."

"Your servant, ma'am," Alan said, making a leg to her as well.

"God save us!" She blanched at the news. "I thought…"

"Your pardon for any misunderstandings, ma'am," Governour said. "There is only you in the house, I take it?"

"There is my son and my sister—and the servants o' course," she stammered, her chest still heaving in alarm. Alan thought it quite a nice chest, better than he had seen lately, at least.

"Your pardon, ma'am, for casting any aspersions on a lady of quality, but I must assure myself as to the veracity of your statements," Governour said. "You will not mind if my men search the house? Good. Corporal Knevet? Search the house, carefully, mind. Don't break anything."

"Raght, Mister Governour," the dour corporal drawled, fetching a pair of troopers to help him.

"Now look here!" the woman began, but she was carefully shouldered out of the way as the men went up the stairs, and she had no choice but to descend to the foyer level and fume.

Governour went to a handsomely carved wine cabinet and opened it. He lifted out a decanter of port and sniffed at it, then poured himself a glass. "Alan?"

"Don't mind if I do, sir." Alan grinned.

"Don't stand on ceremony. It's Governour. Ma'am, do you have spirits in the house or sheds besides this cabinet?"

"Go to the devil!" Mistress Hayley shot back, her back up once more. "Do you think you can take whatever you want from us?"

"Yes, ma'am, I do," Governour replied sternly. "You are admittedly a Rebel household, wife of a man-in-arms against his rightful King. We shall not, however, loot you. My men are hungry and we need certain items to stay in the field. Other than our immediate needs, your property will be safe. But I must know about the spirits."

"I'll not give you or your men the pleasure!" she hissed, eager to dash the glass from Governour's hand if she could.

"It is a question of your safety, ma'am, I assure you."

"I shall say no more. Excuse me," she said regally, turning to go.

"If my troops or Mister Lewrie's seamen find drink, ma'am, I cannot guarantee what sort of discipline or courtesy you may expect," Governour warned. "Better I know where it is so it may be guarded by trusted men than should they get cup-shot and forget all decency."

That stopped her in her tracks, and she whirled about, lifting the bottom of her skirts so that Alan could glimpse some rather fine ankles as well. She was pretty enough for an older woman, late thirties at best, with piles of dark hair and snapping brown eyes. A bit of a dumpling, but that had never stopped him before.

"Very well," she snapped. "There is the cabinet. There is a butler's pantry by the kitchen and there is rum and brandy kegs in the cellar we dole out to the field hands. Nothing is kept outside the house lest the slaves get to it and run wild."

"Your slaves seem rather thin on the ground," Governour observed. "Your crop will be ruined if you don't get it in."

"I sent the men off to Gloucester for labor at the request of a militia officer. I hope to have 'em back soon when your army is beat."

"Then that may be awhile yet, ma'am." Governour smiled as though Cornwallis was winning.

Corporal Knevet came back down the stairs, escorting another woman, this one a little younger and prettier than Mrs. Hayley, along with a frightened colored maid and a boy of about fifteen, dressed in a fine suit of dittoes—snuff-colored coat, waistcoat, and breeches. If his mother had been termagant, then he was a spitfire from hell, unsure whether to yell, cower against his mother's skirts, or try to kill someone all at the same time.

"Damn ya," he hissed. "Damn ya all ta hell! We got ya beat, and you're all gonna die. When the soldiers come, I wanna watch ya die!"

"Then I hope you do not mind waiting a few days for the sight," Governour said, raising his glass in toast to the boy's spirit.

"House is clean," Knevet informed them. "Huntin' guns is all in the parlor, an' I took all the pistols and such I could find."

"Check the cellars," Governour said. "You'll find some kegs of rum and brandy, most like the cheapest swill ever turned a black's toes up. Issue at the normal rate with supper, but post a reliable man to guard it, else. No one to enter or leave the house but us."

Mrs. Hayley crossed to her son to shush him after his outburst, but he was having little of it. "Hush up, Rodney, or they'll kill us all this very instant!" she admonished.

"Dirty oppressor Tories, and press-gangers! Momma, what call they got ta trample on us? They're finished an' they know it!"

"Ma'am, your child is getting tiresome. Perhaps you might want to tuck him in for his nap?" Governour frowned.

"Come, Rodney," the sister said. "Sarah, I'll take him."

"I'll not!" Rodney spat.

"You will," his mother fumed.

"Governour," Alan muttered close. "I have some guineas on me. Perhaps we slipped them some chink, they wouldn't make such a fuss."

"You do? Sounds like it might work. Why don't you try?"

"Mrs. Hayley, we are not looters," Alan began. "There is no need for anyone to be put out by our brief stay, and I am empowered by my Sovereign to make recompense for anything we are forced to requisition."

"What good are promissory notes?" she complained.

"We have guineas, ma'am," Alan replied, digging the purse from his coat. He had at least one hundred guineas in it, and they gave off a pleasant jingle as he hefted them.

"Don't do it, mother," the boy named Rodney said.

"Go to your room, Rodney," she said to him. Prosperous as they all looked, there had been a shortage of specie in the Colonies since '76, and isolated as they were from the major smuggling cities or garrisons, they would be living on barter and the produce of the farm, with no outlet for the tobacco they had grown. She could at least be mollified by gold.

"I think it is an equitable offer," the sister said, and Alan saw that she was indeed very pretty, perhaps five or more years younger than her sister la Hayley. "Quite kind of you, considering."

"They killed my papa!" the boy cried. "They killed your Robert, and you'd take their filthy money?"

"Rodney, go to your room, now!" Mrs. Hayley sharply said, and the boy relented, sulking back up the stairs. "I will consider your offer, sir. I may not accept, but I will at least consider it. Come, Nancy. Sir, we require our body servants to cook and do for us while you're here."

"If they remain in the house and the immediate grounds, there shall be no problem, ma'am," Governour told her quite cordially. "I must keep your overseer separate, of course, if his presence is not needed."

Mrs. Hayley and her sister swept out of the room and up the stairs to their rooms. But the sister named Nancy did look back and give Alan a glance, lowering her lashes before turning to complete her ascent.

"Damme, what a pack of cats!" Alan chuckled once they were gone.

"Have some more port," Governour offered. "Damned interesting."

"What is?" Alan said, flinging himself down on a settee to take his ease. Governour poured him a healthy bumper.

"Here we have a framed portrait of a rather simple-looking man named Elihu Hayley, trimmed in black." Governour was observing a painting on the wall of the front parlor, hanging in a prominent position. "And by the brass plaque we learn that he died in 1778, so she has been a widow for some time. The sister practically slavered when you mentioned gold and she got most missish over us. That long, flirtatious look from the top of the stairs. You did not notice?"

"Yes, I did," Alan said a little smugly.

"My black mammy once said that if times got hard, a rat'd eat red onions. There's not enough slave women or children to fill a quarter of those cabins, so the slaves did not go off suddenly, but were most likely sold a few at a time to raise money to keep all this style going," Chiswick said. "There's room in the stables for twenty horses, and that crop of tobacco is nothing like what this place could grow. Hardly any of it harvested to dry and the rest rotting. Not even been wormed or suckered."

"Whatever that means, Governour," Alan drawled lazily.

"Trust me. The drying barns are empty, and the storehouses do not have previous crops kegged up for shipment. I think your offer of gold mollified them into more positive sweetness than we could expect."

"Don't tell me we've stumbled into a knocking shop," Alan said.

"Hopefully, we won't be here long enough to know. Now, what may we do to guarantee our security here? Have any ideas, Alan?"

Alan leaned back and rested his head on the settee, his feet asprawl across the carpet as he thought on it.

"The overseer is no problem," he opined. "Keep him drunk and in with his black piece. Slaves aren't a worry, either, except for that butler and the manservant, but they'll stay locked in the house. And that boy ought to be chained to the wall. I'd watch him like a hawk."

"Very good. Go on."

"Anyone wanting to carry word of us would need a horse, so we keep them guarded. And perhaps we shouldn't let them see our numbers."

"There's Frog ships on the river we can see from here. Might want to post a lookout against anyone signaling them from the house with a light or something."

"Excellent!" Governour congratulated him. "You're nackier than I first thought. Let them see your people; I'll hide most of my troops. Now, about the boats. Is there enough here to repair them?"

"Have no idea." Alan sighed. He took a swig of his port and got to his feet. "Suppose I'd better go look before it gets dark. So we can get started on it in the morning."

"I won't make any demands of your sailors, then. Keep half of them on guard by the boats. Burgess and I will bivouac half our people in the woods to stand guard while you get on with your repairs."

Alan finished his wine and went out through the back to the kitchen shed. He found a ham on the sideboard and carved himself off a healthy hunk, cut a wedge of cornbread from a skillet that had been set out to cool and headed for the barns, munching happily on his impromptu meal. Suddenly it hit him. Governour had almost shooed him out the door. He had not issued an order or made a suggestion, but it was his conversation that had gotten him moving when he would have much preferred to sit and drink and fall asleep on the settee. Damn you for a nacky one yourself, Governour! I'll have to study on how you did that.

Several of his sailors were trying to talk to the black women in the back gardens and stable area, and the slave women were responding shyly. The hands would consider them ripe for the plucking, much on par with the for-hire doxies they had grown familiar with on the islands, but the men had little or no money. It could get ugly if controls were not placed on them soon.

"Coe," Alan called, summoning his senior hand.

"Sir."

"There's rum and Frog spirits in the cellar of the house. We'll have an issue with supper," Alan said. Then he laid down strict instructions regarding dealings with the women. Any man who laid hands on one who did not cooperate willingly would be flogged half to death, as would anyone who looted or got drunk. They settled on several of the nearest slave cabins as quarters for the men so they could be watched and supervised more easily. Tired as the hands were, they were put to work cleaning them and making them more civilized. Storehouses would be searched by Coe personally for victuals, and abandoned cooking pots would be given out so the men could cook their dinners, appointing their own cooks if they could not cajole some of the idle women to do for them.

Sensing that he had given his men enough to do for the moment, Lewrie went on to speak with Feather, who was at the door of the larger barn with another older sailor.

Feather made an attempt to knuckle his injured brow as Lewrie joined him. He was chewing slowly on a plug of tobacco he had cut from an opened keg, a huge straight-sided barrel full of twisted leaves.

"Anything to repair the boats, Feather?" Alan asked him.

"Rope, nails, barrel staves," Feather said, pausing to spit a juicy dollop of tobacco to the side. "A full carpenter's shop, sir."

"So we may begin in the morning at first light," Alan said.

"Aye, sir. Might take a look at mine, too, sir. 'Twas workin' more'n I liked. They's pitch an' tar out back, so's we kin pay all the seams while we're at it. But, beggin' yer pardon, sir, I don't know what we're adoin' with them boats oncet they's repaired. The 'ands is askin'."

"We're staying free, Feather," Alan said. "If that means getting out of the Chesapeake altogether past the French, then so be it."

Alan had not really considered a course of action. His only hope had been to get back on dry land without drowning in a leaking boat. Then perhaps they might go back to Yorktown, but Lieutenant Chiswick's observation upriver had made that moot; there was nothing to go back to, not if Cornwallis had not been able to break out. The French and the Rebels would never have stopped that killing barrage unless they thought the end was near.

"Outa the Chespeake, sir?" Feather wondered. "Doubt we'd make it in them barges. Why, it must be nigh on forty mile ta the other shore, an' the 'ands'd never be able ta row that far, not in one night, an' them old things'd be pure shit ta try sailin'. 'Sides, we ain't got no masts ner sailcloth ner nothin'. An' why leave the bay, when the army's not five mile upriver? The French patrols'd get us quick as ya could say Jack Ketch, sir."

"There's plenty of rope, you said," Alan pointed out. "Enough to rig them with a mast each, though two short ones would be better with the shallow draft they have. There's timber enough about for masts and spars, and enough sacking in this barn to sew sails from."

Alan did a quick survey of the barnyard. "Those wagon tongues are ready forked to fit around a mast—use 'em for booms. And look here." He knelt down in the dust and drew quick sketches with his dirk. "Sacrifice two oars for gaff booms, or if nothing else, sew up some lug sails instead of getting too complicated. There's block and tackle in the drying barns for hoisting. Rig 'em loose footed to the boom, maybe even loose to the mast if that's easier, like a Barbary Coast lugger."

"We could do it, I 'spect, Mister Lewrie, but them barges'd go ta loo'ard like a woodchip, an' unstable as the Devil," Feather carped.

"What would make them more stable?" Alan asked. "More ballast or a heavier keel, a deeper one?"

"Mebbe any keel at all, sir." Feather frowned, still unconvinced. "They's only 'bout six inches o' four by eight fer keel members now."

"Below the hull?"

"Aye, sir, below the 'ull. Mebbe could nail on some barn sidin'."

"You can tear this fucking barn down if you get some heavier timbers out of it," Alan said. "The barges are what, over forty feet long and nearly nine feet in beam—wider than normal river barges. What if you bolted some heavier timber onto the existing keels? Surely there are some finished about, squared off, maybe twelve feet long or better. Channel 'em in the center to fit over what protrudes below the hull, drill holes and fit pine dowels through the holes, or through-bolt 'em if we find iron."

"Wouldn't swim good." Feather shook his head. "'Ave ta fair 'em in with somethin' fore an' aft o' the added piece."

"We're not out to win a contract from the Board of Admiralty," Alan scoffed. "It doesn't have to be pretty. It doesn't even have to be all that fast, just as long as it will sail upright."

"'N then there's freeboard, Mister Lewrie. Might 'ave to add on ta the gunnels 'bout six more inches."

"Barn siding nailed into the existing gunwales."

"Mebbe. But they'd still make a lot o' leeway."

"Shallops, Mister Feather," the older seaman finally said through his own cheekful of tobacco twist. "Iver see 'em Dutchie coasters up in N'York? Got leeboards t'either beam. Swings 'em up outen th' warter on a 'ub."

"Well, I don't know nothin' 'bout that…" Feather stiffened at an unwanted suggestion from a common seaman. The hands were trained by society and by the harsh discipline of the Fleet to sit back and let the warrants and petty officers come up with the miracles, with an occasional flash of genius from the gentlemen officers that the middle ranks would translate into organized action. Talking without being given permission was, in some tautly run ships, an offense.

"Then I suggest you find out!" Alan barked, exasperated with the petty officer's intransigence. "We have two choices, Mister Feather. We repair these damned barges, make them seaworthy, and get across to the other coast to escape, or we get taken by the French and the Rebels as prisoners of war, if they even give us a chance. We are on our own out here, so the sooner we get on our way, the better!"

Feather was used to taking orders, used to having an officer at hand to tell him what to do. He was not an imaginative man or a creative one. In the absence of authority, he had been floundering. But with the midshipman making loud noises pretty much resembling those of a commissioned lieutenant, he fell into line readily. His former stubbornness dropped away like a veil, and when Alan left them, after delivering an order that they would begin boat construction at first light the next morning, Feather and the older seaman were busily drawing in the dust, walking about their plans and spitting tobacco in a juicy fit of naval architecture.

Once the slave cabins had been swept out and prepared for quarters, the men turned to washing up their few garments, scrubbing the worst dirt from their bodies, and getting ready for the evening meal. Alan saw to the simmering pots that contained haunches of a fresh-slaughtered pair of sheep, inspecting the snap beans and ears of corn that would be the hands' suppers. Women were baking cornbread for them, and there were more smiles and flirtatious looks passing between his sailors and the slaves than before.

"Let them turn in after supper," Alan directed Coe. "We'll start on the boats in the morning. Just as long as there is no trouble."

"Won't be, Mister Lewrie." Coe smiled. "Once they eat their fill an' 'ave their grog, they'll be droppin' like tired puppies. Won't be no trouble from 'em tonight, I lay ya."

"I can believe that." Alan smiled back, realizing how bone-weary he was himself. His clothing itched and still smelled like dead fish—foul as a mud flat. He could feel grit every time he moved. "I'll be berthing in the house, if I'm needed."

He entered the house through the back door and clumped to the parlor to pour himself a drink. There was a decanter of rhenish out on the sideboard already, and he filled up a large glass of it, slumping down on the settee once more in weariness. Someone had lit a fire in the parlor, and he stared at the dancing flames as the hard wood began to take light from the pine shavings and kindling beneath it, almost mesmerized by exhaustion. Before his eyes could seal themselves shut with gritty sleep, Governour and Burgess came into the house by the front doors, forcing him to sit up and try to look alert.

"It's quite homey," Governour said happily, plopping down into a large wing chair nearer the fire and putting his legs up on a hassock.

"How are your men?" Burgess asked Lewrie. He poured himself a drink from the sideboard.

"Cleaned up, ready to eat and get their grog ration. Coe assures me they'll sleep like babies after last night."

"Mine, too," Burgess replied, coming to sit next to him on the settee. "Let some of them sleep the afternoon away so they'd be fresh on guard mount for the night. Lookouts are posted for anything, coming or going."

"Good," Alan said automatically, glad to leave their security in the capable hands of the North Carolina Volunteers.

"Now, what do we do to escape this muddle?" Governour asked from his chair, leaning back and almost lost behind the wings.

Alan outlined what they would do to make the barges seaworthy and where he hoped to go with them once they were ready to take the water.

"You are confident we can make it?" Governour said.

"We would have to leave at dusk, since there is no cover out in the inlets and marshes," Alan said slowly. "We'd be spotted if we left earlier. Only trouble is, the tide will be fully out and slack then, so we'll have to slave to get the barges poled out into deep water. Once we have depth enough, we may do a short row east through a pass called Monday Creek, north of Guinea Marsh and Big Island, if Feather has his geography right. Hoist sail there. It's forty miles or more to the eastern shore. With any decent wind at all, even against the incoming tide flow, we could…"

He paused to use his brain, and it was a painfully dull process.

"Yes?" Governour asked, thinking Alan asleep with his eyes wide open.

"Say… three knots over the ground at the least. We could make forty miles in twelve hours. Fetch the far shore around half past six the next morning, if we left here about half past four or so."

"Have to lay up for the day," Burgess said. "We don't know what the Rebels have for a coast watch on the other shore, if any."

"Yes," Alan agreed. "Then, another thirty miles or so the next night to get out to sea. There are islands off the coast we could lay up in until we spot a British ship. Or skulk from one to the other on our way north. There will be someone patrolling."

"But how do we get out past the French fleet?" Burgess asked.

"We stay close inshore round Cape Charles," Alan told him. "The main entrance they're guarding is south of the Middle Ground by Cape Henry. Nothing of any size may use the Cape Charles pass, and with our shallow draft we could negotiate the shoals close under the cape in the dark, where even an armed cutter could not pursue us."

"What about rations?" Burgess asked.

"Plenty here," Governour said. "Bake enough pone or way-bread for all of us. Casks enough for storage. More water kegs. Meat would be a problem once it's cooked. Or we could slaughter and pack it in brine in small kegs, enough for two or three days at short commons."

"Too bad we could not jerk some meat, Governour," Burgess said. "I have no idea about domestic animals or the chance for fresh game on the eastern shore, or whether it would be safe to hunt."

"Johnny cake and jerky." Governour laughed softly. "Catch crabs and fish for a stew. Alan," he called out, bringing Lewrie back into their conversation, "how long to repair the boats?"

"Oh…" Lewrie pondered, having trouble lifting the glass to his lips. He concentrated on it hard. "Two days. Three at the outside. You would be amazed by what a British sailor can do."

"That long?" Govemour said, obviously disappointed.

"Might take less. I don't know," Alan confessed.

"Two days, then," Burgess calculated. "Time enough to dry out all our powder. We're as helpless as kittens right now."

"There is that," Governour agreed. "We have the one box of cartouches that stayed dry, but that wouldn't make three decent volleys. Lot of smoke for all the labor we shall be doing. I hope it does not attract any curiosity from further up the neck."

Their voices droned on, putting Alan to sleep once more. His head slumped down on his chest and his grip on the wine glass loosened until a small trickle into his crotch woke him up with a start.

"Better get to bed," Governour said, rising to his feet. "You must be done to a frazzle by now."

"No, not yet," Alan countered stubbornly, forcing himself to stand as well. He slurped down the rest of the wine and headed out for the hall to go out back and find a spot where he could take a quick wash. He met the family of the house as they came down the last flight of stairs on the way to their supper in the dining room.

"Evening, ma'am." Alan smiled at their unwilling hostess.

"Sir," Mrs. Hayley said, nodding primly. Rodney glared daggers at him.

"Pardon me delaying your supper, ma'am, but would you have some washing facilities?" Alan asked her.

"Ask of the kitchen staff, sir," she replied stiffly.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"You shall not dine with us?" the younger sister Nancy asked.

"No!" Mrs. Hayley decided quickly, echoed by the son, and earning the woman a withering glance to even suggest such a traitorous thing.

"I thank you for your kind hospitality, ma'am," Alan said, addressing himself to the sister. "But as Lieutenant Chiswick said, we won't intrude on your privacy. I expect our supper will be much later. Duties, you know."

"I've told the cook to set up a table in the parlor for you, sir." Mrs. Hayley softened slightly. "I will not sit down to table with Tories or oppressors who usurp my property."

"Then I shall not delay you further, ma'am," Alan said, stung by the hostility and confused by how it waxed and waned by circumstances.

There was a laundry shed out behind the kitchens, and a black maid to stoke up a fire and set some hot water to steeping. Alan discovered a large tub as big as a fresh-water cask aboard ship that had been cut in half for use as a bathing tub. The servants filled it with well water, poured in the buckets of steaming hot water, and provided soap and towels and a lantern, the youngest woman giggling unashamedly as Alan peeled off his coat and waistcoat, until he shooed her out and finished undressing.

He stepped over the side and sank down into the hot water, giving off a moan of pleasure as he settled down chest-deep. All the salt sores and boils a seaman could expect to gather began to yelp painfully to his weary brain. He lathered up the soap with a rag, enjoying the sting of the lye and the pleasant scent of Hungary Water that had been added to the mixture when it was made. He stood and scrubbed every inch of his skin with soap, undid his queue and washed his hair, then found the buckets of fresh water with which to rinse, lifting them high and pouring them over his head.

"God, that did wonders!" He chuckled as he toweled down. The water had gone grayish brown from all the dirt he had accumulated. There was a knock on the door, the latch lifted, and the young slave girl came back in with a bundle of fresh clothes. Alan yelped in alarm and held the towel close around him.

"Miz Nancy say I fetch ya some frayush linen, suh," the girl tittered, cocking one hip at him like a weapon. "They's planny ta th' house an' no mens aroun' ta wahr 'em."

"Uh, thank you," Alan replied.

"I take yer duhty thangs an' warsh 'em fer ya, suh."

He had to cross to his clothing and empty his pockets while the maid slunk closer, humming to herself and grinning lasciviously.

"Ah kin sponge this hyar coat down, suh. Have ta warsh evathin' aylse. Miz Nancy give ya britches an' clean stockin's ta wayur."

"That was most kind of her," Alan said, trying to keep the towel up with one hand and search his pockets with the other.

"You a real purty mans, suh," the girl crooned softly. "They calls me Sookie, they does. Laws, ah 'speck ah ain't seen sich a purty mans 'bout the place in a coon's age."

"Is that a long time?" Alan huffed. Fuck it, she's only a slave, to hell with modesty, he thought, letting the towel care for itself while he finished emptying his pockets. "What about your overseer, or the boy?"

"Hmmp, Missa Dan'l, he got his fav'rite," Sookie sulked. "An' Missa Rodney, his momma keep a leash on him. An' Miz Sarah, she done sol' mos'a the purty slaves. Not much come down the road no mo', 'cept them Franch mens an sich."

"What French men?" Alan asked, "How do you know they're French?"

"Why, Lordy, they's awavin' they han's an' bowin' an' kissin' so ovah Miz Sarah an' Miz Nancy, ah nevuh seen sich goin's on! Ize Miz Nancy's gal, suh. Ah seen me lo'sa mens ack the fool ovuh the ladies, but ah ain't seen nuffin' lak dat! All blue an' yaller unifo'ms, an' thezh hyar big tall caps look lak sewin' thimbles."

"Hussars?" Alan wondered at the girl's description of a shako. "So they come down the road a lot, do they? When were they last here?"

"Ah… ah, don't recolleck, suh." She paused, having said too much.

"Tell me, damn you!" Alan insisted, taking her arm.

"Two, three days back," Sookie finally told him. "They come down hyar ta sniff 'round the white wimmens. Took off the las'a the field bucks las' time. You ain't gonna hu't me none, is ya, suh, fer tellin' ya 'bout 'em? Miz Sarah'd have me whopped iffen she knew ah tol' ya."

"I won't tell on you, Sookie," he said, releasing her.

"Ah alius git me a spell wif a sargen' when they come. His name be Al-Bear, an' he alius gimme a whole shillin' ta let him top me. Ah cain' tell what he sayin' half the time, but he's some kinda buck, my, my! Ah'd do it wif you fer a shillin', iffen you was a mind ta."

At that moment, had Sookie been a perfumed and powdered Queen of Sheba in his private harem (secretly one of Alan's favorite fantasies) he could not have mounted her to save his life. Damme, the Frogs and the Rebels have been here, and they might come back before we can sail!

"I'd normally be honored, Sookie," he told her quickly. "But I've my men to look after, I can't do anything they can't."

"Ya warn Miz Nancy, don'tcha?" Sookie said, put out by his reticence and misunderstanding his reasons.

"Well…"

"She would'n say no ta a purty mans lak yer-self, suh."

"She wouldn't?" Alan asked, stopping his activities.

"Them Franch's an' sich what comes down hyar stays the night mos' times. Ah knows what goes on in them rooms upstairs." Sookie grinned. "Takes los'a money ta keep this place agoin', it sho do, suh."

"She does it for money?"

"Nossuh, but iffen one o' huh lovers warnta give huh somepin', she don' say no. Miz Sarah now'n agin, too, even she is a dried-up thang."

"Hard times would indeed make a rat eat red onions," Alan said, remembering Governour's comment.

"Sho nuff, suh!" Sookie snickered with him. "You sho you don' warna take a poke at me?"

"Perhaps tomorrow night, Sookie, I am rather tired."

"Ah tells Miz Nancy, then, you warn huh?" the consummate little businesswoman asked, picking up the dirty clothing once more.

"Aye, that would be interesting." Alan smiled, almost shoving the maid out the door. He dressed quickly into fresh stockings, a pair of buff breeches that were too loose on him, a clean linen shirt and neckcloth, and a faded white waistcoat also much too large, idly wondering who they had belonged to before he got them.

His supper was waiting in the parlor before the fire. Two lanterns were lit on the mantel above the fireplace, and the fire was now a cheery blaze that threw off enough heat to take away the autumn chill of the house. The kitchen servant had laid out boiled mutton, a cold ham, boiled corn and beans, more bread, and a crock of fresh butter.

"You look a lot more elegant than when you left," Burgess teased as he sat down. "And the aroma is better as well."

"I have learned something," Alan whispered, raising a hand to shush them. "Our hostesses received French soldiers, not two or three days ago. One's a whore on the side, the older is a schemer who accepts favors in trade to keep this plantation alive and in style."

Alan described what the maid Sookie had told him and then sat back to let the soldiers make up their own minds.

"Blue and yellow uniforms, and hussar fur turbans," Governour said, chewing. "Lauzun's Legion. Cavalry, foot and light artillery. They're Poles, Germans, and renegade Irish, maybe some Scots as well who followed Charles over the water. Used for foreign service such as Senegal. Tough as nails, I'm told. They were up north in Newport with de Barras last year."

"Well, they are here now," Alan reminded him. "And their officers think this the most entertaining spot in two counties. We had better get to work and get out of here soon as dammit before they get the urge to come visiting the widows again."

"And prepare some positions should they come in strength," Burgess added. "Hell, cavalry! They would ride right over us!"

"Keep your voice down, dear brother," Governour said. "We do not want our hostesses to know we are worried about anything. One show of fear and they'd find a way to get word to the other end of the peninsula and do for us. We have to keep up a bold front. How much gold do you have, Alan?"

"About one hundred guineas," Alan admitted, which brought a look of consternation to each Chiswick brother at his wealth.

"Stap me, we could buy the whole damned county for twenty!" Burgess exclaimed. "Think the ladies'd be more amenable to our presence if we flat out bribed 'em?"

"We cannot admit that weakness," Governour countered. "But if we seem to be a source of money, for victuals and such, they might wait for a while before trying to send out an alarm. Even so, we have to close down traffic up the peninsula so tight, a mouse couldn't get by."

"And lay some preparations to receive their cavalry."

"Yes, Burgess," Governour gloomed. "If all else fails, we will have to fight them—and beat them."

"What, the whole of Lauzun's Legion?" Alan wondered aloud.

"Not at first, perhaps a troop at a time. Alan, this girl Sookie, she is a good source of information? Could you get any more out of her?"

"Not really." Allan frowned. "She'd reveal anything for a crown, but she knows nothing. It's her mistress that would know more, but there's no way to make her talk."

"You said she was a coquette, taking favors," Governour said.

"Well, yes."

"As I remember, you gain a lot of information from the whores," the younger Chiswick grinned. "Like you did in Charleston."

"You must reveal nothing to her of our plans, but you must learn more about those French troops who visit here, how many come at any time, how they're armed," Governour said. "Your man Feather and that sailor, Coe, can keep the work on the boats going, but we must have information. You work on that while Burgess and I build up some defenses at the narrows and in the woods."

"Well, if that is what's needed," Alan said. He shrugged. Damme, I've put the leg over lots of times for pleasure, but this is the first time I've ever been ordered to do it in the line of duty!

CHAPTER 12

After being awakened from a drugged sleep on a straw pallet in the front parlor at four in the morning, Lewrie put his seamen to work on the boats. They dragged them ashore onto X-shaped cradles so they could get to the keels, screened from sight with brush, should any patrolling boats enter the narrow inlet and began to repair them.

Alan's barge was in the most obvious need of fixing; most of the morning was spent ripping out her broken strakes, stiffening her broken ribs, and nailing pieces of long tobacco-barrel staves into the gaps, while other hands began the work of shaping heavier timbers for the keels. The household was awakened by the sound of one of their outbuildings being demolished for timbers, yielding two twelve-foot-long beams, eight inches on a side. The beams were adzed down on either end to improve their shape for traveling through a liquid medium, tapering to blunt points much like the beginning of very long and narrow log canoes. A start was made on a center trough in each beam with augers drilled down to a depth that would accept the shallow wooden barge keels, to be routed out later with small axes and chisels.

Other seamen chopped down four decent pine trees for masts and began to strip them of limbs and bark. Round holes were cut into the thwarts that Feather and his older seaman considered the best for holding a mast erect in the most advantageous position for boat trim and efficiency of sail pressure, and pieces were shaped as mast steps for the keelsons.

All in all, it was a profitable morning's work. The lower parts of the extemporized masts would have to be filed down to a smaller diameter, the steps would have to be nailed in, the scavenged barn siding—one-by-six board for the splash guards on the gunwales—still had to be sized and fitted (and were soaking in seawater to soften for bending to match the gunwales), but they had made a good start.

A large pot of pine tar was simmering over a fire, which they would use to pay over the repairs and the entire bottoms of both boats after dinner so that they would not leak any longer; or at least not as badly as they had before.

Alan went back to the house in a much happier frame of mind for his midday meal, thinking that a day and a half would see them off that cruel coast and across the bay, where they could expect to be rescued by a passing British ship. The maid Sookie met him, still flirting heavily even though he had rejected her. But she had his uniform for him.

Once changed, he sat down to a good lunch on the front terrace, where the cook had moved their dining table, it being a lovely fall day, too pretty to spend inside. Governour and Burgess joined him, removing their red tunics before sitting down at table.

"Our hostesses do not dine with us, I see," Governour said ironically. "They were on the back patio. Probably don't want to breathe the same air with us in the house."

"Mrs. Hayley was exercised about our tearing down that shed," the younger Chiswick said. "Alan, she said that if we were to tear her house down around her ears, some of that gold should be forthcoming."

"What do you think a shed is worth, Burgess?"

"Oh, one guinea, at least." Burgess shrugged and poured them all wine. "And perhaps one guinea a day for victuals and such. I cannot really blame them. They won't have a chicken left by the time we get through with them."

"You're being awfully free with my guineas," Alan complained.

"For which we shall gladly reimburse you as soon as we catch up with our paymasters," Governour promised grandly. "We were in arrears before leaving Wilmington, so they owe us a good round sum by now."

"How are the boats coming?" Burgess asked.

"Less said around the house, the better," Governour cautioned. "After dinner we may take a stroll down to the woods where we may talk freely. Alan, have you had a chance to discover any information from Miss Nancy?"

"Not yet." Alan sighed. "I was busy this morning. It may be tonight before I can begin my campaign with her."

"Don't leave it too long," Governour pressed, then shut up as a black serving wench brought out a heaping platter of fried chicken.

It didn't take as long as Alan had thought. Once he had taken a cup of suspiciously good, strongly brewed coffee, he went back toward the northern end of the plantation to rejoin his workers on the boats. But suddenly, there was Miss Nancy, strolling idly in the same direction, shielding her fashionably pale complexion from the autumn sunshine with a parasol. She was turned out in a dark green dress and had obviously spent some time at her morning toilet to make herself more attractive. She was making a great production of swaying her hips, stopping to see each late-flowering bush or meander about as though she was waiting for him to catch up with her, which he did. The sight of him, when she finally turned to face him, was full of sudden alarm.

"Lah, Mister Lewrie, ya gave me such a fright!" she gasped, as though totally unaware of his presence until that moment. Alan tried not to smile; she was about as subtle as an unruly mob of drunks. He had run into her sort before, and the artifice of courtship or the mechanics of the trade with high-classed prostitutes were no mysteries.

"I did not intend to startle you, ma'am," Alan said, approaching her more closely. "Though I must own to appreciation of the color that my fright brought to your cheeks And I am flattered that you would remember my name. I did not recall our having enough time to be formally introduced."

"Oh my, yes, Sister mentioned your name ta me, sir," she said, making motions as though she would have appreciated having her fan with her so she could flutter it before her face for more air.

"And you are Miss Nancy." Alan grinned. "I wish to thank you for the loan of the clothes last night, and Sookie's tending to my uniform. From the greeting we received, I did not think any charity would be given to a King's officer."

"I am so glad ya found my actions charitable, sir," she simpered. "Tory or not, British or not, you are a young man far from home and not a personal enemy. How could I do any less for a fellow Christian?"

"It was most welcome, Miss Nancy."

"Oh, please, Mister Lewrie, do not be sa formal! I am Nancy Jane Ledbetter. But why don't ya just call me Nancy?"

"I would not presume any gross informality, Miss Nancy," he said, playing the gallant buck and enjoying the game. "While I may have your leave, I doubt if your sister would appreciate it, or her son."

"Oh, pooh!" she pouted. "Sarah's such a prune since Elihu died. Not that they were that loving a couple when he was alive. Since he was killed, she's been vindictive ta everyone. What do your friends call you, Mister Lewrie?"

Little bastard, he thought wryly, but said, "'Tis Alan."

"And where ya from, Alan?" she asked, beginning to stroll once more, spinning her parasol coquettishly.

When he told her London, she went into paroxysms of delight and begged to be told all about it, having always wanted to go there. Alan filled her in about St. James Parish and the Strand, the restaurants and the gaming houses, the theatre and what had been new and entertaining when he was last there, what the fashions were and all the gossip that a still-youngish woman would delight in had she the chance to see it.

He was careful, however, during his discourse, to steer her away from the woods at the back of the plantation and the creek where they were working on the barges. If she was disappointed, she gave no sign of it, allowing herself to be led more easterly on their stroll, toward another woodlot on the back of the property that overlooked the marsh.

"What a commotion ya'll started this morning, Alan!" she cried. "We were all roused from our beds thinking the Apocalypse had come. Sister was beside herself when she saw what ya'll had done ta her shed. I suppose ya had good reason."

"Yes, we did," Alan said.

"Ya building a boat or something?" she teased.

Damme if the jade ain't trying to interrogate me instead, he realized with a start. Think of something, laddie. You're a clever liar if needs be.

"A sheltered wharf to land supplies," he said. "We've pounded the Frogs and the Rebels into ruin up at Yorktown and broken the siege. You notice there is no more cannon fire? We expect more troops from New York soon, and then we'll round up what they have here."

Her eyes widened even though she fought it, a moment's consternation, and then a calculating squint as she weighed this news.

"There had been foraging parties down our way," she admitted. "I was under the impression that it was the other way 'round."

"Well, what you hear from militia troops is always suspect until you see for yourself, don't ya know?" Alan said casually. "And if you'd run across some gasconading Frenchman, you'd think they won the war by themselves a year ago, when they haven't done much at all."

"Oh, poor Sarah, I swear!" Nancy sniffed, digging into her bosom for a handkerchief to dab at her eyes as she quickly changed the topic. "She had such hopes that all this would finally be over. How can I tell her? She cannot bear it. And Rodney shall be so crushed that he lost his daddy, and I my Robert, in vain."

"You were married?" he asked, waiting out the histrionics.

"Only in agreement about our future together, nothin' so formal as the banns," Nancy said from behind her handkerchief. "And Rodney admired him so!"

"My condolences to you and your sister, then," Alan said kindly. "I have lost good friends in this war as well. I am sure that you and your sister did have hopes the war would pass you by. I have heard many in the Colonies only want to stay out of danger, not favoring either side."

"That other officer is so hard, ta blame us for our menfolk's politics," Nancy cried. "Surely he must know women have no opinions."

"Rest assured you shall be safe and this property shall not be ravaged. We shall pay for what we use," Alan told her, wanting to get back to the main subject of his exercise with her. "Unlike the others."

"That was sa kind of ya ta offer gold, Alan," Nancy said. "The Continentals have but scrip, and no guarantee of that ever being honored. We could paper the walls with it and get more comfort. As ta that, I wish I could give Sister some assurances about the money. The shed and the stock that's been slaughtered sa far, and all that."

"A little gold goes a long way, Nancy, especially in these times. We could settle up later. Have your sister present a list of what she thinks are fair prices to us."

"I shall," Nancy replied.

"It must have been hard on her, trying to run this farm and all those slaves by herself," Alan expanded on his theme. "Now most of 'em have been sold off, haven't they? And I believe the rest went over to Gloucester at the request of the Rebels?"

"Y… yes," Nancy replied, turning away and trying to remember how much Sarah had said at their first encounter the day before.

"Nothing in the storehouses, no hope of this year's crop and no way to get anything out past the blockade," Alan went on softly. "And the herds much reduced. This war must have pinched you terribly."

"We have managed," Nancy said, plying her handkerchief again for a self-pitying weep. "Though it has been damned hard, never knowing where the funds would come from, or if there would be enough ta eat, even."

"Yet you still set a fine table and have a good selection of wine. And that coffee at dinner!" Alan said. "I have not had the like aboard my ship in months. However did you get it?"

"We have, now and then, had ta depend on the kindness of our good neighbors," Nancy announced with a straight face. "Things do get through your blockade, and there are kind gentlemen who think of us in our need."

Alan laughed to himself. I wager there are!

Nancy turned away once more and began to stroll along the edge of the woodlot, heading for the environs of the main house, this time at a slow pace and without the flirtation she had shown before.

"Times will be better," Alan said to bridge the sullen silence that had sprung up between them. "Once we have reclaimed Virginia for the Crown, you will be alright. Think of the new goods coming in."

"Yes, that will be good," she said, "but it would be even nicer ta think of all the goods going out. We haven't sold even a barrel of our crops since 77."

"Yet they are not here," Alan wondered, considering whether he should have observed that or not to her. Damme, this spying and prying is harder work than getting her interested in bed.

"Sent off inland for safety, up near Williamsburg," Miss Nancy said quickly. "All the planters hereabouts do it."

Was she lying, or did they have some ship captain who would take their tobacco to the Caribbean for transshipment to Europe? There was too much in the way of luxuries about the plantation that could not be easily explained away, but at the same time not enough luxuries to mark them as smugglers or profiteers; else why should they have to sell off the slaves? Alan did not mention the news that Governour and Burgess had given him about those huge warehouses full of tobacco further inland that Arnold and Phillips had burned during their rampage through Virginia back in the spring. Surely, she would have known about it—it would have represented a total loss for them. He decided to switch the conversation to more venal topics.

"But, when you can sell your stored crops, there will be a flood of money again, and your house shall once more ring with laughter." Alan beamed at her. "And Miss Nancy shall charm all the county with her beauty and her grace, as I am sure she did before these hard times."

"Why, Alan Lewrie, how ya do go on!" She flushed happily.

"The fiddlers shall come to play at your balls, and everyone shall want to dance with you," he went on. "As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind doing so myself." He could see that he was coaxing her into a better mood. She really was a pretty little thing, much nicer looking than her older sister. And there was no one around at the moment to see him take liberties with her, and a whole forest to explore her in.

"Were all the gentlemen as gallant as Alan Lewrie, I'd admire ta dance the night away, so I would!" she cooed, swaying her hips in wider arcs and spinning her parasol once more.

"Did we have a fiddler, I would admire to dance with you this very minute," Alan said, stepping closer to her, close enough to feel the heat of her body. "Would you join me in a country dance?"

"What would the darkies think, us capering about out here in the woods?" she complained, but made no move away from him.

He slipped a hand to her waist and brought her idle stroll to a halt. She turned to him, raising her face up to look at him directly. She leaned back a bit from his embrace, but she was smiling still.

"Ya seem a lot older than ya look, I swan," she said softly as he drew her closer. "One'd take ya for a boy at first reckoning."

"One ages a lot faster in a war," Alan told her as their loins touched. The scent of her was maddeningly fresh and feminine, and he had not held a woman since Charleston, nearly two months in the past.

"You're becoming more familiar with me than decency admits of, good sir," she protested, still wearing that enigmatic smile and looking him directly in the face. "And a moment ago, I called you gallant."

He drew her to him even closer, put a hand on her back and brought her face close to his, brushing his lips on hers. She turned her head back and forth to avoid his kisses, but her lashes lowered invitingly, more teasing than in a genuine attempt to break away or deny him her pleasures. He kissed her cheeks in lieu of her mouth, her chin, her neck below her ears, and proceeded on to her bare and inviting shoulders when she made no greater objections.

"Mister Lewrie, how dare you use me so ill!" she whispered as she finally raised one hand to push his shoulder away from her. "This is not done! Slaves are always spying on their masters, and a lady and a gentleman do not give them grist for their amusement. I am not some goose girl ta tumble by the creek such as you did at home."

Just like home, anyway, Alan decided with a leer. Take your pleasures in private and keep the servants in the dark about 'em like you have the reputation of your class to uphold.

"There's no one about," he told her, resuming his exploration of her upper body with his lips.

"You don't know about living with slaves. There's always someone about," she objected. But she did not object when Alan broke away and took her by the hand to lead her into the low trees of the coastal scrub forest. Deep in the underbrush and low limbs and out of sight from the tilled fields and outbuildings, he drew her to him once more. She made futile squirmings to get away from him, but in her turnings and twistings their lips met, and he bore down on her. The hands that were weakly holding him away slowly slid up over his shoulders and caressed his hair, then her arms went about his neck as she returned his kisses. Given enough privacy in which to do so, Miss Nancy was as passionate as any goose girl allowing liberties to a squire's son. When she squirmed this time, it was with desire to draw her length against his.

They knelt down on the forest floor, on the hard sandy soil, and she made all the maddening noises of an aroused woman as he played with her breasts, slid a hand under her voluminous skirts to caress the silky feather softness of her thighs, raising her skirts out of the way so he could press the crotch of his breeches against her bare belly.

"No, no, there is no privacy here, Alan, dear," she protested, and broke away from him, getting to her feet and stepping back to lean on a tree, fanning her face with one hand. "La, what would you have of me?"

Goddamn the bitch! Alan raged silently as he knelt on the ground and wondered if his breeches buttons would burst with the painfully tumescent erection he had. "I would have you right now," he said huskily.

"Not here, dear," she cooed. He rose to grapple with her again, but there was no convincing her. "Can ya not wait until this evening?" she finally said. "Would I have any authority left with the Samboes after the event, I would pleasure ya here, Alan love, but please consider my reputation. It has been so long for me without the feel of a man that I shall not deny ya anything tonight. Only wait a few hours, I beg ya!"

"Tonight, then," Alan grumped, his humors still aflame.

"Ya sleep in the front parlor?" she asked, scheming even as they embraced at the edge of mindless lust. "Do ya get up the stairs, the back stairs off the butler's pantry. Left at the top of the stairs, and my chambers are at the end of the wing in front, over the porch. But for my sake, don't attempt it before midnight, I pray you! Sarah's boy Rodney's a light sleeper, even if he is in the other wing of the house. He does not understand worldly matters so well, and…"

She bit her lip fetchingly to cease babbling things that were best left unsaid. Alan smiled with amusement at the thought of that spoiled and sullen little shit-sack having to watch his mother and aunt entertain the gentlemen that called. If Nancy wanted to play an innocent role, he would let her, as long as he got what he wanted from her, and information into the bargain.

"I must go back ta the house, love," she told him, and began to dust her skirts down to remove the pine needles and sand from them. He helped her, not without taking some more liberties with her body, which she no longer opposed; they stopped to kiss now and then, teasing themselves into more heat, then shying back until midnight could arrive.

"By the way, Alan dear," she said suddenly, "I must have a good excuse to explain why I was conversing with ya so long. May I say that I was negotiating with ya about payment for what ya've taken from the farm so far? If ya could, some gold would be convincing, and I know she would be much less hostile ta yer presence here if she had some in hand."

Alan sighed and dug into his waistcoat. He took out his purse and let her appreciate the sight and sound of it as he dug down and drew out five guineas, bright shining "yellow-boys" that glittered in the sun about as brightly as her eyes at the sight of them. He pressed them into her soft palm and she flung herself on him with as much abandon as any sixpenny whore who had just been handed a shilling and told to keep the change. She trailed her fingertips over the bulge in his crotch, making him hiss with desire. But before he could do anything more, she broke away once more.

"Until midnight, Alan my own," she said softly as she gave him one more lingering, possessing embrace, and then she was gone, calling over her shoulder to mind her instructions and not be overfamiliar with her should they meet at supper. She tripped her way out of sight, still adjusting her gown and pushing at her hair, her parasol bobbing over her shoulder and twirling with satisfaction at their dealings.

"Damme if I ain't one hell of a rake!" Alan crowed softly once she was out of sight and hearing. "Five guineas back home could have paid for a whole bagnio full of mutton, but I swear I think she's going to be worth it. And just wait'll I tell Governour and Burgess about this."

It was only after he was back with his seamen at the creek-side boat yard that he realized that, in terms of information, he had gotten practically nothing from her. He had confirmed that she was a whore and that gentlemen visited them with gifts, but he had already known that. But, he assured himself smugly, he was only beginning to hit his stride with her, and bed talk would be more revealing after a tumble or two.

By late afternoon, both barges had been sealed and repaired well enough to keep them from leaking once they were back in the water. The gunwales had been increased in height to improve their freeboard in any sort of sea, and the keel beams had been tried for fit against the bottoms, which would improve their stability and ballast. Fastening them on, though, would take another half-day's work to drill holes through beams and existing keel members to accept either wooden dowels or iron bolts. The masts were fitted into the pierced thwarts, stepped to the keelsons, rigged by scavenged rope for shrouds, and the wagon-tongue booms and rope parrels ready and in place, though the blocks, halyards, and sheets were not yet mounted, but that would not be a half-morning's labor.

Once he had been goaded into action, Feather had turned out a good amount of work, quite ingeniously, Lewrie thought, and he told him so to mollify the man's feelings from the night before.

"Got an ideer on them leeboards, Mister Lewrie," Feather said with a twinkle as the elder sailor nodded at his side. "Took a pair o' them wagon wheels an' axles offen the fronts. 'Thout the tongues, they ain't goin' nowheres, any'ow. Make 'em inta windlasses, see?"