Reefs and Shoals

rule them out.

“Top-lofty bastard,” Lewrie muttered to himself, thinking about Hereford.

“Sir?” Pettus asked, from the bed-space, where he was sponging Lewrie’s best-dress coat.

“Just maunderin’, Pettus,” Lewrie assured him. “Thinkin’ of a man I met in Savannah.”

“Oh, sir,” Pettus replied, “before Lights Out, sir, I think we need a pot of water boiled in the tea-pot. Your sash got all crumpled up in your coat pocket, and it needs a good steaming before it goes back into its box.”

“Aye, boil away,” Lewrie allowed. “Have Cooke heat up an iron in the galley, if ye think it’s needful.”

“Brr, sir!” Pettus commented with his mouth pursed. “Got to be careful with silk or satin, sir. A too-hot iron will scorch them something horrid.”

“Whichever ye think best,” Lewrie said, bringing the mug to his mouth. There was only a swallow left, and he thought of ordering Pettus to tap a second, but forbore.

Georgia… bloody Georgia, he silently mused; the worst maze o’ creeks, inlets, sounds, and channels back o’ the islands of all I’ve seen, so far. Worse than the bayous in Louisiana! If ever a place was made for pirates, smugglers, and privateers, that’d be it. I wish t’God I could linger long enough, I’d be sure t’find something.

Lewrie wondered if his suspicious feeling had more to do with his anger over Hereford’s sloth-like reaction to his suggestion, and his haughty rejection of looking into even the most overt violations of American neutrality, standing on his lofty and too-fine sense of personal honour. If Hereford wouldn’t look into things, and Lewrie couldn’t stay long enough to do it himself, then that left the coast of Georgia, and the port of Savannah, the last area that had not been absolved.

What’d they say? That all the rogues went to Georgia? Lewrie thought with a mirthless grin; Or gets sent there, an Crown expense, to do nothing!

On their carriage tour, their coachee, a Free Black fellow, had pointed out several of the sights, naming each square, and indicating the stately homes by their owners’ names, assuring them that they were all prominent Savannah residents of long standing. He had seemed delighted to mention who the significant patriots of the Revolution were, and what roles they had played. Some homes had temporarily been used by British “occupiers” for headquarters, officers’ residences, barracks, or stables, the churches and their pew-boxes being grand horse stalls. “And o’ course, gennelmuns, dat house on de right, dar, be yo’ Consul’s home, dat Mistah Hereford.”

Dammit, it had been grand; not as large and imposing as its neighbours, the other manses that lined the streets or fronted upon the green public-squares, but it had been impressive enough.

And it didn’t look as if there were any plasterers or painters workin’ on it, either, Lewrie fumed; It was a lot finer than Mister Cotton’s at Charleston. And, just how much does a consul get paid on a foreign station?

Britain’s public services, and government offices, were rife with jobbery, graft, and “interest”. There was good reason for families to wheedle a minor clerk’s job for their sons, for aspiring men to spend as much as ?5,000 to gain a government post that paid no more than ?300 or ?500 a year. Once in place, and assured a life-long living, the sky was the limit on how much they could earn on the sly in bribes. Christ, they even knighted some of the bastards at the end of a long career!

Lewrie wondered if Hereford’s eagerness to see him off quickly was due to catching him asleep in his offices, and most remiss in his duties overall, or did Hereford fear that he might learn something criminal about his dealings if he stayed a night or two?

Hereford could be a haughty, useless fool with a private income from his family in England, or have umpteen thousands in the Three Percents and a slew of annual interest, Lewrie considered. The British pound sterling was worth a lot more than any unit of currency that the United States could ever issue, so an hundred pounds could go a very long way towards purchasing, or running up, a house. A private income, plus his annual pay and expenses for a residence and offices, could be a more-than-tidy sum.

Or, he could be a shifty criminal in league with his country’s enemies! At the very least, making money on the side by looking away, not looking at all, from the dealings of a Savannah businessman.

Damme! Lewrie chid himself of a sudden; If I hadn’t been so angry, I should’ve looked up… what were their names?

During the Quasi-War ’twixt France and the United States over high-handed French boarding and seizure of American merchants who were not trading with France, there had been a “hostilities only” bought-in ship, the U.S. Armed Brig Oglethorpe, fitted out and armed by eager public subscription in Savannah, and crewed by merchant masters, mates, and sailors, for the most part, with a sprinkling of U.S. Navy officers who had no ships in which to serve. She, Captain McGilliveray’s Thomas Sumter, and the U.S. Frigate Hancock, had formed a squadron in the West Indies to protect their country’s shipping, and seek out any French merchantmen they could find, and, most honourably, fight and take any French warship or privateer they encountered, too.

And Oglethorpe ’s captain had been a Savannahan gentleman seafarer named…? Randolph! Lewrie recalled; If I didn’t have my nose outta joint, I could’ve looked him up and asked him a few questions! Too damned late, now!

Lewrie also glumly considered that Randolph might have stayed in the sea trade, and might have been halfway to Canton, China, or he might have passed away of something; a lot of people whom Lewrie had known from his time round Jamaica, and at Nassau, as he’d learned from his recent call there, had joined The Great Majority.

Toulon and Chalky had abandoned his lap and thighs and gone to the middle of the settee to groom themselves before supper, so Lewrie could get to his feet and stroll aft to the larboard side to step into his quarter-gallery toilet to relieve himself of beer. The upper sash-windows were open for the sundown breeze, and Reliant had swung on her single anchor to face her stern up-river, so he could savour another fine sunset as he piddled.

I have t’re-join the squadron off Saint Augustine, he thought; I’ve already been away too long. But, if Darling, Lovett, and Bury say that blockadin’ the place ain’t worth a candle, what’s t’stop me from bringin’ ’em back up here t’prowl the Georgia coast for a bit? Maybe poke into the St. John’s River in Spanish Florida on the way? And, do we use some o’ those boats we captured at Mayami Bay, and keep well to the Spanish side o’ the Saint Mary’s…? Hmm.

As he did his breeches’ buttons up, he stepped to the aft windows for a last peek at the sunset, and a deep, appreciative breath of cooler evening air. The larger merchant ships that had been anchored off Cockspur Island the night before, on the Southern side of Tybee Roads, were reduced in number. There had been four, but now there were only two, surrounded as before with lighters nuzzled alongside like a pack of nursing piglets. Up-river, nearer Turtle Island and Jones Island, the night lanthorns had already been lit on the clutch of smaller brigs and snows, also attended by lighters. Some of the lighters sat lower in the water than others, evidently still full of exports or chandlers’ goods, to be laded in the morning.

And, coming down-river was a pair of those stout and dowdy cargo barges under two masted lugs’l rigs with single jibs. With the sun low on the Western horizon, almost lost in the trees, the sails glowed amber against the red band of sunset, and tiny, glim-like lanthorns at their binnacles and sterns winked a cheery yellow. Quite pretty, Lewrie thought, in all.

Lewrie left the quarter-gallery and shut the door behind him, and took seat upon the upholstered transom settee to continue watching the sunset through the transom sash-windows. The lower halves of the windows were kept closed at all times, so one, or both, of his cats on a romp or gambol in the night, did not fall out and be lost at sea; they needed a cleaning of salt-air rime on the outside, and smudges of paw prints on the inside. He had to stand again to watch through the open upper halves.

The sailing barges stood on, bound for the larger ships which lay off Cockspur Island, almost passing out of view as they neared the starboard quarter. But, they weren’t reducing sail.

What the Devil? Lewrie wondered, going over to the starboard side of his cabins to open the door to the other quarter-gallery, which was used for storage, so he could follow the barges’ progress.

They weren’t stopping at the large ships’ anchorage; they were bound out to sea!

Where the bloody Hell are they goin’? Lewrie asked himself; At this time o’ night? Pettus and Jessop hadn’t bothered to clean the window