Havoc`s Sword

claret from my lazarette stores as a gift to you.'

'You are quite kind, sir… I am most grateful for your thoughtful present,' McGilliveray, a well-knit fellow in his late thirties, said with a wolfishly pleased look. He was not Red Indian dark, but seamanly dark, and sported an abundantly thick thatch of ginger-blond hair, too. Nothing like what Lewrie had expected. 'Given our present set-to with the French, you can imagine that claret is neither readily available in the States, nor anyone's first choice of potation, in public at least. Though what folk wish with their suppers is another matter, entirely. I fear our smugglers aren't as capable as yours, Captain Lewrie,' he japed with a sly twinkle.

'Yours just have farther to go, Captain McGilliveray,' Lewrie responded in kind, accepting a glass, 'whereas our bold English smugglers have but to cross 'the Narrow Sea.' I expect the Channel Isles'd float, for all the casks and bottles hidden in every cave and cove. As for me, though, a friend of mine… just recently removed to the Carolinas by the way… introduced me to American whisky. With such near to hand, 'tis a wonder anyone in the United States would care whether claret is available, at any price.'

'Then in return for your kindness, sir, allow me to give a man who truly appreciates good corn 'squeezings' a barricoe of our 'portable grain'!' McGilliveray exclaimed. 'After all the troubles we have had regardin' whisky, lately, I'd admire to introduce you to the best upland, Piedmont distillation.'

'Highly gratified, sir, thankee,' Lewrie truthfully told him. 'Tis mellow, amber, and actually aged, much like a good brandy in oak wine casks,' McGilliveray enthused. 'None of your gin-clear or week- old 'pop-skull,' either. Some think it rivals the best brandy.'

'Trouble with whisky, sir?' Lewrie asked, once glasses had been shoved into every hand, and McGilliveray had waved them into seats.

And Capt. McGilliveray took a gleeful five minutes to describe a recent 'Whisky Rebellion' by back-country settlers who had objected quite vehemently to a mere penny-per-gallon tax on whisky, possibly the major trade item in the back-country, and in most instances the only medium of exchange, a replacement money, the coin-strapped United States had. It had taken Gen. George Washington and a call-up of the various state militias to form a field army to put it down; though once the 'Riot Act, ' in essence, was read, the rebellion had melted away.

'Excuse me for asking, Captain McGilliveray,' Peel said, 'but I was under the impression that your earlier Articles of Confederation, and your Constitution, prohibited your federal government from interfering with the sovereign states, especially with armed force.'

'Aye, they do,' McGilliveray, replied, frowning, 'and it was indeed troublin'. Given how much Britons distrust a large standin' army, you can certainly understand our misgivin's… though it had to be 'scotched,' else our fragile new economy'd collapse. You ask for a payment in coin back home, taxes in coin, and God knows how folk'd be able t'pay you. Alexander Hamilton and his new national bank, well… mind you, Mister Hamilton's as patriotic as anyone, but it does sound so Frenchified and coin- hungry a proposition, that a great many folk hope it'll never see the light o' day.'

Lewrie had taken McGilliveray's exposition on the rebellion in mostly one ear, taking note of his surroundings, not asked for more than the occasional 'do tell' and 'egad' to show interest.

Where the USS Hancock's Capt. Kershaw's great-cabins had been the' opulent quarters of a wealthy man, those of a rich and titled man back in England, McGilliveray's were spartan in the extreme. Lewrie knew he was related to a rich mercantile family, and obviously had been educated at considerable expense; his speech alone told him that. The decks were covered with nailed-down and painted canvas, the colour a drabbish solid brown, not the black-and-white parquet chequer of a British man o' war. The interior panels were off-white, and not a single painting graced them. His desk in his day-cabin, his chairs and such, were crudely made, dull-finished, and almost graceless. Sailcloth curtains could be drawn to cover the transom sash-windows in the stern, but the drapes seemed an after-thought, and made from parchment-tan used sail scraps. Lewrie took a peek at the waiting dining table; dull platters and place settings of dark pewter awaited them, with but two four-hole candelabras and a lone pitcher of bright-polished pewter in the centre. The glasses were nondescript, befogged by long use and many scrubbings by clumsy servants, in seawater most-like.

Whale-oil lanthorns hung overhead-mica panels set in lead-dark pewter or old tin, and not a single glint of brass to be seen anywhere in the great-cabins, not a single family portrait, nothing personal to Sumter's captain. Lewrie was put in mind of the poorest village pubs and coaching inns he had ever seen. Was McGilliveray a poor relation, or as abstemious as a prelate in a poor parish, eking out his dignity on the widows' occasional charity and ten scrimpy pounds per annum?

Damme, what do they pay Yankee captains? he had to ask himself.

He did set a good table, though, with boiled shrimp, done in a Low Country spice-broth, roasted chickens, odd yellow-orange potatoes that he called yams (and were quite sweet with a slather of his fresh butter), beef-steaks from a fresh-killed bullock, and miles fatter and tenderer than anything he could have purchased from the British dockyard, with lashings of cornmeal bread, island chick-peas with diced onions, and a tangy mid-meal salad. Wine flowed, as did whisky, and Lewrie noted that Lt. Seabright, Capt. McGilliveray, his First Officer a Lt. Claiborne, and a fresh-faced midshipman, introduced to him as one Desmond McGilliveray, freely imbibed the whisky like mother's milk!

Politics and religion were, of course, banned topics, and anything related to 'business' was out, too, so supper conversation was limited. Americans and Britons shared little in common, the last fifteen years since the end of the Revolution, but a common language, and even that was beginning to diverge. They did not share music and song as they evolved, nor dramas, nor even London or Court gossip.

Needless to say, the aforementioned yams came in for a lot of praise and discussion, which led to longings for fresh-killed venison, comparisons of 'furrin' dishes they'd come across in their voyages, or the more exotic social customs witnessed, so long as they had nothing to do with prurient or bawdy talk, accompanied by winks and nudges.

Food, it seemed, was safest, with farming practices coming in a strong second, and Caribbean cuisine third. Lewrie held forth for the Chinese or Hindoo cooking and seasonings, which led to questions about his adventures in the Far East 'tween the wars.

'A little covert work, Captain McGilliveray,' Lewrie told him, with a wink, ' 'bout the time your first merchant ships were putting in at Canton. Many of ours, and more than a few of yours, were disappearing. More than could be blamed on local pirates. Admiralty sent out a strong Third Rate disguised as a 'country ship,' not part of the East India Company, and sure t'be a prime target. Turned out t'be a French plot, hand-in-glove with Mindanao pirates, to build an alliance that'd capture everyone's trade but theirs, the next time war came. Well, we put paid to 'em, in the end. Couldn't blurt out that the French had a disguised squadron out there, any more than we could reveal our own… 'twas a hard three years, all in all, but it came right, at last.'

And God, but 'twas priceless the startled, uneasy look on Mr. Peel's face as he sketched out the nub of the tale! That mission, any of its sort, was supposed to be held forever 'under the rose'!

Wait for this'un, then, Lewrie mulishly thought as Peel pleaded with his eyes for silence and no more details, concluding with a harsh glare of warning.

'In point of fact, the Frenchman who led their activities there is now here in the Caribbean, on Guadeloupe,' Lewrie told them, with a secretive hunching forward, as if sharing the unsharable. 'His name is Guillaume Choundas, and I'm told he directs their privateers and minor warships. Brutally ugly fellow,' Lewrie said, describing Choundas's current appearance. 'You run across him, you would do your nation the greatest service by eliminating him. He's the cleverest brute ever I've come across. Most-like sent out to counter your navy's presence here.'

'Don't you wish to finish him yourself, Captain Lewrie?' young Midshipman McGilliveray asked, his eyes alight at the prospects. Evidently, the U.S. Navy was not quite as tolerant of outspoken 'gentlemen in training,' for his captain (uncle?) glowered him to abashed silence, and the teen reddened and ducked his head.

'I'd give my right arm, young sir,' Lewrie declared. 'And save the world a great deal of future grief. Though I very much doubt we'll ever heave in sight of one another. Just so long as somebody does. I will spot the victor a case of champagne, do I hear the glad news. My word, what a coup that'd be for your new navy, what?'