Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 ..
Page 39
"That we already know. The list."
Bacon proffered a crumpled paper. "Mostly trustees' names. Excellence. Weren't none of the settlers taken on official when I left. But a military officer was. A lackey of Mr. Oglethorpe told me hisself over
a few glasses. Said his master had looked over half London for the captain. Found him just afore I sailed—name of Anstruther."
Brian stiffened, remembering a hate-filled face outside the opera house, a challenge he couldn't accept; also one he had accepted—at Belgrade. Of course! Oglethorpe had been there, too, as an aide to Prince Eugene. Because of his family, he'd always assumed him to be unswervingly loyal to King James. Why was he now connected with a project so inimical to Spain?
"You know the Carolina coast well?" he asked the renegade.
"Aye, Excellence. I've sailed up and down it from St. Augustine many a time. I know every isle, sound and river mouth. And I've trusty friends in every port. I can be useful, sir."
"Do you know a John Savage in Charles Town?"
"Can't say I do, but I ain't bin there of late. But I do know Cap'n Davis there. He's bin trading along the coast for years. He ain't above giving news, if he's paid for it."
"Good. I will use you. Meanwhile"—Brian took a purse from a drawer—"this should satisfy you for now. I understand you've not mixed with the English factors or sailors here since your arrival. Change your name and appearance and now go among them, but be cautious. Report to me each week." He rose, and Bacon, his thick lips smirking, pocketed the purse and left.
Brian paced the room, thinking of the rogue as a mere cog in the great plan for destroying Britain in America. Another was John Savage, bom Michael Wall. There would be many others.
He smiled thinly. Oglethorpe's mother had been a Wall and Irish born, so Michael must be her kin, however distant. Perhaps he should be sent back to Europe to ingratiate himself with her son. . . . No, better leave him in South Carolina. There were many allies in England of equal social rank to Oglethorpe and the other trustees.
He examined Bacon's list: several peers, some members of Parliament; a few heretic clerg}'men; and the rest all men of importance.
He touched a bell. The Negro appeared. "Estevan, inform Senora Royston I request the honor of her presence."
The servant gone, he clenched his hands. Senora Roystonl But the lie was necessary to explain the child. Bad enough to have given herself to any man, but to a Sasanach! So now she had to pass as the widow of the English naval officer, John Royston, a secret Catholic
and an ardent Jacobite, who'd been lost at sea without ever having seen the son he'd sired.
Here in the New World the tale would be believed. But in Old Spain and among Irish expatriates, his own known loathing of anything Saxon precluded belief that he would ever have permitted Erinne to wed an Englishman, however Catholic and Jacobite.
Protection of her good name was part reason for his taking this post. The other part was that, certain there could be no new Jacobite rising until Prince Charles was older or England could be goaded into war in Europe, he could help destroy British settlements in America and the West Indies. Perhaps this projected Georgia settlement could provide the spark, for it was a direct challenge to Spain. And he, responsible for the Havana section of the vast network of spies which Madrid had spread through all British territory, prayed he could fan that spark into a conflagration.
He turned as Erinne entered. His face softened. It was still incredible that so lovely a creature had permitted herself to be soiled by a Saxon. Yet the child in her arms was damning proof.
"You sent for me, Father?"
"At your leisure, will you copy this list?" He gave it to her. "Compare the names with the information we brought about prominent Englishmen, and make notes about all you can identify. I already know something about two: James Oglethorpe and Captain Ramil-lies Anstruther."
The baby crowed and she looked down at it adoringly. "Oh, Father, I was foolish to fear this climate might harm him. See how he thrives! I know you will rarely even look at him, but please! He grows mightily every day!"
Moved by her plea he bent, and the child smiled up at him, a tiny thumb in his rosebud mouth.
Hazel eyes! Blessed Jesus, where had he seen their like before?
Ram drove his people hard; a frame house was half up and the garden lot planted. Each day he visited the Yamacraw village, taking gifts to the old mico and others. Already he had picked up some Creek words, especially from Toonahowi, who had acquired a little English from the Musgroves and was eager to learn more.
He also visited the soldiers. The regulars were commanded by En-
sign Philip Delegal, whose heutenant back at Beaufort was his own father, Phihp, senior. Belonging to no regiment, independent companies were raised for permanent service in the colonies and were trained both as artillery and foot. But their men, aware they had small chance ever to return home, were lax and indifferent.
The rangers were of another stripe, being Carolinians by birth or adoption. And their captain, James McPherson—said to have fled Scotland after the '15 rising—had picked them well. Short-term volunteers, all were expert in the woods or at handling the frail Indian canoes; could fight afoot, mounted or afloat. Damme, they were even better than dragoons!
But as McPherson was too shorthanded to lend him any of them, Ram chose instead young Toonahowi and two other Yamacraws, Hillispilli and Stimoche, alias "Goggle-eyes," whom he mounted on his own horses. He himself rode Alan and took two mares as pack animals.
They followed up the Savannah, finding the going hard since they had to cross several tributaries, between which were wide marshes and, inland, impenetrable thickets. Too, the low ground swarmed with mosquitoes, reminding Ram that wherever he had found them in India, there had also been fevers. Certainly this was not the site for his grant. But each day he mapped the area covered, meanwhile learning more of the Creeks' language and ways. Their woodcraft and skill in tracking game fascinated him and he tried to be their apt pupil.
They swung southward toward the Ogeechee, a river not so great as the Savannah. The country became more open for some way, with several broad savannahs, and when the forest closed in again they traveled a well-marked trail that brought them to a ford on the river. Beside it stood the ruins of an old English fort, which Ram thought badly sited. They crossed and rode down the right bank for miles, through good open pasture land. Just where a tributary forked into the Ogeechee, Ram saw a far better site and made a careful plan of it.
Further downriver, he picked his grant. Just where the forest gave onto open land sloping toward the sea, the river turned sharply north, then bent back upon itself so that the ground it enclosed formed a long, high peninsula whose neck was not two furlongs wide.
It would make perfect commonage for anyone having a plantation across its head. Also it was free of mosquitoes, averaging about twelve feet above the water, which was sweet upstream though brackish just below, being tidewater. Next day he made a complete map, rode to find where the river emptied into Ossabaw Sound, then headed back to Savannah.
"Never knew you were an engineer," Oglethorpe beamed. "Now, as to that ford. You think a new fort would be better downstream? Hm, perhaps I'd better send McPherson too." He smiled apologetically. "Have to handle these colony men gently. They're all cursedly touchy if we don't forever run to them for advice."
Ram laughed. "I'm only going on what the Yamacraws say and what I'd do myself. Besides, there's good growing land there for the garrison's food."
"Excellent! I've a mind to name it Argyle, after my kinsman the Duke, who's so greatly aided us at Court. But your own grant? I'd have thought you'd take it along our own river."
"Too many swamps and likely too many agues. I had my fill of both in Hindustan. Where I've chosen—by your leave—it's high and defensive too."
"Then have our surveyor run it for you. But, lookee, I don't want to lose you here yet. I need your help with the town militia."
Ram returned south, taking Rob, Dave Lann and others. Wells had to be sunk and cellars dug. For foundations he followed Colonel Bull's advice and used blocks of tabby; a concrete mixture of sand, lime and burned oyster shells—the last mined from huge mounds left at the river's mouth by long-dead Indians. Seth Whiston, the mason-bricklayer, found good clay nearby and soon a kiln was fired. Once the main house was up, Rob's, Joseph's and Peg-Leg's would be built, the whole forming a miniature interlocking fortress.
Peg-Leg, meanwhile, had become a shipowner. Since seeing shallow-draft piraguas he had wanted one, and now had bargained with a Charles Town man for a thirty-tonner, with a single lugsail and able to be rowed by only two oars. "Didn't I tell ye, Captain, you'd never regret having me along?"
he gloated, "Why, I can bring all our stock and stores from Savannah in a few trips and save ye cutting a road through the woods." He was as good as his word, and later Oglethorpe hired him to transport materials up to Fort Argyle, which McPherson was building just where Ram had suggested, some twelve miles upriver from the bend.
When Ram got back to Savannah, he was pleasantly surprised to find Lucinda there. And though full of Carolina doings, she now seemed reconciled to Georgia. "I'll make a worthy home for you here, my love," she vowed. "Mr. Causton says his lady and other gentlemen's ladies arrive soon. La, we'll excel Charles Town itself!"
Her new spirit delighted him. The blow, therefore, was the harder when he found she had drawn on him for £500 Carolina currency, in addition to the 200 guineas he had given her,
"How could I avoid gaming?" she sobbed contritely. "Surely you'd not have the Carolina gentlefolk think we're penniless Trust immigrants." Oh, she'd make it up to him. She'd be responsible for the silk they must produce; she'd tend the mulberry trees, feed the worms, unwind the cocoons, learn to spin the threads.
He forgave her, as he'd have forgiven a wayward child. But when he returned to the grant, she begged to remain behind until at least the building was done. So he went back to driving his people to get the houses roofed and habitable.
But in August Peg-Leg, bringing materials for Fort Argyle, also brought her, and she was hysterical with terror. "Take me home!" she implored. "I can't stand more. Take me home at once, d'ye hear?"
A plague was devastating Savannah; already a dozen folk had died and others were sickening daily! Why, why, she moaned, had he dragged her to this accursed land? Though discontented because the house was still unfinished, she swore she'd never leave it until he put her aboard an England-bound ship.
Peg-Leg confirmed the deaths. "And they're mostly the hale men, sir. Squire—so Mr. Oglethorpe's called now—says 'tis because they was guzzling rum like water. Drink it neat. Then they gets a fever in their heads and they kicks off. Squire's forbid the Carolina traders to bring more rum ashore." He grinned. "I like me tot, too, sir, but I make a punch and it goes down easy. 'Tis hellfire when ye swigs it neat."
It was terrifying news. But was it rum or some strange American
disease? Remembering cholera, Ram decided that at the first sign of it upon his grant, he'd take all his people home—and to hell with Georgia.
But all was well, and each day the main house grew. Already it had its roof, atop which would be a big platform, solid enough to take a watchtower and swivel guns to command the river.
Ram had pondered long what to name the plantation. The Bend? . . . Tlie Elbow? . . . Ogeechee Manor? Then one twilight he and Lucinda were walking on the peninsula behind the house. Watching the river flowing past, she said casually, "With our five hundred acres and all this for grazing, we've a fine estate indeed, and with a shore on three sides of us."
"That's it!" He kissed her. "That's the name—Shoreacres!"
The Georgia pink arrived with more settlers and many trust servants. There came a shipload of Sephardic Jews, who had gone to England originally to escape the Spanish Inquisition, and their doctor did much to check Savannah's fatal epidemic. The Lacy brothers brought servants and took gentlemen's grants at Thunderbolt near the town. And many others came.
At Shoreacres, two more children were born, the stock multiplied, a fair crop was harested. Ram became a licensed trader and put Rob to running the store; though, because no rum was sold, not many Indians visited it.
Early in the new year Rob, his face bruised, came contritely to confess that Dave Lann had stolen his stallion and some money and run for Carolina. "Nay, let the bastard go," he begged angry Ram. "I'll buy the time of a Trust servant to replace him. Dave's no more use now the wells are dug. He's but a pick-and-shovel miner."
"Or a smasher of your face!" Ram growled, remembering the talk he'd overheard between Lucinda and Margot that first night at Savannah. "So it's true Nell's young Davie is really yours!"
Rob squirmed. "You know Father! When the wench got with child he'd ha' turned her away. Aye, and me too, likely. So I paid Dave ten guineas to wed her and bring her abroad. Jealous, the sod's been, each time I looked at her."
Ram studied him. He wasn't ill-favored; women liked him. If now he devoted his attentions only to deserted Nell, no great harm was
done. But if he dallied with the wives of other senants or, worse, with the young squaws of Creeks who came to trade, he'd get worse than a beating.
Chastened Rob swore he was cured of such games and might visit Savannah, where the late epidemic had left several comely widows.
Oglethorpe bent over Lucinda's hand. "Your husband will be gone but a few days, madam. And my deepest thanks for your fine hospitality. Indeed, I've not tasted such fare since we've been in the colony." Waving to the crowd, he stepped into the scout boat.
How flattery heightens her beauty, Ram thought, with a surge of his old devotion. "Have no fears and leave all to Joseph and Rob," he assured, kissing her. "God be wi' ye, dearest." He shook hands with the men, waved to the others and joined Oglethorpe in the boat.
Ten oars bit the water and the sturdy craft shot midstream into the ebbing current that sped it downriver.
"You've already charted this stretch, eh?" Oglethorpe asked.
"Yes, and out into Ossabaw Sound." Ram reached for his charts. "Now I can add what lies south."
"I didn't think I'd snared a cartographer and a military engineer," the other laughed; then swore as an alligator slid off a marsh hummock into the water. "Curse the brutes! They frighten our folk most damnably. Only last week I had to wound one and have it dragged ashore for the boys to beat to death with cudgels. Only way I could convince 'em it wasn't some fiery dragon about to gobble 'em up."
The skipper, a Carolina Scot named Ferguson, touched his forelock. "Do we skirt outside the islands, or attempt the inland way?"
"Inland," Oglethorpe decided. "I want to find a safe channel southward for piraguas and small craft."
As the scout boat nosed between marshy islands and the still marshier mainland, he and Ram took soundings and sketched the coastline. With the help of Hillispilli and young Toonahowi, they identified outstanding features: Ossabaw Island, Santa Catalina Sound and Island, Sapela Sound.
The short day waned and rain came, so they put in at Sapela Island. Soon a driftwood fire roared under a great evergreen oak, and a palmetto-leaf shelter was rigged so that Oglethorpe and Ram could
work further on their charts by lantern Hght. Then all hands ate, and drank molasses beer.
Lying on his blanket and listening to the battering upon the leafy roof, Oglethorpe sighed contentedly. "There've been times when I'd have gladly thrown Georgia and its people into the sea. But not now. This is bhss."
"Aye, there's nothing better," Ram agreed, remembering how the rain used to patter on Cart so long ago.
"Don't you curse me for taking you away from your lovely spouse to come voyaging in the rain?"
At that Ram stiffened. W
as the constraint between Lucinda and himself so obvious? Damn him, 'twas he who induced me to marry! he thought. Now I have, 'tis my concern and I'll not have him prying.
"Yet sometimes it's good to escape the gossamer web," the Squire continued. "At least, so I've found."
"How can a bachelor know?" Ram challenged, half angry.
"My friend, recall I've a bevy of strong-willed sisters. And my mother was stronger than 'em all. From my childhood they decided what was best for me, as well as for Brother Theophilus." He paused and then said, "Now you'd offer your sword to any prince, as long as he plotted no harm to England, eh?"
"Why not?" Was this some offer to play the traitor? "Once I did fight the H.E.I.C.," Ram conceded, adding significantly, "but I was tricked into it."
"So I heard. But my case is different. You've doubtless heard of my family's loyalty to King James—yes, I dare to call him that, for it's a stupid lie he's a changeling who was smuggled in when the true prince was born dead. I should know, for 'tis said my older brother James was the substitute and is now known as the Pretender. But it was my luckless brother who died. His name was passed on to me when I was born eight years later."
"I've heard how a babe was smuggled into the Queen's chamber in a warming pan," Ram chuckled. "All the Whigs swear to it."
"Only to goad the Tories. But ye may recall I left Prince Eugene after Belgrade to travel in Italy. There Theo presented me to throne-less James, and it was all arranged I'd be trained as a plotter in his service. Oh, I admit I was tempted, I was young and he most gracious; I even smuggled some of his letters into England, and my sisters
thought I was safely enlisted. But soon I remembered my father wasn't too stiff-necked to bow to King William instead of to the discarded king. So I bowed in turn, for we're too civilized today to expose our country to futile counterrevolutions."
Ram was remembering the summerhouse. Oglethorpe sounded sincere. "There are many with no great love for our Germans/' he insinuated. "And the Stuarts were long our legitimate monarchs."