CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Welcome aboard, Captain Lewrie, sir," Lieutenant Seabright said after Lewrie had doffed his hat to the assembled crew on Sumter's deck and plopped it back on his head. "Captain MacGilliveray has been expecting you, and is waitin' aft," he added, offering his hand, with a grin struggling to split open his face, making Lewrie wonder what he thought of getting introduced to Capt. Malachi "Thunderation" Goodell.
Lewrie cocked a brow at him in query as they stood close.
"Okracoke, sir," Lt. Seabright whispered, sniggering and about to bust.
"Heard o' that, have ye?" Lewrie whispered back with a careful grin of his own. Evidently, the Yankees had gotten wind of Mr. Peel's questions ashore-he hadn't been in the riot!-and the discovery of how completely the foppish Mr. Pelham had been gulled. Despite misgivings that fellow Americans were in the pay of the French, it was proof positive that lofty British aristocracy, the oppressive "Mother Country" in general, was both heels short of a whole loaf.
"Sorry, sir, does it cause you any harm, but ya must admit it s droll," Lt. Seabright snickered. "Ah… Mister McGilliveray. Do you escort Captain Lewrie aft to the captain's cabins."
"Aye aye, sir!" Desmond McGilliveray piped up, stepping forward from his deferential place beside the clutch of U.S. Marines, aquiver with expectation. "Welcome aboard, sir," he stated, face abeam.
"Thankee kindly, uhm… Mister McGilliveray," Lewrie answered, tipping the lad a sly wink and smiling back. "I've, ah… taken the liberty of fetching off a few items which might prove instructive for your nautical education," Lewrie said, swinging a British Marine's issue haversack forward from off his right hip and shoulder. "Some books of mine you may find useful… my first copy of Falconer's Marine Dictionary, the 1780 edition, sorry, but it can't have changed that much… When ashore I did discover an edition of the Atlantic Mercury, which depicts every pertinent feature of the North American coasts and harbours… so you don't run aground more than once in your career, d'ye see, uhm…"
He had also thrown in his second-best set of nautical instruments; parallel rules, dividers, and such, a shore-bought pencil case, folding nib-knife, and a full dozen virgin wooden pencils, to boot; and a small block of Brazilian gum eraser.
Desmond's face glowed as he opened the stained and bedraggled Falconer's and read the inscription in the inside cover: "Alan Lewrie, HIS book, Jan. '80. Like Hell, it's yours!"
"Thank you…!" Desmond gushed, ready to tear up, quickly adding "father," in the faintest of whispers, in such a manner that Lewrie was like to cough, choke, and "spring a leak" as well. He put the book back in the haversack and slung it over his shoulder. "I found something I thought you might like when we boarded our foe, too… sir!" Desmond announced. "A small relict of taking a French man o' war. Well, not such a big foe, but…"
"But 'tis early days," Lewrie assured him. "Who knows what a week might bring? Next year? Uhm… we mustn't keep your uncle, and captain, waiting, though. Or Captain Goodell. As forbidding as they say, is he?" Lewrie asked, with an expectant grimace.
"That, and more, sir!" Desmond answered, rolling his eyes, and looking as if, did naval custom and usage allow, he might fan himself.
"Well, let's get on with it, then. Lead on, young sir."
"I'll fetch your present, soon as you're aft and below, sir."
"That'd be excellent, thankee. And for your thoughtfulness," he told his bastard son, hoping that pilfering valuables out of a prize-ship didn't run in the family blood; recalling a hidden chest of gold aboard a French ship, from which he had "borrowed" a considerable sum whilst in temporary command of her in the last war.
Though I could use money, if he's offerin', Lewrie thought.
Captain Malachi Goodell was indeed forbidding, and did resemble an "owl in an ivy bush," as Capt. McGilliveray had said. Great, fierce glowing eyes flew open as soon as Lewrie was admitted to the great-cabins, then slitted in panther-y study, as he had himself a good look-see. A long, curving, beak-like raptor's nose jutted from the thatch of a sleek, plump beard. Lewrie assumed that Capt. Goodell had teeth and lips under there somewhere, though they were hard to espy. Goodell was as tall and straight as a musket stood on end, and just about that lean. Big hands flexed, as hairy-backed as his chin; big feet clumped on the deck in awkward pique at the sight of their British interloper; legs encased in unadorned, well-blacked boots as tall as a dragoon's-though with the usual knee-flaps cut off.
"So thou art the British Captain Alan Lewrie," Goodell rasped, "of whom, of late, so much has been related to me, sir."
"I am, sir, and honoured t'make your acquaintance," Lewrie pleasantly purred back, even if he did feel the "nutmegs" in his groin pucker and "tuck up" at the sight and sound of that ominous worthy.
"Captain McGilliveray told me thee might come aboard, whilst I was here, Captain Lewrie," Goodell grumbled, "though, surely, he hath told thee of my lack of fondness for the British."
"Captain McGilliveray discovered to me your experiences in the last war, Captain, aye," Lewrie replied, "for which I can but offer a poor and unofficial apology. Times change, however. Circumstances are different, and, one may hope, old grudges are set aside in the face of the new situation which obtains, so we may…"
"President Adams and our Navy Secretary, Mister Stoddert, whom I hold to be otherwise sensible men, order me to share signals with thee, and fodder off thy dockyards and chandleries, to… cooperate," Capt. Goodell rumbled, owl-eyes asquint and teeth bared, turning "cooperate" into an epithet, "but not to take hands with thy Royal Navy openly. Captains Randolph and McGilliveray have already hove up a cable shy of open alliance, sir… for which inconsiderate actions I have chastised them. Now, here thee cometh, with yet another beguiling fruit from off the Tree of Wickedness. To tempt me as the Serpent tempted Eve, as Eve corrupted Adam, sir?" he growled in righteous indignation.
"To present you with a chance to use your Hancock in the way she was intended, sir," Lewrie calmly rejoined, feet apart and hands behind his back. He tried on a grin, and a casual tone. "One would assume by now you've shifted Hancock's battery, since last I was aboard her, and lightened her of end-weight? Captain Kershaw had burdened her with too many guns. So freed, she must represent the very best your nation may field, in terms of speed and weight of metal, so…"
"Shalt never tell thee what armament a ship of the United States Navy bears, sir!" Goodell barked, tilting his head back and looking down his nose.
So much for tarry yarnin' 'twixt professionals! Lewrie thought, wincing; the brute loves me like Satan loves holy water/
"Twenty-four pounders on her lower deck, twelves above," Lewrie surmised aloud, "perhaps even long twelves as chase guns, none of which signify, Captain Goodell. You may black 'em with paint, cruise about and show the flag, even daunt the odd French privateer, then plod home with a trade convoy when your biscuit and beer give out. Or… you could black 'em with powder smoke and eliminate any present, or future, threat to American-flagged vessels in the Caribbean, and ham-string the rebellious slave armies of Saint Domingue, for lack of arms. Whatever designs the United States has on that half of Hispaniola would be furthered, as well, sir," he baldly stated.
"And unwittingly playing cat's-paw to further British designs on that benighted isle, sir? No, never!" Goodell spat back.
"For all of Hispaniola, I don't give a tinker's… fig!" Lewrie honestly told him, though doubting that the prim Goodell would care for him saying "damn."
"So thou sayest, sir, though thy spies yet scheme to seize it," Goodell accused.
"Aye, they do, sir," Lewrie admitted without a qualm, "and much joy may they have in the doing. It keeps them occupied, and gives the Crown the impression they're earnin' their pay. But we both know that the task's a bootless endeavour. Much the same could be said for your agents, too. L'Ouverture, Rigaud, some ambitious Black general no one suspects… none of 'em'll ever trust Whites t'deal fair. Your ships and ours may someday trade there, but that'll be all we'll
do, 'cause the Black rebels will fight tooth and claw, to the last drop of White blood, to stay independent and un-enslaved. We took our shot and lost an hundred thousand men. Britain won't try again, and I doubt that America'd spend her soldiers' lives that prodigal, either. Speak to your consuls, your spies, on Saint Domingue, they'll say the same."
"My country does not spy, I tell thee!" Goodell snapped.
"Moses and his generals did," Lewrie said tongue-in-cheek, "as they entered the Promised Land, sir. Washington did. Every-"
"Thun-der-ation!" Capt. Goodell roared, clapping his hands aft of his back and stomping about to give Lewrie his insulted back. "Infuriating… base… cynicism. Pah! Idolatrous mockery!"
"I am all that, and more, sir," Lewrie cheerfully confessed to him. "Ask Mister Grenville Pelham or Mister James Peel, they'll give you chapter and verse. Our spies, sir… the ones I know of. I care not, does Saint Domingue go 'poof like Sodom and Gomorrah. And no matter what sealed orders you have from your esteemed Mister Stoddert, sooner or later you'll come to the same conclusion. What counts in the end is keepin' all this double-dealin' muck off our escutcheons… and doing the honourable thing in our nations' names."
Goodell whirled about to face him, eyes blared deep in his overhanging hair and cheek-high thatch, this time flatly astonished, as if someone had tweaked Noah on his buttocks.
"Thou just up and names thy schemers, Captain Lewrie?" Goodell hissed, goggling. "Surely, thou art like no British officer it's been my sorrow to experience. Why dost thou do so, sir?" he demanded.
"B'lieve me, sir, you ain't the first ever accused me o' bein' diff'rent," Lewrie said with a self-deprecating chuckle. "As to why, it's 'cause the prize they seek is Fiddlestick's End, when the biggest threat is Guillaume Choundas, his warships, and his convoy, and do you stop his business, 'stead o' me, I care not a whit. Captain Mc-Gilliveray's told you of him, sir? Of his utter, depraved vileness, his penchant for torture, his pref'rence for childr-?"
"Hisst!" Capt. Goodell snapped, raising a hand as if to ward off the Devil himself. "Do not, I conjure thee, sully great Jehovah's own sweet air with talk of such un-natural abominations, sir."
"Sorry, but that's what he is, sir," Lewrie said, admonished.
"Foetid spawn of Satan," Goodell ominously growled, "is what he is! Oh, that noble France could fall under the sway of such evil men! Deluded first by wicked Popery, and despoiled second by those spiteful of even mistaken creeds! Now we see the rotten fruits of a tyrannical Catholicism for what it truly is, where its vaunting pomp and mindless rituals lead… to the very rim of Hell's bottomless pit! Now, they besmirch the sweetest words of all, I say! Liberty, Freedom, and Democracy, wrested from the cruel grasp of an oppressive despot, from the maw of Mammon, the very bed-rock of our new nation, the best hope for Mankind in all the world, is sullied and become accursed, is become a stink in the nostrils of those who'd yearn to emulate us!
"All due to the grievous excesses and bloody-handed terrors of a revolution betrayed, its finest sentiments satanically twisted into a lust for conquest and despotism in the name of 'The People,' for Man not God… its pure authors slain on the altar of… Reason, but not Faith!" Capt. Goodell ranted, his voice rising, as did his bile, arms flogging the air as he angrily paced McGilliveray's great-cabins like a "Leaping Methodist" preacher at a Welsh revival meeting.
Lewrie was, when pressed to it, officially a congregant of the Church of England, hence, leery of too much enthusiasm. McGilliveray was from its off-shoot, what the Yankees had professed since their new Book of Common Prayer of 1789 as "Episcopalian"; in essence the Church of England minus King or Archbishop of Canterbury as defender or final arbiter of the faith. Both looked glumly at each other, fearing that, once launched, the estimable Capt. Goodell might flail and blather on 'til the Second Dog Watch.
"Amen, sir!" Lewrie declared, hoping it might cut him short. A sudden rapping on the great-cabin doors facing the gun-deck provided a better reason for pause, though.
"A Lootenant Adair, f om th' Proteus frigate, sir!" the Yankee Marine sentry called in, properly stiff-backed, but with a taint of a sly dubiousness to his voice, too.
"My pardons, gentlemen," Lewrie said with a frustrated frown on his phyz. Just when Goodell had sounded like he was haranguing himself into some sort of decision, and now thisl "Aye, Mister Adair?" he snapped, tromping forrud as if to say "this had better be good!"
"Beg pardon, Captain, but we've received an urgent query, sir,' 'the immaculate Mr. Adair said in a soft, shy voice, little louder than a confidential whisper, "from the Prize Court ashore, Captain, sir… rather embarassin', really. The prize we left at Dominica, d'ye see? It, uhm… seems to have gone missing, Captain. It isn't there any longer."
"What?" Lewrie all but shrieked. "Mine…! That's…! Hey?" he flummoxed, mindful of a righteous glare astern of where he stood. He crooked a finger to draw Lt. Adair even closer, a few more guarded steps nearer Capt. McGilliveray's chart-space. The revelation was too shameful for even the cockroaches to hear. "Whatthebloody-helld'yemean it's gone?" he hissed almost in Adair's shell-like ear.
"The Antigua Court sent word to the Dominica office at Roseau to fetch her off to English Harbour to be valuated, sir," Adair said, all but wringing his hands, no matter that it wasn't his fault. "But she'd already sailed, sir. The Roseau office thought she'd been sent-for two days ago. Their letter stated that Quartermaster's Mate Jugg came ashore, said that Midshipman Burns and the Bosun's Mate, Mister Towpenny, had got orders to sail here, so they let 'em clear harbour, sir, and…"
"Jugg!" Lewrie muttered, as if gut-punched. "That motherless damned ingrate! Why'd I ever trust him with a rope-end, I… Damn! Back aboard Proteus, Mister Adair, and tell Mister Langlie he's t'get her hove in to short stays. We're off, soon as I can return, myself. A wife and child on, where was it? Barbados! Sure as Fate, that'll be where he's bound. After that, who knows, now he's a'ship, with a rich cargo t'sell. Go, Mister Adair. Be off with you!"
"Aye aye, sir!"
Who else had been in the harbour watch he'd left behind to see to the prize, Lewrie asked himself, purpling with fury at the embarrassment, and dread of monetary loss, in equal measure. What loss to his reputation, well… that didn't bear thinking about without a bottle of brandy near to hand!
Willie Toffett, another hand he'd pressed off a Yankee smuggler in the Danish Virgins; he'd seemed innocent, harmless, and easy-going. Had Jugg led him by the nose into folly? Jugg, damn him! He'd trusted and promoted him, had let him have the guinea Joining Bounty so he could send it as a note-of-hand to his alleged wife and child on Barbados! With the ship, he'd lost Midshipman Burns, too, who was even duller and stupider than he looked, but… to lose an anchored ship in a friendly harbour? And Mister Towpenny, the wily and experienced Bosun's Mate. Surely he'd have stayed loyal, and awake, if Burns had not!
"Something the matter, Captain Lewrie?" McGilliveray enquired, sounding solicitous. "Bad news, is it, sir?"
"Hah?" Lewrie barked, startled from his sudden funk. "Why no, naught at all, Captain McGilliveray. News, of a certainy. For good or ill, well… hate to seem ungracious, but I must be off. Can't dine, as I wished. Captain Goodell, happy to have made your acquaintance. Sorry we could not have spoken further," he said, coming aft to fetch his hat. "Do consider all I said, though, pray. Perhaps when I come back, we may discuss our mutual interests, and discover a way to…" he hedged, wishing to flee before word of shameful foolishness came offshore to the Americans.
"Return, good sir?" McGilliveray pressed, surprised. "You are to sea, Cap'm Lewrie?"
"Fear I am, sir," Lewrie told him, reddening. "Small chore… that sort o' thing. Salutations, and adieu, gentlemen, 'til next we meet." Lewrie sketched out an abbreviated bow in conge, with a hasty sweep of his hat, then turned his back on them and almost sprinted to Sumter?, starboard gangways, and entry-port, thanking God that Andrews his Cox'n had already been alerted, and was standing by, the oarsmen of his gig already drawn fr
om their yarning with the American sailors and waiting for him over-side.
"Captain… Captain Lewrie, sir?" a tremulous voice froze him in his frenzied tracks, though. Desmond had been aft on the quarterdeck, and had scampered forward at the first sign of scurry. "You're going, before dinner, sir?" His new-found son sounded forlorn and abandoned, and for the life of him, Lewrie couldn't depart and disabuse him, was there a king's ransom in the offing.
"I fear duty calls, young sir," Lewrie sorrowfully said, hoping the lad wouldn't be too hurt by his haste, though Desmond's face was clouding up with the quick grief of a broken promise, a dashed hope. "My Mister Adair brought me urgent news, which I must act upon, quick as you can say Jack Ketch. I did hope we could dine together, but…"
"I understand, sir, really," Desmond swore, though his protestation sounded thin. "Time and tide…" he added with a brave smile, and a wise shrug.
"Old Navy sayin'… 'growl ye may, but go ye must,' " Lewrie told him, stepping closer. "Once I'm back, I promise I'll make up for it. A whole day ashore, the two of us, does your uncle, Captain McGilliveray allow. Swear. Cross my heart an' hope t'die."
And how many promises of that sort had he made to Sewallis and Hugh, to little Charlotte and Caroline, in his time? And how many had he broken when Admiralty called! How many vows had Desmond heard in his short time on Earth, too, from those he wished to trust.
"Can't leave without your present," Desmond muttered, playing up manful and game. He pushed forward a hat-box that had seen better days. "I hope you like it, fath-… sir. You will take it with you?"
"But of course!" Lewrie exclaimed, taking the battered hat-box from him, and feeling something inside shift its balance. "Now, what in the world do we have here, I wonder?" he teasingly cajoled, forced to kneel so he could remove the lid, with Desmond squatting down aside him and taking the lid for a moment. "My… word! Now ain't he the handsome one!" Lewrie congratulated, feeling anything but thankful.
Havoc`s Sword Page 37