Reefs and Shoals

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Thankee, Cap’m, sah,” Cooke said, knuckling his hat brim.

  “You can read and write, Cooke?” Lewrie had to ask, surprised.

  “De ol’ Sailin’ Master in Proteus, Mistah Winwood, taught me, sah,” Cooke said with a broader grin. “How else I follah de recipes evahbody give me fo’ somethin’ special, sah?”

  “Very well, then, carry on, Mister Cadbury,” Lewrie said.

  “Anything special for you, sir?” Cadbury asked.

  “Yeovill will see to my wants, but thankee for asking, sir,” Lewrie told him, with a quick grin. “Oh … just as there may be some hot-blooded ‘Brother Johnathons’ ashore who think the Revolution hasn’t ended, keep a weather eye for any French sailors. If that schooner’s a privateer, as I’m sure she is, it’s good odds that her crew will be allowed more liberty than a naval vessel.”

  “We will walk wary, sir,” Cadbury promised him, daunted not one whit and still eager to be off.

  “Take what joy ye may,” Lewrie said, a faint scowl appearing on his face. “I will have to go below and change, to impress.”

  Best, and heaviest, broadcloth wool coat, Lewrie sourly thought; silk shirt and all, no matter how muggy it is. And that damned sash and star!

  * * *

  Instead of his gig, Lewrie took the other cutter, with Midshipman Grainger, and his usual boat crew, with Liam Desmond, his Cox’n, stroke-oar Patrick Furfy, and seven other oarsman, all turned out in Sunday Divisions best, too, with a boat jack flying from a short staff at the stern. And, of course, his arrival at a landing stage a block or two short of Queen Street drew a fair number of gawkers, making him feel as if he was the star attraction in a raree-show. The arrival of a British frigate, Midshipman Entwhistle’s jaunt to bear his note to the Consul, then Cadbury’s mission, with a uniformed Black sailor, had brought out the idlers of all classes.

  “Captain Lewrie, I presume?” a well-dressed gentleman at the top of the landing stage called out to him, thankfully in an English accent. “Edward Cotton, His Majesty’s Consul to the port of Charleston, your servant, sir.”

  “Good morning, Mister Cotton, and thank you very much for coming down to meet me,” Lewrie replied as the bow man hooked onto the stage with his gaff, the oars were tossed and stood vertically, then boated smartly at Desmond’s commands. Lewrie stood, made his way amidships of the cutter, then stepped from the gunn’l to the landing stage.

  They doffed hats to each other, then shook hands.

  “Your note did not inform me that you were a Knight of the Bath, Captain Lewrie,” Cotton said with a probing brow up.

  “Baronet, t’boot,” Lewrie said with a shrug, and a brief grimace. “Too recent t’sink in yet,” he tried to explain.

  “I see, sir,” Cotton replied, seeming a tad disappointed that Lewrie didn’t take his honours as seriously as he, and others of his social level, might have. “Reward for a gallant action, may I ask?”

  “For a battle off the Chandeleur Islands, near New Orleans,” Lewrie informed him. “We stopped the French from landing a regiment, and took four warships and a transport. September, two years ago. No one told us the French would sell Louisiana to the United States, a few months later!”

  “The news of American purchase was an eight-day wonder to all here, too, Sir Alan,” Cotton told him, with a laugh. “A pity that we could not dine you out with the leading citizens of Charleston, on the strength of that … how your actions guaranteed that Bonaparte abandoned hopes of a French lodgement in New Orleans, and France in charge of the vast territories west of the Mississippi. Everyone is simply thirsting for quick expansion of settlements in such a vast virgin land. But … your ship may only stay in Charleston for three days before you must sail.”

  “Hey?” Lewrie asked, confused.

  “Well, Sir Alan, with a French vessel in harbour, the formalities must be strictly observed,” Cotton said. “Admiralty Law, and the neutrality of the United States might have allowed you a longer stay, but for her presence,” Cotton explained, jutting his chin seaward at the French schooner. “Just as your arrival will force Captain Mollien to sail. He could have kept his ship here for some time, yet, but for that.”

  “She’s a privateer, isn’t she?” Lewrie snapped, his suspicions confirmed, and his eyes going from blue-grey to a colder Arctic colour.

  “I strongly suspect she is,” Mr. Cotton agreed, “but … here, now. You will not make any moves against her, will you? Not right here in harbour, mean t’say…?”

  Lewrie’s intensity, and those icy grey eyes made Mr. Cotton fear that Lewrie might be rash enough to attack the schooner outright!

  “In a neutral harbour?” Lewrie scoffed. “Not likely, no sir.”

  Cotton was immediately and visibly relieved.

  “Let us go to my offices, Sir Alan, out of the moring sun, so we may discover the reason for your port call,” Mr. Cotton offered.

  “Delighted, sir,” Lewrie said, smiling again. “Mister Grainger, return to the ship. I’ll be ashore some time, ’til supper at the…”

  “Your pardons, Sir Alan,” Cotton interrupted, “but I do hope you will allow me to offer you the hospitality of my house for the night, and a shore supper. Even at short notice, I could reserve a table at a public dining establishment and invite a few of Charleston’s prominent citizens. Show the flag, all that, what?”

  “In that case, I gladly accept your kind invitation, Mister Cotton,” Lewrie said, thinking that a fresh-water bath would be more than welcome after sponge-bathing aboard ship with a meagre allotment of daily issue. “If it’s possible, there is a Mister Douglas McGilliveray with whom I should very much like to make a re-acquaintance. I met him during the Quasi-War, when our Navy and the United States worked together against the French.”

  “A most excellent suggestion, Sir Alan!” Cotton enthused. “He, of one of the oldest families, and of a long-established trading firm to boot! I’ll send him and his wife an invitation, at once.”

  “I’ll sleep out of the ship for tonight, Mister Grainger,” Lewrie told the Midshipman. “Return for me tomorrow, by Four Bells of the Forenoon. Warn Yeovill and Pettus.”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  “Shall we go, then, Sir Alan?” Cotton bade. “It is but a short stroll to my establishment.”

  * * *

  “You are to fulfill your orders with but one ship, Sir Alan?” Mr. Cotton said, with a shake of his head, after he had read the directives from London that Lewrie had presented to him. “Such a task is quite Herculean.”

  “I scraped up three smaller sloops to help,” Lewrie told him, between sips of hot tea. “They’re prowling round Saint Augustine, at present. We’ve made a small beginning, putting a wee scare into Spanish privateers on the coast of Cuba, scouted the Florida Keys, and took on two schooners in Mayami Bay. Burned ’em. Spanish privateers I expect are as thick as fleas on a hound.… You haven’t seen any o’ them here at Charleston, have you, Mister Cotton?”

  “No Spanish privateers, no, Sir Alan,” Cotton informed him. “A rare Spanish merchantman, now and again, but none have put in in the last few months. American ships, with goods from Spanish colonies, dominate the trade, though there’s little exported to the Dons. The Spanish crown demands a strict mercantilism. It must be imports from Spain, or another of their colonies, carried in Spanish bottoms, or nothing. There is a Spanish Consul here—Don Diego de Belem—twiddling his thumbs and attending parties, poor fellow, with nothing to do for his benighted country. Quite charming, actually.”

  “And the French?” Lewrie asked.

  “Now and then,” Cotton said with a sly nod. “Captain Mollien has put in several times, ostensibly on trade from the French West Indies isles, though there’s never many goods landed, or cargo taken aboard for export. She’s the Otarie, by the way, Sir Alan.” Seeing Lewrie’s brow go up in question, he added, “It means ‘Sea Lion’.”

  “Are you able to determine what he does land, and what he buys in exchange?” Lewrie
asked. “Goods looted from prizes? Powder and shot for his guns?”

  “Thankfully, since my posting here three years ago, I have been able to cultivate good relations with the trading houses and the ship chandlers of Charleston, Sir Alan, so I am able to be made conversant of any violations of American neutrality. To aid on that head, there is a small United States naval presence in Charleston … one or two gunboats … and a cutter from the Revenue Service, to enforce the Customs House officials. I can assure you that no French vessel that puts into Charleston is able to purchase war-like matériel, or lands suspect goods.”

  “Well, good,” Lewrie said, a tad relieved to hear that. That would be one more American port to scratch off his list.

  “What happens in Stono Inlet or Edisto, however, is less sure,” Cotton continued. “If an unscrupulous merchant could load up a small coasting vessel and meet a French privateer, well, I have no purview, and few ways of learning of such dealings. Though, as I said, the U.S. Navy and Revenue Service do keep an eye on the possibility, but not a constant watch.”

  “And Georgetown?” Lewrie asked, squirming in his chair.

  “I look out for our interests in Georgetown, as well, sir,” Cotton told him, “though I do not get up there more than once every two months or so.”

  “I thought to look in on our way South from Wilmington, but wasn’t sure if I could get my ship into Winyah Bay,” Lewrie said. “Are there any chandleries there that could handle the needs of privateers?”

  “Wood, water, and perhaps some salt meats,” Cotton said with a cock of his head, as if picturing the port and its waterfront in his mind, building by building. He then shook his head in the negative. “There is the rice trade, which draws middling-sized ships in the coasting business, river trade up the Waccamaw, Black River, the Pee Dee as far up as Buck’s Port, and commercial fishing sufficient to the local market. Some coastal ships serve the slave trade … clothing, food, and such for the rice plantations, as well as slaves themselves, but most of that comes from Charleston, if it is not grown locally. At Buck’s Port, there is a decent shipyard … boatyard, really … and there is some construction and repair at Georgetown itself, up the Sampit River. Is a vessel in need of cordage, sails, repair work, or powder and shot, they’d most-like call in Charleston … but, as I’ve said, a close watch is kept by the U.S. and South Carolina governments.”

  “Perhaps Savannah, Georgia, then,” Lewrie said with a sigh as he finished his cup of tea, and wishing he could doff his coat and waist-coat and loosen his neck-stock. Though it was only ten of the morning, the Spring day was getting warm, and Mr. Cotton’s offices were stifling.

  “More tea, Sir Alan?” Cotton asked, inclining his head to summon a Black servant in a dark suit. “Perhaps in the side garden.”

  Mr. Cotton’s establishment was a modest version of the grand mansions of Charleston, of only two storeys, not three or four, with his private study, library, dining room, and parlour, as well as his consular offices, on the first floor. The house was walled off from East Bay Street and Queen Street with brick walls topped with ornamental iron fences. Lewrie had noticed a small balcony above facing East Bay Street and the Cooper River, and the wharves, and a larger balcony projecting from the left of the house.

  “Perhaps we could substitute a cooler beverage than tea, Sir Alan,” Cotton further tempted. He rose from his chair and followed the Black house servant to a set of glazed double doors that led out to a side garden. Two or three steps down from the house and Lewrie found himself on a brick patio beneath that projecting balcony where there was a small, round table and four chairs, a pair of wood-slat benches, and several large terra-cotta planters awash in azaleas and roses; there were other flowering bushes and flower beds, though Lewrie could only be sure of the roses and the azaleas. There was a large patch of lawn before one got to the rear of the property where the kitchens were, to separate its heat from the house. Lewrie was amazed to feel a rush of coolness, even a mild, restoring breeze!

  “We will have the citrus tea, Amos,” Cotton ordered from his manservant.

  “Yassuh.”

  “Lemons and limes, wild oranges in season,” Cotton explained, “with an admixture of cool tea. The physicians all say that drinking too much citrus juice in warm climates can ruin your health, but I’ve done it for years, here, and have yet to suffer.”

  “Long ago, I found that a pot of tea that had gone cold aboard ship was refreshing,” Lewrie heartily agreed. “It was drink it, or throw it out, and, with some lemon juice and sugar…! Except in very cold weather, I have a large pot brewed each day. Ashore, I allow myself a whole gallon!”

  “Until the stored winter ice runs out, I prefer it with a sliver or two,” Mr. Cotton continued. “Though, by high summer, ice is hard to come by in Charleston … anywhere in the Low Country. Sometimes I add a bit of sweet Rhenish wine … though that is also hard to come by … the war, do you see.”

  “Were you back in England, though, Mister Cotton, there’d be all the Rhenish ye’d wish,” Lewrie said, sprawling at ease with his booted legs extended. “Our illustrious smugglers could even fetch you Arctic ice in August! French wines, brandies, Dutch gin? Napoleon Bonaparte can claim he’s shut Europe off from Great Britain, but nobody told the smugglers!”

  Mr. Cotton smiled and nodded in agreement, then turned soberer, looking off into the middle distance for a long moment before speaking again. “You know, of course, Sir Alan, that it took some time after the American Revolution before British goods were acceptable again in the United States. I doubt Charleston has seen a British warship in port since their Constitution was ratified. No … French goods were preferred, and still are, do you see.”

  “I saw that in Wilmington,” Lewrie agreed as a large pitcher of the cool tea was brought out on a coin-silver tray, and two tall glasses were poured for them.

  “Especially so here in the Low Country,” Cotton went on after a pleasing sip. “Many of the settlers hereabouts were of French Protestant émigré stock, whose memories of being massacred by Catholic kings and cardinals dimmed considerably. France is elegance, style, and the epitome of gracious living to them, as it is with everyone in America who aspires to grandeur … and believe me, Sir Alan, no one aspires grander than South Carolinians. Now, when the Peace of Amiens was in force, Charleston was flooded with luxury French goods not seen since the first war with Republican France in 1793. The wines, the brandies, and exotic spirits you mentioned, as well as lace, satins, silks, furniture, chinawares, and womens’ fashions from hats to slippers, came in regularly, and were snapped up practically the instant they were landed on the piers, the shopkeepers bedamned. Yet now, that trade is almost completely gone, again, the last two years entire. You mentioned smugglers?” Cotton coyly hinted.

  “Meaning…” Lewrie slowly said, puzzling it out, “if there was a way to bring luxury goods in, people might turn a blind eye to the trade … and what’s allowed in exchange, too? I gather that you suspect that this Captain Mollien is bringing in goods he doesn’t declare to the Customs House … no,” Lewrie said, dropping that thought as implausible. “His schooner’s too small for a second, secret cargo, and if French luxuries are un-available t’honest traders, then where’s he gettin’ ’em? It don’t make sense.”

  “It is only a suspicion, so far, Sir Alan,” Mr. Cotton mused. “Perhaps from the cargoes of British ships he’s taken, who knows?”

  “Not from homeward-bound West Indies trades,” Lewrie objected. “That’s all rum, molasses, sugar, and dye wood. Trades headed to the West Indies don’t feature French goods, either. Where is he…?”

  “Mistah Cotton, sah,” the house servant said, returning to the side garden, “dey’s a gennulmun come t’call on ya, sah. He says he has ta speak with ya.”

  “Tell the fellow I am busy, Amos,” Cotton gruffly said. “Who is it, by the way?”

  “It be Mistah Gambon, sah, the French Consul.”

  “Gambon? Damn!” Mr. Cotton testily snap
ped. “Of all the gall!”

  “One thing the Frogs have in plenty, Mister Cotton, is gaul,” Lewrie japed, “G-A-U-L, hey?” It didn’t go down anywhere near how he wished it, though, for Mr. Cotton was too upset.

  “Amos, tell M’sieur Gambon that I cannot receive him now, but if he wishes to—” Cotton began to say.

  “Bon matin, Edward, good morning to you!” came a cheery, heavily accented voice from within the house as the fellow in question barged right out through the double doors to the side garden. “An’ what a fine morning eet ees, n’est-ce pas? Oh my, oui! Such clear sky-es, such a cool breeze! ’Allo to all!”

  Cotton and Lewrie shot to their feet, Mr. Cotton diplomatically struggling to hide his glower, and Lewrie with one brow up in wonder. He beheld a dapper, balding toad of a man not over five feet five in height, “gotch-gutted” and rotund with good living, and dressed in the latest fashion. M’sieur Gambon’s shirt collar stood up in points to his double chins and splayed out as if to support his head which was as round as a melon, and his full-moon face. Gambon’s sideburns were brushed forward, and what little hair remaining on his pate was slicked forward in a pomaded fringe. His fashionably snug trousers were strapped under elegant light shoes, yet they, and his short double-breasted waist-coat, bulged at the waist like a pregnant woman.

  “You eentroduce me to your guest, Edward?” M. Gambon requested with a wide smile on his face as he handed his hat, gloves, and walking stick to the servant. “He, and hees terrifying warship are ze reason I ’ave come to call upon you, een such haste, after all, dear Edward. Een ze name of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and glorious France, I come to lodge ze strongest formal protest against the frigate’s presence.”