Thursday, August 18, 1814
Chapter Three
New York City,
the South Street Docks, 11 A.M.
WILL FARRELL was twelve years old. The last three of those years he’d spent most daylight hours one hundred sixty feet above the earth, atop the Devrey tower overlooking the recently built South Street docks.
Will’s vantage point allowed him to see the activity on the docksides, across the great sweep of masts in the harbor, and past the harbor islands to the Narrows. If he made a half turn to his left, he could see Long Island, the farms and houses of Brooklyn Village at the foot of the Old Ferry Road, and out to the open sea beyond Gravesend. When Bastard Devrey added the South Street docks to the dozen he owned on the East River side of Manhattan and built his tower, he’d reckoned a sharp-eyed lookout with a decent spyglass could see twenty miles. Will had repeatedly proved himself sharp-eyed—and clever with it.
Will spotted the arriving vessel when she was only a speck of white on the horizon, but he didn’t immediately descend from the tower to raise the alarm. The day he started the job, old Peggety Jack, who ran the porters and suchlike on the Devrey docks, told him what was expected. “Don’t matter so much knowin’ first, boy. It’s knowin’ more what puts brass in Devrey pockets. And your own, come to that.” Peggety had only one tooth, which hung over his lip like a fang. Folks said he was maybe the oldest man in all New York, but anyone who worked for Devrey’s and wanted to get ahead could do a lot worse than listen to Peggety Jack. “Don’t go off half-cocked, boy. Keep your powder dry till you’re sure.”
The ship was different from anything Will had seen since he’d been doin’ the job, but that didn’t mean it was the Devrey East Indiaman, China Princess, trapped in Canton near on to three years since the start o’ the war. A few months back there was talk of how she’d decided to make a run for home. Bastard said if she had, and if she managed to slip past the British warships and the French privateers, it’d be the greatest thing as ever happened in this city. Didn’t say it to Will Farrell, of course. The likes o’ Bastard Devrey didn’t talk to lookout boys. But Bastard sometimes appeared at his South Street warehouse soon after dawn, when Will was drinking a last cup of ale and hot milk before climbing up to his post. And Will’s ears were as sharp as his eyes, for all that wasn’t why Bastard paid him twenty coppers a week.
Holy Lord Almighty, he’d never seen a ship come that fast. One by one her sails rose above the horizon. The royals appeared first, then the topgallants, and beneath them, taut and bellied with wind, the topsails and mainsails of her three masts. Will lowered the spyglass, blinked rapidly to clear his vision, then raised the glass again. If it was China Princess she would—No, it couldn’t be. This ship didn’t move like an East Indiaman. Her bow didn’t lift and plunge with the ocean swells. Instead her sleek black hull seemed to glide on top of the water. A merchantman, but for speed and grace such a one as he’d never seen. “Ship ahoy!” he screamed. “Ship ahoy! Ahoy! Ahoy!” Stupid to yell now when no one could hear him except the clouds, but he did it anyway, dancing up and down and shouting until he was hoarse. “Ship ahoy!” Soon he could see tiny men clambering up into the rigging, beginning to reef sail as the ship made for the harbor.
For a moment or two he was distracted by a pilot sloop setting out from the Narrows to guide the newcomer to a mooring. By the time he again directed the glass to the approaching merchantman, she had raised her house flag. Red, and decorated with some sort o’ beast breathin’ flames. For sure and certain not the gold lion and crossed swords on a green field that would mark the arriving vessel a Devrey ship.
The morning was hot and getting hotter. He’d removed his jacket and his hat, but Peggety Jack’s orders were that he always had to be in proper Devrey livery when he was on the ground. Will jammed his black stovepipe on his head and struggled into his green-velvet cutaway as he climbed down from the tower, all the while shouting “Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!” at the top of his voice.
The men doing business at New York’s taverns and coffeehouses and crowding the city’s narrow, twisting streets knew there was a ship coming before Will Farrell did. Jacob Astor maintained a lookout eight miles away, in New Jersey atop the Navesink Highlands, and he had as well a series of semaphore stations between there and his countinghouse on Little Dock Street. The cry of “Ship ahoy!” had been raised ten minutes past. But it was Astor’s way to let as little as possible be known by any of his rivals. Only Will Farrell brought news of what sort of ship she was, and the markings on her flag.
He ran the whole way between South Street and Wall Street. The town, always bustling with ordinary New Yorkers, was these days heaving with militia come from miles around to defend her in case the British attacked. Rumors that such an attack was imminent were born, killed, and resurrected at least three times every day. To get to the Tontine Coffee House, where Bastard Devrey was most likely to be found, Will had to elbow his way through the throng. When he pushed open the heavy oak door, he was breathing hard and pouring sweat.
A black man, a waiter wearing a long apron and carrying a shoulder-high tray of mugs of ale, spotted him. “You be looking for someone, boy?”
“Aye. Mr. Devrey.”
“Mr. Devrey be upstairs with the traders.”
Will fought his way to the back of the room, then took the stairs two at a time. Once before, he’d brought Bastard Devrey news of an incoming ship, and got a copper penny for his trouble. Could be two this time. Ship ahoy!
Bastard Devrey was standing by the window with most of the other traders. He turned and saw Will. “Over here, boy,” he called.
The crowd parted and made way for him. Will ran toward his employer.
Devrey waited, his mind racing and his heart starting to pound, though he exercised every scrap of will not to let his excitement show. The lookout had to have been sent by Peggety Jack, and Peggety wouldn’t do that unless it was bloody important. Which could mean that a miracle had occurred just when, God knew, he needed it most—the ship Astor’s people had announced, the one they were all waiting for, might indeed be China Princess, a seven-hundred-tonner with the biggest cargo capacity afloat.
Change his life that would. And it would be good to see the lad again as well. Fourteen Bastard’s son Samuel was when he sailed to Canton on China Princess. The voyage meant to give the boy a taste of what the business was really about had marooned Samuel on the other side of the world three years now. Celinda would be tickled pink with his return. Not that she’d turn up her nose at the money.
Sweet Christ, he hadn’t let himself hope, didn’t dare. Now his heart was thumping in his chest loud enough so he feared they’d all hear it. And why not? Given how this bloody war had starved the city for the stuff of trade that was her life’s blood, he’d make a fortune on the tea and silk and porcelain in the Princess’s hold.
“Mr. Devrey, sir, it’s—”
“Hold your tongue, lad! At least until you’re close enough so I can hear you and the rest of these rogues cannot.”
Bastard Devrey bent over, and the boy whispered his message into his employer’s ear. “Peggety Jack sent me, sir. To say ship coming’s a merchantman. And her flag’s red with a beast breathin’ fire.”
Devrey kept an iron grip on the lookout’s shoulder, so he could stay bent over long enough to get his disappointment under control. The poxed, whore-spawned sons-of-bitches were all staring at him. Waiting. They’d been waiting for some months, salivating over the thought that Jacob Astor had nearly ruined Devrey, that these days all it needed was one more little shove, and the carcass of what was left of Devrey Shipping would crumple and fall to dust. He’d see them all in hell first.
“Is the boy telling you next Sunday’s entire Bible lesson, Bastard?” someone called out. “Come, man, share the news.”
Devrey released his hold on the lookout. Will resisted the urge to rub his sore shoulder and stayed where he was. Devrey straightened. “I am told,” he began, “t
hat the incoming ship is—”
“The fastest merchantman ever to sail, and flies the fire-breathing dragon, the Blakeman flag,” a voice announced from the vicinity of the trading room’s door. Each man present turned to face the newcomer. “Good day to you, gentlemen. I’m Gornt Blakeman, as most of you know. And the ship that’s run the blockade is the Canton Star. She was built in China to my exact specifications. Two hundred eighty tons, and crammed to the gunwales with tea, silk, and porcelain. All of which will be auctioned on Pearl Street tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be sure and let you know if my captain has word of China Princess, Mr. Devrey. You can rely on it.”
“Thank you.” The words were hot coals in Bastard’s mouth. He managed to speak them coolly enough, but he knew his face was blood-red and wet with sweat. “Drinks all around!” he bellowed. “And put them on my account. The heat in this place is insufferable.”
A hum of talk began, and a number of the men turned back to the windows, anxious for a sight of this new ship. Blakeman didn’t move from his spot in the middle of the room, but gradually the milling crowd closed around him. He was broad-shouldered, dark and lean. Bastard Devrey by contrast had the family’s red hair—one of the reasons there were few doubters when Sam Devrey, a lifelong bachelor, admitted to having fathered him on an attractive widow during the Revolution—and he was the shape of a barrel, but both men were tall enough to see over the heads of the crowd. They continued to stare at each other, neither willing to be the first to look away.
Blakeman heard the rattle of glasses and trays as the waiters brought the round of drinks Bastard had ordered. Hell, he’d already won the battle and he was about to win the war; he didn’t have to win this skirmish as well. He broke the eye contact, gave in to his thirst, and helped himself to an ale, drinking deep, savoring the bitter tang and the pleasant tingle of the foamy head. Finally he lowered the tankard, waited until the drinks were all distributed, then raised his voice. “Gentlemen, if I may have your attention one more moment.” Most continued talking. “I wish to make an announcement,” Blakeman called over the din.
Bastard had bent every bit of his will to bringing his emotions under control; now his heart began to pound again. Gornt Blakeman owned a stagecoach company, and he had the exclusive franchise to the two most lucrative routes in the nation, one going north to Boston and the other south to Philadelphia. The year before, Blakeman had sold scrip to raise money to add more rolling stock. Apart from that, Bastard had never seen him among the traders here at the Tontine, and he sure as poxed hell had never heard so much as a whisper that Blakeman owned a merchantman outfitted for the China trade.
“Gentlemen.” The last murmur of talk faded. Blakeman waited until he was certain every man in the room was looking at him, then cleared his throat. “I’ll buy all outstanding Devrey scrip at eighty dollars per share. Twice what those of you paid who purchased it at last month’s offering, and a good deal more profit for those who acquired the scrip earlier. Eighty dollars a share.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the growing hubbub. “Thirty-two pounds apiece, for any of you not patriot enough to think in American terms.”
“Paper?” someone asked. Congress had decreed paper dollars as the nation’s standard currency soon after the Revolution, but there was no national bank to control the issue, and in New York, coins—precious metal, wherever it was minted—represented the kind of real wealth a man could rely on.
“Cash money in good coin,” Blakeman promised. “Paid out at my countinghouse on Hanover Street.”
Will Farrell was still standing next to his employer, still hoping Bastard would give him a penny for bringing the news. The stampede of men racing for the door nearly knocked him over.
Chapter Four
New York City, the South Street Docks, Noon
MIDDAY AND DARK AS NIGHT, with a scorching wind off the harbor. No rain with it now, though it was bound to come. There was a true midsummer squall brewing. Despite the hour, lanterns had been lit; they swayed in the wind, casting their hellish red light in odd corners, illuminating the seemingly chaotic movement of men and goods.
The porters had shed their official livery and were working in only shirtsleeves and long oilcloth aprons, cursing mightily as they heaved and shoved their way from a pair of ships to the warehouses. Fidelity, a coastal schooner that looked to Joyful to be about forty tons, had made it up from the Carolinas and was being unladed at one of Josiah Pendry’s two wharves. Next to her, having paid for the use of Pendry’s second mooring because he had no wharf of his own, was Gornt Blakeman’s Canton Star. The merchantman was nearly three times the size of the schooner, and she’d been berthed less than half an hour earlier, but already her hold was being emptied, and her cargo of the luxuries New York never got enough of were on their way to auction. Blakeman had set the time of the sale for the next day.
Joyful stood in the shadows near the warehouse. A porter passed by, close enough for him to smell the rancid musk of the man’s sweat and see how the carrying sling cut deep into his forehead. His back was bent under the weight of a two-hundred-pound wooden chest with Chinese markings. Joyful had been two when his parents took him to China. He learned Cantonese from his Chinese amah in six months, and could read, write, and speak Mandarin by the time he was seven. The chop, the chest’s marking, indicated DIANHONG CHA—black tea—from Yunnan. The best. Over the next couple of minutes he counted three more chests chopped to indicate they held tea, half a dozen marked as porcelain, and six as silk. And the porters had made only the barest start on the goods in the Canton Star’s hold.
His left hand, the one he no longer had, hurt. He felt an almost irresistible urge to flex the fingers that had been shot away. Joyful had heard many patients complain of pain in a severed limb and always thought they were imagining things. Now he knew better.
He counted six more chests of black tea. Meanwhile the porters at the next wharf were manhandling hogsheads of molasses and sugar, bales of cotton and wool, barrels of potash, and puncheons of rum. The stuff of everyday life. The silks and porcelains and teas of China were the stuff of dreams.
The rain began at last, pelting down in drops as big as a thumbnail. He was soaked in minutes but ignored it—on board ship you were wet at least as often as you were dry—and concentrated on the pleasure, the rush of excitement he felt watching Canton Star yield up her treasure. It was almost the same as when he picked up a scalpel. He hadn’t expected that.
A gust of wind sent the lantern closest to him swinging in a wide arc. The letters above the warehouse two doors down came into full view—DEVREY SHIPPING—and below the letters a green crest sporting a gold lion above crossed swords. Will Devrey, the company’s founder, had adopted those arms in 1697. Should have been shackles and a whip, Joyful thought. Like so many in the New York and New England shipping trade—the Beekmans and Livingstons and Cabots and Lodges—the Devrey fortune had been built on Guinea ships bringing live cargo to the slave market on Wall Street. They said that back then if you passed twenty people on a New York street, five would be black slaves. These days there were nearly a hundred thousand people in the city, and only two thousand slaves. As for the Devrey slave ships, the last one had been put in dry dock before the Revolution. After two slave uprisings and constant rumors of a third, the Council passed a law against importing blacks recently captured in Africa; too dangerous for the close quarters of city life, they said. New Yorkers had to learn to restrict themselves to what were called “seasoned” slaves, men and women who had been whipped into submission, or born into it, on the Caribbean sugar plantations. Such slaves were more expensive and harder to come by, so white indentures from Europe became the household servants of choice. Just as well, Joyful thought. Human slavery struck him as an abomination. Besides, New York’s three slave revolts had cost many lives. People who detested you while they slept under your roof were an invitation to disaster.
Before this war the loss of the slave trade hadn’t seemed any kind of pro
blem for Devrey Shipping. The China trade, open to the Americans once they were no longer a British colony subject to Parliament’s rules, easily took up the slack. Bastard Devrey had built the warehouse Joyful was looking at some four years earlier. Five stories tall, sixty feet deep, and as broad as any two of those damnable twenty-five-
foot-wide lots the Common Council intended for the entire city, it was, however, mortgaged from cornerstone to roof.
For all the activity swirling around Joyful, and the thriving commerce that in some ways cushioned New York against the deprivations of war, the blockade was draining Bastard’s lifeblood. In addition to mortgaging his real estate, he’d sold scrip that gave investors ownership of nearly forty percent of his company. Like everyone else in the city, Joyful had already heard of the frontal attack Gornt Blakeman had launched an hour earlier in the Tontine Coffee House. By his reckoning, Bastard Devrey had invited it.
A rumble of thunder was followed almost immediately by the crackle of lightning directly overhead, and for a moment everything in the vicinity was bathed in strange blue light. Joyful saw the ship’s captain, the man he was waiting for, start down the gangplank. Finbar O’Toole was someone he’d known all his life, the man who had brought Joyful news of his father’s death and delivered his legacy. He was also the captain who had run the blockade, and brought Gornt Blakeman’s Canton Star safely to harbor.
Joyful took a few eager steps forward, then stopped. The Irishman was short and squat, built like a bull, and Joyful had never known him to be afraid of anything or anyone, but he marched down the gangplank like a man headed for his doom, not one who had arrived triumphant after outfoxing the strongest navy in the world.
Finbar’s broad shoulders were hunched forward, and his walk had none of the usual seaman’s swagger. He carried a small wooden chest about nine or ten inches square, hugging it to his chest with both arms. Why would the captain of a ship being serviced by a dozen porters himself carry one particular chest to shore?
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