The Captain`s Vengeance l-12

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Dons rape, pillage, plunder, and exploit deuced well," Pollock sneered, "but they're utter failures at manufactury or trade. No high-nosed, haughty Spanish hidalgo 'd be caught dead dirtying his hands with low-born doings. Ranch, run plantations, government work, but never in commerce. 'My family rode weeth El Cid'," Pollock mock-declaimed in a Castilian lisp worthy of the royal court at Madrid, " 'we drove ze Moor from Espana weeth our swords, we sail weeth Colombus, we conquered Meh-hee-co beside Cortes, sheenyor, how dare you shoog-yest…'!"

  "So, their goods cost more than yours," Lewrie supposed, "and I expect they're overtaxed, too? So, you undercut, perhaps bribe?"

  "But, of course," Pollock admitted, preening. "Frankly, were I king of Spain, I'd wash my hands of Louisiana and Florida, for they'll do no more with 'em than the Indians will. They're dead-broke-spiritually, morally, and financially-and haven't a hope of keeping them in the long run. No Spaniards emigrate there, but for government appointees and soldiers, and outside the port towns, there aren't two of 'em in every hundred square miles, but for priests or barefoot squatters. They simply won't change their climes to better themselves, as our good Anglo-Saxons will," Pollock declared. "So, sooner or later, they will lose 'em to the Americans. 'Til then, we at Panton, Leslie will stave off the inevitable. Therefore, the Dons need us," Pollock said with a sly wink… and another twitch-whinny.

  Once peace had come after the American Revolution, the Yankees had exploded westward, over the mountains, up rivers, game-trails, or warpaths. Long-hunters, then settlers, then traders to service them; surveyors, speculators, and schemers hadn't been far behind. Each new "sovereign" state had veterans to reward with vast, vaguely bordered land tracts in lieu of pension monies, which soon became speculative stock-in-trade, some for as little as a farthing an acre!

  Spain had one idea where her borders of Florida, and the edges of the Louisiana they had purchased from the French, lay; the Yankees had quite another-or simply didn't give a tinker's damn for them. Spain claimed the inland Indians were "allies and clients" whose territories expanded Spain's claims as far east as the Hiwassee River in the Tennessee Valley, and along the Tennessee (or Tanasi) River.

  The industrious Jonathons, though, befuddled the tribes with a host of trade goods better than anything the Spanish could offer, with an ocean of rum and whiskey. They "rented" grants the size of Ireland for the "loan" of a musket, a stack of blankets, a cookpot, a good horse and saddle! And it was months, or years, before the rare, roaming Spanish soldier or official might stumble upon the unofficial invasion, then hie back to the coast to complain about the entire towns that had sprung up since their last visit.

  Georgia, Virginia, and North and South Carolina had sent out a host of land agents to form development companies that issued speculative shares of dubious claim and value on these same tracts, when not arguing among each other as to who owned exactly what! The Yazoo Company, Muscle Shoals Company, Cumberland Company… Georgia alone had carved out a Bourbon " County " the size of France and had threatened war on the Spanish possessions, on Spain herself, if not certified.

  North of Spanish claims, the new state of Kentucky had come into existence in 1792, then the closer and more-threatening state of Tennessee

  in 1796, which resulted in fresh hordes of hard-handed, cussedly independent-minded Americans coming to the eastern bank of the Great River, the Mississippi itself, down the Yazoo River to Natchez, down the Alabama into Florida almost in sight of Mobile, to Baton Rouge or Manchac inside Spanish Louisiana, down near New Orleans!

  Pollock, thankfully, had the proper maps handy for his spiel.

  Indeed, New Orleans was becoming the main entrepot for Yankee frontier goods, rafted or barged down for shipment back East on American merchant ships, which was much quicker than over-mountain, upriver trade to the original Thirteen Colonies. Spanish and French companies either died or got co-opted; went broke or grew obscenely rich from the influx-which, unfortunately, filled New Orleans with "chaw-baccy" Yankee merchants, and Louisiana with unwanted land-grabbers.

  Spitefully, the Spanish had banned American traffic on the river, in New Orleans, but that had been a failure, and the ban had been lifted the year before, in '98. Nothing seemed to avail.

  "The Dons don't know what to do." Pollock let out a snicker, which, accompanied by a twitch-ahem-whinny, looked positively ghastly on him. "At least with American goods, a lot of money changes hands. And goods off Yankee ships that come upriver for cargoes are first-rate and cheap, so they can't really complain too much. My company thrives on wilderness goods, as well, I must avow."

  "Your Indian trade, though… with the Spanish," Lewrie asked.

  "Well, the old Indian trade is not as profitable as it was," Mr. Pollock replied with a wry smile, just as perfectly offputting. "The American trade makes up for it. They've no money in the backcountry, but both they and the Indians have hides, furs, whisky, and tobacco to barter with. And, so far from East Coast manufacturies, and so hard it is to get finished goods westward in carts, small waggons, or mule-back… the small, poled flatboats, well… here Panton, Leslie is, with British goods at decent prices, heh heh heh!"

  Gawd, he sets me teeth on edge when he laughs like that! Lewrie thought with a cringe; Was I a Yankee or Indian, he did that just once, I'd run like hell… or scalp him!

  "So, sooner or later the Americans overwhelm Louisiana and the Floridas, you expect, sir?" Lewrie asked.

  "Indeed, Captain Lewrie," Pollock gravely agreed. "There's a good chance all this trade, ours and the Americans through New Orleans, is drawing even more settlers than do the empty lands! I'd give them no more than five or six years before the Yankee Doodles just up and take the place, and have done. Either the United States acting as an organised polity, or the frontier states acting on their own."

  "Indeed!" Capt. Nicely harrumphed in surprise.

  " Kentucky and Tennessee, their settlers below the boundaries, are so isolated from the rest of the States, they might as well still answer to London, sirs." Pollock chuckled. "Physically and politically too, d'ye see… ahem. The backwoods have little in common with those 'civilised' sorts 'cross the mountains. The settlers are rankled by the games played by speculators and diverse state governments, the broken promises of pensions…" "Like the Whisky Rebellion?" Lewrie asked with a knowing smirk. "Very much like it, aye." Pollock laughed. "Americans are the most stubborn, anarchy-minded, personally independent folk, ever I did see! Some over-mountain people aspire to personal fiefdoms, like the rebellious state of Franklin that sprang up in East Tennessee just a few years ago. The Indians are no real challenge, not really, and the Spanish aren't much better at protecting their holdings, so…"

  "Might be a good idea to encourage that sort of thing," Captain Nicely posed, "since it should be in our interests to rein in the Americans, before they get too big and powerful to deal with, hmmm?"

  "Well, I dare say… heh heh," Pollock responded, sounding as if Capt. Nicely had broached a topic best left alone.

  To Lewrie's puzzled look, Captain Nicely softly imparted, "There are plans afoot, Captain Lewrie, I may tell you in all confidence, o' course, for some, ah… lands lately in rebellion against the Crown that might be recovered, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker has corresponded with our British North American forces to, ah… effect the taking of the Mississippi. If necessary. To that happy conclusion, we would need free entry to a strong military and commercial base. Mobile or New Orleans, control of the west bank of the Mississippi, if nothing else, hence, to control its entire length, and hold the Yankees snug in their kennels."

  "Enticing the breakaway backwoods Americans in the new western states to, ah…" Lewrie gawped. What have I got into? he wondered. "Depend on us for their economic well-being, aye," Nicely said. "I thought we were to speak of finding pirates, my missing-" "I only give you the background, sir," Capt. Nicely cautioned. "Sir Hyde instructed me to reveal this much to you, before you sally forth to haunt the coasts. Sir Hyde told me that Mi
ster Pollock, in his capacity as a trader allowed into Spanish possessions, could aid your search… provide information anent

  New Orleans, the identities of notorious brigands who might've been involved in taking your prize and committing their… atrocities, then send you coded letters by way of his smaller vessels."

  "I assure you, Captain Lewrie, that I know where all the bodies are buried," Pollock intoned, with another of his ghastly grins. "And who is most likely to be your perpetrators. I cannot give you active assistance without, ahem… revealing my, and my firm's, ties to the Crown, 'thout being garotted as a spy by the Dons, but…"

  "In the meantime, whilst I haunt the coasts, you'll really be… spying, anyway? To aid any future, ah… descent on New Orleans or Louisiana?" Lewrie sourly realised, aloud.

  "One observes, one notes. Quite innocently… ahem!" Pollock rejoined, looking quite happily "sly-boots."

  "And here comes dessert!" Nicely suddenly exclaimed as supper plates were whisked away by his house-servants, and an intricate cut-crystal serving bowl was trotted out. A jumble or trifle, most-like?

  A shit cobbler? Lewrie dubiously thought as he took note of the dish's brown colour, all streaked with what looked like crust, and some whitish creamy layers. There were some suspicious yellow lumps, too.

  "You're reputed to be a man possessed of a fine palate, Captain Lewrie," Nicely enthused, hands a'rub in gleeful expectation. "But I dare say you've not tasted the like o' this in all your travels!"

  "I dare say not, sir," Lewrie squeamishly confessed, his eyes fixed upon the dollops being spooned out in smaller bowls. "What-"

  "Caribbean and New World, sir!" Nicely boasted. "All regional ingredients. Rum and sugar, molasses for thickening. Bananas, fresh off the bush. And sweetened chocolate beans, pulverised and boiled to a milk paste. I call it a chocolate pudding pie. Taste, sir!"

  "Good God in Heaven!" Lewrie had to splutter in amazement once he'd had a tentative, tiny spoonful. "It's Ambrosia! Why, I never… bloody marvellous!"

  "Once we've eat our fill, we'll retire to my parlour," Captain Nicely simpered 'twixt avid bites of his unique concoction, "where we may have our brandy or port, and consult the charts, so Mister Pollock may further enlighten us regarding our mission, Lewrie."

  Our mission, is it? Lewrie thought with a brief check. I know he's bored shitless, but… oh, well. At least the pudding's good!

  CHAPTER SIX

  So, Mister Pollock, what's the best way to get at 'em, in your estimation?" Capt. Nicely eagerly enquired, once a parlour table had been cleared of decorations, and the maps and sea charts assembled. He took a slurp from a snifter of brandy, then used it to anchor a corner of a chart. "Should it be necessary, of course."

  "Well, sir, ahem," Mr. Pollock carefully began, "you will note that New Orleans is situated a fair piece or better up the Mississippi River, an hundred miles or more. The river is somewhat unique in that its silt deposits form this massive delta on either bank that extends so far out into the Gulf of Mexico. The rules of Nature do not obtain in Louisiana… The streams don't flow into the river, they seep out in sloughs and bayous, and those meander and divide into a trackless maze. The land south of Baton Rouge is flat as a table-top, and but a few feet above sea level, ahem.

  "No cellars or basements in Louisiana, sirs! Nor will you find the dead buried in the ground, hah hah! And what appears to be solid ground is so saturated, you may sink into spongy, saturated 'quaking' prairies… if not an outright marsh. Rich soil, yes, refreshed by the annual floods, where it's arable. But it also makes for swamps you must see to believe."

  "Grand place for Frogs, then… swamps," Lewrie japed.

  "As to getting upriver to New Orleans…" Pollock continued.

  What the Devil's that t'do with capturing my pirates? he asked himself, cocking his head to one side as Pollock "prosed."

  "There are several nevigable entrances to the Mississippi delta… the Southwest Pass, South Pass, and the Southeast Pass. I prefer the Southeast, myself, as closest to Jamaica, so…"

  They want me t'take Proteus into the Mississippi? Lewrie gawped.

  Lewrie took note that the chart was British, reading the description: The Entrance of the River Missisipi (misspelled) at Fort Balise, Taken in the King's Ship Nautilus in the Year 1764(Oh Christ, rather a long time ago!) with fathoms indicated in Roman numerals, and soundings in feet shown in Arabic… rather a lot of Arabic numbers, hmmm.

  There was a mud bank, there was a large white expanse he took as a featureless alluvial island, and a hellish-shallow swath of soundings in feet betwixt; a narrower channel to the "West of the featureless island where Fort Balise was situated, and a note above the fort, indicating that ships anchored there to lighten themselves before attempting to cross the river bar. East of the blank might-be-an-island was illustrated what Lewrie first took for the faithfully reproduced tracks of several drunken chickens, or wee little "fishies." More on the eastern mud bank, hmmm… A closer perusal with a quizzing glass revealed that they were supposed to be an enormous maze of trees that had washed downriver; heaps that had drifted to the mud bank and had aided its formation. Hmmm… "Printed for R. Sayer J. Bennett, No. 53 Fleet St. as the Act directs, July 1779." Rather a long time ago, too! More trees littered the north bank of the tri-furcated channel.

  Well, just thankee Jesus! he exultantly thought.

  "A formidable fort, is this Balise, sir?" Nicely asked.

  "Not really, Captain Nicely," Pollock said, shrugging. "Simple stone water bastion, faced with earth and its guns old and rusty."

  Lewrie turned his concentration to his glass of brandy, let his eyes roam the parlour's furnishings, and stifled a yawn, giving Mr. Pollock's explanation but half an ear, and ready to stroll to a large bookcase and pull down a novel he'd heard of but hadn't yet read.

  Pass a L'Outre was a shortcut to the Head of the Passes, where all the forking channels came together; bloody grand for someone. Up halfway at a Northwest bend was a better bastion, Fort Saint Phillip; ho-hum. Halfway to New Orleans was Pointe a La Hache, but no fort, so who cared? Ninety miles up past the Head of the Passes was the great Nor'east bend called the English Turn, and Fort Saint Leon, a substantial obstacle, though.

  "Know why they call it the English Turn, sirs?" Pollock japed.

  Now that's unattractive on him, too! Lewrie thought, grimacing.

  "When the French still owned Louisiana, we actually put a fleet this far upriver," Pollock said with a lopsided smile, "but the old governor, Bienville I think it was, made such a belligerent display, daring us to come get slaughtered, that we fell for his bluff and put about… right there," he said, tapping the map with a forefinger.

  "What's the current?" Nicely enquired, frowning.

  "Five to six knots, sir," Pollock supplied. "It takes nearly a week to ascend the river. Boresomely slow passage. In small vessels, and with the help of hired locals, one could approach the city up the various minor rivers and bayous. Bayou Teche, Bayou La Fourche, from Atchafalaya Bay, or from Barataria Bay further west, where there is a lake and a major bayou of the same name. Very few people live on the coasts, but they make wondrous hidey-holes, and privateers and pirates have been reputed to use them, now and again."

  Lewrie abandoned the idea of borrowing the novel and returned his interest to the chart at the mention of "pirates" and the coastal lairs they might be using.

  "Do you envisage an overland expedition?" Pollock grimaced in distaste for such an endeavour.

  "Through the swamps?" Nicely said, shying from the idea, too.

  "Wouldn't have a corporal's guard left by the time you got to New Orleans," Lewrie said, chuckling, half his mind on that topic, too, still intent on the passes into the aforementioned bays. "Snakes and hornets, alligators… biting, bloodsucking insects? God help the poor, tasty British soldier subjected to that!"

  "Captain Lewrie, when a Lieutenant in the last war, sir, did a stint ashore in the Spanish Floridas," Capt. Nicely explained.
"With the Creek Indians up the Apalachicola, was it not, Lewrie?"

  "Aye, sir. Once was enough for me," Lewrie said, mock-shivering. "Does Sir Hyde intend a descent upon Spanish Louisiana, I could think of no worse way to go about it."

  "Um, then," Nicely grunted, sounding hellish disappointed. "If it must be a coup de main, and nothing stealthy, then, Mister Pollock, what about coming in from the East? These tempting bodies of water, this Lake Pontchartrain or Lake Borgne, for instance. Looks to me as if our pirates could hide in there, too, hey, Lewrie?"

  "How large a vessel was it?" Pollock asked.

  "A large two-masted, tops'l schooner," Nicely quickly answered. "Might have six to eight feet of draught, if laden with booty?"

  "Well, one could enter the Mississippi Sounds and get to Lake Borgne below, ah… here. Below Cat Island, there is Pass Maria, and a vessel could find sufficient depth to enter. As for any ships they captured, though, hmm… ahem. They'd be much larger, with deeper draught, and there'd be no place to strip them of goods and fittings, 'less they did it in plain sight."

  "And getting to New Orleans itself from there?" Nicely added.

  "From the West shore of Lake Borgne it's fifteen or so miles to the city, or, one could enter Lake Pontchartrain from Lake Borgne by the Rigolets Narrows," Pollock hazily surmised. "But, that pass is guarded by Fort Coquilles, and once into Pontchartrain-a very shallow body of water, I must tell you-there is still Fort Saint John on the city's northern outskirts, to guard that approach, and the fast water route down Bayou Saint John."

  "If we did invade New Orleans from there, Lewrie," Capt. Nicely prompted, "sometime in the future, ah… how does it look to you? If our pirates could use it to get their goods into the town, couldn't a military expedition use the same route, perhaps?"

  "Well, sir…" Lewrie stated, then took time to read the depth notations and slowly shook his head. "Mister Pollock is right. The ships of the line and the troop transports would have to lay off this Cat Island, outside the Sounds, and you'd need hundreds of cutters and barges to pull it off, lots of gunboats and bomb ketches to reduce this Fort Coquilles, too, I s'pose. I could sail Proteus up there and take fresh soundings for you, if Mister Pollock thinks the pirates might've used this short approach to the main market for their loot."