After that, with the squares’ls gasketed, and the stays’ls and jibs and spanker handed, it was a matter of “tweaking” on the capstans to take in on the kedge cable, let out the bower cable, to place the frigate equidistant from her anchors, at equal strain.
“Nicely done, Mister West- What the Devil?” Lewrie began to say.
The crew of the French schooner had burst into song, shouting the words of “The Marseillaise” to taunt them. French sailors were in the shrouds, atop the bulwarks and lowered gaff booms, shaking their fists, slapping their arses in derision, and making insulting finger signs.
“Quite a lot of them,” Lewrie pointed out, with a wry smile on his face. “Too many to be a merchantman.”
“Do you wish to salute them, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked, looking as if he wished that they would. Some of Lewrie’s officers and hands were scowling and cursing, already.
“Bosun Sprague!” Lewrie bellowed. “Hands to the larboard gangway!”
“Sir?” the Bosun asked, looking up at the quarterdeck, his face asquint.
“Two-fingered salute, Mister Sprague!” Lewrie ordered. “A two-fingered salute to those snail-eatin’ sons of bitches!” By example he went to the larboard bulwarks and lifted his right hand, his fore and middle finger jutted upward into a Vee, a very British insult.
And fuck diplomacy! he angrily thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
According to the instructions from Admiralty, the British Consul at Charleston was one Mr. Edward Cotton, an Englishman, not a local man, who kept offices at the corner of East Bay Street and Queen Street, conveniently near the city wharves. Lewrie wished to go ashore at once to see him, but there was an host of things to see to, beforehand. The best he could do was to send Midshipman Entwhistle in a cutter with a quick, introductory note, and a request for an audience, though Lewrie halfway hoped that the rare appearance of a Royal Navy frigate would pique the fellow’s curiosity and lure him to boarding Reliant, first.
There could be no shore liberty for any of his hands, for certain: It was a risk to send too many of the ship’s boats ashore for firewood, water, and victuals, for the chance to desert would be quite a temptation, even to sailors who had been with the ship since she had been re-commissioned, and had pay and prize-money due. And, certainly, there would be many “patriotic” South Carolinians who would encourage Reliant ’s people to flee “Limey despots” and become free Americans!
With a French schooner, most-likely an enemy privateer, present, he could not let his guard down by putting the ship “Out of Discipline” for a carouse, either. Marine Lt. Simcock already had fully uniformed men posted as sentries at the bow, stern, and on each gangway, fully armed with loaded and bayoneted muskets to prevent desertion, too.
Yet, some of his people must go ashore. Mr. Cadbury was eager, as were the officers, who busily invented excuses to set foot ashore for a few hours. Surprisingly, so did Yeovill and the Black ship’s cook, Mr. Cooke, who accompanied Cadbury to the foot of the starboard ladderway to the quarterdeck. Both men were turned out in their best buckled shoes, canvas trousers, clean shirts with neckerchiefs, short blue sailors’ jackets, and flat tarred hats, as scrubbed up and fresh-shaven as they would be at Sunday Divisions. Lewrie could not recall Cooke ever being turned out so well.
“Permission to go ashore with the Purser, sir,” Yeovill said.
“Me too, sah,” Cooke spoke up, looking puppy-dog eager.
“D’ye think that’d be… safe for you, Cooke?” Lewrie asked. “South Carolina’s a slave state. If a gang o’ bully-bucks decide to snatch you up for a quick profit, there’s little we could do about it, but complain.”
“Beg ya pahdon, sah, but I’d be with Mistah Cadbury an’ Yeovill, heah,” Cooke objected. “I’m in uniform, an’ I don’ sound like no po’ field hand. Ain’t no slavuh gonna mess with me, sah.” Like all Navy hands, he wore a clasp knife in a leather sheath on his hip. And he was big and strong.
“Hmm… it’d be best did I write you out a certificate, just in case,” Lewrie decided. “So you and Yeovill can protect the Purser, if some people try to mess with him. There may be some lingering resentment of anyone from England. Or Jamaica,” Lewrie added with a wry expression. He didn’t have to go to his great-cabins, for his clerk, Faulkes, was on deck, scrubbed up and dressed in clean clothes, hoping like all the others that he might get a few hours ashore, too. Once the certificate had been dictated, written out in Faulkes’s excellent copper-plate hand, and given to Lewrie to sign, it was given to Cooke, who read it over, nodded, grinned, and carefully folded it to stick into an inside pocket of his short jacket.
“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?”