“Oh, no more than a ha’penny, Sir Alan,” Mr. Cotton snickered. “It wasn’t all that good. Perhaps no more than… ha ha… a groat!”
As they were led to their table and took their seats, Lewrie did wonder if Mollien was cleverer at sea than he was at mockery, or quick-witted repartee. Had he goaded the man perhaps a tad too raw? And what would a clever Frog do to get his own back?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Boat, ahoy!” was the shout from Reliant ’s quarterdeck.
“Aye aye!” the cutter’s bow man called back, showing four fingers in sign that a Post-Captain was aboard. It was absurd, really, for the boat was one of Reliant ’s cutters, manned by Lewrie’s usual boat’s crew, and had left the frigate not half an hour before, and it would take a blind man not to see Lewrie seated aft by Cox’n Desmond in all his shore-going finery.
The bow man hooked onto the main chain platform with his gaff, and the oars were tossed vertically, then boated. Lewrie carefully made his way to amidships, stood on the gunn’l briefly, seized hold of the after most stays, and stepped aboard by the chain platform, then up the boarding battens. Bosun Sprague’s silver call piped, the crew on watch faced the entry-port and removed their hats in deference, a side-party of seamen and Marines greeted him… and the ship’s dog, Bisquit, went mad with joy, barking, yipping, and dancing about, daring to stand on his hind legs and put paws on Lewrie’s midriff, his tail whipping like a flag in a full gale, and his tongue lolling.
“Welcome back aboard, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, doffing his hat in salute, and trying not to laugh out loud.
“Thankee, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said, ruffling Bisquit on his head and neck with his left hand and doffing with his right. “I would stand upon my dignity,… if I could find it. Now, now! Get down, sir, and behave yourself.”
“My apologies for cutting your time ashore short, sir, but, the French schooner began preparations to sail, and-” Westcott began to explain.
“And, you’d’ve preferred to go after her, instanter, but thought leavin’ me behind’d look bad?” Lewrie interrupted, grinning.
“Something like that, sir,” Westcott replied, shrugging. “She made up to a single bower, and hauled in to short stays, beginning about an hour ago. She’s just taken a pilot aboard, and looks ready to weigh, sir.”
“You sent for a pilot, sir?” Lewrie asked, removing a telescope from the compass binnacle cabinet, and going to the larboard side for a closer look at the French vessel.
“I did, sir, but so far-” Westcott said.
“But none have responded, so far, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie posed, sounding tongue-in-cheek and more idly amused than upset. “And, ain’t that just uncanny!”
“Aye, sir.”
“As I suspected,” Lewrie told him over his shoulder, his attention focussed on the activity aboard Mollien’s schooner. “Do we confer with the Sailing Master, I believe we’ll find that she’ll be crossin’ the Charleston Bar just at the peak of high tide, right at slack-water, and, by the time a harbour pilot responds to our request, the tide’ll be on the ebb. We might squeak over the bar… not that Mollien needs that much depth under his keel, but we do, more’s the point. Captain Mollien will think himself a ‘sly-boots’… but, he ain’t.”
“Mollien, sir? Is that the French captain’s name?” Lt. Westcott asked.
“Aye,” Lewrie told him, shutting the tubes of the telescope and turning in-board to face his First Officer. “Met him last night, him and a brace of his larger sailors. He almost ruined a most pleasant and congenial supper party,” Lewrie said with a laugh, filling Lieutenant Westcott in on the confrontation, and on how Mollien had had to slink away with his tail between his legs, fuming. “Lieutenant Gordon of the United States Navy contingent, and his wife, accompanied Mister Cotton and me back to the Consul’s residence afterwards, just in case Mollien felt pettish enough t’waylay me, but nothing happened. I had a good night’s sleep, after that.
“Damme, what’s the dog doin’ on the quarterdeck, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie demanded of a sudden, noting that Bisquit had slunk from the sail-tending gangway to shelter by one of the 32-pounder carronade slides.
“Well… I expect he followed you, sir,” Westcott replied. “He adores everybody, you included,… and has come to expect that anyone coming off-shore has a treat for him.”
“Well, I do,” Lewrie gruffly confessed, “but he’ll get it on the weather deck, not up here. Mister Munsell, attend me, if you please.”
“Aye, sir?” the Midshipman perkily replied.
“See that the dog gets this,” Lewrie directed, digging into his shore-going duffel, “but not on the quarterdeck, hmm?”
“Aye, sir.”
Too late! The aroma of fresh-fried ham on fresh-baked bisquits with gravy, carefully wrapped up in a packet of tarred sailcloth, got the dog to its feet. Instead of peeking longingly from the shelter of the carronade slide, Bisquit sprinted forward and began to prance and whine round Lewrie. Midshipman Munsell took him by the collar to tow him to the starboard ladderway and then to the main deck to feed him his treats.
“The rest of your time ashore went well, dare I ask, sir?” Lt. Westcott enquired.
“Main-well indeed,” Lewrie told him with a pleased expression, further explaining that their Consul, Mr. Cotton, and his supper guest, Mr. Douglas McGilliveray, from one of the great trading houses in the state, and a man who had his finger on the pulse of Charleston commerce, did not suspect that any aid and comfort was being provided to French or Spanish privateers, and that vessels such as Captain Mollien’s Otarie rarely called, at all. “No, I think we’ll have to search further South of here, Mister Westcott-Hilton Head Inlet, Stono Inlet, Port Royal, or Savannah, Georgia.”
“Beg pardon, sirs,” Midshipman Rossyngton intruded, “but, the French vessel’s anchor is free, and she’s hoisting sail!”
“Calmly, Mister Rossyngton,” Lewrie cautioned him. “There’s not a thing we can do to stop her. I meant to ask, Mister Westcott,” he went on, turning to the First Officer once more, “if there’s anything out of the ordinary to report whilst I was ashore?”
“Everything went well, sir, with nothing out of the ordinary,” Westcott told him. “Mister Cadbury did say that he and the working-party that went ashore with him did get some mild bother from some of the locals, and from a couple of seamen whom he suspected of being off the French schooner, sir, but, after getting a look at your Cox’n and Seaman Furfy, it came to nothing. Some foul looks and a comment or two about Mister Cooke, being Black and all, but Mister Cadbury said that there were many Free Blacks doing business who went about their trades un-molested.”
“Free Black sailors off American ships are one thing, sir, but, a Free Black in Navy uniform, British uniform, is quite another, I do expect,” Lewrie breezed off. “So! If we have to wait ’til the next high tide, what do ye suggest we do with the rest of this day, sir?”
“Uhm, there’s some minor painting, sir… touch-ups, mostly,” Westcott speculated. “Minor sail repair, some blocks aloft I’d desire to be greased, and one or two lines in the running rigging that need re-roving, that sort of thing.”
“Mister Cadbury saw to it that we took extra fresh water aboard yesterday?” Lewrie asked, itching to get out of his finery, and back to his usual sea-going rig.
“Aye, sir,” Westcott told him, “with more in the offing, if we desire.”
“Paint and mend, the rest of the Forenoon, then let the ship’s people do their laundry, and ‘Make and Mend’ ’til the end of the First Dog,” Lewrie decided. “I’ll be below.”
Before he could quit the quarterdeck, though, there was Mister Cadbury, the Purser, with his ledger book, and a list of the victuals he had purchased ashore.
“Turnips, Mister Cadbury?” Lewrie enthused. “I’d suppose that it’s too much to ask if ye found Swedes.”