Lewrie took hold of the handles and pulled it forward. It was fascinatingly heavy and gave off a faint metallic rustle. Lewrie staggered out of the quarter-gallery with the chest until he could drop the burden on the transom settee.
He rifled the desk and tried every key he found before discovering the one that fit the lock. There was a well-oiled clanking of the tumblers as the huge lock sprang open.
It was nearly as delicious an emotion to raise that lid as it was to lift a woman’s skirt. Once inside, there was a wooden box on top that contained a fine set of dueling pistols, which he set aside. There were some letters, mostly personal from the late captain’s family, some orders from the firm of Mulraix et Fils but nothing of any import that he could discover with his poor command of French. There was, however, a folded bit of canvas … and then—there was gold.
Bags of it, rolls of it, little wooden boxes full of it, with the amount and the denominations and nations of origin inked onto slips of paper tacked down to each parcel with wax or tied as labels to the bags.
There were Spanish pistoles, Spanish dollars, French livres and louis d’or, Dutch guilders and Danish kroner. And there were sovereigns, golden guineas, two-guineas, bright-shining “yellowboys” in rolls and boxes and bags.
It was too much to be the late captain’s working capital for the voyage. It was enough to purchase a dozen Indiamen!
“Merciful God in Heaven,” Lewrie whispered in awe, letting some loose coins trickle through his fingers. He was not sure of the value of the foreign coins in comparison to the guineas, but it seemed like an awful lot … a most temptingly awful lot! But sadly it was a devilishly heavy and unconcealable lot. He left the gold and went forward to the doors to the quarterdeck, listening to see if anyone had discovered him in the midst of his temptation.
The sight of all that gold made him open the master’s wine cabinet and pull out a bottle of brandy. He poured himself a large measure with shaky hands and went back to the chest.
There was a paper inventory stuck at the back of the chest. Altogether it seemed as if there might be over £80,000 there if the foreign coin had the same value as the guineas.
He let the heavy coins trickle through his hands again, and thought about it … damned hard.
It’d have lain there, undiscovered, except for me, he reasoned. Not on the manifest, not listed when we turned the ship over to the Prize Court. Some surveyor or shipyard worker would have found it, if they’d have found it at all. And none of this squadron would ever see a penny of it, and some silver-buttoned whip jack or lard-arsed landsman would go home richer than a chicken-nabob …
That settled in his mind, he counted up the number of inferior petty officers in Desperate, and in the squadron, that might share in this unbelievable bounty, and came up with roughly eighty men to share £10,000—£125 apiece. Fair wages, he decided, but not the financial security he was looking for.
There was absolutely no way he could get that chest off the prize, and ashore. Three men couldn’t heft his sea-chest if he stored it in there. It would be years, perhaps, before he returned to England to pay off, and no way he could keep that much gold safely hidden for that long. No prize agent ashore could be trusted not to peek, and then questions would be raised as to where he had gotten so much foreign coin, not to mention so many English guineas.
Once a week for the last year and a half, first Captain Bales, then Lieutenant Kenyon, and now Commander Treghues had read the Articles out at Divisions, and by now Alan could almost quote Article Eight verbatim:
“No person in or belonging to the Fleet shall take out of any Prize, or Ship seized for Prize, any Money, Plate or Goods, unless it shall be necessary for the better securing thereof, or for the necessary Use and Service of any of his Majesty’s Ships or Vessels of War, before the same be adjudged lawful Prize in some Admiralty Court; but the full and entire Account of the Whole, without Embezzlement, shall be brought in, and Judgment passed entirely upon the Whole without Fraud; upon pain that every Person offending herein shall forfeit or lose his Share of the Capture, and suffer such further Punishment as shall be imposed by a Court-Martial, or such Court of Admiralty, according to the Nature and Degree of the Offence.”
That was pretty clear. If they catch me I’d be flogged around the fleet. Rodney would have me hung up in tar and chains until my bones fall apart. But …
He got to his feet and went to peer up at the poop deck skylight. It was closed. He listened intently for any sound from above, scared someone like Toliver might have been peeking on him. He decided that all anyone could see from the best angle with the skylight shut was the forward edge of the desk, not as far back as the transom settee and that dirty, great chest. He went back aft and sat beside the chest, hefting several of the bags of gold coins. He took up a rouleau of coins in his fist and pondered on the possible repercussions.
“Money is the root of all evil,” he recited, remembering his nursery school days, the catechism of good behavior that had been lashed into him at Harrow (and other schools). One hundred twenty-five pounds is nothing to turn your nose up at. But then … neither is this little rouleau of one-guinea pieces …
That was £105 he held in his fist, equal his yearly allowance from Pilchard, and who knew how long that bequest would last. And this small box that held two hundred two-guinea coins was worth £420!
He pawed through the contents, setting aside rouleaus and boxes of mostly two-guinea coins, quickly making up a sum of over £1,000.
Call it a finder’s fee, he told himself, claiming a final roll of one-guinea coins. He rose and went to his sea-chest, which had been stored along the after bulkhead near the coach. Using his dirty shirt as a screen, he opened the chest, pawed down through his belongings to a secure depth, and stashed his find, emerging with a clean shirt that he made a great production of shaking out and inspecting for serviceability for the morning. He closed his chest and went aft, laying the shirt out on the desk.
“This has to go,” he whispered, staring at the inventory list. He shredded it as he stepped out onto the stern gallery into the wind, fed the tiny pieces into the wake, hoping that they were too small to be legible if blown onto the poop deck or officer’s gallery below. Once back in the cabin he restowed the contents of the chest, still a mind-numbing mass of yellow metal. He checked carefully that there was no other accounting of the chest’s contents. He read all the business and personal letters, found no mention of the gold in any of them.
Only then did he relock the chest and stagger back into the necessary closet with it, sliding it back into its niche and closing the secret panel on it with a wooden click of hidden latches.
He slid the keys back into the desk, then had to search it all for any paper that might explain the presence of the gold.
God, was it mentioned in those papers Railsford has? he suddenly asked himself. “If it was money for Rochambeau or Lafayette, DeGrasse would have mentioned it, might have given an accounting…”
Alan had planned to “accidentally” discover the chest in the morning and take it over to Amphion, but now he was not sure. If he pretended to find it, and some of it turned up missing, he would be blamed for any shortage.
In that case I should take more of the guineas, he told himself. What if no one ever finds it? Then nearly £78,000 goes to waste until this ship is scrapped or lost.