" 'Tis said, sir," Lewrie concluded, striving to recall what a pious expression looked like, "that the Lord moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. The slaves' prayers, and mine, coincided nigh miraculously." "Amen!" Theodora seconded.
"Just as Admiralty has broken captains who cheat the Exchequer by overstating the number of their crews, despite losses to desertion and death," Mr. Twigg informed all present with a knowing and casually world-wise air (even if he was glaring daggers at Lewrie), "who pocket the lost hands' pay, and connive with the Purser, who will sell off the un-issued rations and slop goods, Reverend, ladies and gentlemen, just as often as they would one who over-recruits."
"Well… shall we be seated and have tea?" Mr. Trencher suggested, waving his guests to the settees and chairs about the parlour. Twigg practically snagged Lewrie by the elbow and led him to a settee too short for more than two, looking as if he'd love to hiss cautions, but couldn't. As they sorted themselves out, waiting for the ladies to sit first, Lewrie took happy note that he'd have a grand angle on the fetching young Miss Theodora, who dipped her head most gracefully, exposing what a fine and swan-like neck she had above her lace shawl.
"Or, might Captain Lewrie and Mister Twigg prefer refreshments more stimulating than tea?" Mrs. Hannah More enquired with a wary cock of her head.
Playin' fast an' loose with the Trenchers' hospitality, ain't we? Sly witch! Lewrie spitefully thought, though answering her with another of his "special modest" grins, a shrug and shake of his head.
"As we say in the Navy, ma'am, the sun is still high over the yardarm, for me," he replied. "Tea would be delightful."
The next hour passed much as Twigg had warned him; they asked careful questions as to his motives, how his "theft" had occurred, and what sort of fellow was his fellow-conspirator, ex-Col. Christopher Cashman. Was he a spiritual man, and just when had his revulsion of slavery arisen? In his new enterprises in the United States, was he a slave-owner there, or…? And, more to the point, when and where had the (so far) noble Capt. Lewrie developed his own detestation?
So he told them of his first experiences in the Caribbean, back during the American Revolution; of the fugitive Yankee slaves who had run to British-held towns and garrisons, seeking the freedom promised should they aid the Tory cause.
"I was at Yorktown during the siege," Lewrie related, addressing Mrs. Hannah More, his most-insistent and most-dubious inquisitor, "in charge of a weak two-gun battery of landed guns… only a Midshipman, then. For labourers and help loading the guns, we had several runaway slaves. We were all on short-commons, we ate the same rations, slept in the redan together, kept watch and drilled together, with the same chance of being killed in battle, did the French and the Rebels attack.
"Well… they stood a worse chance, 'cause they faced lashings, a return to their chains, being lynched or shot, if we lost… which we did, and, I fear, some of them did suffer such fates, for very few of them escaped before the Lord Cornwallis's surrender, and it shamed me, ma'am… the way they looked at me, the veriest boy Midshipman, as their saviour, and I could do nothing, in the end," he told them.
Damned if they didn't, and damned if I didn't, Lewrie took pause to recall; And every bloody word of it the Gospel Truth!
"And you were made prisoner. Captain Lewrie?" Mr. Trencher asked.
"No, sir. Two boatloads of light infantry, North Carolina Loyalist troops, I and my few hands, were blown downriver while trying to ferry the army across York River. Got stranded on the mud shoals down Guinea Neck, the morning of the surrender. We sheltered at a tobacco plantation, a slave plantation, 'til we could re-work our barges so we could sneak out to sea and escape. The orders were to abandon all but British, or White, troops, d'ye see… the horrid conditions that the plantation slaves had to stand, their near nakedness… pardon…"
"Fought their way out, 'gainst a company of Virginia Militia and a company of French troops from Lauzun's Legion," Mr. Twigg added with a sage nod of his head, to boot. Lewrie snapped his gaze to Twigg; he didn't know that anyone but the participants knew the details of that long-ago horror. "Nigh a week on the Atlantic, before being picked up by one of our warships. Might have sailed all the way to New York if he had had to. A most resourceful and determined man is our Captain Lewrie… even as a mere boy of a Midshipman," Twigg ended, bestowing on Lewrie a most-admiring grin, one which Lewrie was sure was costing his soul a pinch or two. But, it was a welcome diversion, one that went down well with all present.
"Then… in '86,1 was in the Bahamas," Lewrie continued, "in command of a ketch-rigged gun-vessel, Alacrity. A Lieutenant, finally. There was a James Finney, there… known as 'Calico Jack,' like that pirate, Jack Rackham. A war hero, a successful privateer, and a merchant of great fortune… made by continuing privateering against every trading ship, under any flag, even British. He was very big in slaves. Practically owned the Vendue House at Nassau, and always had what they call 'Black Ivory'… 'cause he was pirating slave ships on their way to the Americas, murdering the crews, and selling the Africans off, as well as the re-painted, re-named, re-papered ships. With official connivance, sad t'say. We raided his secret cache of goods, his lair, on Walker 's Cay, finally, and found the bones of nigh an hundred pirated slaves too old or sick to auction off… some still bound in coffles by their chains, after they were murdered. Some not," he grimly said. "Evidently, 'Calico Jack' and his cut-throats thought it a waste to let perfectly good chains and manacles be buried."
"Broke up the pirate cartel," Twigg stuck in, again, with even more (faint) praise, "and pursued Finney right into Charleston harbour in South Carolina, recovered what the brute had looted from the most-prominent island bank, and captured the last of his minions for trial, and righteous hangings, at New Providence. Put a very permanent end to 'Calico Jack,' as well, didn't ye, Lewrie?"
What doesn't he know about my doings? Lewrie gawped to himself, half-turning on the settee to see Twigg's eyes all steel-glinted.
"Well, 'twas personal by then, Mister Twigg," Lewrie admitted. "After Finney'd tried to seduce or assault my wife while I was at sea."
"And," Twigg drawled, looking back at the others with a smile on his phyz that was almost beatific, "made the man pay for his brute importunity by his own hand." That made 'em gasp and shiver!
"By personal experience with Captain Lewrie, I may also relate to you that his own Coxswain, any captain's most trusted aide, is also a runaway Jamaican house slave by name of Matthew Andrews," Mr. Twigg further informed them, once they got over their vicarious thrill. "He has been with him for years, and most-like had a great influence upon Captain Lewrie's views on the despicable institution of slavery."
"My word, sir," that Mr. Clarkson exclaimed, "I am certain we were unaware of the depth of your feelings upon this head."
"A house slave, ladies and gentlemen," Lewrie said for himself, "better fed, clothed, and sheltered than field hands, one might even say pampered, to some extent, yet… Andrews risked three hundred or more lashes, or the noose, to flee it, and be a whole, free man."