"Damme, but those schooners look like they'd be fast as witches… even to windward," Lewrie commented. "Even with the full cargoes they seem to bear. Ever seen the like, Andrews?"
"Masts raked so sharp, dough, sah… dem Yankees mebbe crazy," was Andrews's assessment. "How dey foot 'em to de keel-steps, an' not rip right out, I'd wondah. Wadn't here dis mornin'. T'ink dem 'Mericans be makin' up a no'th-bound 'trade,' at las', Cap'm?"
"It very well could be," Lewrie agreed. "I think we'll satisfy my curiosity, before we go back aboard our ship. Steer for Sumter, if you will, Andrews. It appears there's a gaggle o' boats alongside of her already."
"Aye aye, sah."
"Besides, Captain McGilliveray might have something with which to settle our mis'rable dinners," Lewrie added with a chuckle.
"Captain Lewrie, sir!" Midshipman Desmond McGilliveray said at the top of the starboard entry-port, stepping forward past the Marine Lieutenant in charge of the side-party that had rendered him honours. The lad was almost tail-wagging eager to greet him, though constricted by the usages and customs of his navy to the doffing of his hat and a bow from the waist.
"Mister McGilliveray!" Lewrie cried with too much heartiness of his own, his eyes equally agleam, and his carefully stern expression creased by an involuntary smile. "Well met, young sir."
"We saw you come in with your prize, sir!" the lad exclaimed in joy, plopping his tricorne back on his head any-old-how. "Did she put up much of a fight, sir? Did she resist very long, or…?"
Once his own gilt-laced cocked hat was back on his own head, he astounded the boy by extending his right hand for a warmer greeting; a hand that young McGilliveray took with a puppyish delight and shook in return, right heartily.
"Steered right up to her, yardarm to yardarm, in the dark, and only fired one bow-chaser, just t'wake 'em long enough to surrender!" Lewrie replied, proud for a chance to boast and preen. "I'll tell it all to you later, should we have the chance. But I have come to see your Captain first."
"He is aboard, sir, and aft," Midshipman McGilliveray informed him, only slightly crest-fallen. "I shall tell him that you have come aboard, Captain Lewrie. This way, please."
Lewrie's arrival alongside, though, had created enough stir to draw Sumter?, First Officer, Lt. Claiborne, from the great-cabins aft to the gangway, minus sword and hat.
"Ah! Captain Lewrie, good," Lt. Claiborne said, coming over to greet him, as well. "You got our captain's note, I see."
"Uhm, no Mister Claiborne, I came direct from Roseau and the Prize Court offices," Lewrie told him.
"And you escaped with your purse, Captain Lewrie? Congratulations," Claiborne replied, frowning for a second. "My captain is now in conversation with several of our merchant masters, and wished to speak with you, regarding their informations. A glad happenstance, you came to call on us. If you will follow me, Captain Lewrie?"
"Lead on, sir. Talk to you later, lad," Lewrie promised to his newly acquired "offspring."
He was led down a ladder to the gun-deck, then aft into the cabins under the quarterdeck, clutching the hilt of his hanger in one hand and his hat in the other; suddenly self-conscious to be ogled like some raree show, with many faint, fond, almost doting smiles to every hand. Lewrie could only conclude that Sumter's, people had gotten a whiff of rumour concerning his relationship to Midshipman McGilliveray, who was obviously a "younker" well thought of aboard that ship to begin with.
Damme, even that hawk-faced Marine lieutenant goggled me like a new-born swaddlin' babe! Lewrie groused to himself as he was admitted to the day-cabin, where the air was close, hot and still, despite the opened windows, coach-top, and wind-scoops; where several men ceased their conversation and rose to greet him. Lewrie blinked to adapt to the dimness of the cabins, after the harsh brightness of the deck.
"Captain Lewrie, thank you for responding to my request for a conference so quickly," Capt. McGilliveray said, coming forward to take hands with him. He gave Lewrie no time to explain that he had not gotten McGilliveray's note, but began to introduce the others present.
There was another U.S. Navy officer off the hermaphrodite brig, an almost painfully tall and gaunt, dark-visaged fellow in his middle thirties, named to him as one Captain Randolph, of the Armed Brig USS Oglethorpe.
"Proudly commissioned in Savannah, Captain Lewrie, suh," Capt. Randolph told him with a warm smile, "an' named f r one of your English lords, James Oglethorpe, who founded th' Georgia colony, he said in addition, and in a liquid drawl even rounder and deeper than South Carolinian McGilliveray's, were such a thing possible.
"And ya know what they say, Randolph," McGilliveray japed him, "that all the rogues went t'Georgia', ha ha!"
"Proud of it, suh, proud of it!" Randolph happily rejoined.
"And Captains Ezekiel Crowninshield and Gabriel Crowninshield, McGilliveray continued, indicating a pair of stouter and younger men who were, at first glance, as alike as a pair of book-ends; gingery-
haired and florid. "Their schooners are outta Mystic, Connecticut, magnificent and fast sailers, the Iroquois and the Algonquin."
"Twins, as well, sirs?" Lewrie asked of them after a greeting.
"Built side-by-side in the same yard, Captain Lewrie," he was gladly told in a much harsher "Down-East Yankee" nasal twang. "First swam within a week of each other, too." One brother said.
"Raced him hyuh," the other boasted. "Beat him all hollow."
"And last but not least," McGilliveray said further, "Captain Grant, off the Sarah and Jane. Captain Grant, Captain Lewrie, of the Proteus frigate."
"Your servant, sir," Lewrie politely said, though the name was nagging at him; the ship and her captain, both, as he stepped closer to take Grant's hand. "Oh! 'Tis you, sir. Well met, again."
"Why, bless my soul, if it ain't that little pop-in-jay laddy, who gave me so much grief in the Bahamas!" Grant exclaimed. "Ruint a whole cargo o' Caicos salt on me, too… eighty-six, was it? Just a Lieutenant, then, ye were, in yer little converted bomb-ketch…?"
"Alacrity, Captain Grant," Lewrie supplied him. "But, then… you'd not have lost so dearly, had you obeyed the Navigation Acts and steered wide o' me. And the salt wouldn't have been used for bulwarks and your ship not commandeered as bait if you'd stayed in the Turks Islands and testified 'gainst Calico Jack Finney's pirates as I asked you to." Lewrie still held Grant's hand, though they were done shaking; his smile could have been mistaken for courteous, but there was a definite frost to his voice.
"Well, we live an' learn, do we not, Captain Lewrie," Grant at last said with a wintry smile of his own, almost pulling himself free.
"We do, indeed, sir," Lewrie replied.
"Whatever happened t'Calico Jack Finney?" Grant had to enquire.
"I chased him into Charleston harbour and killed the bastard," Lewrie told him in a casual, off-hand way, still grinning.
"Dear Lord, that was you, Captain Lewrie?" Capt. McGilliveray said with a gasp of wonder. "Why, I watched the whole thing from the Battery! My my my, will wonders never cease. That we've crossed each other's hawses, if ya will, more than once. In so many things, well!"
"Life is funny that way, aye, Captain McGilliveray, I grant ye," Lewrie answered, glad to turn his direction and dismiss Grant.
"Ever'body says that," Capt. Randolph of the Oglethorpe mused. "but usually with long faces when they do," he japed, solemn-faced.