And Oglethorpe ’s captain had been a Savannahan gentleman seafarer named…? Randolph! Lewrie recalled; If I didn’t have my nose outta joint, I could’ve looked him up and asked him a few questions! Too damned late, now!
Lewrie also glumly considered that Randolph might have stayed in the sea trade, and might have been halfway to Canton, China, or he might have passed away of something; a lot of people whom Lewrie had known from his time round Jamaica, and at Nassau, as he’d learned from his recent call there, had joined The Great Majority.
Toulon and Chalky had abandoned his lap and thighs and gone to the middle of the settee to groom themselves before supper, so Lewrie could get to his feet and stroll aft to the larboard side to step into his quarter-gallery toilet to relieve himself of beer. The upper sash-windows were open for the sundown breeze, and Reliant had swung on her single anchor to face her stern up-river, so he could savour another fine sunset as he piddled.
I have t’re-join the squadron off Saint Augustine, he thought; I’ve already been away too long. But, if Darling, Lovett, and Bury say that blockadin’ the place ain’t worth a candle, what’s t’stop me from bringin’ ’em back up here t’prowl the Georgia coast for a bit? Maybe poke into the St. John’s River in Spanish Florida on the way? And, do we use some o’ those boats we captured at Mayami Bay, and keep well to the Spanish side o’ the Saint Mary’s…? Hmm.
As he did his breeches’ buttons up, he stepped to the aft windows for a last peek at the sunset, and a deep, appreciative breath of cooler evening air. The larger merchant ships that had been anchored off Cockspur Island the night before, on the Southern side of Tybee Roads, were reduced in number. There had been four, but now there were only two, surrounded as before with lighters nuzzled alongside like a pack of nursing piglets. Up-river, nearer Turtle Island and Jones Island, the night lanthorns had already been lit on the clutch of smaller brigs and snows, also attended by lighters. Some of the lighters sat lower in the water than others, evidently still full of exports or chandlers’ goods, to be laded in the morning.
And, coming down-river was a pair of those stout and dowdy cargo barges under two masted lugs’l rigs with single jibs. With the sun low on the Western horizon, almost lost in the trees, the sails glowed amber against the red band of sunset, and tiny, glim-like lanthorns at their binnacles and sterns winked a cheery yellow. Quite pretty, Lewrie thought, in all.
Lewrie left the quarter-gallery and shut the door behind him, and took seat upon the upholstered transom settee to continue watching the sunset through the transom sash-windows. The lower halves of the windows were kept closed at all times, so one, or both, of his cats on a romp or gambol in the night, did not fall out and be lost at sea; they needed a cleaning of salt-air rime on the outside, and smudges of paw prints on the inside. He had to stand again to watch through the open upper halves.
The sailing barges stood on, bound for the larger ships which lay off Cockspur Island, almost passing out of view as they neared the starboard quarter. But, they weren’t reducing sail.
What the Devil? Lewrie wondered, going over to the starboard side of his cabins to open the door to the other quarter-gallery, which was used for storage, so he could follow the barges’ progress.
They weren’t stopping at the large ships’ anchorage; they were bound out to sea!
Where the bloody Hell are they goin’? Lewrie asked himself; At this time o’ night? Pettus and Jessop hadn’t bothered to clean the window panes in the starboard quarter-gallery, since it was not used as a lavatory, so Lewrie had to pull out his long shirt-tail to scrub himself a clear patch, but all he accomplished was a worse smear. His curiosity piqued, he dashed for the door to the waist and ran up the ladderway to the quarterdeck in his shirt sleeves.
“Captain’s on deck,” Midshipman Warburton cautioned the idling quarteredeck watch, and the officers who had come up before their own supper for a smoke, or a breath of air.
“Glass, Mister Warburton!” Lewrie snapped.
“Something amiss, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked, coming to the starboard bulwarks a step behind his captain.
“Those two sailin’ barges yonder, sir,” Lewrie said over his shoulder. “They’re not closin’ with those anchored ships; they’re on their way to sea. Lading’s done for the day, so where are they goin’, I wonder. Why are they bound out just at sundown, not…? Thankee, Mister Warburton,” he said as the requested telescope was fetched.
He couldn’t see all that much, even if the barges were only a mile or so off. The telescope was a day-glass, with little light-gathering strength. A night glass would have shown more detail, but its assortment of internal lenses resulted in an image that was upside-down and backwards.
“They look t’be about fourty or fifty feet, or so, two-masted, and…” Lewrie muttered. “Do they look like the run-of-the-mill barges you’ve seen, Mister Westcott?”
“I suppose so, sir,” the First Lieutenant admitted sheepishly, “I fear I’ve not given any of them more than a passing glance. Just work-boats,” he said with a shrug.
“Have any of you seen any o’ them goin’ to sea, or entering the Roads from seaward?” Lewrie asked.
His sudden appearance on the quarterdeck had drawn the other two Lieutenants, and the Marine Officer, from the idle gathering, and to stand near him by the starboard bulwarks in a befuddled pack.
“I cannot say that we have, sir,” Lt. Spendlove, the most earnest of them, confessed.
“As Mister Westcott said, sir… just work-boats,” Lieutenant Merriman seconded. “Strings of them come down-river each morning, and return to Savannah in the afternoons, mostly.”
“Or, they spend the night alongside the merchant ships, then sail the next morning, sir,” Lt. Spendlove added.
“Is their going to sea suspicious, though, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked. “There are plantations on almost every island along the coast, I heard, so… they must get goods from Savannah somehow.”
“After dark, though?” Lewrie pointed out. “It’d make more sense to sail from the Savannah docks at dawn, and get to Saint Simon’s, or Jekyll Island, or Brunswick port, in late afternoon, in safety, and not risk the barges to the shoals and such in the dark.”
“Even goods required instanter, sir?” Marine Lt. Simoock asked.
“Instanter, my foot!” Lt. Merriman scoffed with a laugh. “It would take a whole day to send an order by boat from Brunswick, and a day to fill it, then a third day, weather permitting, to ship it down to them.”
“Instanter’s what you have at hand, and snatch up quickly,” Lt. Spendlove added.
“Well, I’m no mariner, I will admit,” Simcock replied, “so I will trust to your seasoned judgement.”
“There is the possibility that those two barges are from one of the Sea Islands further South, sir, or belong to a Brunswick merchant, returning home,” Westcott slowly speculated. “If their masters know the waters well enough, and stand far enough offshore during the night, they may not think a night passage all that much of a risk.”