Innis and Evans shared a look, nigh-shrugged at the same time as if resigned, then announced, “T’e Prize-Court trade, d’ye see, sir? Seein’ what prizes t’at Insolent and t’e others took t’sell at Basse-Terre or Havana,” Evans told him.
“Then ship aboard another bound back t’Savannah, sor,” Innis chimed in, “t’do it all over again. Got roight boresome, it did.”
Lewrie whirled to gawp at them with as much delight as if the Christmas holidays had come early, just for him!
“The others, you say?” Lewrie asked them. “ What others?”
“Well, there’s the Otarie, what means t’e ‘Sea Lion’, for one,” Evans confessed. “T’en t’ere’s t’ Furieux, but her captain’s a real Tartar. Sea Lion ’s captain…”
“Mollien,” Lewrie stuck in.
“Aye, sir,” Evans said. “He’s good at it, but can’t hold a patch t’Captain Chaptal. T’at’s why we signed aboard her, sir, for he’s t’e most successful, young t’ough he be.”
“There was a Spaniard, too, now and again, the Torbellino,” Innis told Lewrie. “Moighta been a Catholic-run ship, but there’s no way Oi’d ever take articles with a Don, sor!”
“We nabbed her,” Lewrie boasted. “Here now, lads… how would you two like not to hang?”
“Well, o’ course, sor!” Innis exclaimed.
“Do anything, sir!” Evans swore. “A Bible-oath I would!”
“Lieutenant Lovett?” Lewrie said. “I’d admire did you take these two prisoners back to the prize, so they can fetch their sea-chests and determine if they possess worthless Consular certificates, or genuine papers.”
“Very good, sir,” Lovett replied, sounding as if he would have relished a hanging instead.
“Then bring them right back here,” Lewrie went on, turning to face the pair once more. “I want you to tell me everything you know about your so-called ‘Prize-Court’ trade, who arranges it, and where, and how it’s conducted. If your certificates are genuine, you could be imprisoned at Nassau like the rest of your crew.
“But,” he insisted, raising a finger in warning, “if you tell me all, I’d be of a mind t’let you two volunteer into the brigantine yonder. Lieutenant Darling, her commander, told me he’s two hands short. Not pressed, but allowed the Joining Bounty. Think upon it. You’ve no hopes of even tuppence of what pay, or shares in captured ships, you were due. You have your kits and sea-chests already, so Thorn ’s Purser can’t charge you much if you volunteer.”
That beats prison hulks, or a ‘Newgate Horn-pipe’, Lewrie told himself; but not by much, recalling what Dr. Samuel Johnson had said of sea-service-that it was like a prison, in which one has the chance to drown!
“Why, t’at’d be more t’an fair, sir!” Evans exulted, whooshing with relief. “I’ll do it, and tell you all you wish!”
“If Oi kin have some’un wroite me fam’ly an’ tell ’ em where Oi be, sor,” Innis quickly agreed.
“Off ye go with Lieutenant Lovett, here, then,” Lewrie said. “And when you return, we’ll have a good, long talk, hey?”
Good God above, they’re in in up to their necks ! Lewrie thought in joy; They’ve seen the whole scheme from the inside ! By sunset, we may be able to “smoak out” the entire enterprise, and put an end to it!
He did feel a moment of trepidation, though. Those two might not really know all that much. Or, could he really get that lucky?
He could almost hear Dame Fortune laughing in the wings.
CHAPTER FORTY
“I find them most convincing, sir,” Lt. Bury said after he and Lewrie had looked the certificates over in Reliant ’s great-cabins, as the two sailors in question, Innis and Evans, stood before the desk in the day-cabin portion, nigh-shivering as their fate was determined.
“Good bond writing paper, not ‘flimsy’,” Lt. Westcott agreed as he held them up to the light of the overhead lanthorns to squint over them, “and the letterheads are embossed. If they are sham, they are the best I’ve seen. Aye, like Bury says, they seem genuine.”
“Let’s accept them at face value, then,” Lewrie decided. “Lads, I believe you when you say you’re American citizens of Georgia. You’ll not hang, not this year, at least. Now I’ll ask ye to fufill your part of the bargain.”
In vino veritas, Lewrie thought; or, in beer veritas. Get ’em ‘wet’ and loose-tongued. Where…?
“Mister Westcott, let’s you and I take the chairs; Lieutenant Bury, do you drag one from the dining-coach, and you two have a seat on the settee yonder,” Lewrie bade them as genially as he could. “Pettus, please draw us five mugs of beer. Innis… you said you worked on the barges out of Savannah, first?”
“Aye, sor, Oi did,” the fellow said, grinning in relief, but a bit hesitant in his response. It might have had something to do with being seated like an equal with officers. Even in a looser, more easy-going Society like America, there were still lessers and betters, and enough who would insist on deference from one like him. “First off, Oi was bargin’ timber from the mills to Savannah, and goods back, but that was low-payin’ and boresome, and… like Davey told ye… Oi wanted t’see a bit more o’ the world. Went t’work for the Tybee Roads Tradin’ Comp’ny for more pay, but that was just river-work from Savannah down t’the Roads and back.”
Lewrie looked over at Bury, who had been scouring the captured privateer’s ledgers during the time it took to take Innis and Evans to the prize and return; Bury gave him a sage nod. The name of that company featured prominently on the meticulously recorded receipts.
“Did that for about a year, afore,” Innis went on, pausing as a foaming pint mug was offered him, and he took a deep swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sighed, and said “Ah, that’s toppin’, thankee, sor! The barge master, he took me aside one ev’nin’ and asks me, would Oi care t’make five or six dollar more a week, and o’ course Oi said I would, but that’d depend on if Oi could keep me mouth shut, and not go blabbin’ did I get a skin full in the taverns. Then, Oi got on the coastin’ barges… down t’the Cumberland Sound and up the Saint Mary’s or the Saint John’s. Not all the time, maybe one trip or two ev’ry two, three months.”
“And what was secret about those trips?” Lewrie casually asked, not wanting to press him too sharply, but mightily intrigued.
“We’d meet the privateers, sor,” Innis almost happily admitted. “They’d’ve fetched their prizes into the rivers, and needed supplies… vittles, mostly. We’d break-bulk the prizes’ holds o’ what they carried and put it aboard the barges t’run up t’the warehouses in Savannah, leave the most o’ the captured goods aboard, and bury ’em in lumber, rice, cotton, tobacco, whatever’d be welcome in Havana or the French islands.”
“T’at’d be so, did one of our ships be stopped, boarded, and inspected by a ship like yours, Cap’m sir,” Evans contributed. He had been silent up to that point, but had downed half his mug of beer and was almost youthfully eager to relate their doings. “There’d be false manifests, like the whole cargo was export goods, not loot.”
“So… when the prizes made port, the valuable British exports from the West Indies… or British goods sent to the West Indies… would earn more money from the French or Spanish Prize Courts?” Lewrie hesitantly summed up, “more than if the prizes were full of Georgian produce?”
“Aye, sor, that’s the way of it,” Innis agreed, grinning like a loon. “And the stuff from England, aye! Sterling and plate, crystal and china, bales o’ ready-made stuff, bolts and bolts o’ foine cloth, pianers and furniture? Kegs and crates o’ wine and brandy?”