“And why would they be waiting so long between the arrivals of the privateers?” Lewrie further queried.
“Every two or three month, sor,” Innis told him. “At the dark o’ the moon, ev’ry second or third month, when I was working barges. Reg’lar shipments o’ vittles and such, exports’d be sent down ev’ry new moon, and if they had any special orders t’be filled, a barge’d go back t’Savannah t’fetch the goods afore Insolent ’d sail, or one o’ the prizes’d sail when we were workin’ that side o’ the trade.”
“And does the place change with the timing of the new moons?” Lt. Bury asked. “Every second month the Saint Mary’s River, and then the Saint John’s River on the third, say?”
“In t’e beginnin’,” Evans confessed, “but t’e Saint Mary’s is handier, closer t’Savannah, and if anyone ever stumbled over us when we were there, we’d just shove off, hug the Spanish side, and sail or row up far enough t’strand anyone chasin’ us on shoals.”
“If it was an American Revenue cutter, aye,” Innis added, “but if someone like you, your honour, sor, caught us, we’d hug the other bank, Georgia bein’ neutral and all, and if we had to, we could slip over the side and swim or row to American soil and be safe as babbies.”
Lewrie lowered his head and rested his upper lip on the forefinger of his right hand, mulling all that he’d been told. At last he lowered his arm and looked to either side at Westcott and Bury.
“Do any of you gentlemen have any other questions for these men which might further enlighten us?” he asked. “Any part of their tale that needs further explanation?”
“How long had your privateer been at sea?” Lt. Bury thought to ask. “Were you due in the river soon, or would your Captain Chaptal wait ’til he had a prize?”
“We was in two month ago, sor, with our last prize,” Innis said, looking as if he would care for a fresh mug of beer. “In any case, we can’t stay out much more’n three ’til the rum, whisky and beer runs out. We’d just started prowlin’ the Bahamas for pickin’s, coz your Navy’s convoy escorts is gettin’ too strong.”
The last thing that a privateer ever wanted was a hard scrap with a warship, or even a well-armed merchantman with a master determined enough to put up a fight, which might cripple the raider and cost her captain, owners, and investors a steep repair bill. Against a warship, the only thing a privateer could do would be to flee, and pray for a clean pair of heels. Even a well-armed privateer’s guns were more for show to daunt the desperate, not for a slugging match.
“So, the next new moon would be the next ‘rondy’?” Lt. Westcott asked, shifting in his chair hard enough to make it squeak, sounding canny and eager. “For you, or another privateer?”
“Well, aye, sor,” Innis said, looking surprised, that anyone had to ask; it was plain as day to him!
Westcott sat back with a smile on his face, quite satisfied.
“Anything else?” Lewrie asked, smiling contentedly. “No? Then I suppose we’ve kept these men long enough. Mister Westcott, would ye kindly pass word for a Midshipman of the duty watch, and arrange for a boat to carry Innis and Evans over to Thorn?”
“Of course, sir,” Westcott agreed, rising to go to the door to the weather deck. Lewrie stood, too, as did Bury.
“You two are gettin’ off by the skin of your teeth, ye know that,” Lewrie told the sailors. “Ye’ve been up to your necks in an evil trade. I’m still not satisfied that the crews off the prizes are safe… or even alive. Understand me? Aye, you think upon that, and thank God I can’t link you to their fates. Volunteeering for the Navy’s your second chance. I strongly advise the both of you to make the most of it, obey orders chearly, and sing small. It may not pay as good as merchant service, or ‘lays’ in a successful privateer, but pay it is. Don’t make me, or Lieutenant Darling, regret givin’ you the benefit of the doubt!”
“We won’t, sor, cross me heart an’ hope t’die!” Innis swore.
“A fine gentleman ye are, sir, and a merciful one!” Evans said.
“Off with you, now,” Lewrie gruffly ordered, shooing them to the forward door. Once they were gone, Lewrie cast his eyes on the overhead and let out a long, weary sigh.
“Lieutenant Darling will not thank you for them, sir,” Lt. Bury softly said. “They’re ‘King’s Bad Bargains’, if ever I saw any.”
“I expect you’re right, Bury,” Lewrie grudgingly agreed, “but I made a bad bargain of my own, to get them to talk so freely, and I have to keep to it, no matter my personal feelings.
“You suspect that the people off the prizes are dead, the same as I do?” Lewrie asked as he turned to look at him.
“I hope not, sir, but it does not sound promising,” Bury said most gravely. “But for the most scrupulous Prize-Court officials, the muster books listing crew members suffice, so for a privateer captain, the temptation to save rations and money by eliminating them is quite strong, and saves him the trouble of guarding and sheltering them, yet… I cannot imagine that being done by even the most cold-blooded and piratical. There are rules of war, after all, a code of gentlemanly conduct, of honour! Those two, Innis and Evans, saw the prisoners being marched away, so they were brought in. If they were to die, why not kill them far out at sea?”
“I hope you’re right,” Lewrie moodily replied, “but, this insidious scheme hangs on secrecy. If the prisoners were kept in some holding pen out in the wilds, even in a warehouse at Saint Augustine, there’s always the chance that a few might escape and make their way to American authorities, and the entire enterprise falls apart, with arrests and trials all round. Even held incommunicado ’til the end of the war, whenever that’ll be, they’d have to be released then, and if evidence of what they witnessed comes to light, a lot of people would be ruined.”
“But perhaps it is not the French privateers who would stand to lose the most, sir,” Bury sagely pointed out. “To men like Chaptal, what matters most is operational secrecy, and a way to dispose of his prisoners and prizes quickly, and remain on his ‘hunting grounds’ without a long and risky voyage to do so, or putting them all aboard a neutral ship for a cartel to land them in a neutral port or return them to a British port.”
“And, thumb his nose at us,” Lewrie sourly added.
“That, too, sir, but… who runs the greatest risk of having his activities in support of a belligerent exposed?” Bury asked. “Who is more liable to be ruined and imprisoned?”
“Whichever bloody American is running this arrangement for ’em?” Lewrie realised.
“And, sir… if the American behind it wishes even more profit from it, why waste funds on marching the prisoners all the way to the Spanish authorities?” Bury continued. “It costs to build holding pens for prisoners, to feed them, and guard them. Captain Chaptal and the other privateer captains might not know the fate of their captives once landed, and might not much care. Despite our long-held distrust and loathing for the French, for the most part they fight a gentlemanly war, whereas an unscrupulous American man of business… might not. ”
Someone not a soldier, or Sea Officer, Lewrie thought, sneering; just a bloody “tradesman”, with his soul bound in double-entry account books! No, no one could be that cold-blooded!
“Marching ’em to the Dons’d be a cost of doin’ business,” Lewrie said with a grimace. “Once at Saint Augustine, they’re no longer his concern, either, and he’d let them feed and guard ’em.”
“If he could run the risk of exposure, sir,” Bury said.