Why so many in port? he wondered to himself: don't they know I need room? Don't they know there's a war on?
"There's a guard-boat, sir… waving a jack at us," Lieutenant Langue pointed out. "I do believe he's showing us an anchorage."
"Well, thank God for small favours. Come about onto the wind, and steer for him, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said with a well-concealed sigh of vast relief. "Do not run him over, sir. It's bad form."
"Ya gig's ready, sah," his Cox'n Andrews informed him from his left side. "Ya don' mind, sah… I'll bring de boat off, oncet you step ashore, an' keep an eye skinned t'come fetch ya when ya done."
Lewrie frowned and turned to look at Andrews, who was "sulled up like a bullfrog," ducking his head and his eyes darting as cutty as a bag of nails-looking six ways from Sunday-in embarassment.
"Something wrong with a drink ashore, Andrews?" he teased.
"Be sumptin' bad wrong, do my old master see me, Cap'um, sah."
"Oh, that's right, you ran from Jamaica. But surely, so long ago…"
"Woll, he alius liked Spanish Town more'n Kingston, true, sah, but him an' his neighbours, dey was a hard set, sah. Hold grudges as bad as dem Serbs an' Turks back in de Balkans. D'ya not mind, sah, I don't wanna take no chance o' gettin' took up, again."
"Remind me to have my clerk Padgett forge you a letter of manumission from a master… in the Carolinas, Andrews," Lewrie decided. "For the other Black hands, too, just to be safe."
"Law, thankee, sah!" Andrews said with a wide grin of relief on his phyz. "Dot'd be hondsome-fine, sah!"
"After all, forging runs in the family." Lewrie chuckled. "But 'til we've proper, uhm… 'certificates' ready, aye, bring the boat back to the ship, and I'll hire a bum-boat for my return."
"Aye aye, sah."
Proteus found her anchorage, rounded up to slither on windward for a piece, her fore-tops'l flat a'back to brake her progress, until the very last of her way fell off and the helm went helpless. At that moment, the best bower anchor dangling from the larboard cat-head was let go to splash into the water, and the hawser paid out then snubbed after a run of half a cable, to see if the anchor would hold. With a faint jerk and groan, Proteus came to a stop, her voyage over.
"Hello, the boat!" Lewrie called down to the guard-boat that had been so obliging. "Where am I to report to Admiral Parker?"
"His flagship's in the careenage, sir!" the midshipman in the boat's sternsheets called back. "His staff captain keeps office at Fort Charles, for now!" he added, pointing back at the tip of the Palisades, the natural breakwater mole that made Kingston such a calm anchorage in most weathers, with the Blue Mountains lying in the harsh Nor'east, where most hurricanes blew their fiercest early winds. Lewrie looked in that direction, using a telescope to see if anyone had hoisted the usual "Captain Repair On Board" code flags. No, nothing. For the main base of the West Indies Station, Kingston maintained what could only charitably be termed as "peacetime" activity.
"Very well, sir, thankee!" Lewrie shouted down.
"I'm going that way, sir!" the midshipman offered. "Would you care to be rowed over?"
"Aye, that'd suit admirably. Come alongside!" Lewrie agreed.
"Thank de Lord," he heard Andrews whisper sotto voce.
"Don't feel too relieved, Andrews… you may have to come and fetch me back, then take me ashore to the civilian part of town. You scamp, you."
"Mebbe you'd speak t'Mister Padgett afore ya go, then, sah? He get dem certificates started?" Andrews countered, still looking wary.
"Dear Lord, what a lack-wit!" Captain Sir Edward Charles said, after Lewrie had filled him in on his meeting with the hapless Lieutenant Gordon of the United States Treasury Department cutter Trumbull. "If he's an example of what we may expect to meet in the near future, then God help them. In such a small service as their Treasury, or the new navy of theirs, surely only their very best and most experienced officers would gain commands. Unless they simply have none, o' course."
"I gathered that most of their experienced naval officers by now are quite aged, sir," Lewrie informed him, "those who won fame back in the Revolution; and most of them were privateersmen, to begin with."
The interview was going quite nicely, Lewrie thought. Captain Charles was Admiral Sir Hyde Parker's staff captain, a most ebulliently friendly sort-big as a rum keg about the middle and twice as stout, with the rosy cheeks and nose of the serious toper. The first thing to be done was to fetch newcome Captain Lewrie a glass of claret, and take up a refill with him to be convivial. They sat in leather wing chairs to either side of a wine-table, not before and behind the massive desk as junior and superior might, like cater-cousins or fellow clubmen.
Lewrie was turned out in his newest and nattiest uniform, run up in London for the December fкte to celebrate Camperdown. The dark blue wool coat was hard-finished and smooth, and perhaps a bit too hot for a tropic day, but a snowy-white silk shirt and equally pristine sailcloth cotton waistcoat and breeches somewhat eased any discomfort that Lewrie might have felt. The single gilt epaulet on his right shoulder, all the buttons, and gold-lace cuff trim was so new, and so well packed away so long, that he fair gleamed. And the two medals hung about his neck had gotten a polish, along with his new Hessian boots with the gilt tassels. Captain Sir Edward Charles's eyes had drifted to the medals several times, in an almost wistful way, since their introduction.
Ain't ev'ry one-winged captain that can boast one medal, Lewrie smugly told himself; much less two! Poor old soul's jealous!
"Within two day's sail of Antigua, was it?" Sir Edward asked as he topped up their half-filled glasses.
"Aye, sir. Mister Gordon told me that Saint Kitts would be one of their 'rondy's,' as would Dominica. American merchantmen will gather there and await escort for convoys, he said, to perhaps as far north as Savannah, in Georgia. He gave me the impression that what few French privateers or warships that had harried their coastal shipping were now scared off by their new frigates, and that the bulk of their losses now take place in the Caribbean. This new naval minister of theirs, termed a Secretary of the Navy, a man name of Benjamin Stoddert, gave Gordon the further impression that he's that eager to make a 'forward presence'… as soon as they have enough ships in commission, of course."
"Well, if Gordon's little cutter was the best they have to show the flag…" Sir Edward smirked over the rim of his glass. "How well-armed was she?"
"Four four-pounders, and a batch of swivels, Sir Edward, and all rough-cast," Lewrie said with a deprecating sneer of his own. "Not two from the same foundry. Old-style touch-holes with powder-filled quills for ignition. That, or port-fires. The muskets and pistols that I saw were a tad rough, as well. Copies of Tower muskets," he said, heaving a tiny shrug. "Though some mates and officers had purchased long-range Pennsylvania rifles, and those were quite well-made and very accurate. We had a little shoot-off, sir. I with my Ferguson breech-loader, and they with their muzzle-loaders."
"Who won?" Sir Edward snapped, "tetchy" of a sudden. "Uhm… they did, sir. Though ramming the ball down a rifled barrel with a lubricated leather patch about it takes forever. I was told that their new Marine Corps will be issued rifles, not muskets. A squad of Marines in each top, with rifles, could decimate the officers of a foe at nearly two hundred yards, maybe even a full cable's range. Then, sir, God help the French, when they meet!"