Dewey Lambdin - Reefs and Shoals

“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?”

“A grand market for a share of that in Savannah, too, if snuck past t’e Customs House,” Evans added, “or, put aboard one o’ the company ships bound for t’e Chesapeake, Philadelphee, Boston, nor even New York! T’at’s what I was doing, workin’ the ships t’Charleston, Port Royal, and ports North and back. We’d be lyin’ in t’e Roads awaitin’ a wind with local goods aboard, when the barges’d come alongside in t’e nighttime and load t’e good stuff, and no matter how innocent we were told t’play it, we knew somet’in’ was queer!”

“That’s what Oi wished t’do, aboard the ships loik Davey was workin’,” Innis told them. At Lewrie’s wave, Pettus brought round a fresh pair of mugs for their “testifiers”. “And, after a while, when the bossmans thought Oi was trustworthy, that’s what Oi got. Or, Oi thought Oi did.”

“Bossmans?” Lt. Bury asked with a quizzical moue. “What does that mean?” He had been taking notes in a ledger of his own.

“T’at’s what all t’e Cuffies say do ya ask ’em somet’in, sir,” Evans easily breezed off. “T’ey say ‘yas, massah’ or ‘yas, bossmam’,” he mimicked in slave patois.

“So, eventually, the both of you ended up crewing the prizes to French or Spanish Prize-Court ports. On the same ship every time?” Lewrie asked “Where you became mates?”

“Not all that many the bosses’d trust, sor,” Innis said with a shrug. “Not all that many who could keep their stories straight, too!”

“Stories?” Lt. Westcott asked in a skeptical tone.

“Well sir, afore we could set sail for Cuba, or t’e French islands, a clerk’d come down from Savannah and give t’e captain his new papers,” Evans took up the tale. “Oncet a prize come in, she’d need a new name, so we’d rip the quarterboards or transom boards off or paint out t’e old and paint in a new… get rid of a figurehead was it too fine or somone might recognise her by it? Some’d say t’ey were owned by t’e Tybee Roads Comp’ny, some by others.”

“Altamaha Comp’ny, the Ogeechee Comp’ny,” Innis recited as if by rote, “or named after the squares in Savannah. Some o’ the ships were s’posed t’be Charleston ships, Boston ships, God knows where-all, sor. Faith, ye’d o’ thought they’d flog ye half t’death did ye not be able t’keep your wits about ye, if we got stopped and inspected.”

“And did that happen often?” Lt. Bury enquired.

“Not all that often, no sir,” Evans assured him, “and when we were, except for fear o’ bein’ pressed, we were let go right easy, comin’ and goin!”

“With supposedly innocent cargoes each way?” Lewrie mused.

“Innocent as all get-out on t’e way back, for sure, sir!” Evans said with a laugh. Lewrie summoned Pettus for more beer, all-round. Listening was dry work!

“And, what about the profits from the sale of the prizes?” Lt. Bury softly queried, looking up, at them with solemn eyes. “How were they handled, or concealed? In French or Spanish coin, or by draughts from one bank to another?”

“Niver saw any o’ that, sors,” Innis said with a puzzled shrug after a moment or two of thought. “Us sailors got paid at the end of a voyage, at Havana, say, or after we got back to Savannah. Good pay, it was, for as long as it lasted.”

“And all gone by t’e time we shipped aboard a comp’ny ship for t’e return voyage, sirs,” Evans said with a sad shake of his head over the quickness with which it went. “French or Spanish inn-keepers were more t’an glad t’see us, and t’e ladies, too, for certain. But, by t’e time come t’sail, we were mostly ‘skint’.”

“Savannah publicans’d leave us ‘on the bones o’ our backs’ as good as the Frogs and Dons, too, sor,” Innis ruefully told them.

“That’s every sailor’s complaint,” Lewrie commiserated.

“I’d like to ask a question,” Lt. Westcott said, still looking grim and distrustful. “It sounds like you could play the innocents on either leg of your journeys with the prizes, but… how were the crew and mates of the prizes concealed on the way to Havana or other ports?”

Innis and Evans looked at each other as if where those people had gone had never come to mind. Both cocked their heads in wonder, then turned to look at the officers, and shrugged.

“I can’t recall any of t’em bein’ aboard when we took charge o’ t’e prizes, sir,” Evans said. “T’ey might’ve been slung below in irons aboard t’e privateers. Weren’t t’ere when we were, sirs.”

“Mayhap they’d a’ready been sent down, t’Saint Augustine,” Innis supposed. “When we put into the Saint John’s River t’take charge of a prize, Oi just assumed they’d been marched off t’Saint Augustine. We niver saw hide nor hair of ’em, nor their sea-chests, neither, roight, Davey?”