The King's Privateer Read online

  “Oh, indeed, sir,” Twigg said, grinning a little.

  “The Monsoon, the summer Monsoons are out of the sou’west as early as they’d have to leave,” Alan continued. “And about the time they’re changing from the winter nor’east winds. There’s violent weather then. No one in his right mind would try that. And then they’d have to sail clear across the entire Pacific, maybe a three or four month voyage to be first in for the furs, as early as May, when the ice melts. And then to gather all the rest on the way back …”

  “Maybe they have an arrangement with some o’ the Polynesian islanders t’ arrive an’ pick up shark fins an’ all on the way out, or don’t have t’ spend too much time on the way back,” Wythy added. “So they might save a full month all told.”

  “Already loaded to the deck-heads, though, with cargo!” Lewrie beamed. “Where’s the room for food, water, firewood?”

  “Loaded with what?” Wythy snorted. “Cotton? Sure t’ take fire if ye close it up too long. Get a seepage an’ watch it swell like a hundred tons o’ sponges an’ break yer hull? By God, opium don’t keep that well that long, either. Either lose yer ship, get marooned with the savages, or watch yer best cargo spoil on ye.”

  “They could leave here in March and go direct to Nootka Sound,” Twigg prompted. “Or make a round voyage every two years, instead of the one, like some of those former Rebel skippers do.”

  “Then they would have to spend their time fighting the nor’east Monsoons east and north of Guinea,” Alan said, remembering his Falconer’s. “With the same storms when the winds shift out of the sou’east, about … six weeks later than the Indian Ocean, as I recall. It would be impossible to make much headway, tacking close-hauled into a nor’wester. And if they went directly from Macao to Nootka Sound, where’d they get all the Indian goods, then?”

  “Excuse me, sirs, if a landsman sticks his oar into the water,” Burgess chuckled, “but what if they go to India in March, thence to the Nootka Sound, riding the favorable winds. And only do the two-year round voyage?”

  “Money, Burgess,” Alan replied, smirking. “They ain’t Navy. Who could afford to pay a crew for twice the work and only once the profit? And there is the matter of spoilage, like Mister Wythy said.”

  “Fascinating speculation, is it not, sirs?” Twigg said happily. “And finally, there is the matter of this ship’s name. La Malouine. We may deduce that her master could possibly be a Breton. We may further imply that he is from St. Malo, on the northern Brittany coast. Who else would name a ship La Malouine? Bretons have been pirates, privateersmen and ship-wreckers since before the times of Caesar. Ideally placed to play merry hell with Channel commerce, an activity in which they’ve indulged since the last Legions marched out of England and France. They’re some of the best sailors France may boast of. As good as any Liverpool or Bristol privateer, and twice as bloody-handed.”

  “Bit obvious, though,” Alan said in the long silence that followed. “I mean, the name of the ship. Too … I don’t know.”

  “Pass me that bloody port, lad, there’s a good feller,” Wythy said, “while you cogitate on’t.”

  “There’s closer places to get bird’s nests, spice, brass and shark fins, you know,” Twigg told them. “A lot closer to Canton or the Bay of Bengal. The Malay pirates. Even from Mindanao. They hate sharks so much they go out of their way to kill them. Catch them and force spiny sea-urchins down their gullets so they’ll take days to die a painful death. Make them suffer for every one of theirs the sharks take or mangle.”

  “Best lead we’ve turned up yet,” Wythy summarized.

  “Yes, Tom,” Twigg agreed. “We must look into this La Malouine. Find out if she’s Compagnie des Indies or a country ship. Where she’s home-ported, where she’s been seen the last year or so. Have any of us paid her any mind yet? Is she a tubby little merchantman, or is she a converted warship? Small crew, large crew. How well armed, who and what are her officers.”

  “How much opium she sold at Lintin Island, too, if she’s payin’ her way, same’s us,” Wythy stuck in. “’Course, if she’s the one we’re lookin’ for, ye may count on looted opium, an’ pure profit.”

  “Damme, I wish I’d been on the customs dock this morning,” Twigg rasped. “One sight of those shark fins, and that ginseng, and I’d have tumbled to ’em a lot sooner.”

  “Speaking of, sir, where would they get ginseng? Sail all the way to Boston for it?” Burgess inquired.

  “The ginseng, aye, Mister Chiswick. I suspect there’s a Yankee merchantman gone missing. We shall have to ask around among our dear divorced cousins. They may have over-reached themselves in that matter. Maybe they took it, maybe their native confederates took it and handed it over for arms, thinking it might be worth something. Either way, they’ve blown a hole in their cover. A small hole, but a hole nonetheless.”

  “And what may we do to help, sir?” Burgess asked, looking as tail-wagging eager as a fox-hound pup about to be let out with his first pack.

  “Not a blessed thing,” Twigg replied quickly, and with some affrontery. “You two leave this part of the business to them that won’t give the game away. I’ll not have these Frogs put on their guard by a mistake by some cunny-thumbed, cackhanded amateurs!”

  “Oh, but ye’ve done grand ’nough, so far, lads,” Wythy interceded. “We’d not know anythin’ but fer yer observin’, and bringin’ up the subject of that ginseng. But remember, we’re trying to pose as innocent as the Frogs are. Yer not practiced at this. So ye go on with yer duties, and yer sight-seein’, same’s the French’d expect from ye. Do keep yer eyes peeled, though, on the sly. Don’t go too sneakin’r actin’ suspicious, but just idle about and take note.”

  “I see, sir,” Burgess replied, still in a bit of a pet after Twigg’s scornful dismissal of his services, no matter how Wythy had softened the blow.

  “Circulate. Act the calf-headed cullys. But watch when ye may. Not a sharp watch, mind, but watch,” Wythy concluded.

  Chapter 5

  They waited, and they watched.

  In fact, once Telesto was totally unloaded and riding high in the water, there was very little else to do. Whampoa Reach was the place to idle from September to March. Their cargoes of tea were not in Canton for quick loading; they had to come down from the hinterland. What they had purchased were only sample packs of the year’s pickings. The lacquerware, furniture and china had to be manufactured during the winter season, then loaded lot by lot. It took Chinese laborers time to weave nankeen cloth, silks, ribbon and fancy goods. Wallpapers had to be made first, then meticulously, and slowly, printed by Asian methods, or painted by artists by hand with their bamboo pens and brushes.

  “Rope-Yarn Sunday, thank God,” Alan muttered to himself as he emerged on the quarterdeck. It had rained during the night, and the masts, sails and rigging overhead dribbled fat, cool drops of water from aloft as if it rained still. There was a slight fog over the Pearl River and Whampoa Reach, a fog that amplified the creaking of the myriad of vessels as timbers and planking settled anew, as rigging slacked tension and the masts worked against themselves. As thigh-thick mooring cables groaned against the hawsehole timbers, and tinny watch-bells tinkled like a forest of windchimes, all set on chronometers that would never agree with each other.

  Telesto had been a scene from the ancient Egyptian Pyramids the day before. Gun-drill, repel boarders drill, striking the upper masts and yards down to the lower fighting tops and gantlines, only to hoist them aloft once more and re-set the standing rigging. Starboard watch against larboard watch. Anything to keep the men from going stale with idleness.

  Today, though. Today was “Rope-Yarn Sunday,” a day to celebrate idleness, a day of make-and-mend. Bedding and hammocks could be aired and re-sewn. Personal clothing could be washed and darned. Those intent on their carvings, their scrimshaw, ship-models and hobbies could indulge themselves. There would be music, a time for dancing, napping or pleasant conversation. Sailors could “caulk or y
arn” to their heart’s content if they stayed aboard, or go ashore and sample the dubious pleasures of Hog Lane once again.

  A member of the sailmaker’s crew would get rich today; he had found a source for sheep-gut, and would exhaust his stock of condoms among his shipmates. After the first few days, and the first hands had wept in agony each time they made water off the beakhead up forward, the surgeon had made a good living, too. Fifteen shillings per sufferer was the tariff for the good doctor to administer the mercury cure. A sheep-gut condom, sewn up by a trusted shipmate, was only eight shillings, which left money for enough rum to allow a man to forget Telesto for a while. And avoid the pox!

  “Morning, Mister Lewrie, sir,” young Hogue, the master’s mate said, doffing his hat in greeting. Hogue looked ill enough to be already counted among the dead. He’d been one of the surgeon’s first customers, and the mercury cure was no stroll in the park on a sunny day. He’d lost fifteen precious pounds, had gone by turns white as a ghost or grey as old linen, and even now, freed from his sickbed, looked about as cadaverously deceased as Zachariah Twigg.

  “Anything stirring, Mister Hogue?” Alan asked.

  “Nothing yet, sir. Though ’tis hard to tell with this fog.”

  “Let’s be at it, then,” Alan sighed. He handed Hogue a large mug of sweet, hot tea, taking in exchange a brass-bound telescope as large as a swivel-gun, and they mounted to the poop deck above the captain’s great-cabins, went aft to the taffrails over the stern and lashed the telescope to the barrel of a swivel-gun to steady it.

  Alan swept back the sleeves of his fiery red silk dressing gown and bent to study their quarry, La Malouine, as they did every morning.

  Naming that ship La Malouine was about as top-lofty as calling Tom Turdman’s scow, the flagship of Dung Wharf, HMS Victory, Alan thought sourly. La Malouine had turned out to be a rather old, rather shabby East Indiaman. In fact, she was so old, she still sported a lateen yard for a spanker on the mizzenmast over the poop, rather than a more modern gaff-rig. Inquiries had revealed that she was of about nine hundred tons burthen, short, bluff and beamy as a Dutchman’s wooden shoe, and had been a familiar sight in the Far East for years. She had at one time (long before he was born, Alan suspected) been a Compagnie des Indies vessel, but had been discarded and gone independent once newer construction became available. As her Adriatic oak had succumbed to rot and teredo worms, she’d been re-scantlinged with teak until she could truly be said to consist of teak almost totally. Teak lasted damn-near forever, even in the tropics, and, with new coppering on her quick-work below the waterline, La Malouine might aspire in future to that full century of service Mr. Brainard had spoken of.

  Her home port was Pondichery on the southeast Indian coast. Her master, M. Jacques Sicard, was a delightful little gotch-gut with a waggish sense of humor, a sharp nose for trade and a repute as a moderately honest man.

  “Bloody waste of time,” Alan grumbled, standing back up to sip his own tea.

  “Seems to be, sir,” Hogue agreed glumly. He gave a great yawn from being up all night in the middle watch to spy on their neighbor. Being newly returned among the healthy didn’t help, either.

  “Anything occur during the night?” Alan inquired, setting his mug down and taking a fast-paced stroll round the confines of the poop deck, swinging his arms to dispel the sluggish night-humors from his blood. Hogue almost had to trot to keep up with him.

  “There was some visiting, sir. Off a couple of French ships,” Hogue related, puffing a little. “Music and dancing. Some breastbeating saint’s day, I think. St. Vitus, by the looks of it. But all quiet by ten of the clock. I say, sir …”

  “Oh, sorry, Mister Hogue,” Alan relented, slowing his pace as Hogue almost sagged to his knees. “I forgot you’re light-duties yet. Still, nothing better than to be up and stirring. Good for you.”

  If left to himself, Alan Lewrie would be anything but up and stirring at that ungodly hour, and well he knew it. But there were certain platitudes naval officers were supposed to mouth to juniors, certain examples to set for their edification.

  “Aye, sir,” Hogue replied, looking a trifle dubious under his firm nod of agreement.

  “A captain of Marines once told me to stay fit,” Alan related. “Aboard ship, if one’s aft on the quarterdeck, it’s too easy to go soft and potty. Gets you killed in a fight. Never gets you the ladies,” he concluded with a knowing wink.

  “After the mercury cure, sir, I hope I never cross the hawse of another woman in my life!” Hogue groaned.

  “Nonsense. Just fother a patch over your hull before you hoist battle flags, Mister Hogue. See Archibald and buy yourself an eight-shilling condom. Good as any from the Green Canister in Half Moon Street back home.”

  “Well, ’cept for being poxed to her eyebrows, she was a cunning little wench, sir,” Hogue had to admit, albeit sheepishly.

  After four more circumambulations of the deck, they returned to the telescope and made a great dumb-show of studying all the ships within sight through the thinning fog, always coming back to La Malouine. Nothing stirred but the crewmen of her night anchor-watch. Alan saw a French master’s mate take off his hat, scratch his scalp and give out a great yawn so wide it was almost painful to watch, which made his own jaws ache at first, then yearn to gape in boredom as well.

  “Doesn’t much resemble a pirate, does she, sir?” Hogue whispered as he sat down on one of the signal-flag lockers to enjoy his tea.

  “Can’t imagine her catching an Indiaman, much less cowing one with her little battery,” Alan agreed. They’d been rowed past the ship several times on errands or visits to other vessels farther down the Reach. La Malouine mounted eight-pounders fore and aft as chase-guns, and iron twelve-pounders on either beam—only sixteen of those in total, too. There were no secret lower-deck gun ports such as Telesto had, either. And La Malouine’s waterline was so bearded with marine growth the tendrils seemed to wave at them in passing, no matter that she was coppered to slow the weeds down. Flying everything but her master’s shirt and breeches, it was doubtful she’d attain nine knots in a full hurricane.

  “Hmmm,” Alan muttered as a native sampan came sculling out of the fog behind their quarry. “Damn early for a social call.”

  Hogue took the eyepiece while Alan retrieved his own mug of tea and sipped it with pleasure. The wardroom servant had made it almost boiling hot, and thickly laced with molasses.

  “Sir,” Hogue hissed. “He’s bound for her. They’re hailing the anchor-watch now. Hollo, here’s a new’un!”

  “Let me.”

  There was a European in the sampan, dressed in white shirt and black breeches, white stockings and woven sennet hat. As Lewrie watched, he stood up, grabbed the man-ropes and ascended the boarding ladder battens with a lithe, easy grace. Alan got the impression at that range of reddish hair, remarkably pale skin and a faint smudge of beard on the stranger’s lean face.

  “Yes, he is a new visitor,” Alan mused. “Do you keep an eye on him, Mister Hogue. This fog should blow off soon. Perhaps by the time he departs, we may spy which ship he came from. I’ll be below shaving. Sing out if you discover anything.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Hogue replied with a small nod, and the sigh of the permanently put-upon. Well, bedamned to him, Alan thought, as he made his way forward to the ladders that led to the quarterdeck; he’s a midshipman, even in disguise. Hogue ought to know by now to expect the shitten chores! Snot-nosed younkers, he sneered. God save me from lazy midshipmen!

  Hogue was waiting upon him when he returned to the deck, as were the rest of the ship’s officers. Eight bells had rung, ending the middle watch, and “All Hands” had been piped to begin the ship’s day. “Rope-Yarn Sunday” or not, the decks still had to be scrubbed down.

  Wash-deck pumps were being rigged, and the hands were milling about, rolling up the voluminous legs of their slop-trousers above their knees, holystones ready to begin wet-sanding the decks. The captain, Twigg and Wythy, Brainard and C
hoate were all present on the quarterdeck. Percival and McTaggart were forward, supervising the bosun and his mates.

  “A good morrow to you, Mister Lewrie,” Ayscough grunted, looking no more thrilled to be up and about at that hour than anyone else.

  “Captain, sir,” Alan replied, doffing his hat.

  “Yon visitor aboard La Malouine,” Ayscough continued, sounding hoarse as a bear with a head cold. “Seen him before, have you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, Mister Hogue informs us he departed not a quarter-hour after he came aboard her,” Ayscough harrumphed. “Went back down-river to another vessel. Still foggy, but she seemed to be about the fourth or fifth, somewhere thereabouts.”

  “That would be either Salem Witch, or Poisson D’Or, sir,” Alan said, recalling the rough chart of the anchorage they’d sketched over the last few weeks. “A Massachusetts Yankee. Lots of them were privateersmen during the war, sir. Maybe this one’s not yet given up the trade.”

  “And what of this Poisson D’Or?” Twigg demanded.

  “Newly arrived, sir,” Choate stuck in. “She’s a small three-master. About six or seven hundred tons burthen, she looked to be. Arrived just at the end of September, sir. Suppose she got her name from her paint-work. Ochre hull picked out in white along the bulwarks and gunwale. Black chain-wale, same’s most ships. Poisson D’Or. Gold Fish, d’you see?” He concluded with a sharp laugh.

  They did, but didn’t find the play on words as amusing as Choate did, which forced him to utter a cough and harrumph of his own to sober his thoughts.

  “You’re the only one that’s seen her so far, I take it?” Twigg pressed. “What did you think? How was she built? Manned and armed?”

  “Well, Mister Twigg, sir, she’s about the same size as one of their new frigates,” Choate continued. “Were she a French royal ship, I’d take her for a thirty-two-gunned Fifth Rate. Pretty fine-cut entry and fore-foot, so she’s not that old. Some of their latest construction. She had what looked to be eight-pounders for chase-guns. What else she mounted, I couldn’t tell; the ports were shut. But when I was rowed past her, she was unloading cargo, and I didn’t see over one hundred hands, all told.”