Reefs and Shoals (29 page)

“I
thought
to look in on our way South from Wilmington, but wasn’t sure if I could get my ship into Winyah Bay,” Lewrie said. “Are there any chandleries there that could handle the needs of privateers?”

“Wood, water, and perhaps some salt meats,” Cotton said with a cock of his head, as if picturing the port and its waterfront in his mind, building by building. He then shook his head in the negative. “There is the rice trade, which draws middling-sized ships in the coasting business, river trade up the Waccamaw, Black River, the Pee Dee as far up as Buck’s Port, and commercial fishing sufficient to the local market. Some coastal ships serve the slave trade … clothing, food, and such for the rice plantations, as well as slaves themselves, but most of that comes from Charleston, if it is not grown locally. At Buck’s Port, there is a decent shipyard … boatyard, really … and there is some construction and repair at Georgetown itself, up the Sampit River. Is a vessel in need of cordage, sails, repair work,
or
powder and shot, they’d most-like call in Charleston … but, as I’ve said, a close watch is kept by the U.S. and South Carolina governments.”

“Perhaps Savannah, Georgia, then,” Lewrie said with a sigh as he finished his cup of tea, and wishing he could doff his coat and waist-coat and loosen his neck-stock. Though it was only ten of the morning, the Spring day was getting warm, and Mr. Cotton’s offices were stifling.

“More tea, Sir Alan?” Cotton asked, inclining his head to summon a Black servant in a dark suit. “Perhaps in the side garden.”

Mr. Cotton’s establishment was a modest version of the grand mansions of Charleston, of only two storeys, not three or four, with his private study, library, dining room, and parlour, as well as his consular offices, on the first floor. The house was walled off from East Bay Street and Queen Street with brick walls topped with ornamental iron fences. Lewrie had noticed a small balcony above facing East Bay Street and the Cooper River, and the wharves, and a larger balcony projecting from the left of the house.

“Perhaps we could substitute a cooler beverage than tea, Sir Alan,” Cotton further tempted. He rose from his chair and followed the Black house servant to a set of glazed double doors that led out to a side garden. Two or three steps down from the house and Lewrie found himself on a brick patio beneath that projecting balcony where there was a small, round table and four chairs, a pair of wood-slat benches, and several large terra-cotta planters awash in azaleas and roses; there were other flowering bushes and flower beds, though Lewrie could only be sure of the roses and the azaleas. There was a large patch of lawn before one got to the rear of the property where the kitchens were, to separate its heat from the house. Lewrie was amazed to feel a rush of coolness, even a mild, restoring breeze!

“We will have the citrus tea, Amos,” Cotton ordered from his manservant.

“Yassuh.”

“Lemons and limes, wild oranges in season,” Cotton explained, “with an admixture of
cool
tea. The physicians all say that drinking too much citrus juice in warm climates can ruin your health, but I’ve done it for years, here, and have yet to suffer.”

“Long ago, I found that a pot of tea that had gone cold aboard ship was refreshing,” Lewrie heartily agreed. “It was drink it, or throw it out, and, with some lemon juice and sugar…! Except in very cold weather, I have a large pot brewed each day. Ashore, I allow myself a whole gallon!”

“Until the stored winter ice runs out, I prefer it with a sliver or two,” Mr. Cotton continued. “Though, by high summer, ice is hard to come by in Charleston … anywhere in the Low Country. Sometimes I add a bit of sweet Rhenish wine … though that is also hard to come by … the war, do you see.”

“Were you back in England, though, Mister Cotton, there’d be all the Rhenish ye’d wish,” Lewrie said, sprawling at ease with his booted legs extended. “Our illustrious smugglers could even fetch you Arctic ice in August! French wines, brandies, Dutch gin? Napoleon Bonaparte can
claim
he’s shut Europe off from Great Britain, but nobody told the smugglers!”

Mr. Cotton smiled and nodded in agreement, then turned soberer, looking off into the middle distance for a long moment before speaking again. “You know, of course, Sir Alan, that it took some time after the American Revolution before British goods were acceptable again in the United States. I doubt Charleston has seen a British warship in port since their Constitution was ratified. No … French goods were preferred, and still
are
, do you see.”

“I saw that in Wilmington,” Lewrie agreed as a large pitcher of the cool tea was brought out on a coin-silver tray, and two tall glasses were poured for them.

“Especially so here in the Low Country,” Cotton went on after a pleasing sip. “Many of the settlers hereabouts were of French Protestant
émigré
stock, whose memories of being massacred by Catholic kings and cardinals dimmed considerably. France is elegance, style, and the epitome of gracious living to them, as it is with everyone in America who aspires to grandeur … and believe me, Sir Alan, no one aspires grander than South Carolinians. Now, when the Peace of Amiens was in force, Charleston was flooded with luxury French goods not seen since the first war with Republican France in 1793. The wines, the brandies, and exotic spirits you mentioned, as well as lace, satins, silks, furniture, chinawares, and womens’ fashions from hats to slippers, came in regularly, and were snapped up practically the instant they were landed on the piers, the shopkeepers bedamned. Yet now, that trade is almost completely gone, again, the last two years entire. You mentioned smugglers?” Cotton coyly hinted.

“Meaning…” Lewrie slowly said, puzzling it out, “if there was a way to bring luxury goods in, people might turn a blind eye to the trade … and what’s allowed in exchange, too? I gather that you
suspect
that this Captain Mollien is bringing in goods he doesn’t declare to the Customs House … no,” Lewrie said, dropping that thought as implausible. “His schooner’s too small for a second, secret cargo, and if French luxuries are un-available t’honest traders, then where’s
he
gettin’ ’em? It don’t make sense.”

“It is only a suspicion, so far, Sir Alan,” Mr. Cotton mused. “Perhaps from the cargoes of British ships he’s taken, who knows?”

“Not from homeward-bound West Indies trades,” Lewrie objected. “That’s all rum, molasses, sugar, and dye wood. Trades headed
to
the West Indies don’t feature French goods, either. Where
is
he…?”

“Mistah Cotton, sah,” the house servant said, returning to the side garden, “dey’s a gennulmun come t’call on ya, sah. He says he has ta speak with ya.”

“Tell the fellow I am busy, Amos,” Cotton gruffly said. “Who is it, by the way?”

“It be Mistah Gambon, sah, the French Consul.”

“Gambon? Damn!” Mr. Cotton testily snapped. “Of all the gall!”

“One thing the Frogs have in plenty, Mister Cotton, is gaul,” Lewrie japed, “G-A-U-L, hey?” It didn’t go down anywhere near how he wished it, though, for Mr. Cotton was too upset.

“Amos, tell
M’sieur
Gambon that I cannot receive him now, but if he wishes to—” Cotton began to say.

“
Bon matin,
Edward, good morning to you!” came a cheery, heavily accented voice from within the house as the fellow in question barged right out through the double doors to the side garden. “An’ what a fine morning eet ees,
n’est-ce pas
? Oh my,
oui
! Such clear sky-es, such a cool breeze! ’Allo to all!”

Cotton and Lewrie shot to their feet, Mr. Cotton diplomatically struggling to hide his glower, and Lewrie with one brow up in wonder. He beheld a dapper, balding toad of a man not over five feet five in height, “gotch-gutted” and rotund with good living, and dressed in the latest fashion.
M’sieur
Gambon’s shirt collar stood up in points to his double chins and splayed out as if to support his head which was as round as a melon, and his full-moon face. Gambon’s sideburns were brushed forward, and what little hair remaining on his pate was slicked forward in a pomaded fringe. His fashionably snug trousers were strapped under elegant light shoes, yet they, and his short double-breasted waist-coat, bulged at the waist like a pregnant woman.

“You eentroduce me to your guest, Edward?” M. Gambon requested with a wide smile on his face as he handed his hat, gloves, and walking stick to the servant. “He, and hees terrifying warship are ze reason I ’ave come to call upon you, een such haste, after all, dear Edward. Een ze name of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and glorious France, I come to lodge ze strongest formal protest against the frigate’s presence.”

“The Devil you say,
M’sieur
!” Mr. Cotton spluttered, irked to the edge of “diplomacy” and beyond. “This is beyond the pale; it is simply not done in such fashion! And, might I remind you,
M’sieur
Gambon, that a British vessel is free to call at any neutral American port from Maine to—!”

“Edward! Edward, pray do not distress yourself,” Gambon good-naturedly countered, as if enjoying his little game, “such distress ees bad for your liver. Ze choler … ze bile? You do not introduce me? Ah me,
pauvre
Gambon.
M’sieur Capitaine
, allow me to name myself … Albert-Louis Gambon, Hees Majesty, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s Consul een Charleston. My
carte de visite
!” he said with a bow before reaching into a slit-pocket of his strained waist-coat to draw forth a bit of pasteboard, and snapping it out within Lewrie’s reach with the elegance and
panache
of a magician producing a coin.

“An’
oui, Capitaine, mon ami
,” Gambon added with a sly grin, “I
am
zee ‘Frog’ weeth a great
deal
of gall, hawn hawn!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“M’sieur
Gambon, it is I who must protest your insistence upon entering my house in such an inapropriate manner,” Mr. Cotton snapped.

“Tut tut, Edward, we are simply conducting ze beezeness of diplomacy,” Gambon told him, most cherry-merry. “Weel you name yourself to me, eef Edward ees reluctant to do so,
M’sieur Capitaine?
An’ ees that your delectable citrus tea, Edward? I do prefer eet best when ze peaches are een season, but … may I ’ave a glass?”

“I-I must … if only to get rid of you, you boorish pest,” Mr. Cotton sourly gravelled. “
M’sieur
, I name to you Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, commanding His Majesty’s Frigate
Reliant.
”

For a gotch-gut, and a fellow who sounded so enthusiastic about the levelling glories of France, Gambon performed a very graceful and elegant bow, with one foot extended,
en pointe,
and one hand swept low across his body, like a life-long aristocrat.

Lewrie responded with a sketchier bow from the waist, and a nod of his head. “
M’sieur
Gambon,” he brusquely said.

“Such suspicion!” Gambon replied, with a little laugh. “Such an aversion to the pleasantries … as eef I am ze Devil, heemself, ha!”

“No … you just work for him,” Lewrie coolly said.

“Eet ees as I thought, z’en,” Gambon replied, fazed not a whit, and still the “Merry Andrew”. “Or, as I fear-ed, rather. Ze
Capitaine
ees implacable een hees hatred for everything French … so much so I fear he weel be unable to restrain heemself from making war upon innocent sailors, right here een Charleston ’arbour.”

“Your
Otarie,
d’ye mean, sir?” Lewrie countered. “Your privateer schooner?”

“Ze ’onest merchant trader from ze French West Indies, who ’as come to trade,” Gambon stated with another smile and a shrug.

“With such a large crew, and so well-armed, sir?” Lewrie scoffed. “Which island in the French West Indies?”

“Edward, I am certain
you
’ave
amis
een ze Customs ’Ouse, een ze government, who tell you of
Otarie
’s registry, an’ ’er manifests,” Gambon breezed off, “wheech isle, I ’ave forgotten, but Edward knows. ’E can tell you, later,
oui
?’ No tea for me?” he plaintively begged.

“Not for those who ignore the protocols,” Mr. Cotton told him, “I’d much admire you state your business quickly … excuse though this call was to take Sir Alan’s measure.”

“
Très bien
,” Gambon said with a put-upon sigh. “As you expect, Edward,
Capitaine
Loo—’ow you say eet?—I ’ave already lodged a formal protest weeth the American Navy officer present, weeth ze American government’s senior representative ’ere and weeth ze Mayor an’ ze council
de la cité
, denouncing ze presence of a British warship ’ere, expressing my fears that something untoward could occur eef eet stays one hour longer. I ’ave also express-ed z’at such presence ees ze insult to American neutrality, to ze United States, ze state of South Carolina, an’ ze
cité
of Charleston … so much of an insult z’at ze local
citoyens
may take to ze streets een anger.”

“Oh, please, Albert,” Mr. Cotton spluttered in exasperation, making Lewrie feel that, in private, the two men got along a lot better than their Publick
personae
allowed. “And did you also tell them that
Reliant
is the vanguard of a British invasion? That she’s going to open fire on the city, and land her Marines to rape their mothers?”