The French Admiral

by Dewey Lambdin

  “By God, let’s do it!” Alan said. “We can take the place and use whatever they have to repair the barges. There’s meat on the hoof and a whole parish full of vegetables to eat, plus whatever else we may find for our use.”

  “Let us allow Governour to decide,” Burgess cautioned. “He’s senior to both of us, and more used to this sort of thing.”

  Governour Chiswick took another quarter of an hour to make his way back to the beach, his rifle cradled in one arm but no longer at cock. His walk was looser, less concerned with ducking at the first odd noise as he had been when he left.

  “I went as far as the far shore,” he began. “Do you notice anything?”

  Alan wondered what he was talking about. He looked the same as he had when he had departed on his scout; filthy and unshaven, just like the rest of them, and stinking of tidal flats and wet wool.

  “Listen,” Governour said. “The bombardment has stopped.”

  Once it was pointed out, Alan could notice the sudden absence of the muffled drumming of artillery. It had been such a part of their lives for the last few days that he had quite forgotten what dead silence was.

  “One can see Yorktown from the far shore, just barely,” Chiswick said. “After the smoke blew away, it’s fairly clear. Dead as a grave.”

  “Then the army’s gone on without us,” Burgess said, sagging in weariness and defeat.

  “I did not say that.” Governour frowned. “As far as I can see, the army is still there, but there is no more shelling. I thought I saw boats ferrying men back from Gloucester to the Yorktown side. Now what does that suggest to you?”

  “They could not break out,” Burgess surmised.

  “I believe that Lord Cornwallis’s plans were upset by that storm last night, and he may be evacuating Tarleton and Simcoe’s men over with his to make a last stand where he at least has entrenchments enough for all of them.”

  “No point to that. It was break out or go under last night,” Alan said bleakly. “Maybe the French and Rebels stopped shelling because there is nothing left to shell. Why shell beaten troops ready to . . .”

  “Surrender,” Governour agreed softly.

  “Does that apply to us?” Alan felt a chill.

  “It had better not,” Governour said. “Oh, your Navy men would get decent treatment, but I have little hopes for Loyalists once the regulars march off and leave us in the care of militia or irregulars.”

  “Then we don’t surrender.” Burgess smartened up. “Alan, you’re a sailor, you have boats. You can get us out to sea, can’t you?”

  “Of course, I can,” Alan promised, wondering to himself just how he was going to accomplish that miracle. Still, they were at liberty, and no one knew where they were . . . yet.

  CHAPTER 11

  They took possession of the plantation in the middle of the afternoon, after watching it for hours to see if there would be any surprises in store. They crept up through the empty slave cabins to the back of the house, exploring the barns and sheds as they went. As one party under Burgess Chiswick guarded the road and open ground to the west, the rest of them burst onto the grounds suddenly like a fox in a hen coop, raising about as much commotion until the sight of their weapons silenced all resistance.

  There were about thirty-odd slaves, all women and children or very old men worn down to nubbins by a generation of hard work in the fields. There were perhaps half a dozen finer-dressed house slaves to do for their masters, including a cook, maids, and manservants.

  There was an overseer, an older man with white hair who had been snoring away under the influence of a stone jug of rum, with a lusty black wench in his tumbledown shack near the main house.

  “It’s almost like home,” Alan observed after they had secured the place. The house was magnificent, a homey, pale brick construction with a split-pine shingle roof; it was two stories tall and as imposing as any prosperous farmstead back in England. There was a squarish central core, the original house, and two wings extending to either side so that it made an imposing sight facing the York River and the wharves. There was a brick-laid terrace in back that led to various storehouses and the stables. There were six matched horses there, sleek and glossy and tossing their manes as though they were ready for a brisk canter up the road to the west to see the sights. There were also a few saddle horses, as well as a pen of mules for field work. The coach house held an open carriage and a closed equipage, both as freshly painted and shiny as any duke’s coach in London, obviously not locally made, and imported at some expense.

  Entering the house reminded him even more of home. The floors were tight-laid oak parquet, covered with fine Turkey carpets. Heavy satin and velvet drapes hung by the large windows, and the walls were papered with what looked like new China paper. The quality of the furnishings—the brass and crystal, the framed pictures and the bright painted woodwork—was astonishingly good. The ceiling in the foyer had been painted into an imaginative scene replete with cherubs, clouds, and birds in blue and gilt by an artist of some talent as well. He was lost in admiration of the foyer when the mistress of the house and her entourage came down the stairs to see who had disturbed her peace.

  “Well?” she demanded primly, her chest heaving in anger. “To what do I owe this invasion of my property? Who are you . . . banditti? ”

  Alan suddenly felt dirtier and shabbier than he had felt moments before, after being soaked all night, muddied with silt and sand.

  “Lieutenant Chiswick, ma’am, of the North Carolina Volunteers. And you might be?” Governour said, sweeping off his wide hat to make a decent bow to her.

  “Mrs. Elihu Hayley,” she replied. “And was it necessary to come bargin’ into my land and my house at the point of a gun, sir?”

  “I assure you, ma’am, were circumstances different we would have come calling decently. You have nothing to fear as long as we are forced to remain, which shall not be any longer than necessary. We shall attempt not to discomfort you and yours, as much as the situation will admit of.”

  “I have quartered soldiers before, sir,” she said, warming to the situation but still a bit peeved. “My husband is a captain in the Virginia Militia, or should I say, he was. Had I known, or been asked . . .”

  “Hmm.” Governour colored. “I fear you do not quite grasp our identity, ma’am. We are a Loyalist unit. This is Midshipman Lewrie of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy.”

  “Your servant, ma’am,” Alan said, making a leg to her as well.

  “God save us!” She blanched at the news. “I thought . . .”

  “Your pardon for any misunderstandings, ma’am,” Governour said. “There is only you in the house, I take it?”

  “There is my son and my sister—and the servants o’ course,” she stammered, her chest still heaving in alarm. Alan thought it quite a nice chest, better than he had seen lately, at least.

  “Your pardon, ma’am, for casting any aspersions on a lady of quality, but I must assure myself as to the veracity of your statements,” Governour said. “You will not mind if my men search the house? Good. Corporal Knevet? Search the house, carefully, mind. Don’t break anything.”

  “Raght, Mister Governour,” the dour corporal drawled, fetching a pair of troopers to help him.

  “Now look here!” the woman began, but she was carefully shouldered out of the way as the men went up the stairs, and she had no choice but to descend to the foyer level and fume.

  Governour went to a handsomely carved wine cabinet and opened it. He lifted out a decanter of port and sniffed at it, then poured himself a glass. “Alan?”

  “Don’t mind if I do, sir.” Alan grinned.

  “Don’t stand on ceremony. It’s Governour. Ma’am, do you have spirits in the house or sheds besides this cabinet?”

  “Go to the devil!” Mistress Hayley shot back, her back up once more. “Do you think you can take whatever you want from us?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do,” Governour replied sternly. “You are admittedly a Rebel
household, wife of a man-in-arms against his rightful King. We shall not, however, loot you. My men are hungry and we need certain items to stay in the field. Other than our immediate needs, your property will be safe. But I must know about the spirits.”

  “I’ll not give you or your men the pleasure!” she hissed, eager to dash the glass from Governour’s hand if she could.

  “It is a question of your safety, ma’am, I assure you.”

  “I shall say no more. Excuse me,” she said regally, turning to go.

  “If my troops or Mister Lewrie’s seamen find drink, ma’am, I cannot guarantee what sort of discipline or courtesy you may expect,” Governour warned. “Better I know where it is so it may be guarded by trusted men than should they get cup-shot and forget all decency.”

  That stopped her in her tracks, and she whirled about, lifting the bottom of her skirts so that Alan could glimpse some rather fine ankles as well. She was pretty enough for an older woman, late thirties at best, with piles of dark hair and snapping brown eyes. A bit of a dumpling, but that had never stopped him before.

  “Very well,” she snapped. “There is the cabinet. There is a butler’s pantry by the kitchen and there is rum and brandy kegs in the cellar we dole out to the field hands. Nothing is kept outside the house lest the slaves get to it and run wild.”

  “Your slaves seem rather thin on the ground,” Governour observed. “Your crop will be ruined if you don’t get it in.”

  “I sent the men off to Gloucester for labor at the request of a militia officer. I hope to have ’em back soon when your army is beat.”

  “Then that may be awhile yet, ma’am.” Governour smiled as though Cornwallis was winning.

  Corporal Knevet came back down the stairs, escorting another woman, this one a little younger and prettier than Mrs. Hayley, along with a frightened colored maid and a boy of about fifteen, dressed in a fine suit of dittoes—snuff-colored coat, waistcoat, and breeches. If his mother had been termagant, then he was a spitfire from hell, unsure whether to yell, cower against his mother’s skirts, or try to kill someone all at the same time.

  “Damn ya,” he hissed. “Damn ya all ta hell! We got ya beat, and you’re all gonna die. When the soldiers come, I wanna watch ya die!”

  “Then I hope you do not mind waiting a few days for the sight,” Governour said, raising his glass in toast to the boy’s spirit.

  “House is clean,” Knevet informed them. “Huntin’ guns is all in the parlor, an’ I took all the pistols and such I could find.”

  “Check the cellars,” Governour said. “You’ll find some kegs of rum and brandy, most like the cheapest swill ever turned a black’s toes up. Issue at the normal rate with supper, but post a reliable man to guard it, else. No one to enter or leave the house but us.”

  Mrs. Hayley crossed to her son to shush him after his outburst, but he was having little of it. “Hush up, Rodney, or they’ll kill us all this very instant!” she admonished.

  “Dirty oppressor Tories, and press-gangers! Momma, what call they got ta trample on us? They’re finished an’ they know it!”

  “Ma’am, your child is getting tiresome. Perhaps you might want to tuck him in for his nap?” Governour frowned.

  “Come, Rodney,” the sister said. “Sarah, I’ll take him.”

  “I’ll not!” Rodney spat.

  “You will,” his mother fumed.

  “Governour,” Alan muttered close. “I have some guineas on me. Perhaps we slipped them some chink, they wouldn’t make such a fuss.”

  “You do? Sounds like it might work. Why don’t you try?”

  “Mrs. Hayley, we are not looters,” Alan began. “There is no need for anyone to be put out by our brief stay, and I am empowered by my Sovereign to make recompense for anything we are forced to requisition.”

  “What good are promissory notes?” she complained.

  “We have guineas, ma’am,” Alan replied, digging the purse from his coat. He had at least one hundred guineas in it, and they gave off a pleasant jingle as he hefted them.

  “Don’t do it, mother,” the boy named Rodney said.

  “Go to your room, Rodney,” she said to him. Prosperous as they all looked, there had been a shortage of specie in the Colonies since ’76, and isolated as they were from the major smuggling cities or garrisons, they would be living on barter and the produce of the farm, with no outlet for the tobacco they had grown. She could at least be mollified by gold.

  “I think it is an equitable offer,” the sister said, and Alan saw that she was indeed very pretty, perhaps five or more years younger than her sister la Hayley. “Quite kind of you, considering.”

  “They killed my papa!” the boy cried. “They killed your Robert, and you’d take their filthy money?”

  “Rodney, go to your room, now!” Mrs. Hayley sharply said, and the boy relented, sulking back up the stairs. “I will consider your offer, sir. I may not accept, but I will at least consider it. Come, Nancy. Sir, we require our body servants to cook and do for us while you’re here.”

  “If they remain in the house and the immediate grounds, there shall be no problem, ma’am,” Governour told her quite cordially. “I must keep your overseer separate, of course, if his presence is not needed.”

  Mrs. Hayley and her sister swept out of the room and up the stairs to their rooms. But the sister named Nancy did look back and give Alan a glance, lowering her lashes before turning to complete her ascent.

  “Damme, what a pack of cats!” Alan chuckled once they were gone.

  “Have some more port,” Governour offered. “Damned interesting.”

  “What is?” Alan said, flinging himself down on a settee to take his ease. Governour poured him a healthy bumper.

  “Here we have a framed portrait of a rather simple-looking man named Elihu Hayley, trimmed in black.” Governour was observing a painting on the wall of the front parlor, hanging in a prominent position. “And by the brass plaque we learn that he died in 1778, so she has been a widow for some time. The sister practically slavered when you mentioned gold and she got most missish over us. That long, flirtatious look from the top of the stairs. You did not notice?”

  “Yes, I did,” Alan said a little smugly.

  “My black mammy once said that if times got hard, a rat’d eat red onions. There’s not enough slave women or children to fill a quarter of those cabins, so the slaves did not go off suddenly, but were most likely sold a few at a time to raise money to keep all this style going,” Chiswick said. “There’s room in the stables for twenty horses, and that crop of tobacco is nothing like what this place could grow. Hardly any of it harvested to dry and the rest rotting. Not even been wormed or suckered.”

  “Whatever that means, Governour,” Alan drawled lazily.

  “Trust me. The drying barns are empty, and the storehouses do not have previous crops kegged up for shipment. I think your offer of gold mollified them into more positive sweetness than we could expect.”

  “Don’t tell me we’ve stumbled into a knocking shop,” Alan said.

  “Hopefully, we won’t be here long enough to know. Now, what may we do to guarantee our security here? Have any ideas, Alan?”

  Alan leaned back and rested his head on the settee, his feet asprawl across the carpet as he thought on it.

  “The overseer is no problem,” he opined. “Keep him drunk and in with his black piece. Slaves aren’t a worry, either, except for that butler and the manservant, but they’ll stay locked in the house. And that boy ought to be chained to the wall. I’d watch him like a hawk.”

  “Very good. Go on.”

  “Anyone wanting to carry word of us would need a horse, so we keep them guarded. And perhaps we shouldn’t let them see our numbers.

  “There’s Frog ships on the river we can see from here. Might want to post a lookout against anyone signaling them from the house with a light or something.”

  “Excellent!” Governour congratulated him. “You’re nackier than I first
thought. Let them see your people; I’ll hide most of my troops. Now, about the boats. Is there enough here to repair them?”

  “Have no idea.” Alan sighed. He took a swig of his port and got to his feet. “Suppose I’d better go look before it gets dark. So we can get started on it in the morning.”

  “I won’t make any demands of your sailors, then. Keep half of them on guard by the boats. Burgess and I will bivouac half our people in the woods to stand guard while you get on with your repairs.”

  Alan finished his wine and went out through the back to the kitchen shed. He found a ham on the sideboard and carved himself off a healthy hunk, cut a wedge of cornbread from a skillet that had been set out to cool and headed for the barns, munching happily on his impromptu meal. Suddenly it hit him. Governour had almost shooed him out the door. He had not issued an order or made a suggestion, but it was his conversation that had gotten him moving when he would have much preferred to sit and drink and fall asleep on the settee. Damn you for a nacky one yourself, Governour! I’ll have to study on how you did that.

  Several of his sailors were trying to talk to the black women in the back gardens and stable area, and the slave women were responding shyly. The hands would consider them ripe for the plucking, much on par with the for-hire doxies they had grown familiar with on the islands, but the men had little or no money. It could get ugly if controls were not placed on them soon.

  “Coe,” Alan called, summoning his senior hand.

  “Sir.”

  “There’s rum and Frog spirits in the cellar of the house. We’ll have an issue with supper,” Alan said. Then he laid down strict instructions regarding dealings with the women. Any man who laid hands on one who did not cooperate willingly would be flogged half to death, as would anyone who looted or got drunk. They settled on several of the nearest slave cabins as quarters for the men so they could be watched and supervised more easily. Tired as the hands were, they were put to work cleaning them and making them more civilized. Storehouses would be searched by Coe personally for victuals, and abandoned cooking pots would be given out so the men could cook their dinners, appointing their own cooks if they could not cajole some of the idle women to do for them.