City of Glory by Beverly Swerling Read Free Book Online Page B

was talk of how she’d decided to make a run for home. Bastard said if she had, and if she managed to slip past the British warships and the French privateers, it’d be the greatest thing as ever happened in this city. Didn’t say it to Will Farrell, of course. The likes o’ Bastard Devrey didn’t talk to lookout boys. But Bastard sometimes appeared at his South Street warehouse soon after dawn, when Will was drinking a last cup of ale and hot milk before climbing up to his post. And Will’s ears were as sharp as his eyes, for all that wasn’t why Bastard paid him twenty coppers a week.
    Holy Lord Almighty, he’d never seen a ship come that fast. One by one her sails rose above the horizon. The royals appeared first, then the topgallants, and beneath them, taut and bellied with wind, the topsails and mainsails of her three masts. Will lowered the spyglass, blinked rapidly to clear his vision, then raised the glass again. If it was China Princess she would—No, it couldn’t be. This ship didn’t move like an East Indiaman. Her bow didn’t lift and plunge with the ocean swells. Instead her sleek black hull seemed to glide on top of the water. A merchantman, but for speed and grace such a one as he’d never seen. “Ship ahoy!” he screamed. “Ship ahoy! Ahoy! Ahoy!” Stupid to yell now when no one could hear him except the clouds, but he did it anyway, dancing up and down and shouting until he was hoarse. “Ship ahoy!” Soon he could see tiny men clambering up into the rigging, beginning to reef sail as the ship made for the harbor.
    For a moment or two he was distracted by a pilot sloop setting out from the Narrows to guide the newcomer to a mooring. By the time he again directed the glass to the approaching merchantman, she had raised her house flag. Red, and decorated with some sort o’ beast breathin’ flames. For sure and certain not the gold lion and crossed swords on a green field that would mark the arriving vessel a Devrey ship.
    The morning was hot and getting hotter. He’d removed his jacket and his hat, but Peggety Jack’s orders were that he always had to be in proper Devrey livery when he was on the ground. Will jammed his black stovepipe on his head and struggled into his green-velvet cutaway as he climbed down from the tower, all the while shouting “Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!” at the top of his voice.

    The men doing business at New York’s taverns and coffeehouses and crowding the city’s narrow, twisting streets knew there was a ship coming before Will Farrell did. Jacob Astor maintained a lookout eight miles away, in New Jersey atop the Navesink Highlands, and he had as well a series of semaphore stations between there and his countinghouse on Little Dock Street. The cry of “Ship ahoy!” had been raised ten minutes past. But it was Astor’s way to let as little as possible be known by any of his rivals. Only Will Farrell brought news of what sort of ship she was, and the markings on her flag.
    He ran the whole way between South Street and Wall Street. The town, always bustling with ordinary New Yorkers, was these days heaving with militia come from miles around to defend her in case the British attacked. Rumors that such an attack was imminent were born, killed, and resurrected at least three times every day. To get to the Tontine Coffee House, where Bastard Devrey was most likely to be found, Will had to elbow his way through the throng. When he pushed open the heavy oak door, he was breathing hard and pouring sweat.
    A black man, a waiter wearing a long apron and carrying a shoulder-high tray of mugs of ale, spotted him. “You be looking for someone, boy?”
    “Aye. Mr. Devrey.”
    “Mr. Devrey be upstairs with the traders.”
    Will fought his way to the back of the room, then took the stairs two at a time. Once before, he’d brought Bastard Devrey news of an incoming ship, and got a copper penny for his trouble. Could be two this time. Ship ahoy!
    Bastard Devrey was standing