gleaned from my emerald. I agreed with Sidney Smith’s strategy of hiring a rascal to do a rascal’s job, but the foul weather we’d waited for is not the kind I prefer to sail through. Tom and his other smugglers regarded gales as friends, masts bent and lines thrumming. I dislike cold water, as well as jailing, death, or torture. So I steered dubiously toward a great wash of breaking waves, sea stacks materializing out of the gloom like guarding towers.
To take my mind off our peril, I decided to reinforce my reputation as a worldly gambler to impress Catherine Marceau. “To win at cards, you must be able to count, figure odds, and guard against cheats,” I pronounced loudly.
Johnstone fired his swivel. “And to win as a free trader you need cool nerve and the trick of concealment. There’re twenty thousand Englishmen who make their living evading the Revenue Service, Gage, and the first skill is concealing a false bottom or bulkhead. A customs officer without a tape is like an angler without a hook. He has to calculate if a ship’s hold matches the outside of the vessel.”
“Then I’ll be wary of officers with yardsticks,” I replied. “Now in gambling, the way to mark cards is to use your fingernail to notch the edge, or a sander to roughen, or a point to make a blister.”
“Old Jack Clancy built an entire double bottom,” our captain volleyed. “A false keel and false sides to lay in French brandy that could set him for a year. But you had to beach the beast and pry off its planks. One time the tide swept in and carried off half his cargo.” Johnstone laughed.
“I admire such architectural ingenuity.” The rocks were looming closer.
“I’ve seen silks slipped into plaster Mother Marys,” the smuggler recounted. “Barrels with secret compartments. Boxes for artificial French flowers with double bottoms just wide enough to slip in a gauzy dress. Hollow iron ballasts to secrete contraband, and tobacco sewn into potato skins. To outfox the customs officer is as much fun as the profit.”
“The creativity of the criminal mind is exemplary,” I agreed. “Even better than knowing cards is a holdout, where you tuck away a king or ace. Eye a man’s cuffs for a silk-lined pocket, and insist on counting the deck. And mind a mirror glued on his inner finger, used for reading cards.”
“Wise counsel, American. And if you see a coastal cutter sailing slow, fire a shot, get them to heave to, and look for a tail of contraband underwater.”
“Like my friend Robert Fulton’s submarine, or plunging boat!”
I gave a peek at our female passenger. She seemed more focused on the flashes of French cannon fire than on our manly brilliance. A waterspout wet us again.
“It’s good to have an escape plan at the gaming tables as well,” I went on, the rocks looming huge.
“I’m beginning to understand why I lose to sharps,” Johnstone said. “One of our cleverest moonshine tricks is to make a rope out of twist tobacco and then wind it into a thicker hawser. You can’t see the sot weed inside the hemp.”
“And even easier than holding out a card is pocketing another man’s winnings,” I returned. “When you push a pile of coins or chips, have some gum on your wrist and pick up one or two for yourself.”
“You’ve got the mind of a smuggler, Gage. When you get tired of fighting Bonaparte, come see me for employment.”
“I appreciate the compliment, but a gambling den is warmer than a smuggler’s smack. And it doesn’t sound like you need my advice. It’s a wonder the king collects any duties at all.”
“The free trader doesn’t always win. The sharp, neither, I suppose. We’ve both spent time in jail.” He shrugged. “Time is a tax in itself.”
“A gambler who always wins advertises he is cheating,” I agreed. “There’s a fine art to pinching just enough.” The passage looked no wider than a door.
“So I’ll run from the king’s men, but if they wish to pay me to smuggle you, I’ll run from Bonaparte’s instead.” Another cannonball sent up a spout near our bows.
“Sir Sidney would call you an expedient patriot, Captain.”
“And you, American, a man who doesn’t know to leave well enough alone.”
“Reef is on us, dammit!” the watchman cried.
A small cannonball clipped our rail, splinters flying, and one of Johnstone’s boys let out a howl. Our own swivel gun went off in my ear again. Foam heaved up between the barnacled obstacles