Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 .. (50 page)

But in August Peg-Leg, bringing materials for Fort Argyle, also brought her, and she was hysterical with terror. "Take me home!" she implored. "I can't stand more. Take me home at once, d'ye hear?"

A plague was devastating Savannah; already a dozen folk had died and others were sickening daily! Why, why, she moaned, had he dragged her to this accursed land? Though discontented because the house was still unfinished, she swore she'd never leave it until he put her aboard an England-bound ship.

Peg-Leg confirmed the deaths. "And they're mostly the hale men, sir. Squire—so Mr. Oglethorpe's called now—says 'tis because they was guzzling rum like water. Drink it neat. Then they gets a fever in their heads and they kicks off. Squire's forbid the Carolina traders to bring more rum ashore." He grinned. "I like me tot, too, sir, but I make a punch and it goes down easy. 'Tis hellfire when ye swigs it neat."

It was terrifying news. But was it rum or some strange American

disease? Remembering cholera, Ram decided that at the first sign of it upon his grant, he'd take all his people home—and to hell with Georgia.

But all was well, and each day the main house grew. Already it had its roof, atop which would be a big platform, solid enough to take a watchtower and swivel guns to command the river.

Ram had pondered long what to name the plantation. The Bend? . . . Tlie Elbow? . . . Ogeechee Manor? Then one twilight he and Lucinda were walking on the peninsula behind the house. Watching the river flowing past, she said casually, "With our five hundred acres and all this for grazing, we've a fine estate indeed, and with a shore on three sides of us."

"That's it!" He kissed her. "That's the name—Shoreacres!"

The Georgia pink arrived with more settlers and many trust servants. There came a shipload of Sephardic Jews, who had gone to England originally to escape the Spanish Inquisition, and their doctor did much to check Savannah's fatal epidemic. The Lacy brothers brought servants and took gentlemen's grants at Thunderbolt near the town. And many others came.

At Shoreacres, two more children were born, the stock multiplied, a fair crop was har\ested. Ram became a licensed trader and put Rob to running the store; though, because no rum was sold, not many Indians visited it.

Early in the new year Rob, his face bruised, came contritely to confess that Dave Lann had stolen his stallion and some money and run for Carolina. "Nay, let the bastard go," he begged angry Ram. "I'll buy the time of a Trust servant to replace him. Dave's no more use now the wells are dug. He's but a pick-and-shovel miner."

"Or a smasher of your face!" Ram growled, remembering the talk he'd overheard between Lucinda and Margot that first night at Savannah. "So it's true Nell's young Davie is really yours!"

Rob squirmed. "You know Father! When the wench got with child he'd ha' turned her away. Aye, and me too, likely. So I paid Dave ten guineas to wed her and bring her abroad. Jealous, the sod's been, each time I looked at her."

Ram studied him. He wasn't ill-favored; women liked him. If now he devoted his attentions only to deserted Nell, no great harm was

done. But if he dallied with the wives of other senants or, worse, with the young squaws of Creeks who came to trade, he'd get worse than a beating.

Chastened Rob swore he was cured of such games and might visit Savannah, where the late epidemic had left several comely widows.

Oglethorpe bent over Lucinda's hand. "Your husband will be gone but a few days, madam. And my deepest thanks for your fine hospitality. Indeed, I've not tasted such fare since we've been in the colony." Waving to the crowd, he stepped into the scout boat.

How flattery heightens her beauty, Ram thought, with a surge of his old devotion. "Have no fears and leave all to Joseph and Rob," he assured, kissing her. "God be wi' ye, dearest." He shook hands with the men, waved to the others and joined Oglethorpe in the boat.

Ten oars bit the water and the sturdy craft shot midstream into the ebbing current that sped it downriver.

"You've already charted this stretch, eh?" Oglethorpe asked.

"Yes, and out into Ossabaw Sound." Ram reached for his charts. "Now I can add what lies south."

"I didn't think I'd snared a cartographer and a military engineer," the other laughed; then swore as an alligator slid off a marsh hummock into the water. "Curse the brutes! They frighten our folk most damnably. Only last week I had to wound one and have it dragged ashore for the boys to beat to death with cudgels. Only way I could convince 'em it wasn't some fiery dragon about to gobble 'em up."

The skipper, a Carolina Scot named Ferguson, touched his forelock. "Do we skirt outside the islands, or attempt the inland way?"

"Inland," Oglethorpe decided. "I want to find a safe channel southward for piraguas and small craft."

As the scout boat nosed between marshy islands and the still marshier mainland, he and Ram took soundings and sketched the coastline. With the help of Hillispilli and young Toonahowi, they identified outstanding features: Ossabaw Island, Santa Catalina Sound and Island, Sapela Sound.

The short day waned and rain came, so they put in at Sapela Island. Soon a driftwood fire roared under a great evergreen oak, and a palmetto-leaf shelter was rigged so that Oglethorpe and Ram could

work further on their charts by lantern Hght. Then all hands ate, and drank molasses beer.

Lying on his blanket and listening to the battering upon the leafy roof, Oglethorpe sighed contentedly. "There've been times when I'd have gladly thrown Georgia and its people into the sea. But not now. This is bhss."

"Aye, there's nothing better," Ram agreed, remembering how the rain used to patter on Cart so long ago.

"Don't you curse me for taking you away from your lovely spouse to come voyaging in the rain?"

At that Ram stiffened. Was the constraint between Lucinda and himself so obvious? Damn him, 'twas he who induced me to marry! he thought. Now I have, 'tis my concern and I'll not have him prying.

"Yet sometimes it's good to escape the gossamer web," the Squire continued. "At least, so I've found."

"How can a bachelor know?" Ram challenged, half angry.

"My friend, recall I've a bevy of strong-willed sisters. And my mother was stronger than 'em all. From my childhood they decided what was best for me, as well as for Brother Theophilus." He paused and then said, "Now you'd offer your sword to any prince, as long as he plotted no harm to England, eh?"

"Why not?" Was this some offer to play the traitor? "Once I did fight the H.E.I.C.," Ram conceded, adding significantly, "but I was tricked into it."

"So I heard. But my case is different. You've doubtless heard of my family's loyalty to King James—yes, I dare to call him that, for it's a stupid lie he's a changeling who was smuggled in when the true prince was born dead. I should know, for 'tis said my older brother James was the substitute and is now known as the Pretender. But it was my luckless brother who died. His name was passed on to me when I was born eight years later."

"I've heard how a babe was smuggled into the Queen's chamber in a warming pan," Ram chuckled. "All the Whigs swear to it."

"Only to goad the Tories. But ye may recall I left Prince Eugene after Belgrade to travel in Italy. There Theo presented me to throne-less James, and it was all arranged I'd be trained as a plotter in his service. Oh, I admit I was tempted, I was young and he most gracious; I even smuggled some of his letters into England, and my sisters

thought I was safely enlisted. But soon I remembered my father wasn't too stiff-necked to bow to King William instead of to the discarded king. So I bowed in turn, for we're too civilized today to expose our country to futile counterrevolutions."

Ram was remembering the summerhouse. Oglethorpe sounded sincere. "There are many with no great love for our Germans/' he insinuated. "And the Stuarts were long our legitimate monarchs."

"The Hanoverians are as legitimate and as English as the Stuarts —which is precious little. No, if we must rebel, God's name, let it be for an Englishman."

"If you're not for James," Ram probed, unconvinced, "why do you usually vote against the Ministry?"

"Against Walpole's gang, you mean. True. But I want George to remain king. James hasn't the philosophy of Henry of Navarre, who thought Paris worth a mass. He hopes to force us all back to being Papists—which would mean bloody civil war. Damme, remember the '15 rising? The Scots were slaughtered in his cause then, and he, who'd not come till it was near over, thought it their sacred duty to go on being slaughtered while he scurried back to France."

He glanced at Ferguson by the fire. "Why do ye suppose there are so many of 'em in Carolina? Because many arrived as transported rebels. Some returned after the Act of Grace in '17, but most stayed because there was nothing left for them in their ravaged land. Good men they are, yet heartsick—and homesick. But James sleeps none the worse for that."

Though now almost convinced. Ram persisted: " 'Tis strange you differ so much from your family."

"Not so strange. Ram. I might today be as scheming as my sisters, had I not come hot from using my sword under a foreign prince— Eugene—and he cared not if a man was Papist or Protestant. Besides, there's no generosity in James's soul. Even the Pope was distressed by his bigotry—and lack of political sense!" he smiled. "Did ye know, if Theo dies without male issue, I'll be a peer of the realm—James's realm? Aye, he created Theo Baron Oglethorpe of Oglethorpe. For so nebulous a reward must I plot my country's ruin?"

His tone warmed. "Britain's not perfect, but her destiny lies ahead. Think how we've challenged mighty Spain and France, and not always lost. Already our American colonies stretch from Canada to this

very island, infants still, but growing into lusty sons. 'Tis why I'm here; to open more land to our people, to give work to the needy and a competence when their labor has earned it. But d'ye think James could understand that dream?"

Ram caught his excitement. "But what faces us, with Spain at our front door and France at our back?"

"Beat 'em! Otherwise they'll overrun us and after us the other colonies. It's because of that I asked you to make this trip, to give you orders. I must return to report to my fellow trustees—aye, and to look to my Parliament seat or Bob Walpole will find a way to oust me— but Savannah's established now, and you and Fort Argyle guard it from the south. Yet suppose you're taken by surprise? You're so close that the town would have scant warning. So we'd best push our defenses farther south till they're next the Spaniards' very outposts.

"Ram, I count on you. Carolina's governor commands our militia, but I'll arrange that, under him, you're my deputy in military matters. Use tact, for already proud-stomached Carolinians look down on our poor Georgians. Play politician with 'em."

"In India I learned how to flatter a man's vanity, yet get my own way," Ram reassured. "But why can't troops be sent from home? I fear the Independents at Beaufort will fail us if we're attacked."

"Patience! In time we'll have regular foot here, but first I must convince Walpole and Parliament. Now, let's sleep."

They continued south next day. Soundings showed that a loo-ton vessel could sail wherever they had. They reached Sansimona, which Oglethorpe Anglicized as St. Simon's Island, and went ashore. Its western edge was lapped by the outpourings of the big Altamaha River which, Ram knew, was Georgia's southmost boundary.

"We must insure no Spaniards come sailing past here to ravage your fine new home or Savannah," Oglethorpe decided. "Where would you say is a likely fort site?"

They found one on the island's southern tip, where guns could command part of the inland way, as well as a narrow sound, across which lay smaller Ospu Island. This last Oglethorpe named Jekyll, after his friend and political ally, Sir Joseph Jekyll. "It won't make him any weaker in our interests," he predicted.

"Do you think to occupy it too?" Ram demanded, aware it lay south of the Georgia grant.

"Not with barely five hundred souls in the whole colony. Later, who knows? The Spanish could make a post here untenable."

"Since it's theirs, they doubtless would."

"Theirs? All Georgia's theirs, they claim—and even north of Charles Town. But we claim Florida to below St. Augustine, which Drake took one hundred and fifty years ago. That's for governments to haggle over. Let us insure the Dons are kept far enough from our settlements so they can't come again with their Indians to raid and scalp."

As the scout boat turned back north. Ram was worried. Walpole would do anything to avoid war, and the other trustees thought of the colony onl}' as a land to people with broken men; yet the Squire planned to occupy recognized Spanish territory. W^y—to invite a retaliation that could destroy Georgia? Suspicion sprouted anew.

But when he tried to draw him out, Oglethorpe said sharply: "Our colonies must breathe. The French in Canada control the Mississippi down to its mouth, and so join the Spaniards on our southern flank. We're boxed in. Eventually we must break through the cordon—or perish!"

After being Ram's guest at Shoreacres overnight, he continued up the Ogeechee to Fort Argyle, to which he planned to send some families of Trust servants as settlers to grow crops for the garrison

He wrote to Ram in April from Charles Town that he was sailing for England, taking with him Tomochichi, Toonaho^vi, Hillispilli and other Creeks, besides Musgrove as interpreter. Also, he had just welcomed a group of refugee Protestants from Salzburg, who would make fine colonists. He ended with: "That rogue Bacon's been here lately. Should he come to Savannah, have the bailiffs take him up and try him as a spy."

CHAPTER 17 GEORGIA COLONY,

1734-36

As Oglethorpe's military deputy, Ram had necessarily to leave the improving of Shoreacres to Rob and Joseph, while he himself was away inspecting the colony's militia and defenses.

On his frequent visits to Savannah, Lucinda always accompanied him, for having now overcome her terror, she delighted in holding court in their town house, where the latest-arrived settlers could tell her of London's current modes and scandals. She really blossomed, however, whenever he had to go to Charles Town to consult with Governor Johnson, since South Carolinian society proved to be most hospitable to handsome Captain Anstruther and his beautiful lady.