Sea of Grey

by Dewey Lambdin

  How long’s it been since I’ve had a whore? he asked himself; Phoebe Aretino? No, don’t count. She was a mistress. Gawd, Calcutta and Canton … way back in ’84?

  Cashman, smugly stuffing himself with a huge smile of anticipation, and slurping lustily at his wines, made Lewrie wonder if their dining chamber would have to serve amour’s purpose. It was dimly lit with only a few candles, the drapes heavy and drawn, the windows iron-barred, the wainscoting and overhead beams made of dark wood that ate what little light the candles threw. There were several settees, and a pair of chaise longues along the walls. It could have been a seraglio in a sultan’s harem—one of his oldest and most enduring fantasies—but it was a rather seedy, close and stuffy seraglio, with not a breath of air stirring. Much as he liked Kit, this was … .

  “They have rooms t‘let, I s’pose?” Lewrie asked, finally.

  “Nice‘uns, too,” Cashman said with an enigmatic leer. “There’s some don’t wait, but I never thought of it as a spectator sport. Bad as mountin’ yer filly in the middle o’ Lord’s cricket grounds. Try a glass o’ hock with your eggs. There’s a touch o’ cinnamon to it that goes main-tasty with ’em, even better than champagne, t‘my thinkin’.”

  “I think I will, at that!” Lewrie exclaimed, reaching for one of the bottles on the sideboard, now enthused and inflamed by thoughts of pleasures to come, and filled with a boisterous, expectant bonhomie. He was relieved, too, that his sport would be the private sort and not a public spectacle, with Cashman or Vivienne deducting points for awkwardness. Fond as he was of that harem fantasy, it had always been him and a round dozen wenches, with not even a sleeping eunuch as witness.

  “God … ain’t it grand?” Cashman snickered with delight as he hoisted his glass to be refilled.

  “Not too much, though, good as the wines are,” Lewrie cautioned.

  “Ah, plus tard, hey? Can’t take yer jumps if foxed blind.”

  “It did come to mind,” Lewrie happily rejoined.

  “Yoicks … tallyho!” Cashman crowed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Henriette was incredibly kind, upstairs in an airy room lined with wide-shuttered doors and window coverings that let in a blissful breeze of much cooler air, down off the high mountains to the east.

  A lone trio of finger-narrow candles lit the chamber, barely illuminating anything beyond the bedstead, yet throwing mesmerising shadows against the walls and shutters with each mild gust. Up that high above the fouled and littered streets of Port-Au-Prince, it was refreshing to escape the miasma of too much garbage, and the reek of too many people. And those gently flickering candles threw such enchanting highlights and shadows over Henriette’s fine body, too, limning a chiaroscuro portrait in ambers and black hollows, making her even more exotic than she already was.

  The sheets were clean, if “wormed” with small seams of repairs, and were redolent of soap and sunlight. The candles were local-made, scented with flowers, almost as sharp on the nose as Chinee joss-sticks or very High Church incense. Henriette had dabbed on fresh scent, too, after they’d locked and barred the door, and that was all over the bedstead, the pillows, and him, by then; for, cool as was that breeze, it was still a warm and humid tropic night, and they had perspired … oh, how they had perspired, in the throes of lust! The more common term of “sweated” came to Lewrie’s mind; sweated like coolie labourers loading cargo on Jackass Point in Canton, or Hindoos up the Hooghly River! But more than worth it, he smugly decided, stifling a yawn as he sprawled beside her, getting his breath back, and watching the candle patterns dance on the overhead canopy of the bedstead.

  There came a stronger gust of wind, a cooler and welcome zephyr.

  “It rains,” Henriette whispered. Sure enough, the zephyrs were followed by the faintest plashing of raindrops on the balcony. There was a basso rumble of faraway thunder, and an eyeblink’s flicker upon the shutters from a fork of distant lightning, the wide wood shutters thrown in blue relief for a second. “Mon, Dieu, merci.”

  Lewrie sat up and groped to the foot of the bed for a discarded sheet, to fan it and lift it to trap the cooler air, to let it fall slowly and drape over them, then fan it to soar and hang, again.

  “Merci to you, too, cher Alain.” She smiled, getting up on one elbow to face him and reward him with another token of kindness on his lips. “I have the basin … you wish me to sponge you? You are très hot? I cool you?”

  “Better I get to sponge you, Henriette,” he chuckled, reclining once more with his hands under his head and the pillow. “I don’t wish t‘get too cool. A certain … heat … is required, ain’t it? Uhm, l’ardour? La passion?”

  “But you were born with the passion, mon amour,” she told him. “Mon Dieu … so formidable!”

  Whores’ lies, he thought; but … so pleasin’!

  She slid out of bed on the window side, all those delectably shadowed hollows and sweat-sheened bright spots awakening his interest anew. Lean waist, long slim neck and arms, with entrancing hollows at throat and collarbones … firm, round and jutting young breasts that nearly defied Newton’s laws of gravity, a bouncy round and firm bottom, strong-thewed thighs … with such a seductive dark hollow between.

  She peeked flirtatiously over her shoulder as she walked to the windows, rolling her hips, chuckling over the effect she knew she had on him. At the nearest window she posed herself, drew open the shutters and stood silhouetted, feet apart and arms widespread. With a theatric sigh of contentment, she threw back her head to savour that cooler wind, began to run her hands over her body as if smoothing in a lotion made of raindrops, or the night’s magic, with her back to him.

  Well, he wasn’t having any of that! Lewrie sprang from the bed and crossed the room to snuggle in against her from behind, to “help” her enjoyment. His hands roamed, and made Henriette softly groan deep in her throat; over her waist and belly, the tops of her thighs, then up to cup her bounteous breasts and circle her large, dark nipples and areolae with his thumbs. Up to the tops of her shoulders, then butterflying downward over her breasts again, and she stiffened with delight and parted her feet more widely as he softly traced down either side of her stomach, down to her prominent mons and the pouty lips of her vagina. She leaned her head back on his shoulder, raised her arms over her head, and juddered her luscious bottom against his groin.

  A moment more, a groan more, and she stepped quickly away, over to the wash-hand-stand for the sponges and the basin of cool water, so she could return and do the same for him. Working her way down, down, ’til she knelt before him, teasing her hair over his member, now hard as a marling-spike. A look up into his eyes, a teasing smile upon her face, then she half-lidded her eyes, took hold of his manhood, and put her lips over the cap.

  “Pour vous, mon amour formidable,” she whispered, pausing for a moment before lowering her head once more to her ministrations.

  The distant thunder seemed to rumble ’twixt his ears, steady as the excited pulse of his heart. He threw his own head back and let out a low moan, put one hand on the back of her head and gripped a shutter with the other.

  Whores, by God! he exulted to himself, looking down at last to watch her, and him, work together. Wives never know this, now and then maybe a mistress, but … go it, darlin’. Tonight you’re mine t’do ev’rything I want … bought an’ paid for, and by God, it feels fine!

  The novelty of having a woman so casually, of using her as much as he wanted, any way he wanted, then discarding her without a backward glance—though with a japing, teasing friendliness, a “fond” parting kiss, and extra shilling or two—it was so damned beguiling, so alluring, that he wondered why he’d eschewed whores all these years!

  Wasn’t for the Navy, I’d’ve most-like become a pimp! he recalled from his early days, the chuckle in his throat higher this time, almost a cackle of mirth.

  Thud-thud-thud-thud, went the far-off thunder; thud-thud … .

  No, it wasn’t thunder, he decided after a moment of cohere
ncy in the grip of mindless pleasure. And it wasn’t his heart, either, those regular thuds, for they were in counterpoint to the beat in his chest.

  Henriette stopped and sat back on her heels, suddenly looking forlorn and frightened, clamping her arms over her breasts.

  “Here, now …” he began to say, irked that she’d quit before the “melting moments.”

  “L’Ouverture!” Henriette squeaked. “The drums!”

  “Drums? Oh!” Lewrie gawped, going to the window. “So that’s what that sound is. Like … like Muskogee Indian drumming. Sort of.”

  “Is voudoun!” Henriette gasped, beginning to shiver in dread.

  “Cuffy mumbo-jumbo?” Lewrie scoffed.

  “Is vrais … is true! Very powerful!” Henriette insisted, at the verge of teeth-chattering terror. “Voudoun priests bless rebels, and curse town peoples. We hear the drums, it mean L‘Ouverture and his armies ’ave come! In the hills now! Oh, Mon Dieu, zey kill us all!”

  “They’ll not get the town, cherie,” Lewrie told her, following her round the room as she dithered, thinking of packing, thinking about hiding the next moment, picking things up and then throwing them down. “There’s a British army out there, with dozens of field guns. Redans and fortifications, lashings of ammunition. There’s ships in harbour, just stiff with artillery, too. Nothing to worry about. Now, let us get back to our pleasures. Where were we, hmmm?”

  He took hold of her arms and brought her to a halt by the bed, urging her to get back into it. She’d raised his desires, had brought him close to joy, and damned if he was going to quit now.

  “British keep us safe?” she asked, sounding leery about it.

  “Safe as houses, I assure you,” he lied, embracing her and kissing her neck and shoulders, her hollows, but with a bit of a spraddle-legged dance to the edge of the mattress, a bit of pressure to topple her back to her duties. “Can’t let a pretty young thing like you get in their clutches, now can we, Henriette … ma cherie?” he coaxed.

  She submitted, and sat on the edge of the bed to re-engage her mouth over him. Sulkily, at first, but quickly warming to her work.

  “Ah, that’s me girl,” Lewrie sighed, rock-hard again.

  She quit, again! But this time, it was merely to reach over to the nightstand to retrieve a fresh, unused cundum and sheath him with the tanned sheep-gut, to tie off the ribbons around his waist and under his crutch, then award him a brave smile as she lay back and opened her limbs to him.

  Lewrie slid in, kissing his way up her body, lingering over her groin for a long minute or two, ’til she began to grind her hips and make whimpery little groaning sounds. Up to kiss and lick her belly, that actually shuddered under his feathery touch, her hands now eagerly drawing him higher. Tonguing and suckling on her marvelous poonts and even play-nipping, that made her squeak and bounce and chuckle. Then her thighs raised and he was atop her and in her, and the Mongol Horde or all the Imps of Hell could have been howling for blood belowstairs, for all that Lewrie cared. Henriette, too, it seemed to Lewrie; this time was not artful or coy, but furious and mindless, as if sex could silence those drums and drive the bad’uns away.

  Rap-rap-rap on the door. “I say, Alan old son? Time t‘be out and doin’,” Cashman muttered.

  “Go … away! Later! Plus tard!” Lewrie gasped back, amid a skirl of squeaking bed-ropes and slats, and Henriette panting into his mouth as if trying to suck a long life from him. Whining in ecstacy!

  “Heard the drums? I really think—”

  “Bugger . .. off! Drake had time t’bowl … I’ve time for a romp! Whoo! Darlin’!”

  Henriette was keening, grasping, clawing, nigh to a scream!

  “Oui oui oui, mon Dieu, oh oui …!” Henriette shrieked. “I am going … eeeeehhhh!”

  “Aarrhhh!” Lewrie chimed in a moment later. “Rule, Brittania, by Jesus, yes!”

  He collapsed on her, aswim in perspiration once more, gasping like a pair of landed fish, aslither to press close and grasp to keep the mindlessness in hand as long as possible.

  “Happy now?” came the sardonic, muffled voice beyond the door.

  “Ain’t Paradise yet, but damn close,” Lewrie called back as he rolled off the bed, groaning with exhaustion and lingering joy, as he stood bare-arsed naked and stripped off the cundum for a quick washing and later use. “Quick sponge, and I’ll be out in two shakes of a wee lamb’s tail … and the first’s already been shook. Uhm, Henriette, me darlin’ … know where I dropped my shirt?”

  Though it was hours before dawn, and still raining in a light, desultory way, the streets of Port-Au-Prince teemed with people. Some refugees were up and packing, or trundling two-wheeled handcarts down to the harbour, in hopes of a departing ship. There was more light at last, with almost every window or porchway illuminated by the curious and the fearful. Citizens stood on their stoops or balconies to stare out towards the countryside, or shout questions at passersby and their neighbours, who were also up and peering in their nightshirts or gowns.

  British troops, and those handfuls of persecuted Saint Domingue Royalists who had taken arms with them, mustered and marched to drums of their own, and the thin tootle of fifes, in the opposite direction, forcing Lewrie and Cashman to shoulder and sidle aside on their way to the port.

  And those far-off drums still thrummed, regular as a metronome, seemingly from every inland point of the compass, as if Port-Au-Prince was already surrounded and under a fell siege. There were some out on the streets who seemed glad of it, though it was far too early to show enthusiasm or loyalty. The guillotines set up by the original Jacobins still stood, waiting for their next victims; terrified petits blancs or Mulattoes could still turn into a mob and tear people asunder, if they had no other weapons than their hands.

  Toussaint L’Ouverture’s secret allies, those supposedly “happy” personal servants and household slaves fetched in from the country, had turned on their masters before. It was no wonder everyone went about as cutty-eyed as a bag of nails, with one hand near a pocketed pistol or the hilt of a sword. At present, all they could do was glare, maybe smirk with delight of a future victory, their chins high and their eyes alight, as Lewrie and Cashman passed—two officers alone, with no escort, easily taken by a quickly gathered gang?

  Lewrie could feel their speculation, as if he were a yearling calf under the gaze of the farmer with a knife hidden from view.

  “Yorktown … Toulon,” Lewrie snarled, keeping his eyes moving and a firm grip on his sword hilt. “Looks and smells the same, of a sudden. Defeat and … disaster.” He was still short of breath, and their rapid pace wasn’t helping.

  “Oh, rot!” Cashman snapped, still out of sorts for being kept waiting, when he was afire to dash off to join his troops. “What we built ‘round this place, we can hold for months, if need be. Break ’em on our guns and ramparts.”

  “Certain you can, Kit,” Lewrie replied, “but the rot’s set in! Those drums … tales of voudoun and past massacres. British troops might hold but … whole town’s against you. Ready t’roll over and quit. Can’t you feel it, already?”

  “They’re scared, I’ll grant you,” Cashman answered. “But, let ‘em see us shred the first assaults, and they’ll buck up. Let some of the fainthearts run! No use, anyway, and that’ll be fewer mouths to feed. A week’r two of slaughter, and the slaveys’ll melt back into the hills, lickin’ their wounds. We’ll hold, count on it,” he said, firmer of resolve, as if saying it would make it so, though Lewrie doubted that it might make a real difference on the rest of the island.

  What would be gained, with another Fever Season coming, Lewrie wondered? The slave armies decimated, for sure, but not defeated, as his advisories had boasted, free to recruit and re-arm, strike another place less well defended; another year of campaigning that would eat European troops, ammunition, and money like a glutton’s box of sweets! To what end, after all the lives lost?

  “Well, here we are,” Cashman said, clomping to a halt. “Camp’s
that way, the quays t’other. Good luck out at sea, Alan. I do think you’ll have more joy of it than I, the next few weeks.”

  “Pile ’em up in heaps, Kit,” Lewrie said, offering his hand to his longtime friend. “And thankee for a hellish-good run ashore!”

  “That I will, and you’re welcome,” Cashman said with a smile, easier and more relaxed now. “Though what a staid family man such’s yerself is doin’, makin’ a right meal o’ things, is beyond me. Or … p’raps ’tis been too long, as a family man and all?”

  “You’re corrupting,” Lewrie assured him.

  “You’re corruptible.” Cashman hooted. “Why I like you so well. Damn those drums! You’d think even they’d like some peace and quiet, a bit o’ shut-eye. Fare ye well, ye tarry ol’ whoreson.”

  “You, too, you old rogue!” Lewrie bade in hearty return, and then they became formal, doffed their hats and bowed away in congé to their separate commands.

  Lewrie made the last cable or so to the quays, where he could whoosh out his relief to still be living; the warehouses and houses had seemed more than usually ominous. He stood in the dull rain and peered about for a boat, suddenly distrusting himself alone aboard an island bum-boat, with a Black crew who just might favour L’Ouverture’s party. Finally, a Navy guard-boat ghosted past, and he whistled and waved ’til they steered towards him.

  “Going my way?” Lewrie called to the young midshipman in the sternsheets, who held a blazing torch by which to see. “Lewrie, from the Proteus frigate.”

  “Oh, aye sir! Come aboard. Curlow, help the captain aboard, there!” the boy cried, seeming relieved, and snapping at a Jamaican sailor who served as bow-man. “Uhm, those drums, sir … started up ’bout an hour ago. My pardons for asking, sir, but … what does it mean?”

  “It means,” Lewrie intoned, once he had gotten settled upon a thwart, “that a whole hurricane of shit is about t’come down on this place, younker. And thank your lucky stars you’re in the Navy and not ashore when it does.”