"In the King's name!" Lewrie howled, lunging at the startled young sailor on the cot before him. He used his truncheon like a pike to knock the breath from the lad, and curl him up like a singed worm around his bruised stomach, gasping for air.
There was more ruckus from the center room, as its denizens discovered that their escape route through the boarded-up window which let onto the stews was filled with press-gang hands.
"Jeez-Ms!" the bosun exclaimed with disgust. "Bloody…!"
"Got these, sir," Cony told him. "Christ!"
Lewrie turned about, taking his eyes off the younger sailor for a moment. His assailant was knelt on the floor, against the wall near a wardrobe. Cony and two more hands were already binding him in irons. Oh, he was a sailor, no doubt about it; tattooed and sun-baked, a ring in his ear in sign he'd survived a sinking sometime in his past. And as grizzled and stocky as a longtime bosun's mate. His clothes were sailors' "short clothing" and purser's slops-though the man was now bare-arsed nude, still sporting the remains of a prodigious cock-stand.
"Oh, bloody…" Lewrie muttered as he grasped the situation. He turned back to the younger sailor and ripped the filthy linen sheet away from him. He too was naked.
"Please, sir!" the lad whimpered, looking up with pleading in his large, doe-like eyes. Except for the usual ruddy sailor's tan, he was… pretty; pretty as some biddable young miss! "Please, sir!" he begged again, almost fluttering his lashes in hopes he could stir pity. "Warn' wot ya think, sir, I swears it! Warn' my fault, sir!"
"A Goddamned sodomite!" Lewrie almost gagged.
"Don' take me, sir… they'd flog me somethin' awful. They'd hang me, sir! I'm a good topman, sir, see… ain't never been flogged? Ain't been no trouble 'board ship, sir."
He reached out in supplication, tears rolling unashamedly down his face, and Lewrie flinched back from his touch, fended him off with the truncheon.
"Don' never mess 'board ship, sir," the young seaman began to blubber. "An' won' never 'appen agin, sir. Won' do h'it no more, I swears it. Fell in wif bad comp'ny, sir. Run outa money, an'… an' I needed money, sir. Drink an' bad companions, sir! Sir!"
"Irons here," Lewrie barked, snapping his fingers for his men.
"Oh, please mates, don' do h'it! I'll go back, swears I will. Ain't no trouble wif me messmates…!"
"Ain't no mate of yer'n, ya bugger," one of the gang growled as he advanced with a set of fetters. " 'Old still now… rrdssyl"
Lewrie stumped stiff-legged from the chamber, onto the landing, peeking into the other rooms for confirmation. He had not only stumbled onto a nest of deserters, he'd stepped right into a proper dungheap.
No wonder they'd run, he thought. Sodomy was one of the few of the thirty-six Articles of War, besides murder and mutiny, the Navy really did hang people for.
"Gawd, sir," his bosun spat, "ain't just deserters. This here be a boy-fucker's buttock-shop. Center room, sir… musta been seven 'r eight o' th'… things… t'gither when we busted in, as evil'z…anythin'! Not all of 'em seamen, though, Mister Lewrie. Dramshop owner, e'z one, too. Caught 'im in th' front room, we did. Had 'im a lad in 'ere no bigger'n me youngest boy Tommy, th' bastard. Two of 'em'z ship's boys. An' a coupla… gen'lmenl"
Lewrie took a look in the front room. It was much larger than the other two chambers, part bed-chamber and parlour, and quite well furnished compared to the rest. A chubby old reprobate sat unmanacled on the edge of the high bedstead, trying to cover part of his nudity by shrouding his groin with his hands, wide-eyed and high-browed, and striving to appear as sheepishly innocent as a dog might, caught licking the Sunday roast. But cowering up by the pile of pillows, weeping fit to bust, was a cherub of a boy, not over ten years old.
"That… suet-arse was buggering that boyV Lewrie demanded.
" 'Pears he wuz, sir. In bed with 'im, naked'z Adam, anyways."
"You misconstrue, sir," the harmless-looking old bugger began to explain, shaking his head as if it was a very tiny, silly mistake. "I can assure you, sir, you see-"
"Save it!" Lewrie snapped. 'Tell it to the magistrate." The man gasped, paling with dread. Hauled before a court on a charge of sodomy, he'd face hanging for his peculiar tastes. A public whipping, then days festering in the stocks on display as his most hopeful prospect; but subject to the taunts, fruit, stones and physical abuse of the Mob. And few survived that, either.
"Didn' cuff 'im yet, sir… bein' a civilian'n all," the bosun commented. The 'Press had been sued before for even laying hands on civilians, no matter how briefly. And the bosun was a cautious, and experienced, Impress man. "T'other bugger'z in 'ere, sir."
Alan stomped to the door of the center chamber. There he saw what he could only construe as the aftermath of a backgammoner's orgy. Cheap, low beds lined the walls, feather mattresses and blankets stood service for the carpet. The room reeked of spilled rum, gin, brandy and ale. Several candles guttered in the corners, so the participants might take pleasure in observing, between bouts. Even by that guttery light, Lewrie could pick out several seamen, and a pair of snot-nosed, shivering ship's boys, from the pasty-skinned, maggot-pale civilians.
One of the civilians-again, unfettered-had hurriedly dressed. His clothes were elegant and expensive-silks and satins, fine-cut figured velvet coat and breeches, expensive shoes, the accoutrements of a courtly salon slug. And a courtier's smug airs.
"I am a gentleman, sir," he began, with a sneer at discovering an officer to whom he could complain. "I am a civilian. I am not, nor have I ever been, a sailor, sir. Therefore you have no authority over me, and I insist you let me pass, at once!"
"But you are a bugger, ain't you?" Lewrie countered. "What if we just call for the 'Charlies' and hold you 'til a magistrate comes?"
"You would not dare, sir," the slim young courtier simpered. "No magistrate would sanction the 'Press in his domain, sir, even were he aware of your presence… which awareness I most sincerely doubt," the man shot back, sure of his ground. "Show me your warrant, sir, or confess that your actions this evening have no sanction."
Damme, Lewrie groaned; a bloody sea lawyer! And, no, we don't have a warrant to show. That's why we were successful tonight. Word couldn't get out, and the streets about weren't warned to expect us.
"I see" the slim aristocrat purred in triumph. "So it will be impossible for you to detain me, d'ye see. Nor summon any local authorities 'pon me. Nor hold me 'gainst my will. You alone have authority to detain, to lay hands upon me, sir, but your writ does not extend to your minions. And your bully-bucks have already laid hands upon me, striven to prevent me from dressing, or departing. That constitutes, of itself, a wrongful-taking… for which you, and you alone, are liable before a court of justice, sir." He was singsonging with glee.
Damme, he's well versed, too! Damn his eyes!
"And I feel it my obligation to caution you, sir, that I am from a most influential and powerful City family. With a circle of friends far more powerful than are yours, I'd expect, with legal assistance far beyond your miserable purse. You are in difficulties enough already. Detain me a moment longer, and whatever befalls you will be a greater measure of chastisement than ever you might imagine. Now let me pass, I say!"
He has me by the short hairs, Lewrie gloomed to himself; all he had said was true. He could be bound up in court for months. Oh, the Admiralty would pay his legal expenses, bail him out of debtors' prison if he lost the judgment, and if the fop demanded a huge settlement. But he'd be out thousands over the matter. And he couldn't risk losing every farthing he had.
"You speak for the others, too, I take it?" Lewrie found spirit enough to sneer in return.
"My dear sir, I care little for any but myself," the man confessed gaily. "These sailors are properly in your limited jurisdiction. They and the rest… well, it was dull sport, after all. I will take my manservant yonder, and depart. Should you have no objections?"
"Get out," Lewrie grumbled at last. "Get out, and be damned to you, you…!"
"Adieu," the elegant young bugger smirked, making a "leg" and sweeping his showy, egret-feathered hat across his breast. "Bonne nuit. Though not, you will understand… au revoir… n'est-ce pas?"
"Sufferin'…" Lewrie sighed, slamming his truncheon into his palm, over and over, as the courtier and his shivering "man" departed.
"Aye, 'at stinks, sir," the bosun muttered sourly. "Nothin' ye could do, else. Not with th' likes o' himl"
"He left one of 'em behind, at any rate," Lewrie observed, as he walked deeper into the orgy chamber to gaze down upon an unconscious form huddled hard up against a cot.
"Well, 'at'uncutupabitrough, 'e did, Mister Lewrie. Hadta bash 'im a good'un. Gawd! 'Ese pore tykes. Just babes, some of 'em. Wish we could go 'fore a magistrate. Local parish might take 'em in, set 'em right, 'fore they gets buggery in their blood."
"This parish?" Lewrie scoffed, still squirming over his defeat. "What could they do? Already Irish bogtrotter poor. Full of future victims. Can't have boy brothels in rich parishes. Like that sneerin' shit, just left? Prays the loudest in his family pew, I'd wager, and plays upright for all to see. Can't take his sort of pleasure in a good parish. But that's what the East End is for, ain't it?" And I should know, Lewrie shrugged in wry self-awareness. In my early days, I was all over the East End whores, Drury Lane to Cheapside. 'Least, they were girlsl And I paid well. Full value and more.
"What say we let 'ese litt'lest beggars go, Mister Lewrie?" the bosun almost begged. "Coupla cabin boys, 'eir sort'd not be missed f r long, no with s'many volunteers. We take 'em in, sir, all they get is caned, then discharged, anyways. T'other tykes, well…"
"Aye, bosun, turn 'em out," Lewrie decided, unable to look the quivering, fearful children in the eyes. "Tongue-lash before they go, though. Put some fear o' God in 'em. But we take the rest with us."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Lewrie went to the last, unconscious, civilian by the cot. He rolled him over with his foot, hoping for signs that he might yet be a seaman, subject to impressment. And his pitifully weak writ.
"Well, damme!" he gasped, as if butted in the solar plexus. It had been years! 1780, if it was a day! That last bitterly cold morning when the naval captain and his brute of a coxswain had come for him, in his father's house in St. James', to drag him off as an unwilling midshipman. There, lying at his feet in enforced "repose," was the bane of his adolescent life. Even with a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, a livid bruise on his cheek and blood matted in his lank, sweaty blond hair, the bastard appeared to be sneering, in truncheon-induced sleep! No, there was no mistaking the rail-thin, haughty, thoroughly despicable face of his half brother Gerald Willoughby. His backgammoning, windward-passage-preferring, butt-fucking sodomite Molly of a half brother.
"Oh, God… thankee, just!" Alan whispered with sudden glee-How many nights he'd swung in his hammock aboard Ariadne, his first ship, with silent tears of rage coursing his cheeks, wasting all that precious sleep with schemes of revenge on all who had connived to push him off, a hopeless, clueless victim, to sea.
His father, for Alan's inheritance he'd hoped to steal; their solicitor Pilchard, who'd forged and swindled in the cause; his icily beautiful half sister Belinda, who'd lured him to her bed so he could be discovered "raping" her; even the parish vicar who'd been duped into being witness to his alleged crime.
Most especially, this taunting, cruel, sneering, trouble-making, back-stabbing, lying, canting, sneaking, arrogant swine!
Lewrie's ardour had at last cooled, though he had relished news of them. By '86, off for the Bahamas, he'd almost put them out of mind. He did learn, though, that Pilchard had been arrested long before, for forgery, theft and huge debt; and if he hadn't done a "Newgate hornpipe" on the gallows, then he was a prime candidate for the first convoy to New South Wales, now England had once more a place for those doomed to be "transported for life."
Belinda… their mutual father'd robbed her and Gerald of their dead mother's inheritance, too; run through every penny, and hadn't got his hands on Alan's, so they'd been turned out, penniless. He'd heard she made her living on her back. He'd even seen her listed in the new gentleman's guide to Covent Garden whores… a high-priced courtesan, in the latest edition.
Gerald, well… they didn't publish guides for what he did. He had survived, after a fashion; toadying, fawning, conniving and scheming to ingratiate himself with every member of his peculiar "tribe" in London, to sponge off others' largesse, so he could still make a grand show about town in the latest fashion, in the best circles. As long as he allowed other men of his stripe to ride him.
Lewrie almost giggled as he took in how low Gerald had fallen in the years since he'd last heard of him. A stupendous comedown, if this establishment was the best he could afford to frequent. Or the meanest strait he'd been reduced to, as a market for his fading wares. Getting buggered for sixpence, instead of guineas.
There was a carefully folded pile of civilian long clothing he took to be Gerald's. Lewrie knelt to examine them. He still sported silk stockings, yes, but they were raveled above the knees and darned where they'd run. His shirt boasted a puffy lace jabot, but the rest, which the waist-coat would hide, was a faded, much-mended horror from a rag-picker's barrow. The seat of his pale blue velvet breeches was worn shiny, his once-elegant satin waistcoat had patches of bullion and silver embroidery missing. And his hat! Gerald had been rather keen on fashionable hats. Gerald's wine-coloured beaver was greasy with too much past sweat, table oils, hair dressing, and stained by overlong exposure to the elements.
Alan poked about until he found Gerald's carefully hidden purse, a worn-bare, figured-silk poke. It held a mere two shillings eleven pence. Prompted by past remembrance, he dug into a cracked shoe, delving into Gerald's favourite hidey-hole, and found… a single crown. And this was the top-lofty bastard who'd feared going out of an evening unless he could sport at least fifty pounds! He'd thought it ungentlemanly!
Lewrie stood up suddenly as the lank bastard groaned and rolled his head, exposing teeth grayed by the mercury cure for pox. He spun on his heel and fled the room, before Gerald awoke.
"Bosun," he called, trying to keep his rising malevolent grin in check. "Bosun Tatnall?" "Sir," that worthy grunted.
"Seems to me there's nought we may do to shut this horror down. Nothing official, that is, but…" Alan began, biting his cheek.
"Burn h'it t'th' groun', sir, that'd suit," Tatnall scowled. "Probably a dozen more like it in spitting distance. But, we could do some real good this night, even so," Lewrie went on. "Can't stay open without its owner, or its star performer up yonder," Lewrie joshed, almost elbowing the man in confidential camaraderie. "Do you not think that old tripes-and-trullibubs would make a fine volunteer, bosun? Once you convince him that joining's a sight better than being hanged for a bugger?"
"Oh, aye, sir!" Tatnall agreed heartily. "An' if th' bugger tries 'is ways 'board ship, they'll flay 'at maggoty flesh off n 'is bones! Cut a feller soft'z 'im like fresh cheese, 'ey would, sir!"
"Pity about that shop door below, too, bosun. When we left it, it was locked, but 'tis a rough location, after all. Pity some criminals from the stew broke in and drank him dry." "Oh, aye, sir!" Tatnall concurred again. "A hellish pity!" "I'll speak to that crimp of ours. He must have friends who'd savour a bottle or two," Lewrie snickered. "Take our deserters and the owner to the tender. I'll deal with our crimp, and catch you up later."
"I'll see to 'em, sir, never ya fear."
And I wonder if that crimp knows where a good tattoo artist may be found this time o' night, Lewrie wondered to himself, hellish happy with the evening's outcome, after all.
Bound and gagged, blindfolded, both muffled and disguised by a filthy sheet, Gerald Willoughby could but grunt, squeal and attempt to curse as the tattooist plied his skills at Bridey's knocking-shop. The old drab had bales of castoff slop-clothing to garb Gerald in, and the crimp delighted in his smart, newly exchanged gentleman's togs.
The tattoois
t did complain, though, as he laboured over Gerald's pale, hairless and shallow chest, as the whores hooted encouragement to him, at the poor state of his "canvas," at the boot-blacking he had to use; at the weak light and the watching crowd as he strove to complete his masterpiece.
It was rather good, though, considering how Gerald behaved, how violently he struggled against every quill prick, the liberal tots they poured down his maw. The rum won out. Towards the end, his thrashings abated, and he rambled gagged snatches of song, before his lights at last went out, and he began to snore.
And once he was thoroughly comatose, Lewrie, the chuckling crimp and their unwitting accomplice Will Cony, delivered Gerald Willoughby, Esquire, into the gentle ministrations of the Deptford district 'press tender. There to sleep off his monumental drunk-there to be sweetly wafted down-river to the Nore as an impressed sailor-there to awaken with a shriek of horror to a new Me and trade.
Lewrie was mortal certain Gerald no longer had a single influential or fashionable patron who might spring to his aid, so there could be no hope of rescue from without. And from within, Gerald, garbed in slop-clothing, and sporting an especially fine (though new) chest tattoo of a rope-fouled anchor, listed as taken by an Impress officer by the name of Brace-waight, could protest until his face turned blue that he wasn't a sailor, to no avail whatsoever. No, his only hope of escape would be to declare himself for what he was.
But, once 'pressed, he fell under the harsh strictures of the Articles of War, most especially Article the Twenty-Ninth:
If any person in the Fleet shall committ the unnatural and detestable Sin of Buggery or Sodomy with Man or Beast, he shall be punished with Death by the sentence of a Court Martial
Oh, it would be a fine and manly, though austere, life Gerald would be entering, Lewrie thought smugly. Wind, rain, the perils of the sea, foul food, rancid reeks, stern discipline, days aloft on the yards dependent on fickle footholds, the risks of battle. Flogging.
H.M.S. COCKEREL l-6 Page 8
