Lewrie had been scanning each face of the new arrivals, looking for his runaway sailors, Groome and Rodney. He expected them to be on horseback, if they'd been promised freedman's treatment by the circus, but could not spot them. Finally…!
He recognised little Rodney, standing inside the last waggon of the train, clinging to the sideboards and the wood hoops that held up the partially-furled canvas cover… barely, for Rodney was swathed in blood-spotted bandages bound round his left shoulder and chest, and another set wound about his scalp.
"Hoy, there!" Lewrie yelled, agilely springing over the railing of the inn's veranda to the sidewalk, and jostling his way through those jeering spectators. He trotted up to the waggon, and scrambled up on the lowered tail-board to 'front his deserter. Rodney had turned grey-skinned with shock to see Lewrie, and shrank back as if the cat-o'-nine-tails was already cutting the air as Lewrie got to his feet before him.
"Damn your eyes, Rodney! You deserted!" Lewrie accused. "You'll come with me, lad!"
"S… sorry, suh!" Rodney cringed. "Ah know ah done bad, suh, runnin' off, but please God, suh, don' whip me! I paid for it, surely t'God I did! Oh, Law, but ah done paid!"
"Where's Groome?" Lewrie snapped, grabbing hold of the waggon's hoops to stay upright.
"He daid, suh!" Rodney stammered, tears running from his eyes. "Dot damnfool Dutch feller git 'im kilt, got a whole bunch o' fellers kilt, an' dey woz gon' leave me art there t'die, too, I didn' git on mah feets, aftah de lion maul me. Groome, he daid, suh, ain' lyin' 'bout dot. Damnfool Dutch feller say we take some o' dem buffaloes wif de big horns, an' dey kill 'im. Chase 'im up a tree, but it warn't tall 'nough, dey butt it down an' tromple Groome to a puddin'. Nuttin' we could do 'bout it, neither, Cap'm suh."
"Cape buffalo?" Lewrie asked, gawping at the very idea. He had been warned by his guide, duToit, that they were probably the most dangerous beasts in the wilds, and almost impossible to shoot and kill if one hit the boss of their
massive horns.
"Lick de skin raght orf 'is feets, 'fo' dey knock de tree down, suh, 'coz Groome couldn' shin up no higher," Rodney told him in misery. "God A'mighty, but ya shoulda heard 'is screams, when…" Rodney could not go on, but broke down into blubbing, wiping fresh tears with the back of his hand. "Stop this waggon!" Lewrie shouted to the ox-tenders. "Now!" They turned their heads to look at him, but could only shrug in confusion, for they knew no English, only their tribal tongues, or the pidgin of local Dutchmen. "Can somebody tell these bastards to stop this damned waggon?" Lewrie cried to the onlookers.
It was a lounging Piet duToit who sprang off a hitching rail to the street and waved a hand at the drovers, grunting out commands that thankfully brought the ox team to a plodding halt.
"A problem, Kaptein Lewrie?" the young man asked, looking up at him with his hands on his hips, and a smile on his face. "What I tell you about Jan van der Merwe? A fool,y'a! You wish help down?"
"Down, aye. I've a hurt man in this waggon," Lewrie told him. "A kaffir}" duToit scoffed, espying Rodney and his bandages. "One of my sailors," Lewrie answered. "Got mauled by a lion, he says. Van der Merwe's fault, I'd imagine."
"Hah," was duToit's dismissive sneer; what care he for a Sambo. "A deserter from my ship," Lewrie added, thinking that would be more to the Boer's liking. It was, for duToit came round to the tail-board and actually laid hands on Rodney to help Lewrie lower him to the dusty street. Burgess Chiswick was there, too, of a sudden, offering to assist the hobbling and wincing sailor to the sidewalk in front of the inn, into a bit of shade, for once Rodney was on his own feet, the young Dutch hunting guide lost all interest in him, loath to touch him any more than he had to. Surreptitiously, duToit wiped his hands along the sides of his canvas trousers. A shadow loomed over them. "Is hurt, him?"
Lewrie looked up and almost gasped to see Eudoxia astride of her white gelding, her face a mixture of disdain for Lewrie but, beneath that stillness, a concern for Rodney's injuries. There was a sadness in the cast of her large, hazel eyes, too, Lewrie thought.
"Lion mauled him," Lewrie answered her. "You know that tavern by the piers… the one with the red shutters?"
"Da, knowink," a very subdued Eudoxia replied.
"Ride there for me, if you please," Lewrie bade her. "Ask for Coxswain Andrews. That's where my boat crew was eating, waiting for me to go back to the ship. Tell Andrews to come quick. Rodney here needs to see our Surgeon."
"Is many needink surgeon," Eudoxia said, her face working into a grimace. "Is some circus men dead, Papa tell me. Antonio, best clown and mime, who tended camels and donkeys…"
Oh, Lewrie thought sarcastically and impatiently; hellish loss, a mime!
"Will you?" Lewrie pressed. "Please, Eudoxia?"
"Da, I go," she promised, already sawing at her reins. "I ask for C… Coxs… sailor Andrews." And she did, putting her gelding into a lope for the harbour.
"Fetch me some water, will you, Burgess?" Lewrie asked, kneeling at Rodney's side. "Better yet, a watered brandy."
"Right-ho," Burgess agreed, springing back over the rail of the veranda and calling for their waiter.
"You're a God-damned fool, Rodney," Lewrie sternly told him.
"Amen t'dot, suh," Rodney said with a grimace of pain.
Within minutes, Andrews and the gig's crew were back in a sweaty trot. Burgess had organised the gathering of long poles and canvas off the stalled waggon with which to fashion a stretcher, with the help of some lingering Boers who had stayed to gawk over the drama, once the comedy and the circus parade was done.
"Back to the ship and Mister Hodson with him, Andrews," Lewrie ordered. "I'll be along later, soon as I'm able, in a hired boat. No need t'make a long row for me."
"Aye, sah," Andrews replied as the boat crew picked up the ends of the poles, with Rodney stretched out atop the canvas.
"Be easy with him, deserter or no," Lewrie told him. "He's one hellacious tale t'tell, I'd expect. We lost Groome… out yonder."
"See 'im safe aboard, sah," Cox'n Andrews vowed. "Heave 'im up, an' haul away, lads. Easy, now…"
"Well," Chiswick said as the sailors and their burden began to head down the street to the piers. "Don't we have a lobster course to come… before all the excitement, happened, that is?"
"Aye, we did," Lewrie brightened, though still plagued by what in the Hell he would do with Rodney. "Let's finish our dinner. Since you're payin' so generously for it, as I remember?"
Using the steps this time, they went through the inn, then out onto the veranda to their table the usual way. Under the big, square covered outdoor veranda though, there was another intrusion, Daniel Wigmore, to the life, still swabbing sweat and trail muck from his brow with a handkerchief. Two empty steins sat before him, soon to be joined by a third, the way he was chugging his fresh one down.
"Cap'm Lewrie, 'ow do," Wigmore said with a shame-faced grin.
"We need t'talk, Mister Wigmore," Lewrie sternly replied, " 'bout you luring two of my sailors to desert, maiming one, and killing the other," he said, turning a chair back-side-round to sit down at Daniel Wigmore's table, lean close over the chair back, and glower at him.
"Ah, them laddies woz mad fer joinin' me circus, Cap'm Lewrie!" Wigmore blustered, eyes widened and his smile broader. "Nivver knew a thing h'about h'it 'til we woz 'ours down th' trail, and I couldn't've turned 'em back t'town, 'thout a gun or 'orse, wif night comin' on, an' all sortsa beasts lookin' fer supper? Cruel, that'da been, sir! Cruel! An' 'oo's this fine gennelman wif ye, Cap'm Lewrie?"
"My brother-in-law, Major Burgess Chiswick, of the Nineteenth Native Infantry, in India… Mister Daniel Wigmore, owner of Wigmore's Travelling Extravaganza," Lewrie sarcastically did the honours, "one of England's notable liars and 'sharps.' Admit it… you really tempted something horrid, promised 'em the Moon if they'd make your shows more exotic. Told Groome he could play Othello in your dramas, hey?"
"Well, I mighta mentioned a minor turn on stage, but…" "Hah!" Lewrie scoffed.<
br />
Burgess quietly came back to the circus owner's table with the rest of their burgundy left on theirs, pouring them both a goodly measure. Lewrie took the offered glass and sipped slowly, his eyes boring into Wigmore, who was now squirming in anxiety that Lewrie, or the Indian Army Major, had the authority to bring him up on charges… or could find someone who could, right quick. Dan Wigmore uncomfortably noted that Lewrie's eyes, usually a merry blue when at the circus, sniffing round Eudoxia, had gone a chilly Arctic grey, and most vulture-like, making him wilt and look away in dread as he chugged down his beer and waved for another.
"Roight, so I woz of a mind, not much o' one, d'ye see," Wigmore croaked, "alius on th' lookout fer talent, so…" He shrugged with a weak and sickly defeated grin plastered on his sweaty face.
"What happened to Groome? What happened with Rodney?" Lewrie demanded. His voice was level, his tone almost mild, but there was a steel to it, and Wigmore knew he was a long way from being out of the woods.
"Now, alia that were van der Merwe's doin', 'at feeble digit!" Wigmore exclaimed, all but wringing his hands. "Lord, Cap'm Lewrie, ye don't know wot a trial we been through, worse'n th' wand'rin's o' th' h'Israelites h'in th' Wilderness… worse'n me namesake, Daniel, h'in th' Lion's Den, oh yes! 'Twoz Biblical, 'ow we suffered h'out there, I tell ye gennulmen… Biblical!"
"Do tell," Lewrie dubiously said. "No, really… tell."
Wigmore's litany of woe was long and plaintive. First, one of his shave-pated strongmen who posed as a Hindoo jetti had been bitten by a boomslang and died within minutes. The second night out, their kraal hadn't been properly ringed with enough thornbush, and had been invaded by a pack of warthogs, which had spooked the horses, requiring a whole day to round them up again… minus the one that got pulled into a stream by crocodiles, less one that a pack of lions had eaten!
Then, there were the termite mounds and man-tall ant hills that van der Merwe had led them to, praising the unique oddity of aardvarks and aardwolves, which they captured… though not without being swarmed by an army of biting ants after they'd used too large a keg of gunpowder to spread the "treats" as bait for the aardvarks and aardwolves, and everyone had dashed off to the nearest waterhole to bathe them off, shedding clothing as they went, not noticing the half-dozen crocodiles lurking in said waterhole, first, who ran them back onto dry ground… rather a long way, and that change of clothing was lost to hyenas.
Under van der Merwe's knacky guidance again, they had ringed a tree in which a pair of spotted panthers were sleeping, banging on pots and ox-bells, yelling to daunt the cats as they brought up stout nets. Unfortunately, the panthers hadn't felt much like joining the circus, and had leaped down at the worst possible moment and ganged up on the circle of beaters, who just had to shoot their way wide of disaster, but had ended up shooting mostly at each other, the tree, and anything inside their circle… excepting the panthers, of course, and they'd lost a Black bearer, which, considering the firepower at hand, and the level of terror and chaos, could have been a lot worse. It resulted in Panthers: 1, Nimrods: 0, though they did manage to take another pair of panther cubs they got up another tree, later.
Then, when van der Merwe had suggested that hyenas just might be able to be tamed, one night, the dawn had revealed that three more of their native helpers had decamped, and they, thankfully, gave up on that idea.
Groome, well… van der Merwe told them that Cape buffalo were immensely strong beasts, never got rinderpest like domestic cattle and oxen, so vital to the Boers, did, and wouldn't they be a novelty when trotted into the ring towing circus waggons, once broken to the goad, and the yoke! And, what a boon to Boer mobility!
They had stalked a herd of them, thinking to corral a few with another ring of noisy beaters, and fleet horsemen with rope nooses to capture the ones they wished. The queston had turned out to be who was herding whom, though. The herd had milled tight together, flowed round as one for a bit, then whirled into formation and charged, with Wigmore likening it to an evolution of a brigade of British dragoons or lancers, perfectly bristling with hundreds of horns, not sabres or lance-tips! That pretty-much put paid to the circle idea, and everyone had run or galloped for their lives. Groome had run to a flimsy flame tree and scaled it, but hadn't lasted two minutes once the Cape buffs had circled below him and butted the damned thing down.
More natives had realised they'd been hired on by a nit-wit, by then, and, uttering the Bantu equivalent of "Bugger this for a game of soldiers!," had melted away into the bush.
Wigmore's second false jetti had followed van der Merwe's sage lore that zebras calm down just sweet as anything if one pulled a jute sack over their heads, and somewhere in the braying stampede, jetti #2 had gotten kicked in the head, then trampled to death.
They'd captured Durschenko's trio of lion cubs with yet another encirclement of beaters, but had had to shoot the male and three females to part them from the cubs. That's where Rodney had been mauled, when the adults in the pride had bowled through jittery gunners and beaters.
"We found h'elephinks," Wigmore sorrowfully related. "Sorta 'ard not to, wot wif s'bloody many of 'em bellerin' an' trumpetin' so mad, when we camped by th' water'ole they warnted h'at. H'at's where we lost pore ol' h' Antonio."
"The mime," Lewrie commented, now nibbling on cold lobster with his fingers, their dinner re-directed to Wigmore's table.
"An' a good'un 'e were, too, Cap'm Lewrie, an' din't th' lit'l chil'ren love 'im," Wigmore wistfully replied, piping at his eyes with his handkerchief. "Ne'er 'ad th' voice t'be a good h'actor, d'ye see, but that man knew 'is way wif a pig bladder or a dummy chicken like 'e was born t' th' craft. An' I allus knew me camels an' such woz in good 'ands…'less h'Antonio were in drink, or feelin' h'amourous."
"He… with livestock, d'ye mean t'say?" Burgess gasped. "Well, now an' h'agin, but 'e ne'er meant nought by h'it," Dan Wigmore said with a mournful sigh. "Butt h'ugly'z h'Antonio woz, not a woman h'in th' world woulda…"
"Male, or female?" Burgess asked, lips quivering rather oddly. "Oh, females h'only, sir!" Wigmore primly declared, tugging at his waistcoat as if insulted. " 'Twoz nought queer 'bout h'Antonio!"
Burgess shot to his feet as if outraged beyond all countenance, and crossed quickly to the veranda railing facing the street. Wigmore fretted with his coat lapels, shrinking into it as if embarrassed… 'til Burgess Chiswick erupted in 'laughter, great heaves of laughter that sounded something very much like
"Bwooharharhar!" along with the odd snort, cackle, and wheeze.
"Well, h'it 'appen, Cap'm Lewrie," Wigmore explained. "Now, I'm 'at sorry we lost one o' yer sailor boys, an' 'at lit'l Rodney feller like t'got et by 'at mama lion, but 'e'll most-like 'eal up an' serve ye good'z h'ever, oncet…"
"But that isn't the point, is it, Mister Wigmore?" Lewrie said with a wintry crackle to his voice. "You had your way, how many more of my hands would you have lured away? By God, sir! I should string you to a hatch-grating and have you flogged 'til your backbone is exposed! A fubsy such as you, the 'cat' would pare your flesh like it'd cut fresh, soft cheese! Mine arse on a band-box, I should!"
Wigmore paled, blinking rapidly in dread; unable to look Lewrie in the eye, he turned to heed Burgess Chiswick, who was rattling that veranda railing with his laughs. Wigmore tried to smile it away.
"Nivver do h'it h'agin, sir, swear h'it!" Wigmore tumbled out. "Point taken, Cap'm Lewrie. Make h'it up t'ye, h'if I could. Biood-money! I could pay… I'm told yer fond o' playful, furry critters, sir. 'Ow 'bout a mongoose! 'Ey's Hell on rats, an' cute as anythin'!"
To which offer, Lewrie could not help but hide a grin, try to maintain fierceness, but said, his own lips quivering with amusement, "No thankee… have one!" He stood, suddenly, scaring the man. "Oh, drink yer damned beer, Wigmore. But, do you come sniffing round any of my sailors, again, I'll come after you myself with a cat-o'-nine-tails!" he warned.
Leaving the man in a speechless, hang-jawed sweat, Lewrie went to join Burgess Chiswick
at the railings, about ready to cackle, too.
"Nothin' queer 'bout Antonio, my Lord!" Burgess was still weakly wheezing to himself. "Oh, Alan, did ye ever hear the like?"
"Oh, probably," Lewrie muttered, still fuming. "One gets about. Who knows… worse things happen at sea. Burgess, my apologies, but I must cut things short. Things t'see to aboard ship, you understand."
"And we didn't even get to the main courses, ah well," Burgess replied, sobering at last as he sprang back from the rail to face him. "In point of fact, here comes your soup and such."
"Hate t'waste good victuals, but I must," Lewrie told him, digging for his purse to repay him in part, but Burgess waved his offer away.
"I'll sample a bit of everything, and call it a feast," Burgess told him. "Perhaps we'll find time enough for a drink or two, before we sail?"
"Of course we shall," Lewrie promised him, gathering up his hat and sword from their own abandoned table. "Failing that, though, allow me to offer to treat you to yer first English supper, once we're back home. We'll go up to London and make a whole night of it, hey?"
"Come to think of it, we'll do both," Burgess brightened. "And, we may bore each other to tears with our war-stories."
"Looking forward to it," Lewrie promised as he clapped his hat on his head and squared it away. "For now, though… adieu!'
He got to the red-shuttered tavern by the piers and began hunting for a rowboat to hire to take him out to Proteus, but, to his utter astonishment, found not one but two gigs waiting at the foot of the wooden stairs that led down to the floating landing stage: a strange gig painted green and picked out with white stripes with a Midshipman just debarking from it, and… his own gig, with his tars and Cox'n Andrews in it. The sight of it made him pause halfway down the narrow stairs as the Midshipman was coming up.
"Pardons, sir," the lad said, backing down to the landing stage to make way for a senior officer. He doffed his hat as Lewrie finished his descent. "Uhm… might you be Captain Lewrie, of the Proteus frigate, sir?"
A King`s Trade l-13 Page 33
