“A man who would strike another can have no objections, can he?” Ashburn said. “Captain O’Boyle, your party has issued a mortal and grievous series of slanders, sir. The choice of weapons, and the place, is ours, is it not?”
“Aye, even by the Irish Code,” O’Boyle admitted.
“I shall communicate with you further, sir, after my principal and I have informed our commanding officers,” Ashburn promised.
“I shall await you, sir,” O’Boyle said with a bow.
* * *
There are 365 beaches on Antigua, one for every day of the year for a sybarite intent on enjoying the gifts of sun and wind and water. Lewrie’s coach rolled up to the low overlook at one of them on the north end of the island two days later, just at low tide, when the sand would be firm underfoot. He had with him Keith Ashburn, a naval surgeon, and Captain Osmonde of the Marines, formerly of Ariadne and now captain of Marines in the eighty-gun Telemachus. Osmonde had drilled Lewrie hard for those two days to get him in shape.
Wyndham and his party were already waiting; O’Boyle his second, a regimental surgeon and his friend Ames. There was also an Army officer from the garrison, a Major Overstreet, who would referee. There was a small fire burning, and the regimental surgeon’s tools and instruments were already boiling to lessen the shock of cold steel to the flesh of the loser.
“Admiral Matthews gave me a message, Mister Lewrie,” Osmonde said as he flicked some invisible dirt from his uniform after they had stepped down.
“Aye?” Alan asked, ice-cold and already very thirsty.
“While he deplores the idea of dueling, he deplores the insult to his niece even more. I doubt if your feelings matter to him … but he told me to tell you that his hopes are with you.”
“That was kind of him, sir,” Alan said, disappointed. “For a while I thought he would not allow us to meet.”
“I think their commander tipped the scales, smug little bastard. Thought Miss Beauman was a common dell, no matter who her uncle was.” Osmonde laughed without humor. “The lad’s built like a young bull.”
He indicated the enemy below on the beach—Lieutenant Wyndham was a thick and stocky fellow, bluff and hard-looking.
“Somewhat of a duellist. Fought two with pistols, killed his man both times. Only once with a blade, won it but no fatality.”
“You do little to reassure me, sir,” Alan said. A servant offered him a mug of small beer, which he drank at greedily.
“Keep nothing on your stomach,” Osmonde advised. “It will sour on you soon enough and turn heavy as lead.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Wet your lips and tongue but don’t swallow much. I know that thirst, boy, but you can have all you want to drink once this is over,” Osmonde cautioned. “Hopefully…”
“Aye, sir,” nodding, hoping and praying that was so.
“One thing in your favor I have learned,” Osmonde said as they descended the overlook to the beach. “Your foe is very fond of the bottle. Puts it down like small beer, and he’s spent the last five weeks aboard ship doing nothing but getting cup-shot and lying about. He’s been ashore less than a week, and the heat is affecting him. Now you’re recovered from the Yellow Jack, you’ve been riding hard, fencing hard, kept yourself fitter than him. I’d wear him down. Fend him off, ’til he begins to drag. Were you fencing with the usual choice of weapon, he might still have the stronger and quicker wrist, but a navy cutlass will wear him down fast enough.”
“Yes,” Alan intoned, barely hearing Osmonde for the rush of blood in his head and the sound of his breath rushing in and out so full of life. Why did I want to defend the silly mort, he thought queasily. I’ve no honor, and everybody seems to know it.
“I trust that you have become a dangerous man, Mister Lewrie,” Captain Osmonde said, pumping his hand. “And my best wishes to you.”
Lewrie shed his uniform and undid his neckcloth, tossing it aside. He took a deep breath and enjoyed the sight of the gulls wheeling over their cove-sheltered beach, the play of sun on the bright green water. He shook himself all over to loosen his tenseness. This is what comes of getting involved with a chick-a-biddy young girl. I should stick to whores.
“Gentlemen,” Major Overstreet called them together. “That a blow was struck, and grievous insults exchanged notwithstanding, they were brought about by strong drink, and can be excusable. I charge both of you now, is there no way to settle this quarrel without recourse to steel?”
“Only if Lieutenant Wyndham publicly recants his slurs on the lady in question, his slurs on me, and apologizes for striking me, sir,” Alan stated as calmly as he could, feeling trapped and knowing in his heart that it was not going to be that way. He could see the swaggering, superior way Wyndham glared at him.
“I stand by my statements, sir,” Wyndham replied.
Overstreet sighed. “Then it is my sad duty to allow you to proceed. The weapons chosen by the aggrieved party are naval cutlasses. You shall both draw a weapon which your second shall offer you. You shall separate to the red pegs, which are five paces apart. You shall salute each other at my command, then take what guard you will and advance to touch blades. On my count you shall begin. I shall say one, and two, and three, begin. The duel shall continue until such time as one party has received his third cut. At that time I shall call you to cease. Should honor be deemed satisfied, the duel will end. Should you not feel that your cause has been redeemed, your seconds shall inform me and the duel shall continue until such time as one or both of you has fallen. A disarm shall be considered a touch. Should either of you advance threateningly before my count, or fail to halt after the third cut at my call, or if one of you attempt to strike the other after disarming the other, the second of the offended party and I shall shoot him down. Do you understand?”
They both nodded, grim and pale.
“Then take your weapons, please.”
Lewrie went to his peg, where Ashburn stood. He offered him a cutlass hilt-first. “Pray God for you, Alan,” Keith whispered. “Now why don’t you cut the swaggering duck-fucker up!”
Lewrie nodded to him and touched him on the shoulder with his free hand, then turned to face Lieutenant Wyndham, who was getting the feel of the heavy cutlass as though he had never handled one before. It was a plain weapon, heavy as sin, a simple chopping weapon with a wide blade and only one edge and a point of sorts at the end of the upward curve, like a caricature of an infantryman’s hanger. The hand-guard was of flat steel with a ring guard and a wooden handle, which had been rubbed with dust to stanch the expected sweat.
“Salute,” Overstreet called, raising a long double-barreled pistol at half-cock.
Wyndham took up a graceful, balanced pose with one hand over his shoulder, perfect as a French sword instructor, his blade in quarte.
Lewrie brought his own blade to octave and he had to smile at the incongruous sight of someone posing with a cutlass as though it was a foil.
“I shall begin the count,” Overstreet intoned. “One … and two … and three … begin.”
They advanced with small steps, blades trembling with anticipation. First beat rang hesitantly as they explored. The army man opened with a thrust, which Lewrie beat aside, and then Wyndham responded with a cut-over. It was obvious that the lieutenant was a point man. They fenced in school style for a while, Lewrie trying Wyndham’s disengage and parry style, eyes on Wyndham’s own, his point, and the set of his feet.
Wyndham exploded with a sudden lunge. Lewrie parried it off high to his left, stepping aside the thrust in quartata, then swung at the unbalanced man and came a toucher of disemboweling Wyndham, who leaped back like a cat, eyes wide with surprise. Lewrie went to the attack with a feint thrust, beating aside the parry and lunged himself. Wyndham gave a grunt of alarm and stumbled backward to fall on the firm sand beach, while Lewrie spun past him and took up guard, waiting for him to regain his feet.
Lewrie understood what Osmonde had meant. What little small beer he had drunk w
as sloshing around in his belly like a sack of mercury, and his thirst was hellish. The exertion felt debilitating, and they had barely begun! But he found time to whirl his cutlass in mock salute and raise one eyebrow in a cocky grin as Lieutenant Wyndham got to his feet and began to advance once more.
Wyndham began thrusting low with feint thrusts, stamping to distract Lewrie’s attention, or throw off his timing, forcing him back as their blades rang in engagement and light parries. Lewrie gave ground half-step for half-step to maintain distance before shifting to a low guard and point-parrying Wyndham wider and wider. The soldier wanted to step back and regain his advantage, so he ended with his blade at high first, and whirled it suddenly in a killing swing that Lewrie met with a crossover to fourth. The two blades met with a great clang and the shock stunned his arm and hand, but Lewrie cut across, his own blade ringing off Wyndham’s hilt guard, which lowered the army man’s weapon below his waist. Lewrie feinted a cut to the head backhanded, which made him duck back off-balance. Lewrie drew his elbows back and disengaged, then whirled his cutlass under and around to spin Wyndham’s guard over his head. He then struck down the blade, to lay the heavy cutlass on Wyndham’s scalp with a firm tap that cut through hair and skin and thudded off the bone. The infantryman tried to bind, but Lewrie shoved forward with his hilt and pushed hard, jumping back at the same time from the irate killing swing that followed.
There were murmurs of alarm or pleasure from the witnesses as they saw the blood on Wyndham’s head and face running down into his eyes. Humiliated, Wyndham was on the attack at once, taking the hint of their brief practice and using the point less, wielding the cutlass more like one would a hanger to attack edge to edge. Lewrie gave ground, seeing the energy Wyndham was putting into his efforts, and knowing that sooner or later the man would go back to the pointwork he was used to, once he began to flag.
Wyndham began to execute flying cut-overs fairly well, which Alan was parrying off, but he suddenly went back to the point and faked Alan out badly. The straight-armed lunge grazed his left cheek with steel, and he felt a sudden pain in his face. But he responded with a counterthrust under that made Wyndham hop to save his nutmegs, then an upward parry and a rapid double, which forced Wyndham to leap back once more.
Lewrie took a long pace forward to attack, changing tactics to the full naval cutlass drill—stamp, slash, balance and return, slash—right and left, up and down, whirling the heavy blade in a whistling arc that brought grunts of effort from Wyndham each time he parried, the blades smashing together with the hefty clang of a farrier making a new horseshoe. Lewrie added flying cut-overs to break the pace, going from high to low before making a swing with his wrist that almost put his point into the army man’s chest. Wyndham’s parry was weak, and he almost dragged himself backward to escape, his chest heaving.
Lewrie thought it a trick, but was not sure. He himself was tired … God, he was aching, his wrist and his arms heavy as lead, and his legs juddering props that threatened to go slack at any second and drop him to the ground. But Wyndham did look finished. His body was streaming sweat, thinning the blood that ran down his face and coating it with claret. And his eyes that had been so mocking and so sure were now squinted with concern and doubt. He was tempted to leap forward and finish it but remembered Captain Osmonde’s advice to go slow and wear him down.
They met again, blades still ringing, but softer now.
Wyndham thrust low, using the point to come up with a ripping slash at Lewrie’s stomach, but he beat it aside at the last instant, driving Wyndham’s guard low, met the next blow with a two-handed swing that forced Wyndham’s blade wide to the left and almost into the sand. Lewrie stepped forward into his guard sideways and swung back to the right two-handed again with all his flagging might. He felt a thud like sinking an axe into a chopping block, and leaped back, centering his guard against a reply. But it was over.
Wyndham stood before him with his feet together, his face as white as his snowy breeches. They both looked down at the sand to see Lieutenant Wyndham’s right arm lying there, still clutching the cutlass and the nerveless fingers curling and drumming an irregular tatoo on the hilt!
Wyndham looked back to him in surprise, before his eyes rolled back into his head and he pitched forward to the sand, a fountain of blood gushing from what remained of his shoulder with each beat of his heart.
Lewrie stumbled backward, unable to feature it, the tip of his blade dragging a furrow through the sand. Ashburn came up to him and he dropped his cutlass and turned away from him. Wyndham’s party came forward, and both surgeons worked on the infantry officer, cauterizing a great cut in Wyndham’s side, and hands slipped in gore as they tried to seize the spurting arteries and sear them shut, while the seabirds cried and wheeled at the smell of blood steaming on the beach.
Lewrie sat down on the step of his coach, watching the drama below. The naval coachee gave him a large glass of brandy to drink.
“Gawd almighty, sir…”
“Indeed.” Alan nodded in shock. “Another please.”
This brandy he sipped more slowly, becoming aware of how sore he was all over after being so tensed up for God knew how long, how his arms arched and throbbed, and the pain pulsed in his ravaged cheek. His thigh muscles were jumping and his calves and ankles hurt as though he had strolled twenty miles across country.
Captain Osmonde climbed up the sand slope from the beach to him. “I believe you shall make a dangerous man, after all, Mister Lewrie.”
“I meant but to cut him…” Lewrie dazedly protested.
“I believe you should consider that intent most successful,” the Marine officer said most dryly.
“Will he live?”
“Lieutenant Warren Wyndham is now late of His Majesty’s 12th Regiment of Foot,” Osmonde said. “Totally exsanguined of his life’s blood and dead on the field of … honor. Was it worth it?”
“At the moment, aye, sir,” Lewrie said, studying his shoes. “I don’t know about tomorrow.”
“An honest answer, at any rate,” Osmonde said, kneeling down in front of him. “Don’t develop a taste for this, boy. War is gloriously obscene enough, without turning into a man-killer.”
“I want no more of it,” Alan confessed.
“Best have the surgeon sew that up,” Osmonde said, touching his cheek to examine his wound. “Won’t spoil your looks for the ladies, I doubt. Hungry?”
“Yes,” Alan realized.
“Ashburn had the good faith in you to reserve rooms for us for a late breakfast at an inn on the way back. I, for one, am famished.”
“There’s one good that will come out of this,” Lewrie said as he got to his feet at the approach of the surgeon with his bag. “There is no way they’ll keep me as a messenger and errand boy ashore after this. If I’m not at sea within a week, there’s a dozen of good claret for you and Ashburn on it…”
Chapter 11
“You were fortunate, Mister Lewrie,” Commander the Honorable Tobias Treghues said, seated behind his glossy mahogany desk in the day cabins of the 20-gun frigate Desperate. “I am told the officers of the 12th Foot detachment have talked of a syndicate to challenge you one at a time until you are bested. They were not enamored of your choice of weapons, or how you won.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie said, studying his new lord and master. Treghues was in his late twenties, slim and brown-haired with grey eyes. His uniform was impeccable, as were his cabin furnishings. He showed no signs of poverty, though it had been rumored he was the eldest son of a lord gone to sea to improve the family fortunes with prizes.
“Fortunate also that I had a suitable berth, after losing one young gentleman drowned, and another to the bottle,” Treghues went on.
“Aye aye, sir.” When a midshipman had no better answer, that usually struck the right obedient note without committing to anything.
“You are, for your own safety, to remain aboard until we have sailed. You are not even to place foot in a rowing boat. By
the time we return from a cruising patrol, the 12th will have gone to St. Kitts and the problem will have been resolved.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie said, trying to find a new way to do it.
“I do not hold with dueling,” Treghues warned. “Or hotheaded bucks who cannot resist taking offense at the slightest reproach, like some swaggering Frog duke, Mister Lewrie. Usually bad officers, too.”
“I do not wish to give that impression, sir, but I had—”
Treghues waved off the rest of his answer. “Spare me your innocent and honorable motives. Sir Onsley informed me as to the circumstance. He also gives you a glowing report, so I am aware of your services to the Crown of late. You may be useful to this ship, but all I want to see from you is duty done in a cheerful and efficient manner. Spare us your blood-lust for the foe.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie parroted himself.
“Admiral Sir George Rodney has taken over from Admiral Byron, thanks be to God, so we should see some action soon. Hood and Rodney together, and we’ll see an end to these French and Spanish combinations. So, you see what is needed. Get below and into your working rig. I allow you to forgo the waistcoat in these climes, but I expect a midshipman to look like a proper officer at all times, no matter how junior you may be. That means a regulation dirk instead of that pretty hanger of yours. And I prefer a cocked hat to the round one. I took you on sufferance—don’t give me reason to regret it.”
Lewrie nodded and left the cabins, emerging on the upper deck. Desperate had no poop but a long quarterdeck over the captain’s cabin. Her first (and only) lieutenant had quarters below the captain with the surgeon, purser, Marine lieutenant and suchlike worthies. The wheel stood over the captain’s cabins on the long quarterdeck, unprotected by binnacle bulwarks. The lower deck was not a gun deck at all, the artillery being sited on the upper deck where the captain lived in solitary splendor. Hands berthed forward on the lower deck, then petty officers, Marines, warrants and midshipmen, and then the officer’s gun room right aft. The orlop and hold were too crammed with supplies to let anyone berth there.
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