“Sir?” Langlie enquired, pencil poised.
“Haven’t some of the chickens gone missing, lately?”
“Well, aye sir, and so they have. Forgive me, but I did suspect that your cats had, um …” Langlie said, squirming and blushing.
“It’s the mongoose, more like,” Lewrie offhandedly told him.
“Beg pardon, sir… mongoose, did ye say?” Langlie gawped in perplexity. It wasn’t often that his efficient First Lieutenant wore a bewildered, nigh cross-eyed expression, but he produced a passable facsimile.
“Mongoose. The Marines’ mongoose,” Lewrie assured him. “Blue riband, champion Hindoo rat-killin’ emigrant mongoose. From Trinidad, or so I learned. It’s been beatin’ the sailors’ best rats, and they don’t much care for it, so it’s creating bad blood. Find it, Mister Langlie, run it to earth. It’s probably been keepin’ its hand in by practicing on creatures in the manger up forrud. That’s where all our chickens have gone, I’d wager.”
“Find a mongoose and get rid of it, sir… aye,” Langlie said as he scribbled into his little book.
“Well, if all else fails, definitely put a stop to the fights and definitely spare our fowl,” Lewrie breezed on. “Do the Marines put so much stock in the beast, well… I don’t much care whether it serves as a mascot with a red riband round its neck, ‘long as no one thinks t’bring snakes aboard for it to fight.”,
“Is’pose I’ll recognise a mongoose when I see one, sir?”
“Like an ermine or a ferret.” Lewrie chuckled. “Like an smallish otter, with a talent for killin’ cobras and such.”
“Ah!” Langlie rejoined. “I see, sir. I think. Perhaps we may declare it the ship’s official ratter … so long as no more wagers’r made on its prowess?”
“That’s what I like about you, Mister Langlie.” Lewrie smiled. “Your flexibility in the face of un-looked-for adversity. I believe that’ll be all for now, Mister Langlie. That should be enough on yer plate, for the nonce.”
“Oh, agreed, sir. Agreed!” Langlie said, rising and departing.
CHAPTER TWO
HMS Proteus’s return to English Harbour, Antigua, was actually not necessary, and mostly unproductive. The frigate’s mail was still being held at Kingston, Jamaica, by the authorities of the West Indies Station, to which fleet she still putatively belonged, even after her long sojourn.
Thankfully, Lewrie’s personal devils of late, Mr. Pelham and Mr. Peel, had long departed Antigua for other climes—all the way back to London, Lewrie fervently wished, so he could live his life free of their cynical machinations, ever more!
Antigua’s Admiralty House atop Mt. Shirley held only one letter for him, and that from his new-found bastard son, Desmond McGilliveray, now a sixteen-year-old Midshipman aboard his uncle’s (and the captain’s) United States Navy Armed Ship, the Thomas Sumter. Desmond sounded as if he was thriving at his new profession, so eerily coincidental to Alan’s own. Sumter had just embarked upon arduous and boresome escort duties to convoy a “trade” of Yankee merchantmen home and, most-like, would put back into her homeport of Charleston, South Carolina, for refitting and provisioning.
Young Desmond chirped right-merry over the prospects of how much prize money might result from Sumter’s—and her small squadron’s—recent captures in the Caribbean: French merchant ships and several warships, too—ones that Lewrie had led them to, twice, using the reborn U.S. Navy as British cat’s paws in Pelham’s and Peel’s scheme.
Desmond enthused how “half-seas-over” his hometown would be when they arrived with prizes in tow, how famous they might be once the news spread from Maine to Georgia, how eager he was to see his adoptive family once more. And, backhandedly, Desmond came close to boasting of a much better reception in Charleston society than he once had, strutting proudly in his uniform, a new-minted hero and promising gentleman seafarer. Which beat being shunned as a half-White, half-Muskogee Indian orphan all hollow, Lewrie sadly suspected.
Desmond happily enquired about Chalky, too; how large or playful the kitten had grown, etc. He’d been Desmond’s gift, found shivering and cowering on the boat-tier beams of a French capture; rescued, then shyly presented to the father he’d never known, so heartbreakingly eager to please, to win Lewrie’s affection, his claiming…
Lewrie looked over at the settee, where Chalky sprawled, teeth and little paws “killing” a cushion’s tassel, and thought again, quite possibly for the thousandth time, that the lad had meant well, but…
His fears for Desmond’s continued safety were allayed by news of Guillaume Choundas being detained on his parole aboard the USS Hancock, that monstrous frigate, which still cruised the Caribbean. Even so… did Choundas ever learn the boy’s parentage, the seemingly indefatigable ogre might find a way to harm him, to get even with Lewrie. With a fond smile, Lewrie set Desmond’s letter aside and pulled out the inkwell and one of his new-fangled, French-invented, steel-nib pens (one more parting gift from the lad off a defeated French corvette) to pen him a quick answer for mailing. After the British-American riots, when Proteus was last in English Harbour, he was pretty sure that the local authorities would wish them gone as soon as they’d wooded and watered. And not stand upon the order of their going, either! His working parties ashore were already limited to the docks area, and that under the wary guard of the local garrison! No, Proteus had already been absent long enough—it was time for a “fond” return to the bosom of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker’s fleet on Jamaica, and the “warm” ministrations of the fleet’s Staff Captain, Sir Edward “Bloody” Charles.
CHAPTER THREE
Kingston—and Old Port Royal, or what was left of it, after the infamous earthquake many years before—was an ideal anchorage, protected from hurricane winds and winter gales by the Blue Mountains, but Lord, it could be a career-ender to approach if one were ignorant of its dangers! Lime Cay, Rackam’s Cay and Gun Cay, Drunken Man’s Cay, Christ, you could see those, could spot three miles of rocks and shoal-water reefs that stretched Sou’west to Nor’east, beginning four miles South of Fort Charles at the tip of the Palisades. The reefs, though, like Great and Little Portuguese and Salt Pond Reef on the Western approaches—it took an experienced master or a knacky harbour pilot who knew the sea bottom as well as he knew his wife’s, and this time they had drawn the short straw and gotten a pilot with whom they had never worked, one so blithely casual and dismissive of impending danger, he had actually made that grave and sober Christian, Mr. Winwood, the Sailing Master, throw parallel rules and brass dividers and curse! He had come aboard with the dissembling gravitas of your practiced toper and had only started to slur, titter, and reveal himself as “three sheets to the wind” after they were committed, halfway into the maze inshore of the Great Portuguese!
And it hadn’t helped the deck officers, the captain included, that mere seconds after they had made their number to Fort Charles and had begun the required gun-salute to the flag, that a signal had come in reply for her “Captain To Repair On Board”—which in this case meant for Lewrie to depart the ship (instanter if not earlier) and get his arse over to the fort, Giddy House, or Admiralty House, in haste.
“Well done, sir,” Lewrie said, doffing his hat to Catterall and Langlie as he readied to disembark, “given the circumstances, and the pilot’s state. Had I known, I’d have not asked it of you, yet… my congratulations for coping so well, Mister Catterall.”
“Erm … thankee, sir!” Catterall responded, greatly pleased at the unlooked-for compliment, though still wheezing and swabbing perspiration.
“My permission to hoist a full bumper,” Lewrie continued, with a sly wink. “You more than earned it, God knows. Gentlemen?”
With his reports, and bearing his log just in case it might be required, Lewrie took the salute of the crew and side-party, and went down into his gig, which had been towed astern in fear that his rapid reporting would be demanded.
The transition from sunlight to dim coolness almost made Lewrie sneeze as he sto
pped by the hall porter’s station to ply a damp, cool towel on his face and neck before confronting Authority. The weather actually was quite mild, the daytime temperatures averaging in the low to mid-eighties, but no matter the season, the Caribbean sun was still a farrier’s hammer. Combine that with Lewrie’s trepidation of rencontre with “the Wine Keg,” Capt. Sir Edward Charles, whose animus he’d roused through no fault of his own, after nearly half a year of swanning about as free of Navy control as so many larks, and it was no wonder that he could feel moisture under his clothes, in his nether regions.
Once dried, Lewrie put the best face on it and nearly marched down the long, gloomy hallway, the hard leather heels of his gilt-tasseled Hessian boots ringing off the plank floor and the hard plaster and shiny paint of the walls. He attained those fearsome double doors, so heavy and intricately panelled, so glossy with linseed oil or beeswax polish. Hell was said to be alluring, Lewrie considered as he took a deep breath and heaved a sigh; from the outside, at least, before one got past its portals. He tugged his waist-coat, shirt cuffs, his sword baldric and neck-stock into pristine order, even gave the short ribbon-bound queue atop his collar a nervous tug before knocking.
The double doors resounded with a sound not unlike Doom … Doom!
“Go the bloody hell away!” someone inside shouted.
“Gladly,” Lewrie replied without a thought, feeling as if he was back in public school (one of many he had attended at one time or another) and had come for a well-deserved caning, only to discover that the headmaster or proctor was sick! “May I take my frigate with me when I do?” he could not resist quipping.
There came a muttered something, mighty like a suppressed curse, then an aggrieved growl of “Enter!”
Lewrie pulled on the ornate brass handles and swung the doors back, revealing that dread office, that heaped desk awash under working papers, the bookshelves spilling over with loose stacks of it, and several wineglasses, all used since sunrise… Wait a bit!
“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie expostulated.
The shelves were neatly stacked, all correspondence bound up in various coloured ribbons; the desktop could actually be seen; the books and ledgers were arranged in what Lewrie could only take for a proper order, and the only potables in sight was the coin-silver coffee set and tray on a sideboard ‘neath the large North-facing windows, a set of porcelain cups, three candles burning under a more plebeian black-iron pot.
“So you finally turned up, have you?” scoffed the Post-Captain, standing behind the desk, minus his uniform coat.
“Captain Nicely?” Lewrie gawped in utter surprise.
“Unfortunately,” that worthy said, waving a weary hand over the neat-but-daunting stacks of paperwork. “Come in, come in, Captain, and pray do pour yourself a cup, do you enjoy coffee. Take a pew, sir.”
“Er, thankee, sir,” Lewrie said, feeling much more at ease. He did pour a cup of coffee, stirred in some local sugar, and sniffed at the cream, then poured in a dollop of that, as well, taking an appreciative sip before seating himself, with his canvas-bound packet on the other chair. “Hmmm,” he added, smacking his lips.
“Hope you don’t mind goat’s milk,” Nicely said, “but it’s fresher than cow’s… just out back, d’ye see, drawn off the teat this dawn, so it has no time to go over. Does the sugar run low at sea, there’s nothing like a dollop of sweet goat’s milk.”
“Up ’til now, I’d always thought it too sweet, sir, but…”
“Leave off the sugar, use a level teaspoon’s worth, not a heaping,” Nicely suggested, seating himself behind the desk and perking up brisker. “And what have you brought me, Lewrie… more paperwork to read, initial, pass on, and file? My, ain’t you the fine gift-giver!”
In their brief acquaintance, Lewrie had quite liked Nicely; he was so aptly named! He was a squarely built older fellow, one of those gentlemen who simply oozed confidence, competence, and reliability. Nicely was a bluff older sea dog, but one with a wry and infectious sense of humour—or irony—to go with his merry blue eyes. Brisk, efficient, yet droll, he was a most congenial sort. Nicely had done Lewrie several kindnesses at Port-au-Prince before the evacuation of the Army from Saint-Domingue, when Nicely aboard HMS Obdurate had held temporary command of that harbour. And, after all, Lewrie had come in with complaints from Capt. George Blaylock of HMS Halifax. Nicely and Blaylock had been nigh mortal enemies since their midshipman days, and, since “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” applied to Royal Navy politics, Lewrie and Nicely had turned out to be “cater-cousinly.”
“Sorry, sir, but I fear I must,” Lewrie said, setting aside his coffee to hand over his bundled packet. “We’ve been under ‘independent orders,’ at the behest of some people from the Foreign Office, so…”
“Heard all about that,” Nicely breezed off, “so I fear that you wasted a deal of ink and paper documenting your doings. Sub rosa they were, so they’ll remain.”
“I take it that Mister Pelham and Mister Peel returned to Jamaica before we did, then, sir,” Lewrie surmised. “Well, damme!”
“It sounded like high adventures, Lewrie,” Nicely said with a wry smirk. “Beats fruitless cruising, at any rate. Oh, some snippets of your activities might appear in the Gazette or the Marine Chronicle back home, but the bulk of it…” Nicely gave a shiver of denial. “A larger question’d be… where the Devil have you been since?”
“Well, that’s a tad embarrassin’, really,” Lewrie replied and tugged at his neck-stock. He crossed his legs involuntarily.
“Oh, good!” Nicely chirped. “Do, Lewrie, tell me all!”
When the sorry tale was over, Nicely still beamed, as if he had known some of the affair beforehand or was sitting on a secret as smug as a broody-hen, with an I-know-something-you-don’t-know smile.
“Why, damme, Captain Lewrie,” Nicely chid him in mock displeasure as he rose and got himself a fresh cup of coffee, with milk only, and not a dab of sugar. “You’ve been… yachting! … you idle fop! Swanning from one liberty port to the next. Sightseeing every island in the Caribbean, and all at His Majesty’s expense! Unlawful absconding with Admiralty property, too! Why, my predecessor would’ve hacked your balls off. Done ’em in sweetmeats, sauce and heavy cream.”
“By the way, sir,” Lewrie enquired, in hopes perhaps that what grief he was about to suffer might be delayed a moment more, like one of those headmaster’s canings. “Where is Sir Edward?”
“Dead as bloody mutton,” Nicely told him with a grimace, spoon tinkling a little louder in his fine china cup. “Turned as yellow as quince and expired a week later. Physicians suspect ’twas his kidneys and liver, finally rebelled at all the cheap spirits he’d imbibed… since his mother’s paps were taken from him, is my guess. ‘Bugger all this, mate… it’s mutiny,’ I s’pose they said to each other, there below-decks as it were. He passed over three months ago, just after we brought the line-of-battle ships back from Halifax, once hurricane season was over.”
“My condolences, sir,” Lewrie soberly said.
“For ‘the Wine Keg’?” Nicely scoffed.
“No, for you, sir,” Lewrie amended, “I s’pose you had to give up Obdurate to take this, well… call it a promotion, at the least.”
“Aye, I did, dammit,” Nicely groused, seating himself once more. “Best two-decker on the West Indies Station, if I do say so myself… and I do! Staff drudgery, well… something I’d been fortunate enough to miss, ’til now. Sir Hyde gave me no choice in the matter, just said I was best for the post, how career-enhancing it’d be, and all of that flummery, then gave Obdurate to one of his favourite frigate Captains. Then gave said frigate to a junior Captain, shuffled another junior off a leaky sloop of war, promoted a brig-sloop Commander into her, made a Lieutenant into Commander for the brig-sloop… made a Midshipman into a Lieutenant in his flagship’s wardroom as a replacement.” Nicely had a bleak look out his windows at real ships at anchor, looking famished. “Interest and favour… or they all owe
the Admiral money. Or he owes their families. But you know how the Navy works.”
Lewrie refilled his coffee, stinting on the sugar this time.
What could be said? he wondered to himself; Shouldn’t have joined if ye can’t take a joke? It’s a cruel old world, and that’s its way?
“Didn’t bury Captain Charles here, Lewrie,” Nicely further griped. “Lumbered the old fellow into a beef barrel and filled it up with accidentally salted and condemned rum, then shipped him to his loving family in England. B’lieve it or not, sir, he actually had one!”
Lewrie could not keep his sniggering to himself at that news.
“Speaking ill of the dead?” Nicely chid him. “You heathen!”
“Springs to mind, sir… how apt it was to pickle him.” Lewrie chortled, setting his cup down before he spilled or broke it as a wave of titters took him. “And, was there a tinge of saltwater in his keg, that’s the closest he’d been to the genuine article in years!”
“If you can’t say something good about the dead, say not a word, ’twas the old adage,” Nicely replied, grinning himself, though.
“He’s dead… good.” Lewrie snickered.
“Aye, well… I doubt the rum was necessary. Sir Edward was a fair way towards pickling himself long before his ‘casking,’ damn his jingle-brained ways to hell. As much ‘Miss Taylor,’ ‘Black Strap,’ and rum went missing from stores, all with Sir Edward’s signature affixed, ’tis a wonder he drew a waking breath, much less a sober one,” Nicely confided. “One’d suspect malfeasance in office, selling it off by the odd hundred gallons to shore merchants, but no, I suspect he drank it. You cannot imagine what a bloody pot-mess this office was, and how much labour it’s taken just to get it caught up!
“And the sorriest thing, Lewrie,” Capt. Nicely continued, “is just how little work is necessary, now it’s all tiddly and clackin’ along like a hallway clock. I am bored, Lewrie, bored to tears. There are too many hours in the day. And damn you for havin’ so much fun at sea… even if you didn’t know where you were going or where you were when you got there!”
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