Boom-boom… bo-boom, faintly from windward.
The western coast of Guadeloupe tucked in upon itself a bit as one reached its southernmost extremities. Proteus, standing Due South just beyond the heaviest cannon's range, had extended her distance by another mile or so as the shore trended away. Even so, the Vieux Fort on the final point below Basse-Terre had attempted to take them under fire, and by the basso notes of the bowling round-shot that went up the scale in an eerie minor key as it neared, Lewrie suspected 32-pounder or even 42-pounder guns, with which to enforce the new three-mile-limit of territoriality, their maximum range.
Sure enough, four massive waterspouts leaped for the sky, high as their frigate's fighting-tops, fat yet feathery, and aroar as tons of seawater were vertically displaced, then slowly collapsed upon themselves as torrential as a mountain river's falls. Smaller feathers of spray staggered towards Proteus as the massive balls caromed off First Graze to Second Graze, then Third, before losing enough forward momentum to gouge little more than leaping-dolphin splashes as they finally sank.
Proteus's sailors jeered and cat-called with derision for such a hopeless show of defiance, for their First Graze had struck the sea one whole mile or near short of her sides, with their final, weary splashes still half a mile shy.
"Better luck next time, Froggie!" Lewrie heard Landsman Desmond shrill between tunneled hands.
"Yair… waste yer powder, Monsewer!" his mate, Furfy, howled.
"It would appear that the French are in a bit of a pique at the moment, Captain Lewrie," Peel snickered, "and any boats despatched to port would most-like be shot to atoms long before they could be identified as truce boats. Have to make a show of usefulness, satisfy the honour of their bloody Tricolour rag, don't ye know. They're simply too angry to listen to reason, at the moment, so… it appears we can not implement your plan, for now, sir."
"Dammit, Mister Peel, they couldn't hit the ground with their bloody hats, we could lie off safe as houses!" Lewrie countered.
"I do not dismiss your suggestion out of hand, sir," Peel said with a pinched expression, looking as if he was wrapping resistance to the idea about himself as he tucked the lapels of his coat together. "I only say that it is a matter which will require some cogitation on my part before deciding whether it advances our enterprise, or proves to be so transparent a ploy to Choundas that we end up appearing just too clever, thereby, uhm… shooting ourselves in the foot by forcing him to deem the presence of a British spy in his circle groundless. I also note that we are almost past Guadeloupe. Why, it might take hours to sail back, right into the teeth of those heavy fortress guns, again. To return so quickly would be even more transparent to him, and-"
"No! Ye don't say!" Lewrie drawled, as if he just that instant had had a blinding glimpse of the obvious. "Really?" he sneered.
"There is hardly a call for sharp words, Captain Lewrie!"
"The hell there ain't. Our best shot at it is past, whilst we stood here yarnin' and… cogitatin'," Lewrie spat. "If not now, do tell me when, sir! Ye said yourself, 'twas a good idea, in the main. Damme, Mister Peel, I don't have 'em often. You keep assuring me of that, God knows. Young Pelham ain't here t'hold your hand and impart his… wisdom to you…!"
"Damn you, sir!" Peel barked, himself rowed beyond temperance. "Damn you for that! I need no cosseting to do my best! For two pence I would demand satisfaction… sir."
Lewrie made a show of withdrawing his coin-purse from a breeches pocket, undoing the draw-strings, and delving inside for coins. Jovial blue eyes had gone cold, steely grey, and his face was a killing mask. He raised one brow in deadly query.
"Two pence, did you say, sir?"
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Lt. Langlie intruded, all but stepping between them in sudden worry. "Mister Peel, sir… Captain, sir! Do but draw a deep breath, the both of you, and consider the consequences to your good names… your careers, if nothing else, I conjure you."
"I'll not be insulted so publicly," Peel snapped, eyes boring into Lewrie's, rot allowing Lt. Langlie a lone inch of personal space in which to part them.
"I'll not be treated like a lack-wit, too dumb t'pee on my own, either," Lewrie rejoined.
"Dear God, sirs," Anthony Langlie groused at the both of them, as softly and confidentially as he dared while still getting his point across. "Is not our King's business, and the destruction of this man Choundas, more important at the moment than either of your senses of honour and hurt feelings?"
"Mister Langlie!" Lewrie growled, rounding on him, as if to tear a strip off his hide for daring to gainsay a Post-Captain placed over him by that selfsame King.
"Your pardons, sir, but I cannot stand by and see you ruined," Lt. Langlie pleaded. "I know not what grievance, or difference, you gentlemen share, but surely it cannot be so dire a matter over which you must come to logger-heads. Do, pray, allow me to counsel cooler minds, some time to consider your actions before either of you does or says anything else… from which you cannot demur later. I know it ain't my place, Captain, and I could be broken for it, but…"
The desperation in Langlie's voice, the worry in his eyes, at last got through to Lewrie. He drew that demanded deep breath, then screwed his eyes shut for a long moment. With a long exhalation, he relented.
"Thankee, Mister Langlie," he said, forcing a bleak grin onto his phyz. "Thankee for your concern for me."
"And you, Mister Peel?" Langlie felt emboldened to enquire from their supercargo. "Can you not give it a good, long think before…"
Peel grunted as if he'd been punched in the stomach, but waved off any further "assistance" from the First Officer. "Thankee, Mister Langlie. A minor matter, as you say. But a trifling, passing snit… of which I shall say no more, other than to characterise it as a professional, and brief, parting of the minds. You will excuse me, sir?" Peel asked of Langlie, doffing his hat and essaying a short bow. Peel gave Lewrie a shorter jerk in his direction, too, before stomping off for the larboard quarterdeck ladder to go below.
"I'm sorry, sir, but it looked as if someone had to…" Langlie said with a groan of worry.
"Oh, be at ease, Mister Langlie," Lewrie assured him. "We were in disagreement over a joke I wished to play on the French. Still may, does he see his way round it. Once he 'gets down from his high-horse,' that is. 'Tis not a killing matter, 'less he wishes to make it so. I expect a decent dinner, and a bottle of my claret'll bring him back to his senses. Just may do the same for me, you never can tell," Lewrie concluded with a wry, self-disparaging grin.
"I am at ease, sir," Langlie replied, grinning wider, himself. "Thank God, how could I ever explain your, uhm, untimely demise to poor Sophie, or…"
"Now you are being impertinent, Mister Langlie," Lewrie chided him, putting his "stern" face back on for an instant.
"Carrying on, sir, instanter," Langlie quickly said, doffing his hat, and making a rapid escape, back to his proper duties.
Damn you Frogs/ Lewrie thought, turning back to face the island as Proteus ran Large off the wind, now just a bit below the fort, that was still intent on wasting powder and expensive heavy shot on them; I almost had him convinced, but for you bastards interrupting. I still think it's a good idea. Just 'cause it ain't my pigeon, not my line o' work, don't mean it's worthless. 'Lucky, but not brilliant, ' am I? Just a faithful gun-dog, t'point, run, and fetch, am I? Well, we'll see about that!
He pushed himself erect from the cap-rails, turned and stomped black-visaged past his captive captains to the binnacle cabinet, left hand flexing fretful on the hilt of his hanger. He glared at them in passing, speculating which of them, the Frenchman Fleury, or the Dutch master Haljewin (however the Hell one spelled that!), would be the better "tablet" on which to carve his mis-directing message.
Over his shoulder, he heard expostulations in wind-muffled Dutch or French, an evil snicker-followed by more unbelieving splutters. Shoes clomped on the quarterdeck planks, coming nearer.
"Excuse me, again, Captain," Lt. Langlie said, tapping fingers to his
hat in a casual salute, "but our prisoners were asking what your argument with Mister Peel was all about, and… I could not help having a bit of fun at their expense. I told them, sir…" Langlie paused, a fist to his mouth to stifle a laugh, and ruin his jape, "I told 'em that you were going to throw them to the sharks, but that Mister Peel thought only one should go over the side, and we'd give him the other."
"You did, did you, Mister Langlie?" Lewrie said, gazing on them past Langlie's shoulder. "Well… tell 'em we'll decide which later."
"Aye aye, sir!"
"Arrr" Lewrie called out, pointing "eeny-meeny-miney-moh" at them. Captain Fleury fainted dead away. And he really did have a very weak bladder!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Admiralty Prize Court on Dominica was ten miles or more to the south of Prince Rupert Bay and its tiny settlement of Portsmouth, at the lee-side port town named Roseau, from the times when the French had owned the island. Lewrie had been forced to trade his smart gig for a humbler but larger cutter and sail down to confer with them.
Dominica had been one of those isles infested with Carib Indians so battle-mad and death-defying that every European power that colonised the Antilles had sworn off the place in 1748, but that hadn't lasted long. Britain took it in 1763, the French got in back in 1778, then Britain again at the end of the American Revolution. The steep, fern-jungle mountains were simply stiff with Caribs, making it a real "King's Bad Bargain."
So was the Prize Court. A greater pack of ignorant "ink-sniffs, thieves, drunkards, and paper buccaneers Lewrie had never laid eyes on! And it was no wonder that they'd greeted his arrival the same way some gang of adolescent London street imps would welcome the sight of a pie-man with a tray of fresh goodies.
Half-literate, spouting "dog-Latin" legalese, their accents an echo of Cockey "Bow Bells," "half-seas-over" on cheap rum or strong "stingo" beer, and sporting mementos of their last half-dozen dinners on greasy cuffs, waist-coats, or breeches, unshaven and unwashed-Lewrie suspected their experience of law had come from the wrong side of some magistrate's bench. He'd have rather dealt with Mr. Peel, who still sulked over their contretemps; it would have been safer, and he would not get gravy-spotted off the furniture, nor would he depart infested with fleas! Besides, this court would refer everything back to Antigua, and reams of paper, gallons of ink, and pounds of stamps and paste would be used up before he, his officers and warrants, or his sailors saw tuppence… sometime in 1810, he sourly suspected. Maybe his grandchildren might have joy of his latest capture's profit.
After that experience, which had taken up most of the morning, and a horrid dinner at a tumbledown dockside tavern, Lewrie walked out the long single quay that speared at least one hundred yards out from the beach before the waters at low tide would allow a ship's boat to come alongside, then rambled on all ramshackley for a good fifty yards more. His cutter, with its single lug-sail furled, was the only one in sight, at present, positively handsome compared to the few scabrous and half-abandoned fishing boats drawn up on the sands.
He paused to fan himself with his hat and belch biliously from his repast. The purported squab had most-like been seagull, and the "Roast Beef of Olde England" had most-like barked at the moon and run after cats before its luck had run out! The infamous two-penny ordinarys of his native London had nothing to fear for their reputations by comparison; and they had most-like not poisoned half as many patrons. He might have tried the pork roast, but the natives on the island were reputed to be cannibals, and he'd not put it past the publican to buy a side of "long pig" (as they said in the Great South Seas) and serve up the loser of some Carib feud.
"You men have eat?" Lewrie enquired of his boat crew after he finally reached them. He had let them step ashore for a meal, and the usual "wet," with instructions for everyone to be back in two hours… and sober, mind. A quick nose-count assured him that no one had been daft enough to take "leg bail" in such a no-hope port; no one appeared "groggy," either-well, no more so than usual.
"Think it was food, sah," his Coxswain, Matthew Andrews, dared to josh with him from his privileged position and long association as his sometime confidant. "It was burnt, and it come on plates."
"Law, Missah Gideon, he b'ile wood chips in slush, it would o' eat bettah, Cap'm sah," little Nelson, one of his recent Black Jamaican "volunteers" further ventured to say.
"Sorry 'bout that, lads," Lewrie commiserated, "but I do think my own dinner was pot-scrapings worse than yours. Let's shove off."
"Back to de ship, sah, aye," Andrews said, shipping the tiller-bar atop the rudder post while Lewrie was offered a hand or two on his way aboard the cutter, and aft to a seat in the stern-sheets.
Two hours later, though, as the cutter bounded close-hauled into Prince Rupert Bay, Lewrie shaded his eyes for a look round. There was HMS Proteus, as pretty as a painting, with her prize moored close by; there was the Yankee stores ship, attended by boats come to fetch out supplies; there was USS Sumter… but there were some new arrivals, too, including a "jack-ass," or hermaphrodite, brig that flew a small blue Harbour Jack right-forward, sprinkled with thirteen white stars, to show that she was an American man o' war; another of their bought-in and converted "Armed Ships," not a vessel built as a warship.
There were three merchant vessels flying the "Stars and Stripes" anchored in the bay, as well. Two were very large three-masted tops'l schooners, with their tall masts raked much farther aft than Lewrie had ever seen before, lying near the new-come armed brig. Farther out in deeper water, and unable to anchor closer to shore for being deep-laden, was a proper three-masted, full-rigged ship, equally as impressive a specimen of the shipbuilders' art, and "Bristol Fashion" smart.
"Damme, but those schooners look like they'd be fast as witches… even to windward," Lewrie commented. "Even with the full cargoes they seem to bear. Ever seen the like, Andrews?"
"Masts raked so sharp, dough, sah… dem Yankees mebbe crazy," was Andrews's assessment. "How dey foot 'em to de keel-steps, an' not rip right out, I'd wondah. Wadn't here dis mornin'. T'ink dem 'Mericans be makin' up a no'th-bound 'trade,' at las', Cap'm?"
"It very well could be," Lewrie agreed. "I think we'll satisfy my curiosity, before we go back aboard our ship. Steer for Sumter, if you will, Andrews. It appears there's a gaggle o' boats alongside of her already."
"Aye aye, sah."
"Besides, Captain McGilliveray might have something with which to settle our mis'rable dinners," Lewrie added with a chuckle.
"Captain Lewrie, sir!" Midshipman Desmond McGilliveray said at the top of the starboard entry-port, stepping forward past the Marine Lieutenant in charge of the side-party that had rendered him honours. The lad was almost tail-wagging eager to greet him, though constricted by the usages and customs of his navy to the doffing of his hat and a bow from the waist.
"Mister McGilliveray!" Lewrie cried with too much heartiness of his own, his eyes equally agleam, and his carefully stern expression creased by an involuntary smile. "Well met, young sir."
"We saw you come in with your prize, sir!" the lad exclaimed in joy, plopping his tricorne back on his head any-old-how. "Did she put up much of a fight, sir? Did she resist very long, or…?"
Once his own gilt-laced cocked hat was back on his own head, he astounded the boy by extending his right hand for a warmer greeting; a hand that young McGilliveray took with a puppyish delight and shook in return, right heartily.
"Steered right up to her, yardarm to yardarm, in the dark, and only fired one bow-chaser, just t'wake 'em long enough to surrender!" Lewrie replied, proud for a chance to boast and preen. "I'll tell it all to you later, should we have the chance. But I have come to see your Captain first."
"He is aboard, sir, and aft," Midshipman McGilliveray informed him, only slightly crest-fallen. "I shall tell him that you have come aboard, Captain Lewrie. This way, please."
Lewrie's arrival alongside, though, had created enough stir to draw Sumter?, First Officer, Lt. Claiborne, from the great-cabins af
t to the gangway, minus sword and hat.
"Ah! Captain Lewrie, good," Lt. Claiborne said, coming over to greet him, as well. "You got our captain's note, I see."
"Uhm, no Mister Claiborne, I came direct from Roseau and the Prize Court offices," Lewrie told him.
"And you escaped with your purse, Captain Lewrie? Congratulations," Claiborne replied, frowning for a second. "My captain is now in conversation with several of our merchant masters, and wished to speak with you, regarding their informations. A glad happenstance, you came to call on us. If you will follow me, Captain Lewrie?"
"Lead on, sir. Talk to you later, lad," Lewrie promised to his newly acquired "offspring."
He was led down a ladder to the gun-deck, then aft into the cabins under the quarterdeck, clutching the hilt of his hanger in one hand and his hat in the other; suddenly self-conscious to be ogled like some raree show, with many faint, fond, almost doting smiles to every hand. Lewrie could only conclude that Sumter's, people had gotten a whiff of rumour concerning his relationship to Midshipman McGilliveray, who was obviously a "younker" well thought of aboard that ship to begin with.
Damme, even that hawk-faced Marine lieutenant goggled me like a new-born swaddlin' babe! Lewrie groused to himself as he was admitted to the day-cabin, where the air was close, hot and still, despite the opened windows, coach-top, and wind-scoops; where several men ceased their conversation and rose to greet him. Lewrie blinked to adapt to the dimness of the cabins, after the harsh brightness of the deck.
"Captain Lewrie, thank you for responding to my request for a conference so quickly," Capt. McGilliveray said, coming forward to take hands with him. He gave Lewrie no time to explain that he had not gotten McGilliveray's note, but began to introduce the others present.
There was another U.S. Navy officer off the hermaphrodite brig, an almost painfully tall and gaunt, dark-visaged fellow in his middle thirties, named to him as one Captain Randolph, of the Armed Brig USS Oglethorpe.
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