“Tell him I will, with pleasure, sir,” Lewrie soberly agreed.
“Ef’ry chourney begins vit bud a single sdep, he says. Even if dhey are too few to do grade deed ad once, id ist de ‘single sdep,’” Kolodzcy rather morosely uttered as Petracic poured them more brandy, almost fatalistically cheerful. “Strike vhere our enemies, unt his . . . vill be most affecded. Nod a Venetian port, he assures. He fears—”
Few! That’s it, by God! Lewrie brightened. That’s the one. “Then let me tell him an ancient poem of England, Kolodzcy,” Alan interrupted. “Long, long ago, when England was just the one isle, weak and small, facing the might of . . . Catholic France, ’cross our narrow seas. And we’d told the Pope in Rome to stuff it. Founded the Established Church of England. Protestant . . .”
Christ, Henry V—VIII—who gives a damn, Lewrie told himself; he don’t know our history, and it makes a better tale!
“Outnumbered five-to-one, theirs a huge cavalry army, armoured and all. Ours much smaller, infantry and country farm lads with nought but bows and arrows. Long, long ago, there was a field . . . a battlefield . . . and they called it . . . Agincourt. Our Kossovo Polje . . . our doom, or our salvation,” he crooned, like the tales he told Sewallis and Hugh ’fore they were tucked in for the night. “And but for our proud young king, our bold and merry King Harry, we’d have been lost. Exterminated and England’s bones left to the crows.”
So it happened in France when we invaded, he silently quibbled; a minor falsehood in a good cause.
“Every English lad learns this, and it goes like this. Ahem!”
If we are marked to die today, we are enow . . . enough! . . . to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honour. God’s Will! I pray thee wish not one man more. By Jove I am not covetous for gold, nor care I who feeds . . . who doth feed! . . . upon my cost . . .
“Was? Was wovon reden sie . . . ‘doth’?” Kolodzcy stammered. “‘ Does feed upon my cost.’ Now stop yer gob an’ translate!” “Jawohl.”
. . . such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be sin to covet honour, I am the most offending man alive!
Lewrie declaimed, forced to his feet to stimulate his memory word-perfect. He could see it already had an affect on Petracic. He began to sway to the mesmerising meter of the old Bard of Avon, no matter it was garbled and “mar-text” through Kolodzcy’s mouth into Serb. Wouldn’t old Cogswell—“Hogswill”—be proud o’ me now, Alan thought with a smile, reciting; no call for his switch on my shins, no caning for muffing a word. God, t’think that Eton, Westminster School and Harrow came in handy!
. . . and this story shall the good men tell their sons, and Saint Crispin’s Day shall never go by, from this day . . . ’til the ending of the world! —but we, in it, shall be remembered. We few—we happy few! —we band of brothers . . . !
There came a faint snuffling sound as Petracic wiped his nose on his sleeve, hunched forward like a schoolboy at his first theatregoing, one hand waving like an orchestra leader’s, for even Serbo-Croat could not take away all the magic. His eyes glowed wet and righteous.
. . . gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here . . . and hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks . . . that fought with us, on this Saint . . . Crispin’s . . . Day!
He concluded, flourishing one hand sword-thrusted aloft, crying out the last line in his best quarterdeck voice, as he imagined Harry had, to rally his troops—remembering he’d gotten switched, anyway, for being a tad too emotional for a proper English public-school gentleman. “Hooray for England, Harry and Saint George!” he added.
He reached out for his plum brandy, tossed it off in one go . . . and strove right-manful not to spew or gasp for air.
“And, ‘Rule Britannia!’ by Christ!” he stuck on for good measure, slamming the empty glass top-down on the desk between them, showing he’d taken it down past “heel-taps.”
Petracic stared pony-eyed at him for a moment, then rose with a roar of his own, a harsh, guttural battle-cry, and poured them all refills. So they could toast.
“Dhere vill be grade slaughder,” Kolodzcy mused, once they were back aboard Jester, standing seaward towards the Sou’-Sou’west. “He vill be ad firsd wictorious. Bud dhen, he rousts die Uscocchi or Croats . . . unt dhey musd destroy him. Dhere ist no hope for dhem. Nod now, nod effer, perhabs.”
“Would have happened sooner or later anyway, wouldn’t it?” Alan snapped, watching the pirate flotilla slowly wane tinier as they left them astern. “After we had no need for ’em? Isn’t that what you said, back at Trieste? They’re disposable, expendable, once we’ve had a good use out of ’em. ‘Dead men tell no tales,’ right? Secret’s safe, no blot on our escutcheon. Wasn’t that the whole idea of takin’ ’em on?”
“Ja, id vas,” Kolodzcy uneasily agreed. “You send dhem to dheir deat’s. Far too early.”
“You really give a damn?”
“Bud ohf gourse nod,” Kolodzcy sniffed primly. Then dared to snicker. “You make Ratko Petracic a vahry happy man, sir. He vill be a mardyr. Anodder Saint Sava . . . a legent like Knez Lazar. As famous as King Stefan Milutin, Stefan Dusha . . .”
“Then all will be holy . . . all will be honourable,” Lewrie said.
“‘Unt de guteness ohf Gott vill be fulfilled.’ Again.” Kolodzcy nodded, smiling catlike and inscrutable. “Unt ve are free of dhem . . . unt dhis . . . schtupit idea ist over.”
“You can go back to Trieste,” Lewrie pointed out, “with your difficult duty done. Not our fault if our hired cutthroats went off on a personal tear. Didn’t order him t’do it, now, did we.”
“You vill, ah . . . find Kapitan Charlton unt inform him ohf dhis . . . unforeseen change in ewents?” Kolodzcy asked, shooting his cuffs.
“Ah . . . no.” Lewrie frowned, appalled at the risk he’d run, to rid them of contact with such a foul brood. “Seems we promised to go find Mlavic first and fetch him and his reenforcements. Then we’ll inform Captain Charlton.”
“Our hents are clean,” Kolodzcy surmised, looking like he might begin to hum, or whistle, with satisfaction.
“Well, not really, when you—”
“Verbal orders . . . or suggestions, sir . . . gannod be documented,” Kolodzcy hinted with a world-weary wink. “Unt your Kapitan Charlton, so fond ohf verbal orders . . . noddink in writink? Unt, who knows, herr Lewrie? Petracic may ewen be successful. Dhen he lives long enough to cepture more French ships. Raise de goastal Serbs. Like a gute courtier . . . a man may glaim gredit eider vay, nicht wahr?”
“And that, sir,” Lewrie spat, “is why I so despise ‘war on the cheap.’ Like my fights clean, I do. No skulking about. No weaselin’. Nor any of the utter cynicism which lies beneath it.”
“Bud you are zo gute ad id, herr Lewrie, I thought! . . .” The little Austrian simpered. “And de vay you played his desires . . .”
“What fur was Petracic’s weskit made of, herr Leutnant Kolodzcy?” Lewrie interjected suddenly.
“Sealskin, I belief.”
“Ah.” Lewrie brightened. “Damme, I hate that. I like seals.”
“You know zomethink, Herr Lewrie,” Kolodzcy said. “You are a devious basdart.” He doffed his hat in formal salute, bowed from the waist and double-clicked his bootheels. “I heff gome to like you!”
CHAPTER 2
The anchorage at the small, uninhabited islet was quite busy, for a change, as Jester swept in. Mlavic’s new brig was there, along with a three-masted merchant ship of about 120 feet overall, tall, and bluff-sided as a two-decker man-o’-war. Two smaller boats, those 40-footers, were unloading near the beach, piled high with grain or flour sacks, teeming with sheep, goats, puny cattle or pigs. The shore was working alive with nearly one hundred Serb sailors or fighters, that Jester’s crew could see, all cheerfully at their labours at beach or camp.
At the sight of all that luscious nutrition-on-the-hoof, Giles the purser positively salivated, and begged
to go ashore to buy some. Lewrie grudgingly acceded, and added Mr. Giles to his shore-party of Surgeon Mister Howse—to check on the prisoners’ needs—along with Leutnant Kolodzcy, both midshipmen and Andrews, in two boats, the heavier cutter and his gig.
“Leas’ some’un have good luck t’fin’ a prize, sah,” Andrews commented once they’d grounded on that muddy grey strand. “Dot’s some raght-han’some ship . . . do some’un give her a lick o’ paint an’ a good sweep-down.”
“Aye, she is, Andrews,” Lewrie remarked, studying her. “Just wonder how they stumbled across her. Mr. Howse, on your way. Report back to me, soon as you can. Take Spendlove with you.”
“Oh. Very good, sir,” Howse intoned, sounding put-upon, with his usual ponderously miserable voice. “Come along, younker.”
Lewrie settled the hang of his sword before he began the short walk to the tree line, where the Serbs had established a rude encampment of huts built from pine boughs, spare ship-timbers and scraps of captured sailcloth. Axes rang as men split logs for firewood, and the smell of well-spiced meat roasting on several spits was intriguing. A jangly, tinkly sort of music was being played on odd-shaped instruments somewhat akin to lutes or guitars, accompanied by handheld drums and the eerie, almost Asian fhweeping of panpipes. If Lewrie felt he was walking naked into a lion’s den, then at least the pride of lions seemed to be a well-fed and playful lot.
“Captain!” Dragan Mlavic shouted from the circular commons of his new-founded encampment. He waved a dark-green glass bottle aloft, sloshing some red wine on his new shirt and bestowing upon them a wide smile of welcome. “Come . . . drink! We celebrate!”
“Delighted, sir,” Lewrie lied, noting how many of Mlavic’s men had already gotten half-way toward the “staggers,” swilling direct from bottles or crocks. There were hacked-topped brandy kegs into which the exultant pirates dipped mugs or cups, innumerable pale wooden crates on every hand with their lids torn back, revealing the slender necks with the sheet-lead seals of wines good enough to bottle, instead of being casked as vin ordinaire.
“More than enough, sir,” Giles exclaimed. “Case’r two for the gun-room, case’r two for meself . . . and for you, sir? Along with livestock and such? Price is certain to be reasonable, in their state . . .”
“A case’d do me, Mister Giles, aye,” Lewrie replied, feeling a bit nettled to be interrupted when dealing with Mlavic. “Captain!” He shouted, regaining his feigned air of pleasance. “Congratulations for your splendid capture, sir. You’ve had better fortune than even your leader, Captain Petracic. How did you take her?”
“Ah, Ratko.” Mlavic grinned, splitting that bearded face with erose teeth. “Great man . . . leader, da. Want drink, Captain Lev . . . Lew . . . here!” he offered, shoving the opened bottle at him, sloshing some more. Mlavic had tricked himself out in a pair of blue trousers, down inside a new pair of what looked like cavalry boots, a fancy-laced new shirt— though he clung to that foetid goat-hair weskit. And all his weapons. The shirt was already spotted with wine-stains, and he wasn’t doing his cabin-servant any favours with new ones, either.
“Feeling a bit dry, I will allow, Captain,” Lewrie told him as he fetched an unopened bottle from a nearby crate. It’d be the last thing he’d do, to share sip-for-sip from Mlavic’s. “Thought an entire bottle’d do me better,” he explained.
So I don’t die o’ Plague or something! he thought with a shiver.
Without a cork-puller handy, he undid the lead-foil and knocked the top off on the edge of a washtub, then had himself a careful sip. It was a very good wine, he had to admit.
“Congratulations on your prize, Captain,” he said again, lifting the bottle to make a toast. “Did you take her recently?”
“Da.” Mlavic nodded, looking away. “On way here. Fall in lap, hah? Rich prize.” He shrugged as if it was of no matter. “All this, ver’ rich, oh yayss. Yayss, hah—English? Come! Sit!” Mlavic said, more animatedly. “We drink, eat, sing songs. Plenty food . . . come!”
“My purser Mr. Giles wonders if he might purchase some of your foodstuffs, Captain,” Lewrie said, waving Giles forward. “Meat on the hoof, some grain, pasta or flour? Some wines?”
“Da, have plenty!” Mlavic said with a crafty look. “One guinea each!” He roared as if he’d just asked the moon. “I know guinea, in gold . . . guineas good. One cow, one guinea. You pay?” he leered.
“Aye!” Giles cried, before Mlavic could rethink his price. “A guinea per cow . . . one guinea, two sheep or goats? Sack of flour for a guinea? Case of wine . . . two guineas,” he proposed, dropping into the same sort of fractured trade-pidgin.
“Da, is good price. But you pay now!” Mlavic insisted with a hearty rumble, stabbing at his palm with a calloused, tar-stained finger. Giles made a quick estimate of what would feed the hands at least one fresh meal, what the gun-room wished, what might live aboard for a few days more on fresh fodder, and opened his purse. Mlavic eyed each coin pile avidly, his countenance piggish. Lewrie rued it, but he doled out four guineas of his own for two cases of that excellent wine.
“Might I have some hands, sir . . . to round everything up and get the goods into the cutter?” Giles asked, once the transaction was done.
“Mister Hyde? Assist the purser, would you? And warn Andrews ’bout the people. There’s an ocean o’ spirits here. Keep them away from drink, the both of you. Busy with the livestock, then get them back aboard. Else . . .”
Else, like all British Tars, they’d treat it like feast or famine and go on a prodigious tear, no matter the floggings to follow—they thought a few lashes a small price to pay for a drunk. Should half his crew get drunk, though, here in the midst of cutthroats, there was no power in the world that could control them. Or save them.
“I’ll tend to it, sir,” Hyde assured him, though not without a long, longing peer at the many crates or bottles, and a furtive lick or two of his tongue over his “parched” lips.
“Come, sit!” Mlavic coaxed once more, waving a hand toward the rough seats by his hut door and night-fire—which were nothing better than some log sections, adzed somewhat flat on top.
Lewrie took a seat, hitching his sword out of the way. Kolodzcy dusted himself a spot first with his handkerchief, looking dubious in spite of that effort, before he sat. Right next to the opened case of wine, of course. He drew out a bottle, undid the seal and reached into his waistcoat pockets to produce—should there have been any wonder!—a cork-puller, then wiped the neck down before essaying a sip. Mlavic nudged Lewrie in the ribs with a hearty elbow, muttering Serbo-Croat crudities, and Lewrie was forced to show a brief, tight-lipped smile.
“Sdrasvodye!” Mlavic proposed, clinking his bottle against the one Lewrie held. “Toast! Ratko Petracic!”
“Ratko Petracic,” Lewrie and Kolodzcy were forced to echo.
“He great man . . . holy man,” Mlavic commented.
“I bring you word from him, by the way, Captain,” Lewrie began. He felt a tap on his left shoulder and turned to see Kolodzcy offering him a looted silver wine-chalice, a mate to the one in Kolodzcy’s hand.
“Trink from neck, vill cud your lip, sir,” Kolodzcy said. “Vit your permission, Kapitan Mlavic . . . ve use your ceptured goblets?”
“Da, use,” Mlavic most genially urged. “Welcome. Tonight have great celebrating. No keg-meat, pooh! No hard biscuit. Serb food is best in world. Good wine, no ratafia, pooh! Plenty food, plum brandy. Boats go mainland, bring much! Ah, you like plum brandy, Capitan? I remember . . . see you ver’ drunk . . . drink like man! Ostereicher girlie-man drink tea, ahahahah!” Mlavic slapped his thighs, he found it so amusing. And then had to rise and share it with his compatriots, so they could jeer at Kolodzcy, too.
It was growing dark, nigh on sunset, and pirates leaped and did fantastic gyrations as they danced and celebrated their prize, crying out boasts, jests, snatches of song as they capered round the fires—much like, Lewrie thought, the Muskogee and Seminole Indians he’d seen in Spanish
Florida, back in early ’83.
“I have come from Ratko Petracic, sir,” Alan tried once more, hoping that once he’d relayed Petracic’s orders, he could go back to his own ship, keeping his visit brief and himself both unsullied by contact with Mlavic and relatively sober. “With his orders, sir.”
“What he want?” Mlavic almost sneered, surprising Lewrie. He had taken Mlavic for a docile, adoring follower up ’til then.
“He wishes you to come join him at once, sir. He needs every ship and man, he said. He has something planned.”
“What he plan?” Mlavic pressed, frowning and squinting, leery. “No rich ship, there. Far from home.”
“He worries, he says, Captain,” Lewrie told him, patiently as he could, “that without some successes, he might lose the enthusiasm of his men—some of his men, at least—and that they’d drift away.”
Are you one? Alan wondered; more a pirate than a patriot?
“Da, can happen.” Mlavic nodded, getting shifty-eyed again. “So what he do, he need Dragan?”
“He said he would find a place to strike a blow. A blow against his enemies. Don’t know quite what he had in mind, really, but—”
“He say that?” Mlavic questioned, sounding suspicious.
“He did, sir,” Lewrie reiterated, wondering if this ‘did he, did he?’ would go on all night. “Something . . . holy, he said. He said to inform you that he needs your ship and your men, and for you to go to the coast and raise as many fighters as you can immediately. And go to him right after. I suppose he’ll wait for your arrival, since he seems to think he needs all he can muster.”
Mlavic passed a gnarly hand over his face, as if he could wipe away semi-drunkeness. “Kossovo Polje,” he whispered to himself with a grim shake of his head, as if he’d just seen the first glimmer from the Second Coming on the horizon. He was stunned, shaken to his roots.
“He recited Knez Lazar’s lasd orders to us, Kapitan,” Kolodzcy prompted. “Zo, id gannot be he plans a furder act ohf piracy.” Lewrie turned to see that Kolodzcy was still red-faced from Mlavic’s insult, prim and grimly bland-faced —though with one brow up in sly chicanery.
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