The Captain`s Vengeance l-12

by Dewey Lambdin

  It would be days, Lewrie had been told, before his hands could be released even on light duties after their ordeal. All were badly sunburned, some peeling in raw-beef sheets, their lips dryly cracked, exposed skin spotted with lanced and draining saltwater boils. Able Seaman Ahern was the worst off, still bedridden. He'd drunk seawater.

  "Now, lads, just what the Devil happened to you?" Lewrie at last demanded, taking a seat on a cot and fanning away the heat.

  " 'Twas two hours into th' Middle Watch, sir," Towpenny said, by way of a beginning. "Mister Burns, Toffett here, and Ahern over yonder, was the watchstanders, th' rest of us caulkin' below. 'Coordin' to what they've told me, th' first thing they knowed, there come a wee thumpin'… of boats comin' alongside, sir, then nigh on two dozen pirates got on deck, and-"

  "Blink of an eye, an' they was just there, sir!" Willy Toffett declared. "Knives an' cutlasses t'our throats, and 'twas nothin' that we could do, e'en t'cry out. Three or four t'each of us, Cap'm, sir."

  "Not a sound did they make, sir," Towpenny started again, after bestowing a sour who's-tellin'-this? glare at young Toffett. "First I knowed, there were three on me, draggin' me out me cot. We'd took over th' wardroom cabins, d'ye see…"

  A brief lark, a few days' luxury, that; to loll in private, in a small canvas-and-deal partition chamber normally reserved for officers or merchantmen's mates, in substantial bed-cots, not hammocks, with elbow room to yawn and stretch, not the fourteen to eighteen inches per man of swaying room on the gun-deck. Convenient to the weather decks, with fresh bedding and linens, real chairs and a glossy table at which to dine… as temporary civilian gentlemen of "the Quality."

  "Black or dark grey boats and oars, dark clothin', and all done 'thout a sound above a whisper, sir," Towpenny related, still so impressed by their discipline that he shook his head in wonder, two months later. "Time they got us all bound, gagged and blindfolded, sir, and manacled down in the after hold, they'd got a way on her so quick they must've cut the anchor cables."

  "Who were they, Mister Towpenny?" Lewrie pressed. "Privateers or pirates?… French or Spanish?" he asked, eying Jugg askance.

  "Claimed t'be French privateers, sir," Towpenny related, "but we heard as much Spanish palaver as we did Frog, so we weren't sure, even at th' last. A day'r two outta Dominica, they fetched us up, we seen their schooner, the Reunion , they called her, but-"

  "A big two-master she woz, sir!" Toffett stuck in, bouncing on his cot to add his share of their harrowing tale. "Masts, sails, and upperworks grey as dusk, Cap'm. Black-hulled, though. Black as them devils' hearts!" the young

  topman spat.

  "Red gunn'ls an' boot-top stripe, too, don't forget, hey," Able Seaman Luckaby added through cracked and puffy lips.

  "Reviv, or summat like that, woz wot I heard'm call her," Ahern croaked from a raw throat, propped up on one elbow. " Two names that bitch had. You heard it, right, Jugg? Wot woz it ye said?"

  "The Revenant," Jugg gruffly supplied in a growl, seated apart on his cot by the windows, still. "Means 'The Ghost,' I think."

  "Aye, sir," Ahern snarled. "A ghost she were, right enough."

  "And it was reported that, ah… you went ashore by yourself to the Dominica Court 's office, Jugg?" Lewrie asked, raising a hand to quell the indignantly excited babble. "I was told you were the one to ask permission to sail the prize over to Antigua?"

  "Nossir, tweren't me," Jugg objected, his first sign of animation. He left off paring slices of anti-scorbutic apples that he ate off his knife blade to defend himself. " 'Twas one o' them pirates wot took Mister Towpenny's coat an' hat an' went ashore! Real tall, lean older man, wot spoke English right good…"

  "Spanish an' French, just as easy" got tacked on.

  " 'At's th' way o' h'it, sir!"

  "Axed our names at th' point of a dagger, 'ey did!"

  "I see," Lewrie said, after a long and leery pause to mull that over. It would seem that all his preconceptions about the taking of the prize had been as wrong as his guesses as to where she'd gone and might have been recaptured!

  Damme, though, Lewrie thought; Jugg's still lookin' as shifty-eyed as a pickpocket. I still think he knows more than he's telling/ Old shipmates of his, did it? Did he recognise anyone or …

  Lewrie frowned, realising that, for now, he would have to take their collective word for it. Even Jugg's.

  "What happened after that?" Lewrie asked, instead.

  "Once we sailed, sir, they kep' us in irons down on th' orlop," Willy Toffett eagerly took up the tale. "Sometimes, they'd remember t'feed us an' give us water, sometimes not. Change out our shites or force us t'make in our clothes, the-!"

  "Like we woz nothin', 'ey did!" Ahern snarled from his bed-cot. "Like we'd be dead as th' rest, when 'ey got round to it!"

  "Four, five days, 'twas rare quiet, sir," Mr. Towpenny related in a weary voice. "Felt like we were sailin' Large, the winds on the starboard quarter most th' time, bound mostly Westerly, Cap'm. Fifth or sixth day, we heard 'em clearin' for action, an' we were hopin' it was one o' ours, but… she turned out t'be a Spaniard, and she got took right quick. Wot'd they say 'bout her, Jugg? You savvied 'em."

  "That she woz a Spanish cutter, mebbe a guarda costa or a kendo' movement ship, anyways," Jugg warily supplied, arms crossed on his deep chest. "Made 'em right happy, by th' sounds of it."

  "Smelled like a slaver, t'me," Mr. Towpenny objected.

  "Hush, 'at woz th' first'un," Ahern quibbled, "a slaver, sure! Can't mistake th' stink. 'Twoz th' second prize, woz th' guarda costa. Took…"

  "… a day'r two later, sir!" Toffett chirped up. "First, she woz a black-birder, certain! Wot'd ye say, Toby?… She woz outta th' Spanish Main? Puerto Cabello?"

  " Havana," Jugg gravelled. "Bought slaves at Havana t'sell down to Puerto Cabello, wot I could make out them sayin', Willy."

  "Murderin' bastards," Ahern added, with a faint shudder of what he'd heard, even if he hadn't seen it. "Gawd, but there was a power o' murderin', both times, sor!"

  "Murder?" Lewrie asked, appalled.

  "Both times, 'ey'd start a'killin' folk, sir," Seaman Luckaby explained, black-visaged in anger.

  "Ev'ry last Spaniard aboard both ships, sir," Mr. Towpenny said. "Some slaves, too, right, Jugg?"

  "Old an' sick'uns, aye," Jugg grimly agreed.

  "Lotta shootin', wailin', and screamin', sir," Mr. Towpenny said in a croak of horrible awe. "Down on th' orlop, we could hear 'em in th' water alongside, poundin' and scrabblin' at th' hull."

  "Keel-hauled one, sir!" Luckaby shuddered. "Ropes rubbed right 'neath us, it sounded like."

  "Shoved them healthy slaves down in th' holds atop us, round us an' ye never…!" Ahern griped.

  "Chiefest delight seemed t'be killin' Spaniards, though, sir," Mr. Towpenny marvelled. "Like they were at war with them 'stead of us. Us, those slaves… we were more like icin' on th' cake. They'd get round to us when it pleased 'em."

  "Moved us aboard th' schooner, th' last couple o' nights, h'it was so crowded 'board th' French prize, sir," Toffett said, "wot with a hundred'r more slaves t'see to. We knew we were next, though."

  "So, how did you come to survive?" Lewrie queried, at a loss in the face of such capricious cruelty and bloodshed.

  "Hauled us up, we heard 'em say they hadn't done a maroonin' yet," Tow-penny said. "Wasn't that wot ye said they said, Toby?"

  "Aye," Jugg was forced to admit. "Like 'twoz nought but a rare game they woz playin'. Whoopin' like Billy-O over it, and…"

  "Oddest thing, that, sir," Towpenny mused, his grey-grizzled head laid over to one side. "When they fetched us up on deck the last time and set us ashore-the Dry Tortugas, it was, sir-we could look back from shore an' see 'em. Must've burnt their last two prizes, I s'pose, for t'were nought but our French merchantman and that black-heart schooner layin' off… Both were fiyin' th' Spanish flag, along with the French, atop 'em. Yet, did they despise the Dons as bad as it seemed?"

  "They weren't out of Guadeloupe
?" Lewrie puzzled half to himself.

  "Nossir," Towpenny countered, "and when they sailed away, arter maroonin' us, they woz bound Nor'west, straight as an arror, 'til they drapt below th' horizon, Cap'm."

  "Spanish Florida, perhaps," Lewrie mused aloud, rising to pace with his hands in the small of his back, the engrained habit of a sea captain. " Mobile, Pensacola? Christ, other than New Orleans in Spanish Louisiana there's not a single settled port where they could sell off their prizes and slaves, 'til you get to Tampico or Veracruz, down in New Spain! Don't make sense. Jugg!" he exclaimed, stopping mid-stride and turning to peer at the man.

  "Sir?" Jung warily replied.

  "Did you ever hear them boast of their home port?"

  "Could've been New Orleans, sir, mebbe," Jugg reluctantly said.

  "Spaniards and Frogs, together, aye," Lewrie said, frowning and going to the windows to look out at the ocean, near Jugg's cot. " New Orleans and Louisiana were French, first, 'til '63. And New Orleans, so I've heard, draws seamen of every nation. The Frogs on Guadeloupe sell Letters of Marque to anyone with a rowboat and a full purse, no matter who it is. Other Frogs, Spaniards, British renegades, Yankee Doodles… somewhat honest privateersmen or outright pirates."

  "Acted more like pirates, 'ey did, sir," Toffett grumbled.

  "Played more like pirates," Seaman Luckaby sneered. "See, sir… there woz common sailors, like, then there woz some o' th' Quality sorts aboard 'at schooner, an' all o' us could hear th' diff'rence… 'twoz th' way they talked, d'ye see, sir… top-lofty an' lordly, not loud an' hard, like-".

  "Though they were th' cruelest," Toffett stuck on.

  "Mean t'say, sir," Luckaby forged on, "some of 'em could speak th' good ol' king's English, and-"

  "Them lordley fiends," Toffett spat.

  "Their Cap'm and him wot set us ashore on that island, sir… man called hisself Balfa," Towpenny agitatedly contributed. "On that last mornin', when they marooned us it woz, there were…young'uns who mocked an' jeered us, in English, sir. Soft-handed young'uns woz who I heard, couldn't bellow like full-grown tars, and-"

  "An' 'ey giggled, for so 'ey did, sor," Ahern rasped from his bed, before pouring himself another mug of lemon-water. "Loik little misses at a dance, a'titt'rin' 'hind their fans."

  "Hmmm… hear any other names, lads?" Lewrie asked them.

  " Think the one played Toby in my clothes woz called Lanc'shire or some-thin' like that, sir," Mr. Towpenny told him, "Lanes… Lang-thingummy?"

  "Lotta first names, mostly, sir," Toffett offered. "Pierre an' Jacques, Pedro an' Pablo… nicknames? Mister Jugg said one o' their off'cers might o' been called 'Hungry,' an' t'other'un 'Fierce,' didn't ye say, Mister

  Jugg?"

  "Feroce, meanin' 'Ferocious' in Frog," Jugg corrected gloomily, "and L'Affame. Means 'Hungry,' aye. Never heard their real names, so which woz which, well…" the man trailed off with a confused shrug.

  "No one's heard either nickname, I take it?" Lewrie probed them. "Nothing associated with a past, a repute, associated with either? "

  "Nossir, sorry t'say," Mr. Towpenny said, after silently polling their ignorant expressions and helpless shrugs.

  "Probably named themselves to better their odds at recruiting sailors," Lewrie said, sighing and shrugging himself. "That would be just like a gasconading Frenchman, t'claim he's successful. Well, let me say that I'm damned relieved to find you all relatively healthy and alive, men. We've spent the last two months runnin' down the Windwards searching for you. That prize be-damned, 'twas you we wanted to get back, and you can bet your last farthing, soon as you're able to come back aboard, your shipmates'll give you all a welcome worthy of the Prodigal Son. We'll have a 'Make or Mend' day and kill a fatted calf, the Purser's accounts no matter!"

  That cheered them considerably, and they raised a hearty Three Cheers and a Tiger for Lewrie and their pending celebration.

  "I'll just look in on Mister Burns, then go back aboard to let everyone know that you're alive," Lewrie said, basking in their cheers.

  "Er, uh…" Mr. Towpenny gloomed up. "Ye can't, sir. Mister Burns is dead, sir."

  "Them bastards killed him, sir!" Toffett barked.

  "They bloody what?" Lewrie roared. "When? How? Did you see which of 'em did it?" His self-congratulatory mood had gone to ashes.

  "Well, sir," Mr. Towpenny began, after another communal look and a sour swallow of bile that, as senior hand, it would be his forlorn duty to complete the sorry tale. "They set us ashore on the island… run us up th' beach at gun-point, an' this Balfa feller give us a few, um… things, 'coz even he said t'others woz 'crazy-mean,' and that he 'd give us a sportin' chance, at least, almost like a Christian, he did, though I 'spect he woz a slave t' Popery. 01' leather bag o'… stuff, an' he wished us good luck, an' they woz shovin' off, had oars in th' water an' was nigh onta a long musket-shot off, a'strokin' for their ship, when one o' them buggerin' high an' mighty sods aboard th' schooner just up an' shot him, sir! For the hellish fun of it, damn his blood! Pardon me French, sir."

  "In his leg, sir," Toffett luridly described, grabbing his groin to show where the bullet had struck, "right close t'his weddin' tackle. Weren't nothin', we could do for Mister Burns, sir, with one ol' rusty knife that Balfa bugger'd left us. Ball was still in him, an' none of us with a lick o' doctorin', sir. Nought but seawater t'wash out th' wound with, so…"

  "Lasted three days, he did, 'fore he passed over, sir, and wee Mister Burns, he went hard, sorry t'have t'tell ye, Cap'm," Towpenny gravelled, looking as if he'd tear up, as if it had happened just this morning, and not a week or more before. "No shelter, hardly any water t'drink, 'cept for rain squalls, an' that foul."

  "Sucked outta our shirts an' such, sir," Toffett recalled with a grimace, as if in aftertaste. "Caught in 'at ol' wash-leather bag. Nought but a dram or two 'twixt th' six of us, was all it amounted to. Turtle blood… fish blood, and some gulls we knocked down with driftwood planks, sir? Ugh!"

  They had dug with a grey-wood board in search of a fresh water seep but had hit porous limestone moist with saltwater. Amazingly to Lewrie, this Balfa creature had left them a cracked magnifying glass, a stained linen handkerchief and a flintlock tinder-box, that rusty knife, so a fire could be kindled once they'd found enough driftwood and sun-dry pine needles and palm furze. Most nights, though, they had shivered in the wind-swept chills in the dark, saving firewood for a beacon to any passing ship.

  Raw turtle meat and blood, raw seabird flesh and gore doled out in meagre handfuls to last an entire day. The surf had been too heavy to "grabble," tickle, or spear fish… and the sharks too numerous and prowling almost into the glass windowpane of the waves that broke on their little beach. There'd been gulls' eggs for one afternoon, then the wonder of a hawksbill turtle that had crawled ashore to scoop out her nest in the sand. Craftily, they'd waited 'til she was crawling back to the water, totally spent, and had hammered, gouged, and pried her open with their bare hands and fist-sized rocks to kill her.

  That night, they had lit a fire, to preserve so much meat; and had dug up her eggs like the Purser might dish out his rations, a bit at a time from the sandy "larder," a dozen apiece per day to assuage their raging hunger, and her massive, shield-like upper shell had made a catch-basin for the rare rain.

  "Had t'bury th' poor lad there on th' island, sir," Mr. Towpenny said, almost piping his eyes. "Said wot words we had over him, put up a driftwood cross but we daren't risk th' knife t'carve his name on it. Poor little tyke. Warn't th' sort o' Midshipman like t'prosper in th' Navy, but he tried, I'll give him that. Weren't right, them bastards pottin' him like th' squire'd pot a rabbit, then leave him t'die. For th' fun o' it!"

  "How long were you on that island, Mister Towpenny?" Lewrie asked, about as sorrowful as his sailors, after the dreary tale had been told of Midshipman Burns's sufferings before he'd died. "And how were you rescued?"

  "Nigh on ten days, sir," Towpenny grumbled deep in his chest. "Got picked up 'bout two weeks ago. F
in'lly saw a sail o' any sort up to th' North'rd, and figgered even th' Spaniards couldn't do us worse in one o' their prisons, so we lit a fire, and she seen us and hauled her wind t'come about."

  "Used our slop trousers t'make a big smoky fire, sir, just like Moses follered by day," Seaman Luckaby said with an ironic chuckling noise. "Stockings'd been burnt before, t'help cook that turtle."

  "You were picked up naked from your shirts down?" Lewrie said, more than glad to conjure up a happier picture of their long ordeal.

  "Burnt our tarred hats, too, sir, an' wearin' our wool jackets like shawls," Mr. Towpenny added, almost snickering, too, at the outre spectacle they had made of themselves.

  "Thort 'at ship'd sail right past us, sor," Ahern said from his sick-bed, wheezing with happy remembrance of their deliverance. "But oncet 'at fire was blazin' good, wot with th' vairy last scrap o' wood on th' island, and God help us if she'd not come about!"

  "Aye, and amen, i' faith!" his Proteuses chorused in cacophony.

  "Sure, an' all 'at rum whooshed up like a fire-ship takin' light, sor, an'…" Ahern chortled, then blushed; silenced, he was taken by a fit of wheezing and coughing into his fist. And all of the other hands broke off from contributions and exultations, went red in the face, and found sudden interest in the floor or the odd strolling insect, their bare toes…

  "The… rum," Lewrie posed, a skeptical brow lifted in query.

  "Ahem, sir!" Mr. Towpenny finally spoke up. "D'ye see, sir, as I told ye, sir, that Balfa feller left us some… things, t'give us a sportin' chance, like he said, and, ah… one of 'em was a ten-gallon barrico o' rum, sir. Unwatered, d'ye see. Cruel! Oh, cruel it woz, that! Right, lads?"

  "Oh, aye! Arr! Bastard!" came their enthusiastic remonstrance to that fiendish infliction. "Us t'do a 'Drunken Jack,' like 'at pore ol' pirate got found on th' coast o' th' Carolinas, nothin' but bones, an' an empty cask! Hellish temptation! But nary a drap o' water?"

  "Die we must, sure an' we'd all go blissful," Ahern fondly speculated, "a'dreamin' 'twoz Fiddler's Green an' not a desert?"

  "We rationed it out, we did, sir," Mr. Towpenny firmly stated, "just enough t'keep our spirits up, an' it woz wet, after all… savin' it for a big bonfire, did a ship come, d'ye see, Cap'm," he extemporised. "Eased Mister Burns, too, it did, thankee Jesus, seemed like it kept his wound from festerin' quick as it might've… give him at least a day or more o' life… t'make his peace with the Lord, so it could be counted a blessin', do ye look at it that way, sir, and…"