The Captain`s Vengeance l-12

by Dewey Lambdin

  Itt is wild cuntry beginning but ful of Promiss We will hev vary few Spanyerds butt manie Americans for neybors English-spekers tho few good Catholics. We all start with nuthing but will be grand as lords landed gentry sumday, sware it.

  Bess sell all keep little wot you traysure take Yankee ship too New Orlins I will mete you dres you fine as a title ladie. Ask of me call self Mrst. Patrick Warder. Kiss the babes for me say we will see eech other soon be happy evermore in Americay. A kiss from me to you git here soon. P.S. Be shur to fetch along my gud luck Toby Jug. Your luving husbund, ritten at Warderlands Plantayshun.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Ow!" Capt. Alan Lewrie carped as Surgeon's Mate Maurice Durant cinched his bindings tighter. "So snug I can't draw a decent breath!"

  "So they will be, Captain," his French-born former physician told him with a sad chuckle as Aspinall helped Lewrie don a new shirt. "Ze bruised ribs and breast-bone knit slowly, so you must expect pain, and think yourself fragile for at least anozzer month before I may say wiz confidence zat you are completely healed, n'est-ce pas, sir?"

  "Mean t'say I'm to dodder like a Greenwich Pensioner, on light duties like one of our herniated brace-tenders?"

  "I fear zat is the apt comparison, sir," Durant said with a sly twinkle in his eyes as he closed up his portable kit-box.

  "Not serious enough to put a replacement captain aboard, is it?" Lewrie fretted as he gazed at Admiralty House on the Palisades of Kingston Harbour. After being battered about by higher authorities in the last few months, he was "oft-bitten, damned shy!" of meddlers, or those who'd reward their favourites with a posting into a frigate, the finest sort of command the Royal Navy could offer an aspiring young officer.

  "Oh no, Captain, no fear of zat," Durant assured him. "You mus' be lazy for a time, but zat is not cause for displacing you."

  "Oh, good," Lewrie chearly said, perked up considerably. "Lazy I b'lieve I can manage main-well, thankee!"

  "Much's you done for 'em, sir," Aspinall commented as he shoved

  Lewrie into his waist-coat, "I'd expect 'em t'keep you an' Proteus as one forever. Much's you earned 'em, sir."

  They'd sailed back to Jamaica with their pirate schooner flying British colours atop its French Tricolour trailing astern of them and had created quite the stir of excitement once their reports, Lewrie's and Nicely's, had been read, and the amount of coined silver aboard her had been tallied. The Admiralty Court had leapt to condemn the prize, Admiral Parker had bought her in as a fast armed tender for ?4,000, to be seconded to a larger, slower cruising ship so he could garner even more loot at sea. And, for his signal service in their recent expedition, Lt. Darling, Capt. Nicely's protege, had been appointed into her as commanding officer.

  Capt. Nicely had finally struck his broad-pendant and departed for a new command of his own, since Admiral Parker realised that he would be much more useful at sea, leading a real squadron, than ever he was as Staff Captain.

  "Damme, Lewrie, but you've saved me!" Nicely had grandly stated at his departure ceremony, pumping Lewrie's hand so happily. "Got me a proper broad-pendant at last, and made me rich into the bargain!"

  They had only salvaged eight hundred kegs of coined dollars off the prize, the rest of the rumoured six million in silver was scattered over a mile of bay-bottom mud or swampy forest when the Spanish prize exploded. Or, as their few surviving prisoners suggested, there never had been that much, and the rest might have made it to New Orleans on another ship. Pollock could bear them the facts when he returned.

  Still, eight hundred thousand Spanish dollars was ?200,000, and that was nothing to sneeze at. Admiral Parker got an eighth, and Captain Nicely got an eighth, as senior admiral and "squadron commander," respectively. But that still left Lewrie his traditional two-eighths as captain of the successful warship, and that resulting ?37,500 was his ticket to a life of imcomparable wealth!

  He could buy his farm from Uncle Phineas Chiswick, who resisted the odds with his typical stubborn meanness and absolutely refused to die-if he couldn't take all his own wealth with him, Lewrie suspected. There could be a decent townhouse in London, too, and still leave them ?30,000 to place in the safe and solid Bank of England's Three Percents and that would yield ?1,000 per annum, before the bloody taxes due, of course. A family his size could live as grand as an earl on a sum like that. Why, he could even spare an hundred… well, fifty would suit, he idly supposed… to dower his penniless ward, Sophie de Maubeuge, buy things to improve her paraphernalia to help attract a suitable man with decent breeding and fair prospects of his own. Sewallis and Hugh, his daughter Charlotte (those offspring it was safe to claim!) would be assured the very best educations, and a leg up for their entry into adulthood. His wife, Caroline, well… hmm.

  Sudden wealth might mollify her, he could hope, might soften her heart enough to forgive his overseas amours at last. It wasn't as if any of them had been anything more than temporary foreign "diversions," conveniences, really. And weren't a couple of them mounted under the orders of superiors "topped" in the name of grim Duty? That Claudia Mastandrea with the bountiful "poonts" in the Italies, and Charite his most recent?

  It felt callous to think that Caroline could be swayed by a pot of guineas, that she could possibly be that flinty-eyed and mercenary. Yet… Riches, as good as absence, might make the heart grow fonder! Too busy to remember despising him whilst spending, getting, feathering her nest, hmm?

  Dressed proper at last, Lewrie took his hat in hand and walked to the forrud door, or tried to. Toulon and Chalky had developed a new game with which to plague him. Whether genuinely glad to have him back aboard as their main delight, their security, or their chiefest playmate in "their" great-cabins, or whether this was a holdover from the time that Capt. Nicely had usurped that space, a devious mischief they dreamt up to harass him (when they weren't spraying and marking everything in sight, and thank God they'd stopped doing that!), their sole waking delight, whenever he rose from his bed, desk, or settee, was to dash ahead of him, looking back impishly, fling themselves down in his path with their paws aloft and bellies exposed, and God help him if he didn 't stoop or kneel to pet them and make fusses over them, else his ankles and stockings were in for "heavy weather."

  "Aye, damn yer eyes," Lewrie relented with a put-upon sigh, all but stumbling over their writhing, tail-whicking eagerness. With much "oofing" and groaning, he knelt to placate them, but it hurt some, and was a slow process, too. "God's sake, don't try this after dark, will ye, Toulon? I can almost see Chalky, but you, ye menace, you're black as a boot! Yes, big baby Wubby feel good? Oh, you too, Chalky lad."

  "Mister Gamble… Sah!" the Marine sentry outside his doorway bawled, slamming his musket butt on the deck and stamping his boots to announce the presence of their newest "gift" Midshipman, Darcy Gamble, who came well recommended by both Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Nicely.

  "Oh, hell," Lewrie groaned, caught kneeling, and a cat's belly under each hand. "Come, dammit! Christ!" he added under his breath.

  "The First Officer, Mister Langlie's duty, sir, and-" Mister Gamble began to say, stepping briskly into the great-cabins, hat under his right arm, chin high in the proud execution of his duties. He widened his eyes, though, and could not help laughing at the sight of his captain on his knees.

  "Yess, Mister Gamble?" Lewrie drawled, embarrassed, but determined not to let it faze him. He sat back on his haunches and continued petting the cats, careful for his fingers should they get too happy.

  "My pardons, sir, but the, ah… mongoose problem the ship had a few months ago, sir?" Gamble stated, eyes on the stern windows, and all but biting the lining of his mouth to stay sober.

  "Oh, the Marines' rat-killin' Trinidad mongoose?" Lewrie asked, as if it was trifling. "Our pagan Hindoo mongoose? Aye?" Lewrie secretly savoured the look of perplexity on young Gamble's phyz, wondering if the lad feared he'd landed a berth in Bedlam, not a crack frigate.

  "The First Officer, Mister Langlie, is of the opinion that
it, ah… was a she, Captain, sir," Gamble reported, lips quivering as the lunacy of what he was saying struck him. "A pregnant she, in point of fact. There are simultaneous sightings of… mon-geese, one must assume… everywhere, now, sir!"

  Lewrie shut his eyes and let a bemused smile spread on his face. "Mine arse on a band-box. Yet the rats are kept in check, hey? Next match, Mister Gamble… put me down for a shilling. On the mongoose."

  I'm rich enough now, Lewrie supposed to himself as he slowly got to his feet; I can afford aflutter!

  AFTERWORD

  Ah, N'awlins, the "Big Easy"… the city where I once had four Hurricanes and closed Pat O'Brien's at dawn, then thought that I was Jean La Fitte, after an LSU-Ole Miss football game at Baton Rouge! I'd driven down with a couple of "Good Ol' Girls" from Ole Miss whom I had met in Memphis. Ole Miss lost 66-6, Archie Manning was quarterback and playing in a cast on his arm, so they took the defeat, and their cry of "Hoddy-Toddy, Christ A'mighty," much like Dionysius's Greek followers took "Evoe!", a reason for serious boozing.

  Thanks to Louisiana State University Press for The Founding of New Acadia by Carl Brasseaux and Africans in Colonial Louisiana by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall; and to Pelican Publishing of Gretna, Louisiana, for reprinting George W. Cable's 1884 book, The Creoles of Louisiana for the description of the city and its citizens' character, or lack of it. He did know them best!

  Creole and Cajun character names were chosen blind from the indexes in these books, and others, so if anyone whose family name is mentioned may wish to take umbrage, consider this…

  I am well armed, and know how to use them.

  Boudreaux Balfa's name was inspired by one of my Bluegrass-Americana CDs, where I found several Cajun-Zydeco cuts done by Dewey Balfa (are we kinfolk?) and his family band, though I recall that his family reside on Bayou La Fourche, not Barataria, so as Dewey Balfa said in the liner notes, Toujours Balfa! and more power to 'em, 'cause they're great! I'm trolling for a free CD, Dewey!

  For my rendition of Cajun diction, blame that famous Cajun comic, Justin Wilson, with whom I spent a day doing a couple of TV commercials in Memphis in the '80's, when I was a producer-director at WMC-TV.

  For the Tennesseans, I borrowed a few of my own kin from my old stomping grounds round Campbell, Claiborne, and Knox Counties, Tennessee. My maternal grandmother, Mary Susan Bowman Ellison, spoke of a cousin of her youth, Jim Hawk McLean, in the Powell Valley, which is halfway between La Follette, Tennessee, and the Cumberland Gap. Every spring, or when a wild hair hit him, Jim Hawk and his cronies would build a flatboat and head downriver to the Mississippi, then raft down to Vicksburg or Natchez, sell their produce and the boat, then buy horses and good breeding stock and come home up the Natchez Trace to Nashville, the Cumberland Trail to Knoxville, all for a lark. They'd sell all but the best mounts in Knoxville, then return to the Powell Valley (originally Powell's!) with half their cash money for the year, so I couldn't resist working a Jim Hawk Ellison into the tale!

  Yes, there was a Panton, Leslie Company, a British firm that traded with Indians, Spanish, and frontier settlements. It's mentioned in both The South In The Revolution, Volume Three of A History of the South by John Richard Alden (LSU Press) and The Southern Frontier, 1670 to 1732 by Vernor W. Crane (W. W. Norton Co.). Both provide "dirt" on the many plots and schemers who wished to expand westward along the entire length of the Mississippi, the United States plans, the British scenarios, and the individual states' activities. And, yes, by 1799, President Adams and Congress did wrangle over the costs of a military expedition to boot the weak Spanish out of the Old Southwest! It was up to President Thomas Jefferson to buy it in 1803.

  General James Wilkinson was a paid Spanish agent, since 1787. No one could figure out how he was paid, 'til someone noticed, in the wake of the Aaron Burr filibustering conspiracy of 1803-04, that it was odd for barrels of flour and meal to go upriver from New Orleans. The barrels were too heavy and when finally opened were found to hold sacks or small barricos of silver coins! Wilkinson planned to seize Kentucky, Tennessee, or both, as his personal kingdom, at the same time he commanded all U.S. Army troops in both states or territories.

  Thanks again to Bob Enrione at CBS in New York for research on Spanish money, its contemporary value, and how it was shipped. All of the New

  World was short of solid specie, and Spanish dollars were good just about everywhere. There was a shipload of six million, Bob said, so I got "inspired." Not only is Bob a great source for fun facts, but he also once owned enough brass muzzle-loading naval guns to fit out a brig o' war, and he and his wife are multiple cat "adoptees," hence in the good folks' column.

  There really was a Girandoni air-rifle. Austria bought 1,800 to 2,000 of them and "got shot of 'em" right-quick, too. In 1805 Lewis and Clark took air-rifles on the Corps of Discovery trek, and theirs, made in America, worked a lot better. Almost anything else would.

  Pierre and Jean La Fitte, hmmm. I couldn't resist slinging them into a novel set round New Orleans and their future infamous haunt on Grand Terre, in Barataria Bay. Even if they were enigmas! None of my research sources on them-including a Young Adult nonfiction book I bought that tried really, really hard to make slave dealing, slave stealing, piracy, and murder sound like just grand, Politically Correct fun-can agree on where Jean La Fitte was born: Bordeaux, Port-au-Prince (Haiti), or Cartagena? He was nineteen in 1799, he was ten! He went to a military school on Guadeloupe, Martinique, or in France. He was part-Jewish and his family had run afoul of the Spanish Inquisition and had fled to the Americas, Jean being born in 1782. Now, there's a good reason to prey on Spanish ships; they'd tried to turn your grandparents into tiki lanterns! The only point of agreement is that Jean La Fitte was a sharp businessman but a horrid sailor who'd heave up his innards on anything but a dead-calm sea.

  Anyway, whether Jean La Fitte was seventeen, fourteen, or twelve in early 1799, he could have been part of Jerome Lanxade's crew, serving an "internship" in murder and mayhem, so why the hell not?

  Stodgy academics may take umbrage, but let me put it this way: "It's my bloody book, so sod you, write yer own! Pee-Aitch-Dees… Pee-Aitch-Dees! Wwee don' need no stinkin' Pee-Aitch-Dees!" And let me refer any thin-blooded revisionists to my earlier statement about Louisianans' family names…

  "I am well armed and know how to use them."

  Lewrie's and Pollock's "appreciation" about the best way to get at New Orleans: it was shorter, quicker, and cheaper than trying to float an army down the Mississippi and, at the time, would've worked! Could it be that Lewrie's plan mouldered in a soggy Admiralty basement 'til 1814, the mouse-nibbled thing was pulled out and given to General Sir Edward Packenham when he went up against Andrew Jackson? Robert V. Remini's The Battle of New Orleans (Penguin Books) lays the whole thing out, though Packenham "screwed the pooch" just as Lewrie suspected any British Army might, since "daring" and "quick" weren't in their vocabulary. And will a Commodore or Rear-Admiral Lewrie play a role in it, hmmm?

  So, the bad guys have had their "stuff " scattered to the wind, and Lewrie has come out smelling like rose-water again; not only successful, but fairly damn rich for a change, when a "chicken-nabob," fresh-returned from India with ?50,000, was thought immensely wealthy.

  Will money soften Caroline's heart? Whoever that spiteful and incognito scribbler is that writes anonymous letters to her detailing his amours has run out of fresh material and knows nothing of Lewrie's Caribbean doings. Might she ascribe to the views of Clinton backers, "That's old news. Let's just… move on"? Or will it still be "Hell hath no fury"?

  I planned on killing off Charite de Guilleri, but she's one of those characters who grows on you. Will she escape her dull relations and find a powerful sponsor, and… who might it be? We left ol' Guillaume Choundas an American Navy prisoner on his parole, but never count him out 'til you drive a stake through his heart; he's harder to kill than cockroaches. Could it be?

  Will the cats stop marking territory, now Nicely's gone? Will Midsh
ipman Gamble fit in aboard that floating mad-house, HMS Proteus? Will Lt. Lan-glie's marital prospects towards Lewrie's ward, Sophie, be improved, now that he's in for a goodly share of "chink," too? And those mongeese… how did the Marines find them so far from India and the island of Trinidad, and how'd they smuggle it (them) aboard in the first place?

  Will Alan Lewrie stay tagged as "The Ram-Cat," or will "Iron-Bound" become his new sobriquet in the Royal Navy?

  All I can say, for now, is… stay tuned, buckaroos, and…

  Prospero: I'll deliver all.

  And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales,

  And sail so expeditious that shall catch

  Your royal fleet far off-

  My Ariel, chick,

  That is thy charge. Then to the elements

  Be free, and fare thou well-please you draw

  Near.

  Exeunt Omnes.

  – The Tempest, Act V, Scene 1

  William Shakespeare

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