A King`s Trade l-13

by Dewey Lambdin

  What had then ensued had not been a pretty sight, and Treghues and his wife and chaplain had taken shore lodgings to spare their finer sensibilities the sights and sounds of the wild ruts that had followed.

  Any sailor with the "blunt" could hire a doxy for a tumble, for an hour or so; those who could afford more could declare to the watch officers that his chosen wench was his "wife," with whom he'd share his food (and whatever extra he could buy from the bumboatmen) and his rum issue with her, plus a fee to her and her "agent" for her loaned charms.

  The Surgeon, Mr. Hodson, and his Mate, the exiled former French physician, Mr. Maurice Durant, made what attempt they could to determine the women free of venereal, or other communicable, diseases. The Bosun and his mates, the Master-At-Arms, and his Ship's Corporals searched incoming goods, and the whores' underskirtings, for contraband liquour, but that was a losing proposition, and small bottles of local rum or arrack always got past them.

  Watches would still be stood in harbour, and the cry to rouse a division, a watch, usually was no longer "Wakey wakey, lash up an' stow" but "Show a leg, show a leg." Hairy-legged men got chivvied out of a hammock; smooth and (mostly) hairless female legs were allowed to sleep in! Everyone got as drunk as they could afford, danced as exuberantly and sang as loud as they could holler, and coupled in hammocks, or on the deck between the guns, whenever they felt the itch, with a blanket hung from the deck-head for only the slightest modicum of privacy. It sometimes required the Master-At-Arms, the Bosun, and those Marines who weren't whoring or talking-in-tongues-drunk to break up fights over a woman, a parrot, puppy, or kitten, a dram of rum or a suspect run of the cards, dice, or backgammon.

  Lewrie slept aboard, but wisely took his gig ashore right after breakfast, and didn't return 'til after Lights Out round nine o'clock. What he hadn't seen he wouldn't have to punish, and would usually hold a rather lenient Captain's Mast, unless relatively innocent sins turned into crimes against the Articles of War.

  The Portuguese were neutral in the war against France, and the people of Recife were friendly towards most visiting seamen. Without wartime taxes, and with the higher value of the Pound Sterling, he had gone on a frenetic shopping spree. Fresh, low-tide sand by the barrel for the cats' "necessary"; jerked meats and sausages for their feeding; hard-skinned citrus fruits by the bushel, cocoanuts for their novelty; both local and imported wines to restore his wine-cabinet and his lazarette stores; fresh ink and paper, new batches of candles and oils to fill his lanthorns; a new shirt or two; Christmas presents to ship to Caroline and his children, Sewallis, Hugh, and Charlotte, for he'd not had enough time to do so in London or Portsmouth, and here it was not only past Christmas, but almost two months into both the new year of 1800 and a new century as well!

  Lewrie had bought a personal store of Jesuits' Bark, cinchona, just in case of Malaria breaking out after a shore call, along with a box of citronella candles in tiny wooden tubs, that Mr. Durant found useful to defeat the sickening tropical miasmas that had engendered an outbreak of Yellow Jack aboard Proteus when first in the Caribbean in '97. And, when they were anchored near shore, the candles seemed to shoo away the pesky mosquitoes, too, allowing one to sleep at night without diving completely under the bed-covers.

  New linen or cotton bedding, too, a spanking-new and more comfortable cotton-stuffed mattress for his hanging bed-cot, since the old one had begun to reek, from both his own sweat and the odd claim laid upon it by Chalky or Toulon, most especially when Capt. Nicely had supplanted him for a time last year.

  And, laundry! And hot baths!

  At sea, laundry was done in a wood bucket with seawater or part-fresh, part saline, in which the lye soap the Purser, Mr. Coote, sold could barely raise a lather. The freshwater ration was a gallon a day per man, officer or ship's boy, and most of that was used to boil the salt-meat rations or rare duffs or puddings in net bags in steep-tubs in the galley. To rinse, other net bags were used to tow the washing astern in the ship's wake, so clothing smutted and stiff with tar and "slush" stains from the skimmed fat from the galley used on all of the rope rigging to keep it supple, reeking of human sweat and fleshy oils and grease, came back aboard but a tad cleaner, and simply stiff with salt crystals, once they'd been dried. After a while, everyone, from the aristocrat to the powder monkeys, erupted in painful, suppurating salt-water boils. Lewrie included.

  Laundry done in boiling-hot fresh water, though, oceans of it, then rinsed and re-rinsed in colder fresh water, churned and paddled, wrung and beaten, then sun-dried on a line of clean rope, could hold the boils at bay for weeks, months, if one carefully rationed changes of underclothes and sheets, and didn't go too potty on fastidiousness!

  The officers and midshipmen had decided to go shares on fresh livestock, too, and had asked if their captain might wish to join in. They'd hunted up a nanny-goat with two kids, which could be milked for addition to coffee or tea, so sweet that even hot cocoa didn't require too much sugar stirred in. And, a good kid goat was tender eating as well! They bought chickens and new coops, so they could have eggs at least three days a week, along with a lusty rooster to quicken chicks so the flock would prosper, if the noisy little bastard did his duty. A fat duck or two, some pigs, including a pregnant sow sure to birth some roast sucklings sooner or later, and a bullock for consumption in harbour, and one for later fresh beef.

  Even a permanent guard had to be put on the manger under the break of the forecastle, to help the ship's boy who tended livestock-genially known as the "Duck Fucker"-keep the Marine's pet, the champion rat-killing mongoose, from stealing chicken eggs. By now, she was very well-fed on dead rats (which upset the midshipmen's mess no end for taking that source of meat), sleek, and well-groomed, and wore a red leather collar, and the semi-official rank of Corporal, listed in their muster book as Marine M. Cocky.

  Then, after a sublime first night ashore's supper of local seafoods, fresh salad, soup, and mango pudding, washed down with a moderate lashing of wine, Lewrie had decided to toddle over to the plaza to take in the show at the Wigmore's circus.

  Capt. Weed of the Festival was right; the language problem was insurmountable, so the planned dramas and comedies, and the songs they usually sang in English, had been dropped, but there was still a lot to see, and the performers of Wigmore's Travelling Extravaganza were Jacks and Jills of all trades, able to play any role called for on stage, or flesh out acts in the arena, both aloft and alow.

  Lewrie paid his admission, and got a seat several rows back on a shaky set of locally run-up tiers of benches set about an open area at one end of Recife's typically large colonial plaza. Before him, there were two foot-high rings formed by garishly painted wooden boxes, the outer ring about ten feet closer to the audience, the inner ring about sixty feet across. Temporary masts and spars and shear-legs inside the inner ring stood with the aid of rope rigging. Colourful flags flapped in the slight evening breeze, and long strings of cast-off signal flags or small, cheap burgees were hung everywhere a rope could be stretched. Torches or large lanthorns illuminated the inner ring, and the air was heavy with expectation of something out of the ordinary, and the local crowd, half of them children, stirred, squirmed, and chattered. Lewrie made sure that his watch and fob, and his wash-leather coin-purse, were safe in the front pockets of his breeches, for though he wasn't exactly in the "cheap seats," some of the better-dressed Brazilians nearest to him still bore a shifty, pick-pocket's look. At least he was back far enough to be spared the attentions of the damned clowns and mimes!

  All in all, it was rather enjoyable. There were fire-eaters or sword-swallowers, bareback riders who performed acrobatics while their mounts cantered or loped about the inner ring, strongmen billed as Hindoo jettis who drove nails with their fists into wood, or broke stacks of bricks. Human pyramids of acrobats, jugglers who threw knives back and forth, people who went aloft above the "boarding net" to twirl on taut vertical ropes, or leap from one swing to another. There was a rope-walking act, followed by dancing a
nd trick-performing bears, Fredo and Paulo of his recent acquaintance.

  In the slim outer ring, there were parades of animals, though Lewrie did think that the zebras more-resembled the four burros he had seen aboard Festival, docked-tailed and mane-shorn, and tarted up with soot and chalk stripes. There were performing dogs, a rooster who did a dance (even if his iron dance floor had been heated beyond endurance, Capt. Weed had told him). There was a horse who could add, subtract, or multiply, a camel race (with the baby camel chasing them, ridden by a monkey in a red vest and turban), followed by an eye-patched scrawny man with a whip who worked a pair of mangy old lions, and went so far as to put his head in one's mouth, which set the locals into paroxyms of fear; followed by trained parrots which could play fetch from children in the crowd, if shown a matching item first.

  And, the clowns and mimes, of course, as entre actes, whacking each other with pig bladders or whatever fell to hand, who also worked a troop of monkeys for all they were worth, and that right-lewdly, too. Though that seemed to go down better with the mostly Catholic audience than Lewrie might have expected.

  Earlier on, Jose had made a second appearance as a knife-thrower, with both the brassy wee redhead "actress" and the little blonde as his assistants, or targets on a huge revolving wheel; he could even do it blindfolded-or so it appeared, at least.

  And, there was "Eudoxia," the raven-haired wench who had caught Lewrie's eye the first day aboard Festival. She'd assisted with a dog act, been one of the bareback riders, all in garish, revealing costume, but, her final showing put all those in the shade. Out she came in a scanty outfit to do a solo turn. She wore a spiky, glittering tiara of what looked to be old sword tips and too-big-to-be-real paste gems, all that atop both her own hair and a black wig of tight-curled tresses so long they reached her arse, and looked like old ropes. Eudoxia had on a sheer upper garment, a hip-length, one-shouldered Greek chlamys, sheer enough to show off her silver lame corset (that did wonders for lifting her breasts, and Alan Lewrie's libido!), skin-tight breeches, and knee-high suede boots, with a large, recurved Asian horn bow and a sheaf of arrows. "… cruelly h'exiled. Princess Eudoxia, ladies an' gentlemen!" Daniel Wig-more cried by way of introduction, pausing to let a locally-hired gentleman translate for him. Wigmore had more gilt lace, silver chain mail, and brass buttons on his bright red coat than a dozen generals were authorised. "… h'escaped from th' myster'yus steppes o' th' Roosias!… wif th' blood o' h'ancient Parthians, Scythians, an' Cossacks in 'er 'ist'ry! Daughter o' th' fabled h'Amazon female warriors wot shot their arrers from th' walls o' Troy, h'itself, fightin' fer ol' King Priam in th' h'Iliad 1 I gives ye that h'archer par excellence… that most beautiful an' deadly, 'oo revenged 'erself on them 'oo slew 'er own true love wif 'er silent steel… h 'Eudoxia!"

  It started slow, but built right craftily, Lewrie thought. She began with regular straw-stuffed canvas targets, but then progressed to playing cards, candle flames to snuff, large rings flung aloft, which she snapped a beribboned arrow through. Locally-gathered, expendable, pigeons released from wicker cages didn't stand a chance as they fled towards the far end of the plaza, even right overhead of the audience! The wee blond "actress" turned up with a canteloupe on her head, and that got skewered, too. Then a grapefruit, then an orange, finally an apple, a la William Tell!

  For the piece de resistance, a gaudily caparisoned white horse trotted out into the inner ring, and Eudoxia gave a great shriek, and ran after him, springing and rolling astride, and proceeded to perform her art on targets from horseback, too: seated upright, kneeling atop her mount, standing, even scissor-legged along her horse's side, and shooting from below his belly, from under his neck! "Eudoxia" finally drew rein after squarely hitting the ace of spades on a playing card at the full gallop, then reined back her horse so hard that he skidded to a halt on the plaza's stones, to rear and prance, pawing the air with his fore hooves to a tumultuous applause, as the small band did a triumphant fanfare, and, over the roar of the crowd, uttered a howl of victory that the Portuguese might mistake for an Amazon or Cossack phrase, but which to Lewrie sounded suspiciously like "Sic semper tyrannis!, " before she wheeled away behind the gaudy sailcloth draperies that screened the performers and beasts from view.

  As her horse dropped to all-fours, though, she swept the upper tip of her bow across the audience, stiff-armed, and ended aiming at Lewrie! A salaam-ish bow from the waist from the back of her horse, then a very wide grin, and she blew kisses to everyone, with a final one again directed at him, and a vixenish, impish smile, to boot!

  Well, then! he thought; Well, well, well, hmm! Wink's as good as the node Though…

  As he'd suspected, there had been visiting back and forth from one plodding ship to another, on days when the winds and seas weren't up, and Festival had indeed drawn more than her fair share of callers. Proteus had spent half her time close under Grafton's lee, close under the slow Festival, too, though unable to partake of an hour of two of diverting amusement, probably so Treghues could keep a damn' wary eye on the both of them! By telescope, Lewrie had noticed that civilians off the Indiamen had gone aboard much tenser than they departed. All callers had been warmly greeted, and the female members of the troupe had always been the first to welcome them, and the last to see them off.

  Perhaps she really was a whore-transport! Lewrie had sniggered; Pays for new costumes… atones for poor salaries, and damme if those camels and "zebras" o' theirs don't need a lot o' fodder!

  Now, as he paid only half his attention to the magic act which followed the girl's performance, the rational half of his mind warned him that Eudoxia, or whatever her name was in real life… Mabel, or Peg most-like, from Liverpool?… might be a well-used strumpet, but… that other moiety of his higher faculties kept nudging him with an elbow to remind him that he was the owner of a round two-dozen sheep-gut cundums of Mother Green's very best construction, purveyed in old Half Moon Street, and English, by God, the finest in the world, and in the end, if she was for temporary hire, then her socket-fee, no matter how steep, would be more than worth it with a body so slim, her legs so long, lean, and shapely, "cat-heads" so bountiful, and so athletic and strong a ride that he very likely might only half-survive it! No commitments, no embarrassing entanglements, no…!

  His sane moiety pointed out that, surely, "Eudoxia" might have a lover or protector among the circus or theatrical troupe, already, someone jealous, hulking… someone like Jose, perhaps, who'd proved his skill with knives, who had wild beasts to sic on him, someone who might pester him to death with clowns, if nothing deadly fell to hand.

  No matter, he felt… "Invited."

  And, damme, lam curious /he told himself; What harm in that?

  So, now without a certain amount of trepidation, lest he'd misunderstood the wench's broad gestures, he alit from the stands once it appeared that the night's entertainment was winding down, and casually ambled, as innocently as he might, over towards the circus's screened-off area, even going so far as to stick his hands into the pockets of his breeches, most un-officer-like, and attempt to whistle a gay air to disarm the squinty looks he was getting from the thickly-muscular "Hindoo strongmen," and some equally strong and daunting sailors off Festival, who did double duty as roustabouts and guards over Wig-more's property. He could reassure himself that he still owned a watch, and a full purse, if nothing else!

  Before he got quite to his destination, though, the curtained-off backstage area erupted performers and beasts, out to take a final parade and their last bows from an adoring audience, and he ended up standing there looking foolish. A minute later, he felt even more of a Cully as smarmy, slick-looking local young gentlemen and pretenders came stroking their mustachios and leering, with flowers in hand, on much the same mission as his!

  Oh, bugger this! Lewrie scowlingly thought, feeling hot under the collar, and even more embarrassed to be lumped in with such sprogs. He turned away and shaped his stroll out towards the empty end of the vast plaza, towards the founta
ins, statuary, and such, when…

  "Cap'm Lewrie!" Daniel Wigmore gaily called out, as the torches and lanthorns were doused, and the tinny little band strangled their last notes and fell silent. "Why, bless me soul, Cap'm sir, but 'ow'd ye h'enjoy me show?" Wigmore came bustling up through the departing crowd, beaming and bobbing at one and all to take bows of his own from them for a successful performance.

  "Why… I thought it was simply capital, Mister Wigmore, sir, and I dearly wish my sailors could come ashore to witness it!" Lewrie cried back, stopped in his tracks and removing his hands from his pockets to doff his cocked hat. "Enjoyed it immensely, especially…"

  " 'Owever not, then, sir?" Wigmore wondered aloud as he came up and not only doffed his own huge, Austrian-style fore-and-aft bicorne, adrip with gilt lace and egret plumes sufficient to stuff a large and fluffy pillowcase, but stuck out his hand for a hearty shake. "Fetch 'em ashore t' next night's performance, why don't ye?"

  "Ah, that'd be up to our Captain Treghues, Mister Wigmore, and he'll not allow shore liberty, not in Recife, at least," Lewrie said. "Perhaps at Saint Helena, which is more a garrison than a civilian, and desertible, liberty port. My lads'd relish that, aye, sir."

  "Aye, that'd bulk th' gate, 'sides th' few poor sodgers stuck h'out there wif nary a di-wersion," Wigmore happily agreed, the sound of silver coins dropping into his receipts sack in his mind's fantasy. "Why, there must be 'undreds o' th' buggers, ah ah!" he purred, with his hands rubbing greedily together. "Promise me, Cap'm Lewrie, ye'll do all ye may t'git yer sailors, allyer sailors, an' them off t'other warships, ashore so'z we can h'amaze 'em, an' I'll give yer officers an' ye free h'admittance, h'often'z ye'd like!"