A King`s Trade l-13

by Dewey Lambdin

"Aye, let's!" Lewrie agreed with a feral grin.

  The brace of steenbok didn't cause the sensation in camp, that evening- surprisingly, duToit had missed with his second shot, once the steenbok had been startled into great springing bounds and leaps, and darting evasions at the crack of musket fire-rather it was the crocodile tail-meat that they'd fetched in, once they'd decided to go back and bag it, after all.

  Lewrie and his guide had both shot it in the head at the same time, within two inches of each other, so the skull was ruined for a trophy, but the largest teeth were still impressive, as was the still-moist hide. The black waggoners, bearers, and cooks had sprung on it, to stake it out for drying in the sun, along with the steenboks they had field-dressed, and one of them swore he could string those teeth into a quite nice necklace, if baas Lewrie wished… heathen, savage but nice.

  Along with the slices of roast steenbok, there were treats that the burghers and women of Simon's Town had come to sell, now that they were over their "sulks" at rooineks camping out too near their proper and tidy Boer settlement, and helping themselves to part of the wreck that was theirs by right.

  They vended more bredies and mutton boboties, more Sumatran or Javanese satays, along with piping-hot fresh breads and syrupy sweet baked koeksisters or pies. Along with the viands, though, so Lewrie learned, there had come strong and hearty Dutch beer, some local rum, some of the rawer sort of Cape wines, and that gin-clear Dutch peril, that "tangle-tongue" akavit.

  "Sound a tad too me-hearty, Mister Pendarves?" Lewrie scoffed, once he got the Bosun off to one side for a heart-to-heart. The last thing he needed, with the ship's hands off ashore and given much ease from their unremitting daily schedule, was too much drink. Riot and mutiny were the worst he could expect; the least would be people kept on such strict spirit rations drinking themselves into insensibility, and uselessness on the morrow, given the slightest opportunity.

  "That Mister Goosen, and Mister de Witt, told the locals that they'd best not get 'em too hot, sir," Pendarves cautiously laid out in his own defence. "Small bottles an' such, an' Mister Gamble an' I been keepin' a wary eye on th' trade, too, sir."

  "God above, Mister Pendarves," Lewrie spat, "to the Dutch, it's a patriotic duty t'fuddle their occupiers! Without the Master-At-Arms and Ship's Corporals, the Marines, they'll go witless if they get even a touch drunk!"

  "Can't keep th' men from all spirits, sir," Pendarves pointed out, "beggin' yer pardon, an' all. Half a pint o' beer with supper, a tot o' wine 'stead o' their reg'lar rum issue… well, maybe along with th' rum, but… me an' Mister Gamble warned 'em, stern, Cap'm. Anybody gets rowdy, 'tis my good right fist he'll be eatin'. Along with 'is teeth! They don't have much coin, sir, an' th' Dutch don't give credit, so they couldn't buy all that much. Besides, what little the Dutchies brung, they're chargin' an arm and a leg for, so most o' our lads can't afford a good drunk, An' the Dutchies camped out near us ain't of a mind t'share, like, Cap'm."

  "You've had no trouble, then?" Lewrie wondered aloud, dubious, but slightly relieved by what he'd heard so far.

  "Well, we did have a couple o' fights, sir," Pendarves admitted, looking cutty-eyed, "but… Mister Gamble jumped 'tween 'em before it got outta hand, an' said, did they want t'fight, do it proper, an' form a ring for 'em. Referee an' all, and wagers laid, so it turned more a… sportin' show, sir."

  "How did the fights turn out, then?" Lewrie asked, snickering, and revising his already-good opinion of his oldest Midshipman a little higher.

  "Both ended in draws, sir," Pendarves told him, with a twinkle in his eyes. "Not much damage done, and I gave 'em all a good duckin' in th' surf, after. Then swore to 'em they'd be doin' th' most work, come mornin', an' the same'd go for anyone who got so drunk that I took notice, sir."

  "My compliments to Mister Gamble, and to you, Mister Pendarves," Lewrie said, satisfied by their bare-knuckled solution. "Just be sure you prowl about before 'Lights Out,' and see them bedded down properly… and mostly sober, hear me?"

  "Aye aye, sir!"

  "Carry on, then, Mister Pendarves," Lewrie said, before heading off to his own tent for a scrub-down, and a hot supper.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It took far longer than anyone's rosy estimates, but the work at last was done. The massive rudder and sternpost of the Lord Clive was off, the bronze fittings, bolts, elm dowels, and bearding strips labelled with paint and itemised for later use, and everything packed up in the waggons. It was a well-fed, sun-bronzed, and much-refreshed working-party of tars that slowly trundled back into the outskirts of Kaapstad, the unsprung waggons clattering, axles squealing, and ox teams farting and lowing.

  Goosen's chandlery would receive the reclaimed materials into a beachfront works yard, where both Lewrie's specialist petty officers, and their crews, and yet another set of cousins-Paul Riebeck, who was reputed to be a skilled carpenter, and his metal-working brother Hendrik-would set up their forges, anvils, and tools to assist the hands off Proteus in cutting down, shaping, and planing the Lord Clive rudder down, and manufacturing new bronze and iron fittings.

  All that for a "most reasonable fee," it went without saying!

  Lewrie turned things over to Midshipman Gamble and Mr. Pendarves, sure that "cousin" Andries de Witt knew the way to that works yard with his eyes shut, and for them to send word to the ship that they were now back. Turning his horse aside, Lewrie rode up the steep, curving road of the Lion's Rump to the tidy farm cottage where his wounded men were recuperating.

  "All's well?" he asked their emigre French Surgeon's Mate, Mr. Maurice Durant. who came out to greet him on the windswept slopes.

  "Three hands are still poorly, Captain," Durant said with a most Gallic shrug as they stepped into the shade of the deep galleries that fronted each side of the rented farmhouse. "Suppuration from the oiled oak splinters that caused their wounds, I am sorry to say. The rest are still too stiff for even light duties, I am also sorry to relate, sir, but they are healing."

  "And Whitbread?" Lewrie enquired about one of his Black sailors.

  " Quel dommage, he has gone away from us, Captain," Durant sadly related, reverting to the old French expression for death. "Lieutenant Langlie was informed, and saw to his burying… well-wrapped in a canvas shroud, n 'est-ce pas?" he said with a conspiratorial wink and nod. "That young English rector suspected nozzing, and now Samuel Whitbread is interred beside his shipmates and fellow escapees, poor fellow. A great pity, though… now, there are only seven of the Black fellows left from your humanitarian gesture, Captain."

  "Nine," Lewrie insisted as Durant helped him dip an oak bucket of water from a butt on the gallery porch for his horse.

  "Non, Captain… seven," Durant corrected, as if it was of no matter. "The lean, young marksman who calls himself Rodney? And, the one who calls himself Groome, who tried to ride the sham zebras? They have run, Lieutenant Langlie tells me."

  "Run?" Lewrie snapped. "Deserted? Mine arse on a…!"

  "The cirque… the circus people who go into the wilds," Durant calmly went on, offering Lewrie a copper dipper of water, too. "Groome and Rodney were ashore on liberty when the circus party departed, but they never return to the ship. I gather, from what Lieutenant Langlie learn, that they had hung about the circus menagerie, and talk often to M'sieur Wigmore and their guide, a local Boer____________________"

  "Van der Merwe!" Lewrie spat.

  "Ship's cook, he tell Lieutenant Langlie that several wished to be in circus, Captain," Durant said with another fatalistic shrug. "Groome believe-ed he could be elephant tamer or rider, handle horses and real zebras… even be an actor, if they do Shakespeare's Othello. Rodney, he say he is the crack shot, good as any, and wish to shoot the great beasts of Africa, his native land, after all. Perhaps perform in circus with guns, like Mistress Eudoxia. Lion tamer, Durschenko…?"

  "Him! Aye?" Lewrie growled, drinking off half of the dipper and swirling the rest to rinse it, before heaving the rest over the railing.

  "Before
he injure his eye, he was the crack shot, aussi, he tell me," Durant went on, as if desertion was an everyday occurrence, nothing to get exercised about, for it had nothing'' to do with his specialties. "He come to me, when he learn I was once the physician trained in Paris, to see if his eye was hopeless. Quel dommage, there is nozzing anyone may do to restore his sight, but…"

  "That flap-eyed bastard! What'd he tell you?" Lewrie demanded, instantly suspecting that luring some of his sailors to desert was the man's way of getting back at him, if putting one of his daggers in his heart was not in the immediate offing.

  "He does say, when I treat him, that such a hunt will be one of life's grand adventures, Captain, though the danger is aussi the great, so, as many guns who go along will be welcome. He suggest, I think, I might enjoy such with him, hawn hawn!" Durant said with the nasal sort of laugh of which only the French seemed capable.

  "He rode up here?" Lewrie pressed, hoping that Durschenko had no idea, being a foreigner, that Black sailors weren't all that common in the Royal Navy, not in such numbers aboard a single ship, or that burying them alongside Whites was heavily frowned upon. Else, he 'd be crowing it from the rooftops, t 'spite me! Lewrie fretfully thought; Or, if Groome, Rodney, one of the others, blabbed about how I got 'em… I

  "Lured 'em away, did he?" Lewrie griped.

  "That is very possible, Captain," Durant agreed, with the calm of a saint, which, to Lewrie, was becoming maddening.

  "Mine arse on a band-box!" Lewrie exclaimed, stomping about the gallery, all but ready to flap his arms in anger. "Didn't the idiots know that the Dutch keep slaves here, same as Jamaica… that they're trading one set o' chains for another, once they're far enough away in the wilds where the trekboers can do anything they like with 'em?"

  "Perhaps they assum-ed that they were under the protection of that M'sieur Wigmore," Durant said, and if he performed just one more of his damned shrugs, Lewrie would not be responsible for his actions! "Or, that M'sieur Durschenko would prevent that… if they were going as free Black men, employ-ed by the circus, Captain."

  "Damn, damn, hell and damn!" Lewrie cried, in a stew, for there was no way, short of organising a hunting trip of his own, to get them back, and he was already several hands short; and, what guarantee was there that galloping a press-gang to go after them might not result in even more free-spirited hands… even Marines!… thinking that the merry life of the trekboers was infinitely better than that of an overworked, underfed, and underpaid Jolly British Jack?

  "There was no way to prevent it, Captain," Durant tried to console. "You were away, and could not have known. Lieutenant Langlie or the ozzer officers could not have known their intentions beforehand, lizz… either."

  "Doesn't matter, dammit," Lewrie gravelled. It was his fault. Whatever occurred, for good or ill, was always the captain's responsibility! "Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the contrary at your peril!" it said near the bottom of his Commission, a phrase the Navy was rather keen on. Bleakly, Lewrie thought that the best he could do for the next week or so would be to see to the ship's repair, no matter how tempting it would be to hare after his deserters and haul them back in irons.

  "Do they survive, Captain," Durant continued in his maddeningly serene voice, "you may arrest them on their return, n'est-ce pas?"

  "Well, there is that," Lewrie bitterly allowed, slouching, with his hands resting on the gallery railing, and staring out at Table Bay. "Not that their present absence does the rest of our people any good. I might have to cancel shore liberty 'til we have 'em back, before any more of our hands think to emulate 'em. Replacing the rudder and the sternpost'll keep 'em busy enough, for a while, but…"

  Much as I find it loathsome, I'll have to have those two at the gratings, he thought; Give 'em both four-dozen lashes apiece, just to drive the lesson home t'one and all!

  "You will see the wounded, Captain?" Durant asked.

  "Aye, I will. What I rode up for…" Lewrie began to say, but took closer notice of Table Bay before he swung back to face Durant. There was a new ship anchored near Green Point, inside the encircling peninsula. And, even more ships were entering the bay, just starting to round Green Point. Even without a telescope, he could make out a few identifying details in the clear air, so far up above the haze of Cape Town's hearth and workshop fires.

  The arriving ships appeared to be five East Indiamen, escorted by a lone two-decker. And the anchored ship seemed to be flying the distinctive "Post-Boy" flag of a mail-packet, a Red Ensign sporting a Union flag in the canton, with the horn-blowing rider on a horse that filled the rest of the fly. "A convoy coming in," Lewrie muttered.

  "Ah, oui?" Durant replied, cheering up as he came to Lewrie's side by the gallery overlooking the wide bay. "Too soon, I am told, for ships from England, so this must be a convoy from China or India. I hope M'sieur Hodson or I may go aboard them while they are here… to ask of ingredients for fresh medicines. Oil of cloves is…"

  "And the mail-packet?" Lewrie asked. "What of her?" "Oh, she came in yesterday," Durant answered. "I trust there are letters from Madelaine and our babes. For a time, both Hodson and I had to be up here to tend our wounded, but, now their care is not so urgent, M'sieur Hodson return-ed aboard Proteus, leaving me with only three loblolly boys," he gently complained, his old plaint of being a better-educated and trained physician serving under a "saw-bones" surgeon. "I would ask, should you discover any mail forme…?"

  "Done, and done," Lewrie assured him, half his attention still on the incoming ships. "Well, let us go and visit our hurt men. Once that's done, I'll sort through our mail and send a Midshipman up here with anything for you, or our patients, sir."

  "Merci, Captain. Merci beaucoup."

  I think I can trust a Midshipman not t'run off with the circus! Lewrie grimly told himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Welcome back aboard, sir," Lt. Langlie said, once the salutes of the side-party and officers were done. "Might I enqire if the hunt went well?"

  "It did, indeed, Mister Langlie," Lewrie gleefully told him as they began to walk aft together. "The rudder and sternpost are sound as the pound, and now in the local contractors' yard. A week or three more, and we'll be completely ready for sea, again."

  "Excellent news, sir!" Langlie enthused.

  "What's happened aboard, now two of our Black sailors have run?" Lewrie asked him. "And, how did that happen?"

  "I stopped all shore liberty since, sir," Langlie reported, turning sombre. "My fault, sir… should have seen it coming, what with that mountebank, Wigmore, beguiling them. Perhaps as early as our stop at Saint Helena, I now gather…"

  "When they return, if they return, we'll have to make examples of 'em, Mister Langlie," Lewrie grimly announced. "Was Wigmore after any of the others?"

  "The more exotic, the better, I believe, sir," Langlie replied. "Play-act as Hindoo mahouts, should they get themselves some elephants… trick them out as eunuchs or Turk swordsmen for one of his plays, or the circus parades, but, I also have ascertained that the rest of our sailors thought it a daft idea, and rightly reckoned the consequences of desertion. Especially in a land that keeps native Blacks as slaves, and makes war on the rest, sir."

  "Good!" Lewrie declared, relieved to hear it. "Mister Durant tells me a mail-packet has come in. Was there anything for us?"

  "Scads, sir!" Lt. Langlie said, brightening. "And, may I convey my congratulations, Captain."

  I've quickened another babe somewhere in the world? he thought in confusion; I've inherited all of Surrey?

  "You have me at a loss, sir," Lewrie said to that.

  "The latest Captain's List, sir!" Langlie gushed. "Your name now appears among those of More than Three Years' Seniority. You may 'board' your second epaulet!"

  "Well, damn my eyes," Lewrie replied, after a stunned moment, then began to chuckle. "With all that's occurred lately, the date that I was 'posted' quite slipped my mind. Thankee for that news, Mister Langlie. A ream of offi
cialese from Admiralty, too, I s'pose."

  "All your letters are in your clerk's possession, sir, awaiting you in your cabins," Langlie told him.

  "Very well, sir," Lewrie said, eager to be at them, for, with a slew of official documents, there might be personal letters from home as well, word from Twigg or that gaggle of earnest do-gooders who had sworn to defend his good name. "I'll be aft and below. Do you, in the meantime, see to victualling arrangements for our shore working-party, and send a Lieutenant along to supervise the work, when it begins, on the morrow."

  Aye aye, sir.

  "Hello, lads!" Lewrie cooed as Toulon and Chalky swarmed him. "Miss me, did ye? Yes, I smell exotic, don't I? African dirt, blood, and meat… ain't it tasty? Yes, love you, too, Toulon," Lewrie told the black-and-white ram-cat as he knelt down, allowing both of them to sniff him, raise up on their hind legs to rub chins on his clothes, and make snoring noises over such blissful new scents. "Welcome back, sir," Aspinall happily said. "Will ye be havin' a sip o' some-thin'… a scrub-up? There's lashin's o' fresh water comes aboard every mornin', enough for a hip-bath, do ye care for it. And, I've your workin'-rig uniform fresh as a daisy, when ye call for it. Cool tea'll take no more than half an hour, too, sir."

  "Should have taken you along, Aspinall," Lewrie said, as Chalky swarmed up his thigh to scrub the side of his little head on his chin, and start to snuffle his hair. "I could have used a bit of civilised seeing-to. Ah… a sponge-down, first, aye. A gallon of water, if that much is aboard… two gallons, and I'll wash Africa out of my scalp, too. Ow, Chalky! Here, lad… biltong!" he beguiled, as the newest cat's affection turned "nippish." Lewrie reached into a pocket of his slop trousers and pulled out two strips of dried springbok wrapped in a handkerchief. "Wild game meat, lads. Could have brought it down yourselves, I'm certain, but you can pretend. Smell good, hmm? Taste it, Toulon, ooh yes!"

  He tore a strip into wee bites, feeding both cats a bit or two from his fingertips as they swished their tails, rose up on their hind legs again, and went frantic, meowing loudly for more.