The Captain's Vengeance
Page 7
“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. Fin’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 outré 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…”
“Any left?” Lewrie dryly asked.
“Well, er … nossir,” Mr. Towpenny said, squirming on his rickety chair. “Th’ bonfire took a power of it, sir, Flames nigh as tall as a cro’jack yard, an’ lots o’ smoke t’draw that ship down t’us.”
“Um-humm,” Lewrie commented; though picturing his sailors being rescued with their pricks swaying in the wind, short coats over their heads like be-shawled Dago widows … and every last man-jack as drunk as an emperor! ’Twas a wonder their rescuers hadn’t backed oars, gone about, and rowed away and left them as a bad bargain!
“And you’ve lost your kits, I take it,” Lewrie said further, as he paced back to the centre of the room. “Aye, we must do something on that score. The hospital charge you for these new slops you wear? By God, the skinflints! I’ll speak to Mister Coote, soon as I am back aboard, and suggest a whip-round… from forecastle, gun-deck, and the wardroom, all, to get you kitted out proper, again. So what pay you’re owed won’t vanish, and you won’t have to sign away your prize money to shore jobbers for a quarter its future worth, either.
“As far as I’m concerned, you were on active duty all this time, so don’t fear pay stoppage in your absence, as well,” he further promised. “You did damed well, lads, to keep your discipline and your wits about you, simply to stay alive. Mister Towpenny, be sure that your keeping good charge will be noted, and rewarded.”
“Thankee, sir… thankee kindly,” Towpenny said, blushing anew.
“You’ll all be back aboard in a few days,” Lewrie told them as he picked up his hat and took a step towards the door. “In the meantime, I’d wish you to try to recall all you can about those so-called privateers who held you. Any scrap of information as to names, places, or gossip you heard… any clues as to where they were headed, as to who they really were. I’m sure Mister Jugg will prove helpful, since he can sort out French or Spanish words that might be confusing, right Jugg?” he prompted, giving that dubious rogue a damned chary glare.
“Aye, sir,” the fellow answered.
“By the way, Jugg… we sailed as far as Barbados in search of you, of word of you,” Lewrie slyly continued. “We rode up to call on your acres in Welsh Hell Gully. You’ve gotten your mail since coming ashore? No? Rest assured, your wife is well… There’s a good crop coming up, and… both your daughter and infant son are in the best of health.”
“Er… thankee, sir,” Jugg all but gasped, sitting up straight in spite of his guarded caution, even as he went cutty-eyed to imagine what else Lewrie had learned about him from his fellow Barbadians.
“Drunk as goats?” Lewrie asked Capt. Nicely, once they had met again in the hospital’s cool, north-facing entrance hall.
“Staggering!” Nicely snorted with wry glee. “Falling-down, jig-dancing, gravel-swimming, talking-in-tongues, raving drunk, they were! Commander Mortimer of the sloop Spritely, which picked them up, was of half a mind to give them two dozen lashes for ‘Drunk on Duty,’ as soon as he learned they were Navy men! Thankfully, your Bosun’s Mate, that Towpenny, had enough of his wits about him to claim the pirates were to blame, for leaving all that rum as a fiendish torture, with nary a drop of water about. Quite a fellow, to keep good order among them so long, given our tars’ penchant for running riot and drinkin’ themselves blind. Apparently, he found a length of hollow cane washed up on the beach… which was in his care at all times, mind, sir. They scuttled the barrico’s top, and each man got two sips off it, as much as he could suck up, three times a day… morning, noon, and night.”
“Aye, Mister Towpenny’s a damned good man,” Lewrie agreed.
“Though, once they saw ’twas a Navy ship their salvation,” Capt. Nicely gaily went on, nigh chortling, “one of the survivors told Commander Mortimer they drank it up quick as they could, before somebody could take it away from them! ‘Waste not, want not’ is the old adage, ha ha, Captain Lewrie. ’Twas a drunken spree, the likes of which they will most-like remember all the rest of their lives!”
“And the ‘heads’ that required a stay in hospital!” Lewrie said, chuckling too. “I’d like to think they learned a lesson, but let sailors get a whiff of alcohol, and it’s Bedlam.”
“Speaking of, Captain Lewrie,” Nicely cooed as they arrived at his waiting coach. “Once you’ve delivered your delightful tidings to your ship and crew about the fate of their mates, once the sun is well below the yardarm, it would be my pleasure to break out a bottle or two of capital ‘cheer’… knowing that officers are as tempted by alcohol as the least foredeck hand. I’d admire did you dine with me ashore.”
“And I would delighted to accept, sir,” Lewrie gladly agreed.
“Shall we say… seven, sir?”
“So said, sir,” Lewrie replied, laying his hat on his chest.
“My, um… grand though it is to get your sailors back, I do wish to extend my condolences upon the loss of your Midshipman Burns,” Nicely sobered as they got seated facing each other, and a postillion boy raised the step and shut the door for them. “A lad of connexion to you, was he?” he asked, expecting the usual kinship or “interest.”
Most Midshipmen, “gentlemen-in-training,” came aboard as wards to captains, suggested to them by kin or neighbours, direct kin, such as Lewrie’s bastard son Desmond was to his uncle, Capt. McGilliveray. But it was a rare lad, and usually a poor’un, sent aboard by Admiralty, especially those from the Naval Academy, as King’s Letter Boys.
“No. No, he was not,” Lewrie sombrely said, his sadness quickly returning. “In point of fact, ’twas Sir Edward Charles, your predecessor, who foisted him on me. Culled the West Indies fleet for the worst he could find. Poor lad, he meant well, and he did try, but my God, what a witless goose! For those pirates, or privateers, or whatever they wish t’call themselves, to shoot him for sport, deliberately wing him so he’d take days to die, as if they’d rather stayed to watch his suffering! Like strangling kittens ‘fore their poor eyes are even opened! By God, I’d give my right arm t’find the bastards who did that to him. I’d run ’em to earth, did it take a year and a day! And kill ’em slow … tooth for a tooth, eye for an eye, make them suffer! Swear to Christ, I—!
“Sorry, sir, to become so exercised, but…” Lewrie said as he came back to his senses, noting how speculatively Capt. Nicely eyed him; nose high and one quizzical brow raised. “Do forgive me, but it seems such a bloody, murderous injustice.”
Nicely leaned forward, full of commiseration and true sympathy; of suppressed disgust for the crime, and what Lewrie took for a mutual desire to carve out Vengeance… or Justice. “What little I read from Commander Mortimer’s report, Captain Lewrie, I am utterly convinced we… someone!… must pursue those devils. They may have Letters of Marque, but they’re nothing more than cut-throats, and pirates, and a scurrilous stain on the honest seaman’s trade, even ‘pon the dubious good ‘name’ of privateer! We’re knights-errant, d’ye know, sir.”
“Knights-errant, sir?” Lewrie responded with a puzzled frown.
“There are rules for warfare, sir,” Capt. Nicely insistently avowed. “There must be, else all is chaos and depravity. Someone must enforce those rules… We must! Standing armies came to be to replace barbarian gangs of land pirates, navies got formed to protect trade and poor seamen, innocent passengers, from the evil depredations of piracy. Oh, we also project power, fight our King’s enemies, but mostly, we go about our lonely occasions, as nobly dedicated to the rule of Law, and the upkeep of Civilisation, as any of King Arthur’s questing knights. To be the strong right arm for the helpless, the only enforcers of Justice that the seas know, Lewrie. Aye, we are just like the knights-errant of old, pure of heart!”
“Aye, sir?” Lewrie mildly rejoined, though stunned by the change in Nicely from being, well…”Nice!”… to what could be taken for a drool-at-the-mouth Turk in a holy, hashish-stoked hallucination!
Knew he was too good t’be true! Lewrie thought, wondering whether he should get out and walk back; He’s ravin’ fit t’chew upholstery… like he’s been got at by the Methodists or William Wilberforce!
“I see, sir.” Lewrie nodded, as if sagely enlightened instead.
“Tell me something, Lewrie,” Nicely said, leaning forward with a crafty look on his phyz, “could I give you a fair wind towards the pursuit and capture or destruction of these murderous scum, cobble up ‘Independent Orders’ to fetch ’em in before the bar of justice for all the world t’see… would you be interested?”
“Oh well, I’d like nothing better, sir,” Lewrie quickly vowed.
And of course he did, for such fervent avowal was pretty much what one was supposed to say. It must here be noted, though, that he also fervently speculated that wherever those pirates had run, there also might be his missing prize. There was the matter of how embarrassed he’d be, did the world learn how he’d lost her, and had spent two whole months chasing a will-o’-the-wisp.
Had those pirates sailed off to Pensacola, Mobile, or New Orleans, there probably wasn’t a hope in Hades of winkling them out without the use of an entire naval squadron and an invasion force to capture or reduce any forts guarding their lair, but… did he cruise off those harbours long enough, surely they’d stand out to sea for another piratical cruise, where he could nail them and punish the one, or all, who had perpetrated those cruelly useless murders … poor Midshipman Burns’s, the most especially.
“Aye,” Lewrie said, with some heat and at least a scrap of hope that such a feat could be accomplished.
“Good,” Capt. Nicely crowed in gentle triumph, leaning back on his coat seat with a satisfied grin. “Good! You’re still of the mind that your man Jugg might have had a hand in it?”
“Jugg, well…” Lewrie said, frowning. “No, sir. I no longer think he instigated it. But I’m still convinced that he knows more about the people involved that he’d admit. Short of torture.”
“We must ‘smoak’ him out, then, Captain Lewrie.” Nicely beamed. “I will put my mind to it, get in touch with a few people currently in port who own knowledge of the Spanish Louisiana and Florida colonies, and might be of avail to our quest. I do believe within a fortnight we could be on their scent. Do you not object, sir, I know one well-connected fellow who could dine with us tonight, so
our campaign may begin at once. A tradesman.”
“A tradesman, sir?” Lewrie asked, sharing an English gentleman’s regard for people who actually handled finances, money, and goods.
“A merchant adventurer, so ’tis said, rather,” Capt. Nicely added. “A Mister Gideon Pollock, who works as the principal agent for the Panton, Leslie & Company trading firm. Big in the Indian trade inland in the Americas. Pack trains and canoe expeditions. Pollock is head of Panton, Leslie’s affairs at New Orleans.”
“A British firm that trades with the Dons, sir?” Lewrie gawped.
“His name arose, once your hands were fetched in, and aroused curiosity in, um… certain quarters,” Capt. Nicely guardedly explained.
Mine arse on a band-box! Lewrie thought, with a sinking feeling in his nether innards; But he don’t mean somebody like Peel, or does he? What in Hell have I agreed to? Certain quarters, mine …!
“Not made the man’s acquaintance myself, yet,” Nicely blathered on. “Though he comes well recommended, and his firm has, ah… proved very useful, in a most quiet way, to the Crown’s interests in the Americas.” Nicely tapped the side of his nose to assure Lewrie that it was covert and sometimes skullduggerish. “This Pollock fellow is reputed to be quite the neck-or-nothing sort when among the savages and brute settlers. Supper should prove int’resting, if nothing else, what?”
“Oh aye, sir… mirth, joy, and bloody glee, sounds like.”
BOOK TWO
Trinculo: The folly of this island! They say There’s but five upon this isle. We are three Of them. If th’ other two be brained like us, The state totters.
THE TEMPEST, ACT III, SCENE 1
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
CHAPTER FIVE
It was not often that Capt. Alan Lewrie, RN, actually sat down to dine with tradesmen; nor, did he suspect, did Capt. Nicely, amiable though he was towards seemingly everyone with whom he came in contact. Tradesmen, even those engaged in managing one’s personal finances, like his solicitor back in London, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy, the people at Coutts’ Bank, his shore or prize agent, well… they weren’t exactly gentlemen, were they, even if they were an hundred times wealthier than their customers.