The King's Privateer Read online

  “But I knew nothing to ‘blab’ before stepping on board, sir,” Alan replied, springing to his own defense out of long-established habit. He’d gotten rather good at it—had to have gotten good at it—since he’d been breeched. “Sir Onsley only said Burgess Chiswick would be going to the Far East on some vital mission but I had no idea I had any part of it until the old fool … until I received my letter from the Admiralty. And I didn’t connect my appointment into this ship with him until Chiswick came aboard, either, sir.”

  “Ah, but yer patron, Sir Onsley could,” Wythy hissed evilly. “What’s more natural among gentlemen in their clubs’n t’ answer an inquiry ’bout where ye are, lad? Under the rose, as it were. Well, let me say, yer former patron. Sir Onsley’s stock ’round Whitehall’s not so high anymore. Find another, ’s my advice t’ ye.”

  “But …”

  “Had ye not been swivin’ with another man’s wife, he’d not have set henchmen on ye to kill ye,” Wythy drummed out, beating Lewrie on the head and shoulders with harsh words. “We’d not have turned all the south of England arsey-varsey lookin’ fer spies, not have spent over a thousand pounds o’ Crown money to do it, either. Had ye the slightest bit o’ sense, ye’d never been caught tuppin’ her in the first place!”

  “Lord Cantner?” Alan burst out in a near-screech of surprise.

  “Aye,” Wythy snarled. “Funny what a man’ll stand for, long’s he don’t have t’ be confronted direct. Funny the things a man’ll stoop to once he is. Two brace o’ murderers, one pair t’ Wheddon Cross if ye’d gone there. T’other pair ye and yer man did for, all scum from a rookery who smuggled brandy an’ lace for your Lord Cantner from the Continent. Seamen, might o’ been in league with Frogs who supplied ’em. First pair come t’ Plymouth an’ nosed about, asking a lot o’ questions. Even tried t’ sign aboard this ship. Hah, ye didn’t know that, did ye, now? Lucky we were a full complement when they did. Couple o’ people in the pay o’ the French got wind o’ it. Began t’ wonder what so many Navy hands were doin’ signin’ aboard Telesto. Never had a clue, ’less ye hadn’t stirred up the waters, Mister Lewrie. Well, we stopped their bloody business. Stopped the business o’ those hired killers, too. Dead bodies floatin’ in a seaport town’r nothin’ much t’ get exercised about.”

  “Jesus.” Alan gulped at the calmness with which Wythy spoke of having four human beings dispatched. He took a pull on his tot of rum.

  “One o’ our people had a little chat with yer Lord Cantner as well,” Wythy went on. “Pity ye ain’t back in London t’ console the poor widow. She’s become a dev’lish wealthy widow, of a sudden.”

  “You … you had him killed?” Alan shuddered.

  “Expired on his own, damn his blood!” Wythy spat, as though he would have relished throttling the old colt’s-tooth. “Right in the middle o’ bein’ told we had him dead t’ rights for attempted murder. An’ how vexed the Crown’d be with him. Apoplexy, they say.”

  “God’s teeth!” Lewrie chilled, raising his tot to drain it dry. Well, at least that was behind him. He’d not have to fear any more attempts on his life from Lord Cantner, anyway, though he wasn’t sure as to Wythy’s or Twigg’s intentions. “Hold on, now, sir. You said that you made inquiries. Did you ask of the Chiswick family? Did you pester them? Did you harm them in any way? By God, if …”

  “Discreet inquiries, nothin’ more,” Wythy assured him. “I’m told the lass’s prettier’n springtime. Soft on her, are ye? Well, she an’ her family weren’t run through the Star Chamber. And, ye’ll be happy t’ know that little servin’ wench isn’t truly ‘ankled.’ My word, but ye’re a busy boy, ain’t ye, now, Mister Lewrie? But d’ye see just how much trouble that wayward prick o’ yer’n has caused us?”

  “Aye, sir,” Alan replied, as abashed as a first-term student.

  “And ye’ll not breathe a bloody word more’n ‘pass the port’ t’ anyone, long’s yer aboard this ship. Long as this venture lasts, eh?”

  “Indeed not, sir,” Alan said, meek as a pup.

  “And ye’ll not go dippin’ yer wick ’less I or Zachariah Twigg give ye leave, now, will ye, Mister Lewrie.” It was not a question.

  “I should think,” Lewrie had to grin, getting his spirit back, “that that would not be a problem for the next six months, Mister Wythy.”

  “’T’isn’t funny, boy. Ye have need o’ swivin’ once we’re in Calcutta, with our leave, mind ye, ye’ll cleave yer tongue t’ the roof o’ yer mouth,” Wythy whispered. “’Cause if ye can’t, if we ever suspect ye of any indiscretion that’d jeopardize this expedition, ’r risk men’s lives, then God have mercy on yer miserable soul! Do we understand each other … Mister Lewrie?”

  “Aye, sir!” Alan answered quickly, suddenly realizing just how dangerous this mission was. “Indeed we do, sir! I give you my solemn oath we do.”

  Christ, would these ghouls kill me? Yes, I think they just might! Goddamn me, what sort of a pack of monsters have I been caged up with? These … these blackamoors work for the Crown?

  “Good. Ye may go, then. By the way …”

  “Yes, Mister Wythy?” Lewrie said, damned eager to get out of the door, but held mesmerized like a bird by a snake.

  “Seems that Lord Cantner might o’ died happy in one respect,” Wythy allowed. “The latest jape runnin’ round his circle back in London’s how he finally fathered an heir, and the effort killed him.”

  “Lady Delia?”

  “Bakin’ some young buck’s bastard, aye,” Wythy noted, grinning briefly.

  “Seems to be a lot of that going ’round, sir.” Alan grimaced. “May I go, sir? Is that all you wish of me for now?”

  “Aye, Mister Lewrie, that’ll be all,” Wythy said, retrieving the glass from Alan’s nerveless hand. “And I do mean all!”

  II

  “The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself.″

  —HERACLITUS

  Chapter 1

  Falconer’s Marine Dictionary, by now well-thumbed and stained with tar, proved prophetic on the subject of winds when Alan referred to it. Running down past Portugal, one hundred leagues offshore, they had reveled in the expected nor’east gales, from 28 degrees to 10 degrees north. Then, with winter waning, they met the southerlies south of 10 degrees north, against which they beat hard to make forward progress. And below that latitude, when the winds did indeed come more easterly, they brought gloom and heavy seas in the region known as The Rains, where Telesto was sometimes becalmed, sometimes boxing the compass in slight, vexing airs to the fourth degree of north. Then had come stronger easterlies, ferocious gales accompanied by chicken-strangling rainstorms and lightning displays worthy of the first portals of Hell to blow them south.

  And once round the Cape of Good Hope, it was hard gales, black clouds and rain like buckshot, Telesto shrinking from fifteen hundred tons or so to the burthen of a rowboat, pitching and swooping like an errant water butt. It was sometimes reassuring that Falconer’s consoled him in Item the Tenth under Winds that

  “Between the fouthern latitudes of 10 and 30 degrees in the Indian Ocean, the general trade wind about the S.E. by S. is found to blow all the year long in the fame manner as in the like latitudes in the Ethiopic ocean; and during the fix months from May to December, thefe winds do reach to within two degrees of the Equator; but during the other fix months, from November to June, a N.W. wind blows in the tract lying between the 3rd and 10th degree of fouthern latitude, in the meridian of the north end of Madagafcar; and between the 2nd and 12th degree of fourth latitude, near the longitude of Sumatra and Java.”

  Lewrie was a bit leery, though, of the footnote from Robert’s Navigation, that “the fwiftnefs of the wind in a great ftorm is not more than 50 to 60 miles in an hour; and a common brifk gale is about 15 miles an hour.” He saw winds greater than that daily.

  Once far enough north, they found the tract of wind which Falconer mentioned that ran like a racecourse between Madagascar and the African coast, f
resh from the south sou’west, which at the Equator changed to the west sou’west.

  And then came the Monsoon winds, which at that season of the year, were out of the sou’west in the Gulf of Bengal, none too gentle, either, as the late-year nor’east Monsoons would be. All in all, it was a horrid voyage for the most part. Captain Ayscough lit a fire under everyone’s tails, and drove Telesto like Jehu drove his chariot, skating the ragged edge of being overpressed by the winds all the way, beating their way southerly along the coast of Africa below the Equator instead of taking the easier way over toward the Brazilian coast, as most Indiamen did.

  Duty, sun sights, baking or boiling in tropic heat, shivering by turns in fear and cold, drenched to the skin in easterly gales and the air and water hot as a mug of “flip,” sweltering in tarred tarpaulin foul-weather gear—weary enough to use his fingers to keep his eyes open in the middle watch, which was his by right of being junior-most officer.

  “If I ever get back home, I’m going to become a farmer,” he kept telling himself.

  They smelled it before they could see it, even with a wind up their starboard quarter, in the last few hours of darkness before the sun burst above the horizon like an exploding howitzer shell. For a change, the winds were light, the seas calm and barely ruffled, barely heaving—more like lake sailing. Telesto gurgled and soughed instead of roaring and sloshing, her fore-foot and cutwater under her bows parting almost still waters in a continuous, lazy surge.

  “What the hell is that?” Lewrie wondered aloud, wiggling his nose like a beagle on a puzzling new trail. After six and a half months, barring the occasional port-call when they broke their passage at Oporto, Madeira and Table Bay at Capetown for hurriedly laden galley fuel, water and cargo, his olfactory senses had been brutalized by the stench of Ship. Tar and salt, fish-room, rancid cheeses and butter, salt-meats fermenting in brine, livestock in the manger, the odors of his fellow travelers below decks.

  “Land, sir?” the middle watch quartermaster speculated from the huge double wheel, which now could be held and spun one-handed in the light airs.

  Yes, there was a hint of coastline: rotting seaweed and the fishy aroma that most people called an ocean smell. But there was something else peeking from beneath that. A hint of cinnamon, pepper, coriander, almost like a Hungary Water that ladies dabbed on—perfume! First a tantalizing fantasy, then a real whiff.

  “Flowers!” Alan yelped in glee. “Lots of green plants. And flowers! Ahoy, bow lookouts! See anything?”

  “Nothin’, sir!”

  “Mister Hogue, leadsmen to the fore-chains. I think we’re in soundings. Boy!” He directed the sleepy cabin servant—ship’s boy on deck to turn the watch glasses on the half-hour bell. “Go aft and inform Captain Ayscough we’re in soundings.”

  “Wake ’im oop, zir?” The boy yawned, stirred from his nap.

  “Hell yes, wake him up. Witty, take a telescope and go aloft. It lacks two hours ’til sunrise, but you might be able to see something even so.”

  “A good morrow to you, Mister Lewrie,” a voice called in the darkness. There was but a sliver of moon to see by, but Alan knew Ayscough’s stern tones well by then. “Soundings, is it?”

  “Smells hellish like it, sir. I’ve sent a man aloft with a glass, Mister Hogue, the master’s mate, and hands to the forechains with the deep-sea leads. Last cast of the log showed just at five knots.”

  Ayscough came close by his side, clad in nightshirt and his watchcoat, his hair tousled by sleep. By the faint glow from the binnacle lanterns Alan could see him close his eyes and sniff deep.

  “Patchouli,” Ayscough muttered, smiling fondly. “Perfumed tresses. Perfumed mustaches. Cooking ghee. Jungle forests and a million flowers opening. Charcoal-burners, garbage-middens, sacred cow and elephant dung. Exotic attars and shite. India, at last!”

  “Hun-drayed faa-thim!” a leadsman in the chains sang out slowly. “One hunn-drayd faa-thim t’ this liine!”

  “Six and a half months,” Alan chuckled. “A damned fine voyage!”

  “A dam’ fast voyage, you mean,” Ayscough commented, leaving his pleasant reverie. “T’only joy of it was passing those ’John Company’ Indiamen like they were anchored fast in the Pool of London! Still, it had its moments. Proper navigation cut weeks off it. One thing I picked up from an evening with Jemmy Trevenen and Captain King of Resistance during the war.”

  “I met King once, sir, at Turk’s Island.”

  “Did you indeed? Clever men. Most masters would stagger from landfall to landfall, you know,” Ayscough mused. “Way over to here, double the distance of their passage, just ’cause that’s the way they learned how to do so. But, with a reliable chronometer, the skills at plotting position, one may cut the odd corner now and then, taking the unknown shorter way. Most of ’em’d be satisfied if they could hug the coast. Like breaking across the Atlantic to the West Indies. Know that ninety percent of the ships still fall as far to the suth’rd as the latitude of Dominica, then cross due west to make their landfall? Just ’cause Dominica’s peaks are a sure seamark one cannot miss. When the Trades are the same south of Cape Verde, and one could scuttle across diagonally and save a week. A week, sir!”

  “As we have, sir,” Alan agreed, toadying a little.

  “Hope you learned a little, then, Mister Lewrie. Something to consider on future commissions. Boy, go run and wake the master Mister Brainard,” Ayscough directed. “Tell him, my compliments, and we’re in soundings of the Hooghly Bar. Hundred fathom now, and I desire his expertise before the coast begins shoaling.”

  “’Iss, zir,” the boy replied, a trifle dubious he could remember all those “break-teeth” words in one sitting.

  “Fiive an’ ninety faa-thim!” a leadsman crowed loud as single rook on a foggy moor morning. “Fiive an’ ninety faa-thim t’ this line! Bott-tim o’ grey mudd!”

  “Grey mud, aye,” Ayscough grunted in familiar pleasure. “Just what I’d expect. Hmm, five knot y’did say, Mister Lewrie? Pipe up to six by sunrise, if I’m any judge of these waters. Have the bosun pipe ‘all-hands’ at the change of watch. We’ll take in t’gallants and feel our way in gently same time’s we scrub decks. Coffee?”

  “I’d admire some, yes sir.”

  “I’ll send you a mug once my steward’s brewed up a pot for me and Mister Brainard,” Ayscough said as he was leaving. “Good thinking on the leadsmen and the overhead lookout, Mister Lewrie.”

  “Thankee, sir,” Alan replied to the departing back. Ayscough was not lavish with his compliments. To earn even that slight, grudging notice was as much approval as most men would get from him in a full three years’ commission. Indeed, a red-letter morning for him!

  Low marshes. Swaying oceans of reeds straggling off to dryer ground. And heat. Harsh, crushing, damp heat worthy of a washerwoman’s boiling, steaming tub of laundry water and the fire that stoked it, the sort of fire that could melt iron and forge artillery.

  Once past the Hooghly Bar and into the river proper, Lewrie envied the hands aloft, up where the wind still filled the sails. On deck, it was hot as the hinges of Hell, and the pounded tar between the deck planks softened and ran sluggish and shiny as treacle.

  “My God!” he cursed, mopping his face with a sleeve. Under his cocked hat, his hair was plastered to his head with perspiration, and sweat glued his shirt and breeches to his body.

  “Serge or broadcloth!” Brainard sniffed, taking a rest from dashing about the decks from one beam to another to take sights on distant spires or landmarks, from tasting and sniffing at what the waxed plumb of the sounding lines brought up. “You dress like you was paradin’ on the Strand in all that heavy clothin’, you’ll be dead as mutton by sundown, mark my words, sir. Think you have to look like an officer all the time? Think the hands wouldn’t recognize your phyz by now? Shuck or die.”

  “Gladly,” Alan agreed, doffing his blue wool officer’s coat and serge waist-coat. They collapsed in wet bundles on the baking deck where he threw the
m—almost left puddles, he imagined. He tore his neck-cloth loose as well. And almost shivered with relief as a puff of wind touched his skin.

  “Once we’re anchored, there’s ten thousand good tailors ashore glad to run you up some lighter clothes. Duck or serge de Nimes. I prefer the lightest Madrassi cotton, meself. You and your man hire a darzee. Won’t cost more’n a half a crown for him to run you up a coat. Waist-coat, too, if you really feel you need one. But I tell you I’d not wear one before sunset,” Brainard cautioned.

  Twigg and Wythy were on deck, taking their ease in canvas chairs atop the poop, screened from the sun by an awning below the boom of the spanker. The servant Ajit Roy was now bare from the knees down, clad in only a loose pair of pyjammy trousers, a sleeveless white cotton shirt that billowed free round his waist and his turban. He was trotting out fresh lemon-water, while another man they’d hired off a passing native boat, as flimsy an excuse for a craft as Alan had ever seen, worked the rope of a pankah to fan them and keep the flies off.

  “We’ve made good progress, even so,” Alan said, unbuttoning his shirt down to his navel to let the light winds play with him.

  “Aye,” Brainard sighed, wiping his own face. “Quarter-point to larboard on your helm, quartermaster. ’Less things have changed much, there’s shoals yonder I’d admire we didn’t strike. Ah, there! D’you see that lump of reddish rock yonder? Looks like a squashed anthill?”

  “Aye, sir,” Alan replied, raising a telescope. Just over the tops of the trees, he could barely make out something more substantial than the foetid coastal lowlands and marshes.

  “Fort William. Be anchored by sunset, if the wind holds,” the sailing master told him. “Pity the poor Frogs. Their Bengal trading factory is far up-river from ours. Chandernargore. Even worse a sail to get there. It’s a wonder they kept it after the last war.”