A King's Trade Read online

“Ah? Hmm, hey?” Lewrie flummoxed, like to cough up half of a lung suddenly. That was not the ugly shoe he’d expected to be dropped!

  “I did note, and wonder, where ye’d found so many free Black volunteers, the weeks I was aboard, whilst you were away, but …” his squadron commander had said, doing some fidgetting of his own.

  They’re going to hang me! the irrational part of Lewrie’s brain screeched at him. The rational half was too stunned to put forth any opinion. I’m caught, red-handed! Christ, shit on a… !

  ” ‘Tis the Beauman family, d’ye see,” Nicely had carped. “A dozen of their slaves ran off one night. Nothing too odd about it, at first glance. One of the risks of slave-holding, with all the tales of the Maroons who’ve fled into the Cockpit Country, or the Blue Mountains…where the Beaumans thought they’d run, even was that plantation right on the sea, on the South coast, and rather far from Maroon territory.”

  “Ah…gerk!” had been Lewrie’s sagacious reply, and his heart banging away like Billy-Oh, about two inches below his tonsils, it felt like. “Bother ye for the port, if you’re…?” he asked, trying damned hard not to stammer. “Then, so, sir?” he managed to state.

  “Organised as the Maroons are,” Nicely had gone on, “it wasn’t beyond credence to think that they couldn’t arrange an escape for any number of slaves determined enough to join them. And, God knows word can pass secret ‘twixt house and field slaves, and runaways, quicker than their masters could manage. No, Lewrie… ‘twas only after the Beaumans managed to find witnesses who said that a darkened ship was in Portland Bight that very night that they began to suspect that the runaways might have had some help, and the ex-slave Maroons are not in possession of many boats, none larger than canoes and such, so…”

  “Perhaps a French, or Spanish, privateer, that …” Lewrie tried to say, with a puzzled shrug.

  “Then, there was all that folderol ‘twixt your friend, Colonel Cashman of that West Indies regiment the Beaumans raised to put down the slave rebellion on Saint-Domingue, and the family,” Capt. Nicely had gravelled reluctantly on, “the duel that followed the accusations slung about after that pot-mess of a battle outside Port-au-Prince, just before the withdrawal of all British forces… cowardice charges by Cashman, ‘gainst the younger Beauman… Ledyard Beauman, was it?”

  Lewrie could only vaguely nod; he did not trust himself to speak.

  “Incompetence charges in reply, then that duel!” Nicely sniffed in gentlemanly outrage at what a shambles that had turned out to be…Ledyard Beauman too scared or drunk to obey the niceties, firing at Cashman’s back before “Kit” could turn, stand, and receive; Cashman drilling the foppish bastard in the belly; Ledyard’s second, a cousin, Captain Sellers from the disbanded regiment, tossing Ledyard a second pistol and drawing his own; and Lewrie, as Cashman’s second, shooting him dead, too, and…

  “Your friend sold up and sailed for America, right after?”

  “Uhm, aye, he did, sir,” Lewrie answered, sensing a reprieve if Kit Cashman was suspected. “Good Lord, Captain Nicely, ye don’t think that Christopher had a… ! Well, I’m damned if…!”

  “The Beaumans did, at first,” Nicely had intoned, so solemnly that Lewrie felt that faint hope shrink like a deflating pig bladder.

  “Spite, sir, pure and simple!” Lewrie managed to declaim.

  “Spite, perhaps, on Colonel Cashman’s part,” Nicely countered. “A parting jape on the whole detestable Beauman clan, and an expensive one. For, wherever your friend Cashman lit in the United States, the dozen fit and young slaves would prove useful in a new farming venture, or a source or ready funds, if not, but…”

  Nicely had drawn out that “but,” turning it into a descending glissando worthy of a dying diva’s final aria, nailing the first spike into the coffin lid by adding, “Of late, though, Hugh Beauman, head of their clan, has heard-tell that your crew has quite a few more Cuffffy sailors in it than the usual frigate so long on station in the Caribbean.”

  “Why, those bastards!” Lewrie spluttered, summoning up every shred he could muster that even resembled righteous indignation, and whey-faced innocence. “Cashman slew Ledyard, I killed one of Hugh’s cousins, so…! Before your time, sir, in my midshipman days during the American Revolution, Lucy Beauman and I were, ah…friendly. We even considered a union, should I earn a commission, but the Beaumans would have none of it. Almost had t’duel one of ‘em then! Barred the house, Lucy and I cut off …!”

  He pointedly didn’t supply that he’d been rogering a scandalous older “grass-widow” on the side whilst trying to squire Lucy, that he had escorted Hugh’s married sister, Anne, about town unchaperoned one day, and not his fault, that faux pas in gentlemanly behaviour.

  “So I have learned, Lewrie,” Nicely had sternly muttered. “Just as I’m aware of the Beaumans’ threats on your life following the duel, which Mister James Peel of the Foreign Office took seriously enough to discover to me, and get you and Proteus safely out to sea, and out of their reach. We are all aware of that.”

  “Ah…we, sir?” a stalwart Capt. Lewrie had quailed.

  “Well, of course, we, sir!” Nicely had barked, obviously grown weary with tip-toeing and shilly-shally. “Me…Peel, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, the island governor, Lord Balcarres …” he ticked off on his blunt fingers. “Spiteful, vengeful calumnies laid against you by men who’ve held grudges against you since the ‘80s may not be deemed sufficiently actionable beyond an initial enquiry. But…”

  The dying diva warbled again.

  Didn’t know he liked German operas, Lewrie fearfully thought at the mere mention of “enquiries.” One look aboard by the Beaumans, and he’d meet up with “Captain Swing,” and why the Hell had he thought the theft of a dozen slaves, no matter how perishing-bad he’d needed hands to man his ship, could escape notice forever? A semi-drunken evening with “Kit” Cashman after the defeat and withdrawal from Saint-Domingue, as Cashman was closing his accounts and preparing to emigrate; “Kit” sniggering as they schemed a way to punish the Beaumans, and, indeed, it was meant to be an expensive, parting jape against them, hitting them where it would hurt them the worst…in their pocket books! A way for Lewrie to flesh out his under-strength crew, with Cashman even offering to urge some of his White ex-soldiers from the disbanded regiment to sign aboard as Marines… !

  “Such scurrilous charges ‘gainst a Commission Sea Officer, and one so successful, and valuable to the Crown, well!” Capt. Nicely had sniffed again with prim anger. “Baseless charges, of course…. Well, we feel that the repute of the Royal Navy should not be tainted with such, so…that is why we thought it best, all round, were you, and Proteus, to be sent away on other duties, Lewrie.” As he said that, Capt. Nicely had squirmed on his chair like a Hindoo fakir trying for a comfortable spot on his bed of nails.

  “Ah, hmm,” Lewrie had responded with an audible gulp of relief. “So, how far d’ye think I…?”

  “There’s despatches in need of transport to Halifax,” Nicely said with a vague wave of his hand, and a cutty-eyed expression on his face. “Hellishly boresome place, Halifax. Fogs, rocks, and shoals…deuced hot summers for that far north, mosquitoes big as wrens, swarms of them as thick as, well… fogs. Nothing much there, but for their dockyard and store houses. What the town was settled for, to service ships on the North American Station, and a seasonal haven for line-of-battle ships from our station, as well. Excellent yard facilities, I know, though. And, isn’t Proteus in need of a bottom cleaning, and a re-coppering?”

  “Well, there is that, sir,” Lewrie had perked up.

  “Of course, with our liners from the Caribbean ready to head up that way, soon, Halifax might be a tad too busy fulfilling their needs, so you may end up swinging round the anchor for a considerable bit of time, before they get round to your case.”

  Oh, don’t say case! Lewrie had most illogically thought, ready to titter with relief; Did I say “case”? Silly old me!

  “So, I should look to closi
ng my shore accounts, d’ye mean, sir?” Lewrie asked, sure then that his departure would be something quicker than “instanter,” and he didn’t need to add dunnings from tailors and chandlers to his troubles.

  “May you achieve all that by dawn tomorrow, it’d be best.”

  “Dawn! Ah ha,” Lewrie had gloomed, with a benumbed nod.

  “Frivolous, detestable, spiteful …” Capt. Nicely had mumbled, intent on nibbling Georgia “pee-cans,” giving them his whole attention, unable to look at Lewrie, or unwilling to do so. And Lewrie wasn’t so sure whether Nicely had been griping about the Beaumans, or him! He’d also noticed that Nicely hadn’t, or couldn’t, put Lewrie to a question of whether the Beaumans’ suspicions were true. What Nicely didn’t know, he could not testify to in a court of law, should it come to it!

  “Well, of course they are, sir!” Lewrie had spat.

  Nicely had squirmed some more, his eyes flicking about as if in search of a basin of water and a towel, like a Roman governor about to remand a felon back to the Court of The Sanhedrin—or so Lewrie’s fervid imagination could conjure at that instant.

  “Sail under Admiralty Orders,” Nicely had grunted, “fly colours of an ‘independent ship,’ all that.”

  “Written orders, sir?” Lewrie had had wit enough to press. The last thing he needed was to be charged with stealing his own frigate!

  “Oh, most assuredly, sir,” Capt. Nicely had chirped. Meaning that Vice-Adm. Parker would treat his departure as a trivial matter of a minor refit for a hard-used frigate, which could carry despatches to Halifax at the same time, and could later swear that he’d known not a blessed thing about any legal charges. Nicely’s signature would not be on those orders, either; nor would Lord Balcarres’s, or Peel’s, or anyone else’s. “Can’t have you just swanning off whenever…damme!”

  Nicely might have said more anent the matter, but was startled by faint brushings of fur against his well-blacked, fashionable boots, as Lewrie’s cats, Toulon and Chalky, took that moment to gird up their not very considerable courage to make musky rencontre of their former cabin-mate.

  Though the cats had made a fuss over Nicely when he’d first gotten aboard to supplant Lewrie, once their master was gone it was another matter, and they’d tormented the man…mostly with piss! Stockings, shoes, linens, sheets, and mattress, dressing robe abandoned on the back of a chair, uniforms laid out near to-hand atop his sea-chests, and the contents of the chests, too, if carelessly left open… all had gotten Toulon’s and Chalky’s “liquid blessings”! Teeth and wee claws had marked Nicely’s boots, sword-belt, and leather scabbard covering, too, and his bright brass or gilt brassards, buttons, or sword fixtures had gone a gangrenous shade of green by the time Lewrie had come back aboard.

  “Why, those…!” Nicely had barked, like to lift his boots from assault, draw his knees to his chest, or climb atop his chair and let out a screech like a lady who’d seen a mouse. “Why… there are the little darlings,” he’d pretended to coo, instead, after he’d gotten past the urge to kick them as far as the stern transom settee. Only to be polite to his host!

  “Aspinall?” Lewrie had called out. “I assume we’ve nothing more private to discuss, Captain Nicely, so I might…?”

  “Aye, have him in,” Nicely had quickly agreed.

  “Thought you were keeping an eye on the cats, lad,” Lewrie said as his steward returned.

  “Oh, I woz, sir. ‘Twoz feedin’ ‘em tasty scraps, but…”

  “If you’d…herd ‘em aft, for a bit longer, I’d be grateful,” Lewrie had gently bade him.

  “O’ course, sir. Here, lads! Come, Toulon! Come, Chalky, an’ here’s more bacon shreds for ye, there’s th’ good littl’un!” Aspinall coaxed, as they trotted for the day-cabin, tails fully erect. Once by Lewrie’s desk, though, the cats did take a moment to gloat over their little shoulders, lick their chops, and seem to grin at each other as if highly pleased with themselves!

  “I’ll see you to the deck, if that is all you, ah …” Lewrie offered, dabbing his mouth with a napkin and rising.

  “Ah, well, aye,” Nicely had replied with a sigh, setting aside his own napkin, and getting to his own feet. “One last thing, sir.”

  “Aye?”

  “Sir Hyde, and Lord Balcarres, both bade me relate to you that they appreciate all you’ve achieved since coming under their command, Lewrie,” Nicely had whispered to him. “They, and I, think you much too valuable an officer to be sacrificed. Though we all consider you the damnedest fool… should the Beaumans’ suspicions hold even a drop of water. Sir Hyde particularly stressed his approval of your fighting qualities, your, ah… unorthodox way of achieving whatever you’re set to accomplish. We, all of us, wish you to know that, should you have need of patronage in future, you may… should the Beaumans insist on laying false charges… count on our support.”

  And, were the charges true, Lewrie would end swinging in small circles in the wind, at the end of a fresh, new rope, it went without saying!

  “I’ll miss ye, Lewrie, ‘deed I shall,” Nicely had said, by way of gruff departure. “Best of luck, young sir,” he added, offering his hand for a fierce shake.

  “Thank you for that, sir…for all you’ve done for me in the past… truly,” Lewrie had soberly answered, realising that the thing was still afoot, that formal charges for grand theft could follow him wherever a mail-packet could go, and, unless he walked away from his ship in a foreign port, there could always be a British court near to hand to find him and haul him before its bench.

  “I really do like you, Lewrie,” Nicely had declared, then, as fiercely as privacy allowed. That was as far as he could go, though; that was all he’d allow himself to say on the matter.

  “I hope we have the chance to serve together, again, sir,” he had replied to that. “Goodbye, sir. May you have a successful cruise down there against the Frogs and Dons, and continued success in your career.”

  “Thankee, Captain Lewrie, thankee,” Nicely had gruffly said.

  Then it had been time for them to call for their swords, hats, and marks of dignity, then go out onto the main deck; up to the quarterdeck, then the starboard gangway as the side-party had assembled, and the strict ritual for the departure of a senior officer was performed. Proteus’s crew, Black and White, still mellow from that rum issue, and their own mid-day meal, had doffed their hats and raised a second cheer for good old Capt. Nicely.

  And Lewrie had stood by the entry-port, hat raised high over his head in salute to watch Capt. Nicely enter his barge and be rowed away to his bright, new frigate…and had suddenly never felt so alone in all his born days.

  BOOK I

  Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici; expertus metuit.

  Those who have never tried think it pleasant to court a friend in power; one who has tried dreads it.

  HORACE, EPISTLES I, XVIII, 86-87

  CHAPTER THREE

  HMS Proteus lay peacefully at anchor in the sheltered waters of Spithead, north of the Isle of Wight, just a bit Sou’east of Gilkicker Point, taking her bearings from the Monkton Fort on the point, the buoy marking the No Man’s Land Shoals, and a windmill on Portdown Hill. It meant a swim of over two miles to the point, and just over a mile swim to reach the Isle of Wight, and a hard slog ‘cross the Ride Sands, when the tide was low, to deter desertion. Desperate as Proteus’s crew was for diversion, and the pleasures of the shore, hungry as they were for solid land, reunion with wives, sweethearts, children, and their parents—for free-flowing kegs of beer, tall tankards of grog or un-watered, neat rum, for “ladies of the town,” alley prostitutes ready to dole out “knee-tremblers,” for sheep or goats, if they were too eager!—it was not to be. Lt. Langlie had already posted fully-uniformed and fully-armed Marines along the bulwarks, the beakheads, and taffrails to keep any “inspired” seamen from slipping over the side in the wee hours when no one was looking.

  Proteus had come in “all-standing,” her best and second bower, and a kedge anchor
, ready to loose if a permanent mooring buoy was not available. With a flashy show of seamanship, the well-trained sailors had rounded her up into the wind as soon as the bearings to shore were satisfactory, had swarmed the masts, yards, and running rigging to take in all sails at once, and one side-battery of her guns ready-loaded and thinly manned to fire a slow, metronomic ritual salute to the Port Admiral, the last discharge timed to be fired at the same moment that not a scrap of canvas remained un-fisted, un-furled, or not harbour-gasketed. Whether such a “scaly-fish” display actually impressed anyone or not, well… under the circumstances which might obtain ashore, Lewrie hoped with crossed fingers that coming to anchor “man o’ war” fashion might mitigate his later reception from his seniors; crossed fingers, as well, that they could actually pull off the stunt!

  It helped, of course, that in the sheltered lee of the Isle of Wight, the wind’s force had been blunted, and the harbour waters were much calmer. Had the sea and wind been up, he wouldn’t have attempted it, no matter how badly he needed to make a good impression!

  He stood about midway aft ‘twixt the helm and the taffrail, in his very best shoregoing uniform, with all his “brightwork” polished as glossy as his boots, and the gilt lace of his coat and hat fit to blind the unwary. He glanced aft to watch one of Proteus’s cutters as it was rowed out astern, with the kedge anchor aboard, and a messenger line bound to the stern cable, which was laid out on the quarterdeck ready for feeding. The cutter made slow but steady progress over the harbour chop, which today was heaving barely two feet.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” Lt. Langlie reported, casually touching the front of his cocked hat, “but the best bower’s down firm in nine fathom, same for the second bower, and we’ve veered off near ninety degrees between ‘em. Fourty-five fathom of chain and cable to each, sir.”

  “You might dismount both nine-pounder bow chasers, for later, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie decided. “Lash ‘em ready to be bound to the cables, should the weather make up. ‘Tis winter, after all.”