The French Admiral Read online

  She raised her head and looked him in the eyes. “You better kill them Frogs’re the Rebels’ll come back ta take Chawlst’n, er they’ll be blood in the streets afore they through with the Tidewater Tories, an’ all who serve ’em.”

  “Surely not a poor young whore with no politics?” Alan teased.

  “Hey, hit’s no skin offa yore ass,” she heated up suddenly, angry at being belittled. “Yore out at sea, where they fight clean. You hain’t seen yore neighbors laid out lahk daid hawgs jus’ ’cause they give food an’ shelter ta Rebels that woulda looted ’em iffen they hadn’t. Er seen another fam’ly burned out the next naght when the Rebels come back ta get even with whatever people they thought wuz the closest Tories. Rich dumb-butts lahk you kin call it a war, but hit ain’t nothin’ but murderin’.”

  “Take it easy, now, ’twas not my doing,” Alan said softly.

  “Mah folks didn’ want no part of hit,” she said, now in full cry with tears beginning to streak her face. “We jus’ wanted ta be left alone. But first one side an’ then t’other come around atellin’ us ta choose up sides er die.”

  “Time I was going,” Alan said, rising to dress.

  “Goddamn you,” she cried, punching him in the chest. “Mah daddy got hung by a pack o’ scum said he was fer King George, jus’ ’cause he paid part o’ what he owed in tax when the King’s man come round with a sword ta make him pay up. Wouldn’t even listen to him. An’ not a month later we got burned out an’ lost ever’thin’ ’cause a lyin’ dog Regulator got caught an’ give our name ta the Tory militia. But hit don’t bother the lahks o’ you none, does it? Well, you jus’ go on an’ get yer blueblood arse kilt, an’ ah only wish ta God hit wuz yore fam’ly sufferin’.”

  She collapsed in tears, flinging herself back onto the bed, and sobbed into a pillow to muffle her distress or to hide her lack of real tears. Alan wasn’t sure which. Alan picked up his shirt from the floor and started to put it on over his head, but stopped to look down on her bare body as she wept.

  Damme, I’m a foolish cully to be taken in like this, he thought, knowing that he should walk out and leave her to her tears, but moved all the same, no matter how stupid he considered himself to fall for a whore’s story. He dropped the shirt and sat down on the bed to stroke her back. She hissed something unintelligible at him, but he persisted until she turned to him and took refuge in his arms, wetting his chest with real tears and snuffling and hiccuping with remembered terror and sadness.

  “There, there,” he said, rocking her gently like a child. God, what if she is telling the truth about what happened? Never let it be said of me that I had a lick of sense when it came to women, especially when they spring a leak, he told himself. Maybe part of her tale is real and not some plea for an extra shilling or two. I’d not like to be back in those wilds with every hand turned against me, either.

  “There, there,” he soothed, stroking her back and keeping her close and snug until her sobs became less powerful.

  “Hey, ahm sorry,” she whispered, snuffling. “Ah don’t want ya ta get kilt, ah didn’t mean that. Hit’s jus’ . . .”

  “Well, I don’t want to get killed, either,” he said, and she shrugged in sad mirth against him. “No harm done. Tell me about it.”

  “Las’ thang ah thought ah’d iver do’s become a whore,” she sniffed, now bereft of strong emotion, almost flat in tone. “Thought ah’d marry one o’ the neighbor boys. Didn’t know which yit, but that’s the way o’ thangs. He’d run a farm er a store, an’ we’d have babies an’ live a normal life, ya know? My daddy’d live a good long lahf, an’ my momma wouldn’t be owin’ ever’ meal ta the next man with silver, Rebel er Tory. Me, either.”

  “I am sorry things turned out this way,” Alan said gently, feeling that he meant it, for all his native cynicism. He drew her back down on the bed where she nestled to him like a little girl.

  “We weren’t rich er nothin’, jus’ makin’ hit from crop ta crop, same’s ever’body else,” she said in a tiny voice. “When they burned us out, we lost hit all, jus’ the clothes we stood up in an’ some stuff airin’ on the line ’stead of in the cabin. Half the people wuz agin us ’cause they thought we wuz Tories after they hung Daddy, rest wuz agin us after what that Regulator said an’ we got burned out. Only folks we could take up with wuz the soldiers.”

  “And you started following the army,” he said.

  “First off twuz Rebels.” She shrugged. “They took us in over what happened on our farm, but they wuz chased all over hell an’ we couldn’t keep up, an’ all we got wuz sore feet an’ pore rations. Then the good people called us whores anyways, an’ wouldn’t give us a bye yore leave. Called us pore trash’t needed runnin’ from one parish ta n’other.”

  “Save us all from the smugly moral,” Alan said, minding Treghues.

  “Ran inta Tarleton’s Legion an’ took up with them, got a warsh tub an’ some soap ta earn our keep, but soldiers never have much money, not rankers, noways. Told us we couldn’t stay less’n we wuz doing more’n takin’ in warsh.”

  “You and your mother?” Alan said.

  “Momma weren’t that old. Had me when she wuz sixteen, an’ ah wuz the oldes’ child. She took up with a foot sergeant who didn’t mind the two other kids. Best of a bad deal, he wuz. Ah s’pose she’s still with him. Least she’s still eatin’ well iffen she is, ’cause he’s the biggest chicken thief in the Legion. A real hard man, but kind enough.”

  “And what about you?”

  “Momma trahed ta stick me ta warshin’, but twern’t easy,” she admitted. “Finally, a corp’rl give me a sack dress he’d stole if ah’d go off in the woods with him. Weren’t much of a dress, at that,” she said with a fleeting smile.

  “And the corporal?” Alan asked, feeling her turn to a better mood than just a few minutes before.

  “He weren’t much, neither.” This time she laughed aloud. “But we could get us money enough fer food an’ beddin’, an’ Momma didn’t ask where hit come from after that. I didn’t whore fer jus’ anybody, though.”

  “For the officers?” Alan asked, pouring them both more wine.

  “Hell, yes,” she snorted, now out of tears and laid back at ease. “This cap’n was all worked up ’bout the morals o’ his men, but that didn’t stop him from havin’ me hisself. Then Tom Woods come ’round with an order ta move on, from that cap’n, if ah wasn’t takin’ up with jus’ one of ’em. Anyways, Tom wuz from England and he looked sa grand up on his horse, an’ sa clean all the tahm. Not lahk the soldiers comin’ round. Ah had me on a new dress, had mah hair warshed an’ a li’l scent an’ ah could tell raght off he didn’t want me run off lahk the cap’n said fer him ta do. He got down an’ talked ta me, an’ next thang ah knowed, he wuz offerin’ ta take me on as his mistress, iffen ah’d a mind fer it. Hit seemed lahk a good deal, an’ a way ta get back at the cap’n, sa ah said shore! Got some new dresses, a pony ta ride an’ a cart an’ pony fer Momma an’ her stuff, too. Oh, mah Tom had a slew o’ money! He wuz real proud o’ me, lahked me ta look good an’ show me off ta the other officers, even Colonel Tarleton. Colonel even come sniffin’ ’round an’ offered me a guinea to lay with him.”

  “And did you?” Alan asked, stroking her hips and thighs.

  “What da you think,” she said, smirking. “With the Colonel, hit’s lay down’re get knocked down. Doubt there’s a girl in the Caralinas he hain’t had, even he had ta rape ’em ta take what he wanted. Tom weren’t too happy on me after that, got all upset, but he knew ah was whorin’ when he met me. Maybe that’s why he wuz sa eager ta leave me here in Chawlst’n when the army marched north. Momma went on with ’em ta Wilmin’ton, but Tom left me twenty pounds an’ tole me he couldn’t take no camp followers along as they wuz gonna march light an’ fast. Raght after that, the money wuz runnin’ out, so ah took up with Lady Jane an’ come away with her hyuh.”

  Alan suspected there was more to Lieutenant Woods’s rejection of her than she was telling,
but it didn’t really matter. She was out of her bad mood and still in bed with him, without a stitch on, and it was barely three in the afternoon. Alan stroked her into a better mood soon enough, and this time, perhaps from some gratitude she felt for his listening, or for his seeming concern, she was more properly passionate, and gave him the best rides he had known in months.

  I feel like a fool, anyway, Alan thought as they left the house in the gloom of early evening. It was five, and they would barely be able to get back to the landing and take a boat out to their ship to report on time.

  Alan had left her a crown, despite all his good intentions not to be gulled by the girl, and he carried a hastily written letter from Bess to her mother in the event they put into Wilmington or caught up with the army.

  “And how was Della?” Alan asked David as they strolled loose hipped along the dirt road for the lower part of town.

  “Damned interesting,” David said. “Not as virginal as she seemed at first, thank God. Almost made me feel as if I were ravishing her for the first time for a while there.”

  “Lots of tears and entreaties?”

  “Well, there’s that,” David confessed. “I suppose that is something they all do.”

  “Only if it pays,” Alan said with a lofty air of superiority in amorous dealings. “With an older man, she might have been a fishwife, if that was what was desired. Now you take that Bess. Started off acting like I was a great treat until she found all the acting wasn’t necessary. They all have an air that appeals more to one than another. They’re probably comparing tips and sharing notes about us to see what will make them more money from the next pair of fellows like us. Might even take turns playing the ravaged innocent,” Alan said cynically.

  “My God, what a hard bastard you are,” David said.

  “What did you think we bought back there, undying love?”

  “No matter what you say, I think she truly liked me, beyond the coin we gave her and her mistress,” David said stubbornly.

  “She might have, David, but it don’t signify once we’re gone,” Alan said. “Tonight she’ll be just as nice to the next man with money in his purse. What difference? We got what we wanted. Now, someone you could set up as your mistress, that might be a different story.”

  “She was not some drab you rattle in an alley,” David insisted. “She’s more a courtesan, taking hours to please instead of a quarter hour and a quick wash. She has time to decide whom she truly likes or dislikes and is probably genuinely glad to see a favored customer again. I felt sorry for her, actually.”

  “Well, I can’t think it natural that two such pretty girls have to take to that life except from sheer necessity,” Alan said, realizing David would believe what he wished. He did not want to dispel all David’s illusions or ruin his birthday remembrances with the brutal truth. And Bess had rung true, and had treated him with what felt at the end to be almost genuine fondness, and he did not think her so jaded or skilled.

  “My sentiments exactly,” David said firmly.

  “Still, without necessity, there’d be a lot fewer available and obliging young girls to make sport with, so I think we should propose a toast to brute needs when we’re back aboard,” Alan said, tongue in cheek.

  “Especially our brute needs,” David laughed, tipping Alan’s cocked hat forward onto his nose. “Remember what Wilkes said, A few good fucks and then we die.”

  “Speaking of brute needs,” Alan said, looking up and down the street, and to where it joined a busier thoroughfare in the market area, “keep a sharp lookout while I pump my bilge on these . . . azaleas, or whatever.”

  He stepped into the weeds until he was out of sight and unbuttoned his breeches to make water.

  “No worry, Alan,” David told him softly. “No one coming but a pack of men with a cart.”

  “Fine. Be out directly.”

  “Jesus Christ!” David yelped. “Alan!”

  “What?” Alan yelled back, aware of the sounds of running feet in the dirt of the road. He did up enough buttons to preserve modesty and stepped out into the lane, hand on his dirk.

  There were three men on the road, big bruisers with staffs in their hands, all intent on beating David senseless, hemming him in as he stepped back with his dirk drawn. Two more faced the weeds, waiting for Alan.

  “Get the Tory shits now,” one man rasped.

  “The hell you will,” Alan said, drawing his own weapon. The man from the pair nearer him swung his staff. Alan leaped at him, taking the wood on his forearm and palm with a loud smack that almost paralyzed his left arm, but he was inside the man’s guard, arm extended.

  He buried his dirk hilt deep in the man’s stomach, bringing a howl of agony, for it was a death wound, death for sure not too many days in future. He bulled over him as the man collapsed, using the body as a shield against the second man’s staff. The man jabbed with the pole to keep him away. Alan fended off with his numb left arm once more, slashed at the hands that held the staff and nearly sawed off a couple of fingers. As the attacker flinched with pain, Alan shouldered up to him, shoving him away, and as he spun to turn, stabbed him in the kidneys, which brought another terrified shriek of pain.

  David had been knocked down, though he had hurt one of his foes, a man clutching a slashed forearm. Alan gave a great shout and ran to David’s assistance even as the remaining two prepared to brain him.

  “Die, you bastards,” Alan howled, brandishing his bloody blade.

  “Leave it,” their leader said, and they broke their circle about David to run back up the lane to the north, but they had Alan in their way. As they paused, David picked up a discarded staff and tripped the wounded one, and the others abandoned him as their courage left them. David slashed the last opponent across the back of the thigh as he stumbled to his feet, bringing him down once more for good while the other two made off at their best speed, abandoning their cart and their dead.

  “You much hurt?” Alan asked, getting his breath back.

  “Of course I am, you ass,” David gasped, wiping blood out of his eyes from his head wound. “You think this is claret or something?”

  “Go get the watch, then, while I keep an eye on these.”

  “Uh, could you do it, Alan?” David said, sinking to the ground. “I can hardly see straight. Sort of dizzy and weak, too.”

  “Help!” Alan yelled in his best quarterdeck voice. “Call the watch! Cut-purses! Murder!”

  “I’ll be alright, I think, if I can sit down.” David sighed. “You go get some help.”

  “Lawsy mussy!” A black man spoke from the gloom. He was barefoot, dressed in a pair of discarded breeches, ragged shirt, and straw hat, leading a donkey.

  “You!” Alan bawled, freezing the man in his tracks. “Go get the watch, or help from the nearest store! We’ve been attacked by five men and my friend is hurt!”

  “He sho is!” the black man agreed, goggle eyed.

  “Well, get with it, damn you!”

  “Yassuh! Yassuh!”

  Within minutes there was an army patrol on the scene, prodding the dead and taking the wounded foes into custody, taking notes on how the attack had started and binding David’s head up in a shirt ripped from the back of one of the dead assailants.

  “And they said ‘Get the Tories’?” the young infantry ensign asked as they made their way toward the lit streets. “You are certain of it?”

  “Exactly, sir,” Alan replied, trying to find something on which he could wipe his dirk free of blood.

  “Might have been an attempt to take your purses.” The ensign pondered. “Where were you coming from?”

  “The knocking shop up the road, Lady Jane’s,” Alan volunteered. “By God, it’s nearly the end of the first dog. We have to get word to our ship we were set upon, or my captain’ll have our hides off!”

  “Lady Jane’s, eh?” the ensign sneered. “You’re lucky to get out of the doors with your heads still attached. We’ve been keeping an eye on it for weeks now. A
little too much roughness going on there for my captain’s comfort. You’d not be the first to be robbed after going there.”

  “You don’t think they had anything to do with it, do you?” Alan asked, familiar enough with rough practices back in London to guess that they were indeed lucky to be alive.

  “Not sure about that.” The ensign shrugged in his trim red coat. “But it’s far enough out and dark enough off the main streets for footpads to be sure of easy pickings, not like some of the brothels closer in. Gets a better clientele, with heavier purses than most of the sailors’ haunts, at any rate.”

  “Think you’d better see this, sir,” his corporal said from the cart, which still stood in the middle of the road, the runty horse flickering her ears with supreme patience. The corporal held up ropes, grain sacks, two muskets, and some old blankets. “Might have been more than robbery, sir.”

  “Corporal, send a man to the captain. Tell him we have three Rebel suspects who were part of an attack on two sailors.”

  “Midshipmen,” Alan corrected, not wanting to be considered a mere sailor now that he had his equanimity back, along with his wind.

  “Whatever.” The ensign sniffed at being corrected. “Send another man to the wharf. Which ship?”

  “The Desperate frigate sir,” Alan replied. “Commander Treghues.”

  “However do you spell that?” the ensign asked.

  “Commander the Honorable T-R-E-G-H-U-E-S,” Alan replied sardonically.

  “Ah, one of those, eh? Tell him to really foot it, Corporal.”

  They were taken to the watch office near the wharves at the foot of the town, and while David’s head wound was being staunched and sewn up they gave a more formal statement, interrupted by David’s protests at the dullness of the army surgeon’s needle.

  “I believe that should be all the information we need,” a lieutenant said finally. “We have the prisoners to question, and we’ll find the others quick enough, you can count on that.”