"Each party supplies two brace of weapons. I have seen Captain Sellers's. Captain Lewrie, d'ye have Colonel Cashman's? Then, please be so good as to place them on yon table and open the boxes so that I and my assistant, and Captain Sellers, may inspect them. After which, you will be free to inspect those brought by Colonel Ledyard Beauman."
"Very good, sir," Lewrie replied, walking back to the bare and rickety table indicated, at the south end of the beach. They had chosen this cove and beach for its privacy, as well as the fact that it lay nearly Sou-Sou'west to Nor-Nor'east, so the rising sun would not be in either party's eyes. He opened the boxes to display the pistols, and their accoutrements; the lidded pocket full of spare flints, the wire vent-pricks in their own depression, the brass rammers slotted in velvet, the bright powder flasks in their snugly sculpted holes, and five new-cast lead balls for each weapon in troughs, gleaming prettily, like spare rings in a lady's jewelry case.
Mr. Hendricks was a good judge of weapons, perhaps from a long experience with the code duello and the arguments of his neighbours. He pricked the vents with the wires to determine that a double-charge was not already loaded, let the rammers drop down the barrels to coax a clean, and empty, "ring" from each pistol, checking closely for any hidden rifling-smoothbores, only, thankee, no cheating!-then watched warily as Lewrie charged all four with powder, added ball and wadding, flipped open the raspy frizzens to prime the pans, then shut them and left them un-cocked, the hammers touched only to adjudge how snugly their flints and leathers were screwed down in the dog's-jaws.
"Discriminatin' taste in arms, the both of them," Mr. Hendricks commented as they repeated the process at Beauman's table. "The best Mantons or Twiggs, and these Philadelphia-made beauties!" he exulted over a pair of ten-inch barreled, silver-chased, and gold-leafed.54-calibre pistols with glossy burled-walnut furniture. "Though I note that Colonel Cashman favours the heavier Mantons, of sixty-three calibre. Ahem, I think we're done. Let us now repair to my neutral table… that'un yonder before the others, and complete our preparations, gentlemen. I have the coin."
He produced a large Spanish silver piece-of-eight, showed them the reverse and obverse, the "head" and the "tail," and poised it upon the nail of his right thumb.
"First, for the south position. Choose, Captain Sellers."
"Uhmm… heads," Sellers blurted after a brief hesitation.
"And tails it is. Captain Lewrie, your principal will be posted on the south end of the beach, and yours, Captain Sellers, will hold the north end of the touch line."
"Mmmph," Sellers grunted, not greatly disappointed; at that hour there was no superiority to either position. The sun would not interfere, nor would the land breeze when it sprang up be strong enough to deviate a bullet's trajectory.
"The first brace of pistols to be used," Hendricks continued in a solemn drone. "Heads for Colonel Cashman's, tails will be for Colonel Beauman's. Captain Lewrie?"
"Heads," Lewrie decided quickly.
"And heads it is. Please be so good as to fetch the initial pair to this table, Captain Lewrie. Captain Sellers, oblige as well by bringing forth your choice of pistols, should a second exchange be necessary?" Lewrie was partial to Mantons, as was Christopher Cashman, so he brought over the box containing the 9-inch barreled Mantons, first, as Sellers returned with a box containing the silver-chased Philadelphia duellers.
"All that remains then, gentlemen, is to announce to your principals that, barring a last-minute reconciliation, the field is ready for their appearances," Hendricks concluded.
Lewrie bowed himself away and strode back through the deep sand to the waiting coach, all his senses as tautly alert and alive as if it were he who would "blaze," savouring the dawn as if it were his last.
False dawn had become a grey but promising predawn, the colours of beach, forests, and the sea turning more vibrant. The inshore waters were turning topaz, the deeps beyond shading off to a blue-grey, barely stirring at slack water of the tide, at the death of the night breezes and the Nor'east Trades.
Tan upper beach, littered with desperate growth, the crown and over-wash barrow bearded with tall reeds that faintly swayed to what little breeze sprang up in fitful puffs; the greyed shell-litter near the crowns, sloughing downward to the hard-pan as if smoothed by some titanic sculptor's hands, to the last, wide taupe and greyed-wet sands where a grown man's boots could barely leave an impression.
Sand, the wet, the cool but muggy tidal marsh aroma, the crisp tang of crystalled salt, the kelp and iodine and blood-copper odours off the wider, open sea assailed his nose, wakening the memories of a half of his life near, or on, the sea.
Lovely damn' mornin'! he thought; what a damn-fool time t'die!
He leaned into the open coach door; no Cashman! Had he deloped?
"Kit?" he softly called, walking round the team of horses.
"Ready, are we?" Cashman gravelled, his voice a tad hoarse.
"All's in order. You've the south end, and your own barkers. For the first shots, at least," Lewrie told him as Cashman cast aside his cloak at last, tossing it to his coachee.
Odd damn' reek! Lewrie thought, looking at a scuffed-up pile of sand on the far side of the coach: 'Tis puke! he realised. Puke and piss.
"Pen quill down me throat," Cashman explained. "No trouble in emptying the ol' bladder, though. Does the hapless bastard get lucky, I'll not have coffee kill me slowly. Never do battle on a full stomach, don't ye know. The death o' many a good man, victuals."
"I'll keep that in mind," Lewrie somberly told him.
Lewrie looked off to the forests above the beach, chilling, as he realised that he'd been horribly remiss, that all the minutiae had made his suspicions quite fly his head! Two coaches and three horses- Who'd ridden, who'd coached? And was there someone lurking over yonder with a rifled weapon?
"Er, Andrews, a word, please. The man-servant, too, if you will fetch him along," Lewrie said, turning from his principal. "Do you keep a keen weather eye peeled on those trees, lad. You see some devilment lurkin', you sing out, hear me? I don't trust the Beaumans not to mark their cards… that Sellers bastard, most of all."
"I'll do it, sah," Andrews vowed, scowling intensely, and the black man-servant to Cashman nodded just as assuredly.
Only a tad reassured, Lewrie caught up with Kit, who had gone on by himself, single-mindedly plodding along through the loose sands, head up, clad only in shirt and breeches, his stock gone and collars undone, and his sleaves rolled halfway to his, elbows.
"What was that about?" Kit snippishly demanded.
"Keepin' 'em occupied and neutral, so no one could accuse us of under-handed doings," Lewrie lied, thinking that the best thing he could do for Kit at that moment was to keep his mind on his foe, without another dread that would keep him looking over his shoulder.
"Ummph!" Cashman said with a snort of understanding.
"Well, there he is," Lewrie pointed out, cringing to say such an inane thing, after all.
Ledyard Beauman was coming toward them across the deep sands, a tad unsteady to their eyes, even at that distance. He was tricked out in the full regimentals of the old, disbanded, 15th, as was his cousin Captain Sellers; black-and-tan riding boots, buff breeches and waistcoat, a gaudy cocked hat awash in white egret feathers and gilt lace, and the heavily gilded, almost burgundy-red coat with buff, gilt, and crimson facings and buttonholes.