"Oh, be at ease, Mister Langlie," Lewrie assured him. "We were in disagreement over a joke I wished to play on the French. Still may, does he see his way round it. Once he 'gets down from his high-horse,' that is. 'Tis not a killing matter, 'less he wishes to make it so. I expect a decent dinner, and a bottle of my claret'll bring him back to his senses. Just may do the same for me, you never can tell," Lewrie concluded with a wry, self-disparaging grin.
"I am at ease, sir," Langlie replied, grinning wider, himself. "Thank God, how could I ever explain your, uhm, untimely demise to poor Sophie, or…"
"Now you are being impertinent, Mister Langlie," Lewrie chided him, putting his "stern" face back on for an instant.
"Carrying on, sir, instanter," Langlie quickly said, doffing his hat, and making a rapid escape, back to his proper duties.
Damn you Frogs/ Lewrie thought, turning back to face the island as Proteus ran Large off the wind, now just a bit below the fort, that was still intent on wasting powder and expensive heavy shot on them; I almost had him convinced, but for you bastards interrupting. I still think it's a good idea. Just 'cause it ain't my pigeon, not my line o' work, don't mean it's worthless. 'Lucky, but not brilliant, ' am I? Just a faithful gun-dog, t'point, run, and fetch, am I? Well, we'll see about that!
He pushed himself erect from the cap-rails, turned and stomped black-visaged past his captive captains to the binnacle cabinet, left hand flexing fretful on the hilt of his hanger. He glared at them in passing, speculating which of them, the Frenchman Fleury, or the Dutch master Haljewin (however the Hell one spelled that!), would be the better "tablet" on which to carve his mis-directing message.
Over his shoulder, he heard expostulations in wind-muffled Dutch or French, an evil snicker-followed by more unbelieving splutters. Shoes clomped on the quarterdeck planks, coming nearer.
"Excuse me, again, Captain," Lt. Langlie said, tapping fingers to his hat in a casual salute, "but our prisoners were asking what your argument with Mister Peel was all about, and… I could not help having a bit of fun at their expense. I told them, sir…" Langlie paused, a fist to his mouth to stifle a laugh, and ruin his jape, "I told 'em that you were going to throw them to the sharks, but that Mister Peel thought only one should go over the side, and we'd give him the other."
"You did, did you, Mister Langlie?" Lewrie said, gazing on them past Langlie's shoulder. "Well… tell 'em we'll decide which later."
"Aye aye, sir!"
"Arrr" Lewrie called out, pointing "eeny-meeny-miney-moh" at them. Captain Fleury fainted dead away. And he really did have a very weak bladder!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Admiralty Prize Court on Dominica was ten miles or more to the south of Prince Rupert Bay and its tiny settlement of Portsmouth, at the lee-side port town named Roseau, from the times when the French had owned the island. Lewrie had been forced to trade his smart gig for a humbler but larger cutter and sail down to confer with them.
Dominica had been one of those isles infested with Carib Indians so battle-mad and death-defying that every European power that colonised the Antilles had sworn off the place in 1748, but that hadn't lasted long. Britain took it in 1763, the French got in back in 1778, then Britain again at the end of the American Revolution. The steep, fern-jungle mountains were simply stiff with Caribs, making it a real "King's Bad Bargain."
So was the Prize Court. A greater pack of ignorant "ink-sniffs, thieves, drunkards, and paper buccaneers Lewrie had never laid eyes on! And it was no wonder that they'd greeted his arrival the same way some gang of adolescent London street imps would welcome the sight of a pie-man with a tray of fresh goodies.
Half-literate, spouting "dog-Latin" legalese, their accents an echo of Cockey "Bow Bells," "half-seas-over" on cheap rum or strong "stingo" beer, and sporting mementos of their last half-dozen dinners on greasy cuffs, waist-coats, or breeches, unshaven and unwashed-Lewrie suspected their experience of law had come from the wrong side of some magistrate's bench. He'd have rather dealt with Mr. Peel, who still sulked over their contretemps; it would have been safer, and he would not get gravy-spotted off the furniture, nor would he depart infested with fleas! Besides, this court would refer everything back to Antigua, and reams of paper, gallons of ink, and pounds of stamps and paste would be used up before he, his officers and warrants, or his sailors saw tuppence… sometime in 1810, he sourly suspected. Maybe his grandchildren might have joy of his latest capture's profit.
After that experience, which had taken up most of the morning, and a horrid dinner at a tumbledown dockside tavern, Lewrie walked out the long single quay that speared at least one hundred yards out from the beach before the waters at low tide would allow a ship's boat to come alongside, then rambled on all ramshackley for a good fifty yards more. His cutter, with its single lug-sail furled, was the only one in sight, at present, positively handsome compared to the few scabrous and half-abandoned fishing boats drawn up on the sands.
He paused to fan himself with his hat and belch biliously from his repast. The purported squab had most-like been seagull, and the "Roast Beef of Olde England" had most-like barked at the moon and run after cats before its luck had run out! The infamous two-penny ordinarys of his native London had nothing to fear for their reputations by comparison; and they had most-like not poisoned half as many patrons. He might have tried the pork roast, but the natives on the island were reputed to be cannibals, and he'd not put it past the publican to buy a side of "long pig" (as they said in the Great South Seas) and serve up the loser of some Carib feud.
"You men have eat?" Lewrie enquired of his boat crew after he finally reached them. He had let them step ashore for a meal, and the usual "wet," with instructions for everyone to be back in two hours… and sober, mind. A quick nose-count assured him that no one had been daft enough to take "leg bail" in such a no-hope port; no one appeared "groggy," either-well, no more so than usual.
"Think it was food, sah," his Coxswain, Matthew Andrews, dared to josh with him from his privileged position and long association as his sometime confidant. "It was burnt, and it come on plates."
"Law, Missah Gideon, he b'ile wood chips in slush, it would o' eat bettah, Cap'm sah," little Nelson, one of his recent Black Jamaican "volunteers" further ventured to say.
"Sorry 'bout that, lads," Lewrie commiserated, "but I do think my own dinner was pot-scrapings worse than yours. Let's shove off."
"Back to de ship, sah, aye," Andrews said, shipping the tiller-bar atop the rudder post while Lewrie was offered a hand or two on his way aboard the cutter, and aft to a seat in the stern-sheets.
Two hours later, though, as the cutter bounded close-hauled into Prince Rupert Bay, Lewrie shaded his eyes for a look round. There was HMS Proteus, as pretty as a painting, with her prize moored close by; there was the Yankee stores ship, attended by boats come to fetch out supplies; there was USS Sumter… but there were some new arrivals, too, including a "jack-ass," or hermaphrodite, brig that flew a small blue Harbour Jack right-forward, sprinkled with thirteen white stars, to show that she was an American man o' war; another of their bought-in and converted "Armed Ships," not a vessel built as a warship.
There were three merchant vessels flying the "Stars and Stripes" anchored in the bay, as well. Two were very large three-masted tops'l schooners, with their tall masts raked much farther aft than Lewrie had ever seen before, lying near the new-come armed brig. Farther out in deeper water, and unable to anchor closer to shore for being deep-laden, was a proper three-masted, full-rigged ship, equally as impressive a specimen of the shipbuilders' art, and "Bristol Fashion" smart.