"Do recall, Captain Lewrie," Peel said with his nose in the air, "that I, in my fashion and present line o' work, am as duty-bound as you to your Admiralty. To support my superiors in all they do and obey orders with alacrity and enthusiasm. No matter if I think them daft as bats," he sardonically commented. "Though I am no longer an Army officer, I still know how to 'soldier,' sir!"
"One hopes, when you led a troop of horse, you could adjust to changes, though, not just clatter about obedient to out-dated orders like a mechanical, clockwork toy grenadier. When out of touch with a higher authority… as we are at present, on a 'roving commission'?" Lewrie pressed, determined not to appear impatient with Peel's sturdy sense of honour. Surely in his line of work, such was a hindrance!
"Well, of course," Peel allowed.
"But you think like a soldier, not a seafarer, Mister Peel, and I will tell you the diff'rence," Lewrie added, smiling now, sure that he had him lured, hooked, and in play, with the gaffing and landing to come as certain as sunrise. "Can't send a galloper off to the colonel and expect an answer an hour or so later. Once out of sight of land, we're completely on our own, d'ye see, and weeks or months 'twixt new instructions, with only the vaguest idea where we'd be found if anyone tried. It all depends on time, distance… and the winds, Peel."
"I have noticed that ships are driven by the winds, believe it or not!" Peel retorted, getting his back up again.
"Pelham lies downwind of us, Peel, nearly ten days to a whole fortnight there-to-here, close-hauled to Antigua," Lewrie explained with a smirky, confidential air. "No matter how angry you make him he can only cob you long-distance. The packet brig he'd use to communicate with London starts at a disadvantage to the packets which depart from upwind of Jamaica, d'ye see? Do we put into Antigua, the next few days, assumin' a Jamaica packet's in port and ready to sail, your report takes a full week t'reach him. A day more, say, for Pelham to scream and run about in tiny circles before he damns you by post, but it'll be six weeks 'fore his irate scribblin' reaches London… and perhaps six weeks before they tell him he can lop yer prick off. And Twigg and your superiors'd have your reports two weeks to a month before that. By then, we could very well have ev'rything in our bailiwick wrapped up neat as Boxing Day gifts! Choundas… and a preliminary alliance with the Americans, both. Then who's boss-cock, and who's the goat, eh, Mister Peel?"
"Dear Lord, Lewrie!" Peel exclaimed with a shudder of dread, and looked about himself for the prim Mr. Winwood, who would chide Vice-Admirals for blasphemy. "Why is it every time you start scheming, that I suddenly feel like a prize ram being led into the shearing pen? No, worse! A runt ram, bound for the ball-cutter shears! These years you spent on your roving commissions, so independent… I fear you've been hopelessly corrupted."
"O' course I have!" Lewrie cheerfully laughed. "That, and all that 'drink and bad companions' I mentioned, too. But you do believe we'll get Choundas, in the end?"
"Yes, I do. I'm sure of it," Peel was forced to agree.
"Do you think we'll get the Yankees into alliance with us?"
"Well, I've my doubts on that'un," Peel demurred.
"No matter," Lewrie quickly dismissed with a wave of his hand. " 'Tis the effort that matters, the chance that beguiles, when London hears of it… from you. Surely it's an option they already considered, but… to see one of their agents hard at work on it? One o' their delirium tremens dreams, most-like, right up there with… bright-red, man-eatin', dancin' sheep!"
"Well, there is that," Peel muttered, gnawing on a thumbnail. "By God, Lewrie, the effort would seem bold, even inspired! I do take your point. Did one wish to present the Crown with a plan more likely of fruition… as ambitious as seizing Saint Domingue, that's certain… uhm, to steal attention from Pelham, it goes without saying," Mr. Peel fretfully speculated, almost turning queasy for a moment.
"Mmm-hmm," Lewrie encouraged, with a gesture that could be misconstrued as miming the feeding of one's rival over-side to the sharks.
"Though some might take it as immoderate boasting," Peel fidgeted. "Tooting one's own horn, Of being that sort, mean t'say."
"Under-handed," Lewrie drolly supplied.
"Quite."
"Sneaking," Lewrie said on, "not the proper, gentlemanly thing."
"Well, yes…" Peel replied, cutty-eyed with embarrassment.
"Better than spending your whole career being thought of as an unimaginative rear-ranker," Lewrie beguiled. "A back-bencher Vicar of Bray. And disappointing old Twigg's expectations of you?"
"Well, there is that," Peel said, stung to the quick by the idea of letting his old mentor down. "One could express the hope. Pose the outside possibility…!"
"There's a good fellow!" Lewrie congratulated him.
Gaffed, landed, and in the creel! he silently chortled; But, my God… what a stiff and righteous prick!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Quite a stir we're causing, sir," Lt. Langlie said as Proteus rounded up into the wind to let go her best bower at the "top" end of English Harbour's outer roads. She had been last to enter port, after Sumter, Oglethorpe, and their five prizes, which had first been mistaken for a whole squadron of seven American warships, a sight never seen before, or even imagined, in these waters.
"And indeed we should, Mister Langlie," Lewrie smugly replied, tricked out in his best shore-going uniform and sword. He didn't envy the Antiguan merchants, once they found that the prizes would go back to their masters after a brief hearing at the Admiralty Court, and no profits would be made from their, and their cargoes', sale. What started as an eight-day wonder would become a two-day thrill, and the only ones to gain from it would be the taverns, the eateries, and the prostitutes when victorious Yankee sailors were allowed ashore.
Lewrie thought it would be interesting to see how the shoals of French prisoners were handled. Would America and Great Britain share the cost of gaoling them aboard the hulks? Which power could accept a French officer's promise of parole? Which would negotiate his half-pay so he could keep himself in town until exchanged? And once paid, would France reimburse the United States, since they were not at full war with each other? Lewrie snidely thought those Frogs'd most-like sulk in dockside taverns 'til The Last Trump, since France
hadn't taken any U.S. Navy ships in combat, yet. And most-like wouldn't, not here in the Caribbean, at least.
Proteus had made her number to the shore forts, had fired off a gun salute to Rear-Adm. Harvey, commanding the Leeward Islands Station, and had received a proper twelve guns in reply. Just after, she'd come in "all standing," swinging up to her anchorage and furling all canvas in a closely choreographed flurry, the last scrap vanishing in concert with the anchor's splash. That impressive arrival, his news, and his testimony at the Prize Court would win his frigate, and himself, a bit of the island's adulation, perhaps enough to wake the Antigua Prize Court from its usual torpor, and bludgeon its subsidiary on Dominica into action concerning their own prize that still swung idle in Prince Rupert Bay. Frankly, he could use the extra money to spruce up the wear-and-tear on his wardrobe and his accommodations. Besides, his last good "run ashore" had been months before at Christopher Cashman's boisterous send-off at Kingston.