"Aye, spare the whores and the simple," Lewrie sneered. "They, at least, have their uses."
"Run his slaves off to the Maroons in the mountains?" Cashman fantasised, blood and thunder and gore a'bubble behind his eyes.
"Spare me a half-dozen strong'uns when you do, Kit. I'm sorely in need of hands," Lewrie suggested. "Hell's Bells, even if they're nought but simple-minded soldiers, I'd gladly take some of your wharf rats when your regiment gets broken up. Need fresh Marines, too…"
"They'll parcel 'em out to t'other under-strength units-oh," Cash-man said, perking up like a wakened cat, and sitting more upright, almost managing, to resemble "sober." His phyz became suffused by a grin, one of the sly sort, filled with impish mischief, slowly, like a high-latitude sunrise.- He peered at Lewrie, then winked!
"What?" Lewrie demanded, perked to the edge of his own chair.
"How many Marines did you say you were short, Alan?" Cashman enquired, with a soft, smugly satisfied chuckle.
"We could use five," Lewrie told him, delighted at the offer he thought was coming. Not that he'd relish gaining hands from a friend's misfortune, but neither was he loath to refuse soon-to-be unemployed volunteers. Not when he'd considered stopping American merchant ships once back at sea, and press-ganging anyone who had even a slight English accent or the slightest error in his citizenship certificate; and God knew three-quarters of those were bogus, or given (or sold!) by an American consul like so many cough lozenges.
"I'll have a word with the best men I have," Cashman promised.
"Hallelujah!"
"There's still some have a taste for soldierin'," Cashman said, tittering with impending glee, "or so calf-headed I can talk 'em into it. But, Alan… but!"
"But, mine arse," Lewrie quipped. "What? Tell me, you sot!"
"You don't mind Black sailors, do you, Alan?"
"Not a bit. Already have some. Think I always have had, every ship I've ever served. They're good hands, too, so… no, it don't signify if they were Eskimos," Lewrie assured him. "Your slaves?"
"How many d'ye think you'd need, then?" Cashman asked, avoiding the query, though hugging his sides in a tittering fit.
"A round dozen'd suit," Lewrie allowed. "Make landsmen of 'em, for pulley-hauley chores. Some young'uns might make topmen, sooner or later. And damme," Lewrie began to enthuse, "I'd kill for just one older one who knows how to cook decent for an hundred or so. Would it be too much to ask, for one of 'em t'be a cook?"
"Oh, I think we can arrange that," Cashman promised, becoming even more mystifying.
"You're not askin' me to buy your slaves, are you, Kit?" Lewrie asked, growing wary of a sudden. "Damme if I'm that keen on slavery, after all you told me, and damned if I can afford 'em, not even at a shilling to the pound, so…"
"Not mine, Alan old son. And free… scot-free."
"Whose, then?" Lewrie said with a chary scowl.
"Ledyard Beauman's," Cashman hooted, slapping the desktop.
"Mine arse on a band-box!" Lewrie exclaimed in wonder.
"It'd be sweet, wouldn't it?" Cashman managed to say, just about wheezing with mirth by then. "Sweet revenge, for one. You sail out to Portland Bight, soon some dark night, and abscond with some of his slaves. Young'uns, like you said, so they haven't been branded or had their backs whip-scarred yet, so who's t'say whose they are, once on your ship? I know some Black freedmen who can get to 'em and promise 'em they'll be free, if they ship with you. What d'ye say?"
Lewrie fell back into his chair, astounded by the idea, giving the proposition a hard think, beginning to chew a thumbnail. Taking slaves, liberating slaves, was just about the worst crime in the West Indies, right up there with horse theft, and a hanging offence.
Damme, but I do need 'em hellish-bad, he thought.
But the risk of getting caught, and the ramifications, would be equally hellish-bad. He'd be stripped of his command, court-martialed, cashiered, and sent home in disgrace at the very least-sent home to face a termagant wife, disaffected kiddies, and another scandal as bad as this one, with Theoni and his bastard! The Navy was all that he knew, and without a civilian career, he'd be in debtors' prison before a year was out, he just knew it.
Before that, though, there'd be the civil courts here on Jamaica that would most-like "scrag" him by the neck, so why worry about infamy in England?
"Sooner or later, someone'd talk, Kit," Lewrie schemed. "Sass from a slave who didn't get to go… damme, don't ya think they'd miss 'em? Raise the hue and cry, remember there was a frigate offshore the night they scarpered, and put two and two together?"
"Ledyard, none of the Beaumans, would know one of their slaves by sight 'less they were house servants," Cashman said dismissively of his qualms. "No brands, no worries. First off, they'd hunt 'em northward, if they thought they'd run off to join the Maroons. And you can depend on me t'plant that rumour… even offer t'lead the hunt!"
"But later…"
"I'll be sellin' up anyway," Cashman went on, "puttin' my own slaves on the block, so who's t'say I didn't sell you some o' mine… with a certified bill of sale t'prove it? Or manumitted 'em before ya lured 'em aboard? We can forge some papers, give 'em other names…"
Like father, like son, Lewrie thought, recalling Sir Hugo's doings back when he'd "press-ganged" him into the Navy, so he could get his paws on the supposed inheritance from Granny Lewrie way off in Devon- because he'd needed the money "hellish-bad" to clear his debts before he lost his St. James's Square house and got slung into prison himself! His father had ended up running to Oporto in Portugal after his scheme had gone "belly-up."
Lisbon's nice and cheap, Lewrie speculated; if all else fails. A rogue on the run could live well, there. Wine's good… hmmm.
"I'll even throw in a cook, from my own stock," Cashman cooed.
"Well, if we sent ship's boats inshore on a moonless night and kept Proteus hull-down…" Lewrie muttered. "Hellish row, though. Like a cutting-out expedition? I'd never be able t'let 'em take shore liberty with the other hands, though."
"Do ye think they'd want t'run the risk any more than you, hey? Those you get, the ones I said I sold, could've been sold to a trader from the Bahamas who took 'em away, so your name never appears in it. What d'ye say, Alan?"
"You know I'd have to sail off to Hell and gone, right after," Lewrie pointed out. "I wouldn't be here to second you when you duel Ledyard. Reprovisioned, I'd be gone for four or five months at the least, do I not run out of hands for prize crews."
"Right, so I kill him first, then we steal his slaves," Cashman merrily suggested. "It'd make sense that they'd run, with him dead and no wife or heirs t'take 'em over, and God knows where they'd get sold after."
"I'd be in port 'til you and he get retired, then you duel him, then we steal his slaves?" Lewrie scoffed. "Captain Sir Edward bloody Charles won't let me linger a minute more than necessary."
"So I get someone else t'be my second, I s'pose," Cashman decided, disappointed. "Wanted you there, t'savour the moment, if for no other reason, but perhaps it's best you were gone when it happens. Less way t'link your name, the slaves' disappearance, and all."
"Hmmm…" Lewrie gnawed a cuticle more deeply, giving it another hard think. Perhaps it would be best, he thought, to be well to windward when the shit started flying. He and his clerk, Padgett, could do up freedmens' papers for his new "volunteers"…
And it would be a grand jape on that ass Ledyard Beauman.
"What are the dues, d'ye think… to join the Slavery Abolition Society?" he said, offering his hand across the desk.