"I am informed by the latest post that you and my ward, Sophie de Maubeuge, are in correspondence, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said. "And I am also informed that my permission was granted. Exactly when did I allow such, Mister Langlie? Hmmm?"
"Why, uhm… at Chatham, sir!" Langlie said, reddening, and of a need, perhaps, to cough into his fist for cover. "The last night we lay at anchor, when we dined your family aboard, and held the singing and such, sir? Sophie, uhm… Mistress de Maubeuge, the Vicomtesse, rather, said that she'd spoken to you about it, and had received your permission, so I assumed…"
"Sound a tad more French when she told you, did she?" Lewrie asked, still stern-faced.
"Well, as a matter of fact, aye, she did, Captain. A tad."
"Do you have the pleasure of seeing her face-to-face again, do keep in mind that when she's scheming, she sounds more French than English,
Mister Langlie," Lewrie informed him. "I did not give her leave to write you.
"Oh God, I'm sorry, sir, I…!" Langlie exclaimed. "I beg your forgiveness, and… I never meant to! That's what you meant about conspiring, just now."
"Oh, hush, Mister Langlie," Lewrie wearily told him, waving one hand dismissively. "After knowing you for a year, I rather doubt you're the sort to trifle with the girl, or tarnish my family's reputation… assumin' such a thing's possible, these days."
"Uhm, ah…" Langlie began to agree, then thought better of it. His mouth worked, as if trying to bite his tongue, or stifle a titter of amusement-the sort of laugh that would never do his career or his professional relationship any good.
"Uhm, yayss, quite," Lewrie chuckled, archly sarcastic over his own repute. "You wish to continue corresponding?"
"I do, sir."
"And I'm to assume that Sophie is of the same mind? Despite the distance involved?" Lewrie asked. "And the temptations of local beaus?"
"I may only gather… ah, assume, at present, sir, that she is not averse to receiving my letters," Langlie stammered.
"Many a slip, 'twixt the crouch and the leap," Lewrie allowed, slapping his hands together behind his back and gazing aloft. "Well then, since you ain't poxed, drunk on duty, breakin' out in purplish spots, and can eat with a knife and fork, Mister Langlie… I'll let this stand. Just don't do anything momentous at long distance, d'ye hear me? God knows how long it'll be before we're back home again, and God only knows what home there'll be to welcome you, if there is a home at all."
"Thank you, sir! Thank you so…!" Langlie cried.
"Carry on, Mister Langlie!" Lewrie insisted, shooing him away. "Carry on."
"Very good, sir," he said, doffing his hat eagerly, clumsily, rapturously aquiver, and his face a perfect portrait of bliss.
"You may not thank me, later, d'ye know, sir," Lewrie cautioned. "The wife now despises the Navy worse than God despises the French, if such a thing is possible, and that'll put you right in the middle of it, right in the line of fire, d'ye see? You're asking for trouble, Mister Langlie."
"I'll bear the risk, sir… gladly," the young officer vowed.
"Then you're an idiot, God help you. Women, sir! Mine arse on a band-box!" Lewrie snorted. "Oh, go shove on a rope or something, sir, do! Shoo! And quit that bloody… beaming!"
"Aye aye, sir!" Langlie said, doffing his hat, even making a wee bow in congй, absurdly formal aboard ship; and still grinning like the worst Lunatick in Bedlam, but almost back to a professional bearing.
Well, it's his poor arse, Lewrie decided to himself, pacing aft to his quarterdeck; he's been warned.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Puerto Rico, Lewrie thought, eying the landmass that had risen from the sea a little after Dawn Quarters; and the Mona Passage. Now what do we do? North-about Santo Domingo, or run back along the south shore, close in?
Out to the East'rd lay golden isles, the storied cays that had featured in his youth, the Danish Virgins and below them the beads-on-a-necklace of the Leewards, each a little gem, and this morning almost presaged by how the sea glittered gold, lapis, and sun-silvered.
Are they poxed, too? he asked himself; now it's Fever Season is there a safe lee shore anywhere in the West Indies?
Lewrie hung in the larboard mizen shrouds, just at the beginning of the cat-harpings, coat, hat, and neck-stock off, and savouring a cool morning breeze, the scent of salt and iodine, and a faint fishy tang of shorelines up to the Nor'east. He lowered his telescope and gazed down and in-board to Proteus's gangways and gun-deck, where sailors crowded round in untidy knots, some still licking their chops after a breakfast remnant, as they formed up by gun-crews a bit before the call was piped for drill on the artillery.
For a miraculous change, they looked healthy and fit again, the last ravages of the fevers left astern and ashore. There were formerly half-dead men who now strode about and joshed with their fellows; there were those who had never been infected, no matter how often they'd gone ashore or slept on deck for coolness when anchored; there were the local lads who might have suffered malaria or the Yellow Jack when babies and now were immune, as was he.
With a word, Lewrie could order the ship to beat up through the Mona Passage, round the eastern tip of Hispaniola, and re-enter her old patrol grounds to the north… with the fresh Nor'east Trades blowing so strong that feverish miasmas would always lie alee, and no one else might fall ill.
With a word, he could put Proteus about, turn his back on those golden isles of the Leewards and the Virgins (though he had a yen for a glimpse of them once more) and then the Trades would brush across the island of Hispaniola, wafting God only knew what nastiness right down on them. At sea, with the deck and bulwark railings pitching and tossing, they could not employ Mr. Durant's tar-and-citron pots to counteract the foul miasmas that brought disease with sweet ones. Surely some who had not yet succumbed ran the risk of another exposure; those debilitated the first time might not survive a second.
Lewrie slowly collapsed the tubes of his telescope, each click of the tubes seating a step towards a decision. He turned his body to peer forward, past the spread of the main and fore courses, and the upthrust bow sprit and jib-boom, and the anchor cat-heads. A day more on this course to the Sou'east would take Proteus deep into the waters between Saint Thomas and Saint Croix, where privateers and smugglers were two-a-penny during the Revolution in his "green" days.
Though some could call it poaching, Lewrie told himself with a wry grin. The Royal Navy squadrons based out of English Harbour, down at Antigua, prowled those seas when they could spare vessels from the blockade oн troublesome Guadeloupe, whilst he and his frigate were beholden to Kingston and the West Indies Station.
Ostensibly, every British warship answered to Admiral Parker, and his headquarters at Kingston, from the Bahama Banks to Trinidad, from the Antilles to the shoal waters of the Spanish possessions far to the west, such as New Spain and the Isthmus of Panama, so… would trolling a touch more East'rd really be poaching? It could be excused… couldn't it?
The Leewards were a tempting lure, and not just for him alone. The rare Dutch merchant ships still at sea would try to succour their colonies; if they threaded past the blockade in European waters, that's where they would first strike the West Indies. The supposedly neutral Danes, and those pesky Swedes, would be up to their old games of shipping contraband goods and arms, turning a blind eye to ships from belligerent nations in their harbours; merchantmen, privateers, and the odd ship of war that came calling. American vessels, despite the undeclared war against France, still traded with the Danes, the Dutch, and the Spanish… and probably with the French isles, as well, for they were a mercenary lot for all their protestations, and losses to French privateers.