"Read and write?" Lewrie asked, sitting on the edge of his desk.
"Yes, sir!" Pettus said, "I mean… aye, sir. My dad taught at a local school, 'til he died, and I had to find a position. Higher mathematics I never mastered, but I can keep a running account book, as good as anything. I've a little Latin, a dab of French, sir."
"Why did you lose your position, then, Pettus?" Lewrie queried. "And, how the Devil did the Press get you?"
"Well, uhm, sir…" Pettus deflated, going all cutty-eyed as a bag of nails. " 'Twas a proper house, the bishop's manse, sir. Run on very moral lines, as I expect you can imagine. Even did the son that I did for have a secret wild streak."
"Most vicars' sons do, as I remember," Lewrie said, thinking of several boys from Church families at his several public schools. Wild was a mild word for 'em, he thought with a private grin; And God bless a vicar's daughter, too!
"He was mad for drink, sir, and someone had to go along to keep an eye on him, keep him out of trouble when he got cup-shot," Pettus explained, the tarred hat going round and round more agitatedly. "And then there was a new maid-of-all-work that was hired on one summer for the season. I was… well, she was pretty as a bunch of flowers, sir, and she and I… struck up a liking. A strong liking. Just sixteen, she was, sir, and I'd a mind that, did I put enough aside, after a few years, the both of us might marry, sir, but…"
Oh dear, Lewrie thought; You poor, deluded young bastard.
"Well, sir… she and I went a bit ahead of ourselves, on our days off," Pettus mournfully related. "If you get my meaning, sir? We ah… found some private places a good walk from town, or the glebe, and, ah… made love, sir, like we were already married. The son… found out about us. Saw us, when he went riding near where we… and the next time I had to go along to guard his drinking bouts, he japed me something awful about her. And it didn't stop outside the house, sir. He started abusing me at home, too, making the worst slurs against Nan… the girl, sir, 'til I couldn't take it any more. One last insult, the middle of the day, at table before his family, and I…
"I dumped the soup tureen on him, sir," Pettus confessed in a meek voice, shrugging and looking down at his shoes. "Creamy pea soup, enough for twelve," he added with a rueful laugh.
"I'm a saucy rascal!" the parrot commented.
"Well, that's one way t'make an exit," Lewrie said, picturing that scene with some relish. It would have been the sort of thing he would have done.
"The only problem, though, sir, was that he blabbed all about the girl, too, and got us both sacked," Pettus said, returning to his misery. "Bishop's wife said she wouldn't stand for fornication in her house, and swore no respectable place would have either of us, not if we depended on her for a recommendation. Nan… she had to leave the parish, and try her luck in Chichester, and I haven't gotten one word from her since."
"And the Impress Service?" Lewrie asked.
"I had a little money laid by, so I could take cheap lodgings whilst I looked for new work, sir," Pettus said. "I do think I got it in my head to go looking for Mister Edw-… the son, sir, and give him a proper thrashing for what he'd done, but… I was never much of a man for drink, sir, but I knew taverns and public houses would be where I could find him, and… I got as drunk as a lord by the time I'd made all the rounds, sir. It was a warm night, so I'd taken off my coat and hat somewhere, and on the way to one of the really low taverns, I ran into the Press party, and… in trousers and waist-coat, with no neck-stock, either, they took my garb for 'short clothing,' cried that I was a sailor, and jumped me. Woke up in the Press tender on the way to Portsmouth… into the receiving ship, and then aboard Thermopylae, sir."
"Just damned bad luck, all round, Pettus," Lewrie decided aloud. "Do you still drink? Steal?"
"Never stole anything in my life, sir!" Pettus declared, almost angrily at the suggestion. "As for drink, well…," he simmered down. "After being pressed, the rum issue is welcome. 'Tis all I can do to choke it down, sir, and give 'sippers' and 'gulpers' to the other lads, most of the time. That way, they don't… bully me quite so badly. I admit it makes life aboard ship more bearable, sir, but I'm not a sot. Your spirits would be safe with me, if that's what you're wondering."
"You understand that, serving me here in the cabins, you would hear things discussed that should not be blabbed to the other sailors," Lewrie went on. "Mum's the word about where we're going, what the officers and I talk about."
"Mum's the word, sir, aye," Pettus solemnly assured him.
"My last man, I allowed to berth in his pantry, yonder," Lewrie said, pointing his chin towards the dog's-box of a stores cabin that he had had the Carpenter, Mr. Lumsden, erect from spare partitions, in addition to the captain's store room below on the orlop, and the lazarette stowage beneath the padded transom settee, right aft. "You would be responsible for the safekeeping of all my goods, strictly under lock and key 'til I need something. Feel like 'striking' as my steward and 'man,' Pettus?"
"I would, sir!" Pettus exclaimed, all but wagging his tail like a puppy in eagerness. "You'll see, sir. I won't let you down."
"You'll have to tolerate the cats," Lewrie said with a smile as he decided to give Pettus a try. "Toulon, there, he's the black-and-white'un. Chalky's the other."
"And, er… Captain Speaks's parrot, too, sir?" Pettus asked.
"Bloody nuisance!" the bird chose to squawk.
"I may be fattenin' him up for supper," Lewrie said, scowling in the bird's direction. "Shift your dunnage, once you've eat, and as soon as you do, my Cox'n, Desmond, will show you where my coffee beans and grinder are. And the pot."
"Uhm, sir," Pettus shyly said. "None of my business, sir, but… Mister Perry, Captain Speaks's Cox'n, ah…"
"I'll deal with that, but thankee for mentioning it to me," he said. "Close to the Captain, is he, Pettus?"
"Been with him as long as the parrot, I heard tell, sir," Pettus replied.
"Maybe he could take the beast," Lewrie said with a snort. "Or, wish t'go ashore to tend to Captain Speaks. That'll be all, for now, Pettus. Report back by Two Bells of the next Watch."
"Aye-aye, sir!"
Well, that's one problem solved, Lewrie thought, congratulating himself and considering sending to the galley for a plate of whatever the crew would be eating; As for Perry…
"Keel-haul the bastard!" the bird screeched. "Tha-wheep!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"… 'til we strike Soundings in the Channel of Old England… from Ushant to Scilly is twenty five leagues… tha-wheep!" the parrot sang within his cloth-covered cage, right aft-as far from the dining-coach as he could be placed.
"Bloody…!" Lewrie muttered under his breath.
"Let me out, for God's sake… awrk!"
"You must admit, sir, he's quite the remarkable vocabulary for a dumb beast" Lt. Ballard commented with a wry smirk. "One might conjure that it's intelligent. Or that the Hindoo concept of reincarnation is valid… that an 'old soul' came back as a bird."
"T'be dredged in flour and pan-fried, does he keep that up," Lewrie threatened, turning his head to scowl at the cage. Toulon and Chalky were seated below the cage, watching it sway gently, chittering and working their paws on the deck, their tails jerking. Turning back to Lt. Ballard, he asked, "Are you sure Captain Speaks's wife is dead-set against having it ashore?"
"Adamantly, sir," Ballard said with a grave expression and a pursing of his full lips.
"Well, I'm just as adamant that the bloody bird goes," Lewrie grumbled as he cut himself a bite of ham. "Cold as it will be where we're going, it'd be a wonder does the damned thing not freeze t'death. I s'pose the coal-burning stoves were Captain Speaks's way of keeping it tropic-warm?"