"Aye, damn yer eyes," Lewrie relented with a put-upon sigh, all but stumbling over their writhing, tail-whicking eagerness. With much "oofing" and groaning, he knelt to placate them, but it hurt some, and was a slow process, too. "God's sake, don't try this after dark, will ye, Toulon? I can almost see Chalky, but you, ye menace, you're black as a boot! Yes, big baby Wubby feel good? Oh, you too, Chalky lad."
"Mister Gamble… Sah!" the Marine sentry outside his doorway bawled, slamming his musket butt on the deck and stamping his boots to announce the presence of their newest "gift" Midshipman, Darcy Gamble, who came well recommended by both Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Nicely.
"Oh, hell," Lewrie groaned, caught kneeling, and a cat's belly under each hand. "Come, dammit! Christ!" he added under his breath.
"The First Officer, Mister Langlie's duty, sir, and-" Mister Gamble began to say, stepping briskly into the great-cabins, hat under his right arm, chin high in the proud execution of his duties. He widened his eyes, though, and could not help laughing at the sight of his captain on his knees.
"Yess, Mister Gamble?" Lewrie drawled, embarrassed, but determined not to let it faze him. He sat back on his haunches and continued petting the cats, careful for his fingers should they get too happy.
"My pardons, sir, but the, ah… mongoose problem the ship had a few months ago, sir?" Gamble stated, eyes on the stern windows, and all but biting the lining of his mouth to stay sober.
"Oh, the Marines' rat-killin' Trinidad mongoose?" Lewrie asked, as if it was trifling. "Our pagan Hindoo mongoose? Aye?" Lewrie secretly savoured the look of perplexity on young Gamble's phyz, wondering if the lad feared he'd landed a berth in Bedlam, not a crack frigate.
"The First Officer, Mister Langlie, is of the opinion that it, ah… was a she, Captain, sir," Gamble reported, lips quivering as the lunacy of what he was saying struck him. "A pregnant she, in point of fact. There are simultaneous sightings of… mon-geese, one must assume… everywhere, now, sir!"
Lewrie shut his eyes and let a bemused smile spread on his face. "Mine arse on a band-box. Yet the rats are kept in check, hey? Next match, Mister Gamble… put me down for a shilling. On the mongoose."
I'm rich enough now, Lewrie supposed to himself as he slowly got to his feet; I can afford aflutter!
AFTERWORD
Ah, N'awlins, the "Big Easy"… the city where I once had four Hurricanes and closed Pat O'Brien's at dawn, then thought that I was Jean La Fitte, after an LSU-Ole Miss football game at Baton Rouge! I'd driven down with a couple of "Good Ol' Girls" from Ole Miss whom I had met in Memphis. Ole Miss lost 66-6, Archie Manning was quarterback and playing in a cast on his arm, so they took the defeat, and their cry of "Hoddy-Toddy, Christ A'mighty," much like Dionysius's Greek followers took "Evoe!", a reason for serious boozing.
Thanks to Louisiana State University Press for The Founding of New Acadia by Carl Brasseaux and Africans in Colonial Louisiana by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall; and to Pelican Publishing of Gretna, Louisiana, for reprinting George W. Cable's 1884 book, The Creoles of Louisiana for the description of the city and its citizens' character, or lack of it. He did know them best!
Creole and Cajun character names were chosen blind from the indexes in these books, and others, so if anyone whose family name is mentioned may wish to take umbrage, consider this…
I am well armed, and know how to use them.
Boudreaux Balfa's name was inspired by one of my Bluegrass-Americana CDs, where I found several Cajun-Zydeco cuts done by Dewey Balfa (are we kinfolk?) and his family band, though I recall that his family reside on Bayou La Fourche, not Barataria, so as Dewey Balfa said in the liner notes, Toujours Balfa! and more power to 'em, 'cause they're great! I'm trolling for a free CD, Dewey!
For my rendition of Cajun diction, blame that famous Cajun comic, Justin Wilson, with whom I spent a day doing a couple of TV commercials in Memphis in the '80's, when I was a producer-director at WMC-TV.
For the Tennesseans, I borrowed a few of my own kin from my old stomping grounds round Campbell, Claiborne, and Knox Counties, Tennessee. My maternal grandmother, Mary Susan Bowman Ellison, spoke of a cousin of her youth, Jim Hawk McLean, in the Powell Valley, which is halfway between La Follette, Tennessee, and the Cumberland Gap. Every spring, or when a wild hair hit him, Jim Hawk and his cronies would build a flatboat and head downriver to the Mississippi, then raft down to Vicksburg or Natchez, sell their produce and the boat, then buy horses and good breeding stock and come home up the Natchez Trace to Nashville, the Cumberland Trail to Knoxville, all for a lark. They'd sell all but the best mounts in Knoxville, then return to the Powell Valley (originally Powell's!) with half their cash money for the year, so I couldn't resist working a Jim Hawk Ellison into the tale!
Yes, there was a Panton, Leslie Company, a British firm that traded with Indians, Spanish, and frontier settlements. It's mentioned in both The South In The Revolution, Volume Three of A History of the South by John Richard Alden (LSU Press) and The Southern Frontier, 1670 to 1732 by Vernor W. Crane (W. W. Norton Co.). Both provide "dirt" on the many plots and schemers who wished to expand westward along the entire length of the Mississippi, the United States plans, the British scenarios, and the individual states' activities. And, yes, by 1799, President Adams and Congress did wrangle over the costs of a military expedition to boot the weak Spanish out of the Old Southwest! It was up to President Thomas Jefferson to buy it in 1803.
General James Wilkinson was a paid Spanish agent, since 1787. No one could figure out how he was paid, 'til someone noticed, in the wake of the Aaron Burr filibustering conspiracy of 1803-04, that it was odd for barrels of flour and meal to go upriver from New Orleans. The barrels were too heavy and when finally opened were found to hold sacks or small barricos of silver coins! Wilkinson planned to seize Kentucky, Tennessee, or both, as his personal kingdom, at the same time he commanded all U.S. Army troops in both states or territories.
Thanks again to Bob Enrione at CBS in New York for research on Spanish money, its contemporary value, and how it was shipped. All of the New
World was short of solid specie, and Spanish dollars were good just about everywhere. There was a shipload of six million, Bob said, so I got "inspired." Not only is Bob a great source for fun facts, but he also once owned enough brass muzzle-loading naval guns to fit out a brig o' war, and he and his wife are multiple cat "adoptees," hence in the good folks' column.
There really was a Girandoni air-rifle. Austria bought 1,800 to 2,000 of them and "got shot of 'em" right-quick, too. In 1805 Lewis and Clark took air-rifles on the Corps of Discovery trek, and theirs, made in America, worked a lot better. Almost anything else would.
Pierre and Jean La Fitte, hmmm. I couldn't resist slinging them into a novel set round New Orleans and their future infamous haunt on Grand Terre, in Barataria Bay. Even if they were enigmas! None of my research sources on them-including a Young Adult nonfiction book I bought that tried really, really hard to make slave dealing, slave stealing, piracy, and murder sound like just grand, Politically Correct fun-can agree on where Jean La Fitte was born: Bordeaux, Port-au-Prince (Haiti), or Cartagena? He was nineteen in 1799, he was ten! He went to a military school on Guadeloupe, Martinique, or in France. He was part-Jewish and his family had run afoul of the Spanish Inquisition and had fled to the Americas, Jean being born in 1782. Now, there's a good reason to prey on Spanish ships; they'd tried to turn your grandparents into tiki lanterns! The only point of agreement is that Jean La Fitte was a sharp businessman but a horrid sailor who'd heave up his innards on anything but a dead-calm sea.