The King`s Coat

guns run out and the larboard guns hauled back to the centerline to ease her heel. It will make her faster through the water.’

’Aye aye, sir.’

’Mister Claghorne, we must drive this ship like Jehu for the nearest port. Nevis or St. Kitts, if Anguilla will not serve. It is our only hope that we reach a friendly port with medical facilities greater than our own.' Kenyon seemed foursquare and dependable amid all the suppressed hysteria, but Lewrie could see the tension around his eyes, the desperate glance as he realized just how powerless any man was in the face of the unknown-Yellow Jack.

On the third day in late afternoon they spied a merchant ship. They hoisted their colors and recognition signal. When she was close enough to hail they discovered she was a packet brig, the Black Friars, bound for Kingston. ’Have you a doctor on board?' Kenyon yelled across the surging water that separated them. ’Yes. Have you no surgeon?' the master called back. 'We have many sick aboard.’

’What is it?' the man asked warily. ’We have fever,' Kenyon had to admit. ’I cannot help you,' the master said as Black Friars sped out of reach on an opposite course. ’Goddamn you,' Kenyon shouted. 'Bring to, or I will fire into you!' Lewrie sprang to one of the after swivels and hastily loaded it. He placed a pound ball right in her transom, but Black Friars did not stop for them, but began to loose t' gallants for more speed. Lieutenant Kenyon looked ready to weep as he watched a possible salvation tearing down to leeward, but he could do nothing. No one would turn a hand for them… for fear of the Yellow Jack…

Leonard went down sick. Boggs decocted a foul-tasting brew of quinine bark and forced the hands to drink it, but no one had faith in his cures. The maidservant died at sundown.

It made no sense. Kenyon, Mooney, Claghorne and Lewrie and Purnell discussed it aft, avoiding Boggs, who by then could not raise a cup to his own lips, much less offer help to the sick.

Men had sickened who had not gone ashore into the tropical miasma. They should have been safe. Men who had spent the night ashore did not get sick, but members of the gig's crew who had only been to the boat landing in broad daylight had sickened and died. All ate the same rations, drank the same grog and Black Strap and small beer, breathed the same air ashore, on deck at anchor or below decks.

Had it been the whores? Mooney wondered, something you could get from native women? Yet hardly any of the West Indians in the crew had gotten it, and only one of them had died of it. They were on the mend, or immune somehow. When questioned, most admitted to having the Vomito Negro when they were very young, and surviving. ’The salt rations?' Lewrie said, wondering out loud. 'Sir, we were ashore and we ate fresh food and drank clean drink. We have not been stricken with it. But the crew on salt rations and biscuit for the most part have.’

’Then how do you explain the maid, or the manservant?' Kenyon asked. 'He was much older, and the woman's constitution is not a man's, sir,' Lewrie said, making rationalizations for his own funk… I don't have to die, he told himself grimly, aware of the sour reek of fear on his body and in his clothes. Some of the hands are getting better, the younger ones. Mostly, it's the old and the weak that are dying. Oh God, why not in battle, but not like this. I swear to You I'll offer You anything You want, but don't let me die…

Purnell's breathing made him turn his head. Tad was all covered in sweat, his neckcloth and shirt already soaked with it, and his hands on the tabletop trembled like a fresh-killed cock. 'I am all right,' Purnell rasped. 'Really, I am.. ‘. ’Oh God… take Mister Purnell to the surgeon,' Kenyon ordered.

Around midnight Leonard, the captain's clerk, died. When they held his burial at dawn after Quarters one could hear the hands weeping and snuffling, but it was not any affection for the departed acting purser; it was pity for themselves in the face of the Yellow Jack.

Lewrie was on deck in full uniform to enforce orders, also armed with a pair of pistols and his dirk. The crew was trembling on the edge of panic, and if the officers lost control the men would run wild, get to the rum and spirits, and destroy any chance they might have had to work their way into a friendly port.

Lord and Lady Canmer stood nearby, holding their small bags of Devil's Dung to their noses to allay the stench. Lewrie went to them. ’This wind is holding, milord. Six more days should see us fair into Anguilla,' he said, doffing his hat. ’Pray God it does,' Lady Cantner said. ’You can still work the ship?' the lord asked, working his sour little mouth as though eating a lime. 'Your captain does nothing to assure me. And that mate is so inarticulate he seems half-witted. Pagh, I hate the smell of this.. ‘. ’Perhaps one of milady's scented sachets would serve as well, milord. The assafoetida seems to have had little effect.’

’Gladly,' Lord Cantner said, throwing the foul-smelling bag over the side. 'There's not much to choose between that stuff and the odors from the sick men up forward. Stap me, what a foul stench it is. I'd rather sniff a corpse's arse.’

You can take your pick of arseholes up forward, Lewrie thought. ’Your surgeon is a fool.’

’Only a surgeon's mate, milord. An apothecary, mostly. But I doubt if a surgeon's skill at cutting would avail us. ’

‘No one will tell us anything, and who the hell are you? Your name escapes me.’

’Midshipman Alan Lewrie, milord.’

’You look like you might know something. How long you been wearing the King's coat?’

‘One year, milord.’

’God's teeth.' And Lord Cantner turned away in misery. 'It is not his fault, my dear,' Lady Cantner said. 'Is there anything I could do to help, Mister Lewrie, perhaps help tend to the sick, or read to them?’

‘Delia!' Lord Cantner was shocked at her suggestion. Tending the sick was for the worst sort, those already so degraded that the odors and sights of sick and injured people could have no further influence. It was a job for abbatoir workers, not titled ladies… ’I doubt if anyone could appreciate a good book just now, milady,' Alan said gently, sharing an astounded glance with Lord Cantner that his lady would even consider such a thing. 'The loblolly men shall suffice for the hands. Though I wonder-’

‘Yes?’

‘The other midshipman, Mister Purnell, was taken ill last night. ‘

‘And he is your friend,' she said, full of pity. ’Aye, milady, he is.’

The thought of Tad lying helpless and puking scared him silly, and Tad Purnell lying sick could have been him so easily, still might be… ’I shall go to him at once,' Lady Cantner said, 'if you would approve, my dear.’

’A gentleman, is he?’

‘Aye, milord. Of a good trading family from Bristol.’

’I suppose,' Lord Cantner relented sourly. ’Mister Lewrie?' Claghome called from farther forward. ’Excuse me, milord… milady.’

Claghome stood by the quartermaster at the tiller head, his hands behind his back and his feet planted firmly on the tilting deck, and glooming bleak as poverty. ’Mister Lewrie, the captain's took sick as hell,' he said in a low mutter. 'I'll be dependin' on you an' Mister Mooney ta see us through.’

’Oh, Christ,' Lewrie said, turning cold allover with another shock to his already shattered nerves. 'Has Boggs seen to him?’

‘Boggs stands more chance 0' dyin' 0' barrel-fever than Yeller Jack. Drunk as an emperor down below. Keep that quiet. We don't want the people gettin' scared.’

’They're not already, sir?' Alan shivered. ’Aye, true enough,' Claghome said. 'Knew I could count on ya to buck up an' stay solid. Must be the only person not scared out a yer boots by this.’

’You misjudge me badly, Mister Claghome.’

’Then keep it up, 'cause so everyone else misjudges ya, too. ’

‘May I suggest sir, that you inform Lord Cantner of Lieutenant Kenyon and his distress?’

‘I can't talk his break-teeth kinda words,' Claghome said. 'You do it. I've a ship ta run and he can go hang before I let him shit on me again. Stuck up squinty-eyed little hop-o' -mythumb fool!’

‘Aye, sir, but he is very influential. A word from him in the right place and the officer who brought him safe into harbor could gain a commission overnight.’

’I'm a scaly old fish, Lewrie. Not one 0' yer bowin' an' arsekissin' buggers. I'd be a tarpaulin mate forever before I'd piss down his back, nor anyone else's, ferfavor.’

Lewrie shrugged, knowing that Claghome was out of his element in the face of a peer and was throwing away a sterling opportunity to gain influence because he lacked the wit, and took such a perverse pride in being a tarry,