The King`s Coat

self-made man of his hands, beholden to no one.

I must be healthy, Lewrie assured himself wryly; I can still toady with the best right in the middle of shrieking hysteria…

The wind held steady for hours as they drove nor' east. They were still five days from harbor, if the wind held. Thankfully no one else had gone down ill in the last few hours. Perhaps something they had done had worked against the fever. For all the fear and grief, it had so far been a remarkably fast passage to windward. ’God, give us just a little luck…' Alan felt weights slough from his shoulders each time they cast the log. He could get ashore, away from whatever was causing the Yellow Jack. Tad could get a doctor, and he would get credit for standing as an acting officer. ’Sail ho!' the lookout cried from the mainmast gaff throat. ’Four points off the weather bow. ’

‘Aloft with you, Mister Lewrie, an' spy her out,' Claghome ordered. Alan seized a glass and scrambled up into the rigging to hug the mainmast alongside the lookout. 'Brig,' Alan said, studying the sail through the telescope. 'Aye, zur,' said the lookout. 'An' a Frenchy, I thinks, zur. ’

‘French? Why?' Lewrie asked, afraid he was right. ’Jus' looks French ta me, zur. Can't rightly say.’

’Keep us informed,' Alan said, heading down to report to Claghome. 'A brig, sir, coming north with a soldier's wind. The lookout thinks she's French.’

’Goddarnn, what would a Frog brig be doing so close to Anguilla or Nevis?’

‘Looking for morsels such as us, Mister Claghome?' Lewrie offered, drawing a withering glare from the master's mate. 'An' goddamn you, too, sir,' Claghome shouted. ’Aye aye, sir.' Alan shied, backing away.

An hour passed. By then the strange sail was hull-down over the horizon, both ships doomed to intersect at a point off to the east with no way to avoid meeting. Parrot was going as fast as possible but could not get to windward. Neither, in their pitiful condition, could they run. They had already been seen, and any course of evasion would only take them that much farther away from safety and help for their sick, after getting so tantalizingly near. And neither, reduced in manpower, could they fight well if the brig was indeed French. ’Goddamn me, she's French, all right,' Claghome said after returning from the lookout perch himself. 'Privateer outa Martinique, most-like. Maybe not heavy-gunned but loaded with men for prize crews.’

’So they'll try to board us, sir,' Lewrie said, wondering if their luck could possibly get any worse. ’They might not, if they see we have Yeller Jack aboard. Them Popish breast-beaters is superstitious as hell. We hoist the Quarantine flag, let 'em see our sick, an' they might let Us go fer safer pickin's.’

’And if they don't?' Claghome did not answer him, but walked away to the windward rail and began to pace. As close as they were to death from Yellow Jack, it was preferable to being taken a prize and led off to some prison hulk or dungeon on Martinique. With Kenyon down sick, the burden of running, fighting or striking their colors devolved on him, as if he didn't already have enough to worry about. ’Mister Lewrie,' Lady Cantner called from the hatch to the wardroom. 'I think you should come.. ‘.

Tad was slung in a hammock below the skylight, where there was a chance for some breeze below decks, and Lewrie thought he looked as dead as anyone could that still breathed. He was yellow, the skin stretched taut over his skull, while his eyes were sunk deep in currant-colored circles of exhaustion. ’Tad, how do you keep?' Alan asked softly. ’God, Alan, I am so sick… when I'm gone do write my parents and say I fell in action, will you do that?’

‘You'll be fine, you silly hobbledehoy.' But Tad's hand was dry as sunbaked timber and hot as a gun barrel, and leaning close to him Alan could smell the corruption of the blood in the bile Purnell had been bringing up. ’I can taste it,' Tad was saying. 'I can tastedeath,AIan, I'm going to die-’

‘Nonsense,' Alan said, realizing he was probably right. 'Thanks for… that night,' Tad managed so softly that Alan had to lean ever closer, and it was like bending down over a hot oven. 'It was wonderful, not so hard, after all.. ‘. ’Just like riding a cockhorse,' Alan said, trying to plaster a smile on his face. Tad tried to smile back but began coughing and retching and choking, fighting for breath.

Alan tried to lift him but he was drowning in his own vomit. Tad gripped his hand with all his strength, going rigid, eyes wide open. After a final gasping try for a breath, he went limp, eyes blank and staring at Lewrie. ’Goddarnn it,' Alan cursed, tears burning his eyes. 'Just Goddarnn sweet fuck all!' Lady Cantner came to him and held out her arms, tears on her face, and he sank into her arms gladly. 'Darnme, he was such a decent little chub. Oh, Goddamn this,.. ’

‘He was your friend,' she said, stroking his hair, 'but his sorrow and pain are ended. God harvests the flowers early, and leaves weeds such as us to suffer and try to understand.' That's a hellish sort of comfort, he thought miserably. 'Half a dozen worse people could have died except him. God, what a terrible thing this is! Tad, half the crew sick or dead, Lieutenant Kenyon like to be on his own deathbed, maybe a French privateer ready to take us. What next, for Christ's sake? God, I'm so scared..,’

‘There, there,' Lady Cantner continued to comfort.

God stap me, but she has a great set of poonts, Alan thought inanely, appreciating the tender and yielding surfaces against which his face was now pressed as she gentled him. ’You must have faith, Mister Lewrie,' Lord Cantner said from the door to the aft cabin, just a second before Alan decided that dying would not be so bad, if he could grab hold of Lady Cantner's bouncers for a second, 'I'm sure the other officers shall see us through.’

’Aye, milord,' Alan replied, stepping back and wiping his eyes. Lady Cantner offered a handkerchief and Lewrie applied it to his face. It was Mrs. Hillwood's,.. still redolent of lovemaking. Alan found it hard to keep a straight face, or stifle an urge to begin howling with laughter. He finally managed to say, almost strangling, 'We shall do what we can, me and Mister Claghorne. Right now, we are the officers, milord.’

Lord Cantner's look of annoyance at finding a snivelling midshipman on his wife's tits changed to a stricken rictus at that news. ’Was it his mother's?' Lady Cantner asked of the handkerchief. ’Er… not exactly, milady,' Lewrie said, pulling himself together. He had to escape them before he burst out in manic laughter and they ended up clapping him in irons. 'I thank you for your comfort when I had given way to despair, milady. I have to go on deck, now. Mister Claghome will be needing me. Excuse me.’

Fine bastard's gullion you are, he scathed himself; your best friend just died, all hell riding down on us, scared so bad I wouldn't trust mine arse with a fart, and you're ready to laugh like a deranged loon, and feel up the 'blanket' of our 'livelumber'! He took a glass from the binnacle rack and crossed to join Claghorne, who stood by the windward rail and gripped the narrow bulwark as he stared at their approaching stranger with a forlomexpression. ’About three miles off, now,' Claghorne sighed heavily. 'She'll be up ta us an' alongside in an hour, holdin' the wind gauge,dammit.’

’French, sir?' Lewrie asked, hoping against hope. ’Yes, God rot 'em,' Claghome said. 'See the length of the yards, cut shorter'n ours? No guts fer a stiff wind. Blackpainted masts, an' the way they cut their jibs different from ours?’

‘Then what shall we do, Mister Claghome?’

‘Might still fox 'em. Show 'em a body, tell 'em we have fever aooard. They don't want that… Was it young Purnell?’

‘He just died, sir,' Lewrie said, getting ready to dive back down into a real session of the Blue Devils. ’Damn hard luck. Watch yer luff, By God.. ‘.

The wind had backed a full point to the east-sou' east, and had fallen in its intensity. To stay on the wind for maximum speed they would have to steer more easterly, which was now a perfect course for Antigua, their original destination. ’I do believe that God has a shitten sense of humor,' Claghome said, trying manfully to keep from raging and tearing his hair at his misfortune. ’Sir, if we have to fight-’

‘Mister Lewrie, shut yer trap,' Claghome said, and stepped away from him to begin pacing the deck again as Parrot seemed to slow and ride a little heavier on the sea.

Lewrie eyed the French brig again, now hull-up and aiming for that point of intersection of their courses. There had to be something they could do besides beat up to the brig and surrender, he thought. If Claghome could convince them that Parrot had fever aboard, they just might be shocked enough for Parrot to surprise them. Lewrie began to inventory what they had below in the magazines that might serve. ’Goddamn you, you poltroon,' Lord Cantner was shouting from aft at Claghome. 'There must be some idea in your head.’

’The wind is dying, milord,' Claghome said, close to giving in to despair. 'He has a longer hull, an' with this wind I cannot outrun him. He has more guns an' most likely nine-pounders that can shoot clean through our hull. If they board us they'll not leave a man-jack alive, an' what they'd do ta yer good lady, I shudder ta think about-’

‘Well, I shudder to think about what happens to the Indies if I am captured by those frog-eating sonsabitches,'