Havoc`s Sword

the strand, and the wheels hissed like hungry dragons over sandier grit and thin soil, the clopping of hooves subdued to the rushing and faint water-drumming of a ship underway.

'Hmmm,' Lewrie commented, taking off his large cocked hat to stick out his head for a look-see. He'd have said something inane and redundant such as 'we're here,' had it not been for the razory glints in Cashman's eyes for disturbing his deep, silent contemplations. For a ha'penny, Lewrie realised, Kit would have bitten his head off!

'Hope Ledyard's been shriven,' Lewrie said, instead, twisting on a wry, lop-sided grin. 'Whatever it is the vicars do for the half-dead.'

Cashman, enveloped by a silk-lined cape, merely nodded, though there was a hint of amusement to the set of his mouth.

The coach body rocked on its thick leather suspension straps, and the horses blew and shook their heads as Andrews and the old Black man-servant that Cashman had brought along sprang down to open the door for them. Lewrie went out first, the two boxes of pistols awkward under his left arm, the expensive wood cases chafing on the hilt of his hanger. He donned his hat, took a deep breath, and looked about their killing ground.

There was very little wind, just the mildest little zephyrs off the sea, the last afterthought of the steady night- winds; not enough to stir the thin mists in the forest above the beach and the coast road, the tendrils of fog that slunk stealthily through the lower scrub of the beach, the manchineel trees and sea-grapes, the withering saplings and wire grasses, the low runners that snaked across the sands. Down the beach, a little to the East'rd, stood a pair of coach-and-fours, a table set up closer to the proper sea-washed beach sands, and a party of caped men who stood waiting for him. Some smoked clay pipes or the Spanish-style cigarillos that were coming into vogue, and he could see the faint gleam of coin-silver flasks as they were tipped up for a sip, the sheen of larger silver or crystal wineglasses as men drank to kill boredom, dread, impatience, or terror. As Lewrie began to plod towards them through the deep, dry-sucking coarser sand of the beach above the high-tide line and the over-wash barrow behind it, the men in the other party left their coaches and strode out toward that table, so he short-tacked to intercept them, the heels of his Hessian boots sinking in, his ankles quickly beginning to ache from the unnatural, enforced gait where toes stayed elevated and rarely had any purchase, where even rough-seasoned soles clumsily skidded and slipped.

There were two coaches, and at least three saddle horses, back of the beach, making Lewrie frown a little as he turned his head for a cursory look; one ornate and its doors emblazoned with a fanciful escutcheon the Beaumans didn't exactly merit. The second coach was plainer, well worn and a touch seedy, its team of four mis- matched and the typical runtish, slab-shanked beasts found in the Colonies. Lewrie deemed that one the surgeon's. The saddle horses, though… there was an agreed-upon limit to how many gentlemen were allowed as witnesses, participants, and seconds. Were they cheating? He would not put it past them, and looked more closely at the trees, where some sharpshooter might be lurking.

'Ah, Captain Lewrie!' the older gentleman, a Mr. Hendricks, and a well-respected squire, planter, and magistrate, called out of a sudden, as if to draw his attention to the immediate field, which made Lewrie even more suspicious. As his second, Lewrie literally held Cashman's honour and safety in his hands, not merely the pettifogging details of well-established custom, usage, and punctilio.

'Mister Hendricks, good morning, sir,' Lewrie replied, halting short of the inviting table-tables, he took note. There were four, in all, three in one row, well separated from one another, with the one in the centre draped in white cloth and agleam with a surgeon's field kit of instruments, the vials, powders, and such with which to save the life of the loser. The farthest table bore two cases of pistols, two pairs of long-barreled death. Their table-so far-was bare.

'You know Mister Trollope, the surgeon.'

'Sir,' Lewrie intoned, doffing his hat.

'Captain Sellers, of course, Colonel Beauman's second.'

'Captain Sellers.'

'Captain Lewrie,' that weedy worthy answered with the merest tilt of his head and a hand that just approached his own cocked hat in a returning salute, his tone icy and top-lofty, looking down his nose.

Kin o' the dead man, o' course, Lewrie told himself; 'spose he has cause t'look gloomy, knowin' his cousin's about t'get knackered.

'Geratt, the surgeon's assistant.' Hendricks went on, waving an arm in the general direction of a mousy little fuss-budget with his hands held rodent-like in the middle of his chest. 'And Mister Hugh Beauman.'

'Sir,' Lewrie solemnly said in greeting, with a faint bow and another doff of his hat. He was surprised that the elder brother gave him a doff and bow of equal courtesy… since he looked as if he had breakfasted on glass splinters and was trying to pass them without a roar of agony. His grimace was worthy of a hanged spaniel.

'Your principal, Colonel Cashman, is come, sir?' Mr. Hendricks softly enquired, sounding the opening bars of the 'dance of honour.'

'He has, sir,' Lewrie formally intoned, casting his eyes to the slim fop, Captain Sellers. 'And yours, Captain Sellers?' Lewrie asked (rather politely, he thought!), but Sellers, still clad in his full regimentals, despite the fact that the 15th West Indies had been mustered out a month before, took umbrage and looked even farther down his nose.

'Damn you, he has, sir!' Sellers shot back. 'The Colonel is more than ready!'

'Tut, now, Captain Sellers,' Hendricks mournfully chid him with a grimace of distaste. 'Decorum, hmm?'

'Aye,' Lewrie could not help tacking on to nettle the little bantam cock, his eyes gone wintry steel-grey despite the feral grin on his face. 'Someone's about t'die, the next few minutes. 'Twas 'blaze 'til death or severe wounding,' d'ye recall, sir? And… do you prefer the pretence of still holding active commission, mind that I out-rank you… and tread wary… sir.'

'Now see here…!' Sellers spluttered, one hand upon the hilt of his smallsword-his left, Lewrie took note with a smirk of derision, not the right, with which to draw it and do anything.

'Gentlemen, please-!' Mr. Hendricks objected, meekly scandalised by their behaviour.

'Damn yer eyes, Lewrie!' Hugh Beauman barked in a husky basso. 'Impertinent… swaggerin', damme-boy… tcha!'

It must have been born in the blood, that all the Beauman men chopped their thoughts into the pithiest shards of sentences that stood in the stead of another man's entire full minute of prosing!

'Mister Beauman, please,' Hendricks insisted, recalling his own dignities in Jamaican Society. 'The both of you, sirs… for shame!'

'My pardons, sir, but Captain Sellers rowed me beyond all temperance,' Lewrie was first to apologise, doffing his hat again. 'I do not yet feel need to demand his apology… or satisfaction for such a slight upon the field on honour. You have my abject apology, sir.'

Think that'un over, toady/ Lewrie smugly thought, bestowing his best beatific smile on Hendricks, his Number One 'shit-eatin' grin' on Sellers. You wish it, we'll make this like a double weddin'! Two for the price of one!

Hendricks rounded slowly on Capt. Sellers, who could do nothing but flummox, redden, fidget, and bob his head as he mumbled like sentiments over his error.

'The occasion for two gentlemen to meet upon the field of honour is a sad, regrettable, yet solemn, uhm, occasion,' Mr. Hendricks gloomily intoned. 'And there is no place for…'

Christ on a crutch, he makes it sound like a wedding preamble! Lewrie thought, lowering his head and biting the lining of his cheeks to keep from snickering, despite all solemnity. 'Does anyone object t 'these two lunaticks blowin' their guts out, speak now, or forever hold yer peace?' Gawd!

'I charge you now, sirs, is there not another course of action by which the parties may obtain satisfaction without the useless effusion of blood? ' Hendricks almost chanted, sounding more like a judge or priest than a referee. 'Even at this last moment, can we not walk away after shaking hands, and forgive all enmities? Captain Lewrie?'

'I regret that there is not, Mister Hendricks,' Lewrie replied. 'My principal is adamant that both public, and private, slurs against his character and military prowess, his pride and his honour, have no other recourse. The hurt inflicted is too grievous.'