Havoc`s Sword

ambitious as seizing Saint Domingue, that's certain… uhm, to steal attention from Pelham, it goes without saying,' Mr. Peel fretfully speculated, almost turning queasy for a moment.

'Mmm-hmm,' Lewrie encouraged, with a gesture that could be misconstrued as miming the feeding of one's rival over-side to the sharks.

'Though some might take it as immoderate boasting,' Peel fidgeted. 'Tooting one's own horn, Of being that sort, mean t'say.'

'Under-handed,' Lewrie drolly supplied.

'Quite.'

'Sneaking,' Lewrie said on, 'not the proper, gentlemanly thing.'

'Well, yes…' Peel replied, cutty-eyed with embarrassment.

'Better than spending your whole career being thought of as an unimaginative rear-ranker,' Lewrie beguiled. 'A back-bencher Vicar of Bray. And disappointing old Twigg's expectations of you?'

'Well, there is that,' Peel said, stung to the quick by the idea of letting his old mentor down. 'One could express the hope. Pose the outside possibility…!'

'There's a good fellow!' Lewrie congratulated him.

Gaffed, landed, and in the creel! he silently chortled; But, my God… what a stiff and righteous prick!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Quite a stir we're causing, sir,' Lt. Langlie said as Proteus rounded up into the wind to let go her best bower at the 'top' end of English Harbour's outer roads. She had been last to enter port, after Sumter, Oglethorpe, and their five prizes, which had first been mistaken for a whole squadron of seven American warships, a sight never seen before, or even imagined, in these waters.

'And indeed we should, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie smugly replied, tricked out in his best shore-going uniform and sword. He didn't envy the Antiguan merchants, once they found that the prizes would go back to their masters after a brief hearing at the Admiralty Court, and no profits would be made from their, and their cargoes', sale. What started as an eight-day wonder would become a two-day thrill, and the only ones to gain from it would be the taverns, the eateries, and the prostitutes when victorious Yankee sailors were allowed ashore.

Lewrie thought it would be interesting to see how the shoals of French prisoners were handled. Would America and Great Britain share the cost of gaoling them aboard the hulks? Which power could accept a French officer's promise of parole? Which would negotiate his half-pay so he could keep himself in town until exchanged? And once paid, would France reimburse the United States, since they were not at full war with each other? Lewrie snidely thought those Frogs'd most-like sulk in dockside taverns 'til The Last Trump, since France

hadn't taken any U.S. Navy ships in combat, yet. And most-like wouldn't, not here in the Caribbean, at least.

Proteus had made her number to the shore forts, had fired off a gun salute to Rear- Adm. Harvey, commanding the Leeward Islands Station, and had received a proper twelve guns in reply. Just after, she'd come in 'all standing,' swinging up to her anchorage and furling all canvas in a closely choreographed flurry, the last scrap vanishing in concert with the anchor's splash. That impressive arrival, his news, and his testimony at the Prize Court would win his frigate, and himself, a bit of the island's adulation, perhaps enough to wake the Antigua Prize Court from its usual torpor, and bludgeon its subsidiary on Dominica into action concerning their own prize that still swung idle in Prince Rupert Bay. Frankly, he could use the extra money to spruce up the wear-and- tear on his wardrobe and his accommodations. Besides, his last good 'run ashore' had been months before at Christopher Cashman's boisterous send-off at Kingston.

Lewrie rocked on the balls of his feet, eyes half-closed in fond speculation of good meals, fresh-water washing of all his salt-stained and itchy garments, as Lt. Langlie saw to their anchoring. Him ashore in Sunday-Divisions best, the St. Vincent and Camperdown medals algeam against his shirt ruffles. Successful frigate captains could expect a warm welcome from merchants, and from the ladies…

He knew Antigua of old. Why, there'd be ravishing matrons, and 'grass-widows' simply bored to tears by the local society; there'd be delectably lissome young misses, with lashes and fans all aflutter as he languidly smiled, half-bowed, and doffed his hat. There'd be smiles in return from the more-promising 'runners' among the ladies, the well-hooded, secretive 'perhapses' if not bolder, carnal 'come-hithers.'

Had he at Cashman's going-away? No, and come to think on it, he had been retaining his 'humours' like a Catholic monk, lately, abjuring even tame relief in the practice known in the Navy as 'Boxing the Jesuit'-the one the physicians and parsons condemned for turning manly youth into feeble wheezers, with hair on their pink palms, too!

Why the Devil not? he asked himself; a man wasn 't made to…

Quickly followed by thoughts of Caroline, and reconciliation… then of Desmond McGilliveray, and even more bastardly gullions turning up fifteen years hence to plague him, hmm… perhaps, sadly, not. It was a mortal pity, for the Antigua ladies were raised right in his estimation, as round-heeled and obliging a pack of 'genteel' wantons as anyone could wish for… the sort who'd trip you with a daintily shod foot, then manage to be the first to hit the floor, cunningly asprawl beneath you!

'Anchor's set, sir,' Lt. Langlie reported, and Lewrie turned to take note of Langlie's relief; at last, his onerous task of First Officer could ease, in harbour. Well, mostly, anyway. 'And the battery is secured from the salute.'

'Very well, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie replied, leaving his lusty reveries. 'We'll row out the stern kedge to… there,' he directed, pointing five points off their larboard bows, almost abeam. 'We have room to swing by one anchor, but I'd admire did we haul her up so the prevailing wind's off our larboard quarters, for an easy departure in a few days. And not go 'aboard' a nearby ship, do we swing foul.'

'Aye aye, sir,' Langlie said, looking even more relieved.

'Your pardon, Captain, but there seems to be a boat bound for us,' Midshipman Elwes announced. 'Just there, sir.'

Sure enough; once Lewrie had lifted his glass, he could see the colours in the stern-sheets of a large rowing barge, one sporting fully eight oarsmen, a bow-man, a coxswain, and a useless midshipman aft by the tiller, with a Lieutenant seated forward of them, along with another man dressed like some sort of buskined sportsman out for a 'shoot' on his private game park.

Commanding Admiral's barge, maybe the Port Captain's, Lewrie intuited; officer a flag-lieutenant, the pasty-faced shorebound sort, but why the civilian!' Lewrie allowed himself a wry smirk, supposing that a functionary from the island's governor-general had been sent out to see what all the fuss was about, and had been caught sitting for a portrait as Nimrod the Mighty Hunter, with fowling-piece, custom rifled musket, a brace of setters at his feet with parrots in their mouths, and all.

Damme though, he further wondered; what's left on Antigua worth huntin' anymore? Rats, and runaway sailors?

'Permission to mount the quarterdeck?' Mr. Peel enquired halfway up the larboard ladder, natty in his other suit of 'ditto,' this one in sombre grey rather than black, with a subdued maroon waist-coat.

'Oh, shit! Oh, Hell!' Lewrie spat, lowering his telescope for a second so he could rub his disbelieving eye.

'Well, if you feel that way about it…' Peel griped, piqued.

'Mister the Honourable Grenville Pelham is come to call on us,' Lewrie told him. 'In that barge yonder.'

'What? Pelham! WhatthebloodyHellishedoinghere?' Peel gawped, leaping to the quarterdeck, the bulwarks, and seizing Lewrie's glass for a gape-jawed squint of his own. 'Where… oh. My eyes!'

'No, borrow mine, I insist,' Lewrie grumbled. 'God's Teeth!'

'At least he looks pleased,' Peel took hopeful note. 'He's up and waving like his best horse just came in first. Hmmm… this may not be too bad. 'Ne