there somewhere, though they were hard to espy. Goodell was as tall and straight as a musket stood on end, and just about that lean. Big hands flexed, as hairy-backed as his chin; big feet clumped on the deck in awkward pique at the sight of their British interloper; legs encased in unadorned, well-blacked boots as tall as a dragoon's-though with the usual knee-flaps cut off.
'So thou art the British Captain Alan Lewrie,' Goodell rasped, 'of whom, of late, so much has been related to me, sir.'
'I am, sir, and honoured t'make your acquaintance,' Lewrie pleasantly purred back, even if he did feel the 'nutmegs' in his groin pucker and 'tuck up' at the sight and sound of that ominous worthy.
'Captain McGilliveray told me thee might come aboard, whilst I was here, Captain Lewrie,' Goodell grumbled, 'though, surely, he hath told thee of my lack of fondness for the British.'
'Captain McGilliveray discovered to me your experiences in the last war, Captain, aye,' Lewrie replied, 'for which I can but offer a poor and unofficial apology. Times change, however. Circumstances are different, and, one may hope, old grudges are set aside in the face of the new situation which obtains, so we may…'
'President Adams and our Navy Secretary, Mister Stoddert, whom I hold to be otherwise sensible men, order me to share signals with thee, and fodder off thy dockyards and chandleries, to… cooperate,' Capt. Goodell rumbled, owl-eyes asquint and teeth bared, turning 'cooperate' into an epithet, 'but not to take hands with thy Royal Navy openly. Captains Randolph and McGilliveray have already hove up a cable shy of open alliance, sir… for which inconsiderate actions I have chastised them. Now, here thee cometh, with yet another beguiling fruit from off the Tree of Wickedness. To tempt me as the Serpent tempted Eve, as Eve corrupted Adam, sir?' he growled in righteous indignation.
'To present you with a chance to use your Hancock in the way she was intended, sir,' Lewrie calmly rejoined, feet apart and hands behind his back. He tried on a grin, and a casual tone. 'One would assume by now you've shifted Hancock's battery, since last I was aboard her, and lightened her of end-weight? Captain Kershaw had burdened her with too many guns. So freed, she must represent the very best your nation may field, in terms of speed and weight of metal, so…'
'Shalt never tell thee what armament a ship of the United States Navy bears, sir!' Goodell barked, tilting his head back and looking down his nose.
So much for tarry yarnin' 'twixt professionals! Lewrie thought, wincing; the brute loves me like Satan loves holy water/
'Twenty-four pounders on her lower deck, twelves above,' Lewrie surmised aloud, 'perhaps even long twelves as chase guns, none of which signify, Captain Goodell. You may black 'em with paint, cruise about and show the flag, even daunt the odd French privateer, then plod home with a trade convoy when your biscuit and beer give out. Or… you could black 'em with powder smoke and eliminate any present, or future, threat to American-flagged vessels in the Caribbean, and ham-string the rebellious slave armies of Saint Domingue, for lack of arms. Whatever designs the United States has on that half of Hispaniola would be furthered, as well, sir,' he baldly stated.
'And unwittingly playing cat's-paw to further British designs on that benighted isle, sir? No, never!' Goodell spat back.
'For all of Hispaniola, I don't give a tinker's… fig!' Lewrie honestly told him, though doubting that the prim Goodell would care for him saying 'damn.'
'So thou sayest, sir, though thy spies yet scheme to seize it,' Goodell accused.
'Aye, they do, sir,' Lewrie admitted without a qualm, 'and much joy may they have in the doing. It keeps them occupied, and gives the Crown the impression they're earnin' their pay. But we both know that the task's a bootless endeavour. Much the same could be said for your agents, too. L'Ouverture, Rigaud, some ambitious Black general no one suspects… none of 'em'll ever trust Whites t'deal fair. Your ships and ours may someday trade there, but that'll be all we'll do, 'cause the Black rebels will fight tooth and claw, to the last drop of White blood, to stay independent and un-enslaved. We took our shot and lost an hundred thousand men. Britain won't try again, and I doubt that America'd spend her soldiers' lives that prodigal, either. Speak to your consuls, your spies, on Saint Domingue, they'll say the same.'
'My country does not spy, I tell thee!' Goodell snapped.
'Moses and his generals did,' Lewrie said tongue-in-cheek, 'as they entered the Promised Land, sir. Washington did. Every-'
'Thun-der-ation!' Capt. Goodell roared, clapping his hands aft of his back and stomping about to give Lewrie his insulted back. 'Infuriating… base… cynicism. Pah! Idolatrous mockery!'
'I am all that, and more, sir,' Lewrie cheerfully confessed to him. 'Ask Mister Grenville Pelham or Mister James Peel, they'll give you chapter and verse. Our spies, sir… the ones I know of. I care not, does Saint Domingue go 'poof like Sodom and Gomorrah. And no matter what sealed orders you have from your esteemed Mister Stoddert, sooner or later you'll come to the same conclusion. What counts in the end is keepin' all this double-dealin' muck off our escutcheons… and doing the honourable thing in our nations' names.'
Goodell whirled about to face him, eyes blared deep in his overhanging hair and cheek-high thatch, this time flatly astonished, as if someone had tweaked Noah on his buttocks.
'Thou just up and names thy schemers, Captain Lewrie?' Goodell hissed, goggling. 'Surely, thou art like no British officer it's been my sorrow to experience. Why dost thou do so, sir?' he demanded.
'B'lieve me, sir, you ain't the first ever accused me o' bein' diff'rent,' Lewrie said with a self-deprecating chuckle. 'As to why, it's 'cause the prize they seek is Fiddlestick's End, when the biggest threat is Guillaume Choundas, his warships, and his convoy, and do you stop his business, 'stead o' me, I care not a whit. Captain Mc-Gilliveray's told you of him, sir? Of his utter, depraved vileness, his penchant for torture, his pref'rence for childr-?'
'Hisst!' Capt. Goodell snapped, raising a hand as if to ward off the Devil himself. 'Do not, I conjure thee, sully great Jehovah's own sweet air with talk of such un-natural abominations, sir.'
'Sorry, but that's what he is, sir,' Lewrie said, admonished.
'Foetid spawn of Satan,' Goodell ominously growled, 'is what he is! Oh, that noble France could fall under the sway of such evil men! Deluded first by wicked Popery, and despoiled second by those spiteful of even mistaken creeds! Now we see the rotten fruits of a tyrannical Catholicism for what it truly is, where its vaunting pomp and mindless rituals lead… to the very rim of Hell's bottomless pit! Now, they besmirch the sweetest words of all, I say! Liberty, Freedom, and Democracy, wrested from the cruel grasp of an oppressive despot, from the maw of Mammon, the very bed-rock of our new nation, the best hope for Mankind in all the world, is sullied and become accursed, is become a stink in the nostrils of those who'd yearn to emulate us!
'All due to the grievous excesses and bloody-handed terrors of a revolution betrayed, its finest sentiments satanically twisted into a lust for conquest and despotism in the name of 'The People,' for Man not God… its pure authors slain on the altar of… Reason, but not Faith!' Capt. Goodell ranted, his voice rising, as did his bile, arms flogging the air as he angrily paced McGilliveray's great-cabins like a 'Leaping Methodist' preacher at a Welsh revival meeting.
Lewrie was, when pressed to it, officially a congregant of the Church of England, hence, leery of too much enthusiasm. McGilliveray was from its off-shoot, what the Yankees had professed since their new Book of Common Prayer of 1789 as 'Episcopalian'; in essence the Church of England minus King or Archbishop of Canterbury as defender or final arbiter of the faith. Both looked glumly at each other, fearing that, once launched, the estimable Capt. Goodell might flail and blather on 'til the Second Dog Watch.
'Amen, sir!' Lewrie declared, hoping it might cut him short. A sudden rapping on the great-cabin doors facing the gun-deck provided a better reason for pause, though.
'A Lootenant Adair, f om th' Proteus frigate, sir!' the Yankee Marine sentry called in, properly stiff-backed, but with a taint of a sly dubiousness to his voice, too.
'My pardons, gentlemen,' Lewrie said with a frustrated frown on his phyz. Just when Goodell had sounded like he was haranguing himself into some sort of
