The King`s Commission

was more to his sudden fear, so he crossed the deck to stand beside him and speak softly.

'Is it true they die so easily, Andrews?'

'Aye, sah. Dey b'lieve a witch can put a curse on 'em an' dey lays down an' dies of it. First dey see o' white men, dey learn about guns. Sometimes dey die o' just bein' shot at, sah. Just feel da bullet go pas' an' lay down an' die,' Andrews informed him.

'Poor bastard.'

'Aye, sah, poor bastard. All of 'em.'

'You were a slave?'

'No sah, Mista Murray got it wrong, sah. Ah weren't no slave!'

'You're a freeborn volunteer. But you must have talked with slaves to know what you know,' Alan pointed out.

'Freeborn volunteer, sah,' Andrews insisted.

'But not a sailor, eh? Before?'

'I worked wit' my father, sah, fishin' sometimes.'

Were you, indeed, Alan thought, skeptical of Andrews' claims. The man had written his name instead of making his mark when he signed aboard; Alan had offered the book to him himself. If he was not a runaway servant, then Alan was a Turk in a turban.

He was a well set-up young fellow, near an inch taller than Alan's five feet nine, his skin the color of creamed coffee, and his eyes clear instead of clouded. A former house-servant run off for his own reasons? Alan wondered. Whatever his background was, he wanted to keep it quiet.

'Well, you're the Navy's now, Andrews, whether you were a prince of Dahomey… or a runaway slave,' Alan said softly, so the others would not hear, and Andrews' eyes pinched a bit at the last. 'Don't worry over it. Prime hands are hard enough to find-we'll not be letting you go so easily.'

'Aye, sir,' Andrews replied, letting out a pent-up breath and relaxing a little.

'Mister Murray?'

'Aye, sir?'

'Andrews tells me he may be able to calm the slaves down a bit. Place him and Cony in charge of tending to them, if you please.'

'Aye, sir.'

Andrews gave him a short grin as he went below to talk some gibberish language to the slaves to calm their fears. Between him and Cony, whose simple farm-raised gentleness and caring were already evident, Alan was sure that he had made the right decision.

'Mister Murray?'

'Sir?' the bosun's mate said, coming to his side near the tiller.

'How did you know about what black slaves believe?' Alan began. 'It's so incredible to me that people should die simply because they were shot at. He was barely hurt. That ball went in clean, maybe broke a bone, and exited high at the top of the shoulder.'

'Served in the Indies a lot, sir,' Murray told him. 'Seen lots o' slaves turn up their toes fer a lot less, sir.'

'I am grateful for your knowledge, Mister Murray. Never hurts to pick up a little lore from here and there, does it?' Alan cajoled.

'Nossir. hit sure don't, an' thankee fer sayin' so, sir.' Murray almost preened at having gained favorable comment from his first officer.

'Well, with Cony and Andrews tending to them, they'll go quiet from now on. Oh, about Andrews. Do you know if he was a former slave?'

'Well, nossir, but hit's been my experience 'at mosta the West Indian 'ands is, sir,' Murray said with a wink at the age-old practice.

'Good sailor, is he?'

'Nary a topman, sir, but 'e'll do fer most duties, an' good in a fight wif a cutlass, sir.'

'Then we wouldn't want to get him into trouble by announcing he's a former slave. People might think he's a runaway, whether he is or not, and he might be tempted to run. And with nigh on a third of the hands West Indians, it might stir up resentments,' Alan suggested.

'Aye, sir, least said, soonest mended.'

'Thank you, Mister Murray, that'll do, I think.'

Shrike put back in to Kingston a few days later, preceded by her prizes, the trading ketch Nuestra Seсora de Compostela, and the Guarda Costa sloop San Ildefonso, which they had run across on their way seaward from the coast of Cuba. She had barely been repaired enough to hoist a jury-mast with her main boom serving as a vertical spar, and a tattered tops'l employed as a lug-sail. She had fallen without a shot being fired, all resistance blown out of her earlier in the day.

It made a proud sight, the small convoy of three ships rounding Morant Point, threading the Port Royal passage past the forts on the Palisades and into the harbor with the Ensign flying over the white and gold flags of Spain. As soon as all three ships had dropped anchor and begun to brail up their sails, Lieutenant Lilycrop took a boat over to the flagship, strutting like a peacock at his success.

Alan was left to deal with the officials from the Prize Court, and the Dockyard Superintendent about repairs. The slaves from the trading ketch were removed, to be auctioned off at some time in the future, and they would fetch a good price, since the island of Jamaica was badly in need of prime slaves to support a wartime economy, and the supply from Africa had been cut to a trickle by Spanish and French privateers. After the recent slave revolt, unaffected slaves were doubly welcome.

Admittedly, Alan suffered some qualms at seeing them led off, still in their original chains. He had not known any slaves in his former life in London-there they were more of a novelty or an affectation of the very rich, employed as house-servants and body-servants, with the mannerisms and voices of failed Etonians who had to work to keep body and soul together. There were a few slaves in the Carolinas he had met, the Hayley sisters' maid Sookie, who had nearly been the death of him after he and the Chiswick brothers had escaped Yorktown, Caroline Chiswick's 'Mammy,' who was cook, nurse, housekeeper and more a family friend than a slave. And the West Indian hands and ship's boys, who were mostly good-natured cheeky runts or diligent workers as good as any volunteer signed aboard back in England.

''Tain't right, sir,' Cony commented once more, coming to the rail by his side as the huge harbor barge bearing the slaves got underway from Shrike's gunwales, ironically being rowed by hired freeborn blacks.

'No, it's not right, poor bastards,' Alan agreed in a mutter.

'They get took from their 'omes back in Africa, clapped inta irons an' shipped 'cross the seas, an' them that live gets sold like dray 'orses,' Cony lamented. 'Worked ta death, sir, whipped ta death, and not a Christian 'and raised for 'em.'

'And we capture them from the Dagoes so we can sell them for a good knock-down price,' Alan went on. 'By damn, I love prize-money good as the next man, but I don't know as how I'll feel right taking money for them. The ketch, yes, and all her fittings and cargo, but not them.'

'That's the truth, it is, sir, an' you're a fine Christian for a'sayin' it, sir,' Cony spat. 'I been talkin' ta Andrews, sir, an' 'e says nigh on two hundred men and women're crammed in front ta back an' kept below for months on the Middle Passage. 'Tis a good voyage iff en only a quarter of 'em die, an' contrary winds'll end up a'killin' 'alf.'

'You'd think, with all the talents mankind has at his disposal, there'd be someone working on a machine to harvest sugar cane instead of causing so much misery. As if life isn't misery enough already.'

'God, wouldn't that be grand, sir!' Cony beamed. 'An' I'll lay ya odds, it'll be an Englishman what does invent it, sir. Britons'll never be no man's slave, so why 'elp make other people our'n?'

In the months during the siege of Yorktown, in their escape, and ever since Cony had become first his hammockman in the midshipmen's mess and later his personal servant, it was only natural that Alan would become familiar with the young man. It was no longer an officer/common seaman relationship, nor was it strictly an employer/servant relationship, either. Cony had little education, no philosophical practice, but a strong sense of justice and decency, and had learned that in most instances, Lewrie was willing to give his opinions a fair hearing, which had encouraged the lad to speak out when he felt something strongly enough.