The King`s Commission

where nobody in his right mind would want to go. A regiment like that's a buyer's market. Cost me only three hundred pounds to become an ensign when word got out we were going to Madras. People were 'changing or selling out like the hounds of hell were at their heels. But, if it weren't for the loot, I'd have never had enough for a lieutenancy in the Fusiliers. One way or another, the old Regiment'll have to take me back soon as I get home, and when the Army's reduced, there'll be a chance to buy up.'

'Thank God the Navy doesn't go for purchased commissions or commands.' Alan shivered, thinking how menial he would be that instant if he had had to depend on his father spending money to get rid of him. 'Why didn't you give the Fleet a try?'

'Fourth son.' Cashman shrugged. 'And damn-all inheritance for any of the others. Already had the future farmer, a sailor, and a churchman, and I had a choice of clerking in Ipswich or going for a soldier. Ever been in Ipswich? Last time I was home, I thought I'd freeze my prick off, and that was in summer, mind. And Suffolk's pretty damned dull any time of the year. I love England well as any man, but there's something about the tropics, if you can survive in 'em. At least it's warm, and not too many churchmen breathing down your neck with their 'shalt-nots.''

'What do you think of this mission of ours?' Alan asked him.

'Frankly? I think it's a rum'un,' Cashman whispered, though the sound of his fusiliers banging away at the keg would have covered his doubts from the men. 'If we want Florida back so bloody bad, why not put a couple of good regiments together from the Jamaica garrison and make it a proper landing? Oh, aye, take along some pretties to buy off the locals, maybe form some temporary levies like East Indian sepoys. From what I hear, these Creeks'd make good soldiers if somebody took the effort to train 'em. Good skirmishers and woodland fighters, proper armed. Hell and damnation, I'd like to have all my company with me, if that won't serve. We're too thin on the ground to suit me.'

'Bring the rest of your present regiment?'

'Peacock and them?' Cashman laughed sourly. 'They'd get themselves butchered. Less'n two hundred of 'em, anyway, and not worth a tinker's damn when it comes to skirmishing. Turn that lot loose in the woods and they'd make so much noise, and get so lost, any Indian in the world'd have 'em for his breakfast.'

'My sailors won't be much better, I'm afraid. Cony and some of the party coming with us are country lads, one jump ahead of the magistrate for poaching, but nothing like what one needs against Indians and Dago troops who know the country,' Alan confessed.

'Here, you sound like you've been around before. Served ashore, have you?' Cashman asked.

'At Yorktown. We escaped,' Alan told him with a touch of pride. 'With a light company of Loyalists from the Carolinas.'

'Whew,' Cashman whistled. 'So, how do you feel about this trip of ours?'

'I'm a touch leery, too. Oh, it sounded grand when they offered it to us, and we couldn't say 'no,' anyway,' Alan told him with a shrug. 'Supper with our admiral, being admitted to high plans, you know. But my captain over there is worried, and now he's got me doing it.'

'You should.'

'I don't like leaving this sloop in the swamps, at the mercy of those Indians,' Alan went on. 'What happens if McGilliveray, or White Turtle or whatever, can't convince them to keep their hands off while we're gone? From what I've read, an Indian thinks it's his duty in life to lift from strangers whatever's not nailed down.'

'Who says we have to leave things laying about to tempt them?' Cashman replied with a twinkle in his eyes. 'You know that once we separate from your ship yonder, you and I are equally in command of this mess. You of the sloop and the longboat, I of the land party. Cowell is no soldier, he's a London paper-pusher with dreams of adventure. And this McGilliveray is only an advisor. They can't order us to do a bloody thing. What do you want to do?'

'I'd like to send San Ildefonso off to sea under my quartermaster,' Alan said after a long moment of thinking. 'There's no reason to leave a large, easily discoverable ship in the swamps. The crew could sicken on the miasmas, get over-run by the Apalachees, or the Spanish could find her and bring force enough to take her.'

'Best we go quietly on our way up-river,' Cashman agreed. 'We're going to be dressed pretty much like Indians in these hunting shirts and whatever, so the Dons don't know we're here. So what's stopping you sending this ship back to sea once we're landed, if secrecy is so important?'

'Not a bloody thing,' Alan realized.

'And if I wanted to bring another squad with me, so we'd have a round dozen skirmishers, there's no one to gainsay me, either. Out at sea, your ship wouldn't need a party of soldiers left behind.'

'What about the samples, then?'

'Oh, we can take 'em up-river, can't we?' Cashman asked.

'Well, this sloop does have a boat of its own, a little eighteen-foot gig. Take five more men to run her under oars, though. Say three minimum, with two of your men aboard as guards.'

'I can find enough lads to row her, you just give me one sailor to show 'em what to do. That way, I can take six more men, two as guards as you said, spelling each other, and part of the cargo with me.'

'Cowell and McGilliveray might not like it, mind,' Alan cautioned.

'The devil with what they like or don't like,' Cashman said, sure of himself. 'They're only civilians.'

'They could ruin your career. And mine.'

'There's not much more they could do to ruin mine, the way things are going,' Cashman laughed. 'How enamored are you of yours?'

'I don't want to get cashiered,' Alan said. 'I'm getting just good enough at the Navy to want to keep it.'

'You'll end up on the beach on half-pay soon enough anyway. And this whole expedition is a pretty neck-or- nothing thing. It's not like it has much hope of turning things around quickly.'

'So why are you here, if you don't like it?' Alan demanded.

'Because I might become a substantive captain out of it,' Cashman told him. 'And the way things are going, it's the only little piece of the war I've left. Desperate or not, it beats garrison duty back on Jamaica, you see.'

'Jesus.'

'So don't tell me you weren't thinking about getting a little fame yourself out of it?' Cashman teased him. 'Of course, long as we're changing things, who says you have to go?'

'Come, now.'

'Seriously. If anybody'd asked me as to how we'd pull this off, I'd have stayed off the river entirely. Rivers are like highways in this country. Might as well hire a band. I'd trade for horses with the coastal Indians, and go overland. Lay up by the day, travel by night, disguises or no. If I'd helped plan this, I'd have asked for the Navy to merely get us here and come back to pick us up later. Just like Peacock not to confer with the ones who have to do it. Sail off.'

'Damned if I will!' Alan spat. 'Cowell would really have my hide for funking on him. And my admiral would have my hide a week later for cowardice. No sir!'

'Alright, then. We go inshore after it's dark, and we head up-river in the dark, to get as far as we can before it's light,' Cashman schemed. 'Then McGilliveray can turn into any old sort of Indian he likes and lead us the rest of the way, but without having to depend on this coastal tribe, who're like as not hand-in-glove with the Dons already. We'll have enough on our plate with the other tribes as it is.'

'Damn your blood, sir!' Cowell fumed after he had been told of the new arrangements. 'This is not what we agreed to at all, damme if it's not! I am charged by His Majesty's government directly to…'

'Mister Cowell, Lieutenant Lewrie and I are the senior military representatives,' Cashman argued, as the unloading went on. 'Now keep your voice down. Or do you wish to draw every bloody Don within fifty miles to this damned inlet? This way, we are much more secure. The sample goods still get up-river, you get up-river, White Turtle gets up-river, and we run the same bloody risks, but we do it on the sly. More than we would leaving the sloop behind to advert our presence.'

'I'll have your hide for this, see if I do not, sir!' Cowell raged, but in a sibilant whisper into the tropical stillness. 'Once we are back at Jamaica, Sir Joshua shall hear of this. Your captain shall know of your insubordinate attitude as soon as we rendezvous with his ship! And your colonel, too, Captain Cashman.'

'The exigencies of the situation, sir,' Alan said, almost quoting Cashman verbatim from one of their later planning sessions once the sloop had left Shrike's company and made her final run of