- he wanted t'see the back o' me.
'A grand chance for glory, and official notice,' Lewrie encouraged. It was the honourable, the courageous thing one had to say when a man like Duncan was seconded to command a neck-or-nothing endeavour; instead of 'Gawd help yer mis'rable arse.' That simply wasn't done!
Grand chance o ' dyin ' with a pitchfork in yer belly, more like, Lewrie imagined; if things ashore have gotten that desperate.
'It will be, won't it, sir?' Duncan decided aloud, putting the good face on it, despite his own qualms-and if he didn't have any qualms, Lewrie would have considered him daft. 'Why,' Duncan joshed, 'a few more chances like this'un, and I could end as famed as you, sir!'
'Oh, don't do that, Mister Duncan.' Lewrie pooh-poohed the idea, breezing it off, as a properly modest 'hero' was supposed to do. 'The hours are horrid, you can't keep clean, and it's damn-all hard work! Far too much for a lazy-bones like me. But… the very best of good fortune go with you, if you have the honour to be appointed ashore.'
'Thankee, Captain Lewrie, thankee indeed.' Duncan chortled, now in high fettle, his saggy hound-dog eyes alight and crinkled in joy.
The bosuns' calls were twittering, Marines were stamping boots and slapping muskets about, so Lewrie doffed his hat to them all and turned his back out-board to descend the man-ropes and boarding battens, gazing at Duncan's face and wondering if he should have thrown in more than a trifling note of caution.
For Lewrie had the queasy, fey suspicion that he had just shaken hands with a dead man, who would dare too much in pursuit of fame.
Just as long as it ain't me! he gratefully told himself.
Bloody chimera,' Christopher Cashman said with a growl of disappointment. 'Always looks better from a distance. Gotten worse, since last I was here, too.'
Before the French Revolution had begun in 1791, Port-Au-Prince had been the second richest town in Saint Domingue, trailing the main port of Cape Francois-'Le Cap'-by only a few livres. Now it was sadly fallen, no longer the lively and cultured town of music and arts, of operas and farces, and grand balls. Frankly, it was a cesspit. The few stores still open sold only the barest necessities, with most shelves bare and the prices exorbitant. There were too many refugees down from the countryside, and many of those closed stores were now converted to housing, if they hadn't been commandeered for Army use. Even the grand pastel-stuccoed mansions that Lewrie had seen out at sea resembled tumbledown, long-neglected hovels in the worst stews of London 's East End; centuries-old manses turned to anthills of tiny rental lodgings, some going for a penny a night for a pallet on a bare wood floor. And many bore chalk marks denoting that a certain company of a certain regiment lodged there, with the smaller houses bearing a number around 8 or 10, showing how many troops could be barracked.
The reek of garbage, of human wastes, was even stronger ashore, and the kerbside gutters were stained with it, the channels down the middle of those faeryland boulevards could run brown with ordure when it rained. And it rained a lot in Saint Domingue.
'Like Venice,' Lewrie supplied to their conversation, 'pretty to look at, but Dung Wharf once you get into the canals.'
'Oh for the sailor's life,' Cashman drolly sing-songed, 'why, th' places I been, an' th' things I seen, cor blimey! Tyke New South Wales, f'rinstance… kangaroos as big'z dray 'orses… eat men up whole, an' spits h'out th' bones, 'ey does!'
'You sound in better takings this evening,' Lewrie pointed out.
' 'Course I do, Alan.' Cashman chuckled as they strolled along. 'I've all my troops ashore, all my field guns, with five day's rations and cartridges, and something t'do with 'em. Our heroic Colonel's off swillin' in the staff officer's mess, and if God's just, he'll find it so agreeable, the Second Coming couldn't stir him out of it. A chance t'preen with General Maitland, and play dashin' hanger-on with the real soldiers… damn 'is
eyes.'
'I don't know why I let you lure me ashore,' Lewrie said for the third time, puzzling, as he peered into a converted shopfront that was filled with refugee families in stained finery. 'The way they're talking, it's the last place I care t'be. Besides, I always get in trouble ashore, d'ye know that?'
'I promised you a grand supper,' Cashman rejoined quite merrily. 'And bein' a curious Corinthian, tales of mystery and gluttony won you over.'
'The staff mess'd be safer than traipsing about like this, would it not?' Lewrie asked, noting how dark the night was, and how dimly and spottily Port-Au-Prince was lit, and its formerly grand Parisian system of illumination badly maintained… if at all, anymore.
'Ah, but only swill served, Alan.' Cashman laughed at his reticence. 'Most of the officers are English-raised, so they have no idea of good food, no sense of adventure. It's all John Bull, boiled beef and puddin's, and 'Wot's 'is here tripe? Pвtй de foie gras? Wouldn't feed that foreign trash t'me hounds!' You know the sort. Not like us. We have worldly palates.'
'Just so long as I'll have a whole neck down which to swallow,' Lewrie said, taking comfort in the two small double-barreled 'barkers' in his coat pockets, and the heft of the hanger on his left hip. Just in case, he had secreted a wavy-bladed krees Mindanao pirate dagger inside the left sleeve of his coat, to boot.
'Been here before,' Cashman promised, 'and it can't have changed all that much in a year. 'Tis a hard man and wife, runs it. Once you taste their dishes, you'll slit yer own throat… just t'prolong your pleasure. As the Yankee slaves say, it's 'slap yo' mama good.' '
'Good God,' Lewrie had wit to jape, 'never have I heard such a 'back-handed' compliment. Back- handed… d'ye see?'
'God'll forgive you.' Cashman snickered. 'Ah, here we are.' He had directed them to one of those imposing pastel mansions, at the intersection of two boulevards, where a roundabout and fountain stood, though the fountain barely burbled these days, and was mostly green and brown with moss, mildew, and scum. The house was fitted with a rounded wraparound set of balconies on the two upper floors, and the overhangs formed a wrought iron collonade above the ground floor doors and windows, which were barred with more intricate wrought iron grills. Heavy draperies were pulled over the windows, but from within Lewrie could espy the faintest hint of candlelight, though the place seemed to be abandoned.
Cashman lifted the hilt of his smallsword to rap on the heavy iron-strapped doors, a particular tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. After a moment, the Judas hole swung aside and a glint of light showed from within, quickly covered by a man's eye. A moment later, though, those doors were flung open and they were hurriedly welcomed in.
'Jean-Pierre… Maman!' Cashman cried in joy, flinging himself upon the swarthy man and woman who stood guard in the tiled foyer with pistols, cutlasses, and a brace of muskets.
'Ah! Commandant Keet, bienvenu!. Has been so long we see you!' 'A Colonel, now,' Cashman preened, twirling about to show off. 'La, mon dieu… felicitations!' the wife of the establishment cried, hands to her cheeks with joy. 'You hunger, oui, you wish wine, as before? Come, you and your frнen'. Nossing but ze best pour vous.'
Swarthier manservants in livery came to take their swords and hats; servants who also bulged here and there with weapons discreetly hidden. They didn't seem to share the joy of rencontre with Cashman, or the sight of Lewrie, either; they wore permanent wary scowls. The swords, Lewrie carefully noted as they were led to a table in a back parlour, were stood against a sideboard, within easy reach should he or Cashman need to grasp them.
Once seated, the pocket doors were slid half shut on the hall, and he and Cashman had the entire parlour to themselves. From without Lewrie could hear the low hum-um of other conversations in other chambers, a piercing
