Sea of Grey

his shaven pate. In the water, his skin was as shiny as a seal pelt.

'Don't got a fuse and powder keg wif 'im, does 'e?' Yeoman of the Powder Foster cracked.

'Mister Devereux, have your Marines fetch him here. He might talk to us,' Lewrie decided. 'I'll have more need of your services, Mister Durant. Now we've gotten this'un into a more amenable mood.' From Lewrie's vantage point high above, the man did seem shattered, a pathetic, pleading half-grin on his features. He even raised his hands upwards in supplication.

Inman waved him up, leaning out the entry-port. 'Come on, you son of a whore. Up ye get. Come on, we won't eat ye! Safe, see?'

The man nodded, querying, as if he could not believe his luck, pointing to his chest as if to say 'Who, me?' before thrusting upward from the water and grabbing the lowermost wooden batten in one hand, then a man-rope in the other, slithering and scraping along the barnacles at the waterline, wincing with the pain, but scaling the side as Proteus rolled and wallowed, the boarding-battens first vertical, then easier to climb.

'That's th' way, mate, up ye get. There'll be a cup o' grog in yer gullet in no time, laddy,' Inman encouraged, reaching down as the man got near the lip of the entry-port.

' 'Ware! 'Ware!' Lt. Wyman shouted from the boat as it neared, a pistol in his hand, awkwardly dragged from his waist belt. 'Knife!'

'Canga! Heu!' the survivor screamed, whipping out a long cane knife secreted in the back of his ragged trousers, and slicing Inman's throat almost to the spine with a single backward slash!

Wyman's pistol barked and the Black stiffened, back arched and blood spouting from his mouth as he was lung-shot, before letting go and falling back into the sea with a large splash… followed not a moment later by Inman's body, that fell into the same target of roiled water! Fresh-killed, their lungs still full of air, after a deep, dead plunge they both wafted to the surface, almost arm-in-arm.

'God Almighty damn!' Lewrie breathed, shuddery and faint from surprise and shock. 'Get him aboard, get Inman back aboard, now!'

'No use, Capitaine,' Mr. Durant sadly said. 'What ze noir did to him…' Durant sucked his teeth and shook his head.

'I don't give a damn, I won't have him in the water with that treacherous, murderin' bastard!' Lewrie raved.

Sheets and halliards and braces were flung overside, safely belayed about the pin-rails, and a dozen hands sprang down to the chain platforms with quickly fashioned loops of line to snag Inman and bring him alongside, then coil them about his body and haul him back up to where others could take hold of his arms and lay him out on the gangway.

Lewrie went forward, his head like to burst with rage, but his feet as benumbed as if he were walking on pillows, until he stood over the body, removing his hat in reverence, as the people parted and made way. My fault, my fault, my bloody goddamned fault! he thought, full of hate for himself. Inman leaked a great puddle of water from soggy slop-clothing, leaked from that huge, ghastly rent in his throat…

'My fault,' he croaked, having to swallow hard and cough before he could talk further. 'Wanted prisoners… information! Damn 'em! Should've known… my fault.'

'Nossir, couldn't a known!' Bosun Pendarves countered, raising an agreeing chorus from the hands nearby.

'Savages!' someone else spat. 'Ya can't show mercy, 'coz they don't know what it is!'

'Ain't Christians, like us'uns,' another growled.

'They sunk us wif 'at powder, they'da slit our throats, quick enough,' Mr. Neale, the Master-At-Arms supposed aloud. 'Let's kill 'em all, all that still tread water!'

'No!' Lewrie shouted. 'We'll leave 'em. Let 'em sink, swim, or be taken by sharks, as God wills. 'Twas my fault that Inman died, our only casualty. We'll give him a proper shipmate's burial tonight, at sunset. And I'll not have his welcome to Heaven ruined by more murder.'

'Amen, sor,' Landsman Furfy said, teary-eyed and sniffling, hat in hand and leaning on his mate, the leaner and shorter Liam Desmond.

'We know the rules, now,' Lewrie announced, close to tears himself, irritably dashing at his eyes with a coat sleeve. 'We know how they mean to fight… and how much they hate us. We… I'll not be mistaken the next time. Next time, we'll stand off and shoot 'em to kindling. Survivors, bedamned!'

That elicited a guttural growl of agreement.

'Mister Durant, sir… would you and Mister Shirley be so good as to prepare Able Seaman Inman for burial?'

'But of course, Capitaine. We will see to him,' Durant vowed. 'Wiz as much tender care as his own mother. Men? Assist me, please?'

Lewrie turned and stalked aft to the quarterdeck, cramming his hat back on any-old-how, and slamming his fists together, his rage no longer quite so aflame, but still scouring himself for a fool.

'Er, Captain Lewrie, sir?' Lieutenant Wyman called, scampering after him. 'Excuse me, sir, but… thought you should see this. Sorry if I shot too late, sir. Never killed a man before, not… up close? Artillery, aye, but never with a pistol. Tried to warn him, I…'

'I know, Mister Wyman,' Lewrie said. 'Don't blame yourself. I was at fault for letting him aboard, when I should've known better.'

'Uhm… this musket, sir,' Wyman said, getting back to point. 'And this cutlass, and this sword? Look at the proof-mark, and these maker's marks stamped into the blades, sir.'

'Bloody hell… American?' Lewrie barked, utterly nonplussed by this evidence. 'They'd sell arms to rebellious slaves? Surely, if they succeed, their own plantations'll go up in flames… their slave owners'll be massacred.'

'Musket's a copy of a French Charleville Arsenal. Poor made, sir. Perhaps surplus from their own army's armories? The blades… who knows about those, sir,' Wyman said, shaking his head in disgust.

'Northern foundries,' Lewrie noted.

'Not so many slave-owners in their northeastern states, sir,' Wyman spat. 'So perhaps what happens after they're sold don't signify to them. As long as a… profit's made!'

'Most of their ironworks are in the northeastern states, but…' Lewrie trailed off with a sigh. 'God, this is hellish business Mister Wyman! I know it hurts the French in Saint Domingue, for rebel slaves to obtain arms. And later, our enemy the Dons in Santo Domingo, but the massacres that follow…!'

'We could tell someone, sir?' Wyman suggested in a soft voice. 'An American consul, a senior officer? Let them lay an official protest, perhaps?'

'We could, Mister Wyman. Rather, we should and we will, just as soon as dammit!' Lewrie vowed. 'Someone will pay for this!'

CHAPTER TWENTY

Morning found HMS Proteus ten miles Nor'west of Cape St.

Nicholas, with her crew in a sombre mood following Seaman Inman's funeral two days before. Even a run close inshore of Cape Francois, the port still held by the surviving Whites of North Province on Saint Domingue, and a lively exchange with a harbour fort, had not lightened the mens' gloom. Inman had been popular, a cheerful and hearty worker, and one of the best voices in the foc'sle's off-duty chorus, a dab-hand at the hornpipe competitions between larboard and starboard watch, and a wag of no mean skill when imitating ship's officers, midshipmen, and mates behind their back, or below in the privacy of the mess-deck.

Lewrie was up early, before dawn, to watch the hands at their labours at the change of watch at 4 A.M. Today was the day that the 'bears' were broken out and dragged across the weather decks; the heavy and rough-