Sea of Grey

colonels, anymore than I could duel an admiral. Have t'be a civilian before you can 'blaze' with a senior officer. Otherwise, we'd have eighteen-year-old generals and admirals, and all my lieutenants would be ten! Want a promotion… want command? Just eliminate the next highest over you! Besides,' he added, 'your Maitland ain't a complete fool. He must know that Ledyard's got the forehead of a hen, and you're the one who saved what was left. Think it over… compose a letter of your own for the Jamaican papers, laying it all out. Believe me, no amount of money or power's going t'make people believe he's the better soldier. Any man who's had dealings with him'll most-like already think him a dunderhead.'

'Might work,' Cashman allowed. 'But if it doesn't, and I don't get my court, then I'll have no choice but to resign my commission… and then duel him. If you're still around, I'll ask you to be my second.'

There was no way that a friend, and a gentleman, could turn away from such a request; Lewrie could only dumbly nod his head and accept. 'If there's no other solution… and if that's the only satisfaction you'll have, then… aye, of course, Kit. I'll second you.'

'He refuses, I'm proved right, and shown him up for a coward,' Cashman said, looking wolfish with anticipated delight. 'Does he take me up on it, then I'll kill him! Think I could sail away happy after that. Thankee, Alan. I knew I could count on you.'

'What friends are for,' Lewrie replied, feigning agreement. He had no doubts that Cashman could blow Beauman's heart clean out with a pistol or carve him to chutney sauce with a sword. What sorrowed him was the fact that once the deed was done his old friend would be penniless, and too suspect to ever go for a soldier again. His lot would be ignominous exile, perhaps to those southern United States that he'd disparaged.

'Think my writing General Maitland could help?' Lewrie offered.

'Oh, please!' Cashman sneered with bitter amusement. 'Support from a sailor who wasn't even there? Hardly. But thankee for the offer, Alan old son. Hmmm… gettin' on for late afternoon. Best we get you back to town. The darkies begin to play up at night.'

Sure enough, the drums had begun again, and that infernal chant could be heard far off in the eastern jungles.

'Eh! Eh! Bomba! Heu! Heu!

Canga, bafio, tй!

Canga, moune de le!

Canga, do ki la!

Canga li!'

''What language is that?' Lewrie asked, chilled to the bone once more by the sounds. 'And what does it mean?'

'Some African tongue from the Ivory Coast, where they came from,' Cashman told him, starting to lead them back toward the tent lines. 'I was told it means 'We swear to destroy all the whites, and everything they own. Let's die if we don't.' Way they fight, I'd believe it.'

'Anything I can send to ease your misery?' Lewrie asked him.

'Can't thing of anything, no,' Cashman sadly told him. 'Keep a sharp eye peeled, mind. There's always skulkers along the roads after dark.'

'Oh, thankee for tellin' me!' Lewrie barked. 'I was nervous enough ridin' up here alone in broad daylight!'

'You could always stop in town at Jean-Pierre's and look up yer little Henriette.' Cashman snickered. 'There's a spur t'move ya along.'

'Way Port-Au-Prince is fallin' apart, I'm better off aboard my ship,' Lewrie admitted, a knot of unease growing between his shoulder blades-where the musket ball, spear, cane knife, or poisoned arrow might strike were he unwary, or just plain unlucky on his lone ride back. ' 'Tis not a sailor's fight, this sort of…' • Cashman cocked an eye at the sky, and the place of the sun. He clapped Lewrie on the back, suspiciously near that knot of unease, as if he suspected his qualms, then chuckled.

'Nothin' like a little dread t'keep you cloppin' along faster. Think there's time for the stirrup-cup at my tent, then we'll get you on your way 'fore twilight gets too deep. There'll be a last rush of troops and officers on the road 'bout now, so it shouldn't be too bad.'

'But keep my ears open and my head swivellin'?' Lewrie queried, suspicious of such blithe reassurances.

'Reins in yer left, cocked pistol in yer right,' Cashman intoned.

And Lewrie made it a quick stirrup-cup, both he and horse antsy to the faint chorus and the vibrating drums.

'Canga, bafio tй! Canga, moune de le!'

Lewrie took the salutes from the side-party, doffed his hat, and stepped inboard, just as the late afternoon heat began to dissipate in the face of a freshening breeze off the sea, as the sun sank lower in the west. Lt. Langlie and the Surgeon, Mr. Shirley, were awaiting him on the starboard gangway, looking anxious.

'Excuse me, sir, but this order came aboard for you, about one hour ago,' Langlie said, offering a single sheet of paper, folded over and sealed with a tiny daub of wax. Lewrie took it and split it open.

'Aha,' he sighed, making a face. 'I see. Well, damme.'

'Bad news, sir? Pardon my curiosity,' Langlie enquired.

'Seems that General Maitland and Admiral Parker have struck a bargain with our foe, L'Ouverture, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie informed him, his weariness taking over after days of enforced activity and briskness. 'Since we now hold untenable positions in Saint Domingue, and to spare the further 'useless effusion of blood,' ' he went on, dripping sarcasm, 'Maitland has proposed an armistice. Once he receives L'Ouverture's assurances that the civilian populations of Jacmel, Mole Saint Nicholas, and Port-Au-Prince will be spared any 'reprisals,' we depart.'

'Depart, sir? But…'

'Strike our tents and sail away,' Lewrie spat, wadding up the order. 'Abandon 'em to the 'good offices' of L'Ouverture's men, tuck our tails twixt our legs, and slink off… without even a last bark at 'em. We're to prepare to embark the Army and all its stores, and sail back to Kingston.'

'Well, damme, sir,' Langlie groaned, removing his hat to swab his forehead and shake his head in sorry wonder. 'They beat us.'

'Aye, it appears they have,' Lewrie said. 'Mister Shirley, the Army hospitals are filled with wounded. You'd best prepare for some of them to be put aboard.'

'Of course, sir,' Shirley replied, hemming and hawwing a bit, though. 'There is another matter that you must know first, Captain.'

'And what's that?' Lewrie asked, suddenly filled with a defeatist lassitude.

'Several of our people are sick, Captain,' Shirley told him in a gruff mutter, all but wringing his hands in despair. 'So far I cannot tell you with any certainty whether it's malaria or Yellow Jack. Three hands show the fever, sweats, and headaches of malaria-along with the requisite icy chills-but two more also exhibit pains in the back and limbs one would expect to see with a case of Yellow Fever, so I cannot-'

'Oh God, no!' Lewrie blanched, his worst long-lingering dread for the ship at last confirmed. 'Only five, so far?'

'As of the start of the First Dog Watch, sir, but it could be a dozen more by sunup,' Shirley grimly prophecied. 'You are aware how quickly it can spread, Captain.'

'Aye, I am,' Lewrie sadly whispered. 'Let's hope that chichona bark extract avails, Mister Shirley. Keep me informed, and make them as comfortable as you can. Anything you need…'

He turned away and went to the quarterdeck bulwarks to peer out at the now dark and brooding shore of the anchorage. Port-Au-Prince, its docks and streets near the harbour, was lit by torches and faint lanthorns where soldiers and sailors off the stores ship laboured at the mounds of munitions and rations-this time to start reloading them for evacuation. Despite General Maitland's truce, the dull crack of a musket now and then broke the twilight's serenity along the lines deeper in the trackless jungles.

For nothing, Lewrie thought, groaning with weary cynicism; 'twas all for nothing. Nicholas and Sevier, Seaman Inman…

Toussaint L'Ouverture, a plump little Black man, unschooled in weapons and tactics, and his army of tag-rag- and-bobtail former slaves with agricultural tools, had beaten the British Army! He had no way to fathom the 'how' of it, except… to think that L'Ouverture's victory, and the uneasy peace which might follow it, was for the best. Every experience he had with slavery, the more he was put off by it, just as Cashman was. In the face of such an