Sea of Grey

' that just died,' Cashman grimly stated. 'You came to the wrong place to celebrate death, Kit. I've lost fourteen so far, with five or six more lookin' peaky,' Lewrie objected.

'Miser,' Cashman countered. 'I lost nigh half the regiment, by now… shot or butchered on Saint Domingue, or to the fevers. Already mourned them. No, I refer to the regiment itself, and my military career with it.'

'They'll disband 'em?' Lewrie gawped, sitting up straighter.

'In the process,' Cashman spat. 'Called us 'excess to requirements,' now we've no major campaign to… wage. Oh, there's still a deal o' work wantin' down on Grenada and Saint Vincent, takin' on the Black Caribs and the real Caribs, but it's no concern of ours.'

'They'll chuck Ledyard Beauman, then,' Lewrie surmised. 'God, I can understand sheddin' him, but you! General Maitland had you on his staff last year, you told me. Surely, he doesn't mean to tip you out with the bathwater?'

'Double-dealin' sonofabitch,' Cashman growled, tossing back his glass so quick that half of it flooded his shirt- front. 'He and that L'Ouverture were correspondit all the time, did you know it? Secret negotiations were goin' on, even whilst we were bleedin' and sweatin' in those woods, fightin' like we really meant it! Men died, while he was dancin' to and fro with our enemy. Hell, the last week before the evacuation, we fought L'Ouverture seven times, he beat us seven times… but each time there'd be secret letters flyin' back and forth. 'Well, ya lost here, my dear Maitland, so will ya give in? No? Then how 'bout this'un?' Maitland sayin', 'Didn't we bleed ya enough, still have soldiers and arms for another try, m'dear Toussaint?' 'Oh Dear, now will you pack it in, mon cher Maitland?' Pah! Even did Maitland get down on his hands and knees and beg me to stay with the colours… even throw in fellatio … I'd still spit in his Goddamned face!'

'Well, I never,' Lewrie said with a groan, as disgusted as Kit Cash-man. He had lost Sevier and Nicholas, Inman and Shirley, and poor old Lt. Duncan had died, all those lost to malaria and Yellow Jack had died in a sham? As a way to save a general's reputation, before some amateur Black rebel slave out-soldiered him? 'The bastard!'

'Won't get him titled,' Cashman sarcastically snickered. 'No 'thanks of the Crown' for him, when he goes home. If Maitland'd stuck it out, L'Ouverture would've strewed us dead on the beaches, he'd've had another week, so I can see the temptation to sign anything and get out. L'Ouverture, Dessalines, Petion, and Christophe… they're damn' good, Alan. Samboe versions o' Julius Caesar, with more troops under their command than Xerxes brought to Greece. Poor-armed, but even so, they just swamp right over you, pick up the guns from their dead, and keep right on comin'. Fine, they beat us fair and square, and so what. What really irks me, though, old son…'

Cashman leaned forward on his elbows on the desktop, grating deep in his throat, with eyes slit in fury.

'He wrote his letters behind the backs of his own men, damn him! He could've told us, after the first couple o' defeats and he saw how things stood, he could o' told us he was negotiatin', he could o' asked for a truce, and I'll lay you any odds ya wish, old Toussaint L'Ouverture would've granted it… he didn't want any more o' his men killed, either. Hundreds o' men would still be alive, the battle that broke my damn' regiment need never've been bloody fought!'

'Maybe L'Ouverture would have gone right on and fought us, Kit. Drivin' out a white, British army's one thing, but slaughterin' them to the last man on the beaches is another. His message to the world.'

'Us leavin' with our tails t'wixt our legs ain't enough of a message?' Cashman waved this off, leaning back in his chair and tossing down his fresh glass of champagne. 'Shit, Alan. That's shit, and ya know it. L'Ouverture ain't through fightin', there's still the Spaniards in the east h *ants t'take on, there's still that half-caste General Rigaud down in South Province against him. There's probably some of his very own generals just slaverin' like hounds for a shot at power, too. No, L'Ouverture wants t'stay alive, and in charge, liberate the entire island of Hispaniola -hell, the whole damn' West Indies, he needed t'husband the army he had! He's too smart t'throw it away on gestures and messages to the world. S'truth.'

'So, what'll you do?' Lewrie asked, stretching to refill his own glass. 'Resign, or wait to be retired?'

'Ask for a court,' Cashman told him, brightening a touch. 'Get my record cleared… make sure everyone knows for certain it was that fool Ledyard who lost it for us. See, Alan… Maitland and his staff are lookin' for scapegoats, and damned if I'll play 'goat.' Maitland holds a court-martial and blames Beauman for losin' him the battle that cost him the entire campaign, why, he can go back to England smellin' like a bed o' spring roses! The regular Army'll love it, 'cause what can ya expect from Yeomanry, militia volunteers, and amateur officers? Pile up a big, smelly heap o' shit over here, then you hardly notice the reek from over yonder, d'ye see. Then, no one'll take Maitland to task for 'conspirin' with the enemy.' That's what you can deem secret letters with the foe. You could almost call it treason, and that's a hangin' offence, no matter what your rank or titles.'

'He'll never allow it,' Lewrie said after a long moment to mull it over. 'Ya don't think Ledyard Beauman doesn't know about Maitland and L'Ouverture negotiating already? Better for Ledyard, his lawyer will know of it, and how to use it. The Royal Navy's just as eager to cover its arse when someone's mucked it, I know, I've seen it close at hand, Kit. Better for Maitland to explain to Horse Guards that he was grossly outnumbered and swamped by bloody waves of fanatics, then only opened negotiations when he saw he had no chance to win. He saved his army, he saved the civilians on Saint Domingue by wangling a promise that L'Ouverture wouldn't take reprisal on 'em. Remember, Kit, I was at Yorktown, and-'

'Oh, that tale again.' Cashman waved it off.

'Lord Cornwallis had had his arse kicked from the Cape Fear to Yorktown, then got himself stuck like a bung in a barrel, countin' on the Fleet t'save him. Did Graves, Hood, or Denby pay for failing him? Christ no, they didn't. Did Cornwallis pay for losin' the last army we'd be able to raise, losin' the war, for losin' the Colonies at one stroke? Hell no to that, too! They still love him. This latest rebellion in Ireland we've heard about, that French landing under General Humbert, they're sending Cornwallis t'sort it out.'

'So Maitland won't pay, either?' Cashman said as he squinted at his old friend; rather 'squiffily,' by then.

'End of his active career, most-like, Kit, and no honours, but he'll flap away as free as a dove, with not a harsh word said to him, you just watch and see,' Lewrie prophecied, 'and everyone'll say, 'What a pity, when just one more regiment, one more battery, just a wee bit more luck and we'd have conquered the place, and we're better off out of there, anyway,' d'ye see? He'll write his memoirs and prove it wasn't a bit of his doing, and nothing'll get in the way of that. So, before you pile up your stink, he'll shed you and Ledyard, disband yer regiment, and then it's 'least said, soonest mended' for everyone.'

'Not for me, damn yer eyes,' Cashman thundered, 'it's my honour, my good name that's dragged in the mud! Without a court it'll always be me who funked it, t'will be me who's whispered about, laughed about! I'll not have it, Alan, if I have to challenge Maitland, too, once I'm a civilian!'

'Oh, don't talk rot, Kit,' Lewrie scoffed, half worried now.

'The Beaumans have already begun white-washin' his odour,' Kit snapped, repouring from the bottle, which was already deeply drained. 'Their newspaper friends, those papers sent to England on the packets. Two, three months more, and I'll be all over the London rags as the one who cut and ran. People in town, already… I'm bein' snubbed. Goin' to the other side of the street when I walk by, gazin' skyward with a 'cut sublime'… out at our camp. Wives and children, widows, come to find what happened to their menfolk, and I…'

In the privacy of Lewrie's great-cabins, the indomitable Christopher Cashman began to snuffle and swipe at his eyes with his shirt sleeves, making Lewrie wince in pain for him, yet avert his eyes so as not to stare too directly and shame him. To see someone unmanned…

'Private soldiers know the truth, they try t'tell their folks, but the way; they still glare at me, Alan, it's so…!' Cashman wept.

Suddenly, he smashed a fist on the desktop, so hard he made the glasses, the bottle, inkwell, and correspondence box jump.

'Damn Beauman! Damn him and his kin, damn all those rich, stuck-up bastards and bitches t'Hell and gone! They'll ruin me to save that useless, Goddamned pinch o' pig shit, take all I have! Take my honour and all I've done before, run me outta Jamaica like an 'untouchable' Hindoo, too low caste t'swamp out a toilet… make me sell up for a pence to the pound and lose ev'ry farthing I've invested here… well, I'll not have it. I'll find a way t'get my own back, if it means that I murder Ledyard, or murder 'em all!'

'Now you're really talking rot, Kit!' Lewrie spat back. 'Think with your head, not your pride, for God's sake.