The Captain`s Vengeance

'Reviv, or summat like that, woz wot I heard'm call her,' Ahern croaked from a raw throat, propped up on one elbow. ' Two names that bitch had. You heard it, right, Jugg? Wot woz it ye said?'

'The Revenant,' Jugg gruffly supplied in a growl, seated apart on his cot by the windows, still. 'Means 'The Ghost,' I think.'

'Aye, sir,' Ahern snarled. 'A ghost she were, right enough.'

'And it was reported that, ah… you went ashore by yourself to the Dominica Court 's office, Jugg?' Lewrie asked, raising a hand to quell the indignantly excited babble. 'I was told you were the one to ask permission to sail the prize over to Antigua?'

'Nossir, tweren't me,' Jugg objected, his first sign of animation. He left off paring slices of anti-scorbutic apples that he ate off his knife blade to defend himself. ' 'Twas one o' them pirates wot took Mister Towpenny's coat an' hat an' went ashore! Real tall, lean older man, wot spoke English right good…'

'Spanish an' French, just as easy' got tacked on.

' 'At's th' way o' h'it, sir!'

'Axed our names at th' point of a dagger, 'ey did!'

'I see,' Lewrie said, after a long and leery pause to mull that over. It would seem that all his preconceptions about the taking of the prize had been as wrong as his guesses as to where she'd gone and might have been recaptured!

Damme, though, Lewrie thought; Jugg's still lookin' as shifty-eyed as a pickpocket. I still think he knows more than he's telling/ Old shipmates of his, did it? Did he recognise anyone or …

Lewrie frowned, realising that, for now, he would have to take their collective word for it. Even Jugg's.

'What happened after that?' Lewrie asked, instead.

'Once we sailed, sir, they kep' us in irons down on th' orlop,' Willy Toffett eagerly took up the tale. 'Sometimes, they'd remember t'feed us an' give us water, sometimes not. Change out our shites or force us t'make in our clothes, the-!'

'Like we woz nothin', 'ey did!' Ahern snarled from his bed-cot. 'Like we'd be dead as th' rest, when 'ey got round to it!'

'Four, five days, 'twas rare quiet, sir,' Mr. Towpenny related in a weary voice. 'Felt like we were sailin' Large, the winds on the starboard quarter most th' time, bound mostly Westerly, Cap'm. Fifth or sixth day, we heard 'em clearin' for action, an' we were hopin' it was one o' ours, but… she turned out t'be a Spaniard, and she got took right quick. Wot'd they say 'bout her, Jugg? You savvied 'em.'

'That she woz a Spanish cutter, mebbe a guarda costa or a kendo' movement ship, anyways,' Jugg warily supplied, arms crossed on his deep chest. 'Made 'em right happy, by th' sounds of it.'

'Smelled like a slaver, t'me,' Mr. Towpenny objected.

'Hush, 'at woz th' first'un,' Ahern quibbled, 'a slaver, sure! Can't mistake th' stink. 'Twoz th' second prize, woz th' guarda costa. Took…'

'… a day'r two later, sir!' Toffett chirped up. 'First, she woz a black-birder, certain! Wot'd ye say, Toby?… She woz outta th' Spanish Main? Puerto Cabello?'

' Havana,' Jugg gravelled. 'Bought slaves at Havana t'sell down to Puerto Cabello, wot I could make out them sayin', Willy.'

'Murderin' bastards,' Ahern added, with a faint shudder of what he'd heard, even if he hadn't seen it. 'Gawd, but there was a power o' murderin', both times, sor!'

'Murder?' Lewrie asked, appalled.

'Both times, 'ey'd start a'killin' folk, sir,' Seaman Luckaby explained, black-visaged in anger.

'Ev'ry last Spaniard aboard both ships, sir,' Mr. Towpenny said. 'Some slaves, too, right, Jugg?'

'Old an' sick'uns, aye,' Jugg grimly agreed.

'Lotta shootin', wailin', and screamin', sir,' Mr. Towpenny said in a croak of horrible awe. 'Down on th' orlop, we could hear 'em in th' water alongside, poundin' and scrabblin' at th' hull.'

'Keel-hauled one, sir!' Luckaby shuddered. 'Ropes rubbed right 'neath us, it sounded like.'

'Shoved them healthy slaves down in th' holds atop us, round us an' ye never…!' Ahern griped.

'Chiefest delight seemed t'be killin' Spaniards, though, sir,' Mr. Towpenny marvelled. 'Like they were at war with them 'stead of us. Us, those slaves… we were more like icin' on th' cake. They'd get round to us when it pleased 'em.'

'Moved us aboard th' schooner, th' last couple o' nights, h'it was so crowded 'board th' French prize, sir,' Toffett said, 'wot with a hundred'r more slaves t'see to. We knew we were next, though.'

'So, how did you come to survive?' Lewrie queried, at a loss in the face of such capricious cruelty and bloodshed.

'Hauled us up, we heard 'em say they hadn't done a maroonin' yet,' Tow-penny said. 'Wasn't that wot ye said they said, Toby?'

'Aye,' Jugg was forced to admit. 'Like 'twoz nought but a rare game they woz playin'. Whoopin' like Billy-O over it, and…'

'Oddest thing, that, sir,' Towpenny mused, his grey-grizzled head laid over to one side. 'When they fetched us up on deck the last time and set us ashore-the Dry Tortugas, it was, sir-we could look back from shore an' see 'em. Must've burnt their last two prizes, I s'pose, for t'were nought but our French merchantman and that black-heart schooner layin' off… Both were fiyin' th' Spanish flag, along with the French, atop 'em. Yet, did they despise the Dons as bad as it seemed?'

'They weren't out of Guadeloupe?' Lewrie puzzled half to himself.

'Nossir,' Towpenny countered, 'and when they sailed away, arter maroonin' us, they woz bound Nor'west, straight as an arror, 'til they drapt below th' horizon, Cap'm.'

'Spanish Florida, perhaps,' Lewrie mused aloud, rising to pace with his hands in the small of his back, the engrained habit of a sea captain. ' Mobile, Pensacola? Christ, other than New Orleans in Spanish Louisiana there's not a single settled port where they could sell off their prizes and slaves, 'til you get to Tampico or Veracruz, down in New Spain! Don't make sense. Jugg!' he exclaimed, stopping mid-stride and turning to peer at the man.

'Sir?' Jung warily replied.

'Did you ever hear them boast of their home port?'

'Could've been New Orleans, sir, mebbe,' Jugg reluctantly said.

'Spaniards and Frogs, together, aye,' Lewrie said, frowning and going to the windows to look out at the ocean, near Jugg's cot. ' New Orleans and Louisiana were French, first, 'til '63. And New Orleans, so I've heard, draws seamen of every nation. The Frogs on Guadeloupe sell Letters of Marque to anyone with a rowboat and a full purse, no matter who it is. Other Frogs, Spaniards, British renegades, Yankee Doodles… somewhat honest privateersmen or outright pirates.'

'Acted more like pirates, 'ey did, sir,' Toffett grumbled.

'Played more like pirates,' Seaman Luckaby sneered. 'See, sir… there woz common sailors, like, then there woz some o' th' Quality sorts aboard 'at schooner, an' all o' us could hear th' diff'rence… 'twoz th' way they talked, d'ye see, sir… top-lofty an' lordly, not loud an' hard, like-'.

'Though they were th' cruelest,' Toffett stuck on.

'Mean t'say, sir,' Luckaby forged on, 'some of 'em could speak th' good ol' king's English, and-'

'Them lordley fiends,' Toffett spat.

'Their Cap'm and him wot set us ashore on that island, sir… man called hisself Balfa,' Towpenny agitatedly contributed. 'On that last mornin', when they marooned us it woz, there were…young'uns who mocked an' jeered us, in English, sir. Soft-handed young'uns woz who I heard, couldn't bellow like full-grown tars, and-'

'An' 'ey giggled, for so 'ey did, sor,' Ahern rasped from his bed, before pouring himself another mug of lemon-water. 'Loik little misses at a dance, a'titt'rin' 'hind their fans.'