The Captain`s Vengeance

'I see, sir.' Lewrie nodded, as if sagely enlightened instead.

'Tell me something, Lewrie,' Nicely said, leaning forward with a crafty look on his phyz, 'could I give you a fair wind towards the pursuit and capture or destruction of these murderous scum, cobble up 'Independent Orders' to fetch 'em in before the bar of justice for all the world t'see… would you be interested?'

'Oh well, I'd like nothing better, sir,' Lewrie quickly vowed.

And of course he did, for such fervent avowal was pretty much what one was supposed to say. It must here be noted, though, that he also fervently speculated that wherever those pirates had run, there also might be his missing prize. There was the matter of how embarrassed he'd be, did the world learn how he'd lost her, and had spent two whole months chasing a will-o'-the-wisp.

Had those pirates sailed off to Pensacola, Mobile, or New Orleans, there probably wasn't a hope in Hades of winkling them out without the use of an entire naval squadron and an invasion force to capture or reduce any forts guarding their lair, but… did he cruise off those harbours long enough, surely they'd stand out to sea for another piratical cruise, where he could nail them and punish the one, or all, who had perpetrated those cruelly useless murders… poor Midshipman Burns's, the most especially.

'Aye,' Lewrie said, with some heat and at least a scrap of hope that such a feat could be accomplished.

'Good,' Capt. Nicely crowed in gentle triumph, leaning back on his coat seat with a satisfied grin. 'Good! You're still of the mind that your man Jugg might have had a hand in it?'

'Jugg, well…' Lewrie said, frowning. 'No, sir. I no longer think he instigated it. But I'm still convinced that he knows more about the people involved that he'd admit. Short of torture.'

'We must 'smoak' him out, then, Captain Lewrie.' Nicely beamed. 'I will put my mind to it, get in touch with a few people currently in port who own knowledge of the Spanish Louisiana and Florida colonies, and might be of avail to our quest. I do believe within a fortnight we could be on their scent. Do you not object, sir, I know one well- connected fellow who could dine with us tonight, so our campaign may begin at once. A tradesman.'

'A tradesman, sir?' Lewrie asked, sharing an English gentleman's regard for people who actually handled finances, money, and goods.

'A merchant adventurer, so 'tis said, rather,' Capt. Nicely added. 'A Mister Gideon Pollock, who works as the principal agent for the Panton, Leslie Company trading firm. Big in the Indian trade inland in the Americas. Pack trains and canoe expeditions. Pollock is head of Panton, Leslie's affairs at New Orleans.'

'A British firm that trades with the Dons, sir?' Lewrie gawped.

'His name arose, once your hands were fetched in, and aroused curiosity in, um… certain quarters,' Capt. Nicely guardedly explained.

Mine arse on a band-box! Lewrie thought, with a sinking feeling in his nether innards; But he don't mean somebody like Peel, or does he? What in Hell have I agreed to? Certain quarters, mine…!

'Not made the man's acquaintance myself, yet,' Nicely blathered on. 'Though he comes well recommended, and his firm has, ah… proved very useful, in a most quiet way, to the Crown's interests in the Americas.' Nicely tapped the side of his nose to assure Lewrie that it was covert and sometimes skullduggerish. 'This Pollock fellow is reputed to be quite the neck-or-nothing sort when among the savages and brute settlers. Supper should prove int'resting, if nothing else, what?'

'Oh aye, sir… mirth, joy, and bloody glee, sounds like.'

BOOK TWO

Trinculo: The folly of this island! They say

There's but five upon this isle. We are three

Of them. If th' other two be brained like us,

The state totters.

– The Tempest, Act III, Scene 1

William Shakespeare

CHAPTER FIVE

It was not often that Capt. Alan Lewrie, RN, actually sat down to dine with tradesmen; nor, did he suspect, did Capt. Nicely, amiable though he was towards seemingly everyone with whom he came in contact. Tradesmen, even those engaged in managing one's personal finances, like his solicitor back in London, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy, the people at Coutts' Bank, his shore or prize agent, well… they weren't exactly gentlemen, were they, even if they were an hundred times wealthier than their customers.

Dining with tradesmen was not so much a downward social step as it was running the risk of being dunned sometime 'twixt the fish course and the cheese and port. Most 'gentlemen' stayed in debt to tradesmen of their acquaintance; a number fled like Hell at the sight of 'em.

Mr. Gideon Pollock, however, turned out to be a most congenial and informative table companion, not that he had a chance to eat much.

And, so far as Lewrie knew, he didn't owe the man a farthing.

No, 'nice' as Capt. Nicely was, as solicitous to Mr. Pollock as he behaved, it was more a working supper than a social occasion, with Pollock 'singing for his supper' almost from the start. Pollock had no gossip, no books or plays or ear for music to discuss; what he did discuss involved the fetching of charts and maps, of sketching with his fork's handle or a well-honed pencil stub, as he laid out the situation anent Spanish Florida and Spanish Louisiana.

'Well, I rather doubt your prize ship went into port at Mobile or Pensacola,

Cap'm Lewrie,' Pollock said with a chary expression once the reason for their supper had been explained to him. 'Other than the small Spanish garrisons, a few priests and government officials, there aren't enough customers for the looted goods or the slaves. And not more than a handful of people with more than two silver escudos to rub together. No Prize Court to adjudge and condemn the ship, either,' he said, rubbing the side of his nose, a nervous gesture that he evinced more than once that evening. 'Nossir, I'd put my money on New Orleans. There, or Havana. What Spanish 'captain-general' of Florida there is, he's no more than 'governor of the mildew,' the mosquitoes, and palmetto bugs!'

Mr. Pollock also had a nervous habit of jerking his head up and to the right, now and again, with a wee throat- clearing whinny. It was quite unnerving. That, and watching his Adam's apple bob.

Pollock bore the complexion of a longtime sailor or huntsman, as creased about his eyes and lips as a Scots ghillie. He was slender and wiry, stood about two inches shorter than Lewrie but appeared to weigh no more than ten stone, and that with his suit and shoes on. He was high-cheeked and lean- faced, with rather remarkably vivd green eyes that seemed to droop at the outer corners, and a nose that put Lewrie in mind of a Welshman or Cornishman; it was long, prominent, and aquiline, with a hook-bump forming the bridge.

Not exactly English in his speech, either. Mr. Pollock sounded decently schooled, as if he might have been a second or third son from the squirearchy who had strayed from the expected church, law, military, or naval careers, or been 'remittanced' overseas to hush up a scandal. He sounded above the station of tradesman but below the idle elegance of a gentleman. Less British, more… American somehow.

Capt. Nicely had introduced Pollock's firm as being thoroughly British, established in the Colonies long before the so-called French and Indian War, as the Colonials had referred to it. Lewrie imagined that he'd been among the Yankee Doodles, Dons, and French so long that their patterns of speech had corrupted those Pollock had been born with.

'We have offices in New Orleans, d'ye see,' Pollock continued, 'and I manage to get up there five or six times a