The Captain`s Vengeance

mountains. The settlers are rankled by the games played by speculators and diverse state governments, the broken promises of pensions…' 'Like the Whisky Rebellion?' Lewrie asked with a knowing smirk. 'Very much like it, aye.' Pollock laughed. 'Americans are the most stubborn, anarchy-minded, personally independent folk, ever I did see! Some over-mountain people aspire to personal fiefdoms, like the rebellious state of Franklin that sprang up in East Tennessee just a few years ago. The Indians are no real challenge, not really, and the Spanish aren't much better at protecting their holdings, so…'

'Might be a good idea to encourage that sort of thing,' Captain Nicely posed, 'since it should be in our interests to rein in the Americans, before they get too big and powerful to deal with, hmmm?'

'Well, I dare say… heh heh,' Pollock responded, sounding as if Capt. Nicely had broached a topic best left alone.

To Lewrie's puzzled look, Captain Nicely softly imparted, 'There are plans afoot, Captain Lewrie, I may tell you in all confidence, o' course, for some, ah… lands lately in rebellion against the Crown that might be recovered, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker has corresponded with our British North American forces to, ah… effect the taking of the Mississippi. If necessary. To that happy conclusion, we would need free entry to a strong military and commercial base. Mobile or New Orleans, control of the west bank of the Mississippi, if nothing else, hence, to control its entire length, and hold the Yankees snug in their kennels.'

'Enticing the breakaway backwoods Americans in the new western states to, ah…' Lewrie gawped. What have I got into? he wondered. 'Depend on us for their economic well-being, aye,' Nicely said. 'I thought we were to speak of finding pirates, my missing-' 'I only give you the background, sir,' Capt. Nicely cautioned. 'Sir Hyde instructed me to reveal this much to you, before you sally forth to haunt the coasts. Sir Hyde told me that Mister Pollock, in his capacity as a trader allowed into Spanish possessions, could aid your search… provide information anent

New Orleans, the identities of notorious brigands who might've been involved in taking your prize and committing their… atrocities, then send you coded letters by way of his smaller vessels.'

'I assure you, Captain Lewrie, that I know where all the bodies are buried,' Pollock intoned, with another of his ghastly grins. 'And who is most likely to be your perpetrators. I cannot give you active assistance without, ahem… revealing my, and my firm's, ties to the Crown, 'thout being garotted as a spy by the Dons, but…'

'In the meantime, whilst I haunt the coasts, you'll really be… spying, anyway? To aid any future, ah… descent on New Orleans or Louisiana?' Lewrie sourly realised, aloud.

'One observes, one notes. Quite innocently… ahem!' Pollock rejoined, looking quite happily 'sly-boots.'

'And here comes dessert!' Nicely suddenly exclaimed as supper plates were whisked away by his house- servants, and an intricate cut-crystal serving bowl was trotted out. A jumble or trifle, most-like?

A shit cobbler? Lewrie dubiously thought as he took note of the dish's brown colour, all streaked with what looked like crust, and some whitish creamy layers. There were some suspicious yellow lumps, too.

'You're reputed to be a man possessed of a fine palate, Captain Lewrie,' Nicely enthused, hands a'rub in gleeful expectation. 'But I dare say you've not tasted the like o' this in all your travels!'

'I dare say not, sir,' Lewrie squeamishly confessed, his eyes fixed upon the dollops being spooned out in smaller bowls. 'What-'

'Caribbean and New World, sir!' Nicely boasted. 'All regional ingredients. Rum and sugar, molasses for thickening. Bananas, fresh off the bush. And sweetened chocolate beans, pulverised and boiled to a milk paste. I call it a chocolate pudding pie. Taste, sir!'

'Good God in Heaven!' Lewrie had to splutter in amazement once he'd had a tentative, tiny spoonful. 'It's Ambrosia! Why, I never… bloody marvellous!'

'Once we've eat our fill, we'll retire to my parlour,' Captain Nicely simpered 'twixt avid bites of his unique concoction, 'where we may have our brandy or port, and consult the charts, so Mister Pollock may further enlighten us regarding our mission, Lewrie.'

Our mission, is it? Lewrie thought with a brief check. I know he's bored shitless, but… oh, well. At least the pudding's good!

CHAPTER SIX

So, Mister Pollock, what's the best way to get at 'em, in your estimation?' Capt. Nicely eagerly enquired, once a parlour table had been cleared of decorations, and the maps and sea charts assembled. He took a slurp from a snifter of brandy, then used it to anchor a corner of a chart. 'Should it be necessary, of course.'

'Well, sir, ahem,' Mr. Pollock carefully began, 'you will note that New Orleans is situated a fair piece or better up the Mississippi River, an hundred miles or more. The river is somewhat unique in that its silt deposits form this massive delta on either bank that extends so far out into the Gulf of Mexico. The rules of Nature do not obtain in Louisiana… The streams don't flow into the river, they seep out in sloughs and bayous, and those meander and divide into a trackless maze. The land south of Baton Rouge is flat as a table-top, and but a few feet above sea level, ahem.

'No cellars or basements in Louisiana, sirs! Nor will you find the dead buried in the ground, hah hah! And what appears to be solid ground is so saturated, you may sink into spongy, saturated 'quaking' prairies… if not an outright marsh. Rich soil, yes, refreshed by the annual floods, where it's arable. But it also makes for swamps you must see to believe.'

'Grand place for Frogs, then… swamps,' Lewrie japed.

'As to getting upriver to New Orleans…' Pollock continued.

What the Devil's that t'do with capturing my pirates? he asked himself, cocking his head to one side as Pollock 'prosed.'

'There are several nevigable entrances to the Mississippi delta… the Southwest Pass, South Pass, and the Southeast Pass. I prefer the Southeast, myself, as closest to Jamaica, so…'

They want me t'take Proteus into the Mississippi? Lewrie gawped.

Lewrie took note that the chart was British, reading the description: The Entrance of the River Missisipi (misspelled) at Fort Balise, Taken in the King's Ship Nautilus in the Year 1764(Oh Christ, rather a long time ago!) with fathoms indicated in Roman numerals, and soundings in feet shown in Arabic… rather a lot of Arabic numbers, hmmm.

There was a mud bank, there was a large white expanse he took as a featureless alluvial island, and a hellish- shallow swath of soundings in feet betwixt; a narrower channel to the 'West of the featureless island where Fort Balise was situated, and a note above the fort, indicating that ships anchored there to lighten themselves before attempting to cross the river bar. East of the blank might-be-an-island was illustrated what Lewrie first took for the faithfully reproduced tracks of several drunken chickens, or wee little 'fishies.' More on the eastern mud bank, hmmm… A closer perusal with a quizzing glass revealed that they were supposed to be an enormous maze of trees that had washed downriver; heaps that had drifted to the mud bank and had aided its formation. Hmmm… 'Printed for R. Sayer J. Bennett, No. 53 Fleet St. as the Act directs, July 1779.' Rather a long time ago, too! More trees littered the north bank of the tri-furcated channel.

Well, just thankee Jesus! he exultantly thought.

'A formidable fort, is this Balise, sir?' Nicely asked.

'Not really, Captain Nicely,' Pollock said, shrugging. 'Simple stone water bastion, faced with earth and its guns old and rusty.'

Lewrie turned his concentration to his glass of brandy, let his eyes roam the parlour's furnishings, and stifled a yawn, giving Mr. Pollock's explanation but half an ear, and ready to stroll to a large bookcase and pull down a novel he'd heard of but hadn't yet read.