The Captain`s Vengeance

Christ, I'm a Covent Garden pimp! Lewrie sourly thought, taking in his new 'suitings' in a wavy, speckled old cheval mirror aboard the emporium hulk. One o' the canting crew, a pickpocket… an Amuser!

Mr. Pollock had suggested a touch of 'Captain Sharp' and by God he'd delivered: a tawdry ensemble usually sported by 'buttock brokers' and confidence men, professional gamblers and ne'er-do-wells, or those who blew snuff in a cully's eyes in a dark street, then robbed him of all he had-the Amusers of ill repute.

He'd been given a tightly woven and wide-brimmed planter's hat made of the slimmest straw or cane fibres from Cuba, nigh as big about as a washtub, what local settlers called a 'wide-awake,' since it was nearly impossible to see whether the wearer was asleep or awake underneath its cooling shade if one had one's head down. Below that, he now was clad in an exaggerated tailcoat, assured that it was 'all the go' in Paris, London, or Madrid. The lapels were extremely wide, the square cut-aways didn't come down to his waist, there was no way it could button together over his chest, and its long scissor-tails fell to the backs of his knees. The sleeves were almost excruciatingly snug, and puffed up where they joined the shoulders, putting Lewrie in mind of a gown his wife, Caroline, was partial to. The tailcoat was bottle green, but made from an extremely glittery fabric.

Under that, he wore a shiny, nubby-silk waist-coat weaved in vertical stripes-salmon, burgundy, white, and tan, with lapels of its own, best displayed overlaid upon the coat lapels, so very snug, short-waisted and double- breasted that he found it hard to breathe.

Sensible neck-stocks were no longer the ton; no, one had to wear a florid paisley Frog invention, the cravat, which even tied could do double duty as a child's bib or a diner's napkin, and tickled his chin every time he moved, it was so big, wide, and puffy.

Pollock let him keep his own watch, fob, and chain, but tricked him out in trousers, much snugger and more stylish than his accustomed slop trousers at sea; they were white, and fitted so close to his calves that he had no trouble donning a horseman's top-boots.

A small pistol fit into his coat's breast pocket, its twin in the small of his back. He could wear his own Gills' hanger, but on a flashier snake-clasp waist belt. Finally, with a cherry-ebony walking stick to fend off riffraff and mendicants-it hid a slim eighteen-inch sword as well-he was simply 'the crack,' and 'all the go'!

Before Pollock trusted him to survive on his own versus suspected pirates, though, that worthy sent Lewrie and Jugg, still dressed as an idle bully-buck, aboard the Yankee emporium hulk to check out their wares and prices. 'Think of it as a dress rehearsal!' Mr. Pollock had chirped. Jugg also went well armed; his clothes were so loose he could carry a whole armory, so much so that Lewrie feared he'd give himself away by the clanking!

Damn Pollock, and Commerce! Lewrie thought after only a few minutes aboard, in the main display area on the lower deck. The prices were chalked on slate or penned on brown paper scraps atop the baskets or bins, altogether a mind-boggling array of international currencies and exchange rates. Louisiana should ask payment in centavos, escudos, or silver dollars, even old pieces-of-eight, but, like the rest of the Caribbean and the New World, local currency amounted to whatever was at hand, including Austrian Maria Theresas (all dated 1780!) as well as Dutch, Danish, French, or Portuguese coinage. Try as he might to make the calculations in his head, to recall prices and what sold the quickest, Lewrie couldn't keep things straight without a surreptitious jotting with a pencil stub and a folded-over sheet of foolscap. With his nervousness over being caught out, and without any decent ventilation belowdecks, and a winter's day in New Orleans sullenly hot and muggily humid, he was quickly reduced to a muddle-headed puddle.

People always said I was too dense t'make change, but Lord! he fretted. And whenever sales clerks looked his way, he broke out in a fresh sweat, reducing his original sour opinion of his appearance from 'pimp' to a 'whore in church' or a guilty-looking, potential shoplifter! And Pollock's list of prime items to be compared in price, which he thought he'd mostly memorised, had quite flown his head. What he'd do when spying-out pirates, he couldn't imagine!

The American emporium seemed to be doing a thriving business at that somewhat early hour, in spite of the closeness. Elegantly gowned Creole ladies and their ever-present slave maids swished about slowly, more sashaying or parading than shopping, as if borrowing the Spanish custom of strolling the city squares each evening, eligible young ladies circulating clockwise and the young men strutting in the opposite direction. They tittered behind their fans, and they softly giggled and peered over the lace fan-tops.

Hang Pollock and his junk, Lewrie thought; There's women afoot!

And some of them were quite pretty and fetching; some of mixed race but almost White, some raven-haired but blue-eyed, the majority with sandy or light brown hair, and green, blue, or amber eyes, which put him in mind of Caroline. This gave him a check for an instant but did not deter him from circumspect ogling… fantasising, undressing them with his imagination. He looked down for a moment into a discreet bin back at the rear of a glass display case of medicaments and saw a pile of paper-wrapped cundums, priced at…

Um, pesos to pounds, that's one pound, seven shillings to the dozen, or two shillings thruppence each, and that's highway robbery! he rapidly figured, then felt his mouth almost drop open in astonishment. Amazin' what you can do, do you put yer mind to it! he told himself.

Pepper, salt, and thimble prices might be Chinee chicken tracks to Lewrie, but something prurient ever would spark his interests!

'Help you, sir?' another roving clerk suggested from behind the counter.

'No, no, just looking about,' Lewrie tried to reply glibly, languidly, though the interruption almost made him leap from his own skin with an Eep Fresh sweat awoke, he blinked rapidly.

'But of course ya are, sir,' the clerk sarcastically accused.

'Ye kin help me, then,' Jugg said at his elbow. 'I'd admire a half-dozen cigaros, them slim'uns, no bigger'n yer little finger, an' a wee flask o' whisky. Yer payin', are ye not, Mister Willoughby, as ye promised? ' Jugg hinted, all but digging him in the ribs with an elbow, all chummy-like.

'Um…' Lewrie stammered, turning to peer bug-eyed at Jugg, who was smiling fit to bust. 'Well, this once I s'pose,' he said, though feeling the urge to clout the impudent bastard silly, clap him in irons in the cable-tiers, then have him flogged bloody for his egalitarian 'sauce'! Sailors and officers, English and Irish, were akin to oil and water-they never mixed.

'Need a deal more of 'em for th' rest o' th' lads, so we will, sor, 'fore we saddle up an' head for th' backcountry,' Jugg continued.

'Prospectin' for land, are ya?' the clerk asked in a friendly manner, no longer considering Lewrie a sneak- thief.

'Hopin' t'do some tradin' in the east bank country, ain't we,' Jugg confided, as if inspired. 'Got th' lads t'gether, got the Cap'm here t'lead, an' only lackin' trade goods t'make a payin' proposition, right, Mister Willoughby?' Why, the bastard had the nerve to wink!

Huh! What? Lewrie silently flummoxed, peering at the bearded rogue as if he'd never clapped eyes on him before.

'Perhaps find some land to claim, as well,' Lewrie said at last, as if that was a secret wrung from him; his reply certainly was wrung! 'Store or trading post, eventually. Um… might as well let me have a flask of whisky, too.'

The clerk fetched out their purchases, then produced a flintlock tinder-box with which to light Jugg's cigaro, making him lean over the counter to do so. With a fiendish little grin, Jugg handed Lewrie one, and he had no choice but to get his lit, too, and puff it into life. The clerk named a figure, Lewrie dug into his coin-purse to show British coins, paid the translated rate, and then, at the clerk's request, went up the civilian-style stairs of the awning weather deck to smoke them.

'Thankee, sor, I owes ya,' Jugg gleefully muttered round his lit and glowing cigaro.

'Bloody hell, Jugg! Now see hear, my man…'

'Ain't on th' ship, sor,' Jugg idly pointed out, rocking on the balls of his feet and exhaling a jet of smoke before