The Captain`s Vengeance

which Lewrie tossed down in three gulps.

'Shot at?' Pollock gawped. 'How? When? By whom?' 'Why, with an air-rifle, Mister Pollock,' Lewrie scathingly replied, 'halfway to here from my lodgings, not a quarter hour past. With an air-rifle your clerks sold someone. So was that American, Ellison. Saw the ball they cut from him… fifty-one calibre. I told him that we didn't do it, that it must've been the Dons… unless you ordered it, and I lied to him unwittingly. Either way, they've tumbled to us and said were we still here come dawn, 'h'it wuz, Katy bar th' do-er' or some such,' Lewrie said in sarcastic imitation. 'You didn't set up an ambush of Ellison and his men, did you, Mister Pollock? Didn't sell the Americans any Girandonis they might've used to pot-shot me? Didn't sell a few to the Dons, did you?' he cynically demanded.

'No to all of it, sir!' Pollock retorted, as if such nefarious doings were beneath him. 'You're certain it was Girandonis used?'

'Damned certain, Mister Pollock,' Lewrie vowed, crossing to the sideboard for a refill from the wine carafe. As he poured, the hinges of the door squeaked, and Toby Jugg and Seaman Furfy came tumbling in.

'Oh, there ye be, sor,' Jugg said, sounding relieved for a rare moment before turning laconic once more. ' 'Twas a spate o' shootin' a little while ago. Big commotion round th' tavern where them Yankees lodge…'

'Captain Lewrie tells us someone shot their leader, Mister Jugg,' Pollock gloomily informed him. 'Took shots at the captain, too.'

'Who'd want both of us dead, sir?' Lewrie asked. 'The Spanish?'

'Some'un shot at th' Cap'm?' Furfy barked, round-eyed in alarm.

'Hesh yourself an' listen, lad,' his mate Desmond chid him.

'I can't see the Spanish…' Pollock fretted, nervously chewing on a thumbnail. ' 'Tis not their way. They've more to gain by arresting us and holding public trials. The old firm and I live or die on their stance towards us, and I haven't heard the least rumour, felt the faintest stiffness in how they deal with us… not even the slightest sidelong glance! Especially on this trip, given the, ah… ahem.'

'Well, if the Dons didn't do it and the Yankees swear it wasn't them,' Lewrie posed with a grim frown, 'then who? Our pirates, maybe?'

'More likely than the Spanish, yes!' Pollock agreed. 'Something we did or said, our presence revealed somehow to them, put the wind up them!'

'Perhaps they recognised Mister Jugg and put two and two together?' Lewrie wondered, looking at the survivor of the marooning, almost accusingly. 'Then why the Devil didn't they shoot him, 'stead o' me, I ask you? He's the man, could point 'em out! And why shoot Ellison at the same time? Far as we know, he 's not here t'hunt 'em down.'

'We don't know that,' Pollock countered. 'They seem to prefer Spanish victims, but the bulk of the merchantmen that dock are Yankee ships. They carry desirable imports and fat chests of coin that buy New Orleans 's export goods. If the pirates had taken one of theirs…'

'Ellison's a temporarily seconded American Army officer,' Lewrie told him. 'We both, ah… admitted our bonafides. Said he hoped that we liked our dinner t'other day out by Lake Borgne, sir. They've kept us under their eyes almost from the first, I'd expect. And he asked did we find the lake shore suitable for our purposes?'

'Ah-ha!' Pollock responded, like to strangling on that revelation. 'Ahem! {large twitch-whinny!) Did he! Though… two may engage in the same game, sir. And accomplish two tasks in one, as we've been charged. Perhaps the Americans even intend to use the loss of several of their merchantmen as a legitimate casus belli… the elimination of a pirate's nest as an excuse to the wider world for their invasion.'

This revelation was news to Lewrie's hands, who had thought they were merely nabbing pirates who'd harmed their mates. They nudged and poked each other, sharing confused but sly grins. After all, no one had yet laid out whether they were Scotching Yankee invasion plans… or sketching out their own. Either one would suit, so long as it made for a unique adventure.

'Could your firm have unwittingly sold the Girandoni air-rifles to whoever it was used them tonight, sir?' Lewrie asked. 'Might your ledgers contain names or your clerks recall faces?'

'By God, yes!' Pollock chirped excitedly. 'We haven't sold that many. One had hopes they'd find a market, but the novelty may've…'

'Then perhaps we might enquire of your clerks tonight, sir?' Lewrie impatiently said, nigh snarling.

'I'll send for my head clerk,' Pollock declared, animated now. 'Um… Mister Jugg, might I impose upon you to row over to the hulk and fetch the fellow here?'

'Aye, sor,' Jugg replied, heaving himself off a table's edge in a trice. 'Quicker'n two shakes of a wee lamb's tail, an' th' first be a'ready shook,' he took the time to jape, taking Dempsey and Mannix to do the heavy work.

'That slave who brought my note,' Lewrie had to ask before they could get out the door. 'Did you…'

'Lost 'im soon's he turned west on Dauphine Street, sor, sorry t'say,' Jugg informed him with a hapless shrug, then dashed off.

'The, ah… Bonsecours slave, sir?' Pollock asked. 'The note you mentioned in your message to me… from the suited, booted, ahem… young woman?'

'The very same, Mister Pollock,' Lewrie replied, pouring himself another glass of wine by the sideboard. Now that he was safe and alive, surrounded by well-armed men, the usual shaky let-down that came nearly to overwhelming him had appeared, and he needed some 'liquid' fortification. 'Jugg placed her man in Dauphine Street, but I managed to tail her right to her door, Mister Pollock,' Lewrie explained, feeling rather 'sly-boots' and clever. 'I'm to write her at the Maison Gayoso, number twenty-six Rue Dauphine… no last name for now. Now, whether she really lodges there or merely uses it as a convenience, I still don't know, but I saw her enter, and it didn't look as if there's a handy back exist. No stable gate. So, Charite…'

He waited for Mr. Pollock, the part-time, 'job-lot' British spy to offer him at least grudging congratulations for skulking and observing so skillfully, but…

'A young lady by name of Charite may very well reside, there,' Pollock somberly told him, holding up an objecting hand, 'but I must inform you that, according to my own queries, not a single Bonsecours dwells on Rue Dauphine.'

'So… it's an assumed name,' Lewrie said with a crestfallen shrug, as if it didn't really signify.

'Indeed, sir, enquiries made by my, ah… domestics,' Pollock flustered, all but tugging at his neck-stock, which Lewrie intuited as nervousness on his part to even come close to admitting that he had a 'shore wife,' not a 'domestic.'

Domestics! Lewrie silently scoffed; Mine arse on a band-box.' Is that what they're calling kept 'mutton' these days? Hah!

'… in point of fact, the Bonsecours family have no daughter, certainly not one named Charite,' prim Mr. Pollock continued, looking a tad red-faced to broach the topic of Lewrie's mysterious young chit. 'Further, Captain Lewrie… they also learned that those young gentlemen who accompanied her your first night at the Pigeon Coop cabaret-I recall you mentioning them as the Darbone brothers? That wouldn't be possible, since the Darbone family's sons have been upcountry for at least the last month, entire. My, ah… people, after nosing about the help at the Pigeon Coop, have determined that your girl's, ah… unconventional masquerade, her true identity beneath it, rather, is an open secret among that cabaret's habitues. As is the identity of her companions, sir.'

Pollock, like all good spies, full-time or amateur, paused then, bestowing upon Lewrie one of those detestable 'I know something that you don't, and you must beg for it' looks.

'And?' Lewrie archly demanded, after trying to wait him out and not have to beg; a losing proposition he'd found, after years of dealing with old Zachariah Twigg and his compatriot, Mr. Jemmy Peel.

'They are all three de Guillens,' Pollock almost simpered with a toplofty smugness. 'Helio and Hippolyte, and their sister, Charite.'

'So… who are they, when they're up and dressed?' Lewrie off-handedly queried, pretending closer interest in