Toby Jugg-Patrick Warder or Tobias Hosier, and an host of aliases he'd given ship captains over the years- looked at Mannix and Dempsey's childlike, prompting expressions, knowing that if he didn't agree, they'd mostlike shoot him down, so eager they were to desert. Without Capt. Lewrie, what would he be? A new captain would bring a 'pet' to supplant him as Quartermaster's Mate, reduce him to being an Able Seaman again. But, if he was 'dead,' his name cut from ship's books and Admiralty registers… and with a pile of money…!
'Ye're still a thief, Boudreaux,' Toby Jugg allowed at last. 'One keg, me arse! Five keg a man, an' no debt o' auld I owe ye, for ye said ye forgive it long afore.'
'Ah-yee!' Balfa cried, all but tearing his bushy grey hair out at the roots. 'You starve my famille, starve my chickens! Five kegs, mon cul! Two, an' be damn to ya. You live good on two kegs, that's five hundred pounds! North Loosiann ' be fulla heretic Protestants an' I hope dey burn ya! Fulla 'Mericains an' skinflint Yankees who take de coin off your dead mother's eyes. You deserve t'live dere, Paddy!'
'Four kegs, Boudreaux,' Jugg countered. 'After all, wot's your life worth, you an' yer son's?'
'Mist be burnin' off,' Boudreaux pointed out suddenly. 'We'd better get along, chers. Your men row dis boat, 'cause we played out, but we can still paddle ^.pirogue …'
'Not without a firm price an' yer Bible oath on it, Boudreaux,' Jugg insisted. 'They spot us, we'll remember we're 'True Blue Hearts O' Oak' an haveta settle fer our share o' th' prize money. Let's say three kegs an' have done.'
'Mon Dieu, merde alors!' Balfa surrendered, knowing that his old shipmate Toby Jugg was right. 'T'ree keg each, my word on it,' he said, crossing himself.
'Mannix, you get in their boat. Boy, you come into ours, and I'll thankee for yer 'barker,' ' Jugg ordained. 'We'll tow you on a short painter 'til we strike th' far shore. Fire off a shot ever' now an' then… your pistols first, o'course, t'keep 'em guessing back down South. Miss? Ye want t'play a man, well… take up 'at oar an' help Mannix row 'til auld Boudreaux's got his wind back. No harm will come to ye, me own oath on't. Jus' sing small an' be thankful ye still got breath in yer body, for ye slew a decent man… for an officer… an' he did right by me, I tell ye.'
Charite slumped down on the sternsheet thwarts, knees drawn up, and her arms hugging her breasts. Everything she'd had in life was lost and gone, even her last, leery trust in 'dear old' cheerful Capitaine Balfa, who had just sold her out! She would live, the Anglais sailor swore; she'd return home… but to what?
Oh, God,' Capt. Alan Lewrie weakly whimpered, his hands shakily feeling over his chest. His head lay cradled in Cox'n Andrews's lap, and Andrews was gently undoing his waist-coat and shirt buttons. Air! Pain/ He could barely draw breath, and his heart thudded so strongly and quickly, it felt like a kettledrum at a bloody concert. Hot pain thrummed knot-like 'twixt his stomach and sternum.
'Be easy, sah!' Andrews commiserated. 'Easy! I'm bloody dyin' and… ow! Damme, but that hurts!' Hold, a tick! Lewrie puzzled; Heart's bangin' like a racehorse! Hurts, but… what the bloody Hell?
'Ya ain't killed, sah!' Cox'n Andrews wondrously exclaimed. 'Ya ain't even bad shot, praise de Lord!'
Lewrie fumbled at his bared chest, coughing and still gasping for breath, each one searing pain through him. His fingers came away smeared with blood! 'What d'ye call this, then, damn my eyes!' he querously quibbled.
'Faith, sor,' Liam Desmond, one of his oarsmen, cried, holding a silvery.51 calibre rifle ball 'twixt thumb and forefinger. 'Found it on th' soleboards, sor! Must o' bounced right off ya, sure. Shot went pish! 'stead o' crack! Like that duck ya shot comin' upriver, sor… when th' air- flask was spent? Mother Mary, but you're th' lucky'un an' there's a tale for th' tellin', Cap'm, sor!'
'Mebbe we starts callin' ya 'Iron-Bound' 'stead o' th' Ram-Cat, sah.' Andrews tittered, immensely relieved and slightly teasing.
'We will not!' Lewrie snapped, struggling to sit upright despite his sailors' protests. He gaped downwards, thinking it must have been a weakly propelled shot, for all of Charite's remorseless accuracy. It had further been blunted by his white leather sword baldric that angled cross his chest, by a doubled-over gilt-laced coat lapel atop it, and lastly, by the insubstantial obstacle of his waist-coat and shirt that had absorbed most of the ball's force. Even so, his flesh had been split by its impact, and when he gingerly massaged his chest near the seeping, slight wound, which was already swelling and turning the most garish shade of purply green in a bruise as wide as his hand-span, he thought he could feel something broken inside-a rib or two perhaps, his breastbone chipped, maybe? Dented? Thank the Lord, indeed, though, there wasn't a gaping, spurting, grape-red hole in his hide!
'Damn my eyes, but she shot me,' Lewrie wheezed. 'She actually shot me! Tried t'kill me!'
Not that I really blame her… much, Lewrie told himself with chagrin; 'Tis a bloody wonder some woman didn 't try ages ago! And by the queasy expression on Andrews's phyz, his longtime Cox'n must've been wondering the same thing.
'Where is she?' Lewrie demanded, head aswivel in search for her. 'Way off yonder, sah,' Andrews had to say, waving northward at a fog-hazed horizon. Lewrie couldn't spot another boat anywhere.
'Damme, we've lost 'em. But if Jugg is still after 'em… we might get lucky yet,' Lewrie sadly decided. 'Might have 'em in irons by nightfall.'
'We head back to de ship, Cap'm?' Andrews solicitously asked. 'Ya need t'let Mistah Hodson an' Mistah Durant, de Surgeons, tend to ya, sah. Bind up yer ribs an' such?'
'Aye, Andrews, that'd be capital,' Lewrie was forced to agree. 'It strikes me that I might've done enough and more today for King and Country. I've earned myself a lie- down!'
'Amen t'dat, sah,' Andrews said with a chuckle. 'Make y'self comf'table as ya can, an' Desmond an' me'll fetch ya back to Proteus, quick as a wink. Mebbe Jugg will cotch dat girl for ya, an'… '
'Ah-hemm!' Lewrie growled at that unfortunate slip, tossing in a grumbly 'Arr!' for good measure as he pressed his handkerchief over his wound and eased down to sit on the gig's floorboards, seepage and the state of his uniform bedamned, to lay against the forward thwart. Half prone, he found it easier on his ribs to breathe.
Andrews and Desmond got the gig turned about and set themselves a slow but deep-biting stroke that would get him to safety and still not completely exhaust them, and the metronomic rumbling creak of oars in ungreased tholes, the thrust and glide of the boat between strokes, and the gurgle-chuckling of passing water began to lull him.
Do I really want her captured? he asked himself, puzzling over why he didn't utterly despise her and wish her heart's blood, since she'd come damned close to spilling his. All in all, Lewrie reckoned, it had been a shitten business they'd done… but it was done. And even if Charite escaped, once the report on this affair was published in London papers the tale would make its way to New Orleans sooner or later and it would be up to the incensed Spanish to do the real dirty work. In spite of all the depravities she'd been involved with, he could almost pity her, when the Dons got their hands on her.
Luck to you, girl, he thought, lolling his head back to admire the clearing, bright blue sky; but, damme if I ain't pleased t'be shot of you!
He would have laughed at his play on words,… but he suspected it would hurt.
