'… Christ!' Lewrie yelped.
'Oh, pay Fredo no mind, Cap'm Lewrie,' Capt. Weed told him as he let out a guffaw, 'but don't do nothing sudden-like, either. Old Fredo's just curious 'bout a new-come. His teeth are dulled, and his claws've been clipped short. Gentle as a baa-lamb… mostly. One of our dancing bears, he is, and ain't he a beauty? Does a whole series o' tricks… when we feed him regular. He'll give up and lose interest, in a bit.'
'That'd be nice!' Lewrie shudderingly said as the bear's great bulk, gentle or no, made him stagger as the beast began to scratch his hairy hide on the back of his thighs.
'Jose! Come do something with Fredo, will ye, por favor? He's an Andalusian bear, him and his brother, quite rare where they come from, they are. Raised 'em from cubs, Wigmore did,' Weed told him.
'Uh huh?' Lewrie whinged, fearful of taking a deep breath.
'Fredo, amigo!' his keeper, Jose, cajoled, coming to take hold of the bear's thick collar. ' Chu beeg seelly, leggo de chennleman.'
Instead, the bear rose up on his hind feet, laid a heavy paw on Lewrie's right shoulder and epaulet hard enough to make him sag, and started to sniff his coat and head all over. Fredo gave him another chummy 'Whuff!' and a soft but rasping bawl, then slapped his cocked hat off. At least that got him off and down!
The bear gave it a lick or two, then skittered it along the gangway like an amusing new toy… a football, perhaps. Jose swept it up from him, eliciting another disappointed bawl, and handed it back to Lewrie, towing better than five hundred pounds of furry appetite by the collar like he would a wolfhound. 'He mean no harm, senor,' Jose said in a friendly manner, even going so far as to tap the bear on his long snout. 'Fredo and Paulo, dey are poosycats. Say jello to de chennlemun, Fredo, say jello!' he urged, and the bear stood up, again, raised a foreleg, and 'waved' his paw at Lewrie, uttering another 'friendly' squalling bawl that might be taken for a pacific greeting… did one ignore the paw, the size of a soup bowl!
'Geef heem a scratch on de head, senor,' Jose coaxed. 'He like de head pat, an' den he be chur vriend. Say jello to my widdle vriend, senor Capitano.'
'Uh…' Lewrie began to demur, rather shakily it here must be noted, but, so many of Festival's people were watching by then, that spectacular and highly-amused raven-haired wench included, that Lewrie couldn't refuse, so… he (tentatively) reached out one hand to stroke the bear's broad head, to dare skritch his fingers in Fredo's coarse, thick fur, knowing that his hand would reek afterward, as if he petted a wild goat or badger, and wouldn't Chalky and Toulon be pleased when he went back aboard, to snuffle, savour, and go gape- mouthed in wonder over such exotic new stinks! Fredo seemed pleased, giving out a raspy 'Whuff ' or two. 'So, mightn't ye put in the good word with yer Admiral an' them, Cap'm Lewrie?' Weed asked as Jose mercifully led Fredo away, finally. ''Bout us joinin' your convoy for a spell?'
'Uh…' Lewrie dazedly reiterated, seeing another keeper come up on the main deck, just done leading a burbling, spitting baby camel into the sunshine, and damned if he'd pet that! 'Perhaps it's be best did we retire to your cabins, Captain Weed, so I may study your manifests, registries, and such.'
Absolutely not!' Capt. Sir Tobias Treghues snapped. 'A band of seagoing… Gypsies! Might even be pirates in a gaudier garb.'
'Well, Festival's papers are all in order, sir,' Lewrie pointed out, with as much deferential patience as he could. 'And, while there very well may be some Gypsies among the circus folk… fortune tellers and such… I don't b'lieve we've any pots need mending, nor are there any babies aboard our ships to steal, so…'
'Oh, well put, young sir!' Capt. George Clowes hooted, lifting a handkerchief to his mouth as he had himself a good guffaw. Clowes was the senior civilian master of the East India Company 'trade,' and therefore the temporary 'Commodore,' who would see them all the way to Calcutta or Bombay, perhaps onwards to Canton in China, too. 'We indeed are bound for Recife, Captain Lewrie, and I see no valid reason why the circus ship should not be given our protection, seeing as how we're all going the same way. Really, Sir Tobias…' he 'tsk-tsked.'
'They could have been lurking off the Cape Verdes, just waiting for a fat convoy to come along, sir,' Capt. Treghues continued to demur. 'If not pirates themselves, perhaps they serve as the eyes and ears for enemy privateers, perhaps a small French raiding squadron. Their claim of water shortage might allow them alongside one of Captain Clowes's vessels to be succoured, and…'
'They look slit-eyed dangerous to you, Captain Lewrie?' Clowes asked, giving Treghues a long up-and-down look as if his patience was long, but not limitless.
'I'd not turn my back on their dancing bears, sir,' Lewrie told him. 'But, my boarding party and I searched the entire ship, looking for anything odd… well, piratical odd, not outrageous odd… and we found nothing amiss. They've but eight light six-pounders, and those are British Army cast-offs. There are only thirty-odd in her crew, and perhaps an hundred circus and theatrical folk, all told. The Festival's master, Captain Weed, possesses but a dozen muskets and fowling pieces, and a dozen rather dubious Sea Pattern pistols, all under lock and key in his great-cabins. Of course, there are boarding pikes and cutlasses in their one arms locker, also locked up securely. Oh, I fancy those sailors of theirs have personal knives, there's a knife-thrower with a small chest full, and a sword-swallower with a small arsenal, and among the 'artists' one'd find pocket pistols and daggers and such. Hat-pins among the women, but…'
'And she's a slow sailer, this Captain Weed admitted?' the East India Company captain enquired. He was a trim and spare fellow in his late fourties, rather distinguished looking, and, with the salary of a 'John Company' master, dressed extremely well, with a vague attempt at a uniform look that emulated Royal Navy fashion, 'less all the gold lace folderol, and with silver buttons instead of gilt or brass.
'Aye, and there's another reason she should be shunned,' Treghues snapped, fidgeting in his leather-covered chair behind his desk in HMS Grafton's great-cabins under her old-fashioned poop. 'She'll slow our progress. We'll take weeks more to…'
'And my Indiamen won't, Sir Tobias?' Capt. Clowes tittered, as he shared an amused look with Lewrie. 'You've already made sufficient remonstrances for more sail, and quicker progress, sir, and complained of our customary reduction of sail after sundown. 'Bare steerage-way' you called it, I seem to recall? It's the Company's way, sir, for the comfort of our paying passengers.' Clowes stated more soberly, laying down the law, in a manner of speaking.
A way of speaking that a Royal Navy captain, a putative 'Commodore' in his own right with a triangular red pendant to prove it… even if it did bear the white ball of an officer not officially listed in that rank, yet… found both egregious and insufferable, it would appear, from Lewrie's observation this evening, and from his previous service under Treghues.
God knows he was always smug and insufferable.1Lewrie thought.
Treghues was the son of a poor but titled family, and had been raised with all the deference given to members of the peerage; he had entered the Navy despite being the eldest, for there was little to inherit but the empty title, with 'The Honourable' following his younger rank, and preceding his Christian name. Even so, people would tug at their forelocks and doff and scrape to nobility, and… unless he had proved himself monumentally unsuited… would continue to be courted in a midshipmen's mess, the officers' gun-room, or as a captain second but to God. He never had been the sort who took disagreement with his notions easily, had ever been sublimely cock-sure of himself, and was primly 'strong in the Lord.' Lewrie was certain that Capt. Clowes and his casual nature, and his quick, amusing wit, was a constant trial to Treghues. Treghues was the sort who expected pot-holes to be filled before he crossed them, stairs to flatten themselves, and Clowes, and Lewrie himself, were deep, sloppy road ruts and trip-snares!
'If it makes you any easier in your mind, Sir Tobias, perhaps… since Festival will be as slow as my Indiamen,' Clowes suggested, 'you could keep her under your guns at the rear of the trade. Where it
