A King`s Trade

watching. He shook himself back to reality, bent down to pick up his hat and stool, and saw the now-drawn stage drapes nigh-churning with a struggle behind them.

'Tot tarakan!'* (*'That cockroach!') he heard, recognising Arslan Artimovich's raspy shrieks. 'Let go, yob tvoyematl Chort! † (†'Shit [or] Damn!') Doh! ‡ (‡'God!') Tot sikkim siyn!'** (**'That son of a bitch!') Or, whatever that meant. In punctuation, a long arm emerged through the curtains' partings, a hand at the end clutching a dagger, with several other hands struggling to disarm him, and Lewrie determined that, aye, it would be a good time to bolt… in a dignified manner, o' course, though with some purposeful haste. 'Tot gryazni sabaka!⁺⁺ (⁺⁺'That dirty dog!')

As he headed for the piers and his waiting gig, taking longish strides, he tried to recall what it was the London papers always said of a new play in Drury Lane, or Covent Garden. Right, that was it!

A most enjoyable time was had by all!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

First Off'cer… SAH!' the Marine sentry without the door into the great-cabins cried, thudding the brass-bound butt of his musket on the deck.

'Enter,' Lewrie bade, interrupting his breakfast in the dining-coach and rising to his feet, almost wincing with dread anticipation of what report Lt. Lang-lie might make; he had already gotten a letter from HMS Grafton, even before his sailors had finished washing and stoning Proteus's decks.

Lt. Anthony Langlie stepped through the door into Lewrie's forward cabins, 'twixt the dining-coach to larboard and the chart-space to starboard, cocked hat under one arm, and a rolled-up set of papers in his free hand. Toulon and Chalky, who had been breakfasting on the fresh bacon bought ashore, raised their tails and tricky-trotted over from their dishes to greet him, as was their usual wont, for Langlie was always good for a kind word and a skritch. They were disappointed, though, for Langlie paced right past them, for a rare once, to attend to the grim matter at hand.

'Coffee, Mister Langlie?' Lewrie offered, dabbing at his mouth with a fresh napkin. 'Buttered toast and jam, too, perhaps?'

'Ehm… the coffee'd be welcome, sir, thankee,' Langlie said, a frown upon his usually-placid and (some said) handsome features.

'Sit ye down, then, sir. Aspinall? Coffee for the First Officer, and a refill for me,' Lewrie directed. Aspinall fetched a fresh cup and saucer, his battered black pot, and did the honours, before, at his captain's firm nod, retreating back into his tiny pantry abaft the chart-space. 'Well then, Mister Langlie… just how large a pack of sinners are we?' Lewrie finally asked.

'Ehm…' Langlie commented with a sigh, unrolling his reports. 'A total of twenty-two hands on report, sir. I comfort myself with the fact that Proteus isn't the greatest offender, but…'

'To paraphrase those Americans with whom we cooperated in the Caribbean, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie stuck in with a scowl, ' 'when the captain ain't comforted, ain't nobody comforted,' hmm? I've already had a note from Captain Treghues on the matter. Tell it me.'

'Aye, sir. Ahh…' Langlie sadly replied. After one sip from his sugared and goat-milked cup of coffee, he referred to his papers. 'First off, I suppose, there was the 'zebra' race, though that Mister Wigmore's made no formal complaint about the ah… borrowing of his beasts, or the condition in which they were returned. It did draw an undue amount of attention, though, sir, so…'

'Could've been worse, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie opined. 'Might have been camels, not…'

'The camels put them right off, sir,' Langlie told him. 'All that biting, bawling, and spitting green goo. In point of fact, one could hold Wigmore partially at fault for allowing our Black hands to mount them at all.'

Some of their 'liberated' Jamaican Blacks, Landsmen or Ordinary Seamen, had been allowed to view the circus's menagerie in their pens down by the piers where they'd been kept after the last circus performance, prior to re-loading aboard Festival. God knows why, but they had also been allowed to mount the so-called zebras, and, on a drunk lark, had decided to race them bareback all the way uphill through the town to the last tavern at the head of the valley, the loser to pay for all.

They had been highly displeased to find that the 'zebras' were only tarted-up donkeys, whose 'cosmetics' stained their cleanest shoregoing uniforms. Equally displeasing was their discovery that, having been born Black African, they had no more innate 'zebramanship' skills than your run-of-the-mill drunken tar. The race had been a shambling, short-tacking disaster, and, once at the distant tavern, they had taken a peevish load of ale aboard themselves, and gotten the donkeys drunk, into the bargain! The garrison's Provost Guard had fetched them Hood, Howe, Bass, Whitbread, and Groome… and the donkeys… home, giving the men Hell for 'cocking a snook' at them and giving the Provosts false, and highly improbable, names!

'And what's this about stolen azaleas, roses, and a… tree}' Lewrie asked, referring to Treghues's note by his plate.

'Well, that was mostly our Irish hands' doing, sir,' Langlie informed him with a grunt of obvious distress. 'Furfy, Desmond, some of the other lads. Once I got them back from the Provosts, and a bit sobered up, their explanation was that they'd heard sailors off those homebound Indiamen talking about how profitable is the importation of exotic foreign… shrubs, and they thought that it might be a two-way trade. Make a bit on the side, sir?… There was, also, some talk about emulating 'Breadfruit' Bligh… the saplings, not the mutinous part. And… they wished to do a bit of… gardening, sir. Spruce Proteus up?' 'Were they of a mind t'plant 'em in the water tubs between the damned guns, Mister Langlie?' Lewrie gawped. 'Or, would just any-old where suit?'

'Ehm… I gather they'd have gone either side of both entry-ports, the quarterdeck and foc's'le ladderways, and… your door, sir. Decorative door-stoop flowers,' Langlie lamely confessed.

'But, the island governor's wife s roses and azaleas, Mister Langlie!' Lewrie exclaimed, referring again to Treghues's damned note. 'The bloody tree from right outside the governor's courtyard!'

'Ahern was especially covetous of the roses, sir,' Lt. Langlie morosely commented. He'd been up all night, from the first alert he'd gotten from the garrison's Officer of the Guard, and was, by now, much the worse for wear. 'His old grannie was a herbalist healer, or so he says, and highly recommended rose hips for those feeling poorly. The, ah… argument over which ship got the roses and such never really did get to an outright brawl, though hundreds of sailors were involved, not just our Proteuses, sir! Men off Grafton, Horatius, and Navy tars off the homebound escort ships were actually the greatest offenders… or so I heard from the other First Lieutenants, once we were all summoned to the Mundens Fort at dawn, sir. Once there, we compared notes, held a little 'guild meeting,' as it were…'

'The tree, Mister Langlie?' Lewrie pressed.

'The tree, aye, sir,' Langlie said with a put-upon sigh. 'Furfy clapped eyes on it, and swore it was the very sort of tree that stood just outside his childhood croft back in Ireland, sir, and…'

'And was it?' Lewrie asked, most dubiously.

'I rather doubt it, sir,' Langlie replied with a brief grin on his phyz. 'It was a twenty-foot Chinese magnolia. Furfy said, though, that it'd look grand forrud of the roundhouse. Give shelter and shade for hands at the beakhead rails, and the 'seats of ease'? It required hundreds of sailors to up-root it, and bear it back to the piers, sir, where they discovered that it wouldn't go in even the largest cutter without swamping it, so they did return it, and tried to re-plant it… sort of, sir. That's when the garrison mustered a company of infantry.'

'Mine arse on a band-box!' Lewrie attempted to growl, picturing it in his mind's eye. The only scene he could conjure up was a horde of tars dancing and weaving ribbons 'round a mobile May Pole. He used his napkin to