the back-country. More than half the Dutch are what they call trekboers, who live semi- nomadic… herds, waggons, and kinfolk, native slaves and all, stopping just long enough to plant the staple crops, then moving on when the land plays out… or, they get bored, I expect,' the Flag-Captain said, rising to indicate that their interview was over. 'There's more than a few sailors, well-paid hands off Indiamen and passing traders, who run no risk of battle such as we do, have 'run' and taken up the life. Damned fools.'
'Thankee for the warning, sir,' Lewrie told him, gathering up his hat and such. 'I will caution my officers and warrants t'be wary.'
' 'Tis such a pity, though… that so much of the beguiling wildlife can kill you.'
'Kill, sir?' Lewrie asked, trying not to gawp. The two times he had broken his passage at Kaapstad, as the Dutch called it, in '84 and '86 between the wars, he hadn't gotten into the back-country; taverns, restaurants, and rich-gentlemen's brothels had been more beguiling to his tastes. A spirited horseback ride on a hired 'prad' from Kaapstad and Table Bay to Simon's Town on Simon's and False Bay represented his best effort at 'exploration'… and there'd been clean posting-houses and taverns all along the way, too.
'Oh, God yes!' the Flag-Captain exclaimed with a moue. 'Snakes and scorpions, spiders, biting ants, biting flies, and such? They are as vicious and deadly as a pack of hungry lions. Wild beasts running in herds so vast they blanket the land, miles across. Not to mention a large assortment of fierce native tribes, simply keen on poisoning their spears and arrows.
'God only knows what the Dutch hoped to make of a toe-hold in Africa, other than a way station on the way to the riches of the Far East. And, now we have possession of it, God only knows of what avail 'twill prove to be to us, hah?'
'Well, at one time, one might've said much the same of North America, sir,' Lewrie drolly pointed out.
'Oh, quite right!' the Flag-Captain hooted, in much mirth over Lewrie's quip. 'Quite right, indeed! Ah, empire What a grand and glorious thing for Britons to own…'til one must actually go take a squint at it, close up, and be confronted with its sweaty, itchy, and uncomfortably fatal nature. Look at India, for God's sake! Best of luck with your repairs, Captain Lewrie. Any difficulties, don't hesitate to ask,' he vowed, though how much aid he'd actually be was a moot question. Beyond the stores ship, it would be up to them, alone.
At least armed with some more-than-credible things for his crew to dread when they went ashore, preventing mass desertion, Lewrie went back aboard his frigate. Once the ritual salute was done, he went aft to the taffrails to stare long and hard at the inviting shore, leaning on the cap-rails on his elbows, most lubberly.
Two guns short, even if there was enough seasoned timber ashore or in stores to re-mount them on new truck-carriages; unless the Prize Court really had captured 12- pounders, he would have to accept sailing with a weaker gun battery. Assuming Bombay had a slab of seasoned oak big enough for a new rudder, the stores ship had it, and would really give it up!, the Dutch chandlers had it, well… sailing might be a moot point, too. Six, possibly nine, hands short, if Mr. Hodson's sad diagnoses proved correct, with nigh a dozen more prime sailors recuperating from wounds, and on light duties for weeks more, to boot. There wasn't even an official naval hospital ashore, not yet, and Admiralty seemed loath to spend ha'pence more on the Cape Town Station than absolutely necessary, so Lewrie supposed that he would have to rent a place in the town, something airy, clean, and shady where his wounded sailors could recover, for the small sick-bay near the forecastle aboard ship was the worst sort of make-shift sick-berth.
One comfort: the long-settled Dutch, no matter how much rancour existed 'twixt them and the English, were also Protestant Christians, with none of the intolerance for other faiths that obtained in Spanish, or Catholic, lands. There had already been an established, but small, Church of England parish to serve the needs of transient British sailors in Cape Town, and the church's rector had most-kindly offered his services, and his graveyard, where Lewrie's dead were now buried. With a real churchman to officiate, a hand-pumped organ and organist to accompany the heartfelt hymns, and altar boys to both assist the rector in his duties and form the core of a tiny choir which had turned out to honour fellow Englishmen as they went under the earth, the service had been much more satisfying to one and all than anything that Lewrie could have done, with his battered Book of Common Prayer in one hand, and equally tattered hymn book in the other, awkwardly reciting ritual by the starboard entry-port as the dead were tipped over the side, one by one, sewn into a canvas shroud with round-shot at their feet, a last stitch through their noses, sliding from the carrying board from under the Ensign to plunge into the unfathomable, abyssal depths.
It was best, though, that his dead had come ashore already sewn into their sail-canvas shrouds, for two of the six had come from among his 'Black Jamaican volunteers'-Landsman George Anson and Ordinary Seaman Jemmy Hawke-and Lewrie was mortal-certain that the vigourous youngish rector, kindly as he'd seemed, would have raised a torrent of objections had he seen Blacks going into the ground beside Whites!
'They were related to those august gentlemen, were they?' he had comfortingly enquired in a private moment. 'How horrible 'twill be for such famous naval families to learn of such early demises for kin, who had their promising careers ended so tragically early. Should I write letters of condolence, perhaps…?'
'No kin to former admirals, nossir,' Lewrie had had to say with a straight and mournful face, suddenly amused nigh to titters with the astonishment everyone would evince were the shrouds opened, or letters sent to the Anson and Hawke families back in England. 'In fact, they were but common sailors, good men, but without any ties to gentlemanly families, I fear. Men volunteer, or declare themselves when 'pressed,' under false names. Take false names to avoid being taken up by civil authorities, were they wrongdoers before, d'ye see.
'Ah, I understand, Captain Lewrie,' the rector had said, 'and I feel certain that, no matter their sins were scarlet, dying in service to King and Country, they were washed as white as snow by their dedication to Duty, and by the true Valour they evinced in their last instants. Heaven will be their reward, no matter how humbly born.'
'Truly said, sir,' Lewrie had replied. 'As for notifying their kin, I have already composed letters. 'Tis my sad duty.'
Half the morning gone, kicking his cooling heels waiting to be seen by that Flag-Captain, whilst Mr. Pendarves, Mr. Towpenny, and Mr. Garroway had been over the side on a catamaran, a floating work stage, surveying what they could above the waterline, the damaged gun-trucks being repaired with what stocks of seasoned timber they had in stores aboard Proteus, and the 'divotted' artillery pieces dis-mounted, ready to be slung into the cutter and rowed ashore for exchange, should there actually be Dutch 12-pounders to exchange them for. Lewrie would not be picky; they could be tiger-mouthed Hindoo or Chinese guns, for all it would signify to him at that point!
So much to do to put Proteus to rights, to care for his maimed sailors, one of whom, 'Sam Whitbread,' was also Black, and what Dutch renters thought of that when he sought shore lodgings for them, well!
Six, eight weeks, he said? Lewrie thought with a dismayed moan; Longer? Land of The Lotus Eaters, bedamned! And, the French. Could they have gotten strong, or bold, enough, to haunt Table Bay, despite what the local Navy officers think? I can't sit idle, swingin round the anchors, if the Frogs think they can raid this close to home. For a bleak moment, he pictured that French squadron sailing right into the bay for a night raid on shipping, and with Proteus so lamed…!
He thrust himself erect, determined to get a way on, to achieve something productive before sundown; though, what that was, he hadn't a clue, at present. He paced back forward, but caught sight of Festival, anchored about a mile off, and now swarmed with barges and boats to unload her menagerie, scenery, and such for a long 'run' of performances. Her main yardarm was dipping to sway out a sling which held a horse, a white horse, Eudoxia's well-trained gelding.
Hmm, he speculated; eight weeks or more, in a Paradise, even if it's a deadly sort. With her ashore? Lord, give me strength!
