'Well, I'm damned!' Lewrie said with a happy whoosh of wind. 'We could sail down round the Cape, take your barge, our launch and cutter, and…'
'Iss big rudder, big sternpost, too, Kaptein,' Goosen cautioned. 'Get offshore in heavy Cape swell, wit' that aboard, you swamp, sure. Nie, best-est, you hire timber waggon. Volk at Simon's Bay, dey heff many boats, all sizes. I speak to my cousin, Andries de Witt, he heff timber waggons, heff big, strong dray horses. You, me, my kaffirs unt two-dozen men of yours for heavy pulley-hauley. Well, maybe take more waggons, for shear-legs, heavy cables, tents, food unt water, rum unt beer… your men ride in waggons, not walk so far, too, ja! One day down, two, three day work like Trojans, one day back, unt you heff new rudder, quick as wink, haw haw!'
'You're sure it's still there, not looted, yet,' Lewrie pressed. 'Word of honour, it's in good shape!'
'On Holy Bible, on my vertroue in God, it is so, Kaptein!' the stout older fellow vowed, one hand in the air pointing to Heaven, with a suddenly solemn air.
'And… just how much d'ye expect this expedition of ours will cost, Mister Goosen?' Lewrie asked him, satisfied that the Indiaman's rudder and sternpost was still there, but suddenly leery when it came to talk of 'cousin Andries' and his magically available waggons.
'Wreck now belong to me, rudder unt sternpost belong to me unt other chandlers, but… I give you gut price, word on that, too! My cousin Andries, well… I am sure something be worked out, to mutual satisfaction, Kaptein Leer… myhneer,' Goosen swore, his face going as cherubic, and as innocent, as the veriest babe at Sunday school.
That's what I was afraid of, Lewrie thought with a well-hidden sigh, but… reached out and shook hands with the cagey bastard. If he played his hand well enough, there was a good possibility that the Navy might sport him the cost, entire!
Kapitan Lewrie!' a tantalisingly familiar voice interrupted a foul musing as Lewrie's little train of waggons reached the Southern outskirts of tidy little Cape Town, almost into the first of the farms and vineyards, on the dusty road to Simon's Town. 'Zdrasvutyeh!'
Oh, shit, and where's her papal1 Lewrie thought with a twinge of alarm as he reined his hired mare and wheeled her slowly about, to see the equally familiar spirited white gelding loping to catch up with his caravan. Eudoxia Durschenko was beaming fit to bust as she easily and athletically 'posted' in her stirrups, heels well down, and back just as straight and erect as a fence-post as she came near.
'Is good be seeink you, again, Kapitan Lewrie!' Eudoxia gaily called out as she reined in her horse to a walk, patting his neck as he tossed his proud head and snorted in frustration that his fun was over. 'Ve have not see you at circus or theatre, since comink here, pooh, fine Engliski kapitan. Where you are goink wit' ox and waggon?'
That had been the first surprise; 'cousin' Andries de Witt had refused to risk his precious dray horses, as big as English Punches, to haul that much weight, and had supplied six oxen to each long and narrow, pink-ended waggon, that rose up so high at 'bow and stern' that they resembled Yankee dorys, and a round dozen oxen as the team for the timber waggon, which was little more than two sets of wheels as tall as a man, and a stout frame linking them together.
'Mistress Eudoxia… enchante!' Lewrie responded in an equal gayness, and doffed his newly-purchased wide-brimmed farmer's hat to her. 'You keep well… you and your father?' he asked, not taking it for granted that the surly bastard wasn't lurking somewhere over the next rise, or skulking behind the last house but one to spy on her. 'As to where I'm going, we're off to salvage a new rudder for my frigate, to replace the one the French shot up.'
'Da, and it was so brave of you, Kapitan, to save us from the Fransooskie, las' week!' Eudoxia quite prettily gushed as her gelding came up alongside his mare, 'til they were riding knee-to-knee. And a rather slim and attractive knee it was, for Eudoxia, paying no heed to prim Dutch Boer proprieties, was wearing a pair of green moleskin breeches, only slightly less snug than the skin-tight ones she wore in her performances, black-and-tan knee-high riding boots, and was, gasp!, shamelessly astride her saddle. And if Eudoxia had made an attempt at 'propriety' by wearing a loose linen shirt tucked into those breeches, with a loose and unbuttoned tan suede waist-coat over it, the shirt's collar was unbuttoned nearly all the way down the placket. To top off her outre ensemble, she had chosen a light grey, wide- brimmed hat with perhaps her one and only gesture towards proper femininity, for it was flounced with long, trailing ribands, one brim pinned up over her right eye, with a long, locally-obtained ostrich plume caught in the fold.
'Our peoples is karasho, Kapitan Lewrie,' she beamed. 'Everythink good, everyone good, but for Poppa's best lion. He is die, eta tak groozni… prasteenyah. Sorry, it is too sad, am meanink to say. Vanya, we are thinkink he eat somethink bad for him at Saint Helena… find head of little dog in cage, then he lose appetite.'
That'd explain the last complaint Treghues got from the governor's wife, aye! Lewrie thought with a wince; Exit one former lap dog, stage left!
'Find collar in throat, after Vanya die…' Eudoxia explained.
'Choked t'death on a pug and his collar, hmm,' Lewrie opined.
'Vanya is oldest, grown when Poppa get him from old trainer,' Eudoxia sadly continued, 'not like Ilya, who is not to be trusted wit' head in mouth… 'less he is very well-feed… fed? Da, fed. Even then, Ilya is… how you say, uhm… frisky! Now, Poppa not havink lion to swallow his head!'
Well, 'twas a forlorn hope, at best, Lewrie thought, grinning.
'So now, Poppa is goink hunt for new lions,' Eudoxia breezily said on, 'for is best, raisink from cubs. Mister Vigmore, he is hunt for new beasts, too! Want real zebra… maybe feed donkeys to lions, at last. Ostrich, giraffee, even ele…?'
'Elephants?' Lewrie supplied, turning in surprise.
'Da, ele-funts, spasiba!' Eudoxia happily exclaimed. 'Thankink you for right word. Mister Vigmore, he say 'ele-funts,' it soundink so funny… hell-ee- finks!' she told him, tossing back her head to give out a rich laugh. 'Mister Vigmore beink Engliski, like you, Kapitan Lewrie, but God! He havink such stranyi accent!'
'Hallo, miss!' Some of the sailors in Lewrie's party, lolling at their sublime ease in his gear-waggons for a rare once, recognised her from her circus and theatrical performances… and from the kiss she'd planted on their captain, that last night at St. Helena. They waved their tarred straw sailors' hats and gave her a cheer. 'Gonna ride t'Simon's Bay wif us, missis?'
'Simon's Bay?' Exdoxia asked.
'Down the Cape, t'other side of it, on another bay, my dear,' Lewrie informed her. 'There's a wrecked ship there, where we hope to obtain a new rudder, and timbers, to repair Proteus. And what of you? You're rather well-armed, I must say. Doing a spot of hunting as well, are you, Mistress Eudoxia?'
She looked down at the brace of single-barrelled pistols jammed into dragoon holsters either side of her saddle's front, the long and slim firelock in a leather scabbard under her right leg, and the bow case and tube that held at least two-dozen of her arrows. 'Oh, pooh, is only to practice. A quiet place in country, where I am practicink not to disturb peoples in town. For wild beast, if one come. For the wild man, if one
