outskirts of Kaapstad, the unsprung waggons clattering, axles squealing, and ox teams farting and lowing.
Goosen's chandlery would receive the reclaimed materials into a beachfront works yard, where both Lewrie's specialist petty officers, and their crews, and yet another set of cousins-Paul Riebeck, who was reputed to be a skilled carpenter, and his metal-working brother Hendrik-would set up their forges, anvils, and tools to assist the hands off Proteus in cutting down, shaping, and planing the Lord Clive rudder down, and manufacturing new bronze and iron fittings.
All that for a 'most reasonable fee,' it went without saying!
Lewrie turned things over to Midshipman Gamble and Mr. Pendarves, sure that 'cousin' Andries de Witt knew the way to that works yard with his eyes shut, and for them to send word to the ship that they were now back. Turning his horse aside, Lewrie rode up the steep, curving road of the Lion's Rump to the tidy farm cottage where his wounded men were recuperating.
'All's well?' he asked their emigre French Surgeon's Mate, Mr. Maurice Durant. who came out to greet him on the windswept slopes.
'Three hands are still poorly, Captain,' Durant said with a most Gallic shrug as they stepped into the shade of the deep galleries that fronted each side of the rented farmhouse. 'Suppuration from the oiled oak splinters that caused their wounds, I am sorry to say. The rest are still too stiff for even light duties, I am also sorry to relate, sir, but they are healing.'
'And Whitbread?' Lewrie enquired about one of his Black sailors.
' Quel dommage, he has gone away from us, Captain,' Durant sadly related, reverting to the old French expression for death. 'Lieutenant Langlie was informed, and saw to his burying… well- wrapped in a canvas shroud, n 'est-ce pas?' he said with a conspiratorial wink and nod. 'That young English rector suspected nozzing, and now Samuel Whitbread is interred beside his shipmates and fellow escapees, poor fellow. A great pity, though… now, there are only seven of the Black fellows left from your humanitarian gesture, Captain.'
'Nine,' Lewrie insisted as Durant helped him dip an oak bucket of water from a butt on the gallery porch for his horse.
'Non, Captain… seven,' Durant corrected, as if it was of no matter. 'The lean, young marksman who calls himself Rodney? And, the one who calls himself Groome, who tried to ride the sham zebras? They have run, Lieutenant Langlie tells me.'
'Run?' Lewrie snapped. 'Deserted? Mine arse on a…!'
'The cirque… the circus people who go into the wilds,' Durant calmly went on, offering Lewrie a copper dipper of water, too. 'Groome and Rodney were ashore on liberty when the circus party departed, but they never return to the ship. I gather, from what Lieutenant Langlie learn, that they had hung about the circus menagerie, and talk often to M'sieur Wigmore and their guide, a local Boer____________________'
'Van der Merwe!' Lewrie spat.
'Ship's cook, he tell Lieutenant Langlie that several wished to be in circus, Captain,' Durant said with another fatalistic shrug. 'Groome believe-ed he could be elephant tamer or rider, handle horses and real zebras… even be an actor, if they do Shakespeare's Othello. Rodney, he say he is the crack shot, good as any, and wish to shoot the great beasts of Africa, his native land, after all. Perhaps perform in circus with guns, like Mistress Eudoxia. Lion tamer, Durschenko…?'
'Him! Aye?' Lewrie growled, drinking off half of the dipper and swirling the rest to rinse it, before heaving the rest over the railing.
'Before he injure his eye, he was the crack shot, aussi, he tell me,' Durant went on, as if desertion was an everyday occurrence, nothing to get exercised about, for it had nothing'' to do with his specialties. 'He come to me, when he learn I was once the physician trained in Paris, to see if his eye was hopeless. Quel dommage, there is nozzing anyone may do to restore his sight, but…'
'That flap-eyed bastard! What'd he tell you?' Lewrie demanded, instantly suspecting that luring some of his sailors to desert was the man's way of getting back at him, if putting one of his daggers in his heart was not in the immediate offing.
'He does say, when I treat him, that such a hunt will be one of life's grand adventures, Captain, though the danger is aussi the great, so, as many guns who go along will be welcome. He suggest, I think, I might enjoy such with him, hawn hawn!' Durant said with the nasal sort of laugh of which only the French seemed capable.
'He rode up here?' Lewrie pressed, hoping that Durschenko had no idea, being a foreigner, that Black sailors weren't all that common in the Royal Navy, not in such numbers aboard a single ship, or that burying them alongside Whites was heavily frowned upon. Else, he 'd be crowing it from the rooftops, t 'spite me! Lewrie fretfully thought; Or, if Groome, Rodney, one of the others, blabbed about how I got 'em… I
'Lured 'em away, did he?' Lewrie griped.
'That is very possible, Captain,' Durant agreed, with the calm of a saint, which, to Lewrie, was becoming maddening.
'Mine arse on a band-box!' Lewrie exclaimed, stomping about the gallery, all but ready to flap his arms in anger. 'Didn't the idiots know that the Dutch keep slaves here, same as Jamaica… that they're trading one set o' chains for another, once they're far enough away in the wilds where the trekboers can do anything they like with 'em?'
'Perhaps they assum-ed that they were under the protection of that M'sieur Wigmore,' Durant said, and if he performed just one more of his damned shrugs, Lewrie would not be responsible for his actions! 'Or, that M'sieur Durschenko would prevent that… if they were going as free Black men, employ-ed by the circus, Captain.'
'Damn, damn, hell and damn!' Lewrie cried, in a stew, for there was no way, short of organising a hunting trip of his own, to get them back, and he was already several hands short; and, what guarantee was there that galloping a press-gang to go after them might not result in even more free-spirited hands… even Marines!… thinking that the merry life of the trekboers was infinitely better than that of an overworked, underfed, and underpaid Jolly British Jack?
'There was no way to prevent it, Captain,' Durant tried to console. 'You were away, and could not have known. Lieutenant Langlie or the ozzer officers could not have known their intentions beforehand, lizz… either.'
'Doesn't matter, dammit,' Lewrie gravelled. It was his fault. Whatever occurred, for good or ill, was always the captain's responsibility! 'Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the contrary at your peril!' it said near the bottom of his Commission, a phrase the Navy was rather keen on. Bleakly, Lewrie thought that the best he could do for the next week or so would be to see to the ship's repair, no matter how tempting it would be to hare after his deserters and haul them back in irons.
'Do they survive, Captain,' Durant continued in his maddeningly serene voice, 'you may arrest them on their return, n'est-ce pas?'
'Well, there is that,' Lewrie bitterly allowed, slouching, with his hands resting on the gallery railing, and staring out at Table Bay. 'Not that their present absence does the rest of our people any good. I might have to cancel shore liberty 'til we have 'em back, before any more of our hands think to emulate 'em. Replacing the rudder and the sternpost'll keep 'em busy enough, for a while, but…'
Much as I find it loathsome, I'll have to have those two at the gratings, he thought; Give 'em both four-dozen lashes apiece, just to drive the lesson home t'one and all!
'You will see the wounded, Captain?' Durant asked.
'Aye, I will. What I rode up for…' Lewrie began to say, but took closer notice of Table Bay before he swung back to face Durant. There was a new ship anchored near Green Point, inside the encircling peninsula. And, even more ships were entering the bay, just starting to round Green Point. Even without a telescope, he could make out a few identifying details in the clear air, so far up above the haze of Cape Town's hearth and workshop fires.
The arriving ships appeared to be five East Indiamen, escorted by a lone two-decker. And the anchored ship
