A King`s Trade

'I'd also like to name to you my brother-in-law, sir, ma'am… Miss Alicia,' Burgess interjected, about ready to tug at his shirt collar and suddenly too-tight neck-stock. 'Captain Alan Lewrie, of the Royal Navy.'

'Reverend Brothers… Mistress Brothers… Miss Brothers,' Lewrie purred, doffing his cocked hat and dipping a formal 'leg.' 'Your servant.'

'Sir!' from the husband. 'Hmmph!' from the stodgy wife.

'Brother-in-law?' from Eudoxia, in a hellish-sharp tone.

Oh, shit! Lewrie miserably thought; I'm in the quag, now!

'Alan, you not tell me tiy jenati zamujem! You are married!'

'Aah…' was Lewrie's 'spiffy' reply.

'Schto?' Eudoxia snapped, her colour up and her breasts heaving. 'Chort! Hell-and-damn! Tiy gryazni sikkim siyn! Lying… peesa!'* (*'What?… Damn!… you [intimate case] dirty sonofabitch Lying… prick!')

And wher've I heard that before? Lewrie sadly asked himself as she glowered at him, hands on her hips, and probably wondering where she'd left her horsewhip, or her papa's daggers. A stamp of a boot on the pier, a gesture that involved flicking her thumb off her upper teeth (perfectly white and lovely, he noted!), followed by a last one she must have picked up in her travels, her forearm thrust at him, bent skyward, and a hand slapped into the crook of her elbow.

'Dosvidanya… viy sabaka!' † (†'Goodbye you [formal case] dog!') and she stomped off, gathered the reins of her waiting white gelding, and swung up into the saddle with a lithe spring and roll. She sawed the reins to turn 'Lightning,' and gave him her heels, drumming him into an instant mad gallop into town.

'Well, hmm,' Burgess commented in the stricken silence that ensued. 'Perhaps we'll see each other about town, before we sail, Alan, old fellow. For now, though…'

'Aye, before we sail, of a certainty,' Lewrie gloomily replied. 'Reverend… ma'am… miss,' he intoned, doffing his hat again. The Brothers family gave him the 'cut sublime' in return, suddenly intent on the clouds, the bay, and tidy little Cape Town.

Well… that's torn it. Lewrie bleakly thought as he watched them toddle off… rather more rapidly than properly languid; And here I didn't think it could get any worse. Fool, me! If Caroline hears o' this… which sure-to-God she will, less I can bribe Burgess t'keep mum/… I'm back sleepin' in the stables. Lord, is that 'dominee do-little ' in with Wilberforce an' his crowd, I'm in the quag up t 'my eyebrows with them, too!

He ambled (an impartial observer might have said stumbled!) over to the pier edge once more, to a stout combination piling and bollard against which he could lean (or slump, depending on your outlook) just by the stern of the ungainly barge.

'All done, sir!' Lt. Catterall proudly shouted up at him. 'It is finished!'

'And ain't it, just,' Lewrie wryly commented. 'Very well done, Mister Catterall, lads!' he congratulated. 'Secure all, ready to get under way. Ready, Mister Goosens? No time like the present.'

And, with a spryness he did not feel, he scuttled down a steep ladderway to the north-side landing stage and into the barge. At the least, he could sail home to 'pay the piper' aboard a sound ship.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

And, what about those eighteen-pounders, Mister Catterall?' he asked, the morning after HMS Proteus had completed her repairs, with a sound rudder and sternpost firmly attached, and a short test sail about Table Bay done to assure them that it was a permanent repair.

'Guns and carriages fully found, sir,' Catterall gruffly replied. 'Though, any eighteen-pounder frigate or older ship of the line calling at Cape Town has already carried off most of the round-shot. I doubt if there are a dozen rounds remaining in stores, and none of the warships on the station at present mount eighteens, sir.'

'And if they did, they'd be extremely loath to share with us,' Lewrie glumly decided. He paced about his newly-pristine quarterdeck, now free of piled cable, shear-legs, heaps of hoisting chain, and the carpentry or metal-working implements needed for last-minute tinkering to make the rudder and sternpost fit properly. 'It appears that we'll be forced to sail a brace of guns short, then. Dammit.'

HMS Proteus was a 32-gunned frigate of the Fifth Rate, a classification that could be misleading to the uninitiated, who might think that thirty-two guns meant thirty-two heavy guns, sixteen mounted on each beam. She had only mounted twenty-six 12-pounders, and the grand total included six 6-pounders; four on the quarterdeck, and two forward on the forecastle for chase-guns, and carronades didn't count.

Now, Lewrie had only twenty-four 12-pounders he could trust, the two 'dinged' ones stored on the lower-most hold with the ballast, with the two midships gun-ports yawning empty.

'We could shift two carronades to fill in,' Lewrie mused aloud. 'But, then we'd also have to shift stores aft, again, to compensate, so our new rudder has its proper 'bite.''

'Well, sir,' the burly Lt. Catterall suggested, 'the new rudder is actually broader than our old'un, fore-and-aft, and that with only one fir sacrificial strip on the trailing edge, 'stead of two or three as the old'un did. Might not be completely necessary to push her stern down to the old seventeen-and-a-half-feet draught we had before, sir.'

'Seventeen'd do it, then, Mister Catterall?' Lewrie asked. 'Or slightly less? Hmm.'

Lewrie paced a bit more, all the way aft to the taffrails for a peek over the stern, with Lt. Catterall following a few feet 'astern' of him whilst he did some mental calculations.

Four 'long twelves ' in my cabins, now, he thought, Shift two of 'em to the midships ports, that'd lighten her astern by better than four tons, right there. Ah, but ships are meant t 'be stern-heavy. Makes 'em quicker on the helm, does the rudder have a deeper bite. Though, with a broader rudder, like a Dutch coaster…?

He turned and peered forward along the freshly-washed and 'holystoned' length of the quarterdeck, now restored to almost a paper-white neatness. There were two 6-pounders on each beam, and two carronades, the short, stubby 'Smashers,' not very long-ranged pieces, but capable of throwing a heavy 24-pounder solid shot, or be loaded like a fowling gun with grapeshot, langridge, sacks of musket balls, scrap crockery, or any sort of hard objects to maim and kill when up close alongside a foe. They weren't meant to take the powerful powder charges needed in a 'long' artillery piece, so they, and their slide-carriages, weighed less than conventional artillery.

'Any carronades in stores, Mister Catterall?' Lewrie asked the Second Officer. 'And twenty-four-pounder shot?'

'Oh, aye, sir!' Lt. Catterall said, brightening. 'The Indiaman, Lord Clive, mounted twenty-four-pounder long guns and carronades. Vice Admiral Curtis's people salvaged her guns, but little else, after she went aground.'

'I want two of 'em, Mister Catterall!' Lewrie declared. 'We'll shift two twelve-pounders from my cabins to amidships, the after-most pair, and replace 'em with a pair of 'Smashers.' They'll almost make up the weight and balance diff'rence. Get 'em for us, sir, no matter what it takes… beg, borrow, or steal!'

'Aye aye, sir!' Catterall cheered. 'Er… how, sir? If they won't give 'em up, that is,' he asked, more soberly a second later.

'You know where they are?' Lewrie pressed. 'You've seen 'em?'

'Aye, sir, 'board the stores ship, but…'

'Just go ask for 'em, Mister Catterall!' Lewrie exclaimed with a sly grin. 'With my chit in hand, o' course. Take our largest boats and sufficient crews. By now, our people should know all about shiftin' heavy loads, as should you. In the meantime, I'll go aboard the flagship and request 'em, formally. With the