Before Lewrie could do a thing about it, Count Rybakov clasped his arms round him, bussed him on both cheeks, and danced Lewrie about the deck, jostling him like a child, with his boots in the air!
'Well, now, my lord… uhm!' Lewrie spluttered, to the amusement of his watching crew. Rybakov at last set him back down.
'A safe journey… short though it may be to Saint Petersburg, yourself, my lord,' Lewrie offered, after he'd gotten most of his dignity back, and his hat re-settled on his head.
'Well, then… it is time,' Count Rybakov said in conclusion as he stepped to the lip of the entry-port and looked down at the gig waiting at the bottom of the boarding-battens, and the main channels.
'Ship's comp'ny, off hats, and… salute!' Lt. Ballard barked in his surprisingly deep, carrying voice, doffing his own cocked hat by example, as the Marines stamped their boots and presented muskets, and the Bosun, Mr. Dimmock, and his Mate, Mr. Pulley, piped a departing call. The count turned inwards, back to the sea, and seized hold of the man-ropes to begin his cautious descent. Once Rybakov's hat was below the lip of the entry-port, Count Levotchkin went to the edge and turned to face inboard as the call continued, and the crew stood to attention, doffing their flat, tarred hats.
'Dosveedanya, Kapitan,' Levotchkin said, giving Lewrie a final, mocking sneer, as pleased with himself, it seemed, as a cat who lapped the cream. 'Enjoy your journey,' Count Levotchkin added, his blue eyes alight.
What's he mean by that? Lewrie asked himself as he stood there, doffing his own hat. (though abhoring the required honour) and caught a faint shift in Levotchkin's gaze; over his shoulder at something.
'Seechas, Sasha!' Levotchkin snapped, his face going feral just as he began a spry descent down the frigate's side.
Seechas… 'now'? Now, what? Lewrie wondered as he recognised the word, feeling an odd prickle up his spine that forced him to begin to turn to look behind him.
'Bloody Hell!' Marine Lt. Eades cried, the first, loudest voice of alarm, as the Bosuns' calls squealed to a sudden stop.
Midshipman Tillyard grasped Lewrie's left arm and pulled hard, sending him stumbling towards the nearest Marine private by the entry-port, who didn't try to catch his captain, but was busy bringing his musket down from Present Arms to Poise, lowering the muzzle in rough aim behind Lewrie. It was a second Marine who caught him before he stumbled through the open entry-port, to fall overside and drown, for, like most British tars, Lewrie could not swim.
'Ya bastard!' Lt. Eades snarled, swinging with his already drawn sword, from ceremony to combat, making somebody howl.
Sasha, the shave-pated burly manservant, was grasping his hand and roaring with both sudden pain and frustration. The dagger he had whipped out of his left overcoat sleeve was falling from his grip, its hilt bloodied from his thumb, half-severed by Lt. Eades's blade.
'Murder!' someone shouted in the din.
Not done yet, Sasha let out another bull-roar and shouldered his way forward, towards Lewrie, half-knocking Midshipman Tillyard off his feet, and taking hold of the young man's half-drawn dirk with his good hand!
'Weapon!' Lewrie demanded of the Marine who'd kept him from going overboard, ripping the Brown Bess musket from the fellow's shocked and nerveless grasp. It wasn't loaded, but the bayonet was fitted.
Marine Sgt. Crick and the first private met Sasha first, with readied bayonets, Sgt. Crick getting his blade in, though Sasha's pile-lined hide coat blunted Crick's thrust. Lt. Eades slashed at his back, but the coat acted like armour. It was the Marine private who jabbed at Sasha's eyes, then reversed his musket and delivered a forehead smash that finally brought the brute down to his knees, swinging wildly with Tillyard's dirk, and still trying to rise and finish his master's orders! Lt. Eades's next slash connected alongside the Russian's bald head, clipping off the top of his right ear, followed by a brass-bound musket butt right in the teeth from Sgt. Crick that sprawled Sasha on his back, spitting teeth and blood, half senseless, so he could be dis-armed.
'Get up, you son of a bitch!' Lewrie snarled, edging round inboard of the entry-port. He lowered the musket to level the bayonet at Sasha's chest as he groggily got back to his knees, half-crawling to face Lewrie, as if only death would dissuade him. 'Sasha failed, Levotchkin!' Lewrie shouted to the boat alongside. 'He let you down! Are you man enough t'come back up here and do your own dirty-work? Or are ye the same drunken butt-fucker ye were in London?'
Hmmm… bet that needs some explainin', Lewrie thought, hearing the buzz of confusion among his ship's people.
'Ye just couldn't use a fetchin' whore like Tess the right way, could ye, Levotchkin?' Lewrie taunted. 'Your sort likes t'terrify 'em, and make it hurt. Make it vile! What, ye get your first practice on sheep, or pigs, Levotchkin? Ye prefer the 'windward passage'?'
In the gig below, Count Levotchkin howled in rage, cursing back in Russian, French, and English so rapidly and heatedly that only a few choicer words could be made out.
'Get on your feet, ye murderin' scum,' Lewrie urged Sasha with the glittering point of the bayonet.
'Put 'im in irons, sir?' Marine Sgt. Crick asked, bristling.
'No, not yet,' Lewrie said. 'I've something else in mind. Hoy! Levotchkin!' he shouted overside again. 'Tess told me she damned near puked her guts out, ev'ry time ye showed up at the brothel. She hated ev'rything about you! Ye frightened her. Said for all she got out of it, ye might as well've stuck your puny prick down the neck of a wine bottle, all the way cross the room from her! So disgusted by ye, she couldn't even feign it with you. Come up here and face me, ye little poltroon!'
'Oh Lord, sir, you'll not…,' Lt. Ballard exclaimed, sounding primly appalled. 'Not again. It isn't…'
'I said, get on your feet, you… ya idysodar charochko,'* he spat at Sasha, jerking the bayonet tip upwards.
There was another strangled cry from the gig, and a hissing argument 'twixt Rybakov and Levotchkin, along with threats from Lewrie's Cox'n, Liam Desmond, and Stroke Oar, his mate Patrick Furfy. Whether to sit where he was, or be a man and scale the ship's side to face the consequences, it was hard to tell in all the shouting.
Sasha shook his head to clear it, spitting a couple more teeth and blood, swiping his rough hide coat sleeve to clear his eyes from his freely bleeding head wound, and managed to stagger and sway to his feet, still defiant, with an arrogant, pugnacious sneer on his face, breathing heavily through his nose like a bull in a Spanish fighting arena, still game to charge the cape.
'Sir, you cannot intend to simply kill him!' Lt. Ballard protested. 'It's not within our jurisdiction, not-'
'Just rid the ship of trash, Mister Ballard,' Lewrie flippantly said with a shrug of his shoulders, though his eyes, usually a merry blue, had gone as grey and cold as ice. He took a step forward, with the bayonet levelled at Sasha's chest. 'Not coming, Levotchkin?' he shouted. He stamped forward another pace driving Sasha backwards.
'Mister Rybakov won't let 'im, sor!' Cox'n Desmond shouted back. 'We're t'hold 'im, 'fore ye kill 'im, sure, says he!'
'And so I would, were he man enough,' Lewrie loudly responded. 'After all, he's the one who's been talkin' so long about challengin' me to a duel… for his own putrid honour. But too much a coward to face me, direct, Had t'sic his pet dog on me, instead. Hoy, Anatoli! Tess liked bein' with me! Wanted t'be under my protection, in a wee place of her own, and never see or hear of you again!'
Lewrie stamped forward once more, jabbing with the bayonet, and making Sasha back up towards the entry- port.
'Well, if ye won't come up and pay the piper, ye spineless, backgammoning little souse, I s'pose ye won't,' Lewrie shouted a final time, looking disappointed. 'I'll send your brute back to ya.'
Sasha understood some English, and a smattering of proper laws. The Angliski Kapitan would rid the ship of trash? That irked, but he was surrounded by levelled, bayonet-tipped muskets, and officers with drawn swords, and could only swallow his rage at being bested. Someday he would have a second chance. He sends him back to Count Anatoli, as well? Because what the other Angliski officer said, that they did not have the legal right? His shattered mouth would heal, the cut on his head would heal, to match the other scars on his body. It was good!
'Get off my ship, Sasha,' Lewrie growled, jabbing the bayonet at the man's eyes, and swiping that smug look from his face at last, and putting anger and caution in its place. Lewrie forced him to the very lip of the entry-port, facing inwards as the others had done their descents. Sasha's hands groped back behind him for the edge of the opened bulwark, fumbling on the cap-rails in search of the upper knots of the man-ropes. 'I said… get off my ship!'
