Dewey Lambdin - Havoc`s Sword

Without a career, without a commission or ship, he'd be back in England, permanently on half-pay, and facing a hostile wife, a clutch of estranged children, a too-fond amour with a bastard, so blissful she'd cry their "love" from the rooftops… and another Beauman, his old love Lucy, more than ready to spite him and spread every sort of malicious rumour in the better reaches of English Society, from Land's End to John O' Groats!

If only Ledyard'd had a bit o ' brains in his head! Lewrie sadly contemplated.

But, no, he hadn't. His older brother, Hugh, had funded a local regiment of volunteers, had urged their swaggerin'-handsome and capable neighbour, Christopher Cashman, the distinguished ex-soldier, to take charge and mould it into a creditable unit, with that jingle-brained, ne'er-do-well, indolent fop Ledyard taking the honourific office, with no real responsibility, as Colonel of the Regiment. All he had to do was show up once a month on Mess Night, be fawned over by the locally raised officers much like him-idle second or third planters' sons. And what harm could've come from that? So utterly useless, surely he could soldier for a spell… or, pretend to!

But Ledyard had gotten it in his head that any damn fool with book- learnin' could be a military genius. Washington, Gage, and Green for examples in the recent past inspired him, accounts of Caesar's Gallic Wars, of Hannibal and Lake Trasimeno, Scipio Africanus who'd crushed Hannibal and Carthage; Marlborough, even that Puritan bastard Cromwell had quite turned his noggin. So, when the regiment had sailed to Saint Domingue to fight those ex-slave armies of Toussaint L'Ouverture {another self-educated general) Ledyard had taken command. In the smoke and confusion of their first battle near Port-au-Prince, he'd gotten a third of his men murdered or wounded or captured by those blood-thirsty rebel slaves, whose battle song was "Kill All the Whites" or something near-like it, had caused a general panic and rout of half the army, then had dashed off atop his blooded stallion with his cronies and toadies croaking in his wake, and had left poor Cashman to clean up the mess, and naturally it was not a bit of his fault, but Cashman's panic, or misunderstanding of orders!

Cashman had been ready to sell up, anyway, and leave Jamaica for someplace new in the United States of America, change from being landed to a new career, one which didn't require slaves, for he was heart-sick of the institution. A successful last campaign season, and he could've resigned his commission, perhaps even sold it to an aspiring major… though colonelcies weren't bought or sold in the Regular Army, Jamaica was another kettle of fish, and a "rancid" one at that, where sharp practice was more easily tolerated, or ignored.

Now, though, smeared in the local newspapers, by rumour and the sneers of the richer, his repute, and his property, weren't worth half a crown to the pound, and no matter how the duel ended, he'd be forced to slink off with but a pittance of his massive investment, the fruits of his adult life as a soldier and looter and speculator barely enough for a fresh start, and then only did he think small, not overreach!

Oh yes, Ledyard, and all the Beaumans, had a lot to answer for! A little heart's blood would pay for all.

The coach turned off the coast road and skreaked steeply downhill for a space, the wood brake-shoes ready to begin smoking as they made for the agreed-upon stretch of low-tide beach, where the footing would be firm. With a last thudding toss and clatter that came nigh to hurling them into each other, the coach gained the flatter ground of the strand, and the wheels hissed like hungry dragons over sandier grit and thin soil, the clopping of hooves subdued to the rushing and faint water-drumming of a ship underway.

"Hmmm," Lewrie commented, taking off his large cocked hat to stick out his head for a look-see. He'd have said something inane and redundant such as "we're here," had it not been for the razory glints in Cashman's eyes for disturbing his deep, silent contemplations. For a ha'penny, Lewrie realised, Kit would have bitten his head off!

"Hope Ledyard's been shriven," Lewrie said, instead, twisting on a wry, lop-sided grin. "Whatever it is the vicars do for the half-dead."

Cashman, enveloped by a silk-lined cape, merely nodded, though there was a hint of amusement to the set of his mouth.

The coach body rocked on its thick leather suspension straps, and the horses blew and shook their heads as Andrews and the old Black man-servant that Cashman had brought along sprang down to open the door for them. Lewrie went out first, the two boxes of pistols awkward under his left arm, the expensive wood cases chafing on the hilt of his hanger. He donned his hat, took a deep breath, and looked about their killing ground.

There was very little wind, just the mildest little zephyrs off the sea, the last afterthought of the steady night-winds; not enough to stir the thin mists in the forest above the beach and the coast road, the tendrils of fog that slunk stealthily through the lower scrub of the beach, the manchineel trees and sea-grapes, the withering saplings and wire grasses, the low runners that snaked across the sands. Down the beach, a little to the East'rd, stood a pair of coach-and-fours, a table set up closer to the proper sea-washed beach sands, and a party of caped men who stood waiting for him. Some smoked clay pipes or the Spanish-style cigarillos that were coming into vogue, and he could see the faint gleam of coin-silver flasks as they were tipped up for a sip, the sheen of larger silver or crystal wineglasses as men drank to kill boredom, dread, impatience, or terror. As Lewrie began to plod towards them through the deep, dry-sucking coarser sand of the beach above the high-tide line and the over-wash barrow behind it, the men in the other party left their coaches and strode out toward that table, so he short-tacked to intercept them, the heels of his Hessian boots sinking in, his ankles quickly beginning to ache from the unnatural, enforced gait where toes stayed elevated and rarely had any purchase, where even rough-seasoned soles clumsily skidded and slipped.

There were two coaches, and at least three saddle horses, back of the beach, making Lewrie frown a little as he turned his head for a cursory look; one ornate and its doors emblazoned with a fanciful escutcheon the Beaumans didn't exactly merit. The second coach was plainer, well worn and a touch seedy, its team of four mis-matched and the typical runtish, slab-shanked beasts found in the Colonies. Lewrie deemed that one the surgeon's. The saddle horses, though… there was an agreed-upon limit to how many gentlemen were allowed as witnesses, participants, and seconds. Were they cheating? He would not put it past them, and looked more closely at the trees, where some sharpshooter might be lurking.

"Ah, Captain Lewrie!" the older gentleman, a Mr. Hendricks, and a well-respected squire, planter, and magistrate, called out of a sudden, as if to draw his attention to the immediate field, which made Lewrie even more suspicious. As his second, Lewrie literally held Cashman's honour and safety in his hands, not merely the pettifogging details of well-established custom, usage, and punctilio.

"Mister Hendricks, good morning, sir," Lewrie replied, halting short of the inviting table- tables, he took note. There were four, in all, three in one row, well separated from one another, with the one in the centre draped in white cloth and agleam with a surgeon's field kit of instruments, the vials, powders, and such with which to save the life of the loser. The farthest table bore two cases of pistols, two pairs of long-barreled death. Their table-so far-was bare.