Dewey Lambdin - A King`s Trade

Had he not, would Andrews still live? Without that act, Proteus might still be in the Caribbean, not here, in this hour, engaged with a French frigate of greater firepower. Groome and Bodney might not have run away, were there no circus to lure them, no Africa in which to die. Whitbread, the others, might not be buried at Cape Town.

Yet, had not Andrews run from his own master on Jamaica, first? Bun from the softer chains of a house slave, better fed than the field hands, garbed in wealth-flaunting livery, yet run in spite of all? As the others had run, put everything at risk for a whiff of freedom, even the Royal Navy's harsh version. Andrews, and they, had endured sailors' poverty, plain victuals, and unending, back-breaking work in all sorts of weather, living with the constant risk of death or disablement, the sure coming of rheumatism or arthritis, the sicknesses that arose when hundreds of men were pent together so closely in a foul and reeking wet gun-deck, for… what? To be free men, to live a wild and adventurous life as free deep sea rovers; paid for their suffering, and worthy of their hire! Freely entered into, and, in the Navy, ready to fight the enemy, the ocean itself, to live, and maybe die, free!

"Damme," Lewrie softly spat, raising his head, at last, stiffening his spine after a long, sad sigh. Steeling himself to play-act a role of captain, second only to God. He had two ships to save, perhaps hundreds of men, his own and the enemy's, to succour and tend to, prisoners to keep a wary eye on, and, sometime after the sun rose, another French frigate to be alert for, and possibly fight.

And, he was mortal-certain, the first of many at-sea burials, as early as tomorrow's Forenoon Watch, with more to follow as they sailed into the equatorial heat. There was a convoy to re-join and round back up, should anything have happened to Jamaica . Duty, that grim, demanding bitch, come to call with all her nagsome sisters, would never give a man a moment of his own! There would be a time to grieve Andrews and all his dead… once anchored in a safe harbour.

"Very well, sirs," Lewrie forced himself to rasp, clapping both hands together in the small of his back. "Let's be about it, hmm?"

Stern, now, a facade of grim stoicism back on his face, Lewrie made the shaky crossing back aboard Proteus, though his shuddery limbs threatened to betray him. There was no formal welcome from side-party or bosun's calls, just a bone-weary man clumping awkwardly to the oak planks of the larboard gangway of a shot-to-pieces ship.

"Sir," Sailing Master Winwood said, doffing his hat as he came forward from the quarterdeck, limping from a leg wound upon his right thigh, his breeches cut away to reveal a thick, padded bandage.

"Mister Winwood," Lewrie acknowledged. "Oh. I know." Mr. Winwood held in his hand a coin-silver bosun's call on its chain, Andrews's call, and mark of his post as Coxswain. Crushed… by the musket ball that slew him, or by his fall from high aloft?

"So many, sir," Mr. Winwood said in his usual mournful way. "I am told by Mister Hodson that we've nigh twenty fallen, and ten more in a bad way, with at least thirty others more-or-less lightly wounded."

"Admiralty will be so impressed," Lewrie sarcastically growled.

"Even so, it is a signal victory, sir," Mr. Winwood said in his gravest manner.

"Off to the Nor'east, Jamaica has come to grips with the other Frenchman, or so it would appear. The lights of both ships are close-aboard each other, and all gunfire has ceased, so one might assume that she has conquered her foe, as well, Captain. We have won. And, from what little I saw aboard our foe, before I sustained my own trifling wound," he proudly alluded to his leg, no matter how stoic he wished to appear, "they must have suffered over an hundred fallen, and a like number disabled. Aye, Captain Lewrie, Admiralty should be impressed. Perhaps a quarter, or a third, of the French squadron in the Indian and Southern Oceans eliminated at one blow, too, sir? Well!"

"Forgive me, Mister Winwood, but, at the moment…" Lewrie attempted to apologise.

"I understand completely, sir," Winwood replied with a knowing nod, no matter how much he didn't really understand. "Andrews was your Cox'n for a long time. God save me, I shall even miss Mister Catterall, impious as he was, but… Andrews gave his all. As they all did. Did their best, and we shall miss them all, some more personally, d'ye see."

Lord, don't give me a sermon, you… ! Lewrie silently fumed. "… up to us to do our best to honour their memories, and take comfort from the thought that they passed over doing what they freely agreed to endure," Mr. Winwood was prosing on. "In Andrews' case, and the other Black volunteers, perhaps it is also up to us to shew all of Britain that they could fight, and fall, as bravely as British tars, I do believe, sir. Prove to the world the truth of the tracts from the Evangelical and Abolitionist societies declare…"

"Aye, we could," Lewrie suddenly decided, and not just to stop Winwood's mournful droning, either. "They did, didn't they. Andrews, and all our Blacks who ran away to… this. You have a point, Mister Winwood. We could… we should… and, we shall!"

Then you wouldn't have died for bloody nothing, Matthew! Lewrie told himself, feeling a weight depart his shoulders, a half-turn wrench of his heart tell him that it wasn't expedience, had nothing to do with saving his precious neck from a hanging, but might become a real cause! A noble cause!

"Ah, there ye are, sir!" his cabin-servant, Aspinall, exclaimed in great relief to see him, at last, as he came forward from where the great-cabins would be, once the deal and oak partitions were erected. "Sorry t'say, sir, but yer cabins're a total wreck, again, but soon to be put t'rights. The kitties are safe, 'long with the mongooses, an' that damn' bushbaby. He's took up with Toulon an' Chalky, an' hardly don't cry no more, long as he can snuggle up with 'em. No coffee-" "Aspinall…" Lewrie interrupted.

"I know I'm babblin', sir, 'tis just hard t'know ol' Andrews is gone," Aspinall said, after a gulp, and a snuffle on his sleeve. "Him an' so many good lads. But, didn't we hammer th' French, though!"

"Aye, we did," Lewrie agreed, beginning to realise what they'd done, what a victory they'd accomplished, at last. And, beginning to feel that it had been worth it, no matter the price they'd paid. "Is that Irish rogue, Liam Desmond, aboard, do you know, Aspinall?"

"Aye, sir. On th' pumps, I think."

"Pass the word for him, then," Lewrie ordered. A minute later, Liam Desmond came cautiously up the ladderway to the quarterdeck; he'd been summoned before, usually to suffer for his antics. Lewrie noted that his long-time mate, Patrick Furfy, lurked within hearing distance at the foot of the steps.

"Aye, sor?" Desmond warily asked, hat in hand, looking fearful.

Lewrie held out the crushed bosun's call to him.

"Ah, I know, Cap'm," Desmond said with a sad sigh of his own at the sight of it, glittering ambery-silver in the glow of oil or candle lamps. "Andrews woz a foin feller, he woz, always fair an' kindly with us. Sorry we lost him, sor."

"You once said, during the Mutiny at the Nore, that you'd be my right-hand sword, if all others failed me," Lewrie gravely said. "I've lost my right-hand man, Desmond. Are ye still willing?"

"Be yer Cox'n, sor?" Desmond gaped in astonishment. "Sure, and I meant it, Cap'm! Faith, but ye do me honour, and aye, I'll be!"

"We'll get a better, when next in port, but…" Lewrie said as Desmond took the call from him and looped it round his neck on its silver chain. He took a moment to look down at it, battered though it was, sitting on the middle of his chest, and puffed up his satisfaction.