Dewey Lambdin - The Captain`s Vengeance

"Sir?" Jung warily replied.

"Did you ever hear them boast of their home port?"

"Could've been New Orleans, sir, mebbe," Jugg reluctantly said.

"Spaniards and Frogs, together, aye," Lewrie said, frowning and going to the windows to look out at the ocean, near Jugg's cot. " New Orleans and Louisiana were French, first, 'til '63. And New Orleans, so I've heard, draws seamen of every nation. The Frogs on Guadeloupe sell Letters of Marque to anyone with a rowboat and a full purse, no matter who it is. Other Frogs, Spaniards, British renegades, Yankee Doodles… somewhat honest privateersmen or outright pirates."

"Acted more like pirates, 'ey did, sir," Toffett grumbled.

"Played more like pirates," Seaman Luckaby sneered. "See, sir… there woz common sailors, like, then there woz some o' th' Quality sorts aboard 'at schooner, an' all o' us could hear th' diff'rence… 'twoz th' way they talked, d'ye see, sir… top-lofty an' lordly, not loud an' hard, like-".

"Though they were th' cruelest," Toffett stuck on.

"Mean t'say, sir," Luckaby forged on, "some of 'em could speak th' good ol' king's English, and-"

"Them lordley fiends, " Toffett spat.

"Their Cap'm and him wot set us ashore on that island, sir… man called hisself Balfa," Towpenny agitatedly contributed. "On that last mornin', when they marooned us it woz, there were… young'uns who mocked an' jeered us, in English, sir. Soft -handed young'uns woz who I heard, couldn't bellow like full-grown tars, and-"

"An' 'ey giggled, for so 'ey did, sor," Ahern rasped from his bed, before pouring himself another mug of lemon-water. "Loik little misses at a dance, a'titt'rin' 'hind their fans."

"Hmmm… hear any other names, lads?" Lewrie asked them.

" Think the one played Toby in my clothes woz called Lanc'shire or some-thin' like that, sir," Mr. Towpenny told him, "Lanes… Lang-thingummy?"

"Lotta first names, mostly, sir," Toffett offered. "Pierre an' Jacques, Pedro an' Pablo… nicknames? Mister Jugg said one o' their off'cers might o' been called 'Hungry,' an' t'other'un 'Fierce,' didn't ye say, Mister

Jugg?"

"Feroce, meanin' 'Ferocious' in Frog," Jugg corrected gloomily, "and L'Affame. Means 'Hungry,' aye. Never heard their real names, so which woz which, well…" the man trailed off with a confused shrug.

"No one's heard either nickname, I take it?" Lewrie probed them. "Nothing associated with a past, a repute, associated with either? "

"Nossir, sorry t'say," Mr. Towpenny said, after silently polling their ignorant expressions and helpless shrugs.

"Probably named themselves to better their odds at recruiting sailors," Lewrie said, sighing and shrugging himself. "That would be just like a gasconading Frenchman, t'claim he's successful. Well, let me say that I'm damned relieved to find you all relatively healthy and alive, men. We've spent the last two months runnin' down the Windwards searching for you. That prize be-damned, 'twas you we wanted to get back, and you can bet your last farthing, soon as you're able to come back aboard, your shipmates'll give you all a welcome worthy of the Prodigal Son. We'll have a 'Make or Mend' day and kill a fatted calf, the Purser's accounts no matter!"

That cheered them considerably, and they raised a hearty Three Cheers and a Tiger for Lewrie and their pending celebration.

"I'll just look in on Mister Burns, then go back aboard to let everyone know that you're alive," Lewrie said, basking in their cheers.

"Er, uh…" Mr. Towpenny gloomed up. "Ye can't, sir. Mister Burns is dead, sir."

"Them bastards killed him, sir!" Toffett barked.

"They bloody what?" Lewrie roared. "When? How? Did you see which of 'em did it?" His self-congratulatory mood had gone to ashes.

"Well, sir," Mr. Towpenny began, after another communal look and a sour swallow of bile that, as senior hand, it would be his forlorn duty to complete the sorry tale. "They set us ashore on the island… run us up th' beach at gun-point, an' this Balfa feller give us a few, um… things, 'coz even he said t'others woz 'crazy-mean,' and that he 'd give us a sportin' chance, at least, almost like a Christian, he did, though I 'spect he woz a slave t' Popery. 01' leather bag o'… stuff, an' he wished us good luck, an' they woz shovin' off, had oars in th' water an' was nigh onta a long musket-shot off, a'strokin' for their ship, when one o' them buggerin ' high an' mighty sods aboard th' schooner just up an' shot him, sir! For the hellish fun of it, damn his blood! Pardon me French, sir."

"In his leg, sir," Toffett luridly described, grabbing his groin to show where the bullet had struck, "right close t'his weddin' tackle. Weren't nothin', we could do for Mister Burns, sir, with one ol' rusty knife that Balfa bugger'd left us. Ball was still in him, an' none of us with a lick o' doctorin', sir. Nought but seawater t'wash out th' wound with, so…"

"Lasted three days, he did, 'fore he passed over, sir, and wee Mister Burns, he went hard, sorry t'have t'tell ye, Cap'm," Towpenny gravelled, looking as if he'd tear up, as if it had happened just this morning, and not a week or more before. "No shelter, hardly any water t'drink, 'cept for rain squalls, an' that foul."

"Sucked outta our shirts an' such, sir," Toffett recalled with a grimace, as if in aftertaste. "Caught in 'at ol' wash-leather bag. Nought but a dram or two 'twixt th' six of us, was all it amounted to. Turtle blood… fish blood, and some gulls we knocked down with driftwood planks, sir? Ugh!"

They had dug with a grey-wood board in search of a fresh water seep but had hit porous limestone moist with saltwater. Amazingly to Lewrie, this Balfa creature had left them a cracked magnifying glass, a stained linen handkerchief and a flintlock tinder-box, that rusty knife, so a fire could be kindled once they'd found enough driftwood and sun-dry pine needles and palm furze. Most nights, though, they had shivered in the wind-swept chills in the dark, saving firewood for a beacon to any passing ship.

Raw turtle meat and blood, raw seabird flesh and gore doled out in meagre handfuls to last an entire day. The surf had been too heavy to "grabble," tickle, or spear fish… and the sharks too numerous and prowling almost into the glass windowpane of the waves that broke on their little beach. There'd been gulls' eggs for one afternoon, then the wonder of a hawksbill turtle that had crawled ashore to scoop out her nest in the sand. Craftily, they'd waited 'til she was crawling back to the water, totally spent, and had hammered, gouged, and pried her open with their bare hands and fist-sized rocks to kill her.

That night, they had lit a fire, to preserve so much meat; and had dug up her eggs like the Purser might dish out his rations, a bit at a time from the sandy "larder," a dozen apiece per day to assuage their raging hunger, and her massive, shield-like upper shell had made a catch-basin for the rare rain.

"Had t'bury th' poor lad there on th' island, sir," Mr. Towpenny said, almost piping his eyes. "Said wot words we had over him, put up a driftwood cross but we daren't risk th' knife t'carve his name on it. Poor little tyke. Warn't th' sort o' Midshipman like t'prosper in th' Navy, but he tried, I'll give him that. Weren't right, them bastards pottin' him like th' squire'd pot a rabbit, then leave him t'die. For th' fun o' it!"

"How long were you on that island, Mister Towpenny?" Lewrie asked, about as sorrowful as his sailors, after the dreary tale had been told of Midshipman Burns's sufferings before he'd died. "And how were you rescued?"