Dewey Lambdin - A Jester’s Fortune

Two guards off rapin' that poor girl, Lewrie noted; several women auctioned off to small groups, and they're busy, too. Could we? He wondered, a rising hope filling him. Gull 'em peaceable, then take us a hostage'r two… Mlavic?… and get down to the beach? There's your biter bit, by God!

"How much do you have on you?" Lewrie whispered, rifling into his purse, where he found but Ј30 and change. "Mister Howse? Mister Spendlove? Quick sums, then hand your purses over."

"Surely, sir, you'd not countenance white slavery, allow these cutthroats the slightest bit of credulity?" Howse huffed, getting his indignant demeanour back. "Mean tsay, English or no…!"

"Do you not, sir, and Mlavic wins, I'll slit yer throat first chance I get and blame it on them!" Lewrie hissed. Howse tossed over a fullish purse, and slumped down into another miserable sulk. Lewrie did a quick addition; not near enough! Spendlove had a miserly eighteen shillings and some pence. Kolodzcy, however, offered up an embroidered poke simply stiff with "chink."

"De equivalend ohf your seventy pounds, sir," Kolodzcy said.

"Listen, then.,. we get into the spirit of things, they'll drop their guard, we can stand and move about a few feet," Lewrie schemed in a harsh mutter as they put their heads together. "If it looks like we've lost, and Knolles still hasn't come, then we take what chance we may, and grab Mlavic and a few others, get some weapons and the woman, and head for the beach. Hear me? It may be our only chance. The men at your backs are thinned, might stay thinned! Others are off havin' themselves a bare-belly romp, or they're three sheets to the wind. If a chance comes… I'll give you sign."

He looked at their glum, frightened faces, then turned away for the final addition. He'd garnered nearly Ј130 and change. Best start low, he thought… string it out as long as he could.

"Right, then… you miserable excuse for a man," Lewrie shouted with an avid smile. "I'll bid three guineas."

"Five guinea!" Mlavic grinned back, just as evilly, still with a firm grip on both woman and child.

"The management instructs you, sir… kindly unhand the merchandise 'til the last bid's in!" Lewrie cajoled, elbowing Lieutnant Kolodzcy to say that to all observers. The pirates found that hugely amusing.

"Six guineas… you foul lump of shit!"

"Ten!" Mlavic countered, but letting them go and stepping off.

"Eleven… you ditch-dropped whelp of a Turk hedge-whore."

"Bosun Mister Cony… SAH!" the Marine sentry right-aft by the passageway to the gun-room cried, stamping his boots and musket-butt.

"Enter," Knolles said, sopping up the last gravy on his plate with a crust of fresh-baked bread and motioning for their steward-Sprinkle-to have away his plate, the water-glasses and the tablecloth. With Mr. Howse away, the gun-room had fed more than well this evening, with fewer to share a whole leg of roast pork. Mister Buchanon, Mister Giles and Midshipman Mister Hyde completed the table, looking sated but eager for the sweet biscuit, the last of the Venetian-bought confections and the port.

"Beggin' yer pardon, sir, but th' wind's shiftin'," Cony told them hat-in-hand. "An' that prize-ship's but 'er best bower out. No kedge'r stream-anchor t'check 'er swingin'. 'Er stern's comin' round towards our bows, an' 'er 'arbour-watch'z drunker'n Davy's Sow, sir. Can't raise a 'hollo' from 'em, Serb or English."

"Damn sloppy folk, pirates," Buchanon grumbled. "Ha! Did a Bora take her, she could just as well swing aground onshore."

"Very well, Mister Cony, well be up directly," Lieutenant Knolles sighed, savouring a last sip of wine before rising. "Belay the port and biscuit, Sprinkle. Might summon a boat-crew to row over, Bosun. Take in on her anchor rode, if her watch is blind-drunk, I s'pose."

"Aye aye, sir," Cony replied, backing out and loping easy for the com-panionway ladder to the weather decks.

Once on the quarterdeck, Knolles eyed the captured ship. Sure enough, she was swinging to stream alee of the wind, which had come more Sou'westerly. Jester was anchored fore-and-aft from first bower and kedge, with springs on the cables to heave her round, should some enemy ship loom out of the night from the east; a prudent caution.

"Hasn't dragged, has she, Mister Tucker?" He enquired of the Quartermaster's Mate.

"Don' think so, sir… swingin', though. Looked t'have 'er at middlin' 'stays.' Forty foot o' water, yonder, so she couldn't have let out more'n five-to-one scope-say, a hun'r'd eighty t'two hun'r'd foot o' rode, sir?"

" At'd be cuttin' it damn fine, sir," Buchanon groused, with a thumb lifted to measure her. "I think she'll come aboard us… into th' bowsprit do we not look sharp."

"Right, then!" Knolles snapped. "Mister Cony, cutter away to the prize-ship! Boat's crew, plus six more hands for muscle on their capstan, should her watch be as drunk as you suspect. Keep ours sober, hear me?"

"Aye, sir!" Cony shouted back, having mustered a boat-crew upon the gangway already, and snagging the first available hands of the duty-watch he could lay hands on.

"Might even have to row a kedge out for 'em, too!" Lieutenant Knolles added, seeing them scramble over the side. "Idle bastards," he murmured under his breath.

"Havin' 'emselves a rare ol' time, aren't they, sir?" Buchanon pointed to the leaping flames ashore, the faint shouts, the yells of merrymaking. "Wonder what 'ey fed th' cap'um an' 'em?"

"Mister Sadler?" Knolles called for the Bosuns Mate. "Do you pipe 'All Hands.' We may have to fend that old bitch off, should she come close enough. Muster forrud. Spare spars and rig fenders!" "Aye, sir!"

They went forward along the starboard gangway themselves, as the off-duty crew boiled up on deck, up as far as the cat-head, which poised the second heavy bower horizontally. That three-master now lay aslant the starboard bows, looking uncomfortably close and tall, at a forty-five-degree angle, just as Cony's working-party reached her main-chain platform. And there was still no response from her, no matter how they shouted from the cutter, or Jesters forecastle.

"Drunks'z lords, sir," Buchanon sighed. "Dear God!" "She'll collide?" Knolles quailed, assuming that the Sailing Master had worked out the angles in his head already and was certain the two ships would entangle. And pleading with God why such a thing had to happen on his watch, with the captain away and him in temporary command!

"Her transom-board, sir!" Buchanon gasped, pointing to the ornately carved, gilded nameplate which was flickering with faint light as her stern swung enough to bare it to them. Below her master's windows and stern-walk, above her wardroom's windows, she bore a name: Nostra Signora di Santa Maria Delle Salute, amid wee angels and cherubs.

"By God, Mister Knolles!" Buchanon gasped. " 'At's a Venetian cathedral's name. Lay ya, sir… 'ere's somethin' queer 'bout 'is!"

"A Venetian ship, sir?" Knolles gawped. "Damme, they'd dare to take a Venetian?" He cast a wild stare shoreward. The crudely erected huts teemed with movement, the shadows of campfire flames wavered and flagged in the trees, upon the rocks. Crude shouts could be heard and some laughter, now the wind had shifted to fetch sound seaward. There were no answers, though, no…! Knolles cupped his hands and bellowed over to the ship, which now looked immense, her tall poop towering over Jester s bows. "Ahoy! Cony! Hoy, the ship!"

There came another sound, a most welcome sound from the capstan, as Navy hands breasted to the bars and began to haul taut on the anchor cable, harsh clackings of pawl-by-pawl progress.

"Heavin' 'er shorter, sir!" Cony yelled back, atop the poop and barely sixty feet off by then. "These pirates, sir… nary a one of'em on 'is feet! Think we'll keep her off, sir!"