Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH

"Mean to say you two really are married?" Rodgers marveled. "I thought… pardons again, but my experience o' Navy marriages is that most of 'em're but a convenient sham, and for a man frisk his future 'fore makin' post… ouch!"

"Pay him no mind, Ben's a conceited arse," Elizabeth Mustin said after poking her innamorato in the ribs, but with no real sign of anger. "Yes, dear… some officers do wed those they love."

"You set a hellish-bad example for all of us, Captain Lewrie," Rodgers admitted, not the slightest bit abashed. "Once the word gets out, every girl in poit'll be having your good lady over, to fathom how she got you to go for the high jump! My dear Mistress Lewrie, this is the sort o' fame you could dine out on for years, don't ya know. What say ye to a toast to the happy couple? Champagne, hey?"

"Yes!" Elizabeth enthused. "Champagne. His favorite tipple!"

"A brace o' bottles, hang the cost, and my treat, sir!"

"Most gallant, sir," Caroline said before Lewrie could answer. "We would be delighted, thank you."

"Waiter?" Rodgers hallooed. "Bloody love the stuff, dearer'n a baby craves his mother's milk. Might a'been nursed on goodvintages, far's I know, an' bawled fit t'bust t'be weaned, hey? Thank God we've peace with France just long enough to stock up for our next set-to, or pray our smugglers're bold enough to dodge the King's Customs. So, I s'pose Commodore Garvey gave you your marchin' orders already, sir?"

"Hydrographic surveying, sir," Alan replied, sketching in what Garvey's interview had been like. "God knows where, though."

"Best thing," Rodgers announced. "Outa sight, outa mind. And this Trinity House fellow Gatacre'll be just the thing. Bahamas are bad-charted, if charted at all below the populous islands."

"Caroline thought it a blessing, too, sir," Alan agreed.

"And what did you think of our lord and master, sir?" Rodgers asked, sounding offhand, but looking cutty-eyed at him.

"Ah, sir," Lewrie opined, on his guard. But he didn't believe Rodgers's ebullient personality would sit well with Garvey, either, so he could not be a favorite. "Hmm, sir!" he added, rolling his eyes.

"Did he offer drink, Captain Lewrie? And, did you accept?"

"He did, sir, but I did not. I didn't get my requested coffee."

"Then thank your lucky stars ya didn't!" Rodgers muttered as he leaned a little closer. "It all has to do with his son. Shipped out as a midshipman in Royal Arthur, and soon's they dropped the hook, he was commissioned, and a good man turned out to make room for him. He's fourth lieutenant into her now. If Garvey had a budget that'd purchase more patrol craft, he'd be on his own bottom, even as we speak! Garvey rewards his favorites, and chastises those that cross him. What he is lookin' for is any excuse to promote people up an' outa Royal Arthur, so the squadron is captained by his proteges, and young Virgil Garvey prospers. Any slip on your part'd give him an excuse for Virgil t'be third lieutenant. Oh, we all walk small about our Horace, we do!"

"God, sir," Alan chilled, "my passengers, they'll tell him I'm married, that I brought Caroline here. He's already criticized me for my shiphandling!"

"Ah, rot! Ya brought her in sweet as pie. He tried that on me, first I sailed in. Let's just say you're never t'be one o' his 'elect,' sir. As if he's Noah himself!" Rodgers sneered, warming to his screed. "Royal Arthur doesn't stir from her moorin's but once every six weeks, and that for a short run to Harbour Island or Spanish Wells over on Eleuthera and back. He's wedded t'his palacio ashore. I would be, too; 'tis a damned impressive pile. No, 'tis best you're far away for now. There's other unfortunates not among the 'saved' for him t'cull through so his sycophants can advance. More'n a few as need replacin', had I my way, sir!"

"Sounds positively Manichaean, sir," Lewrie quipped. "All of this talk of the saved, the elect."

"Well, stap me!" Rodgers hooted in surprise. "What the devil are you doin', wearin' our good King's Coat, an' makin' noises like a man's read a real book! Don't ya know English tarpaulins're supposed t' sound so simple-minded, even the others notice, sir? Stump about the quarter-deck yellin' 'Luff!' and cursin' 'damn my eyes,'ha ha!"

"Damn… my… eyes," Lewrie pronounced tongue in cheek, slowly as if trying it on for the first time. "And is that best uttered with one hand on the hip, sir? Perhaps… gazing aloft and wondering why the devil all that laundry's drying up there, sir?"

"Goddamme, but you'll do, Captain Lewrie! You're a jolly young dog, and blessed with the second-handsomest lady in the islands. I do avow you'll do right well for me! My irreverent sort of fellow."

"I will endeavor to please, sir," Lewrie smiled back, lifting a glass of champagne to his lips. This Rodgers was a merry wag himself, the sort Lewrie would feel most comfortable and sportive with, and found himself liking Commander Benjamin Rodgers a great deal, wishing he was the commander of the Bahamas Squadron instead of Garvey.

"And do you lodge in town, Miss Mustin?" he heard Caroline ask, conducting their own conversation apart from Navy gossip.

"God, no! Nassau's fearsome noisy and rowdy, Caroline. May I call you Caroline? And you must call me Elizabeth. If only to escape the stenches, I have a small house east of town, out towards Fort Montagu. One gets first shot at the Trade Winds out there, blowing all manner of nastiness alee, as Benjamin puts it. A Loyalist family of my acquaintance bought a plantation there, but the soil is awfully thin… played out… so they're running up houses."

"Thank God for the Loyalists, or Nassau'd still be dull as a dead dog," Rodgers commented. "They've braced this colony up good as a soldier's wind and got it moving. God help the American Republic, after running the best of 'em out. And God be thanked they lit here."

"Caroline is of a Loyalist family," Alan bragged.

"Never you mean it!" Elizabeth gushed. "Truly? Why, so am I, my dear! New York."North Carolina!" Caroline rejoined, and they both fell into a swoon of comradeship at once. "God, how wonderful, I can't…!"

"We've a funny society here in the Bahamas, Lewrie," Rodgers told him as he topped up the champagne glasses. "Ain't this grand stuff, though? There's us on top. Government, military and naval officials from home. Right under us are the old-time families from Nassau, Eleuthera, Long Island or the Exumas, the rich traders and planters who've been here for years. Third-best, but greater in numbers are the emigre' Loyalists. Under them you have the poor whites, the artisans and tinkers and such. Ex-pirates, deserters, freebooters and buccaneers, who small-hold or fish, ply their poor trades or loaf about. Then come the Cuffys, and it's the same story chapter and verse as it is for the whites."

"How so, sir?"

"Free blacks first, o'course, then slaves at the bottom. But they have a caste system bad as any I've read of among the Hindoos. Octoroons, quadroons, mulattoes, brown to coal black'uns. So a free black but a blueskin is rated lower man a free black who's almost white, d'you see. Straight or woolly hair, pale or dark skin. Now the blueskin may be a home owner and educated, with a shop of his own, makin' enough money to bloody vote in England, but his fellow with the straight hair and talk of Portuguese sailors in the family tree is the better man, even were he dirt-poor, illiterate and ignorant as so many sheep. Damned funny world, ain't it?"

"I've heard that said, sir," Lewrie japed, raising his glass in a mock toast. "Though I've never heard much laughter about it."

"Hah, you're a sharp 'un, sir! A glass with you, my lad."

"Uhm, about losing my ship, sir…?" Alan inquired urgently as they lowered their glasses to refill.