A King`s Trade

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

So nice of you to invite me," Lewrie said as they were seated on a deep side veranda at the travellers' inn, where jewel-bright birds in cages flitted and chirped, and a cool breeze blew stirring hanging-baskets of local flowers.

"Well, I saw that your ship was no longer in danger of sinking," Burgess Chiswick snickered, "and supposed that you'd be off as soon as the next tide, or something, and meant to see you before you departed."

"Won't sail 'til you do," Lewrie told him. "I gather that we're to escort your ships to Saint Helena, to help that lone sixty-four-gun that brought you in. Perhaps all the way to the Thames."

"Why, that'd be splendid, Alan!" Burgess cried. "Then, with any luck at all, you could even coach me all the way to Anglesgreen!"

"Haven't been home myself in quite a while, aye," Lewrie said.

Hang it, might as well broach the subject myself, he thought.

"Not been exactly welcome round the homeplace, actually," Alan added. "Bit of a dither…?"

"Oh, that," Burgess deprecated with a snort as their first wine arrived. "Women simply won't understand the realities, Alan, old son," Burgess scoffed with a worldly-wise air that he'd not had before he'd headed for India. "Caroline's written me all about it, several times, as has Governour. He's quite wroth with you, though before he wedded Millicent, Governour was quite the Buck-of-The-First-Head when we were back in the Carolinas. Tell me, has he really gotten as stout as they say? Mother was concerned for his health, in her letters."

"A proper John Bull stoutness," Lewrie replied, chuckling.

"Comes of good living, and living under Millicent's thumb, I'd expect," Burgess said with a frown. "Quite good wine, this. In India, we came to like Cape wines. Their reds don't travel well, but whites keep main-well. Well, Governour… as the eldest, he always did see himself the arbiter of just about everything."

"Threatened to shoot, or horsewhip, me," Lewrie admitted.

"What a fatuous arse!" Burgess exclaimed. "Just 'cause he can't caterwaul or take a mistress, now he's a down on you. Most-like will take me to task, does he ever learn of my bibikhana."

As a Major in the East India Company Army, Burgess would have lived in a private bungalow, apart from the ensigns, lieutenants, and captains who would share quarters off the collegial mess building for his regiment's officers, nearly as grand as a Colonel. And a man with private quarters had to have his own cook, manservant, butler, cleaning maids, punkah boy to keep the fans or suspended mats swinging for cool air, and no one would think a thing wrong of him did he furnish a women's quarters out back, where he could keep a brace of fetching bibis to ease a man's essential needs, without running the risk of a brothel or street prostitute in such a disease-ridden country.

"Impressive, were they?" Lewrie asked with a grin.

"Only the two, but yes, Alan." Burgess beamed back with a wink. "Most delightful. Now, most English ladies who come out to India see that their husbands have needs, and when in the field, are presented with opportunities galore. From what Caroline wrote me, I don't think you ever actually dallied with any wench when you were home}"

"No, I didn't," Lewrie quickly said, immensely pleased that his brother-in-law was being so sane and reasonable about it. "Well… I did spend some time at Sheerness with, ah…"

"The Greek widow, yes," Burgess supplied with another wink and a snicker as the waiter approached their table. "Other than her…"

" 'Twas all far from home, Burge," Lewrie swore. "With bloody years, and thousands of miles, between homecomings."

"And, you were always careful," Burgess blithely assumed. "Ah! Satays and boboties, ye say? Like Hindoo cooking? Splendid. I will essay the 'country captain,' and be sure to set out a pot of chautney."

"I'll have the Cape salmon," Lewrie decided, looking over their chalked menu slate. "Salad, egg-drop soup, and let us share a platter of eland strips in the plum sauce between us, first off. Fresh-sliced, is it, or are they soaked biltong} Fresh is best, thankee, and a glass of your best burgundy each with it."

"Biltong?"

"What you'd call jerky," Lewrie explained. "My cats adore it. I have nigh three hundredweight in stores for 'em."

"Oh, you and your cats!" Burgess laughed. "I'll see your eland, and raise you the fresh lobster remoulade, and make it a bottle of the burgundy… my treat, after all, and we might as well make a feast of it whilst we may. Ship victuals are passing-fair, but…! God, your cats. Two of 'em, now? I recall that hulking old ram-cat of yours you left with Caroline when we sailed for India. William Pitt, wasn't it? Didn't take to me, I'll tell you, though he adored Caroline."

"They're good company at sea," Lewrie told him as their waiter topped up their glasses before heading off for the kitchens. "So, you became a 'chicken nabob] Burge? Lashings of a rajah'% loot}"

"Loot," itself, was a Hindi word.

"I've come away with better than sixty thousand, Alan!" Burgess imparted in a careful, but gleeful, whisper cross the table. "Note-of-hand drawn on Army agents, some in rouleaus of guineas for easy access, and some jewelry I scooped up when we broke into rebel rajahs 'palaces, to boot. Haven't even had them assayed, yet, and still have no idea of their value. Emeralds and rubies, big as pigeons' eggs, nigh a pound of strung pearls and such…"

"Good Lord, you fortunate young dog!" Lewrie congratulated with a hoisted glass. "And, you're looking to buy yourself a British Army commission? Why not a whole regiment while you're at it?"

"Oh, I'll end with a regiment of mine own," Burgess casually rejoined. "Do I not make brigadier, I'd be more than happy commanding a regiment of regulars. This will be a long war, Alan, longer than any of us expect, and sooner or later, we must beard the Frogs on their own ground. A naval blockade won't defeat them, begging your salty pardon. Have to kick them in the teeth, make them howl in anguish, and parade down the streets of Paris before they cry 'Uncle.'

"I expect to find an opening as a Major, at the least," Burgess boasted, "even are 'John Company' officers sneered at by the loftier sorts round Horse Guards. 'Tis not so much my experience, which has to be much greater than theirs, but the money I can bid for my 'colours,' after all. Is there need for a Lieutenant-Colonel in a middling regiment, well, I could afford that, too. Then, with what I've learned of real soldiering, not 'square-bashing' and Church Parades, I could turn that middling regiment into one of the finest in the Army. You watch and see if I don't… just like you expect to turn any new ship you're given into the best, as well!"

Lewrie could not remember Burgess being so confident, or so loquacious, but he thought it a grand improvement on the boy he'd known.

"After a proper spell of leave, o' course," Lewrie chuckled. "A quick run through civilised Society, at least."

"Aye, that, too," Burgess agreed. "And, perhaps marry."

"Well… certainly," Lewrie said, surprised.

"D'ye know the old Army saying?" Burgess asked with a puckish expression. "Might be King's Regulations, for all I know… ensigns or cornets must not marry… captains may marry… majors should marry, and colonels absolutely must wed! A good woman, with the proper taste and manners, sets the right tone in the mess. Seen it, when it's good. And, seen the results when the Colonel's wife wasn't up to snuff."

"The adorable Miss Brothers, perhaps?" Lewrie japingly hinted.

"Oh, Lord!" Burgess exclaimed, all but writhing in his chair.

"No?" Lewrie teased. "She seems a prim, mannerly sort."

"The good Reverend and his wife have been all but shoving her at me, Alan, soon as word got round the ship that I'd made a fair pile of 'tin,'" Chiswick scoffed. "After all my time in India, I'm not sure what a good woman looks like, but, for all her time in India, Mistress Alicia is still the 'shrinking violet' sort, so prim and sheltered she might as well be new-come from the Moon!

"Besides," Burgess grumbled, "she and her family are as 'skint' as… church-mice. I doubt the girl would fetch me fourty pounds per annum for a dowry, and her paraphernalia might not extend beyond poor Hindi-made furniture and bedding. Like… calls to like, what?"

"Definitely not 'landed,' either, I'd s'pose?" Lewrie asked.

"Spent their whole time traipsing from one poor glebe to a next, doing 'good works' and ministering to pagans and 'rice Christians' in the Bengali slums," Burgess told him with a mocking shudder. "Reverend Brothers may be the only man ever took Holy Orders who believed in a vow of poverty. Either that, or he's a disguised Catholic monk with a weakness for dour bed-partners, haw haw! Aha! This is our eland?" he exulted as the waiter fetched their first course. Chiswick forked some onto his plate, slathered a bite with the spicy-hot plum sauce, and sampled it. "Marvellous!" he cried after a sip of the local wine. "This Cape burgundy's better than any they sent us, too, I'll tell you. That… biltong of yours. It's as good as this? Might I be able to purchase some for the voyage home? 'John Company' victuals are decent, but I'd relish some game meat, now and again."

"Purchase able, aye," Lewrie told him, "though, I shot most of mine. A little hunting down the peninsula to Simon's Town, and back."

"I'd adore an African shikar," Burgess declared, between bites. "Didn't get much chance, our first voyage out East. Hunted all over India, of course, even bagged a tolerable tiger once, but, there might not be time enough, even with the bad water problem. Comes from relying too much on local suppliers, who filled their casks close to Calcutta, 'stead of inland."

" Hooghly River sewage, no wonder they had sickness aboard. 'Tis a wonder no one died," Lewrie commented, raking several strips of hot eland meat onto his plate before the ravenous Burgess Chiswick gobbled them all. "I'm told they'll be ready to sail in two days."

"Not enough time, then," Burgess said with a disappointed sigh. "Look here, then, Alan… do you recall anyone round Anglesgreen who might be a suitable mate? I intend to heed Millicent's and Caroline's advice in seeking a good match…"

"Well, Caroline might be a touch prejudiced on wedded bliss," Lewrie admitted with a wee grimace. "Not much local 'talent'…"

"Always did have her head in the clouds," Burgess scoffed, "all those horrid romance novels she's read. As you allude, Millicent may be my best advisor."

"You could call on my father in London," Lewrie teased, again.

"Not him!" Burgess hooted. "Well, perhaps London, but not with his advice. A wider 'market,' what? In fact, Alan… I've received letters from Sir Hugo, 'bout once a year or so, and, frankly, had I my druthers, I'm much intrigued to be introduced to your ward, Comptesse Sophie de Maubeuge."

"She's no 'dot,' no dowry worth mentioning, Burge," Lewrie had to caution him. "Though, she is become a fine and fetching, mannerly young lady, of the best accomplishments. Beyond the usual parlour and musical doings, she's an excellent horsewoman."

"Fine as your Russian Cossack wench?" It was Chiswick's turn to tease. "My word, but your Mistress Eudoxia was impressive."

"Not my wench," Lewrie was quick to correct him. Just in case he got home and spoke to Caroline before he could. "Never laid a hand on her. Really!" he added, at seeing Chiswick's extremely leery expression. "Might have given it a thought, but…"

"And I didn't help matters. Ah, well," Burgess said, sighing again. "Wroth as the mort is with you, I doubt a stab at her on my part would go down well, either. Seemed taken with you… a while."

"Probably not," Lewrie replied, busying himself with knife and fork and plum sauce, secretly relieved that Burgess had no chance with her, even he didn't, either. Jealous, am I? He thought; Whyever?

"A harmless flirtation on her part," Lewrie dismissively said. "Here's a thought, though. When you take leave and go up to London, I am acquainted with a very rich tradesman's family with a daughter you might wish to meet. The Trenchers, whose daughter Theodora is about as angelic as ever I did see. Elfin and wee, about nineteen or twenty… perhaps too young, but she seemed sensible, and comported herself well. Enthusiastic, and outgoing, not your run-of-the-mill languidly-bored and too-elegant-for-words missy. Slews of spirit."

"Hmmm?" Burgess prompted, sounding intrigued.

"Very dark, curly brown hair, almost black, and the most amazing violet eyes," Lewrie further tempted. "Soberly dressed, when I met her, since the family's on the newly-fashionable 'respectable' side, but with excellent taste. The hints of a fine form… though I wasn't exactly looking. Met her with the Reverend Wilberforce, Clarkson, and Mistress Hannah More, that crowd…"

"You!" Burgess exclaimed, rather loudly, in point of fact. "In with Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect… that slavery abolition pack?"

"'Twas the reason for our meeting," Lewrie confessed, turning a touch guarded as he recalled that the Chiswicks had been slave-owners once and his brother Governour Chiswick was still fervidly in favour of the practice. "I've a dozen Black hands in my crew, some of them, ah… might be runaway slaves who volunteered aboard on Jamaica…"

"Well, good for you!" Burgess told him. "Horrid thing, that."

"You think so? I'd have thought…"

" 'Tis one thing to hire Hindoo labour and such, and yes, you get a slacker now and then who needs a touch-up with your quirt to keep him on the hop, but actual slavery is just… despicable," Chiswick swore. " 'Twas my parents in North Carolina who thought slaves necessary for a plantation. Mother Charlotte was born there, and used to it. Father, God rest his soul, adopted it after he emigrated to the Cape Fear, no matter what he really thought of it. And, yes… I suppose I took it for granted, as well, but…"

"You rather surprise me, Burgess," Lewrie had to confess.

"Well, times change… people change," Chiswick shrugged off. "You remember at Yorktown, those runaway slaves who served with us to earn their freedom, should we have defeated the Rebels? They served your artillery, and stood with us ready to march and volley, though I doubt they knew the first thing of soldiering, and there wasn't enough time for them to learn. God forgive me, but that was the first time I saw slaves as men, not useful animals! They'd have gladly died under arms than be taken, and returned to lashes, manacles, and slavery."

"Aye, I do recall them," Lewrie agreed. "Though, at the end, we abandoned 'em, and made our own escape."

"And, God forgive us for not even thinking of taking a single one with us," Burgess spat, turning soberly stern, after all his previous bonhomie. "Met more of them when what was left of our regiment skirmished round New York, before the surrender, and evacuation, and not one of our generals thought to include them in the terms before we sailed away, either. Then, India…

"Serving under your father, Alan, in the Nineteenth Native Infantry, commanding sepoys as dark as Negroes, most of them, learning to be the next best thing to a. father to the ones in my company, on campaign elbow-to-elbow for months on end, well… it changes your way of thinking 'bout the so-called 'lesser races.' Makes you see them just as human as us, by God. Worry 'bout their wives and children, just as we do, get into debt, gamble, drink too much, fight like tigers, be as idle or industrious as any White man… 'eat our salt' and prove themselves even better soldiers than British regiments in India! Now, what is a fellow to make of a lesson like that, but to realise that they're our equals, but for their lack of being like us."

"Governour's going t'dislike you as much as he does me," Lewrie told him with a chuckle, and a sigh of relief.

"Well, he never had that great a love for you, anyway," Burgess teased him. "The subject comes up, I expect Mother will go off into a fit of the 'vapours,' and Governour will puff up like an adder and spit fire. Don't know what Caroline will think of me. Don't signify to me, really, for I've come to believe that real chattel slavery's a degrading evil which Britons should expunge wherever we hold sway, not just in Great Britain, and damn the Sugar Interest! And yes, Alan… once I've worked out the kinks back home, I'd admire could you arrange me an introduction to some of Reverend Wilberforce's people. Can't buy all the tomfoolery they spout, but I can side with them on ending slavery. And," he added with a droll expression, "being introduced to the girl you mentioned wouldn't go amiss, either."

"God bless you for that, Burgess, and, aye, I shall…" Lewrie began to promise, almost ready to confess that he'd stolen his Black "volunteers," warn him that the subject of emancipation would come up about five minutes after the welcoming hugs and kisses, but was stopped by a sudden rising commotion in the dusty street beyond, a din that got all their attention.

"What the Devil…?" Burgess Chiswick wondered aloud, removing his napkin from his collar and tossing it into his empty plate as he got to his feet.

There came the usual sounds of trekboer waggons, the lowing and grunting of huge oxen, and the steady clop of unshod hooves. Mingled with that were the squeals of ungreased axles, the timber-on-timber thuds of unsprung waggon bodies, and the squeak of jostled joinery, as a train of pink-ended waggons slowly rumbled into town. Under all the expected sounds, though, was the hum-um of pedestrians and shoppers on the sidewalks, taken by the novelty, some even tittering laughter, as the waggon train heaved into sight. And, there were unusual sounds as well… some squealing "meows," hisses, and growls, some loon-like and silly brays, some nasal… trumpeting?

Lewrie joined Burgess by the railing of the deep veranda facing the street, up above the sidewalk and the strollers who had stopped in their tracks to witness this oddity.

"Aha!" Lewrie cried. "The circus is back in town! The 'mighty Nimrods' are back from a successful hunt!"

"Someone been on shikar}" Burgess had to ask.

"To bring them back alive, aye," Lewrie told him, chuckling.

For there was Mr. Daniel Wigmore, mounted on a decent mare, in the lead. He sat his saddle like a sack of heart-broken turnips, head down and grumbling to himself, it looked like. Next came a local Boer on a much better horse, but a man with as poor a "seat" as Wigmore, a lanky, heavily-bearded, and thoroughly dispreputable-looking bean-pole of a man who looked so filthy it might be possible to shake him hard, and reclaim ten pounds of topsoil. He bristled with weapons: a musket laid crosswise of his saddle before him, two more in scabbards hung on either side, and a brace of fowling pieces bound behind him. One arm hung in a sling, and fresh, bright-red scratches crisscrossed his bare arms and what one could see of his craggy face. As soon as he came in view, people on the street began to hoot, point, and laugh out loud.

"Van der Merwe… gobble-gobble!" in Dutch Lewrie heard some of them cry out; he couldn't follow anything past the fellow's name, but was sure that he was clapping eyes on the very idiot whom his guide, Piet duToit, had disparaged. After seeing the fellow, he could see the why.

Then, up came Arslan Durschenko on an even better horse, riding stiff-backed, erect, and easy, as a proper Cossack should. He looked a bit worse for wear, too, but when he caught sight of Lewrie, he scowled with fresh anger, his eyes brightening, and his long whip cracking.

Then came the waggons, ox teams driven by near-naked Blacks with goads or lance-long thin wood poles which bore short whips at the ends. Some were the fabled little Hottentots, some stouter and taller. Some between waggons bore crates on their shoulders, or atop their heads.

"Well, I'm damned!" Burgess cried. "Look at that!"

Behind the second waggon was a menagerie. There were two baby African elephants, at least half a dozen actual zebras, the source for those inane brays they'd heard earlier. The next huge waggon carried a stout wooden cage containing a pair of cheetahs, who didn't look very happy to be Cape Town 's latest Nine-Day Wonder, either. Atop the next waggon's pile of camp gear and tentage stood a smaller cage filled with three lion cubs, who hissed and spat, and uttered raspy little growls of displeasure at each jounce, though tumbling all over each other as clumsily as domestic kittens to take in all the strangeness of a town.

There were four ostriches leashed together into a kicking and outraged coffle. There was a middling-sized crocodile in a cage, and other cages borne by Black bearers contained a half-dozen wee baboons; a brace of spotted panthers, and some young wildebeests, or gnus!

"Looks as if they were successful," Burgess commented.

"But not very happy about it," Lewrie pointed out the many who looked utterly exhausted and hang-dog, the many who sported bandages, or limped on make-shift crutches.

Lewrie had been scanning each face of the new arrivals, looking for his runaway sailors, Groome and Rodney. He expected them to be on horseback, if they'd been promised freedman's treatment by the circus, but could not spot them. Finally…!

He recognised little Rodney, standing inside the last waggon of the train, clinging to the sideboards and the wood hoops that held up the partially-furled canvas cover… barely, for Rodney was swathed in blood-spotted bandages bound round his left shoulder and chest, and another set wound about his scalp.

"Hoy, there!" Lewrie yelled, agilely springing over the railing of the inn's veranda to the sidewalk, and jostling his way through those jeering spectators. He trotted up to the waggon, and scrambled up on the lowered tail-board to 'front his deserter. Rodney had turned grey-skinned with shock to see Lewrie, and shrank back as if the cat-o'-nine-tails was already cutting the air as Lewrie got to his feet before him.

"Damn your eyes, Rodney! You deserted!" Lewrie accused. "You'll come with me, lad!"

"S… sorry, suh!" Rodney cringed. "Ah know ah done bad, suh, runnin' off, but please God, suh, don' whip me! I paid for it, surely t'God I did! Oh, Law, but ah done paid!"

"Where's Groome?" Lewrie snapped, grabbing hold of the waggon's hoops to stay upright.

"He daid, suh!" Rodney stammered, tears running from his eyes. "Dot damnfool Dutch feller git 'im kilt, got a whole bunch o' fellers kilt, an' dey woz gon' leave me art there t'die, too, I didn' git on mah feets, aftah de lion maul me. Groome, he daid, suh, ain' lyin' 'bout dot. Damnfool Dutch feller say we take some o' dem buffaloes wif de big horns, an' dey kill 'im. Chase 'im up a tree, but it warn't tall 'nough, dey butt it down an' tromple Groome to a puddin'. Nuttin' we could do 'bout it, neither, Cap'm suh."

"Cape buffalo?" Lewrie asked, gawping at the very idea. He had been warned by his guide, duToit, that they were probably the most dangerous beasts in the wilds, and almost impossible to shoot and kill if one hit the boss of their

massive horns.

"Lick de skin raght orf 'is feets, 'fo' dey knock de tree down, suh, 'coz Groome couldn' shin up no higher," Rodney told him in misery. "God A'mighty, but ya shoulda heard 'is screams, when…" Rodney could not go on, but broke down into blubbing, wiping fresh tears with the back of his hand. "Stop this waggon!" Lewrie shouted to the ox-tenders. "Now!" They turned their heads to look at him, but could only shrug in confusion, for they knew no English, only their tribal tongues, or the pidgin of local Dutchmen. "Can somebody tell these bastards to stop this damned waggon?" Lewrie cried to the onlookers.

It was a lounging Piet duToit who sprang off a hitching rail to the street and waved a hand at the drovers, grunting out commands that thankfully brought the ox team to a plodding halt.

"A problem, Kaptein Lewrie?" the young man asked, looking up at him with his hands on his hips, and a smile on his face. "What I tell you about Jan van der Merwe? A fool,y'a! You wish help down?"

"Down, aye. I've a hurt man in this waggon," Lewrie told him. "A kaffir}" duToit scoffed, espying Rodney and his bandages. "One of my sailors," Lewrie answered. "Got mauled by a lion, he says. Van der Merwe's fault, I'd imagine."

"Hah," was duToit's dismissive sneer; what care he for a Sambo. "A deserter from my ship," Lewrie added, thinking that would be more to the Boer's liking. It was, for duToit came round to the tail-board and actually laid hands on Rodney to help Lewrie lower him to the dusty street. Burgess Chiswick was there, too, of a sudden, offering to assist the hobbling and wincing sailor to the sidewalk in front of the inn, into a bit of shade, for once Rodney was on his own feet, the young Dutch hunting guide lost all interest in him, loath to touch him any more than he had to. Surreptitiously, duToit wiped his hands along the sides of his canvas trousers. A shadow loomed over them. "Is hurt, him?"

Lewrie looked up and almost gasped to see Eudoxia astride of her white gelding, her face a mixture of disdain for Lewrie but, beneath that stillness, a concern for Rodney's injuries. There was a sadness in the cast of her large, hazel eyes, too, Lewrie thought.

"Lion mauled him," Lewrie answered her. "You know that tavern by the piers… the one with the red shutters?"

"Da, knowink," a very subdued Eudoxia replied.

"Ride there for me, if you please," Lewrie bade her. "Ask for Coxswain Andrews. That's where my boat crew was eating, waiting for me to go back to the ship. Tell Andrews to come quick. Rodney here needs to see our Surgeon."

"Is many needink surgeon," Eudoxia said, her face working into a grimace. "Is some circus men dead, Papa tell me. Antonio, best clown and mime, who tended camels and donkeys…"

Oh, Lewrie thought sarcastically and impatiently; hellish loss, a mime!

"Will you?" Lewrie pressed. "Please, Eudoxia?"

"Da, I go," she promised, already sawing at her reins. "I ask for C… Coxs… sailor Andrews." And she did, putting her gelding into a lope for the harbour.

"Fetch me some water, will you, Burgess?" Lewrie asked, kneeling at Rodney's side. "Better yet, a watered brandy."

"Right-ho," Burgess agreed, springing back over the rail of the veranda and calling for their waiter.

"You're a God-damned fool, Rodney," Lewrie sternly told him.

"Amen t'dot, suh," Rodney said with a grimace of pain.

Within minutes, Andrews and the gig's crew were back in a sweaty trot. Burgess had organised the gathering of long poles and canvas off the stalled waggon with which to fashion a stretcher, with the help of some lingering Boers who had stayed to gawk over the drama, once the comedy and the circus parade was done.

"Back to the ship and Mister Hodson with him, Andrews," Lewrie ordered. "I'll be along later, soon as I'm able, in a hired boat. No need t'make a long row for me."

"Aye, sah," Andrews replied as the boat crew picked up the ends of the poles, with Rodney stretched out atop the canvas.

"Be easy with him, deserter or no," Lewrie told him. "He's one hellacious tale t'tell, I'd expect. We lost Groome… out yonder."

"See 'im safe aboard, sah," Cox'n Andrews vowed. "Heave 'im up, an' haul away, lads. Easy, now…"

"Well," Chiswick said as the sailors and their burden began to head down the street to the piers. "Don't we have a lobster course to come… before all the excitement, happened, that is?"

"Aye, we did," Lewrie brightened, though still plagued by what in the Hell he would do with Rodney. "Let's finish our dinner. Since you're payin' so generously for it, as I remember?"

Using the steps this time, they went through the inn, then out onto the veranda to their table the usual way. Under the big, square covered outdoor veranda though, there was another intrusion, Daniel Wigmore, to the life, still swabbing sweat and trail muck from his brow with a handkerchief. Two empty steins sat before him, soon to be joined by a third, the way he was chugging his fresh one down.

"Cap'm Lewrie, 'ow do," Wigmore said with a shame-faced grin.

"We need t'talk, Mister Wigmore," Lewrie sternly replied, " 'bout you luring two of my sailors to desert, maiming one, and killing the other," he said, turning a chair back-side-round to sit down at Daniel Wigmore's table, lean close over the chair back, and glower at him.

"Ah, them laddies woz mad fer joinin' me circus, Cap'm Lewrie!" Wigmore blustered, eyes widened and his smile broader. "Nivver knew a thing h'about h'it 'til we woz 'ours down th' trail, and I couldn't've turned 'em back t'town, 'thout a gun or 'orse, wif night comin' on, an' all sortsa beasts lookin' fer supper? Cruel, that'da been, sir! Cruel! An' 'oo's this fine gennelman wif ye, Cap'm Lewrie?"

"My brother-in-law, Major Burgess Chiswick, of the Nineteenth Native Infantry, in India… Mister Daniel Wigmore, owner of Wigmore's Travelling Extravaganza," Lewrie sarcastically did the honours, "one of England's notable liars and 'sharps.' Admit it… you really tempted something horrid, promised 'em the Moon if they'd make your shows more exotic. Told Groome he could play Othello in your dramas, hey?"

"Well, I mighta mentioned a minor turn on stage, but…" "Hah!" Lewrie scoffed.

Burgess quietly came back to the circus owner's table with the rest of their burgundy left on theirs, pouring them both a goodly measure. Lewrie took the offered glass and sipped slowly, his eyes boring into Wigmore, who was now squirming in anxiety that Lewrie, or the Indian Army Major, had the authority to bring him up on charges… or could find someone who could, right quick. Dan Wigmore uncomfortably noted that Lewrie's eyes, usually a merry blue when at the circus, sniffing round Eudoxia, had gone a chilly Arctic grey, and most vulture-like, making him wilt and look away in dread as he chugged down his beer and waved for another.

"Roight, so I woz of a mind, not much o' one, d'ye see," Wigmore croaked, "alius on th' lookout fer talent, so…" He shrugged with a weak and sickly defeated grin plastered on his sweaty face.

"What happened to Groome? What happened with Rodney?" Lewrie demanded. His voice was level, his tone almost mild, but there was a steel to it, and Wigmore knew he was a long way from being out of the woods.

"Now, alia that were van der Merwe's doin', 'at feeble digit!" Wigmore exclaimed, all but wringing his hands. "Lord, Cap'm Lewrie, ye don't know wot a trial we been through, worse'n th' wand'rin's o' th' h'Israelites h'in th' Wilderness… worse'n me namesake, Daniel, h'in th' Lion's Den, oh yes! 'Twoz Biblical, 'ow we suffered h'out there, I tell ye gennulmen… Biblical!"

"Do tell," Lewrie dubiously said. "No, really… tell."

Wigmore's litany of woe was long and plaintive. First, one of his shave-pated strongmen who posed as a Hindoo jetti had been bitten by a boomslang and died within minutes. The second night out, their kraal hadn't been properly ringed with enough thornbush, and had been invaded by a pack of warthogs, which had spooked the horses, requiring a whole day to round them up again… minus the one that got pulled into a stream by crocodiles, less one that a pack of lions had eaten!

Then, there were the termite mounds and man-tall ant hills that van der Merwe had led them to, praising the unique oddity of aardvarks and aardwolves, which they captured… though not without being swarmed by an army of biting ants after they'd used too large a keg of gunpowder to spread the "treats" as bait for the aardvarks and aardwolves, and everyone had dashed off to the nearest waterhole to bathe them off, shedding clothing as they went, not noticing the half-dozen crocodiles lurking in said waterhole, first, who ran them back onto dry ground… rather a long way, and that change of clothing was lost to hyenas.

Under van der Merwe's knacky guidance again, they had ringed a tree in which a pair of spotted panthers were sleeping, banging on pots and ox-bells, yelling to daunt the cats as they brought up stout nets. Unfortunately, the panthers hadn't felt much like joining the circus, and had leaped down at the worst possible moment and ganged up on the circle of beaters, who just had to shoot their way wide of disaster, but had ended up shooting mostly at each other, the tree, and anything inside their circle… excepting the panthers, of course, and they'd lost a Black bearer, which, considering the firepower at hand, and the level of terror and chaos, could have been a lot worse. It resulted in Panthers: 1, Nimrods: 0, though they did manage to take another pair of panther cubs they got up another tree, later.

Then, when van der Merwe had suggested that hyenas just might be able to be tamed, one night, the dawn had revealed that three more of their native helpers had decamped, and they, thankfully, gave up on that idea.

Groome, well… van der Merwe told them that Cape buffalo were immensely strong beasts, never got rinderpest like domestic cattle and oxen, so vital to the Boers, did, and wouldn't they be a novelty when trotted into the ring towing circus waggons, once broken to the goad, and the yoke! And, what a boon to Boer mobility!

They had stalked a herd of them, thinking to corral a few with another ring of noisy beaters, and fleet horsemen with rope nooses to capture the ones they wished. The queston had turned out to be who was herding whom, though. The herd had milled tight together, flowed round as one for a bit, then whirled into formation and charged, with Wigmore likening it to an evolution of a brigade of British dragoons or lancers, perfectly bristling with hundreds of horns, not sabres or lance-tips! That pretty-much put paid to the circle idea, and everyone had run or galloped for their lives. Groome had run to a flimsy flame tree and scaled it, but hadn't lasted two minutes once the Cape buffs had circled below him and butted the damned thing down.

More natives had realised they'd been hired on by a nit-wit, by then, and, uttering the Bantu equivalent of "Bugger this for a game of soldiers!," had melted away into the bush.

Wigmore's second false jetti had followed van der Merwe's sage lore that zebras calm down just sweet as anything if one pulled a jute sack over their heads, and somewhere in the braying stampede, jetti #2 had gotten kicked in the head, then trampled to death.

They'd captured Durschenko's trio of lion cubs with yet another encirclement of beaters, but had had to shoot the male and three females to part them from the cubs. That's where Rodney had been mauled, when the adults in the pride had bowled through jittery gunners and beaters.

"We found h'elephinks," Wigmore sorrowfully related. "Sorta 'ard not to, wot wif s'bloody many of 'em bellerin' an' trumpetin' so mad, when we camped by th' water'ole they warnted h'at. H'at's where we lost pore ol' h' Antonio."

"The mime," Lewrie commented, now nibbling on cold lobster with his fingers, their dinner re-directed to Wigmore's table.

"An' a good'un 'e were, too, Cap'm Lewrie, an' din't th' lit'l chil'ren love 'im," Wigmore wistfully replied, piping at his eyes with his handkerchief. "Ne'er 'ad th' voice t'be a good h'actor, d'ye see, but that man knew 'is way wif a pig bladder or a dummy chicken like 'e was born t' th' craft. An' I allus knew me camels an' such woz in good 'ands…'less h'Antonio were in drink, or feelin' h'amourous."

"He… with livestock, d'ye mean t'say?" Burgess gasped. "Well, now an' h'agin, but 'e ne'er meant nought by h'it," Dan Wigmore said with a mournful sigh. "Butt h'ugly'z h'Antonio woz, not a woman h'in th' world woulda…"

"Male, or female?" Burgess asked, lips quivering rather oddly. "Oh, females h'only, sir!" Wigmore primly declared, tugging at his waistcoat as if insulted. " 'Twoz nought queer 'bout h'Antonio!"

Burgess shot to his feet as if outraged beyond all countenance, and crossed quickly to the veranda railing facing the street. Wigmore fretted with his coat lapels, shrinking into it as if embarrassed… 'til Burgess Chiswick erupted in 'laughter, great heaves of laughter that sounded something very much like

"Bwooharharhar!" along with the odd snort, cackle, and wheeze.

"Well, h'it 'appen, Cap'm Lewrie," Wigmore explained. "Now, I'm 'at sorry we lost one o' yer sailor boys, an' 'at lit'l Rodney feller like t'got et by 'at mama lion, but 'e'll most-like 'eal up an' serve ye good'z h'ever, oncet…"

"But that isn't the point, is it, Mister Wigmore?" Lewrie said with a wintry crackle to his voice. "You had your way, how many more of my hands would you have lured away? By God, sir! I should string you to a hatch-grating and have you flogged 'til your backbone is exposed! A fubsy such as you, the 'cat' would pare your flesh like it'd cut fresh, soft cheese! Mine arse on a band-box, I should!"

Wigmore paled, blinking rapidly in dread; unable to look Lewrie in the eye, he turned to heed Burgess Chiswick, who was rattling that veranda railing with his laughs. Wigmore tried to smile it away.

"Nivver do h'it h'agin, sir, swear h'it!" Wigmore tumbled out. "Point taken, Cap'm Lewrie. Make h'it up t'ye, h'if I could. Biood-money! I could pay… I'm told yer fond o' playful, furry critters, sir. 'Ow 'bout a mongoose! 'Ey's Hell on rats, an' cute as anythin'!"

To which offer, Lewrie could not help but hide a grin, try to maintain fierceness, but said, his own lips quivering with amusement, "No thankee… have one!" He stood, suddenly, scaring the man. "Oh, drink yer damned beer, Wigmore. But, do you come sniffing round any of my sailors, again, I'll come after you myself with a cat-o'-nine-tails!" he warned.

Leaving the man in a speechless, hang-jawed sweat, Lewrie went to join Burgess Chiswick at the railings, about ready to cackle, too.

"Nothin' queer 'bout Antonio, my Lord!" Burgess was still weakly wheezing to himself. "Oh, Alan, did ye ever hear the like?"

"Oh, probably," Lewrie muttered, still fuming. "One gets about. Who knows… worse things happen at sea. Burgess, my apologies, but I must cut things short. Things t'see to aboard ship, you understand."

"And we didn't even get to the main courses, ah well," Burgess replied, sobering at last as he sprang back from the rail to face him. "In point of fact, here comes your soup and such."

"Hate t'waste good victuals, but I must," Lewrie told him, digging for his purse to repay him in part, but Burgess waved his offer away.

"I'll sample a bit of everything, and call it a feast," Burgess told him. "Perhaps we'll find time enough for a drink or two, before we sail?"

"Of course we shall," Lewrie promised him, gathering up his hat and sword from their own abandoned table. "Failing that, though, allow me to offer to treat you to yer first English supper, once we're back home. We'll go up to London and make a whole night of it, hey?"

"Come to think of it, we'll do both," Burgess brightened. "And, we may bore each other to tears with our war-stories."

"Looking forward to it," Lewrie promised as he clapped his hat on his head and squared it away. "For now, though… adieu!'

He got to the red-shuttered tavern by the piers and began hunting for a rowboat to hire to take him out to Proteus, but, to his utter astonishment, found not one but two gigs waiting at the foot of the wooden stairs that led down to the floating landing stage: a strange gig painted green and picked out with white stripes with a Midshipman just debarking from it, and… his own gig, with his tars and Cox'n Andrews in it. The sight of it made him pause halfway down the narrow stairs as the Midshipman was coming up.

"Pardons, sir," the lad said, backing down to the landing stage to make way for a senior officer. He doffed his hat as Lewrie finished his descent. "Uhm… might you be Captain Lewrie, of the Proteus frigate, sir?"

"I am," Lewrie replied, at which discovery the strange Midshipman beamed, and reached into his coat to an inner pocket, from which he withdrew a folded-over sheet of paper. "Midshipman Hedgepeth, Captain Lewrie, of HMS Jamaica, out yonder?" the boy added, with a sweep of his hat towards the bay, and the anchored 64-gunner. "Captain Leatherwood extends to you his utmost respects, sir, and requests that you attend him aboard, at your earliest convenience. I gather, sir, that Proteus will join our ship to escort the East India convoy homeward? And…"

"Thank you, Mister Hedgepeth," Lewrie replied as he took hold of the letter, swallowing the impatience he felt with another intrusion into what was already a tempestuous day. "Since my own gig seems so readily available… surprise, that…" he added, lifting a leery eyebrow at Andrews, who stood beside the boat, "it seems I may manage mine own conveyance to see your captain, this minute. Do you wait a moment, though."

"Of course, sir," Hedgepeth said, doffing his hat once more as Lewrie brushed past him.

"You made quick work of it, Andrews," Lewrie said, standing at his gig's side. "Out to Proteus and back so soon. I said I'd engage a bumboatman…"

"Ah, beggin' yah pardon, Cap'm sah, but… we didn't go out to th' ship, sah, not egg-hackly …" Andrews waffled.

"And whyever did you net?" Lewrie harshly snapped.

"Dat Mizz Yew… de Russian gal, sah?" Andrews tried to explain, all but wringing his doffed straw hat in his hands. "She tell us it'd be bettah fuh Rodney was de circus surgeon t'see to 'im, Cap'm sah. We got 'im heah to de piers, but she an' dhem circus people jus' 'bout took Rodney, sayin' Navy Surgeons don' know nothin' 'bout men who got clawed up so bad, an' dheir 'saw-bones' handle such ever' day, sah."

"And you just… let 'em!" Lewrie barked. "Mine arse on a…!"

A good rant would have felt so damned fine, but right after he drew in a deep breath for his first "broadside," Lewrie shut his lips with an audible "plop."

When they had handed little Rodney down from that Boer waggon, the lad had been shirtless, for the first time in Lewrie's memory, and he had seen the old whip scars that his former masters, the Beaumans on Jamaica, had cut into him. And Lewrie had felt queasy to think that he would have had to, under the rigid requirements of the Articles of War when dealing with recaptured deserters, put Rodney to the gratings for several dozen lashes. He would have had no other choice, else his men would have gotten the idea that he was softer on his "Black Pets" than his other crewmen; that he could wink at desertion; that he was turning into a "Popularity Dick," or a soft touch! Lewrie couldn't think of a better way to split his crew into grumbling factions, and destroy what esprit they had. Without fear of consequences… without fear of him … he would lose all his authority, and his officers, warrants, petty officers, and midshipmen would lose theirs along with him.

Might be best, after all, Lewrie grimly told himself, knowing that allowing this to stand only delayed 'what he'd have to do.

"Uhm…" Lewrie grunted, instead. "Might be something to that, Andrews. I doubt either Mister Hodson, or Mister Durant, has ever run across a lion's clawing… and the sepsis sure to follow such. Very well, we'll leave him aboard the Festival… for a short time at the least… to see what their surgeon may do for him."

"Aye, sah!" his Cox'n cried with both relief and pleasure, and Lewrie could hear the tension whooshing out of his tense boat crew.

"Return to the ship," Lewrie ordered. "Jamaica's, gig may bear me out to her, and back aboard Proteus once we're done. My respects to Mister Langlie, and he is to see that our injured men in the cottage up above the bay, along with Mister Durant and his sick-berth attendants, are fetched back aboard."

"I tell him, sah," Andrews replied, knuckling his brow.

"Mister Hedgepeth?" Lewrie called, whirling about. "Might you indulge me with a boat ride out to your ship?"