Havoc`s Sword

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The two warships sailed together, clawing out their offing from Antigua to the East-Sou'east, and close-hauled to windward on the larboard tack. Though HMS Proteus had been quicker off the mark to seize the windward advantage, smothering the USS Thomas Sumter in her lee by her spread of sail, the American ship had still surged up almost abeam of her by late afternoon as the day's heat faded, as the airs borne by the Trade wind grew denser.

"Fresher from the careenage, I expect, sir," Mr. Winwood said as the reason, "with a cleaner bottom."

"Equal our waterline length, Captain," Lt. Langlie supposed as well, "so it stands to reason that both hulls perform equally. Perhaps a touch finer in her entry than ours, but…"

"No better handled," Lt. Catterall said with a dismissive sniff.

"Longer yards, with larger courses, surely," Lt. Adair dared to comment as they watched the Sumter bowl along, barely half a mile alee, "especially 'pon her t'gallants and royals. Fuller-bellied jibs… "

"Mmhmm," Lewrie replied to their guesses, telescope to one eye for the last ten minutes, entire, intent upon his study of her.

"Converted from a merchantman, she's fuller in her beam, too," Lt. Langlie pondered aloud, "so perhaps she sits more upright than we, just a few degrees stiffer, and sailing on a flatter bottom, with a pronounced shoulder… not as rounded as our chines, sir?"

"Mmhmm," Lewrie said again, and that only because he sensed the pregnant pause in their musings that required a response on his part.

"Merchantman or no, she's a swift sailer, I'll grant them," Mr. Winwood admitted with a hint of grumbling over any vessel that could rival a British-built, British-masted, and British-rigged ship, one set up to suit his experiences, and his captain's.

"Aye, swift," Lewrie mumbled. His arms tiring at last, he let the barrel of the strongest day-glass rest on the lee bulwarks of the quarterdeck for a bit. He peered about to windward, then aloft to the commissioning pendant's stiff-driven coach-whip, to the clouds on the horizon in search of dirty weather. There was none. The pendant was fully horizontal, its swallow-tail tip fluttering in concert with the lee edges of the jibs and courses. Even with the larboard battery run out and the starboard run in, Proteus was just a pinch slower than the Yankee man o' war, perhaps by as much as a quarter of a knot, and the cleanliness of her quickwork could not explain it. Americans simply built faster ships, Lewrie decided; just like the French did. Proteus had been based on a British interpretation of a captured French frigate whose lines had been taken off and copied, but… perhaps not copied closely enough.

"Puts me in mind of something from the Beatitudes, hey, Mister Winwood?" Lewrie asked the Sailing Master. "How does it go? That the 'first shall be last, and the last shall be first'? No matter if they out-foot us or point a degree or two more to windward, really. Proteus was made to dominate, not sprint… stay the course in all weathers, keep the seas, and then hammer the swifter when we finally corner 'em."

"Or simply chase 'em off, sir," Lt. Catterall said with a grunt of agreement. "Make 'em out-run us, in fear."

"Well said, sir," Lewrie told him with a brief grin, which drew growls of like sentiment from the rest as he turned back to leeward to raise his telescope once again, bracing the tube on the rat-lines of the mizen stays this time. He sobered quickly, though, dropping back into a brown study usually foreign to his nature, or his officers' experience with him. His statement had been his first utterance in the Past hour, other than a curt directive or two to improve their ship's handling. And, intent upon Sumter once more, he gave all indications of ignoring anything they said.

Lewrie was not studying Sumter in search of a weakness that he could use to keep Proteus ahead, though. In fact, the idea of sailing her hull-under was the last thing he wished to do, no matter how competitive he would usually act to maintain the honour of the Royal Navy, his ship, or his crew. He was not, in truth, peering so intently upon Sumter as he was keeping an eye on one of her midshipmen… his son.

His bastard son… who was at that moment perched aloft high in the Sumter?, main weather stays, just below her futtock shrouds, with a glass in his hands, too, which he lifted every now and again to caution his captain-uncle to Proteus'?, next race strategem. Two other boys of Sumter's cockpit were perched with him, all three hooting and cheering as the American armed ship gradually gained a few more yards on Proteus. They'd wave their tricorne hats and whoop and halloo, teeth-bared, and mouths open in perfect O's, like a pantomime's show against the thunder of the winds. They'd lean far out, with only a finger and a shoe heel gripping the rat-lines and stays, daring each other to greater follies of "tarry" derring-do, and each time Midshipman Desmond McGilliveray matched or bettered their feats, Lewrie sucked in his breath as if to shout and warn them to "belay all that." He could see a grizzled bosun atop the bulwarks at the base of the stays, fist shaking and mouth open to bawl caution at them, but with boys that age, what he shouted most-like went in one ear and out the other, and Lewrie still felt twinges of worry. A. father's worry.

Desmond lifted his glass, lowered it, then waved wide, beaming, looking directly into the lens of the powerful day-glass, as if he knew he was being watched so closely. He raised his glass again and Lewrie lowered his, knowing he was being eyed, and pantomimed a solid grip on the stays with both hands, and was much relieved to see the lad seem to obey, and loop an arm and a shin inside the rat-lines, round a rigid stay. Lewrie made a large gesture of swabbing a coat sleeve over a "worried" brow. "Don't do that!" he silently mouthed over the water.

"Boat ahoy!" Midshipman Larkin had challenged two days following that drunken supper, and the youthful voice shouting in reply had drawn Lewrie to the deck. The turn-out for a foreign midshipman was as thin as charity, so it was Larkin who led Mr. Midshipman McGilliveray to the quarterdeck from the entry-port with his sealed letter for Proteus's captain… who met them personally.

"Captain McGilliveray's sincerest respects to you, sir, and I'm charged to deliver to you this message, Captain Lewrie, sir," the lad had crisply stated, doffing his hat and making a courtly "leg" worthy of an English "mid" reporting to an Admiral-though no English "mid" would ever peer so intently or so openly. And perhaps only a famous man such as Jervis or Nelson would elicit such an awe-struck expression as Midshipman McGilliveray displayed.

"Thank you, Mister McGilliveray," Lewrie had replied, properly gruff and stoical, his hand out for the letter.

"I was instructed to wait upon your written reply, sir, and…" McGilliveray said, stumbling for the first time. He had shown none of the usual youthful curiosity one might expect of a fellow boarding one of King George's ships for the first time, not even craning his head about to see how other navies did things, rigged things, but kept his gaze wide-eyed upon Lewrie far more intently than any courtly book of gentlemanly behaviour could advise when dealing with one's superiors, or elders.

"Oi'll see ta him, sor, whilst… I shall, rather…?" Larkin offered, eyes almost crossed in concentration on "proper" speech.

"No, that won't be necessary, Mister Larkin, but thankee. I'll have Mister McGilliveray below to my quarters," Lewrie decided, which unexpected offer of hospitality confused one, but delighted the other.

"Aspinall, this is Mister McGilliveray, off the United States' Armed Ship Thomas Sumter," Lewrie told his cabin-steward as he seated himself behind his desk. "Mister McGilliveray, my man Aspinall, and a better 'aid and comfort' you'll rarely see. Keeps me minding my p's and q's, does Aspinall. Sit, lad, sit."

"Howdje do, sir," Aspinall had cheerfully said, knuckling his forehead.

"Draw us each a ginger beer, would you, Aspinall?" Lewrie bade as he tore open the wax seal of the letter, still faintly soft, still warm to the touch.

"Thank you kindly, sir," McGilliveray said, seated in an upholstered chair before the desk, hat in his lap, and almost squirming with some inner fretfulness, despite the half-smile he evinced. His curiosity did extend to looking about the great-cabins, finally. "Hello!"

Lewrie looked up to see Toulon, who had leaped atop the desk in curiosity of his own, perching himself on the very edge of the desk to crane his neck forward and bob, to study the newcomer.

"That's Toulon," Lewrie had told him. "Where I got him in '93 when he was a kitten. He was just about as huge as disaster, so that's how he got his name. He's almost out-grown his clumsiness, but he can still surprise you."

"He's a big'un, sure enough, sir," the lad said, cautiously petting the ram-cat, ruffling the fur under Toulon's intricately plaited sennet-work collar with the brass disk hung from it. "As big as a bobcat nigh twenty pounds or so, sir?"

Sure enough, Toulon "surprised," stretching too far in his bliss and diving nose-first to the deck. To make it less embarrassing, Toulon leaped into the boy's lap, as if that was what he intended, all along.

Lewrie unfolded the pages of his letter and read the, first lines or so, then "whuffed" in alarm. Despite any misgivings or forebodings Capt. McGilliveray might feel, the boy's uncle had determined to reveal the facts of his parentage to the lad. He had blabbed all!

"Ah, Captain Lewrie," Mr. Peel had cheerfully called out, emerging from his dog-box cabin. "A visitor, have you?"

"No one to arouse your interest, Mister Peel," Lewrie had almost snapped, regretting such a curt dismissal at once. Not for Peel's sake, but for how lightly he might esteem the lad. "Pray take a turn on deck, Mister Peel. I've a letter from Captain McGilliveray of Sumter."

"Very well, sir," Peel had responded, sounding intrigued as well as a tad miffed to be shooed out, as he departed.

McGilliveray had thought it odd for his kinsman to turn up with a wife and a son, especially a pale-skinned and blue-eyed infant so very unlike himself. They had stayed but briefly in Charleston after the Revolution had ended, since his "bride," Soft Rabbit, could never gain entree into cultured society, even if she could have adapted to civilised dress-or shoes!-or could have learned to speak fluent English. It was a Muskogee marriage, after all, as informal as that of a Black city couple "jumping the broomstick" in the slave quarters.

Desmond and Soft Rabbit had resided with the boy's grandfather, Robert, at his plantation-cum-trading post on the edge of "civilisation far up the Savannah River, and no circuit-riding parson had made it any more formal. From what Capt. McGilliveray had discovered during their brief visit, during a later trip to "Uncle Robert's," he thought their marriage one more of convenience than a love match, as if Desmond felt he'd had to "do the right thing" by her after her "exploitation" by an English sailor-adventurer… for the good of his tribe and clan name. And Soft Rabbit had acquiesced, since the babe needed a father, and she needed support that a low-status former slave could not get in a proud clan huti among the Muskogee.

Capt. McGilliveray had gently railed against his kinsman, deeming him "a stiff-necked prig who had taken upon himself the Burden and Duty to atone for White callousness." Desmond did need someone to cook and clean, sew his clothes, and service his rare bouts of prim desires. The boy was Desmond's "experiment." He was half-White and deserved the same chance his putative "stepfather" had had, to gain an education so he could function in the White world if he so chose, with a solid grounding in Muskogee lore and trailcraft should he choose that life. At best, perhaps, the lad could find a place in the family "over-mountain" Indian trade, a symbolic bridge to Desmond's vaunting dreams of a "partially" civilised Muskogee-Seminolee-Cherokee-Chickasaw-Choctaw-Apalachee race co-existing at the borders of the United States, like the Iroquois League, as the semi-barbaric German and Gallic tribes had co-existed with ancient Rome; as the various Hindoo tribes served a burgeoning British Empire in India. A project, but never a beloved son; a comforting worker, but never a "goody" wife, alas.

"Sadly, the Smallpox put paid to those plans," Capt. McGilliveray had written. "Desmond and Soft Rabbit were carried off, and kindly old Uncle Robert quite enervated, to the point that the lad was brought to us in Charleston by Desmond's youngest brother, Iain, and an older Muskogee nursemaid when the lad was three, and became my ward, whereupon he did receive the best of everything we McGilliverays could bestow on one of our own, and young Desmond's connexions with his Indian nature were effectively severed. Curious as the lad seemed anent his antecedents, I must confess that I can recall no true Fondness beyond his mother. Toddler that he was when he came to us, he held no particular air of Grief for his late Stepfather, even when considering how Stoic our Indians comport themselves. So, when I, at last, informed the lad of the identity of his actual Father, I-thankfully-discerned not a great Disappointment on his part, nor did Desmond evince any sudden Surprise. I suspect that the old Muskogee nursemaid, who stayed with us 'til her Passing in '93, was present when you and Desmond took part in your Adventures, and imparted to him the Truth…"

Meddlin' fool! Lewrie had thought at that moment; There's whole regiments o ' lads, never knew who quickened 'em, but still prospered Silence might've been kinder. He was settled in his mind as an orphan… with a silver spoon, and all. Now… Christ!

"Imagine my Astonishment, two evenings past, sir, when your comments made me put two and two together!" Capt. McGilliveray had penned further. "The utter Coincidence, and the odds against such! I only knew what little Desmond had related to me, and that, long ago anent your identity, or Character, and must confess that I knew nothing about you other than your most recent Success off Guadeloupe. Enquiries made ashore, though, sir, quickly satisfied my Curiosity as to the Illustrious Name you have gained in the Royal Navy, and the many Successes you have had against your King's foes; Fame which I was quick to pass on to young Desmond, who, enflamed by his own Eager Curiosity, made enquiries ashore whilst on his errands among Midshipmen, Warrants, and those few Officers who might deign to converse with him; such revelations assured him that he is the Scion of a most capable and honourable Gentleman…"

Only heard the good parts, Lewrie had silently thought, squirming in sudden dread; Wait'll the other shoe drops. So, now what? They passin' him onto me? I'm t'be his Daddy, of a sudden? Dear God, I'm to set him an example?

Lewrie had laid the letter aside, and looked up to see his "son" stroking Toulon, who was now all but cradled in the crook of one arm, belly exposed and paws in the air, with his head laid back in rapture to be getting such diligent attention. The lad looked him in the eyes and gulped, near to shying should Lewrie speak a single callous word.

"Well, well," Lewrie finally said, after clearing his throat. "It would appear that we're… kin, young sir. Now, what the bloody Hell do we make of that?"

"Don't… don't know, sir," Desmond meekly said, with a gulp-

"I never meant t'leave your mother… leave Soft Rabbit, but," Lewrie began, stammering a tad. "Your father,…Desmond, 'twas him, said it would be best. That he'd see to her, after I sailed away. I was wounded. Touch and go that I'd live, for a while, there, anyway, so… it seemed best, all round. Couldn't have taken her to London, any more than Desmond could have settled her in Charleston."

"Was she really a princess, like he said, sir?" Desmond asked, in almost a desperate pleading. "A Cherokee princess?" Lewrie sat up with a start, smothering the wince he felt.

"A captured Cherokee princess," he finally lied, unable to dis-abuse all the lad's callow assumptions, those sticking points to which his very self clung. "Man-Killer, the Great Warrior of your father's White Wind clan, raided far north and took her. Brought her back for a valuable slave. Quite a coup, they thought. She wasn't visiting… the Muskogee said the T'se-luki weren't the real People, not as good as them. Couldn't even talk right, the Cherokee, they told me."

"But they let you marry her, even so, sir?" Desmond pressed at him, snuggling Toulon to him as if for comfort. "Being an outsider, and all, I meant. Was it…?"

"She served me supper, one night," Lewrie told him, reminiscing almost happily, despite the awkward circumstances, "and I was lost in a trice. Unmarried Muskogee girls may choose whom they wish, and we met later down at the lake… we talked, or tried to, and… she was so very fetching and handsome, so slim and wee, really. Very sweet and gentle a girl… and smart as paint, too, quick to learn things! Uhm…"

Randy as a stoat? Lewrie had thought; do I dare tell him that?

"Yet you never thought to write her, or look for her, once the war ended, sir? If you loved her as much as she…?"

"I'd barely made my lieutenantcy, and the Royal Navy distrusts junior officers who marry," Lewrie extemporised, squirming in embarassment. "We're to make Commander first, then marry some retired admiral's proper daughter. Does she come with acres attached, that's even better, d'ye see, young sir? Besides, they slung me ashore in London on half-pay, then shipped me halfway round the world to India and the Chinese coast for nigh on three years. By then, I'd met my Caroline."

"The lady on the bulkhead, sir? She's very pretty. Do you have… children, dare I ask, sir?" Desmond shyly probed.

"Three… two boys and a daughter," Lewrie said, crossing his fingers over how long that situation might continue. "And a ward, to boot. A genteel French girl, well… young woman, by now, whose kin were slain at Toulon. Promised a dying French officer I knew from the Revolution that I'd see for his cousin Sophie. You'd like her I'll wager. Unless, of course, you have a special young miss dear to your heart back in Charleston?" Lewrie thought to tease, to finagle more probing, and upsetting, questions.

"Oh… none particular, yet, sir," the lad actually blushed, before turning a touch gloomy. "Even as a McGilliveray, d'you see… We're a long-settled and respectable family, and all, but…"

"But people still think you not quite… the ton? Because…"

The lad merely bobbed his head, as if in shame, seemingly more intent on nuzzling Toulon to his chin; which was just heavenly to the ram-cat.

"Well, damn their blue blood, I say!" Lewrie barked. "Uhm this sudden revelation. How widespread d'ye wish it to be, among yer peers, and such? Would a British father make things worse for you or better? Pardons, but I ain't had much experience at… this. You've spent so much time a…" Lewrie flummoxed, hand waving for words.

"Bastard, sir?" the lad suddenly said, with too-candid heat.

"Well, d'ye want t'put it that way, aye," Lewrie answered, with an embarrassed grimace. "No harm in it, really. I'm a bastard myself."

That snapped the lad's head up right quick!

"S'truth!" Lewrie vowed. "Little matter of hiring a false justice, 'stead of proper clergy, when my own father, Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby, took my mother, Elisabeth Lewrie, to wife. A little jape arranged by his fellow officers in the Fourth Regiment of Foot. You know… the King's Own? The drunken lot o' sots. She died, soon as I was born, and I got lost in a parish poor house nigh a year, and was lucky to live, cruel as they care for orphan gits, 'til my father came and got me out. Here, lad… does your uncle, your captain, require you back aboard any time soon, or would you care to go ashore with me and dine? I expect we've a lot of catching up to do."

"I expect we do, sir!" the lad said, almost pathetically grateful and eager. "And I'd… I would be greatly honoured to accept an invitation to dine with you, sir. Because…"

' 'Coz I've yet t'meet a mid who wasn't half-starved?"

"That, too, sir," Desmond McGilliveray confessed, all smiles of a sudden. "Er, should I call you 'sir,' or Captain Lewrie, or…?"

"Well, once you learn what a sordid family you're kin to, make up your own mind as to that," Lewrie allowed. "Aspinall? I'd admire did you pass the word for Cox'n Andrews, and my boat-crew. I'll dine ashore with Mister McGilliveray," he said, springing to his feet.

"Aye aye, sir!"

"Your father's knighted, sir?" Desmond happily bubbled as they gathered hats and such. "Is he a lord? And, your pardons, but those medals you wore at supper t'other night…!"

"No, he ain't," Lewrie gleefully related. "He was knighted for bravery. A Major-General, now, though mostly retired on his estate. Nothing much, really, nothing grand. This'un's for Saint Vincent… we were in shoutin' distance of Captain Nelson, at that'un. And this'un's for Camperdown, when we trounced the Dutch, under Duncan the wild Scot. Oh, he's a tall, craggy figure, white hair stickin' up six ways from Sunday…!"

"And you wear a hanger, instead of a smallsword?"

"Best for boarding-party brawls, don't ye know! Cut and slash, as well as skewer, and short enough to whip about when it's shoulder-to-shoulder… Desmond."

To which use of his Christian name, the lad beamed so widely his face threatened to split in half, as Lewrie laid a tentative, claiming, hand atop his shoulder lightly-ostensibly to steer him ahead of him on the way out past the Marine sentry to the gun-deck.

And God help us, the both of us, Lewrie had thought.

"Signal from the Sumter, sir," Midshipman Grace sang out as the bunting soared aloft from the man o' war abeam of them and alee, making Lewrie shift his telescope aft towards her mizen-mast, where the powerful day-glass forced him to scan the signal flags top-to-bottom one at a time. "She sends 'Farewell and Adieu', sir… her second hoist is… 'Haul Wind'… for 'Am Hauling Wind,' I'd suppose?"

"Does she propose to order a Royal Navy frigate to escort her to Dominica, that's another matter," Lewrie heard Lt. Catterall gravel.

"Spell out 'Best of Fortune' to her, best you may, lad," Lewrie told Grace. "Mister Windwood?"

"Aye, sir?" the Sailing Master answered, stepping closer.

"We've enough sea-room to come about and run betwixt Guadeloupe and Montserrat, Mister Winwood?" Lewrie asked him.

"More than sufficient, Captain," Winwood soberly assured him.

"Very well, sir, and thankee," Lewrie replied. "We'll let the Sumter haul off well alee before we come about ourselves."

Thomas Sumter would be taking the "outside passage" to windward of Guadeloupe, that scorpions' nest, for her base in Prince Rupert Bay on Dominica, heavily laden with fresh-slaughtered and salted beef and pork, with her decks also burdened by meat on the hoof to victual any arriving American warships. Even so burdened, however she would leap at the chance to engage any French she encountered, Capt. McGilliveray had assured in his letter's final pages.

As for HMS Proteus, well… Mr. Peel was miffed anew by what Lewrie had planned to do. When not at logger-heads concerning how the distant Mr. Pelham had instructed them to operate, Peel was turning out to be a rather amiable companion, and God knew that any captain needed some personal contact and conversation, besides cats, dogs, geese, and chickens… or himself… to ease the mute loneliness of command but… Lewrie suspected that Mr. James Peel would ever be on the qui-vive for his… inspired moments, waiting for a heavy shoe to drop.

Proteus would cruise past Guadeloupe to leeward, again, and do Victor Hugues, Guillaume Choundas, and their privateers and smugglers another evil turn if they could find anything at sea to bash. Then, though, they would cruise on down to Dominica and beyond, into the seas where American merchantmen were trading, leeward of Martinique and St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, perhaps as far south as Tobago and Trinidad, as far west as Curacao and Aruba along the coast of Spanish South America.

Even worse in Mr. Peel's estimation, Proteus would cruise along with Sumter, not as an official squadron, but two independent warships which just happened to be in the same waters at the same time, and did they sometimes pass within signalling distance in their rovings, well, who could fault that? Despite Mr. Pelham's strictures that the United States were rivals, not to be trusted, their merchant ships not to be aided with such diligence as long as Choundas still lived, as long as Saint Domingue was not firmly in Britain's grasp forever after, Amen.

"But, but…!" Mr. Peel had spluttered when Lewrie had revealed his and McGilliveray's scheme to him. Expostulations from both sides had taken up most of an evening, and only the downing of a considerable amount of sweet, aged corn-whisky had brought him (somewhat) round to Lewrie's point of view. They wouldn't be down South long, since trading season was ending, and all those Yankee Doodle merchantmen would be eager to scuttle off homeward with their treasures before hurricane season. Quartering and zig-zagging the sea in wide sweeps, always trending back North'rd, both Proteus and Sumter would stand a much better chance of meeting up with the hosts of French privateers bent on taking those treasures.

Lewrie had had to point out that Choundas, Hugues, and their sea-captains weren't out here for true patriotic reasons, after all. Prize Courts were just as respected by Republican Frogs as they had been by the Royal Frogs, and French officials on Guadeloupe were just as avid as Admiral Sir Hyde Parker back in Kingston for their lucrative share, their "admiral's eighth." Starve the Prize Courts of business, starve the privateer officers and crews of profit, and there'd be less of it in future. Take, sink, or burn a few of them, and put the fear of God into the rest, and that'd force them to stay home, lay up their ships, and boast over their wine in waterfront taverns of what they'd do, if only they could break even at it, if only they could find enough hands to man their ships these days, the poltroons!

Peel could see the sense of it, at last (though he'd had to get pie-eyed to do so!), that Choundas would, once stung enough, come out personally to restore the morale of his piratical lackeys, to even the score… protect his own profits, too, and salvage his career.

Peel had kept pointing out that L'Ouverture, the possible ally General Rigaud, and the conflict between them, was the more important matter, that estopping martial aid to either-from the French, not their own side, should Rigaud sign on the right line-was what Mr. Pelham had intended when he despatched them eastward to Antigua, but Lewrie had assured him that they could accomplish that task, too… indirectly, by making the short voyage seem too dangerous; by forcing Choundas to use his men o' war in search of Proteus and Sumter, not in convoying vulnerable merchantmen to Jacmel or Port-au-Prince; and, by goading him so sore that he had to find and kill his worst enemy before any convoy could sail.

USS Sumter became a bee-hive of activity as her crew scrambled aloft and manned her braces to haul her wind and wear about due South, and Lewrie lost sight of Midshipman McGilliveray, who became just one more hand lined up along the yards and foot-ropes of the course sail on her main-mast to shake out reefs, like a flock of wrens perched on a barn roof. Lewrie finally collapsed the tubes of his telescope and tucked it under his left arm, abandoning the lee quarterdeck bulwarks to pace "uphill" to the windward.

"Stations to wear, Mister Langlie," Lewrie told his First Lieutenant. "We'll come about to Sou'west-by-West, and take the Trades on the starboard quarter. All plain sail, after that. Just 'fore sunset, we'll shorten sail for a predawn arrival off Guadeloupe's north coast to see what they're 'serving' us for breakfast."

"Very good, sir," Langlie replied, all dutiful and efficient a watch-stander… but for the faintest hint of a grin at the corner of his lips.

Damn my eyes, was that a smirk? Lewrie fumed to himself. And it wasn't the first he'd seen in the last day or so, either, from one and all, even from Mr. Peel… once he'd gotten over his latest hangover. It was exasperating, but Lewrie strongly suspected that his parentage of Desmond McGilliveray was an open secret… which was to say it was no secret at all. But he'd be damned if he didn't rip the buttocks off the next person who found it amusing!

And how the Devil he ever thought to keep their relationship a secret, he had no idea. After all, it wasn't every day that lofty Post-Captains in the Royal Navy befriended lowly gentlemen-in-training from anyone's navy (especially their own) unless they were blood kin, cater-cousins… or devotees of "the windward passage" on the prowl for pre-pubescent victims. No one who knew Lewrie would ever misconstrue him for a "back-gammoner" or secret "Molly," so that left kinship. He had hoped that distant kinship, some six-times-removed cousin on his wife's side, perhaps, could explain his sudden attentive doting, but that hope had been dashed. Too many people, from focs'le to taff-rails, from the orlop to the mast trucks, had cocked their heads aslant and made comparisons of their features, their very un-thought gestures, and had come to the correct conclusion. And they'd done it damned fast, damn 'em!

Stood up side-by-side, he and Desmond McGilliveray were as alike as two peas in a pod.

"There she goes, sir!" Lt. Langlie pointed out as Sumter turned at last, falling away Suth'rd and showing them her stern.

Little good'll come of this, Lewrie told himself for what felt like the hundredth time. He could not imagine how young Desmond could improve his situation in Life by discovering that he was his bastard, not the dead Desmond's, a "bastardly gullion," really-the bastard son of a bastard. Maybe havin' more English blood than Indian makes a diff'rence, he mused; like bein' a Sacatra-Black, 'stead of a Griffe-Black in Port-au-Prince. Help him pass for lily-White, like the Sang-Meles, with one drop o' dark blood in an hundred? What'll he do, take an advertisement in the Charleston Post and Courier, and shout it out t'one and all? Brr!

Such thought of adverting his kinship to the world could result in the article being picked up by London papers, which Caroline would read, and Devil take the hind-most then! Why, she'd sic assassins on him faster than the Beaumans could, for this final insult!

Hopefully, whoever his dreaded anonymous scribbler was who sent those revelatory billets doux to Caroline that had ruined his Domestic Joy would never get wind of Desmond! Safely removed (in the relative sense) from that nameless scoundrel's purview, the "log" of his scandals had dried up… so far. And pray God the tale stayed as dry as a Barbary desert dune!

Lewrie shook himself, rocked on the balls of his feet, and gave his neck and shoulders an easing roll to loosen the tension of intense observation and worry over young Desmond's foolish sky-larking. With an arch of his back, he turned to windward, dismissing Sumter and with her his secret shame.

It was actually coolish, now that it was getting on for October, and the seas were no longer simmered by the tropic sun, so soaked up a lot less warmth to be blown along on the Trades. While not nippy, the winds were refreshing, and the late afternoon sunshine was milder, and balmier, not quite so ferocious. Once the sun was down, vanishing in a finger-snap as it did in these climes, the wind would be right up the stern, flooding through his transom sash-windows, cupped by the propped open windows of the coach-top over his cabins. Despite his qualms, he would sleep well tonight, he was certain.

Sumter now sat flatter on her bottom, rapidly drawing away into the failing twilight, with yards angled and sails cupped to sail Large upon her "occasions." Though it was too far, now, to be discerned from her decks or fighting-tops, Lewrie raised a hand and waved her a pleased farewell.

Despite all… he was a likely lad.