The King`s Commission

III
Chapter 1

They spotted her at first light rounding Cabo Cruz, a fine ketch of what looked to be about eighty tons burthen. Lilycrop thought she was on passage from Santiago de Cuba to Cienfuegos, and had taken the pass outside the chain of islets and reefs of the Gulf of Guacanayabo, a safer voyage most of the time, but for this instance.

She was a little ahead of them, too far out to sea to scurry inshore for safety, a little too far west to turn back for Santiago de Cuba. And with Shrike's shallow draft, even shoal water would offer no safety from them.

"Hands to the braces, Mister Lewrie!" Lilycrop snapped. "Give us a point closer to the wind and we'll head-reach the bitch!"

"Aye aye, sir! Hands to the braces, ready to haul taut!"

Grunting and straining near to rupturing themselves, the hands flung themselves on the braces to angle the yards of the square-sails, the set of the fore-and-aft stays'ls, jibs and spanker to work the ship as close to the wind as she would bear, to race as close inshore of the enemy vessel as they could, denying her the chance to round up or tack once north of Cabo Cruz to shelter.

"Helm down a point, quartermaster," Lilycrop demanded. "Mister Caldwell, what say your charts?"

"Deep water all the way, sir," Caldwell finally announced, just before Lilycrop turned on him. "With this wind outa the east'nor'east, neither us or her'll make it into shoal water."

"Unless she tacks, sir," Alan cautioned.

"And if the bitch tacks, we'll be gunnel to gunnel with her before she can say 'Madre de Dios'!" the captain laughed.

Shrike was indeed the butcher bird, rapaciously hungry, and her prey displayed on thorns was Spanish coastal shipping. There were so many ships, so little time, and Lilycrop seemed determined to make the most of any opportunity, very unlike the first image Alan had formed of him and his ambitions. Now the ship's log read like an adventure novel of ships pursued, ships taken as prize, or ships burned to the waterline to deny the enemy their use. Admittedly, the number burned greatly exceeded the number sent off in the general direction of Jamaica, but that was not their fault. The roads inland on Cuba, on the west coast of Spanish Florida, were abysmal, and everything went by sea, mostly in small locally built luggers, cutters, ketches and schooners, with only a rare brig, snow or hermaphrodite brig making an appearance.

Alan had expected a cruise with little excitement. But one lovely sunset evening, they had come across a merchant schooner off Cayo Blancos on the north coast, a small ship headed for Havana, and Lilycrop had run her down before full dark. She hadn't been much, but the captain had acted as if she were an annual treasure galleon, and the ease of the capture had fired his thirst for more. If his orders were to harry coastal shipping, then harry them Lilycrop would, but suddenly following orders could be profitable.

There were no despatches to run, no schedule to keep, and Lilycrop slowly had discovered the joys of an independent, roving commission for the first time in his long career of being held in check as a junior officer. In their first cruise of four months, extending their time at sea by living off their prizes' supplies, they had taken four decent ships, and burned nearly a score more. Small traders, fishing boats, anything afloat no matter how lowly had fallen victim to their guns, and the crews allowed to row ashore as their livelihoods burned like signal fusees.

Like Alan's first piratical cruise aboard Desperate, the only limiting factor was warm bodies to work the ship. Once enough men were told off as prize crews and sent away, Shrike had to return to port. It had happened once before, and now, only two months into their second cruise, it was about to happen again, if the ketch proved worthwhile.

Alan already had a revised watch and quarter bill in his coat pocket for just this eventuality, and his only concern at the moment was just how many extra hands the ketch would take from him.

"He's crackin' on more sail, damn his blood," Lilycrop noted.

"Don't think it'll do him much good, sir," Alan commented, eyeing the enemy through his new telescope. "He's hoisting his stays'ls. That'll push him down off the wind more than if he'd stayed with the fore'n'aft sails. And push his bows down maybe a foot. That'll slow him down."

Minutes passed as the Spanish ketch, now trying to emulate some sort of square-rigger, held her slight advantage, though Shrike was making better way to windward.

"We're makin' too much heel, sir," Lilycrop spat, impatient to be upon their prize. "Not good with a flat run keel."

"Run out the starboard battery, sir," Alan suggested immediately, "and I'd take a reef in our main tops'l. We're canceling out the lift on the bows from the fore course and tops'l."

"Make it so, Mister Lewrie." Lilycrop nodded in agreement.

"Bosun, and mast captain! Lay up and trice out! First reef in the main tops'l! Mister Cox, run out the starboard battery!" Alan roared through his brass speaking trumpet, and he could not help feeling pleased with himself. When they anchored at Kingston the first time in early May, he was still uncomfortable and daunted by his lack of experience, but now by mid-December 1782, such decisions had begun to come naturally to him, based on a growing wealth of knowledge about seamanship, and how Shrike reacted in particular. Lilycrop occasionally pinned his ears back for over-reaching to keep him humble, to remind him he did not yet know it all, but those admonitions were rarer.

Once adjusted properly, Shrike settled down on her keel a few more degrees and made the most of her longer hull form. The Spanish ketch grew in size, bringing all her hull up over the horizon as the Gulf of Guacanayabo opened out before them. Try as she might, she did not have the sail power or the length of hull to make enough speed to escape.

"Ahoy the deck, thar!" came a call from the lookout aloft. "Sail, three points off the starboard bow!"

"Rossyngton, get aloft and spy him out," Alan barked, and the well turned out midshipman paused for a moment as he considered how dirty his white waist-coat, slop trousers and shirt were going to get from the tar and slush of the standing rigging.

"Today, Goddamn you!" Lilycrop howled.

Rossyngton was off like a shot, pausing only long enough to take a telescope with him as he scampered up the shrouds to the top and almost shinnied up to the cross-trees.

"Guarda Costa sloop, sir!" Rossyngton finally shouted down. "One-master!"

"Must have been on patrol out of Manzanillo, sir," Alan said, hanging from the shrouds himself for a better view. With his heavy glass, he could see a small ship, as Rossyngton described a single-masted sloop or cutter, with a large fore-and-aft gaff-rigged sail and one square-rigged tops'l above that, and a long jib-boom and bow-sprit that anchored three huge jibs. Even in the protected bay, she was hard at work off the wind, pitching noticeably.

"Fifty, sixty foot or so," Lilycrop speculated, leaning on the starboard quarterdeck bulwarks by Lewrie's feet with his own telescope. "Maybe two heavy guns forrud, nine or twelve-pounders, and little four-pounder trash abeam. That's why she's pitchin' like that."

"She'll interpose our course, sir, to save that ketch."

"Damned if she will!" Lilycrop chuckled. "Mister Lewrie, beat to Quarters. We'll take her on first, then have our prize."

Shrike did not run to a richer captain's private band replete with fifes and drums. Her single young black drummer rattled his sticks, first in a long roll, then broke into a jerky, cadenced beating of his own invention that sounded like a West Indies religious rite or revel.

"She'll try to fight us like a galley, Mister Lewrie," Lilycrop informed him once the ship was rigged for battle with all unnecessary items stowed below (and his precious cats ensconced with Gooch in the bread rooms). "Keep her bows aimed at us to let her heavier bow guns bear."

"We could fall off the wind, sir," Alan suggested, scanning the tactical set-up and trying to solve the puzzle of three ships, each on its own separate course and proceeding at different speeds. "We've room enough to windward of the chase now."

"No, she'd still get within range, or chase after us, and damme if I want my stern shot out," Lilycrop replied. "Stand on as we are, and give her broadsides close aboard. Mister Cox, I'll want three shots every two minutes at your hottest practice, double-shotted, mind!"

"Aye aye, sir!"

"On this course, the chase'll get inshore near Santa Cruz del Sur, Captain," Caldwell told them, waving a folded up chart at them. "There's a battery there, I'm told. About forty miles before we'd be in their range, though, sir."

"The bitch'll never make it," Lilycrop said confidently. And before a half-hour glass could be turned, the Spanish Guarda Costa sloop was within range of random shot, and her heavy bow chasers barked together. One shot moaned overhead and forward of the bows to raise a large feather of spray to leeward. The other ball smacked into the sea abeam of Shrike, but about a quarter-cable short, and skipped once but did not reach her.

"He'll go about now, or we'll leave him behind," Lilycrop said.

Shrike was racing nor'nor'west, with the sloop to her right side, about a mile east of her, and about half a mile ahead, bound on a course roughly west'sou'west. She did not have the speed to pass in front to rake Shrike, so she would have to turn soon on a parallel course and bring her guns to action down her larboard side.

"She's leaving it a bit late if she is," Alan observed as more minutes passed. The sloop's heavy fo'c'sle guns spoke again, this time raising splashes much closer, though once more without harm. Her bows were pitching too much for proper aim even as the range shortened.

It was a beautiful day for it, Alan noted with pleasure, unable to believe that the small sloop could be much of a menace. The sea was sparkling blue and green, azure near the eastern shore, and the hills around the small port of Niquero, and the mountains of the Sierra Maestras were a vivid, luscious green after the last heavy rains of the hurricane season, sweeping fluffy trails of cloud above them in a perfect blue sky.

"There!" Lilycrop pointed as the sloop finally foreshortened in a turn as she came almost abeam of Shrike's, jib boom, not half a mile away now. "Mister Cox, skin the bitch!"

"Aye aye, sir!" Cox agreed joyfully. "As you bear… fire!"

The small four-pounder chase gun yapped like a terrier, then the more substantial explosions of the six-pounders of the starboard battery pounded out. Caught in the act of wearing ship, controlling that huge fore-and-aft mains'l and those over-sized jibs, the broadside shook her like a shark's first bite as ball after ball hammered into her. The sloop seemed to tremble, then swung about quickly, almost pivoting on her bows as her mast, the tops'l yard, and the mains'l gaff came down in a cloud of wreckage, and the uncontrolled jibs billowed out to drag her bows back down-wind. For a second, she had heeled like a capsize.

"That's one way to gybe a ship!" Caldwell exulted.

"Bit rough on the inventory, though," Lilycrop chuckled in appreciation. "Well done, Mister Cox! Hit her again!"

They passed her at long musket-shot, about one hundred yards, as the sloop was tugged down to them bows on, and iron round-shot tore her to lace, flinging light scantlings into the air in a cloud, ripping her bow and fo'c'sle open.

"Luff up and hit her one last time, sir?" Alan asked, excited at how much damage they were doing.

"She's a dead 'un," Lilycrop scowled. "Let's get on to our prize. If we've a mind, we might come back for her later. She's not goin' anywhere but down-wind and out to sea, away from rescue."

"Mister Cox, stand easy!"

"'Bout another hour to catch yon ketch, Mister Caldwell?" Lilycrop surmised with a practiced eye.

"Hour and a bit, sir," Caldwell agreed.

"Secure from Quarters. Issue the rum and a cold dinner."

They did catch the ketch, nearly one hour later, prowling up to her starboard side with the advantage of the wind-gauge. One ball from the larboard battery settled the matter, splashing close abeam to ricochet into her upper-works and shatter a bulwark, raising a concerted howl of terror. The ketch lowered her colors and rounded up into the wind quickly, while the howling continued.

"Jesus, what's all that noise?" Alan wondered aloud as one of the boats was led around from being towed astern to the entry port.

"I suspect yon Dago is a slaver, Mister Lewrie," Lilycrop said sadly. "We're upwind where we can't smell her, but keep a tight hold on your dinner once you get inboard. Now, away the boardin' party before they change their feeble minds."

The winds were freshening, and the sea heaved a little more briskly as Alan sat down on a thwart in the cutter. The captain's cox'n got the boat's crew working at the oars, and within moments they were butting against the side of the ketch, and Alan was scrambling up the mizzen chains to swing over the low rail, glad to have pulled it off without getting soaked or drowned.

"Jesus!" He gagged once he was firmly on his feet, and the men from the boarding party were following him up onto the ketch's decks.

It stank like an abattoir, brassy with corruption, almost sweet like decomposing man-flesh, mingled with the odor of excrement and stale sweat, of foul bilges and rot. Most ships smelled to a certain extent, but he had never, aboard a prize or a well-found Royal Navy ship even after a desperate battle, smelled the like, and his stomach roiled in protest.

An officer walked up to him, a sullen brute in rumpled and soiled breeches and shirt, legs exposed by lack of shoes or stockings. He began to rattle off a rapid burst of Spanish, which was definitely one of the world's languages that Alan lacked, and Alan waved him off, trying to shut him up.

"You the captain?" he asked when the man took a breath.

"Capitano, si." The man swept off a battered cocked hat small enough to fit a child, dripping though it was with gold lace and feathers, and introduced himself with a deep congй. "Capitano Manuel Antonio Lopez, Capitano de Las Nuestra Seсora de Compostela."

"Lewrie," Alan said bluffly as an Englishman should. "Shrike," he added, pointing back toward his ship. "Royal Navy. Your sword, sir."

All the man had to offer was a cutlass stuck into a sash, which Alan passed on to his man Cony. There was one passenger, a man of much more worth, by his clothing. He was tall and slim, partly Indian in his features, but adorned with a stiff waxed mustache. He, too, offered his sword, this one a slim smallsword awash in pearls and silver wire, damascened with gold around the hilt and guard. He was elegant, a dandy-prat in the height of Spanish fashion.

"Seсor, I must talk to your captain," he began in passable English. "It shall be of great value to him."

"And what brings you aboard this voyage, sir?" Alan asked, fanning his face to push away the stinks.

"She carries my cargo, senor."

"Slaves?"

"Si, seсor. Fifty prime blacks bought in Santo Domingo."

Alan took a look about the deck. The ketch (and he could not even begin to remember her name, much less pronounce it) would have been a well-found vessel, if she received a thorough cleaning. The rigging was thin as a purser's charity, but that could be set right. There were only four carriage guns, bronze or brass three-pounders-no value there. Most of her armament, he noted with surprise, consisted of swivels and bell-mouthed fowling pieces aimed down at her hatches and waist, evidently to control the slaves should they get loose.

"I must speak to your captain, sir. You are?"

"Lewrie, Lieutenant."

"Allow me to introduce myself, senor. I am Don Alonzo Victorio Garcia de Zaza y Turbide." The man rushed through a formal introduction. "I assure you, Teniente, it shall be most pleasing to your captain if I am allowed to speak to him."

"Pleasing how?" Alan asked, getting rapidly fed up with the over-elegant posturing of this stiff-necked hidalgo.

"To his profit, senor," the man beamed back with a sly smile.

"I think a well-found ketch and fifty prime blacks for resale in Kingston is profit enough, don't you?" Alan smirked.

"I do not care about the blacks, seсior. The world is full of slaves," Don Miguel sneered. "Nor do I much care about this little ship. But if I go to Kingston, then I am prisoner, si? And there is no profit for me in that. I ask, as a gentleman, as a knight of Spain, to be set ashore. I can pay well, seсior. In gold," he added.

"By all means, Don Thingummy, talk to my captain. I'm sure he'll simply adore talking to you!" Alan laughed. "Cony!"

Alan sent the aristocrat, the ship's captain, and her small crew over to Shrike for safe-keeping, while he and the rest of the boarding party sorted the freed lines out and got a way on the ketch, headed out to sea, with Shrike following in her wake. He had half a dozen hands, half a dozen Marines, and a bosun's mate, plus his man Cony to keep order aboard. Once he got his people apportioned at duty stations, he led the rest to search the ship.

"Godamercy, sir," Cony gasped as they opened the hatch gratings.

Crammed in between bales and crates of cargo were fifty slaves, naked as the day they were born, chained together with ankle shackles into two rows on either side of the hold, their wrists also bound by cuffs and lighter chain. They were squatting or lying in their own filth that did not drain off into the bilges. They glared up at him angrily, some begging for water with cupping motions by their mouths, some rubbing their bellies for food and miming the motions of eating.

"Godamercy, sir!" Cony said again. "Hit's devilish the way them Dagoes treat people. We oughter feed 'em, sir. Give 'em water an' some air. 'Tain't Christian ta do otherwise, sir."

"Well, they don't look exactly glad to see us, Cony."

"'Course they ain't sir!" Cony burst out. "I 'spect they thinks we're Dagoes, too, Mister Lewrie."

"Corporal?"

"Sir!"

"Fetch 'em up, one coffle at a time. Use those swivels and such if they get out of hand. Cony, break out a butt of water and see if there's some food about," Alan relented.

The slaves were fresh from Dahomey or some other port on the Ivory Coast, for they cringed away from their liberators just as they had from their captors. They drank the water, ate the cold mush and stale bread as if it was manna from heaven, but stayed in a tight clutch of flesh away from the muskets of the Marines and sailors who kept an eye on them. Easy bantering from sympathetic English humors did nothing to reassure them, even if they could have understood the words.

"Murray, take charge of the deck," Alan told the bosun's mate, and went below to search the captain's quarters and those of the distinguished passenger, who was by now getting his ears roasted by Lieutenant Lilycrop for trying to bribe a Royal Navy officer.

He gathered up all the papers he could find, not able to read a word of them, hoping Lilycrop or one of the warrants had some Spanish for later scanning. The captain's quarters were spartan in the extreme, not from the usual sailor's suspicion of anyone given to too many airs and comforts as was rife in the Royal Navy, but from poverty, he assumed. Even the captain's wine cabinet could offer nothing better than a locally grown wine of dubious palate, and some fearsome rum. After one sip, he spat the mouthful on the canvas covered deck and put the bottle back in the rack.

Don Thingummy's cabins, though, were a different matter. Some attempt had been made to pack away valuables, for all the chests and trunks had been locked, and Alan was just about to search for a lever with which to pry the first of the locks and hasps off when the sound of gunfire erupted from the deck, forcing him to sprint back topsides.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded, sword in hand.

"This'un went for't' corpr'l's musket, sir." Murray panted from excitement or sudden exertion. "They wuz beginnin' t' smile'n all, sir, an' then, when we wuz gonna put 'em below once agin, this'n jumped us!"

One of the slaves lay stretched out and dead on the planks, bleeding like a spilled wine keg, another keened and rocked with agony after being shot in the shoulder; the others tried to draw back from the casualties to the full extent of their leg chains.

"Christ, what a muck-up!" Alan sighed, sheathing his sword. "Pop him over the side, then. Corporal, can you get the shackles undone? And see if anything can be done for the one wounded."

"Aye aye, sir."

"I saw some keys in the captain's quarters. Try there. And I also saw some rum. He might feel like a drop. Fetch that, too."

Cony knelt down next to the wounded slave and tried to staunch the flow of blood from the purple-plum entry wound, which was not bleeding all that badly. He gently pushed him down and rolled him a little so he could see the back, where the ball had exited high up.

"Shot clean through, sir," Cony said with a grin. "No ball in 'im ta fester, there's a blessin'. Easy now, bucko, lay easy. Rum's a'comin', cure for damn near ever'thin'. You'll be alright."

The corporal came back with a huge ring of keys and fiddled at the shackles until he found one that unlocked the dead man from the coffle. He then knelt at the feet of the wounded slave and undid his ankle shackles.

"Stap me, sir!" Cony wailed in disappointment. "'E's dead!"

"Dead? Of that?" Alan asked, bewildered as the next man.

"Guns is magic, sir," Murray the bosun's mate said softly. "If'n 'e wuz island born an' used ta us'n, 'e'd a lived, but direck from 'is tribe not three month, if'n yer shot, yer killed, so 'e believed 'e wuz dead an' that's that."

"Jesus, they believe that?"

"Aye, sir. Ask Andrews, sir, 'e were a slavey," Murray insisted.

Andrews was one of their West Indian hands, signed aboard as a volunteer, an almost white-skinned Negro, like one of Hugh Beauman's favored bed-partners.

Alan turned to look at him, and Andrews shrank away, after glaring at Murray with alarm. Alan thought there was more to his sudden fear, so he crossed the deck to stand beside him and speak softly.

"Is it true they die so easily, Andrews?"

"Aye, sah. Dey b'lieve a witch can put a curse on 'em an' dey lays down an' dies of it. First dey see o' white men, dey learn about guns. Sometimes dey die o' just bein' shot at, sah. Just feel da bullet go pas' an' lay down an' die," Andrews informed him.

"Poor bastard."

"Aye, sah, poor bastard. All of 'em."

"You were a slave?"

"No sah, Mista Murray got it wrong, sah. Ah weren't no slave!"

"You're a freeborn volunteer. But you must have talked with slaves to know what you know," Alan pointed out.

"Freeborn volunteer, sah," Andrews insisted.

"But not a sailor, eh? Before?"

"I worked wit' my father, sah, fishin' sometimes."

Were you, indeed, Alan thought, skeptical of Andrews' claims. The man had written his name instead of making his mark when he signed aboard; Alan had offered the book to him himself. If he was not a runaway servant, then Alan was a Turk in a turban.

He was a well set-up young fellow, near an inch taller than Alan's five feet nine, his skin the color of creamed coffee, and his eyes clear instead of clouded. A former house-servant run off for his own reasons? Alan wondered. Whatever his background was, he wanted to keep it quiet.

"Well, you're the Navy's now, Andrews, whether you were a prince of Dahomey… or a runaway slave," Alan said softly, so the others would not hear, and Andrews' eyes pinched a bit at the last. "Don't worry over it. Prime hands are hard enough to find-we'll not be letting you go so easily."

"Aye, sir," Andrews replied, letting out a pent-up breath and relaxing a little.

"Mister Murray?"

"Aye, sir?"

"Andrews tells me he may be able to calm the slaves down a bit. Place him and Cony in charge of tending to them, if you please."

"Aye, sir."

Andrews gave him a short grin as he went below to talk some gibberish language to the slaves to calm their fears. Between him and Cony, whose simple farm-raised gentleness and caring were already evident, Alan was sure that he had made the right decision.

"Mister Murray?"

"Sir?" the bosun's mate said, coming to his side near the tiller.

"How did you know about what black slaves believe?" Alan began. "It's so incredible to me that people should die simply because they were shot at. He was barely hurt. That ball went in clean, maybe broke a bone, and exited high at the top of the shoulder."

"Served in the Indies a lot, sir," Murray told him. "Seen lots o' slaves turn up their toes fer a lot less, sir."

"I am grateful for your knowledge, Mister Murray. Never hurts to pick up a little lore from here and there, does it?" Alan cajoled.

"Nossir. hit sure don't, an' thankee fer sayin' so, sir." Murray almost preened at having gained favorable comment from his first officer.

"Well, with Cony and Andrews tending to them, they'll go quiet from now on. Oh, about Andrews. Do you know if he was a former slave?"

"Well, nossir, but hit's been my experience 'at mosta the West Indian 'ands is, sir," Murray said with a wink at the age-old practice.

"Good sailor, is he?"

"Nary a topman, sir, but 'e'll do fer most duties, an' good in a fight wif a cutlass, sir."

"Then we wouldn't want to get him into trouble by announcing he's a former slave. People might think he's a runaway, whether he is or not, and he might be tempted to run. And with nigh on a third of the hands West Indians, it might stir up resentments," Alan suggested.

"Aye, sir, least said, soonest mended."

"Thank you, Mister Murray, that'll do, I think."

Shrike put back in to Kingston a few days later, preceded by her prizes, the trading ketch Nuestra Seсora de Compostela, and the Guarda Costa sloop San Ildefonso, which they had run across on their way seaward from the coast of Cuba. She had barely been repaired enough to hoist a jury-mast with her main boom serving as a vertical spar, and a tattered tops'l employed as a lug-sail. She had fallen without a shot being fired, all resistance blown out of her earlier in the day.

It made a proud sight, the small convoy of three ships rounding Morant Point, threading the Port Royal passage past the forts on the Palisades and into the harbor with the Ensign flying over the white and gold flags of Spain. As soon as all three ships had dropped anchor and begun to brail up their sails, Lieutenant Lilycrop took a boat over to the flagship, strutting like a peacock at his success.

Alan was left to deal with the officials from the Prize Court, and the Dockyard Superintendent about repairs. The slaves from the trading ketch were removed, to be auctioned off at some time in the future, and they would fetch a good price, since the island of Jamaica was badly in need of prime slaves to support a wartime economy, and the supply from Africa had been cut to a trickle by Spanish and French privateers. After the recent slave revolt, unaffected slaves were doubly welcome.

Admittedly, Alan suffered some qualms at seeing them led off, still in their original chains. He had not known any slaves in his former life in London-there they were more of a novelty or an affectation of the very rich, employed as house-servants and body-servants, with the mannerisms and voices of failed Etonians who had to work to keep body and soul together. There were a few slaves in the Carolinas he had met, the Hayley sisters' maid Sookie, who had nearly been the death of him after he and the Chiswick brothers had escaped Yorktown, Caroline Chiswick's "Mammy," who was cook, nurse, housekeeper and more a family friend than a slave. And the West Indian hands and ship's boys, who were mostly good-natured cheeky runts or diligent workers as good as any volunteer signed aboard back in England.

"'Tain't right, sir," Cony commented once more, coming to the rail by his side as the huge harbor barge bearing the slaves got underway from Shrike's gunwales, ironically being rowed by hired freeborn blacks.

"No, it's not right, poor bastards," Alan agreed in a mutter.

"They get took from their 'omes back in Africa, clapped inta irons an' shipped 'cross the seas, an' them that live gets sold like dray 'orses," Cony lamented. "Worked ta death, sir, whipped ta death, and not a Christian 'and raised for 'em."

"And we capture them from the Dagoes so we can sell them for a good knock-down price," Alan went on. "By damn, I love prize-money good as the next man, but I don't know as how I'll feel right taking money for them. The ketch, yes, and all her fittings and cargo, but not them."

"That's the truth, it is, sir, an' you're a fine Christian for a'sayin' it, sir," Cony spat. "I been talkin' ta Andrews, sir, an' 'e says nigh on two hundred men and women're crammed in front ta back an' kept below for months on the Middle Passage. 'Tis a good voyage iff en only a quarter of 'em die, an' contrary winds'll end up a'killin' 'alf."

"You'd think, with all the talents mankind has at his disposal, there'd be someone working on a machine to harvest sugar cane instead of causing so much misery. As if life isn't misery enough already."

"God, wouldn't that be grand, sir!" Cony beamed. "An' I'll lay ya odds, it'll be an Englishman what does invent it, sir. Britons'll never be no man's slave, so why 'elp make other people our'n?"

In the months during the siege of Yorktown, in their escape, and ever since Cony had become first his hammockman in the midshipmen's mess and later his personal servant, it was only natural that Alan would become familiar with the young man. It was no longer an officer/common seaman relationship, nor was it strictly an employer/servant relationship, either. Cony had little education, no philosophical practice, but a strong sense of justice and decency, and had learned that in most instances, Lewrie was willing to give his opinions a fair hearing, which had encouraged the lad to speak out when he felt something strongly enough.

Perhaps it was because they had shared misery together, or the familiarity had come from Alan having so few people he could relate to on a professional basis; his circle was limited to the captain and the other officers in the wardroom, and he had to be standoff-ish with those or suffer a loss of respect. Decorum demanded he stay aloof, and it was only with Lilycrop that he could let down his hair, him and Cony, though he had yet to ask Cony for an opinion or advice-that would be going too far, he thought. One could be seen, warts and all, by a servant of long standing (which was probably why people changed them so often, he thought) but an English gentleman was drilled from the cradle to not get too close to the help, and never allow his dignity to slip before the servants.

A few warts were allowed, then, but if Cony really knew him for the rake-hell he was, he was sure Cony would lose his awe of him in short order.

"What else did Andrews say?" Alan asked, still intrigued by the man.

"Well, sir, 'e said back on the plantations, they beat 'em for almost anythin'," Cony went on, now that he was bid to speak further. "Rice an' beans, some truck they grow in their own time maybe, an' now an' agin some salt-meat…"

"Most likely condemned naval stores, that," Alan stuck in.

"Aye, sir. An' new clothes but once a year, after ever'thin' else's rotted off 'em." Cony sighed. "Treat 'em like beasts, sir, an' th' way they abuse the women, sir, is somethin' shameful. Ya know, sir, I can expect the practice o' the Frogs an' Dagoes. They's just cruel ta the bone with 'orses an' dogs an' people, but sometime 'tis 'ard ta see Britons a'doin' it here in the islands, or in the Colonies. Remember them escaped slaves what 'elped us build an' man the battery at Yorktown? Like whipped puppies they were, sir, grateful for what little we could share with 'em. Come away ta us ta escape their masters, poor old things. Wonder what the Rebels did with 'em after Cornwallis surrendered?"

"Same as today, most like," Alan scowled. "Them they didn't flog or hang for an example. Same they do with a runaway apprentice, hey?"

"That's differ'nt, sir," Cony insisted. "A 'prentice made 'is own choice o' master, made 'is contrack an' give 'is bond-word. Nobody asked those poor buggers. An' a 'arsh master deserves his 'prentices runnin', long's they don't steal nothin' when they go."

"Damme, Cony, you sound like one of those Leveling Rebels!"

"Nossir!" Cony defended himself. "They wanta give ever'body, the unlettered an' the poor the franchise, don't they? An' fer all their 'igh-tone' talk o' freedom, they still keep slaves ta toil for 'em sir. Seems ta me, iffen they mean all that guff, an' don't do away with slavery, they won't 'ave much of a country. They may o' been English once, sir, but livin' so wild an' rough musta addled 'em, an' I couldn't 'old with 'em now."

"Well, it didn't affect the Chiswicks," Alan said. "They're still our sort."

"Oh, aye, them Chiswick lads 'ad their 'earts in the right place fer King George an' all, sir, even if they were so fearsome. And you'll pardon me fer sayin' so, sir, but young Mistress Chiswick was fair took with you, sir. She was a real lady." Cony blushed at his own daring.

"And certain people of my acquaintance aren't?" Alan frowned.

"Not my place ta say, sir. Beg pardon, meant no disrespeck."

"The hell you didn't, you sly-boots." Alan laughed, even if his servant had come too close for comfort. "Off with you now, and keep an eye on Andrews for me, will you?"

"Aye, sir, that I will. 'E's a pretty good feller. An' 'e was grateful ya didn't pay 'eed ta what Mister Murray said about 'im, sir."

"So you think he ran from some slaver, too, Cony?"

"Aye, sir, I thinks 'e did," Cony almost whispered. "Not from the fields… mebbe a 'ouse servant'r such… ya know, sir, 'e can read and write? Now ain't that a wonder! 'E never goes ashore 'cept h'it's a workin' party. Maybe 'e's afeard o' bein' took back."

"Well, he'll not be, you can tell him that for me," Alan vowed.

"Aye, sir," Cony replied, looking mightily pleased.

Once the main bustle was over, and the shore authorities took charge of their prizes, Shrike stayed at her anchor stowing fresh provisions, with Lewrie keeping a wary weather eye cocked on Henry Biggs the purser for any peculiarities in goods or bookkeeping.

Lilycrop strutted about, pleased as punch with himself for taking so many prizes and burning so many more. Their captured Don Thingummy had related that Shrike was becoming feared from one end of the coast of Cuba to the other. And Adml. Sir Joshua Rowley, who took an eighth share of any prize his squadron captured, had made a pretty penny from Lilycrop's new-found zeal, so he was most pleased with his junior officer. Which meant that Lilycrop was pleased with the world, and with his first lieutenant. Alan, however, did not know just how far that pleasure extended until one afternoon after Shrike had completed provisioning and placed the ship out of discipline so the whores and "wives" could come aboard. Alan had been primping for a run ashore. Even if he was persona non grata with the Beaumans and Mrs. Hillwood (who was reported to have gone inland to her husband's plantations to ride out the scandal that had redounded to her total discredit in Society) there had to be a company of willing mutton ashore to choose from.

"Passin' the word fer the first l'ten't!" came a call from the upper deck, and Alan uttered a soft curse at the interruption of his planned pleasures. He tossed his fresh-washed sheepgut condom back into his sea chest and slammed the lid in frustration. Damme, it's been two months! he sulked on his way topside.

"Cap'n warnts ya aft, sir," the messenger told him.

"Thank you." Alan shrugged. He was turned out in his best uniform, and was grateful for the awnings rigged over the quarterdeck so he would not sweat his best clothes clammy, but it would be hot and close in Lilycrop's great cabin.

"You wished to see me, sir?" Alan asked once he had been admitted.

"Yes, Mister Lewrie. Sit ye down. You know where the wine is, by now. Fetch yourself a glass."

Alan poured himself some hock which Gooch had been cooling in the bilges, shoved a cat out of his usual chair, and glared at the rest, as if daring them to climb up on him and leave a quarter-pound of hair on his fresh breeches.

"You had plans to go ashore this evenin'. I see," Lilycrop said, noting how well he was turned out.

"Aye, I did, sir. But if there's any service I may do you…?"

"Oh God, but you look such a choir-boy when you do that," Lilycrop chuckled. "You'd rather be stuffed into some willin' wench than do me a service, an' well you know it. More to the point, so do I, by now."

"Aye, sir," Alan admitted, allowing himself a small smile.

"Can't say as you didn't earn your fun. Mister Lewrie," the captain went on, leaning back in his chair with both feet on his desk and a cat crouching on either leg. "Fact is, though, you may have to delay any hopes of fuckin' yourself half-blind, at least for this night. I've been bade dine aboard the flag, along with my first officer."

"With Admiral Rowley, sir?" Alan asked, perking up at the news.

"One may assume so. Seems we've been active little bodies, all but winnin' the war single-handed or such," Lilycrop hooted in glee. "And it don't hurt our cause we've lined the admiral's purse with prize-money, neither. Six month ago, he didn't know who the bloody hell we were, and I expect he'd like to show a little appreciation to us. Now, you can pass up a crack at the whores for a night for that, can't you, Lewrie."

"Oh, aye, sir!" Alan preened, excited at being known personally to the flag. "Lead me to it. And I'm told he sets a good table, too."

"You have my word on that," Lilycrop replied, for he had dined aboard the flag once before. "Fine things can happen yet, even if this war of ours seems to be peterin' out."

"Time enough for a lieutenant master and commander to be made post, perhaps, sir?" Alan hinted.

"I'll not hold my breath on that, mind." Lilycrop shrugged, but Alan knew the hope was there nevertheless. "Just wanted to catch you before you went ashore. Have my gig ready at seven bells of the first-dog. And since you're dressed to kill already, I'll not have to tell you to do so. That'll be all, Mister Lewrie."

"Aye, sir."