Chapter 2

"Fubsy, crusty dilberry," Lewne seethed at supper ashore that evening, "combed like a louse from the hairy, dirty black fundament of all Creation!"

Caroline put her napkin to her mouth to hide her snickering.

"Pompous, posturing, pus-gutted, hymn-singing ... barnacle!" He ranted on, though in a low voice, as he wrangled knife and fork over a stringy cut of beef tougher than old anchor cables which would end up costing him half a crown when the reckoning was fetched.

"Alan, dearest," Caroline suggested once she trusted herself to lower the napkin and not cackle out loud at his frustrated antics, "I am so sorry this Garvey was so uncharitable towards you, truly. But he is your superior, after all. Do compose yourself. Or, at the least, wait until we're in our set of rooms. Who knows who might be listening?" She waved one hand at the many officers at table nearby.

"Sorry, Caroline, but the man rowed me beyond all temperance," Alan sighed, giving up on the "choice cut of English beefsteak" and leaning back in his chair. At least the wine was more than palatable, and he topped up their glasses. Bloody shilling the bottle, he noted chalked on the neck. Nassau had grown no less expensive than it had been during the war. "I don't believe anything could please the man."

"Out of sight, out of mind, then," she replied. "On this survey of yours. Which I am certain you shall complete most successfully, if I know the slightest bit about you. And when you return, he may by then have more regard for your abilities."

Alan reached across the table to take her hand and give her a thankful squeeze. "You're right, of course." He canned, and rewarded her with a fond smile. "Thank you for having good sense enough for both of us, darling. And for your regard for my abilities. Truly, I am coming to realize that I am the most blessed of men."

"When you go on a rant, you are so almighty amusing, though," she confided with a quiet laugh. "Thank you, Alan."

"For what, my dear?"

"For taking me into your confidence," she said. "For sharing with me your worries, and your hopes. For listening to my thoughts."

"Always, my dearest," he vowed happily.

"Ahem." The black waiter coughed as he came to the table.

"You may clear mine," Alan said. "The dogs may now break their teeth on it."

"Uhm, yassuh. Uhm, dese notes be fo' you, sah. Dot gen'mun in de cornah, Cap'um Finney, like ya an' de missus t'join him ot his table. Un' dot Navy officah ovah dere, sah, he does, too, sah. De missus done with her groupah, mo'om? He's a sweet fish, mo'om. He kin eat good, sweet as de lobstah, any day." Alan opened the first note to find an almost illegible scrawl, and looked up to gaze upon the man who had sent it Captain Finney was a civilian in overdone finery, handsome, blond and darkly tanned. He peered at Alan with an almost hopelessly naive expression of longing, and ducked him a smile. He was surrounded by a brace of shoddy types, though, with a trio of obvious trulls for companions. Alan wanted no part of them. He opened the second note.

"Got de Stilton un' ex'ra fine biscuit, got de fine port, got de key-lime puddin', un' got de Brazil cawfy, black un' hot," the waiter enticed. "Sah, mo'om? Raisin duff? Sherry trifle? Key-time puddin?"

"Let's have the key-lime pudding!" Caroline suggested eagerly. "It sounds marvelous, and I've never had it before!"

"Let's do," Alan agreed. "For two, with coffee. And please give Captain Finney our regrets, but I do not know him, nor wish to join him. Do, however, deliver my compliments to Commander Rodgers and we will be delighted to join him and his companion. We will take our dessert and coffee with them."

"Ah tell'em, sah."

Lewrie smiled at the Navy officer, then turned and gave the man Finney a short, dismissive shake of his head. He turned back to look at Caroline, and winced as he saw her single arched eyebrow.

"If that suits you, Caroline?" He grimaced. "Forgive me, dear, for not asking your preference, but I'm so new at being married, I..."

"Oh, Alan, we both are!" she whispered, forgiving him instantly, and tilting her head to one side fondly. "Two invitations?"

"One from the Navy officer yonder. A Commander Rodgers. And one from the thatch-haired fellow and his crew. Some fellow named Finney."

"Heavens," Caroline muttered as she eyed the other party. "Too seedy a lot for me. Alan, I could swear those women with them... Dear Lord, darling. So that's what prostitutes look like?" She grinned.

She shivered and turned her gaze back to Alan.

"Finney is the one in the center, dear?" she asked. "The man just leered at me! Of course, we'll accept Commander Rodgers' kind request. He's senior to you? And kindly disposed to you, there's a wonder, after your horrid morning. Let us, do."

Thank bloody Christ, Lewrie thought, relieved to have escaped a thoughtless deed; damme, but this marriage business is a terror!

He knew himself well enough as a selfish rogue, and he was used to giving orders and having them obeyed, so having to take counsel with someone else, not having his wishes treated as Holy Writ, was a wrench.

They crossed to the other table and the introductions were made. Commander Benjamin Rodgers was about thirty, a trifle stocky, and dark as a Welshman. His companion was a young lady in her middle twenties named Elizabeth Mustin, a saucy brown-haired piece with sparkling blue eyes, and a most impressive, toplofty figure.

"Off that ketch-rig come in this morning?" Commander Rodgers asked, then answered his own question. " 'Course you are, ya had to be, a new officer I never clapped top-lights on before. Knew it! Welcome to the Bahamas Station, Captain Lewrie. Take joy o' your posting!"

"Thank you, sir. And your ship is ... ?"

"Whippet, twenty guns. 6th Rate Sloop o' War," Rodgers answered.

Lord, yes, he was senior! Sloop was a loose catchall term for any vessel larger than a bomb, revenue cutter or armed yacht below the standardized Rates; Alacrity was technically a sloop, no matter how she was rigged aloft. But a sloop of war was a miniature frigate, smallest of the three-masted, ship-rigged vessels in the Fleet, and her captain was Post-Captain in all but name, sure to be "made post" soon.

Rodgers already wore a post-captain's "iron-bound" coat, but for three cuff buttons instead of four, and profuse with gold lace. The mark of a man rising to the top of the seniority list like a signal rocket.

"Are there many on station, sir?" Alan asked.

"Only one more, Ariel," Rodgers informed him. "You know how reduced the Fleet is, as I'm certain our lord and master told you when you reported to him this morning. Saw you being rowed ashore like Hell's Fire was licking your gig's transom, hey?"

"Aye, sir," Lewrie grinned as their coffee and pudding arrived.

"We're a sorry lot these days," Rodgers babbled on happily. "A single 4th Rate fifty-gunner, Royal Arthur, our flag. We possess but one frigate, Captain Quids' Guardian, and she's only a twenty-eight. We've half a dozen others, from revenue cutter-sized, two-masted luggers or schooners, or brig-rigged or ketch-rigged sloops, like yours. Too few, too slow, too weak, and too bloody lost from where troubles occur. Oh, pardons Mistress Lewrie, for my language."

"I have heard worse, from my husband, Commander Rodgers," Caroline informed him with a chuckle, "and that, recently."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Never you mean it!" Elizabeth gushed. "Truly? Why, so am I, my dear! New York."

"North Carolina!" Caroline rejoined, and they both fell into a swoon of comradeship at once. "God, how wonderful, I can't...!"

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

"How so, sir?"

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

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

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

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

"Who are your patrons?" Rodgers asked unashamedly. In the Navy, family connections, petticoat influence, and favors given and gotten mattered almost as much as merit and seniority, or competence and wits. Young officers aspired to a circle of "sea daddies" who looked after their careers; senior officers culled their wardrooms and lower decks looking for proteges with connections, too, or talents and abilities. A man was judged by the quality of his prote'ge's, by his wisdom in the choices he sponsored so the nation and fleet were better served, and success by a junior shone just as brightly on his "sea daddy."

"Retired Admiral Sir Onsley Matthews, sir," Alan stated. "And I received this commission from Admiral Sir Samuel Hood."

"Ah, didn't we all, though," Rodgers grunted, since Hood had sat in charge of the Admiralty's professional side for several years.

"From his hands personally, sir," Alan boasted. "First in '83 off Cape Francois, then this February along with Admiral Howe, at the Admiralty. Face to face, as it were, sir."

"Don't come any better than that!" Rodgers said with brows up in appreciation. "I know for certain neither o' those worthies suffer fools gladly. Damme, what wicked fun! I do believe I'll have a chat with our lord and master Commodore Garvey tomorrow. Put a word or two in his ear about your... dare I say... august connections to shiver his tops'Is! Make him wonder what you're doin' here in his command. If you're here to keep an eye on him."

"Even more reason for me to sail as far off as possible," Alan sighed. "And stay there until I rot, sir."

"Aye, but with a rovin' commission, an independent ship, free of all his guff," Rodgers chuckled. "Can't ask for better duty, nor better chances for mischief, I'm thinkin'. No, once I drop the word on Garvey, your command'll be safe as houses. He'll fear to displace you so his son may prosper."

"That is a relief, sir."

"Damme, I may have to start bein' sickeningly patronizin' to you m'self, Lewrie," Rodgers laughed. "If I mean to aspire."

"If you do not fear Captain Garvey, sir," Lewrie responded, tongue in cheek, "perhaps I should begin to patronize you!"

"One never knows, does one?" Rodgers snickered, eyes alight.

The waiter came to open the second bottle of champagne, and Alan leaned back in his chair to see the civilian Captain Finney and his party leave the room. Finney's jaw was tight and working fretful flexings. He swiveled his head to look back once, and gave Lewrie a petulant glare.

And fuck you, too, Alan thought smugly, whoever you are.