"Aye, aye, sir!" Parham replied, dashing off in haste, in spite of Ballard's cautions.
The schooner was now a quarter-cable off, not fifty yards away, and almost at decent musket-shot Her boarding party was already up on the bulwarks, with lift-lines and parrel lines dangling so they could swing over to board once they got hull to hull. Others poised at bow and stern with grappling irons.
And she fired another, lying, broadside!
Sarah and Jane was shaken hard. Ballard could hear her timbers wail as they were shattered below, hear scantlings and bulwarks starred open with ragged holes as round-shot ripped into her. But the bags of salt kept deadly wood splinters from flying to scythe her crew down.
"Close pistol-shot," Ballard muttered, smiling thinly at last "Open your ports! As you bear, fire!"
Double-shotted guns erupted in smoke and flames! Chain-shot to take rigging down, the halves of the balls flying apart as they left the muzzles and whining through the short space between them, linked with chain that made them whirl like birds' wings. Canister on top of that, bags crammed with musket balls that spread out like gigantic shotgun pellets in a cloud of deadly lead. All aimed at the upper bulwarks, all designed to take down people, instead of rigging.
"Marines!" Ballard screamed as the smoke ragged away enough to see what was what. "Swivels!"
The panic parties that had gone aloft fired swivels down onto the schooner's decks; more canister-shot to erase the pirates about the wheel, on the schooner's quarter-deck, forecastle, and rails.
"Cock your locks!" Pomeroy shouted. "Level! By volley,fire!"
The schooner's decks were about six feet below Sarah and Jane, so pirates trying to find a hiding place anywhere but close upto the larboard bulwarks were wide-open to the shattering volley of musketry. There was a concerted groan of terror at the sight of those muskets, then screams as the volley rattled out like a short roll on a drum.
"Grapnels away!" Ballard shouted, drawing his sword. "Boarders! Remember, we want prisoners! Away, boarders!"
Seamen and Marines went over the side as the hulls crashed into each other. Grapnels flew and lodged deep in wood as both vessels rebounded and threatened to part. Upwind as she was, though, the schooner could not slip away, pressed to Sarah and Jane by the Trades. The boarding party surged over the schooner's decks; meeting light resistance, and beating that aside quickly. These pirates were used to having their own way by dint of terror and confusion. Few of them were used to a hard fight against disciplined opponents, so the survivors threw up their hands and dropped their weapons, while their comrades lay bloody and still, or shrieking with pain.
"Not much to 'em, hey, sir?" Pomeroy sniffed, disgusted that he hadn't even had a chance to bloody his sword. "My lads didn't even get up a good sweat!"
"Make sure they've no hidden weapons, and herd them forrud, if you please, Lieutenant Pomeroy," Ballard said, sheathing his own blade. "And I'll have those survivors from the afterguard brought here." "Aye, sir."
Half a dozen men were brought to him by the Marines at bayonet or cutlass point, and were forced to kneel, hands already bound behind their backs.
"Now, who is captain of this vessel?" Ballard inquired. "Well, speak up! Where's the dog in charge of you?"
" 'E's dead, zur," a surly little fellow replied in a grunt. "How convenient," Ballard simpered. "What was his name?" "Anastario Ruiz," another volunteered, in a painful whimper. "And the mates?"
"Oh, they be dead, too, zur," the little fellow added, speaking from a mouth almost devoid of teeth. He had the gall to smirk.
"Dear God," Ballard said, drawing a pistol. He had simply been appalled by what Lewrie had done at Conch Bar. But he had to admit it had been effective. "Tell you men what I'm going to do. I am going to start shooting you, one at a time, until I get some answers. For your information, I am from His Majesty's Sloop Alacrity. Does that name ring a bell, hey? The same as did for Billy 'Bones' Doyle, down in the Caicos last year?"
"Ye cain't be, she's s'posed t'be posted t'Cat Island," one of the younger survivors exploded, almost indignantly. "She ain't got no Marines, so…"
He shut his mouth and gulped as Ballard cocked the pistol, and laid it against his temple.
"The Marines are from Whippet," Ballard said coldly. "Remember Whippet, from Walker's Cay? And no, we are not supposed to be here! But we are, by God, and if one of you doesn't start talking this very instant, then God save you!"
"Oh God, sweet Jesus, holy Saviour!" the threatened sailor wept, all but fouling himself in sudden terror. "Don't, sir, please! Don't shoot me like yer cap'n done Ramirez! I know ya, sir, yer that Ballard feller! They say yer meek an' mild, a true Christian, sir, an' a true Christian'd not, sir!"
"Stop yer snivelin'!" the surly one warned. "Die game, damn ye!"
"At the count of three, lad, I send you to Hell for your sins," Ballard assured him. "Want to die game for this bastard? One… two…"
"Jesus, no, don't do it, I'll tell ya, I'll tell ya!" the young man screamed as he fell to the deck to writhe and wriggle away from his compatriots." 'E's Laidlaw, 'e's first mate, 'e knows! Christ, I wuz just aboard a year, sir, I don't know much, please don't shoot me when I tells ya I don't know somethin', please!"
"The man who tells me all will live to see the sunset," Ballard promised them. "And, if he testifies in court, he doesn't hang. The ones who don't cooperate with me…" Ballard paused dramatically as the thought came to him, and he smiled as he concluded, "the ones who don't tell me the truth, who don't lay it all out for us, I'll give to my captain, 'Ram-Cat' Lewrie. He doesn't like pirates much, ya know."
Several of them turned quite pale at that threat. Throats went dry, and they gulped saliva to ease themselves, before they began to bay a chorus of expostulation in noisy competition with each other.
Guineaman and another of Finney's ships waiting at Walker's Cay; his agent Runyon ashore, serving up free rum to all to keep them hot; Nassau whores at bargain prices for those with money; cargoes piled up waiting to be smuggled into ports all across the Caribbean; Finney, yes, it was Finney, it was always 'Calico Jack' Finney!
"Mister Parham, Mister Early, Mister Woods," Ballard beckoned to bis more literate fellows who had good handwriting skills."Dry work for us, I fear. We'll separate those that sound eager to talk, and get it all down on paper, with their signatures or marks made against their confessions, before we rejoin Alacrity. Mister Odrado? Do you go into Sarah and Jane and get her underway, out to sea. Soon as we have this vessel squared away, we'll follow you."
And, to the amazement of all who were familiar with the taciturn first officer, Arthur Ballard actually cackled out loud with glee!
Chapter 8
Whippet and Alacrity fell upon the anchorage just at the break of dawn the next morning. Sou'west down Walker's Cay Channel, east through the upper passage above the shoal; Whippet taking position to block the southern pass this time, much closer to the island, and Alacrity given the task of scouring the moored vessels, after she had landed Lieutenant Pomeroy and his Marines in the twenty-one-foot-deep oval tongue of water to the east between Walker's Cay and Grand Cay. With most of the ships' boats used, they landed on the eastern tip in the dark, after a two-mile row in from the hasty anchorage, and a slow march down the three-quarter-mile length of the isle to take the camp unawares from an unexpected quarter.
"There's Guineaman," Lewrie spat. "Anyone know the other ship?"
"By those white upper bulwarks, I'd say she must be the Dublin Lass, sir," Sailing Master Fellows opined. "Seen her in Nassau. One of Finney's ships, for certain, sir. I know that house flag."
"Better and better, Mister Fellows!" Lewrie exulted, rubbing his hands together. "No schooners present which might escape us into shoal-water this time, we did for her yesterday. And most of their boats on the beach, not gathered 'round the anchored ships."
"Bulk of their crews ashore, most like, still roistering, sir," Ballard commented. "Or sleeping it off."
"Well, here's a rough awakening, then," Lewrie grinned. "Mister Fowles, we'll close yon farthest ship, the Guineaman. Ready the starboard battery!"
"Hullo, they're up and awake, some of them, sir," Ballard warned. "On Dublin Lass. There's a gun port opening!"
"Mister Fowles, stand ready! We'll rake this one in passing!"
"Ready, sir!" Fowles shouted back, after fussing over his gun-captain's aim, with a tug or two at the quoin blocks to suit himself about the proper elevation.
"As you bear, fire!"
The range was half a cable-100 yards-as they grazed past the anchored, and sleeping, ship. The threatening gun port was open, but all they could see poised over the grim black muzzle of a cannon behind the port was the white face of some poor wretch who had opened it so he could spew his load of rum and supper over the side, who took one look in his misery, made his mouth a perfect O, and went parchment pale as the artillery blasted him away.
Dublin Lass shuddered as six-pounder balls ripped into her, punching clear through her thin planking, shattering timbers and deck beams, making her leap and froth a hull-shaped, spreading ripple around her as she rose and dropped back into the still waters of the harbour.
"Serve her another, Mister Fowles! In the guts, this time!" Alan demanded. "Sink her!"
As Alacrity cruised by Dublin Lass, her guns rapped out again, quoin blocks inserted and barrels aimed low, to riven her water-line, and the trim little three-masted ship heeled over with each crashing round-shot, rocking as ragged gashes were shot through her scantlings, then rolling back to starboard so those holes could suck and froth with sea-water. The few crewmen left aboard as an anchor party came running up from below, where they'd been napping, to find their ship sinking beneath their feet!
"I can see the Marines ashore, sir!" Midshipman Mayhew shouted. "There're red coats among the sheds on the far side of the camp!"
"Angle's gone, sir! Guns won't bear in the ports!" Fowles reported at last.
"Cease fire, Mister Fowles. Wait for the Guineaman," Lewrie ordered. "Mark that, gentlemen. Dublin Lass opened her gun portsto fire into a King's Ship, to take arms against the Royal Navy. Think you that's another compelling proof of piracy?" He smiled.
"Well, more like to puke on us, sir," Ballard whispered at his side. "Compelling, none the less, I suppose. If contempt counts."
"It'll sound good in testimony," Lewrie scowled. "And damme if I'll give Finney and his captains one chance to wriggle out this time!"
Once clear of the Dublin Lass, Alacrity faced the open waters between the two anchored ships for a minute or two, so they could see what was happening on the beach. Pirates and merchant crews were all running in terror from the dripping bayonets of the Marines, some few trying to make a fight of it with muskets and pistols.
The morning erupted in heavy gunfire once more as Whippet came even with the tortured Dublin Lass astern of them, and gave her broadsides with her nine-pounders. Rigging and spars, upper masts and yards, came tumbling down in ruin to churn thd water alongside, and Dublin Lass canted over even farther until her starboard railings were in the sea. She bubbled and groaned as she filled and began to go down.
"Chase gun forrud, Mister Fowles!" Lewrie shouted. "Wake those buggers up yonder!"
The starboard chase gun on the forecastle, one of the portable two-pounders, barked as sharp as a terrier. Its light ball hit Guineaman astern, shattering the ladder from quarter-deck to poop, barely making her judder. Men could be seen, though, running up from below, waking from their swaying hammocks on the upper decks where it was cooler, to the waist of the ship.
"By God, I mink they're going to man their guns!" Fellows gaped. "That Captain Malone must be desperate as hell, sir!"
"He mounts twelve-pounders, sir," Ballard intoned. "If you recall."
"Warm work in the next few minutes, then," Lewrie sighed as he steeled himself for a slaughter on his own decks. "Mister Fellows, is there depth enough on Guineaman's larboard side for us?"
"God only knows, sir," Fellows muttered, eyeing the ship which was anchored bows-on to them. "I doubt he'd be anchored that close up to shoals, though. Anyone see a kedge anchor from her stern? If she were swinging on just her best bower to wind and tide…"
"Ready on the gun deck, sir," Fowles reported from the waist.
"Mister Fowles, we'll bear off and give her starboard, then be ready with your larboard battery, quick as you can, at close range."
"Aye, aye, sir," Fowles replied quizzically, taking off his hat to scratch his grizzled head so hard his "tarry" queue of hair which hung as low as his waist twitched at his mercurial captain's orders.
"Helm alee, Mister Neill," Lewrie said. "Steer three points to larboard. Mister Ballard, prepare the hands to wear ship so we cross Guineaman's bows once we've fired, and fall onto her disengaged side."
"Aye, aye, sir!" Ballard replied, crisp and efficient.
"Guns bear, sir!" Fowles warned.
"Fire, Mister Fowles!"
As the first limb of the rising sun peeked over the horizon at last, the artillery came to life, tolling rage down the starboard side from bow to stern. Guineaman screamed as she was hulled; like a steer might bellow and jerk, shivering with terror and anger, as it was bound for the approach of the butcher with the poleaxe.
"Helm up, hard up, Mister Neill! Wear ship!" Lewrie cried as the last gun went off. Alacrity came wheeling about in her own dense pall of gunsmoke as it was blown down onto Guineaman. Sailors dashed to sheets and braces in the confusion, as gunners below them abandoned starboard guns to run out the larboard cannon and open the ports. Ballard kept yelling orders into the Bedlam, and, drilled and trained to boresome perfection as the crew was, order was never lost, not one second was lost.
Artillery could be heard ahead and to port as Alacrity sailed off nor'east for the beach; Guineaman firing at last, at where they thought her to be. Alacrity trembled with a sharp slam, a shuffling judder of her stern, as she was struck aft. Mr. Burke on the tiller with his mate Neill gave a soft curse as he fell to his knees in a welter of blood, a long, jagged splinter of bulwark driven through his midsection. Midshipman Mayhew was lifted off his feet and flung halfway across the quarter-deck to the starboard side by a chunk of red-hot round-shot as the twelve-pounder ball shattered. He skidded on his back to fetch up against the after mooring bitts, his left arm and shoulder almost gone, awash in his own gore, and gasping hard.
Alacrity almost felt as if she'd tripped over something, her forward progress arrested, the deck canting over to starboard.
"Her anchor cable!" Ballard intuited.
"Helm up, Mister Neill! Steer due north!" Lewrie called.
"Aye, aye, sir," Neill replied, stepping over the body of his dying friend, his tears almost blinding him, to put the tiller over."Surgeon's mate!" Ballard snapped. "Mister Maclntyre! Loblolly boys aft!"
The smoke wafted nor'east on the dying winds, clearing the view at last, as Alacrity rumbled and slithered down the anchor cable that scrubbed her larboard underbody. And there was Guineaman, not twenty yards off, her larboard gun ports closed.
"Ready grapnels, Mister Ballard. Mister Harkin, Mister Warwick, we'll be boarding her after the broadside," Lewrie instructed. "Starboard your helm, Mister Neill, and lay us hull to hull."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Ready!" Lewrie shouted to his gunners as Guineaman came abeam. "On the up-roll….fire!"
Guineaman heeled over to starboard under the weight of the iron hailstorm, her bulwarks turning into kindling and whirling in the air thick as an uprooted pine forest in a hurricane. Gun ports and thin planking caved in, and a portion of the larboard sail-tending gangway went flying in one long, ladderlike piece.
"Grapple to her, Mister Ballard," Lewrie said in a normal tone, once the echoes had ceased. "And away boarders."
"Aye, aye, sir!" Ballard snapped, sounding almost enthusiastic. Lewrie jumped to the top of the bulwarks, drew pistol and sword, and leapt for Guineaman's fore-chain platform to scramble alongside his men to the forward gangway.
"Christ!" he shuddered, seeing the devastation that his cannon had wrought. The waist was filled with dying men, half lost in scraps of wood, in a maze of broken timbers. Several of the larboard cannon had come loose from the shattered bulwarks and had rolled down on the men serving the starboard battery, crushing them like millwheels.
Those who could were already raising their hands in surrender, the urge to fight shot out of them. Lewrie went over to the. starboard side to make his way aft to the quarter-deck, where some of Guineaman' mates stood or sat around the butt of the mizzenmast.
"You!" Captain Malone growled, half in shock at the ruin of his ship. He brought up the tip of his sword while the others got out of their way, ostentatiously empty-handed as Alacrity's boarding party came to back Lewrie up. "What are you doin' here? We thought…"
"Maybe 'Calico Jack' couldn't afford to bribe Commodore Garvey any longer, Malone," Lewrie offered, thinking fast, and hoping for a confirmation. "Now we've a new Royal Governor, the price went up too high. You and Finney are on your own."
Lewrie reached out with the tip of his hanger to ring steel on steel; one beat, two beats, tip to tip on Malone's sword. Malone went backwards, crouched over more like a knife-fighter, body square-on.
"Either drop that sword, or do something real with it, Malone," Lewrie snarled. "Fight me, you coward! Got the nutmegs for it, hey?"
Malone allowed the next beat to slap his blade low and away as he let go the hilt and dropped it on the deck. "Oh, no, ya don't! Ya've put yer foot in it this time for fair, Lewrie. Aye, I'll strike to ya, but soon as we're in Nassau Harbour, it'll be you up on charges again, an' this time yer really finished. Firn' on peaceful merchantmen…"
"John Laidlaw of the Fortune schooner says different," Lewrie told him with a laugh, a laugh which was reinforced by the shock that Malone displayed, as if he'd just seen his own corpse swaying from the gibbet. Lewrie stepped forward and put the tip of his sword to Malone's throat.
"Jesus, easy, sir!" Cony gulped from behind him. "Don't!"
"John Laidlaw tells me Guineaman branched out on her own, did a little piracy on her way here to the rendezvous in '85. Was Finney upset with you, Malone, when you took the Matilda? Remember her, the Liverpool slaver? Laidlaw tells my lieutenant that if we dig in the right spot, we'll find the bones of her officers and crew here on the island. And the bones of over an hundred sick slaves you slaughtered 'cause you didn't want the time or trouble to heal 'em up before you tried to sell 'em off. Men and women slaves, Malone! Care if I and my hands do some digging, do you?"
"Now, look here, mebbe we kin deal, sir, if…" Malone gasped.
"Still have the stuff from Matilda, do you?" Lewrie sneered at him, pressing a little deeper with the point. "Sure, you do! You're the sort that keeps his mementoes of good times. And that's more than enough to hang you for piracy and murder this time. You're done for, Malone, you and Finney, damn your eyes!"
"You'll never get 'Calico Jack,' ya bugger," Malone attempted to swagger.
"Think not?" Lewrie laughed again. "Cold comfort to you the moment the hangman turns you off. But, I promise you, he'll have a noose right next to yours."
Lewrie stepped back and sheathed his sword.
"John Canoe!" he shouted for the huge escaped slave.
"Aye, Cap'um, sah."
"He's yours to guard," Lewrie grinned. "Special."
"Aye, sah," Canoe growled deep in his throat, taking Malone by the upper arm and hauling the heavy-set man into his custody as easily as lifting a child.
"Captain Malone, you're under arrest," Lewrie called in a loud voice, turning to face the other disarmed pirates. "All of you damned hounds! I arrest you… in the King's Name!"
"Damme, sir, look what ya've done with me poor ship," Captain Grant bemoaned as Lewrie came aboard after funeral services for Burke and Midshipman Mayhew. "Scantlin's shot through, bulwarks all chewed up. It'll use most of me spare timber patchin' hull shots, and what, I ask ye, will the Royal Navy do to compensate me?"
"Let you go free, sir," Lewrie told him, in no mood for dealing with the shifty merchantman. "Go sing 'Oh, Be Thankful,' for all mat I care. Last of your crew's coming aboard now. I'd set a course for home, were I you, and get out of Bahamian jurisdiction before we change our minds."
"She rides light," Grant commented as Sarah and Jane bobbed and rolled beneath him. "How mucha me cargo did ye use for breastworks?"
"Rather a lot, I fear, Captain Grant," Lewrie told him. "We've dumped that over the side. You'll find enough salt left to keep you ballasted and trimmed proper on your voyage. Might even be enough to pay for your repairs and break even, once you pay off your crew back in your Philadelphia."
"No profit, sir?" Grant wheezed. "Damme, sir, a whole sailing season, a whole voyage wasted?"
"That's the risks you take for money," Lewrie shrugged, then turned to leave, to go back to his Alacrity and escort their prizes, and their captives, home. "Stay out of our seas, Captain Grant."
"I'll write the consul," Grant warned, following him to the entry port. "I'll complain to Congress, to the President if I have to. And I will be back, ye know. Ye pass that Free Port Act, and I'll be more'n welcome in the Bahamas again. Me and every American ship."
"Captain Grant," Lewrie said, turning to face him, "I've no more time to play this sly little game with you. Aye, they may pass Free Port Acts; aye, you may be welcome someday in the future, and you may cock your nose at me all you wish. Just remember, though, that a very good mariner and a promising young midshipman died this day making it safe for you and your ship to sail Bahamian waters. Don't make me dislike you. There's no future in it. Ask those pirates."
"Point taken, sir," Grant replied, leaning back a little from the intensity of Lieutenant Lewrie's grim expression. "Point taken, indeed," he reiterated, as he doffed his hat to him as Lewrie descended to his gig.
Chapter 9
John Finney was having a rather bad evening. He had stayed in that night, ostensibly to go over his books; but mostly to avoid the sneers he'd been getting on the streets since the mocking broadside sheet had appeared days before. Tale of The De-Bollocked Bumpkin, it was titled in large block letters. There was an engraving, a satirical cartoon below that which featured a slim young woman holding both baby and pistols, shooting at an overdressed, lump-faced churl in a hugely unfashionable wig, tiny hat and flaring coat, like a "Macaroni" of a previous decade, the suiting portrayed as checkered calico, and the male figure leaping legs widespread like some damned "Molly" in an Italian toe-dance company to avoid losing his wedding tackle. A long, stringy caption above the female read: "In his abfence, my dear hufband's piftols shall defend mine honour, cur!"
Whilst over the leaping male figure, a caption read: "Oy means ter have yer, niver a care have oy fer any damnd marriage vow- Oicks!"
There was printed below a short narration, a titillating story of caution to all lusting bachelors who pursued happily married women too hotly. No names were named-but then, none were necessary, as it stated "… as one here in Nassau did quite lately!"I'll murder Augustus," Fiimey swore, tearing the sheet into tiny bits. It was only the fourth he'd gotten in anonymous mail so far. He was certain Augustus Hedley was the artist, Peyton Boudreau the author and sponsor, and Caroline… "Thet bitch! Oh, thet bitch! I'll make her sorry she wuz iver born, I will! Wipe thet sneer off 'er face, take 'er an' have me way with 'er, make 'er beg fer it!"
He instead took another full glass of claret in two gulps, and filled his crystal stem with more. For the moment, he had more pressing worries. He returned to his ledgers, both the legitimate ones his clerk prepared, and the illicit ones kept in his own scrawls, which he himself had trouble reading a month later. It was not a good year.
After Conch Bar, and the wholesale hangings which had followed, half the old lads had gone off for easier pickings; deeper in the Caribbean, or up to the American coast, where Congress was too cheap to keep a navy, or a coast guard worth the name. Walker's Cay had run more away to waters less well patrolled. Finney had had to increase the import of legitimate goods as stolen wares reduced in quantity, so his profit margin had fallen to only a little better than his Bay Street competitors'.
He'd lost huge sums, too, in all the goods that Rodgers, and that damned Lieutenant Lewrie, had burned at Walker's Cay, the pirated, and the hoarded true imports. Those staples, those delicacies, all gone up in flames, depriving him of his expected large markups. And there had been the import duties the cynical, greedy Searcher of Customs had imposed on goods he'd never be able to land and sell, and the bribes demanded to keep him out of court on smuggling charges to boot!
There wasn't much better news from his grandiose plantings on Eleuthera. His overseer had written that both the coastal "white" lands, and the "red" lands farther inland, were failing. Bahamian soil was like a lying whore; rich and beguiling to start with, but too thin to turn under and hope it would revive after a fallow year, its nutrients sucked out by the first lush crops. And with so few animals in the Bahamas, and lack of grazing land for big herds, costly to manure and fertilize. Unless he shipped in tons of manure, his overseer wasn't confident. Cotton, sisal, hemp, sugar cane, even indigo and aloes-none of it prospered. And, the overseer had ended on a dismal note, the Georgia Tidewater and Sea Isle cotton nurslings might be infected with the dreaded Chenille Bug!
He'd be forced to sell, before the fine plantation house could be completed, as fine a mansion as any in the Bahamas, grander than the one Col. Andrew Deveaux had erected on Cat Island. The only value he'd get back from the sale would be the slaves, the ones he'd gotten for so little from Malone (the foolish, greedy bastard!) after he'd taken the Matilda
Finney took another sip of claret and made a face. Try as hard as he might, he'd never developed a palate for it. Petulantly, it went into the fireplace to shatter in a shower of wine across the imported Turkey carpet!
"Fireplace!" he gloomed at that extravagance, a gaudy, useless showpiece in a climate that never got close to freezing. He went over to his sideboard to pour himself a cut-crystal glass of Demerara rum.
"Excuse me, Captain Finney, sir," his butler said, opening the wide double doors to the entry hall.
"Clean it up," Finney snorted, putting his feet on his desk.
"I will, Captain, sir," the butler agreed, secretly amused by his plebeian employer, and his demand to be addressed with a title he never really had-Captain. "In the meantime, sir, this letter came for you. From Commodore Garvey, sir."
"Fetch it here, then, damn yer eyes," Finney sulked, finding no joy this evening in the obsequiousness of his hired help. Finney tore the wax seal off and unfolded the letter. "Damn 'is blood!"
Another of the broadside sheets! Finney wondered just how much he had to pay the bastard to at least be civil to him. They acted as strangers in public, no matter their agreement, or the sums he shoved into Garvey's accounts by the side door at the bank. Now he was down, Garvey'd shoved the knife in, sarcastic and sneering, as was his way. Finney dreaded Garvey might demand even more than the princely three hundred pounds a month he already cost him. "Shit! Shit!"
My dear sir;
Have you seen one of these? I was not aware your interest in interrupting Alacrity's mail had an Intimate Raison d'Etre. was the inscription penned in the left margin.
The enfolding, larger folio-sized sheet of paper had a hastily written note which quite took his mind from the curses he was about to hurl at the uppity cur, who'd sprinkle his notes with Latin, French or even Greek, just to (Finney swore) gall him over his lack of schooling.Lt. Coltrop' s Aemilia cutter is just returned from Spanish Wells in some haste. He informs me that Whippet put into port there four days past, inquired of Lt. Blair of the Barracouta sloop as to the nature of my patrol Assignments, and was last seen heading North towards Great Abaco! A ketch-rigged Warship and a merchant ship were seen to be in company with her by a fishing lugger who put into Spanish Wells.
Aware of my stringent Requirements for Whippet and Alacrity to stay far South, Lt. Coltrop came to me at once, sure that Rodgers and Lewrie may be staging some immense Mutiny against me, sir. The only cause for hope they may have to redeem themselves would be, as you know, a sudden Revelation about a certain Matter. Do what you think best, as shall I, from this moment forward.
"Jesus an' Mary," Finney shivered. "It's all up, ain't it?" "Sir?" his butler inquired distantly.
"Get out. I said, get out! Leave it!" Finney shouted as he got to his feet. He shoved the broadside sheet and the letter into one of his private ledgers, tucked them under his arm, and began to pace his palatial parlour and receiving rooms. He took inventory of his fineries as if seeing them for the first time, a visitor to his town house. The inventory took him through the dining room, into the large salon on the other side of the entrance hall, through still-rooms and butler's pantries, through wine cellar and library, up the stairs to peek into all four huge bedrooms, marveling again how well furnished they were. Sumptuous, some said. Bordello "Flash," others cruelly whispered behind his back-after they'd had his meats, wines and music, after they'd fawned to his face and simpered at his japes!