THE GUN KETCH - Dewey Lambdin

Where had he seen such a fine, frigate-built ship, a vessel aseaman would envy, foul as that line of work was? In the Caicos, in some harbour… Nassau Harbour… Cat Island…

"Christ!" Lewrie gasped. He got to his feet and crossed over to the chart-space to grope through his bookshelves. "Cony, fetch a light!"

William Pitt hissed at him from the dark. He had been sleeping like a tawny, orange-colored plum-duff on the high outboard shelf by the chart table between the chronometer and the sextant case. And did not like his naps interrupted.

"Oh, bugger y'rself!" Lewrie griped. "Ah, thankee, Cony!"

He found the gold-lettered spine of the book he was seeking, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and flipped through it to see if his memory was correct.

"Eureka, Arthur! Bloody hell! Read that dedication!"

"My God," Arthur Ballard said with a bemused expression when he had completed it. "How the devil did you come by this, sir?"

"Bought it used for six shillings," Lewrie crowed. "Look at the date. March of 1785. It's accounted so bawdy there was an Order In Council to ban its publication in England, but some printer… a Liverpool printer, note… ran up a few hundred on speculation, 'stead of the usual subscription. Matilda was at short-stays, ready for a new slaving voyage, with Nathaniel Marriyat just promoted first mate into her. Time enough for your chains to rust?"

"But where did you get it, sir?"

"At Finney's on Bay Street, Arthur!"

"Aha!"

"At bloody 'Calico Jack' Finney's, not two months' past, damn his eyes! Arthur, they pissed in the font! They did the unspeakable! They took a British ship! A ship we can ask about among the slaver captains who frequent Nassau, among the slave dealers who dealt with her in the past. We can document one of the victims, show that goods off her were aboard Guineaman, the schooner, and piled with other loot ashore long enough ago to confirm when they took her. There'll be a brace or two of 'black-birders' in port soon with the first slaves of the summer. They'll have seen Matilda in Africa, they'll know of her people, and whether she went missing. And this book proves that Jack Finney has bought pirated goods. We've got the bastard! Even if he doesn't do a hemp hornpipe on the gallows, he's finished in these islands… or I'm a Turk in a turban!"

VI

HERCULES

"Licent tonantis profuga condaris sinu,

petet undecumque temet haec dextra et feret."

"Though you run and hide in the

Thunderer's bosom,

everwhence shall this hand seek you and hale you forth."

Hercules Furens 1010-1012

– Seneca

Chapter 1

"But he's as guilty as home-brewed sin, sir," Commander Benjamin Rodgers blurted out. "Matilda, all our evidence… no one's seen her for over a year. Due here about July of '85, and…"

"That's as may be, Commander Rodgers," Commodore Garvey shot back, pacing angrily behind his desk. "The court said he is not!"

"But she was pirated, sir," Lewrie ventured to interject. "I find the idea that her people sold off their most prized possessions ludicrous. Why would Captain Beard pawn his navigation instruments just before embarking on a voyage? Why would this Nathaniel Marriyat pawn his brand-new spyglass and his books?"

"Gambling debts," Garvey dismissed with a savage chop of his hand. "To raise money for buying blacks of his own for sale in the West Indies. We don't know, and we will never know. Matilda could have gone down in a storm. It happens, don't ya know, Lewrie. The few items of your flimsy evidence were accounted for by documents of sale, and your case confounded."

"Forgeries, sir!" Rodgers exclaimed. "They had over a month to concoct what was wanting."

"I warned you when you laid this before me, your supposition was weak. I did everything in my power to dissuade you from pursuing this fantasy," Garvey sneered. "The prosecutor…"

"Was a brainless arse, sir," Rodgers retorted. "He didn't like it. He was afraid of prosecuting a powerful man, so he did his least, and that, badly!"

"He told you beforehand it wouldn't hold water, and it didn't. Finney was absolved faster than any court I've ever seen," Garvey said. "Listen to the mob out there, sirs. Listen, you fools! Now Finney's being chaired through the streets like a sitting member of Parliament on his hustings, and King's Justice has been made amockery. The Navy has been made to look stupid, sire, the Bahamas Squadron, and me with it! Our new governor Lord Dun-more is most exercised over this. Bade me over to ask me what sort of idiots I had under my command, and were there any more of 'em out there, running roughshod! What could you have been thinking, Rodgers? There're untold tens of thousands owing Finney now. You shot Guineaman to rags, wounded some of her people, put her on a shoal… you deliberately torched every stick of goods on Walker's Cay, and sank everything that wouldn't burn in the bay! He'll demand recompense, and even should the Crown uphold you, I expect it'll take the entire budget for governing these islands for the next year, sir! The next year entire!"

"She fired into me first, sir, and if pirates really held her as Finney and Captain Malone claim, then nothing is owed, sir. God damme, sir, I salved her afterwards, didn't I? Set her…"

"You'll not blaspheme in my presence, Commander Rodgers, do you hear me, you simple dullard?" Garvey bellowed. "You could have put a guard over the cache of goods…"

"We could not carry it off, sir, and there was too much drink to guard," Lewrie said. "We'd have had to torch that, or tip it into the harbour, anyway, or we'd have lost the crew left behind as guards."

"You do not interrupt me, Lewrie! You do so at your peril! I hold you responsible for this. You're just as culpable, and liable in this affair, as Rodgers!"

"He was following my orders, sir," Rodgers stated. "Finney's agent Runyon told you it was private property, saved for later sale in the off-season, yet you persisted!"

"It was not marked as his property, sir," Lewrie rebutted. "We did bring off the coins, plate and all, and those items we could identify as Finney's. The rest could have been pirate booty, so we…"

"So you set fire to it, with fiendish, childish delight, just to see it burn, you pyromaniac! You hen-headed simpleton!"

"Sir, we…" Lewrie attempted.

"Both of you! Going off at half-cock quick as a brace of two-shilling muskets! Wasn't one band of pirates enough for you, eh, Lewrie? Did you get a taste for acclaim and glory? Had to go out to win more, hey? And you, Rodgers. You were sure to be made post your next commission. What need had you to gild your laurels with this… this act of complete lunacy? Envy Lewrie his crowd of backslappers? Feel left out or ignored, did you, you vaunting coxcomb? Ha? Did you?"

"Sir, I did my duty as best I saw it," Rodgers growled deep in his chest, with his chin tucked back hard against his neck-stock. "I saved a Spanish merchantman and gave chase to the pirates who had taken her. I tracked them down to Walker's Cay and I engaged them. I saw no pirates fleeing Guineaman, and I was fired upon by her, so I opened fire into her, aye, sir. I discovered evidence which led me to believe that the goods on the island were booty, and this Finney neck-deep in the support of criminals, sir. I…"

"What pirates, Rodgers?" Garvey roared. "You let 'em escape! You did not arrest one person who should have been in the dock! You had no captives to interrogate to determine whether it was booty or not! And out of spite, out of frustration that you'd been bested, you saw what you wanted to see, learned only what you wished to hear, abused the master, mates and crew of Guineaman, brought scandal upon their good names, invented a circumstantial fairy tale, then laid a case against one of Nassau's most illustrious merchants, just so you had something to show for your swaggering antics!"

"Sir, I take deep, grievous exception to your characterization of my actions, sir," Rodgers said, almost strangling.

"You failed, sir! Hear me? You failed! Failed to capture a single pirate. Failed!" Garvey almost howled. "You could have left a guard over the goods, brought Guineaman back here, and discovered the truth quietly. Finney and the other merchants would be cheering you for saving his ship and his goods, but no! You demean honest men in a court of law, and…"

"Honest men," Lewrie muttered with scorn.

"What? Did you speak, sir?" Garvey ranted, turning on him. "A court says he's honest. A court just said he's completely innocent! He was shrewd enough to import extra and cache it until the price was high enough. Know who's cheering Finney, Lewrie? The same people he will skin when they buy his off-season imports. They call him knacky to be the only one with their fancy goods they cannot do without, and will pay his prices gladly. If he undercuts the other Bay Streeters, yet cheats them, that's just the nuts to them, the fools!"

"Being shrewd doesn't mean he isn't guilty, sir," Lewrie said. "The book, sir. How did he come by that, if…"

"Be quiet, you silly clown! 'Twas you and your first officer who brewed this case out of thin air, then laid it at this fool's feet and convinced him he was onto something. And all for jealousy, sir! Because you were jealous, I ask you!"

"Sir!" Lewrie goggled."The whole town knows Finney was spooning 'round your little 'batter-pudding,' Lewrie," Garvey scoffed. "And you didn't like it, did you?" Garvey accused, dropping into a nursery-room singsong. "You didn't have the nutmegs to warn him off as a man should, so you plotted a way to confound a rival in your wife's affections by naming him a confederate of pirates. Was he simply too handsome for your peace of mind, sir? Too fearsome an opponent to confront man to man, hey? Too fierce a foe to call out? Or would his hanging on false charges make you feel more sanguine about your wife while you were at sea, sir?"

"Damme, sir, that is patently unfair!" Alan exploded. "And you cast foul aspersions upon my wife's good name and morals for no good reason, sir! If you do have any allegations about her, I demand you say them straight out now, or never, sir! You may be my superior officer, but that doesn't give you the right to demean her, sir!"

"Oh, Christ," Alan heard Rodgers grunt under his breath. "I am your commanding officer, you insubordinate dog!" Garvey howled, jowls flapping. "You do not shout at me, sir, nor will you use foul language in any address to me! And I'll cast any aspersion I please! An officer junior as you has no business marrying in the first instance, nor in fetching his mort out to a foreign station for his comfort and pleasure in the second. She has affected your skills as a Sea Officer, prejudiced your administering of King's Justice, so unwitted you that you laid false charges against a man for revenge for some slight. Perhaps it might be best if you resign your command and commission, and take both her and you home. Failing that, put her on a ship, leaving you to concentrate on the salvation of what is left of your career."