“Am I allowed ashore with the Purser tomorrow, sir, I can have a wider selection,” Yeovill boasted, as if his best efforts would not be up to his standards that evening. “What little I saw in the local markets today, well! What a selection of East Indian spices, and the sauces the Malays and Hindoos who live hereabouts make!”
“Aye, it appears that Cape Town ain’t just the ‘tavern of the seas’, but the pantry as well,” Lewrie agreed. “Carry on, Yeovill, and surprise me tomorrow night.”
“Do my best, sir!” he promised.
A Marine sentry guarded his cabin door again, and that worthy stamped boots, slammed his musket on the deck, and shouted, “First Officer, SAH!”
“Enter,” Lewrie called out, sitting up a bit more.
Lt. Westcott entered, looking natty and clean in his freshly-laundered clothing, but with his inevitable sheaf of paperwork.
“A glass of something for you, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked.
“A Rhenish, if you’d be so kind, sir,” Westcott said, baring one of his brief, savage grins. Lewrie waved him to a seat by the settee. “I have made a tentative change or two to the muster book, sir, to compensate for the men Discharged, Dead. Our wounded are at present being tended ashore by the Army surgeons, but look fair to heal up and return to us … if only on light duties for a week or so afterwards. Mister Mainwaring will surely request a chance to go ashore and see to them.”
“He’ll also wish t’palaver with strange, new ‘saw-bones’,” Lewrie said with a snicker. “Must be a lonely lot, a surgeon on a warship, with no contact with others in his trade for months and months on end. And, I’m certain that Mainwaring will also wish to re-stock his dispensary ashore. He’ll be free to take a boat with the Purser, any time he wishes, tell him.”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott said, nodding as he ticked off one item of his report. “Ehm … once we’ve re-stocked the ship, there will be the matter of liberty. Will it be shore liberty, or should we put the ship Out Of Discipline for a day or two, and let the doxies and bum-boatmen aboard, sir?”
“I’ll speak with Commodore Popham tomorrow on that subject,” Lewrie promised. “As I said earlier, now we own the Cape Colony, and our troops garrison and patrol the town, shore liberty should be of as little risk of desertion as any island port.”
He stifled a sudden yawn, a real jaw-cracker.
I might not stay awake long enough t’dine my guests in! Lewrie thought; Go face-down in the soup if I do? The last few days’ve been a lot more strenuous than I thought. Damme, am I gettin’ … old? A nap ’twixt now and then is definitely in order!
“All the hands have settled back in, sir,” Westcott told him, “though the people left aboard are jealous. There’s quite a trade in looted items for cash, or promised shares in the rum ration.”
“No one managed t’smuggle any new pets aboard, did they? No bush-babies, mongooses?” Lewrie asked.
“Mongeese, sir?” Westcott said with a smirk. “No, sir, we saw to that. We’ll have to keep a sharp eye, though, when the bum-boatmen traders come out to the ship … with or without the whores. In the markets we saw, there were quite a lot of colourful caged birds. Do we allow the men shore liberty, they’ll surely try to come back with something amusing.”
“Well, caged birds maybe, but I draw the line at monkeys,” Lewrie said, laughing, welcoming Pettus as he came with the wine bottle to top them both up. “Shore liberty’d be best, all round, I believe, and I’ll argue for it. The men who stayed aboard will be sullen if they’re not allowed a chance t’see all that our landing party did. Have enough hot water for decent baths, and their clothes laundered in something besides salt water?”
“Lastly, sir, there’s our … stowaway, Private Dodd,” the First Officer said in a softer voice, as if some Army officer was listening. “We will have to make arrangements with his unit.”
Their “shanghaied” waggoner, Private Dodd, had found the issue of rum twice a day, with a gallon of small beer allowed for every man per day as well, just too enticing. He had been trained with the musket, and had “square-bashed” before being shuffled off into a transport company, and had shyly offered his services to Lt. Simcock as a replacement in the Marine complement.
“They’ll stop his pay and tell his kinfolk that he deserted or went missing in battle if we don’t, sir,” Westcott said, with a brow up.
“I know, I know,” Lewrie groused. “That’ll be one more task for me t’deal with. I’ll go ashore tomorrow and speak with his commanding officer. I hope they’ll let him go. If not, perhaps we could trade one of our worst lubbers for him. Anyone in mind, right off?” he asked Westcott.
“What, sir?” Lt. Westcott hooted in mirth. “Take a perfectly good sailor and hand him over to the misery of being a redcoat? Perish the thought, sir!”
“Well, I made them all into redcoats, for a few days,” Lewrie said, laughing along with him.
“Aye, sir, and I won’t be the same man ’til I’ve had a new pair of boots made, or my old ones re-soled,” Westcott said, shaking his head. “Who’d be a soldier, hey, sir?”
“Who’d be a soldier, indeed, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie agreed.
“I think that is all for today, sir,” Westcott told him. “I believe the biggest concerns for the next few days will be the victualling and watering to Mister Cadbury’s content.” He shuffled his papers one last time as if looking for a topic he’d forgotten, then got to his feet. “I will take my leave, sir.”
“See you at supper, the middle of the Second Dog,” Lewrie told him, rising to see him out.
“Anything else, sir?” Pettus asked.
“Lay the table, set out the wines on the sideboard, and have an eye towards my best-dress uniform for the morning, with all of the frippery attached,” Lewrie instructed with a slight sneer. “Commodore Popham don’t like me showin’ up without ’em, as if I’m a pauper. Make sure Chalky doesn’t get at it before I put it on, though. Commodore Popham most-like doesn’t care for cat hair, either.”
“Aye, sir,” Pettus said with a smile.
He sure as Hell didn’t care for my appearance when he met me ashore, Lewrie thought; He didn’t even like my borrowed horse!
As soon as Fort Knocke had been surrendered and taken over by General Baird’s troops, and the eastern end of Cape Town was safely in British hands, the Commodore had come ashore to take part in the negotiations for the Cape Colony’s complete surrender, natty in a dress uniform complete with sash and star of his own knighthood, his boots blackened and polished to a high gleam, with a fore-and-aft bicorne hat adrip with gold lace. A Dutch senior officer’s horse had been provided him at once, a glossy blooded hunter, and he had ridden the bounds of the fort and nearby environs with Baird and his staff as grandly as King George taking the air in Hyde Park.
Then he met Lewrie—he whose boots were still filthy, with begrimed breeches, stained with saddle leather, dust, spent gunpowder smoke, and the juices of roast game meat, whose shirt collars and neck-stock were sweat-stained and loose, whose waist-coat also bore the mark of rough feeding, and whose older-style cocked hat had turned tannish with African dust, and lacked its “dog’s vane” cockade, which had been shot off. At the moment, Lewrie was in need of a shave, to boot.
“Good God, sir!” Popham had grimaced. “You must send to your ship for better uniform at once, Lewrie. What will the Dutch think of us to see our officers so … scruffy?”
To which Lewrie had replied, “They’ll be studyin’ the toes of their shoes, sir, in shame of their defeat, rather than lookin’ at us.”
And when the Dutch governor had formalised the surrender, and the British had marched into the town to take possession of it and the seaward fortress, Popham, in the vanguard of the parade, looking as if he would wave to expected cheers from the conquered, barely had more than a dis-believing glance at Lewrie, who had stubbornly stayed in his shabby condition.