"It sounded like high adventures, Lewrie," Nicely said with a wry smirk. "Beats fruitless cruising, at any rate. Oh, some snippets of your activities might appear in the Gazette or the Marine Chronicle back home, but the bulk of it…" Nicely gave a shiver of denial. "A larger question'd be… where the Devil have you been since?"
"Well, that's a tad embarrassin', really," Lewrie replied and tugged at his neck-stock. He crossed his legs involuntarily.
"Oh, good!" Nicely chirped. "Do, Lewrie, tell me all!"
When the sorry tale was over, Nicely still beamed, as if he had known some of the affair beforehand or was sitting on a secret as smug as a broody-hen, with an I-know-something-you-don't-know smile.
"Why, damme, Captain Lewrie," Nicely chid him in mock displeasure as he rose and got himself a fresh cup of coffee, with milk only, and not a dab of sugar. "You've been… yachting/… you idle fop! Swanning from one liberty port to the next. Sightseeing every island in the Caribbean, and all at His Majesty's expense! Unlawful absconding with Admiralty property, too! Why, my predecessor would've hacked your balls off. Done 'em in sweetmeats, sauce and heavy cream."
"By the way, sir," Lewrie enquired, in hopes perhaps that what grief he was about to suffer might be delayed a moment more, like one of those headmaster's canings. "Where is Sir Edward?"
"Dead as bloody mutton," Nicely told him with a grimace, spoon tinkling a little louder in his fine china cup. "Turned as yellow as quince and expired a week later. Physicians suspect 'twas his kidneys and liver, finally rebelled at all the cheap spirits he'd imbibed… since his mother's paps were taken from him, is my guess. 'Bugger all this, mate… it's mutiny,' I s'pose they said to each other, there below-decks as it were. He passed over three months ago, just after we brought the line-of-battle ships back from Halifax, once hurricane season was over."
"My condolences, sir," Lewrie soberly said.
"For 'the Wine Keg'?" Nicely scoffed.
"No, for you, sir," Lewrie amended, "I s'pose you had to give up Obdurate to take this, well… call it a promotion, at the least."
"Aye, I did, dammit," Nicely groused, seating himself once more. "Best two-decker on the West Indies Station, if I do say so myself… and I do! Staff drudgery, well… something I'd been fortunate enough to miss, 'til now. Sir Hyde gave me no choice in the matter, just said I was best for the post, how career-enhancing it'd be, and all of that flummery, then gave Obdurate to one of his favourite frigate Captains. Then gave said frigate to a junior Captain, shuffled another junior off a leaky sloop of war, promoted a brig-sloop Commander into her, made a Lieutenant into Commander for the brig-sloop… made a Midshipman into a Lieutenant in his flagship's wardroom as a replacement." Nicely had a bleak look out his windows at real ships at anchor, looking famished. "Interest and favour… or they all owe the Admiral money. Or he owes their families. But you know how the Navy works."
Lewrie refilled his coffee, stinting on the sugar this time.
What could be said? he wondered to himself; Shouldn't have joined if ye can't take a joke? It's a cruel old world, and that's its way?
"Didn't bury Captain Charles here, Lewrie," Nicely further griped. "Lumbered the old fellow into a beef barrel and filled it up with accidentally salted and condemned rum, then shipped him to his loving family in England. B'lieve it or not, sir, he actually had one!"
Lewrie could not keep his sniggering to himself at that news.
"Speaking ill of the dead?" Nicely chid him. "You heathen!"
"Springs to mind, sir… how apt it was to pickle him." Lewrie chortled, setting his cup down before he spilled or broke it as a wave of titters took him. "And, was there a tinge of saltwater in his keg, that's the closest he'd been to the genuine article in years!"
"If you can't say something good about the dead, say not a word, 'twas the old adage," Nicely replied, grinning himself, though.
"He's dead… good." Lewrie snickered.
"Aye, well… I doubt the rum was necessary. Sir Edward was a fair way towards pickling himself long before his 'casking,' damn his jingle-brained ways to hell. As much 'Miss Taylor,' 'Black Strap,' and rum went missing from stores, all with Sir Edward's signature affixed, 'tis a wonder he drew a waking breath, much less a sober one," Nicely confided. "One'd suspect malfeasance in office, selling it off by the odd hundred gallons to shore merchants, but no, I suspect he drank it. You cannot imagine what a bloody pot-mess this office was, and how much labour it's taken just to get it caught up!
"And the sorriest thing, Lewrie," Capt. Nicely continued, "is just how little work is necessary, now it's all tiddly and clackin' along like a hallway clock. I am bored, Lewrie, bored to tears. There are too many hours in the day. And damn you for havin' so much fun at sea… even if you didn't know where you were going or where you were when you got there!"
"My sincerest condolences, again, sir," Lewrie offered with his right hand over his heart and his eyes downcast, for a sober moment.
"Know what you're thinkin'… 'so long as it ain't me,' hey?"
"Something very like that, in truth, Captain Nicely," Lewrie had to admit.
"Yes, well…" Nicely gruffly said, shrugging. "Finish your coffee, Lewrie, and we'll coach down to the hospital. You've a little surprise in store."
"Sir?" Lewrie asked as Nicely flung on his sword belt, his ornate uniform coat, and got his hat down from a bookshelf. "The hospital, do you say?"
"Can't get your rich prize ship back for you, but we did recover your missing crewmen, picked 'em up from-"
"They're alive, sir?" Lewrie gawped, springing to his feet.
"Aye… most," Nicely said, with a brief moue of chagrin.
"And a Quartermaster's Mate name of Toby Jugg, too, sir?" Lewrie pressed. "He was recovered, as well?"
"B'lieve that was one of the names, Captain Lewrie. Why?"
" 'Cause he just may be the bastard who arranged her taking!"
"Well, let's go sort it out, then," Nicely said, leading the way towards the double doors. A stringy-pale and much harassed Lieutenant came barging in, shuffling a loose stack of papers and muttering under his breath.
"Fidditch!" Nicely barked, almost startling the poor young man out of a year's growth, making him go ashen, cutty-eyed, and fumble-fingered. "Whistle up me coach, Mister Fidditch, there's a good 'Ink-Sniff… you poor, put-upon 'catch-fart'!"
"Aye, aye, sir… directly!"
"Good lad, really," Nicely commented as they drum-echoed their boots down that long, cool hallway, "not a dab o' 'interest' with Admiralty in the world, though. And I need someone to abuse, damme!"
CHAPTER FOUR
God bless ye, Cap'm Lewrie, sir!" Bosun's Mate Towpenny cried in delight as Lewrie entered their ward in the naval shore hospital on the Palisades peninsula. "Saw good ol' Proteus come in, we did, Cap'm, an' I told 'em t'wouldn't be long before we got reclaimed!"
Towpenny waved a hand at the large open windows that faced the harbour approaches, the louvred "Bahamian" storm shutters propped high to provide shade yet still allow fresh air to circulate. The windowpanes were small, though reasonably clear and clean; the lower halves of the sashes, quite tropically "homey"-but for the iron bars that kept "grateful recipients of His Majesty's care" from deserting as soon as they were ambulatory!