The main drawback was that the user might as well hire a clock-maker to go along and keep the Girandoni working properly, and the oil-soaked leather seals on the air flasks leaked like an entire litter of puppies, as Lewrie's last shot at ducks could attest. There had been a serpentine hiss, then aphfft! of low-pressure air and sealing oils, which put Lewrie in mind of a sailor betrayed by his bean soup. And to pump the flasks back to full pressure, propping the detachable rod against a tree or wall (in his case, the ship's main-mast) for the last, hardest strokes looked like slow, strenuous buggery.
"Well," Lewrie responded, shamming real gratitude, "it does have its curiosity value. Thankee, sir. Most kind of you."
Even if his round-dozen waterfowl had used up all three flasks and four dozen lead balls, and he was a better wing-shot than that!
"We'll be under way by dawn," Pollock informed him, turning his face northward, going gloomy again. "The wind will come Westerly or Sou'westerly, in my experience. Enough for us to weather the English Turn and Fort Saint Leon. Another stretch of river, one more big bend, and after that 'tis an arrow-shot, the last twenty-odd miles, to New Orleans." He sounded loath to arrive.
"Then we'll be about our business… whatever it is," Lewrie rejoined. It had not been a joyful "yachting" voyage; Pollock was in a permanent fret of exposure, of letting his firm down, ruing the day he'd made Peel's acquaintance, and had begun to nibble round the edges of espionage, as the Frogs called it. He had never before been asked to do anything quite so overt and was definitely "off his feed" with qualms. Ruing the night he'd dined with the forceful, brook-me-no-arguments Capt. Nicely, too, Lewrie shouldn't wonder. On Peel and Nicely at least, he and Pollock saw eye to eye, if on little else.
"God help us," Pollock said, all but chewing on a thumbnail.
"Might get lucky," Lewrie japed. "Murder those two whose names we know straightaway, and put the wind up the others, hey?"
Pollock shuddered, glared at him, then toddled off without one more word to share, muttering a fair slew of imprecations, though.
Lewrie leaned on the bulwarks and plucked at his "costume" cotton shirt, most slack and lubberly fashion. Pollock had advised that he and his small band of Navy men dress as anything but sailors. They had been forced to don thigh-long hunting shirts over rough trousers, older, battered tricornes or low-crowned farmers' hats. Ruing costs like the meanest skinflint, Pollock had issued them all powder horns and deerskin cartridge pouches, long hunting knives to hang on their hips to make them appear more like huntsmen or a pack of bully-bucks he'd hired on to escort his goods into the hinterlands… or protect his new-landed assets in his New Orleans warehouses and store. All of which-the clothing, arms and accoutrements, "surplus to requirements" infantry hangers and such-had been produced from Pollock's warehouses in Kingston and sold at a so-called discounted price to Capt. Nicely. Lewrie could sourly suspect that he and his handful of disciplined sailors had been charged passengers' fare just to come along, as well!
Lewrie heaved a befuddled sigh and contemplated once again just how he had been finagled into this dubious adventure. Capt. Nicely had proved to be much cleverer than Lewrie would have credited him. And not half so nice as he appeared.
Not a day after their shore supper, Capt. Nicely and Mr. Peel had been rowed out to Proteus at her anchorage and had come aboard in stately manner, with a strange young Lieutenant and Midshipman in tow.
With Nicely wearing a gruff but-me-no-buts expression on his face, and Jemmy Peel cocked-browed with a sardonic you-poor-dense-bastard look, Nicely had introduced the young Lieutenant as one Thaddeus Darling, the Midshipman as one Mr. the Honourable Darcy Gamble.
Since Proteus had lost the unfortunate (and regrettable) young Mr. Burns, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker had decided to appoint the much tarrier and more promising Mr. Gamble into the frigate. He came off the flagship, and such an appointment usually was a signal honour for the recipient captain. The lad was upwards of his majority, eighteen or so, and while attired in a well-to-do lad's best uniform and kit of the finest quality, right down to his ivory-and-gilt trimmed dirk, he was touted as a bright lad who'd been properly seasoned at sea duties since his eleventh birthday; a welcome prize, indeed!
"You're short a Midshipman, Captain Lewrie," Nicely had almost gushed in seeming sincerity, "and I prevailed upon Sir Hyde to assign you his very best… and one close to his heart," Nicely had added in a confidential whisper, with an encouraging wink, "in reward for your previous good service to the Crown."
"Honoured, indeed, to welcome him aboard, Captain Nicely, sir," Lewrie had bowed back, temporarily disarmed, though still a dab leery.
"If you do not mind, then, sir, I will read myself in, and put up my broad pendant, according to Sir Hyde's orders?" Nicely had said further, whipping an official document from his coat's breast pocket.
"Beg pardon?" Lewrie had gawped, all aback. "Say uh?"
Lieutenant Darling produced a paper-wrapped packet containing a red pendant, much shorter and wider than the coach-whip commissioning pendant that forever flew from Proteus's main-mast. He handed it off to Midshipman Grace and bade him hoist it aloft. And to Lewrie's chagrin, the red broad pendant bore a white ball, indicating that Capt. Nicely would have no flag-captain below him!
There was much too much blood thundering in Lewrie's ears for a clear hearing of Capt. Nicely's bellowing recital of Navy officialese, but the sense of it was that Sir Hyde had temporarily appointed him as a petit Commodore without the actual rank, privileges, or emoluments of a permanent promotion.
"… and take upon yourself accordingly the duties of regulating the details of your squadron, in making the necessary distribution of men, stores, provisions, and in such other duties as you shall think fit to direct!" Nicely had thundered, casting a baleful eye at his "flagship's" goggling captain. Lewrie had whirled to seek confirmation or aid from Peel, but Peel could do nothing but offer him a side-cocked head and a helpless shrug. That "distribution… as you shall think fit to direct" sounded hellish-ominous!
To make matters even worse, Proteus'?, crew thought they had been done a great honour in recognition of their prowess, and they had actually cheered Nicely's pronouncement. And his decision to "splice the main-brace" and trot out the rum keg for a drink free of personal debts, the "sippers" or "gulpers" owed among them, had raised an even heartier second! Fickle bloody ingrates! Lewrie had fumed.
"Ah, sir, um…" Lewrie attempted once Nicely had turned to face him. "You speak highly of your First Officer, Mister Langlie," Nicely had said sweetly, "nearly ready for a command of his own, as I recall you praising, so… perhaps a spell of actual command, with me as his advisor, as it were, will properly season him for better things in the near future, hey? No fear, Captain, your Order Book shall not be supplanted or amended while I'm aboard as, ah… 'super-cargo' or acting Commodore. I shall not interfere in your officers' habitual direction of your ship. Though I did bring along Lieutenant Darling to stand as a temporary Third Lieutenant, I assure you that he shall strictly adhere to your way of doing things and will be subordinate to Lieutenant Langlie, not me."
"What squadron?" Lewrie had baldly asked, after jerking his chin upwards to indicate the broad pendant.