Executions in Spanish lands didn't required a gallows-going for "the high jump," doing the "Tyburn hornpipe." The Dons preferred sitting one down in a stout chair, then slowly strangling the convicted with a garotte… one agonising twist of the ropes at a time.
Such qualms on Pollock's odd features quite made Lewrie feel at his own throat and swallow a few times.
"No sense in arming the competition, sir?" Lewrie asked instead.
"Quite so, Lew- Pardon, Mister Willoughby." Pollock beamed. "I might even aspire to report Ellison to the Dons, do they importune me for a large consignment of arms. Or try to bribe me. And all of it well witnessed by my clerks, heh heh! Commerce, Mister Willoughby, is not quite so dull an enterprise as you'd imagine, ahem. When spryer and younger, and moving pack-trains among the Cherokee and Upper Creek Indians in the Revolution… fiercely in competition with Americans such as McGilliveray Sons out of Charleston, well… it was a war to the knife, and no quarter!" Pollock modestly preened over his past derring-do and skullduggery. "Pan-ton, Leslie gave as good as it got!"
Sure as Hell I won't mention Desmond to him! Lewrie considered.
"Well, I think we're ready to go ashore," Pollock announced. "Whyever are ye not packed, Mister Willoughby?"
"Ashore?" Lewrie gawped back. "First I've heard of it."
"Oh, so sorry," Pollock gaily said, not sounding sorry at all. "Best for your persona, do you take shore lodgings in a modest pension or boarding-house. The cost is middlin', and the local cuisine's most delectable, bein' French, d'ye see? Best get cracking, Willoughby, or it will be completely dark before we get you settled."
"I don't have a shore-going bag," Lewrie complained, springing to his feet. "No one told me I needed one, and-"
"No matter," Pollock objected, "for I'm sure we have a suitable valise aboard… for which I may gladly offer you a handsome discount, seeing as how it will go towards furthering the Crown's interests."
"What if I just lease or rent?" Lewrie dubiously wondered.
"Oh no, that'd never do, Lewrie," Pollock quibbled. "For once we come back aboard, it'll have been used, and I could not in good conscience flog it off on someone else as good as new."
Damn him, I knew he'd find a way t'pry me loose from a guinea or two! Lewrie thought; Tradesmen! Bah!
"We'll allow your Navy lads shore liberty, along with the brig's crew as well." Pollock further blandly announced.
"But I haven't warned 'em yet," Lewrie quickly rejoined, fearing what-all they might blab when in their cups ashore without a stern lecture. Would some of them "run" was another instant worry.
"Then you'd best be at it, shouldn't you," Pollock said, tapping a foot in growing impatience, and eagerness to savour the city's joys. "If you do not mind, I will take part in that, ahem. Your man, Jugg, should be given a roving brief and a freer hand, since he most likely, in my cautious estimation, has been to New Orleans before and knows his way about… and knows the names and faces of those we seek, from his past, ah… employments? I propose that Jugg temporarily report to me, not you. Now 'til next morning, say, 'til Eight Bells and the start of the Forenoon Watch, for your hands' return, so they may carouse ashore?"
"That'd do, I expect," Lewrie begrudgingly said, "Uh, what'll I need ashore, how much should I pack, then? "
"Oh, no more than a change or two of clothing," Pollock guessed. "Your current 'sporting' togs and a fresh shirt and stockings will do. Take those shipboard things you wore on the way upriver, the hunting shirt and such… as if that's all you own at present. A full purse, it goes without saying… and all your, um… weapons. One cannot tell what sort of footpads one may come across."
"You're so reassuring," Lewrie said with a faint sneer as he opened the cabin door to go forward to his own small accommodations.
Not one hour later he was ashore and cozily ensconced in one of Pollock's "open and airy" appartements (as the Frogs termed them) in a pension at the corner of Bourbon Street and Rue Ste. Anne. His rooms were two storeys above the ground floor, up narrow, rickety stairs, and any felons who wished to scrag him couldn't help making the most hellish racket on their way up to get at him, he cautiously reasoned. It actually was a promisingly pleasant place, a tad spare when it came to elegant furnishings, but it was clean and (relatively) bug-free, with bed linens, towels, and drapes still redolent of boiling water and soap, fresh washed. The "airy" part came from three complete sets of glazed doors that served for gigantic windows, all of which led out to a wraparound upper balcony fronted with intricate wrought-iron railings, and even the stench from the bricked streets with too-narrow sidewalks and no drains or gutters by the kerbs wasn't that bad, for all the detritus seemed to end up in the sunken centres of the cobbled streets, where, Lewrie suspected, it stayed till the next rainstorm flushed it asea… or down the street, where another neighbourhood could enjoy it!
Not a true set of rooms, really; he'd gotten one large, open, high-ceilinged chamber as a parlour, fitted out with a mismatched set of chairs and a settee, corner tables, end tables, a faded carpet, and some cast-off horrors for framed paintings and such, aligned along Rue Bourbon. A wide, stub-walled archway at the Ste. Anne end delineated the bedchamber, further separated from the parlour by a pair of sham Chinee folding screens.
He'd packed in a hurry, though taking time enough to place his pair of twin-barreled Manton pistols deep in his new valise, a pair of pocket pistols in his clothes, his hanger on his hip, new sword-cane in his hand, and a wavy-bladed and razor-keen Mindanao krees knife up his left sleeve, a "remembrance" he'd picked up off a piratical Lanun Rover in the Far East.
Lewrie had had time, too, to warn his men about the parts they were to play-adventurers signed on as Mr. Pollock's muscles-and that they should not get so drunk that their time in the Royal Navy got blabbed as present-day status. Poor Furfy had the hardest time understanding.
"Desmond, a private word," Lewrie had bade the happy-go-lucky Irish rogue. "You've a sensible head on your shoulders, though I fear your mate Furfy's not the quickest wit was ever dropped."
"An' that he is, sorry t'say, sor," Desmond commiserated. "A grand feller Furfy is, a fast friend, but… nary th' sort o' man t'even sham clever."
"You'll look out for him special, Desmond," Lewrie charged him. "Furfy is a good sailor, aye, and I'd hate to lose him or let him get in trouble if liquor frees his tongue, or ties it."
"Oi'll see to it, sor, swear it," Desmond soberly vowed, though how "sober" he'd be himself within the hour was doubtful. Let sailors get at drink, and they'd be senseless, roaring drunk in a turn-about of your head! Faster than you could say "Luff"!
"I knew I could count on you, Desmond," Lewrie had replied, not quite relieved, but close. "You might keep the lads together, keep an eye and ear cocked to their doin's, too, and not a word about Proteus or our mission. "Just enjoy the first day, and we'll probe, later."
"Ye kin count on me, sor," Desmond had assured him, though all but dancing in place from one foot to t'other to be away and ashore in search of pleasures and deviltry.
Now, Lewrie was on his own. Pollock had quickly steered him to this pension, a place he'd obviously stayed before, for he was on good terms with the proprietor and his wife, then had nearly jog-trotted to his own lodgings-a much nicer place, Pollock smugly and thoughtlessly informed him, located in the middle of Rue Royale, 'twixt Ste. Anne and Rue Dumaine. Pollock said that they should breakfast together next morning at eight, that Lewrie (Willoughby, rather!) should not spread himself too widely on his own spree among the Creoles, and should keep a clear head. A caution (more than one!) to not go off half-cocked should he encounter Lanxade or Balfa straightaway; merely on their descriptions, he just might end up accosting the wrong man, do one of them in too publicly, even should he slit the throat of the right'un, and end up arrested; at which juncture, there'd be nothing Pollock or Panton, Leslie Company could do for him but deny they'd ever heard of him, and wasn't it such a shame for a new-minted American who'd come aboard their ship to go Lunatick and kill somebody, the damned rank stranger!