The Gun Ketch (30 page)

Alan opened one of the books and found it dog-eared on several pages. It was a recent English translation of a French novel he had heard about,
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
by some Frog scribbler named de Laclos. The dog-eared pages contained scenes of a most pleasing and salacious nature, which made Alan smile, even as he winced at the chalked-on price of six shillings. Thumbing further through it, he discovered an inscription in the frontispiece.

"From Daniel,

To his scamp of a brother Nathan. May this inspire you aboard
Matilda
on your next Voyage! & May her New 1st Mate have similar Joy of the swarthy Bahamian ladies!"

Wonder if he did, Alan thought with amusement. And did he have to sell it to pay for the Mercury Cure to rid himself of the pox those Bahamian "ladies" gave him?

He decided to buy it, and added it to the pile on the counter.

"That should be all here," Alan said to the young clerk who was following him about, keeping a running total from store to store.

"Might have a peek at this before you leave, Captain sir," the young man suggested. "The very latest scientific device to predict the tropic storm. Hang this on your bulkhead below-decks, and you'll have all the warning a sailing man would ever need."

"How does it work?" Alan asked, looking at a bulbous glass flask with a tall, narrow, sealed neck. Inside the flask was a blue liquid of some kind. It was brass-bound to a wooden plaque.

"The better the weather, the more of the liquid will gather at the bulb-end on the bottom, sir," the clerk told him. "But when there is a storm brewing, why 'twill soar up the neck. The worse the storm to-be, the higher will it go, sir. 'Tis said, sir," he confided with an air of secrecy, "that the Admiralty will be requiring every one of their ships to be equipped with one soon. We've shown one on display over t'the ships' chandlery all this past year, and 'tis been a wonder to all who've seen it for how accurately it reflected the weather, it has. And only twenty guineas, sir!"

"Should the Admiralty require it, then let them buy it for me," Alan scoffed. "Let's go select some wines."

"Very good, Captain sir."

The spirits shop was set up much like a coffeehouse, or an inn's public room, with tables and chairs. The walls were lined with barrels and wooden cases of bottles, with a combination counter and bar at the rear.

"Well, damme!" Alan was forced to exclaim as he espied an oil painting over the counter. It was his harem scene that Caroline had traded off, to the life! There were the same buxom darlings on the same draped couches, with a slender lass featured in the foreground standing to be toweled after her bath, the one who so-muchresembled his first whore in Covent Garden, the infamously handsome " 'Change Court Betty" in all her bare splendor.

"Inspiring, ain't it, sir?" the clerk simpered. "Here, Davie, the captain would like to sample some wines this day."

"Aye, sir," the vendor smiled, wiping his hands on his apron as he came from behind his counter. "Pray, have a seat, sir, and take yer ease. Tell us yer wants, sir, an' we'll trot 'em out for yer to select those as best suits yer palate."

Lewrie took a seat and removed his cocked hat. "Let's begin on port. I'll need one case."

"Going back t'sea, are we, sir?" the vendor clucked. "Got a fine 'Rain-Water' Madeira just in. Got a lovely nose, ain't it, sir? Try a sip of that, now."

A door in the back that led to the storerooms opened, and Alan paused with a sample glass to his lips as John Finney emerged, intent on a loose sheaf of papers. He looked up, spotted Lewrie, and smiled hesitantly, then put a bold face on it and stepped forward.

"Captain Lewrie, the top o' the mornin' t'ya, sir," he lilted in an Irish brogue. " Tis delighted I am t'see you again, sir, and in my ... establishment, at that," Finney stumbled, seeming to be trying to recall a lesson in elocution, to sound more English, though with a hard emphasis on those "break-teeth" words not common to his everyday speech.

"Mister Finney, good morning," Lewrie nodded, willing to sound at least affable in reply. He even threw in a small grin.

"I trust me... my clerk David is satisfactory, sir?" Finney continued, laying his papers down on the counter.

"Most satisfactory, sir, thankee," Lewrie rejoined.

God, but he's an imposin' bastard, Lewrie thought as he sipped the Madeira! Finney stood a full six feet tall, broad of shoulder and deep-chested as a yearling steer. He was sailor-dark in complexion, with a full head of bright blond hair drawn back into a queue as low as his shoulder blades. His face was angular and square, and in his chin there was a pronounced cleft. For someone who'd come up from a stew, he had remarkably good white teeth. And penetrating, sometimes mocking blue eyes. With that heft, he could have looked day-labourer common, but he was flat-stomached, lean in the hips and thighs, and showed a very shapely calf in his silk stockings. His hands and his feet betrayed his origins, though; huge, clumping-long feet and hands square and thick as a bricklayer's, roughened by a lifetime of hard work, no matter the heavy and expensive rings he now sported.

"That'd ... that is the 'Rain-Water' Madeira, David?" Finney inquired, coming to the table to pick up the bottle. "A pleasing and tasty selection, Captain Lewrie. Not as dry as some. Like it?"

"Quite good, yes," Lewrie agreed. "Though a guinea the bottle is a trifle steep, Mister Finney."

"We could arrange split-cases, sir," Finney assured him, pulling out a seat. "Allow me, sir? Thank you. Say, four bottles or so of the Rain-Water, and the rest made up from a lesser vintage, for guests who can't 'predate the best, ay? Why deprive y'self o' fine port just 'cause ya dine alone aft most o' the time. And is it sailin' soon y'll be, Captain Lewrie?" he asked, lapsing into brogue.

There was a craftiness to the set of Finney's eyes, at least to Alan's suspicious imagination. And yet, there was almost a pathetic eagerness, too. The eagerness of a seller, he wondered? The pandering of the outsider towards a better, Lewrie took a moment to sneer? Or that of a basically lonely man risen out of his element and trying to fit in? To make contact with newcomers who didn't spurn him?

"I have no orders at present, but..." Lewrie shrugged, giving Finney the same smile he'd bestow upon any acquaintance. "We've been so long at anchor, it's bound to be soon."

"Davie ..." Finney said, whirling on his chair, "David, bring out last year's Oporto for Captain Lewrie to try. Four shilling the bottle, I'm that sorry t'say, but nigh as tasty, and a grand bargain. Now wot ya say t'that, sir?"

"Mmm, rather nice," Lewrie had to agree. "Let us say eight of this Oporto, and only four of the better Madeira. And I'll simply have to treat myself less often."

"Done!" Finney exulted, slapping the table top as if he had won a trick at
ecarte.
"Now, wot else will ya be desiring?"

Lewrie spent almost an hour in the wine shop with Finney as bis eager-to-please host. Away from formal affairs, the salons and dance-floors where he most likely felt strangled and out of place, he proved a likable enough fellow, Alan had to admit, as they compared voyages, ports of call, and past storms, as sailors ever will.

"An'
wuz
ya niver t'India, now!" Finney had exclaimed with joy. "An' Canton, too? Gawd, 'twas a time, a
grand
time, I had 'mongst the heathens meself! Topman, I wuz, then ... main topmast captain."

Then Finney would catch his accent and affect his more genteel
persona,
striving for more civil speech. Until his next enthusiasm which put the lilt and Gaelic structure to his words again.

"So, your reckoning, sir," Finney said at last, after Alan hadmade his final selection. "The split case of port, one cask of brandy, two of claret... le'ssee, one cask of Bordeaux... damn' good St. Emilion, thet is, an' tastes young f rever. Two cases Rhenish, one of hock, and the odd case of cordials, sherries, Holland gin and such..."

Lewrie saw why Finney had such a scrawl for a handwriting— he was a cack-hand, a left-hander! Another unpopular trait to rise above!

"Twenty-four pounds, six shillings, and... ah, the divil with it, let's say twenty pound even, an' be square, sir! Ain't that a handsome bargain for ya, now, Captain Lewrie?" Finney loudly decided at last.

That statement, such an eldritch echo of Billy 'Bones' Doyle's own words from the cave at Conch Bar, nearly set Lewrie's nape hairs on end, bringing back his every nagging suspicion.

"Twenty it is, though I fear 'tis at your loss, sir," Lewrie found wit to reply, without betraying the cold fear-trill that took him.

"Don't go bruiting it about the town, though, Captain Lewrie," Finney chuckled. "Or the rest'll think they've been cheated. We're to have this delivered aboard
Alacrity
t'day, then?"

"If you could, that would be fine," Lewrie replied.

"A final glass with ya, then, sir," Finney smiled, reaching for a sample bottle of brandy. "Wot yer hunters call a 'stirrup cup'?"

"Topping," Lewrie allowed as Finney filled their glasses.

"Fine little ship you have there, sir," Finney congratulated. "May I be so bold as t'offer a toast, now? To
Alacrity.
Long may she swim in safety on the King's business." They clinked glasses.

"Thankee, Mister Finney."

"Ah, call me John," Finney cajoled. "Or Jack. 'Tis how I'm known best in the islands."

"Jack. Thankee for the thought, then," Lewrie said, restless to leave as Finney became bolder. Damme, the next I know he'll name me "Alan, old son" and I'll have to be pleasant to him in public, or have him in for a home-cooked supper! Brrr!

"Before you sail, Captain Lewrie," Finney suggested, "You and your wife must attend one o' my little gatherings. A pleasant meal. Some cards... a little dancing, should you be able to stay later."

Aha! Lewrie thought! So that's your chummy game, is it?

"I heard you weren't entertaining lately, Jack," Lewrie told him. "Nor do I recall you attending anything in the last week."

"Well, life goes on, don' ... does it not, sir?" Finney said, eyeing Lewrie sharply, and the geniality leaving those blue eyes.

"I'm told some of the men who were hung once worked with you," Lewrie was emboldened to say, with a sad and sober expression of shammed sympathy.

"And so they did, sir," Finney told him, speaking slower, and choosing his words and their pronunciation more guardedly. "What my old Gran told me is true, y'know; you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink? There's some in this world will seize an opportunity to better themselves, and some as won't. For privateering, they were a grand crew, all tarry-handed and smart as paint, as willing to dare as any I'd ever seen, sir. When the war ended and I paid 'em off, I told 'em they'd have an honest berth with me whenever they needed it. Some signed on. Some went their own ways."

"Like Doyle," Lewrie needled, sporting a commiserating smile.

"Aye, like William," Finney sighed, looking wistful for what might have been. "Me ... my bosun at one time. Met him, Lord, thirteen year ago when we were topmen on a Liverpool 'Black-Birder' on the Middle Passage. I made third mate, he made bosun's mate. He was the grandest seaman of all. But not a thinker, God have mercy. You know sailors, Captain Lewrie. They live from shilling to shilling. What would you find of yer fellow men from one of yer old ships, were ya all to get t'gither? Who among 'em'd prospered, and who among 'em'd sunk? The Fleet can't afford t'be picky when it needs seamen, an' I couldn't turn me nose up at the lads as signed aboard with me. And, when ya get right down to it," Finney shrugged with a sad grin, "ya
can't
be yer brothers' keeper. A man'll go his own way, divil a try ya make t'redeem him."

"Quite so," Lewrie had to agree with the sentiment, and the sense of what Finney said. "Well, I must take my leave, sir. Thank you for a most enjoyable morning, and a most pleasing reckoning."

"Wotiver yer needs, think o' Finney's first," the man insisted as they rose from the table. "There's no finer selection, an' for you and your fine wife, Captain Lewrie, there'll always be some specials held back, at the same pleasin' prices, break me though they might!"

"I shall keep that ever in mind, Mister Finney," Lewrie said.

"You tell yer missus t'try us first, 'stead o' Misick's, or Frith's," Finney rattled on as he walked him toward the door. "Those stores on Shirley Street'd sell 'Ratty' his own pelt, charge extra for a good fit, an 'im niver knowin' 'twas skinned soon as he entered their doors!"

"I shall tell her that, sir."

" 'Dobe planters from Santo Domingo, lime fertilizers . .." Jack Finney rhapsodized about his merchandise. "The latestfashions, just about anything the new homemaker needs for a burgeoning house, for the ball, for . .."

"Good day, sir," Lewrie beamed, offering his hand, which Jack Finney took and pumped vigorously. "And once again, thankee."

"I've a drum planned for Saturday, sir," Finney announced of a sudden. "I would be honored should you and Mistress Lewrie be able to attend. Late afternoon's cool, stand-up buffet, champagne..."

"Ah, I fear not," Lewrie replied, though they had no current plans for the weekend. "Should
Alacrity
still be in port, we will dine some guests in on Saturday," Alan lied easily. "There's a scheme afoot to introduce my first officer Lieutenant Ballard to a young lady of our acquaintance, and see how they progress over cards and music. A fearsome business! But, let a young wife see others unattached, and ..." he concluded, making a face and faking a shiver. "Some other time would be more convenient, perhaps?"