Dewey Lambdin - The King

• Название: The King
• Автор: Dewey Lambdin
• Жанр: Морские приключения

Fresh from war in the Americas, young navy veteran Alan Lewrie finds London pure pleasure. Then, at Plymouth he boards the trading ship Telesto, to find out why merchantmen are disappearing in the East Indies. Between the pungent shores of Calcutta and teaming Canton, Lewrie--reunited with his scoundrel father--discovers a young French captain, backed by an armada of Mindanaon pirates, on a plundering rampage. While treaties tie the navy's hands, a King's privateer is free to plunge into the fire and blood of a dirty little war on the high South China Sea.Ladies' man, officer, and rogue, Alan Lewrie is the ultimate man of adventure. In the worthy tradition of Hornblower, Aubrey, and Maturin, his exploits echo with the sounds of crowded ports and the crash of naval warfare.

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Lewrie strolled to the quarterdeck bulwarks to look down on the bustling wharves and warehouses next to which Telesto was tied up. The stone dock teemed with seamen, carters, chandlers, stevedores and mongers of every gew-gaw, trinket, notion and edible known to man.

I'm half a civilian, Alan thought gloomily. I suppose I should act like one. He stuck his hands in his breeches pockets and leaned on the bulwark, something he'd not done since his first day of naval service so long ago (and had almost gotten caned for it, then) and slouched.

Damme, I'll have to go ashore, just to buy plain coats and a hat or two, he speculated. Most of my kit in my sea-chest will do, once we're out at sea. Why, oh why, didn't anyone take the trouble to tell me all of this before I left London? Probably didn't think I could be trusted. Probably thought I'd beg off if I knew how bare-arsed an adventure they'd dreamed up. And I would have, too, Lord Cantner and his bully-boys be damned. Trot this lunatick idea out in the comfort of a club chair and I'd have been halfway to Liverpool before "they could even begin to think of trying to catch me!

" 'Scuse me, sir," Cony said, coming to his side. "I checked in with the pusser, an' 'e gimme your cabin, sir. Got yer kit stowed away ready for ya. Yer on the upper gun deck, starboard side, third cabin forrud o' the wardroom table. Tried fer larboard, sir, but h'it was no go."

"What's the difference?"

"I heard tell from a mate o' mine in Desperate all the quality goes larboard east, starboard 'ome, on an Indiaman. The shady side, I 'spects, sir, an' the sun out there can be fierce, I've heard."

"Well, thanks for trying, Cony. How about you?" Alan sighed, wishing he'd gotten packed and out of his lodgings before that messenger caught up with him.

"The pusser figgerd I'd make a cabin servant for wot passengers we get, sir," Cony replied, sounding almost fiendishly cheerful. "I'll still be yer 'ammockman and man-servant, sir. Beats turnin' out on a dark night t' 'all Hands aloft an' reef sail,' it do, sir."

"That won't last longer than your meeting with the first mate," Alan gloomed, perking up a little at taking Cony's expectations of an easy job down a peg or two.

"Well, won't be the first time I went t' sea anyways, is it, sir?" Cony almost cackled.

"My God, but you're in a particularly good mood!"

"Sorry, sir." Cony sobered up. "H'it's just… well, London was beginnin' t' get a little… boresome I guess ya could call h'it, sir. I got right used t' bein' a seaman an' all. An' if I'd stayed, well… t'was best when ya got yer letter an' I could come away with ya, Mister Lewrie, sir. I… I know yer a fair hand with the ladies an' all, sir. An' I know h'it's not my place t' say anythin' 'bout wot ya do. But I got meself in a deal o' trouble from messin' where I oughtn't. I was gonna ask ya what I should do 'bout it, you bein' a fair hand, as I said…" Cony began to blush and stammer, turning his gaze to the sanded plank deck. "An', uh… uhmm…"

"Oh, for God's sake, Cony, how bad could it be?" Alan demanded. Will Cony was probably the last of God's own innocents, though how he managed that feat being around Lewrie for very long, was anyone's guess.

"Well, t'was that pretty little Abigail, sir, the one who done for ya when I 'ad me days off, sir? Well, uhm… some nights below-stairs, sir. Lord, sir, I…"

"Have I been a bad influence on you, Cony?" Alan smiled.

"Well, sir, when I seed all them pretty lasses ya spooned on, h'it set my 'umours t' ragin' more'n a night'r two, an'… well, me an' Abigail… I guess ya could say we sorta… indulged ourselves a time'r two, sir, on the sly."

"I would have been even more amazed if you hadn't, Cony," Alan told him gently, trying to find a way not to burst out laughing in the poor man's face. "She was a lovely young girl, and you're a fine figure of a young fellow yourself. Only natural."

"Well, sir, h'it felt natural as all get-out\ Until she tol' me, right a'fore we packed up an' come away t' Plymouth, sir, that we was gonna have a baby."

"She never!" Alan gaped.

"Yessir, she did. My get, sir! I didn't know what t' do 'bout h'it, sir, so I give her what little I'd been able t' save from my prize-money an' all. Twenty pounds, sir," Cony wailed in conclusion.

"Ah," Alan intoned, turning away to look out toward Rame Head and the harbor mouth before he began cackling like a demented cuckoo.

It was all a lie, damn her little black heart, he giggled inside. Goddamn, I've been had! If she truly is "ankled," I'll lay any odds you want half London is trembling in their boots and paying up their fair share! Oh, she played me perfect! Goddamn my eyes, what a little scamp! She ought to marry Clotworthy Chute and bilk the rest of England! And poor Cony, he thought. What to tell him?

"I'm sure you did the right thing, Cony," he told him. "You can do a lot better should you ever decide to settle down and marry. Sweet girl and all, pretty as a pup, but…"

"I was sorta sweet on 'er, sir," Cony objected. "Iffen h'it weren't for the baby comin' s' soon, I mighta…"

"But awfully young and… you need someone a little closer to your own age, Cony, someone who's had the rough edges knocked off first. Somebody who'll be a real helpmate to you when you settle down. Some girl not so… flippant, I suppose. You did come away, though, didn't you."

"Yessir, I did." Cony mooned about, almost shuffling his feet together. "I suppose yer right, sir. Come a toucher o' stayin', though, that I did. Did I do right, sir?"

"You've provided for her and your babe. And you can look her up when we get back to London, if you've a mind. She might be more settled, more mature and suited to your nature by then. One never knows."

"Aye, I 'spect yer right, sir," Cony said, brightening a little.

"And in the meantime, I'll make up what she cost you, Cony."

"T'ain't rightly the money, sir, what was botherin' me, but I thankee kindly."

"And remember, we're on our way to the fabulous East Indies," Alan said, trying to cheer him. "Nautch dancers, giris in veils so thin you can count their freckles! China, and almond-eyed darlings the Tsar of all the Russias can't have, no matter how rich he is! It's a big, wide, exciting world, Cony. Take joy of it!"

Alan spread his arms and beamed a hopeful grin at his servant, and Cony began to chuckle. Then Alan looked over the bulwarks as a coach clattered up and Burgess Chiswick climbed out and looked up at the quarterdeck and the boarding ladder to the starboard gangway.

Oh no it ain't a big world, Alan cringed. It's too damn small and getting smaller all the time! Goddamn, we're part of the same hare-brained terror I tried to talk him out of! Is it too late to break my leg or something?

"Uh, ain't that young Mister Chiswick, sir?" Cony asked.

"It is, indeed," Alan almost moaned as Burgess espied them and waved gaily, pantomiming that he'd be aboard as soon as he paid off the coachee and got his chest up the gangplank.

"Er… wasn't you worried 'bout what 'e was gettin' 'isself into, sir?" Cony inquired with a worried note to his voice.

'That I was, Cony."

"Godamercy, Mister Lewrie, sir!" Cony blurted in alarm. "Ya don't think that we… 'im an' us'n… that same thing I 'eard ya goin' on about?"

"Looks devilish like it, Cony," Alan groaned.

"Godamercy, we're fucked, ain't we, sir?" Cony whispered.

Chapter 6

Of all the luck," Burgess Chiswick opined, draped across the transom settee in the officer's wardroom, a warming mug of "flip" in one hand and a long church-warden clay pipe fuming in the other.

"Yes, wasn't it," Lewrie agreed in a sarcastic drawl.

"Sorry you missed us on the road, though," Burgess went on, oblivious to Alan's disgruntled feelings. "You must have been out of your lodgings like a race horse, soon as the letter came. We left London behind you. Went by Panton Street but they told us you'd already gone. Would have been nice to have coached down together."

Alan had been barred from discussing the murderous incident on the road, so all he could do was nod in agreement.

"And then to find you'd stopped off at the farm and gone on," Burgess told him, experimenting with blowing a smoke ring. "Caroline was very disappointed she'd missed you."

"Was she well?" Alan asked, abandoning his put-upon sulking.

"My sister is very fond of you, Alan. As is mother. Thinks you hung the moon. Or at least helped out. She's a fine young lady."

"Well, that's moot for three or four years, ain't it?" Alan sighed.

"Hope you didn't mind, but she adopted your cat."

"She did?"

"Didn't know you were fond of 'em," Burgess marveled. "Still, I can see the attraction. Affectionate old thing. Purred away like anything, soon's she picked him up, and rode in her lap all the way to Guildford in the coach. Thought he'd be happier on the farm. And… well, he's a part of you, d'you see, Alan. She said to tell you she'd take good care of him until you got back."

"Yes, I suppose that's best," Alan agreed, trying to picture anyone picking William Pitt up and trying to dandle him. "After a warship, he'd enjoy terrorizing a herd of sheep. Devilish good mouser."

"More a lap-cat the last time I saw him," Burgess chuckled.

Shoes thundered on the double companion-way ladders from the upper deck, and their attention was drawn to the newcomer. The sight drew both of them to their feet, for its novelty if nothing else.

A man stood there, a man with skin the color of a cup of cocoa. Fierce dark eyes glared under thick brows-the rest of the face was hidden behind a greying beard and a thick mustache that stood out stiff as the cat-heads up forward that held the ship's anchors. The man was dressed in sandals over thick woolen stockings, loose knee-length trousers, a long-skirted coat that buttoned from waist to chin with a glittery multicolored silk sash about his waist, a burgundy colored old-style frock coat over that for warmth-and a turban.

"What the devil?" Burgess muttered.

"Namaste, sahib," the apparition said, putting both mittened hands together and bowing slightly to both of them. "Meestair Twigg sahib, want speech with Elooy sahib."

"I think that might be you, Alan," Burgess told him.

"Yes, but who the devil's this Twigg?" Alan wondered.

"My master, Elooy sahib. Kshamakejiye… excuse me… I am being Ajit Roy. You come, jeehan? Yes?"

"Yes," Alan replied. "Is he ashore?"

"Naheen, sahib," Ajit Roy told him, pointing upwards. "Is here on ship."

"Keep the flip warm, Burgess," Alan said to his companion. "And if I'm not back soon…"

The servant padded back up the companion-way to the upper deck cabins under the poop, where the captain usually had his quarters. There were other cabins forward of his that Alan had thought might be reserved for passengers. Ajit Roy rapped on one door, and someone inside bade him enter. The servant swung the door wide and stepped aside to let Alan in.

It was a fairly spacious cabin, considering. About twelve precious feet long bow to stern, and ten feet abeam. Piled as it was with chests, it seemed more like a storeroom, though, or a rug merchant's tiny stall. Or an opium den, Alan thought, sniffing the air.

"Achh-chaa, Roy-ji… Kuchh der men vahpasahiye'."

"Jeehan, Twigg-sahib," Roy said, bowing himself out.

"Lewrie, I'm Zachariah Twigg," said the man, who had been sitting on the bunk, as he unfurled himself to his full height. This Twigg was tall and lean, almost impossibly lean: all arms and legs. He was dressed all in black like some dominee.

"Your servant, sir," Alan replied automatically, still befuddled, and thinking that he would most likely remain in that condition for some time to come.

"Sit," Twigg commanded, pointing out a chair with the flexible tube he held in his hand. "Captain Ayscough has related to me the peculiar circumstances of your incident. I want to ask you more about it."

"And you are, sir?" Alan demanded as Twigg perched himself cross-legged on the bunk again and began to draw from the tube, which Alan now saw was attached to a tall glass hubble-bubble pipe. In the faint gloom, illuminated by only a single lantern placed on one of the crates, Twigg resembled some kind of bird of prey. The face was all hollows-in his cheeks, behind his eyes, on either side of his temples. And his eye sockets were deep and pouchy. He wore his own hair, combed back thin and close to the skull, and a prominent peak jutted like a cape between receding temples. And Twigg's nose was long, thin and narrow, like a raptor's beak, until it reached the nostrils, where it flared out into a pad of flesh and cartilage an adult walrus could have envied.

"Let us just say that Captain Ayscough answers to me. As do you, Lieutenant Lewrie," Twigg told him with a brief, damnably brief, glint of humor. With the mouthpiece of the hubble-bubble pipe out of his mouth, the lips were caricature-thin, and pursed flat against each other in an expression of perpetual asperity. "I and my partner, Mister Wythy, are ship's husbands, and the… owners, let us say. We were the ones bought her, raised the capital, and bought the cargo. Should anyone ask, you were here to discuss lading with me, as the fourth mate of a trading ship ought. Now discover everything to me."

It was not a request. Alan stumbled out the story of his attempted murder, and the reasons he and Ayscough thought might be behind it.

Alan supposed England had spies. Any sensible nation did, and he gathered that Twigg and his partner were the front men for the adventure, the plausible story that would hang together should anyone become inquisitive. The prime movers of this subterfuge.

"Doesn't make any bloody sense." Twigg snapped after a long silence. "Not to take anything away from your abilities, Lewrie, but you're a rather small fish to fry, if someone was intent on delaying our departure. If it's murder they'd stoop to, better me and Tom Wythy, or Ayscough himself. Better a fire in the hold than slay a junior officer. Might have even done us a favor. Given us time to find a more seasoned mariner than you. I've read your records, Lewrie. You've come up hellish fast, considering."

"If I do not please you, sir, perhaps you should," Alan snapped back. It ain't like I'm talking to an admiral, he thought; he's no patron of mine whose back I have to piss down. They can send another man down from the Admiralty and I can hide out in Wheddon Cross with granny for a while until Lord Cantner cools off. Boring as that would be. Maybe coach back to Guildford and stay with the Chiswicks.

"1 would, but for the fact that you rose without too much 'interest' from those above you," Twigg allowed, acting as if he was amused by Alan's irritation with his remarks. "You're not the run-of-the-mill place-seeker, Lewrie. And you have this fascinating talent for snatching victory from the very maw of defeat. For survival. I value that, more so than I do dull-witted competence. It's a talent rarer than pluck and daring, or bravery. Any fool can be brave."