A King's Trade (41 page)

”
Thought
it sounded a touch daft,” Lewrie replied.

“Machtig
God,” du Toit exclaimed, “those people tell that fool van der Merwe that is what they plan? They pay him good money for him as guide? You never see
them
again,
Kaptein
Lewrie.
Rooinek
idiots…even so, I feel sorry for them.”

“What
is
a
rooinek,
Mister du Toit?” Lewrie felt pressed to ask, though the picture of Arslan Durschenko being gnawed down to splinters
was
intriguing.

“Ah…
rooineck
in Cape Dutch means ‘red neck,'
Kaptein,”
his guide matter-of-factly decyphered, well, perhaps with a tiny touch of arch amusement in his eyes. “Your British soldiers come here, we see their tight red collars…the colour they turn in the sun, too, you see? What we say, instead of British. More
biltong?”

“No thankee, I've eat sufficient,” Lewrie replied, thinking it odd that he wasn't offended. “Uhm, what is
biltong
made of, then? It puts me in mind of venison or beef ‘jerky,' as the American Indians I met called it, but…”

“Ja,
it is any kind of game meat,” du Toit told him, though he seemed suddenly distracted, moved very slowly and carefully, and felt behind him for his musket, his eyes fixed on something beyond. “Cape buffalo, old cow, anything.”

“Smoked?” Lewrie asked.

“Dried in the sun, maybe with nets to keep the bugs off. Get your musket ready,
myhneer…
slowly,” du Toit instructed in a harsh whisper. “Take the reins of your horse, too…gently, and do not spook him before the crocodiles do, if you wish to
ride
back to camp.”

“Croc…?” Lewrie gawped, fighting the urge to whirl about and shout something nigh to “Holy Shit!”

His horse had drunk its fill, and had grazed over to some green grass, so it never even noticed the crocodile, as big as a Louisianan's cypress-log
pirogue,
that had stealthily slunk off the far bank of the stream about a musket-shot above them, and had let itself be wafted by the faint current to close pistol-shot, only its horny-scaled head and eyes visible.

“Rub ‘em with spices?” Lewrie asked, once they were saddled up and paced out of snapping distance.

“Crocodile?” du Toit gawped, turning to look quizzically at him.

”
Biltong,”
Lewrie said.

“Some do.”

“Cheap, is it?”

“Very cheap,
myhneer
”, du Toit replied.

“Might make a nice change from salt-meat junk aboard my ship,” Lewrie speculated. “And, I've my two cats to feed. Does it keep long?”

“Months,
Kaptein.”

“Better and better!” Lewrie enthused. “But it by the bale, I'd expect. By the hundredweight. Soak it in water….”

“You can add it to
bredies,
soups, stews …” du Toit suggested. “But,
myhneer…
why buy, when you can shoot your own, and I can dry it for you…for a very cheap price, that is,” he added, with an avariciously sly grin. “We start now,
Kaptein.
Small herd of steenbok…there,” he whispered, pointing at something only he could see, at about half a mile or so, for Lewrie couldn't spot them at all. “Get up close, leave the horses, and…creep up
there,”
du Toit decided, after licking a finger to determine the direction of the wind. “Take one each, we will have a nice small roast, tonight, and cousin Andries's
kaffirs
can prepare you the rest as
biltong
in two days. Hundredweight, as you say, between the pair. And steenbok doe is
tender. Ja?”

I
knew
he was another damn' “cousin”!
Lewrie told himself.

“Might need a third for the hands' supper,” Lewrie speculated.

“I have second musket,” du Toit smugly told him, patting a scabbard under his saddle. “Three steenbok it could be. We try?”

“Aye, let's!” Lewrie agreed with a feral grin.

The brace of steenbok didn't cause the sensation in camp, that evening— surprisingly, du Toit had missed with his second shot, once the steenbok had been startled into great springing bounds and leaps, and darting evasions at the crack of musket fire—rather it was the crocodile tail-meat that they'd fetched in, once they'd decided to go back and bag it, after all.

Lewrie and his guide had both shot it in the head at the same time, within two inches of each other, so the skull was ruined for a trophy, but the largest teeth were still impressive, as was the still-moist hide. The black waggoners, bearers, and cooks had sprung on it, to stake it out for drying in the sun, along with the steenboks they had field-dressed, and one of them swore he could string those teeth into a quite nice necklace, if
baas
Lewrie wished…heathen, savage but nice.

Along with the slices of roast steenbok, there were treats that the
burghers
and women of Simon's Town had come to sell, now that they were over their “sulks” at
rooineks
camping out too near their proper and tidy Boer settlement, and helping themselves to part of the wreck that was theirs by right.

They vended more
bredies
and mutton
boboties,
more Sumatran or Javanese
satays,
along with piping-hot fresh breads and syrupy sweet baked
koeksisters
or pies. Along with the viands, though, so Lewrie learned, there had come strong
and hearty Dutch beer, some local rum, some of the rawer sort of Cape wines, and that gin-clear Dutch peril, that “tangle-tongue”
akavit.

“Sound a tad
too
me-hearty, Mister Pendarves?” Lewrie scoffed, once he got the Bosun off to one side for a heart-to-heart. The last thing he needed, with the ship's hands off ashore and given much ease from their unremitting daily schedule, was too much drink. Riot and mutiny were the worst he could expect; the
least
would be people kept on such strict spirit rations drinking themselves into insensibility, and uselessness on the morrow, given the slightest opportunity.

“That Mister Goosen, and Mister de Witt, told the locals that they'd best not get ‘em
too
hot, sir,” Pendarves cautiously laid out in his own defence. “Small bottles an' such, an' Mister Gamble an' I been keepin' a wary eye on th' trade, too, sir.”

“God above, Mister Pendarves,” Lewrie spat, “to the Dutch, it's a patriotic
duty
t'fuddle their occupiers! Without the Master-At-Arms and Ship's Corporals, the Marines, they'll go witless if they get even a
touch
drunk!”

“Can't keep th' men from all spirits, sir,” Pendarves pointed out, “beggin' yer pardon, an' all. Half a pint o' beer with supper, a tot o' wine ‘stead o' their reg'lar rum issue…well, maybe
along
with th' rum, but…me an' Mister Gamble warned ‘em, stern, Cap'm. Anybody gets rowdy, ‘tis my good right fist he'll be eatin'. Along with ‘is teeth! They don't have much coin, sir, an' th' Dutch don't give credit, so they couldn't buy all that much. Besides, what little the Dutchies brung, they're chargin' an arm and a leg for, so most o' our lads can't
afford
a good drunk, An' the Dutchies camped out near us ain't of a mind t'share, like, Cap'm.”

“You've had no trouble, then?” Lewrie wondered aloud, dubious, but slightly relieved by what he'd heard so far.

“Well, we did have a couple o' fights, sir,” Pendarves admitted, looking cutty-eyed, “but…Mister Gamble jumped ‘tween ‘em before it got outta hand, an' said, did they want t'fight, do it proper, an' form a ring for ‘em. Referee an' all, and wagers laid, so it turned more a…
sportin'
show, sir.”

“How did the fights turn out, then?” Lewrie asked, snickering, and revising his already-good opinion of his oldest Midshipman a little higher.

“Both ended in draws, sir,” Pendarves told him, with a twinkle in his eyes. “Not much damage done, and I gave ‘em all a good duckin' in th' surf, after. Then swore to ‘em they'd be doin' th' most work, come mornin', an' the same'd go for anyone who got so drunk that I took notice, sir.”

“My compliments to Mister Gamble, and to you, Mister Pendarves,” Lewrie said, satisfied by their bare-knuckled solution. “Just be sure you prowl about
before ‘Lights Out,' and see them bedded down properly…and
mostly
sober, hear me?”

“Aye aye, sir!”

“Carry on, then, Mister Pendarves,” Lewrie said, before heading off to his own tent for a scrub-down, and a hot supper.

I
t took far longer than anyone's rosy estimates, but the work at last was done. The massive rudder and sternpost of the
Lord Clive
was off, the bronze fittings, bolts, elm dowels, and bearding strips labelled with paint and itemised for later use, and everything packed up in the waggons. It was a well-fed, sun-bronzed, and much-refreshed working-party of tars that slowly trundled back into the outskirts of Kaapstad, the unsprung waggons clattering, axles squealing, and ox teams farting and lowing.

Goosen's chandlery would receive the reclaimed materials into a beachfront works yard, where both Lewrie's specialist petty officers, and their crews, and
yet another
set of cousins—Paul Riebeck, who was reputed to be a skilled carpenter, and his metal-working brother Hendrik—would set up their forges, anvils, and tools to assist the hands off
Proteus
in cutting down, shaping, and planing the
Lord Clive
rudder down, and manufacturing new bronze and iron fittings.

All that for a “most reasonable fee,” it went without saying!

Lewrie turned things over to Midshipman Gamble and Mr. Pendarves, sure that “cousin” Andries de Witt knew the way to that works yard with his eyes shut, and for them to send word to the ship that they were now back. Turning his horse aside, Lewrie rode up the steep, curving road of the Lion's Rump to the tidy farm cottage where his wounded men were recuperating.

“All's well?” he asked their
émigré
French Surgeon's Mate, Mr. Maurice Durant, who came out to greet him on the windswept slopes.

“Three hands are still poorly, Captain,” Durant said with a most Gallic shrug as they stepped into the shade of the deep galleries that fronted each side of the rented farmhouse. “Suppuration from the oiled oak splinters that caused their wounds, I am sorry to say. The rest are still too stiff for even light duties, I am also sorry to relate, sir, but they are healing.”

“And Whitbread?” Lewrie enquired about one of his Black sailors.

“Quel dommage,
he has gone away from us, Captain,” Durant sadly related, reverting to the old French expression for death. “Lieutenant Langlie was informed, and saw to his burying…well-wrapped in a canvas shroud,
n'est-ce pas?”
he said with a conspiratorial wink and nod. “That young English rector suspected nozzing, and now Samuel Whitbread is interr-ed beside his shipmates and fellow escapees, poor fellow. A great pity, though…now, there are only seven of the Black fellows left from your humanitarian gesture, Captain.”

“Nine,” Lewrie insisted as Durant helped him dip an oak bucket of water from a butt on the gallery porch for his horse.

“Non,
Captain…seven,” Durant corrected, as if it was of no matter. “The lean, young marksman who calls himself Rodney? And, the one who calls himself Groome, who tried to ride the sham zebras? They have run, Lieutenant Langlie tells me.”

“Run?” Lewrie snapped. “Deserted? Mine arse on a….!”

“The
cirque…
the circus people who go into the wilds,” Durant calmly went on, offering Lewrie a copper dipper of water, too. “Groome and Rodney were ashore on liberty when the circus party departed, but they never return to the ship. I gather, from what Lieutenant Langlie learn, that they had hung about the circus menagerie, and talk often to
M'sieur
Wigmore and their guide, a local Boer….”

“Van der Merwe!” Lewrie spat.

“Ship's cook, he tell Lieutenant Langlie that several wish-ed to be in circus, Captain,” Durant said with another fatalistic shrug. “Groome believe-ed he could be elephant tamer or rider, handle horses and
real
zebras …even be an actor, if they do Shakespeare's
Othello.
Rodney, he say he is the crack shot, good as any, and wish to shoot the great beasts of Africa, his native land, after all. Perhaps perform in circus with guns, like Mistress Eudoxia. Lion tamer, Durschenko…?”

”
Him!
Aye?” Lewrie growled, drinking off half of the dipper and swirling the rest to rinse it, before heaving the rest over the railing.

“Before he injure his eye,
he
was the crack shot,
aussi,
he tell me,” Durant went on, as if desertion was an everyday occurrence, nothing to get exercised about, for it had nothing to do with his specialties. “He come to me, when he
learn I was once the physician trained in Paris, to see if his eye was hopeless.
Quel dommage,
there is nozzing anyone may do to restore his sight, but…”