Dewey Lambdin - The King`s Commission

"Lieutenant Lewrie, yes!" he replied. "Svensen, not so loud!"

"Aye, zir, dis be Svensen! Und who be mit you, zir?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake," Alan muttered. "Captain Cashman of the 104th, Mister Cowell, Mister McGilliveray… Svensen, this is supposed to be secret, you know! Not so loud?"

"Vat, zir?" Svensen bellowed loud as the Last Trumpet. "Vat ship I from, zir?"

"Shrike, brig o' war, you noisy bastard!" Alan finally yelled back at full volume. "Now for God's sake, will you shut the hell up, and get your miserable arse ashore this instant!" The sloop swung about, let go her halyards and dropped anchor once she coasted to a stop.

"I'll have the damn fool's guts for garters," Alan promised himself as he motioned for the gig to be launched into the river. Within a minute, he was standing on a ship's deck once more, among his own kind, all of them beaming with relief that a hard and dangerous job was almost over.

"Zorry, L'tent," Svensen said. "But, by damn, ve been not a mile offshore all night, down't' coast here."

"Missed your land-fall in the dark, did you?"

"Aye, zir, 'bout five mile, I't'ink. Vas dark as a cow's arse, it vas, zir," Svensen said with evident relief. "Been vorkin' our vay off shoals und bars, und den der vind, 'bout vun hour ago, on us she die."

"You're here now, that's the important thing," Alan said, clapping him on the arm and forgetting his own promise to nail the ignorant bastard's hide to the main-mast. "Well done, altogether."

"T'ankee, zir!" Svensen expanded with pride. "Gott der cargo ready to hoist out, zir. Dem red-skins, dey gon' take it, zir?"

"Yes, they've agreed to aid us in getting Florida back. They haven't shown yet, but they're on their way, with pack-horses and mules," Alan explained. "I'll get the launch over here and we may begin stacking everything on the shore yonder. On the way down here they also may have picked up some canoes or dugouts from their friends the Seminolee."

"Vundered vat for we gif dem muskets, zir. Ja, ve start!"

The launch butted up alongside a few minutes later, and Alan was surprised that Soft Rabbit was in the boat. She scrambled up over the rail and came to his side, clad only in skirt and blanket. The sight of her beauty, with so much of it on view, made the hands stop their labors dead until Svensen gave the nearest man a kick and yelled at them to hop to it.

She gazed up at the mast, looking around the deck, and he realized that she had never seen such a powerful collection of civilized technology in her life, so far beyond her experience that it might as well be some shaman's magic.

"My ship," Alan said, tapping his chest and waving a hand about the deck possessively. "All mine."

She understood "mine," and looked at him as if he had suddenly stood revealed as a god from her perfect Upper World come down to earth.

"Cony?"

"'Ere I be, sir."

"Thank you for bringing… ah, her, out to the ship."

"My pleasure, sir. Thought she'd like ta see her, sir."

"Please gather up some things for her in a pack. Needles and thread, twine and some scrap sailcloth. What blankets you can find, some cooking implements, too. She'll have to go back to her people."

"Aye, sir, I'll take care of it, sir."

He led her below and aft into the captain's quarters, which were now his again, even if only for a short time. As she gazed amazed and laughing at so much wealth in so small a space, he loaded her up with an embroidered and painted canvas coverlet from the bed-box, the sheets and the blankets, the small round mirror from above the wash-hand stand and the hand-basin, too, some towels, half a dozen pewter plates, cups and bowls, and all the silverware. They tied it up into small bundles that could be strapped across a horse's back for her return journey to the Mus-kogee White Town. There was his sea chest in the same place he had left it, and he opened it to lay out more treasure for her, including a suede purse containing his small change.

"Money," he told her, sorting out and counting the coins for her. "White Turtle will tell you what it's for. Traders, come. You give to traders. Oh, devil take it, you don't understand a word I'm saying."

"Ah-lan," she whispered, setting aside her new wealth. She took his hand and placed it on her stomach. "Mine bebby, you bebby…" She waved a hand at her bundles and gave him a smile that made him feel light-headed, indicating that she understood how much he was giving her and the child to come. She raised his hand to cup one of her breasts, shrugged off her blanket, and smiled impishly at him.

"There's not time for that now," he said, but to no avail, for she turned her head to see if the door was shut, lifted her skirt and stretched out on the bare straw-packed ticken mattress.

"Well, just this last once," he gave in as he looked down at how beautiful she was. "Never let it be said I refused a lady."

He came back on deck about half an hour later, just as true dawn was making itself apparent. Nearly a third of the cargo had been shifted, and was stacked ashore, covered with sailcloth to keep the damp out of the muskets and powder. And still no sign of the Creeks to take delivery of it. Soft Rabbit was still flushed with the last rogering he had given her, now dressed in a loose shirt that came down almost to her knees, cinched in with a kerchief for a sash over her deerskin skirt. Alan had changed back into uniform and had returned his precious hanger to his left hip. Even plain as a lieutenant's uniform was, to her it was cloth of gold, even though she thought that his cocked hat was sort of silly, and laughed at him every time he adjusted it.

"'Bout anudder hour vor de cargo, zir," Svensen told him and knuckled his forehead in salute. "By damn, dat's vun pretty girl, she be, zir! Dey all vas like dat up de river?"

"Most of 'em, Svensen."

"Den by damn I'm zorry I not go mit you, zir. Been to der Cook Islands und to China vunst before de var. Sveetest little girls in der vorld, native girls ist," Svensen said in appreciation. "How long you't'ink ve have to vait on dese fellas?"

"No idea, Svensen. Once the cargo's been off-loaded, get a kedge anchor out, with springs on the kedge and bower," Alan said. "Load the cannon in both batteries."

"Loaded now, zir. Tompions in, vent's covered. Powder be dry, I reckon."

"Round-shot?"

"Round-shot und grape, zir. Didn't know vat to expect in de dark, zir."

"Very good. Light a coil of slow-match now, just in case, and tell off some hands for gunners. Andrews?"

"Yas, suh?"

"Send two men ashore and start dismantling our camp. Bring back everything the Admiralty'd miss. Oh, and see to helping Rabbit… Mrs. Lewrie… gather up my gifts to her and then put them ashore."

"Aye aye, sah."

They took the gig ashore with her gifts, and piled them all in one place for later packing out by horseback. Cashman wandered in from his picket line out at the edge of the trees and tipped his hat to them, which made Rabbit giggle and point to his cocked hat.

"She thinks they're hilarious, Kit." Alan shrugged. "Don't ask me why. Everything quiet so far?"

"So far so good," he agreed. "I've brought my pickets in from the marshes to a close perimeter 'bout fifty yards out. With this mist, that's 'bout as long a shot as we'll get. McGilliveray's warriors are further out, huntin' sign of their people, far's I know. You hear owls hootin' he tells me, that'll be them comin' back in. Well, damn my eyes if we didn't pull it off after all, me lad! Tis all over but the shoutin' at this point. Your crew see any Dagoes out to sea?"

"Not one sail in all that time. Almost uncannily easy."

"Knock on wood," Cashman said, grinning and rapping his knuckles on the butt of his fusil. He then strolled back towards the perimeter.

The cargo was finally off-loaded completely, the sloop swung about to direct its fire up-river, or overhead of the camp on the sand-spit to the marshes and swamps. The day dragged on until it was time for dinner, and the hands ceased their labors for "clear decks and up spirits" from a small puncheon of rum brought ashore for them. Rabbit and the other girls had a small fire going, and were almost ready to ladle out more bowls of the eternal sofkee, mixed with some dried venison they had been steeping in a pot of water. There was also some salt-meat from the sloop's galley, and biscuit.

The Indian girls looked up first, their ears more attuned to an odd sound than the whites. Owls were not known to hunt so close to the coast, or call anywhere in daylight.

"That'll be the Creek scouts coming back in," McGilliveray said. Cashman's troops were all back at the sand-spit by then, for the fogs had burned off or been blown away by a new day's sea breeze, and they were too exposed out by the edge of the marshes. Other than a few who stood guard from covert hides in the saw grass and palmettoes at the top of the beach, they were all queuing up for their rum and tucker.

"They're in a damned hurry if they are," Cashman said, going for his weapons. "Sarn't, stand to! Form, form open skirmish order!"

The Creek warriors came out of the woods at a dead run, first one who clutched his side where an arrow had pierced him, and then the last two, looking back over their shoulders as they ran as a rearguard for the wounded man.

Not a full minute after they stumbled into camp, a solid pack of painted and feathered warriors came loping out of the trees and across the shallow marsh.

"Apalachee!" McGilliveray shouted. "The bastards!"

"Take 'em under fire, sor?" the sergeant asked Cashman.

"Stand by…"

"No, Cashman!" Cowell pleaded. "We don't know why they chased these lads. They could have tried to raid the Apalachee just for the fun of it, they do that all the time. If we fire we might destroy whatever good will we've built here!"

"No, Mister Cowell, they're going to fight us," McGilliveray countered.

"Fire!" Cashman ordered, and the fusils cracked even as the first Apalachee arrows came arcing down among them with a sizzling rush.

There were some shrill screams as the leading warriors were hit and knocked down, and the rest checked their headlong rush and began to weave back and forth among the reeds in the marsh, leaping up as targets to draw fire, or dropping out of sight after they got off an arrow or a cane spear from one of their throwers. They seemed to dart forward and then fall back as if frightened of their own audacity, running in circles like the practice of a Spanish tiercio of pistoleers on horseback.

Alan ran to his fusil, which had been leaning on the cargo, and checked his priming. He took aim at a warrior in a bone-armor vest and let fly as the man paused to nock an arrow. The man whooped in pain as Alan's shot took him in the belly and the Indian dropped into the marsh out of sight with a great, muddy splash.

"Svensen!" Alan called over his shoulder to the sloop not sixty yards to his rear in the river. "Lay a gun on these bastards and shoot at the largest pack of them!"

An arrow whickered by him with a thrumming sound and he flinched as he pulled his weapon back to half-cock and began to load, rapping the butt on the nearest crate to settle the load after he had bitten off the cartouche and poured the powder in. Another arrow zhooped past his head, and his cocked hat went sailing off somewhere aft. Rabbit was kneeling near him behind the crates, and went to fetch it for him. She came back just as he stood up and shot another running man down in mid-stride, and as he sensibly knelt to load out of sight this time, she gave a blood-thirsty smile of encouragement, whooping in glee.