The rest had been anti-climactic, a stroll through a parkland. The siege guns came up, the army marched on Cape Town, and word came that the Dutch governor of the Cape, Van Prophelow, would negotiate. In sign of that, he allowed Fort Knocke to be occupied, and Lewrie’s party could boil up salt rations in the shelter of the fort’s courtyard, marvelling at the number and great calibres of the guns mounted there. On the morning of the 10th of January, Van Prophelow formally surrendered, and the enemy general they had defeated, Jannsens, who had retreated with the remnants of his army to Holland’s Hottentot Kloof, surrendered as well.

They were idle all the next day, but took part in the victory parade into Cape Town itself on the 12th, found that all the taverns and eateries that Lewrie fondly remembered were open for business, and that Dutch beers flowed freely at the cost of only a few pence.

Lt. Westcott did ask if Lewrie also knew the locations of the best brothels, but that knowledge was ten years out of date, and he would have to fend for himself!

If there was anything to mar their merry jaunt, it was a confrontation with Captain Byng of Belliqueux, who was irked that he’d been counting on all landed sailors and Marines to help get the siege guns and carriages ashore, and Lewrie had run off on his own to play a game of soldiers, very loosely mis-interpreting his orders!

“You’ve a name for scraping, Lewrie, so I can understand why you dashed off for more derring-do, but you can’t have fun all the time,” Byng had chid him, and that not all that sternly, “now and then, you must join in at the onerous pulley-hauley with the rest of us!”

*   *   *

That reverie made Lewrie smile, and Chalky’s arrival in his lap, then onto his chest, made him open his eyes. He took another sip of wine, and then it was back to routine. Yeovill was announced and given leave to enter the cabins to make the arrangements for the supper for all officers and Mids not on Harbour Watch that evening. Guinea fowl from shore would be one course, ham for another, some fresh-caught yellowtail would be the fish course, and beef steaks would complete it. There would be baked rolls, boiled maize and garden peas, snap beans and sauteed onions, and dessert would be strawberries and cream over pound cake.

“Am I allowed ashore with the Purser tomorrow, sir, I can have a wider selection,” Yeovill boasted, as if his best efforts would not be up to his standards that evening. “What little I saw in the local markets today, well! What a selection of East Indian spices, and the sauces the Malays and Hindoos who live hereabouts make!”

“Aye, it appears that Cape Town ain’t just the ‘tavern of the seas’, but the pantry as well,” Lewrie agreed. “Carry on, Yeovill, and surprise me tomorrow night.”

“Do my best, sir!” he promised.

A Marine sentry guarded his cabin door again, and that worthy stamped boots, slammed his musket on the deck, and shouted, “First Officer, SAH!”

“Enter,” Lewrie called out, sitting up a bit more.

Lt. Westcott entered, looking natty and clean in his freshly-laundered clothing, but with his inevitable sheaf of paperwork.

“A glass of something for you, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked.

“A Rhenish, if you’d be so kind, sir,” Westcott said, baring one of his brief, savage grins. Lewrie waved him to a seat by the settee. “I have made a tentative change or two to the muster book, sir, to compensate for the men Discharged, Dead. Our wounded are at present being tended ashore by the Army surgeons, but look fair to heal up and return to us … if only on light duties for a week or so afterwards. Mister Mainwaring will surely request a chance to go ashore and see to them.”

“He’ll also wish t’palaver with strange, new ‘saw-bones’,” Lewrie said with a snicker. “Must be a lonely lot, a surgeon on a warship, with no contact with others in his trade for months and months on end. And, I’m certain that Mainwaring will also wish to re-stock his dispensary ashore. He’ll be free to take a boat with the Purser, any time he wishes, tell him.”

“Aye, sir,” Westcott said, nodding as he ticked off one item of his report. “Ehm … once we’ve re-stocked the ship, there will be the matter of liberty. Will it be shore liberty, or should we put the ship Out Of Discipline for a day or two, and let the doxies and bum-boatmen aboard, sir?”

“I’ll speak with Commodore Popham tomorrow on that subject,” Lewrie promised. “As I said earlier, now we own the Cape Colony, and our troops garrison and patrol the town, shore liberty should be of as little risk of desertion as any island port.”

He stifled a sudden yawn, a real jaw-cracker.

I might not stay awake long enough t’dine my guests in! Lewrie thought; Go face-down in the soup if I do? The last few days’ve been a lot more strenuous than I thought. Damme, am I gettin’ … old? A nap ’twixt now and then is definitely in order!

“All the hands have settled back in, sir,” Westcott told him, “though the people left aboard are jealous. There’s quite a trade in looted items for cash, or promised shares in the rum ration.”

“No one managed t’smuggle any new pets aboard, did they? No bush-babies, mongooses?” Lewrie asked.

“Mongeese, sir?” Westcott said with a smirk. “No, sir, we saw to that. We’ll have to keep a sharp eye, though, when the bum-boatmen traders come out to the ship … with or without the whores. In the markets we saw, there were quite a lot of colourful caged birds. Do we allow the men shore liberty, they’ll surely try to come back with something amusing.”

“Well, caged birds maybe, but I draw the line at monkeys,” Lewrie said, laughing, welcoming Pettus as he came with the wine bottle to top them both up. “Shore liberty’d be best, all round, I believe, and I’ll argue for it. The men who stayed aboard will be sullen if they’re not allowed a chance t’see all that our landing party did. Have enough hot water for decent baths, and their clothes laundered in something besides salt water?”

“Lastly, sir, there’s our … stowaway, Private Dodd,” the First Officer said in a softer voice, as if some Army officer was listening. “We will have to make arrangements with his unit.”

Their “shanghaied” waggoner, Private Dodd, had found the issue of rum twice a day, with a gallon of small beer allowed for every man per day as well, just too enticing. He had been trained with the musket, and had “square-bashed” before being shuffled off into a transport company, and had shyly offered his services to Lt. Simcock as a replacement in the Marine complement.

“They’ll stop his pay and tell his kinfolk that he deserted or went missing in battle if we don’t, sir,” Westcott said, with a brow up.

“I know, I know,” Lewrie groused. “That’ll be one more task for me t’deal with. I’ll go ashore tomorrow and speak with his commanding officer. I hope they’ll let him go. If not, perhaps we could trade one of our worst lubbers for him. Anyone in mind, right off?” he asked Westcott.

“What, sir?” Lt. Westcott hooted in mirth. “Take a perfectly good sailor and hand him over to the misery of being a redcoat? Perish the thought, sir!”

“Well, I made them all into redcoats, for a few days,” Lewrie said, laughing along with him.

“Aye, sir, and I won’t be the same man ’til I’ve had a new pair of boots made, or my old ones re-soled,” Westcott said, shaking his head. “Who’d be a soldier, hey, sir?”

“Who’d be a soldier, indeed, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie agreed.

“I think that is all for today, sir,” Westcott told him. “I believe the biggest concerns for the next few days will be the victualling and watering to Mister Cadbury’s content.” He shuffled his papers one last time as if looking for a topic he’d forgotten, then got to his feet. “I will take my leave, sir.”