Free Galleon by Dudley Pope

Dons,” growled a man sitting next to Fraser. “‘No peace beyond the Line’ they say. They drew the damn’ Line and we’re the wrong side of it. Tell the Pope to scribble it out. Until he does, we need an Army and we need a Navy – or the buccaneers.”
    “Tell them,” Thomas prompted Luce. “Tell ’em what the Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations have decided about the buccaneers. The fourth item on your agenda.”
    “Sir Thomas,” Luce said severely, “unless you stop addressing your Governor in that insulting tone of voice, I shall adjourn this council meeting.”
    “Have you ever seen a flustered cook throwing water over a pan of blazing fat?” Thomas asked conversationally. “In a few seconds she has the whole kitchen blazing. You’ve taken away their Army and now you’re taking away what passes for their Navy. And,” he added heavily, “those gentlemen in London are taking away their island. No–” he shook his head sadly, “–no one is going to invite you in for a rum punch.”
    As Luce sat open-mouthed, Ned stood up and slapped Thomas on the back. “Well, m’lord bishop, we can’t waste the evening gossiping, so let’s not take up any more of His Excellency’s time.”
    With that he led the way to the door, hearing several voices agreeing with him and chairs scraping as they were pushed back.
     
    “Yes,” Diana said, “you were both very witty at poor Sir Harold Loosely’s expense, but he won the battle.”
    “What do you mean?” Thomas said irritably, reaching across the table for the onion-shaped bottle of rum. “We told him exactly what we thought of him!”
    “But the Army is still going to be disbanded and paid off, and all your commissions are cancelled,” Aurelia pointed out. “You didn’t make him change his mind.”
    “We couldn’t,” Ned said, “because it’s not up to him. He’d been ordered to pay off the Army and cancel our commissions before leaving London. He can’t change anything.”
    “Do you think he would – or at least try to persuade the ministers in London?”
    “Sir Harold wears a wig,” Ned said unexpectedly. “He’s not used to wearing a wig. And his head itches. What does that tell us? Why, that his hair is still growing out. He was a Roundhead! Until the Restoration, he had his hair cropped in the fashionable Cromwell style. As soon as Albemarle put the King on the throne, Loosely (and many like him) put wigs on their heads to hide their revealing and now unfashionable ‘Roundhead’ hairstyle. Hair takes a long time to grow and itches in the process. Wigs are particularly uncomfortable in the Tropics. Now, what was I saying? Ah yes, Sir Harold is concerned only with the survival and glorification – and enrichment – of Sir Harold Luce. Like all governors sent out to the Plantations, he sees the job as an opportunity to fill his purse and start an apprenticeship which will eventually let him get his foot on the lowest rung of the peerage with a barony…it’s the only way such people can make ‘ladies’ of their wives, you know.”
    “All of which,” Diana said, “means he’s no help to the people of Jamaica or the buccaneers.”
    “Bravo,” Thomas said, “you’ve arrived at last. Old Loosely has probably taken off his wig and is dictating a despatch this very moment to tell his Council in London that he’s had to dissolve the executive council after a few hours because everyone was nasty to him and that in future he will govern the island by decree.”
    “Until the Spanish arrive to take possession,” Ned added.
    “Exactly. ‘Ah yes’ Loosely realizes now that he’s just the caretaker before the handing over.”
    “Caretaker in a haunted house,” Aurelia said unexpectedly.
    “Indeed, but the people haunting him at today’s meeting were real enough.”
    Thomas refilled his glass, setting down the bottle with a bang. “Still, apart from those two would-be slave traders, most of the merchants were on our