A King`s Commander l-7

by Dewey Lambdin

  Dolorous as the crew had been when they'd anchored at Leghorn, Lewrie had known… as Mister Howse never would… that sailors were a resilient lot. Beaten and terrorized as they'd been with Choundas close-aboard, they'd stood game, ready to dare to the last. Stubborn pride, courage… fear of letting mates down, revenge for the fallen friends, or that ineffable spirit of English sailors that their ship would win, that their Jester, their home, would never strike. That had been what kept them from falling apart, then. And what would save them now. A great deal of physical labor, beginning with stripping her down to the fighting tops and gant lines, hoisting out artillery, shot, powder, and stores to float her onto a careenage shore so they could scorch off the weed on her bottom, chip off barnacles, search for rot and missing copper. Physical labor took their minds off fell musings.

  A long-delayed distribution of a portion of the prize money they had earned had helped. That, and the chance for a spell ashore, while Jester was uninhabitable, and days Out of Discipline once she was back afloat, so they could caterwaul and carouse their way back to feeling like men who were unbeatable.

  Poxed, some might have been, staggering dizzily with their teeth gone gray from the Mercury Cure, which no matter Howse's lofty disdain fetched him fifteen shillings per sufferer, but they were still Jesters.

  Floating catamaran work-stages alongside, bosun's chairs or wood trestles slung overboard so they could paint and tar, a perceptive ear could ascertain that they were working cheerfully. Fiddle and fife played to divert them. Hands near the great-cabin's quarter galleries chatted and joshed one another. Cursing the bosun, of course, for putting them to such a messy chore, for tar stains and paint splotches on even their worst old slop trousers. Which was about all they wore at the moment, rolled to their knees. The scuttlebutts were kept full and handy for all, the amount of thirst-slaking water unrationed for once. Mister Giles, with only mild objections to the expense, supplied small-beer in liberal amounts. There was fresh food come from shore almost every day, along with the tons of chandlers' goods.

  Lewrie sat down to read it over, again, mind-boggled that he had been allowed so much, that Udney and the local Admiralty shore agent at Leghorn were so prodigal with Navy funds. Well, almost prodigal, Alan thought with a rare grin; the prices local chandlers charged were downright sinful, and limited the largesse he might take aboard.

  New canvas and thread, new rope cable for standing rigging, and running rigging, new replacement masts and spars-all Tuscan pine or Levant cedar-of the highest, best-seasoned quality. Tar, turpentine, pitch, white-lead, and copper to pay the bottom with barnacle-poisoning, weed-killing lead over canvas and felt, thin sheet-copper to seal that so Jester would be as smooth as a baby's arse, and slip across the sea like a thoroughbred once more. Timber and planking of the best Adriatic oak to replace smashed or wormed hull members and blown-in bulwarks.

  And paint, Lewrie gagged again, as the breeze shifted, bringing the heavy odor into his day-cabin. He threw his quill pen on the desk and leaned back in his chair, recalling what a captain outfitting back home in an English port had written the Admiralty, once he'd received the usual, meager, ration of paint from HM Dockyards:

  "Which side of the ship do you wish me to do, sirs?" Alan asked the echoing cabins, with a faint chuckle.

  Toulon came slinking in from up forrud, low to the deck, imitating a caterpillar, with a distressed, grumpy trilling yowl, on a beeline for Lewrie's lap. Where, once ensconced, he could make his strongest complaints over some new cat-galling disaster. Rather loudly!

  "Poor puss, what's got you…?" Alan cooed. His hand came off Toulon's hindquarters wet with dull red inboard-bulwarks paint, which was used to disguise bloodstains. "Christ, you clumsy litFun. You've put your tail in the paint pot? Aspinall?" "Sir?"

  "Fetch a cloth, 'fore it dries on him. Might need one dipped in turpentine, too. No, Toulon, don't lick it… God…!"

  There was a pair of kerseymere breeches that had seen their last Day Watch, Lewrie sighed; a good shirt, too, if I'm not…

  "I'll ask Mister Cony, sir," Aspinall vowed. "Back in a trice." Mister Cony. With Porter gone, Will Cony had risen to bosun, and Able Seaman Sadler, one of the old Cockerels from the times at Toulon had become bosun's mate. Just as Mister Crewe was now the acting master gunner, Yeoman of the Powder Room Hogge was gunner's mate, and the Prussian Rahl was acting yeoman. Another Cockerel, Preston, had become quarter-gunner, though Lewrie wasn't sure that Rahl's eye for gunnery wasn't wasted below, in the magazines. "Cap'um clerk, Mister Mountjoy… Sah!"

  "Enter," Lewrie snapped, trying to hold Toulon still and not get paint-stained until Aspinall returned.

  "Letter's come aboard for you, sir," Mountjoy announced. He coughed into his fist, looking cutty-eyed to all corners. More softly he added, "and this, too, sir. From your, uhm… banker? He's ashore and wishes permission to come aboard."

  "Sergeant Bootheby to muster his Marines, Mister Mountjoy," Lewrie growled, opening Twigg's note first, no matter how he hated doing that; it was official, after all. "Full 'bullock' kit, red tunics and pipe-clay. We'll execute him by musketry, at the taffrail, а la Admiral Byng."

  "Can… can you do that, sir?" Mountjoy gaped. "Should, I mean." "No, but I can wish, sir." Alan sighed futilely. "Very well… tell the devious bastard he may come aboard. A tradesman's welcome, do you inform the harbor watch. No honors."

  Aspinall returned, to take Toulon from him and carry him off to the pantry for a cleaning with some dishcloths moistened with turpentine. "Well I'm damned…" Lewrie whispered as he opened the second. It was from Signorina Claudia Mastandrea!

  He'd gotten several supportive, kindly letters from her, and her keeper Senator Marcello di Silvano. He'd sent the senator the expected "thankee" for his invitation, with apologies for missing the ball that followed. Twigg's doing, damn his eyes! Maybe just as well, though…? Claudia's first note had been just before Jester sailed, and more than the usual social obligation to a new acquaintance; so pleased she met him, sorry we missed our promised dance, do forgive the forwardness and blah-blah-blah… But laden with so much double meaning, that she might have rewarded him with more than one turn around the floor, that he still must allow her to show him that map, that collection… those treasures? That there should be perfect freedom between them? Hmm…

  After the battle with Choundas, another brace of letters. The one from Signore di Silvano so outraged that he was being smeared with such a scurrillous set of lies; promises to get to the bottom of it and refute them, in concert with Drake and Nelson; how di Silvano had spoken to his fellow senators and the Doge, would use his every good office to maintain Genoese neutrality, and independence. That Lewrie should consider him a friend, with many mutual, historical interests to discuss when he returned from Leghorn.

  Claudia's though… it was almost tearful, that a good and decent man had been falsely accused, and her remorse that Genoa was so ungrateful to him. A stronger hint, concerning her high regard, her inability to get him out of her mind, a wistfulness…? Hmm…

  Now, this'un:

  … patron travels to Leghorn and Florence on family and commercial affairs, and I must confess I have conspired to accompany him. Though once in the city we will be too little together most days, and a great many evenings, for he will be much upon the town and so very busy, while I languish. Many evenings he must attend the rich and prominent in their homes or at the theaters, accompanied by their wives and children, to which I am not invited though his hosts, being substantial men, covertly maintain their own convenient, pleasing, and similar "fictions"?

  "Hmm, hmm, hmm!" Lewrie harrumphed, feeling a stirring, in spite of himself, in his nether regions.

  Though our acquaintance has been so brief thus far, I am constantly mindful of you, and struck by how warm is my regard. How often I muse that after knowing you much better, I could not form a more perfect appraisal and appreciation of your fine qualities. Marcello will invite you ashore soon, to renew his buddin
g friendship. Do please accept, so you and I may renew our own. Further, should the needs of your ship allow, you will then be free to call upon me while we are in Leghorn, or inform me of a shore residence you may use, so we may dine…

  Would it not taste pretty much like lead paint or turpentine, he felt badly in need of a glass of something for "Dutch Courage," at that very moment. "To dine intime, well, well… just the two of us, alone?

  Lewrie brooded, it must be admitted on his behalf, on past error. And they were legion. Whenever he'd been so idle, so out of sorts, and so sunk in the "Blue Devils." So close to shore, and all its allures. Betty Hillwood, Dolly Fenton, Lady Delia Cantner, Soft Rabbit, Phoebe… and a host of others whose names he'd forgotten, if not their charms.

  More than two months since Alassio Bay, staying aboard most of the time, or in communal shore lodgings while Jester had been careened and empty. Male-only suppers, park strolls, the opera that was in Italian and wasn't meant to be understood, anyway, or concerts where the music didn't puzzle overly much, with Knolles, Mountjoy, Buchanon, or the midshipmen as unwitting chaperons. Then back aboard sober, alone…

  But what was good for the geese was good for the gander. He'd let the hands have their ruts, so why not…?

  No, damme… in enough bloody trouble already, ain't I, he told himself sadly, turning her note over and over in his fingers; should I start again, I'll make a pig of meself. He did espy, and quickly take to memory, the carefully written return address, however. Duty, refit… so little time? Well, I have to write her, o' course, to beg off…? Fig-- piglet-teats-bouncers-God, stop me 'fore I tup again!

  "Mister Silberberg is without, sir," Mountjoy interrupted.

  "Have the vicious, two-faced fart come in, then, Mister Mountjoy," Lewrie barked in a quarterdeck voice loud enough for Twigg to hear beyond on the gun deck. And slipped the too-tempting note from Signo-rina Mastandrea into the middle drawer of his desk. "And fetch me poor old Toulon, soon's he's paint-free… th' widdle darlin'…" Lewrie said with a sudden surge of spite.

  "How very clever, Lewrie," Twigg/Silberberg whispered, feigning amusement, though pale with sullen anger.

  "So good to see you again, Mister Silberberg. And how's me shares doin', hey?" Alan chortled. "You'll pardon me if I don't rise."

  "You press me too far, sir!" Twigg hissed, but softly. "I vow you'll overreach someday, to your regret!"

  "Pretty much what I thought of you, sir," Lewrie whispered in return. "After you damn near got my arse knackered. Four dead, four crippled.

  Like the score so far, do you… Mister Silberberg? Press me too far… someday, and…" Alan shrugged, flashing a toothy grin.

  "We need to talk, sir. Privately," Twigg instructed, tossing his head to the pantry, where Aspinall hummed and crooned over Toulon to gentle him. "You and I. No others."

  "And what about him?" Lewrie asked, his notice drawn to a side of beef in a dark suit who had accompanied Twigg aboard. "Feel need of bodyguarding, sir? A fine ox-carcass you've hired, I must say."

  "Here 'e be, sir, good'z new, I reckon," Aspinall announced as he fetched the cat back. "Got all 'at paint off 'im, I did, sir. He weren't fond o' th' scrubbin', though."

  Toulon was set upon the desktop, fluffed up with insult, tail bottled up and lashing. He would have finished washing his flank all by himself, but for the odor, and the presence of strangers. With a mean-spirited growl and hiss, ears laid back-which made Twigg pale even more and cringe far back in his chair-Toulon leapt away to go hide under something, where he could sulk in private, carping to cat-gods of how abused his pride was, how unfair Life's Portion.

  "That'll be all, Aspinall," Lewrie said. "Go on deck, if you please. We'll fetch our own glasses. You, too, Mister Mountjoy."

  "Yes, sir," Mountjoy replied, mournful that he wasn't included this time.

  "Now, sir. What do you and I have to discuss, private or otherwise?" Lewrie asked, rising to open the wine cabinet for them. Brandy was too good, he thought; let 'em drink this cheap Dago red!

  "You failed, Lewrie. Failed me." Twigg began, swiveling about to keep his eyes on him.

  "Not for want of trying, sir. Or have you not noticed how bad Jester was knocked about? Didn't know you'd whistle him up quite that quickly, else I would have swallowed my pride and requested Meleager to stay seaward with me."

  "Then he'd have never dared, sir," Twigg snapped impatiently as he accepted a glass, a pour, and tossed his wine back. He made a face, lurching back as if he'd been poisoned, and eyeing Lewrie hellish-sharp, as if he wouldn't put poison past him!

  "You, sir?" Lewrie asked of the hulking stranger, so tanned and fit, so martial in his carriage. "Whoever you are?"

  "Yes, sir, thankee," the apparition spoke at last, taking wine and sipping at it, showing no trace of disappointment with its taste.

  "One of my associates, Lewrie," Twigg grumbled. "A most competent fellow. Ex-Household Cavalry. Allow me…"

  "Looks far too intelligent to be Household Cavalry," Alan said tongue-in-cheek, "nor British Cavalry, at all And, if intelligent… then how'd he come to be stupid enough to associate with you, sir?"

  "One should never kick strange dogs, sir," the dark fellow said with a faint smile, yet an air of menace. "They've been known to bite."

  Officer, Lewrie surmised by his squirearchy, perhaps Kentish accent; ex-officer. Abscond with the mess funds, did you? Or your major's daughter?

  "Enough of this rancor, Lewrie," Twigg warned. "As you refer to me, 'pon your life, as Silberberg… you will take as gospel that my man is ever to be referred to as Mister Peel. Or ex-Captain Peel."

  "Not 'John Peel,' surely," Alan snickered, reminded of the old hunting song.

  "No, 'tis James, sir… James Peel," the fellow purred, offering his hand, which Lewrie had to shake.

  "Right, then… Captain Peel, Mister Silberberg," Lewrie said, sitting down, regretting his choice of wines, which he also was forced to drink. Thin, too fruity, and acidy; and fresh-poured already had a redolence of paint thinner. "So, what is so important that you sailed down from Genoa?"

  "Coached," Twigg griped, shifting as if in pain. "As to that gruesome necessity, more later. What is important, Lewrie, is killing Guillaume Choundas. Still."

  "Is that really necessary, sir?" Lewrie frowned. "We buggered him and his reputation, took his convoy at Alassio, and bagged four of his warships, such as they were. And, in spite of serving us as good as he got, we damaged his own corvette. I'd think his stock was quite low, by now."

  "Can you forget the Far East, sir?" Twigg insisted. "Whenever we thought we'd truly crippled him, he wriggled free, and came back to bedevil us, twice as strong as before? No, sir. It won't be over till I've his head in a sack, for all to see."

  "When last we met, Mister… Silberberg, you told me you prided yourself on keeping things coolly logical and objective," Lewrie said with a dubious look. "Frankly, I think Choundas is become your bug-a-bear. It sounds entirely personal and revengeful, to me. What can he hope to accomplish, with the few ships he has left? With Nelson commanding the Riviera coast? And with your… connections… alerting us to every convoy? In the Far East, he was the only pirate, privateer… whatever, that Paris would sanction, so eliminating him was important. Wartime, though… he's just another ship's captain at the moment, a commander of a minor squadron. There must be a hundred men in France just as potentially troubling."

  "He's in my bailiwick, Lewrie," Twigg objected stubbornly, "in charge of the squadron that runs supplies to support the French Army, which will gobble up all of northern Italy if they're not stopped. It makes him my preeminent problem, no matter our past connection. If he is killed, I save another region the grief of facing him. If he dies, Choundas rises no higher. He gets no frigates, no ships of the line to play with. Can you possibly imagine the harm he'd do, were he to become a junior admiral?"

  "Then why not have one of your… associates," Lewrie wondered aloud, "stop his business with a knife under the heart?"
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  "Told you he has a clear head, Peel." Twigg smirked suddenly in glee "When he thinks, that is."

  "Yes, sir," Peel agreed, stony-faced, peering at Lewrie openly, judging, weighing, and balancing.

  "He's well guarded, Lewrie," Twigg complained petulantly, as he sipped more wine, made another face. "Made no new friends on his rise with the original revolutionaries. Had damned few from before. Those still alive, that is. Once he'd culled 'em for past slights. Imagined slights, half of'em. Stays sober, keeps his wits about him, of which I do not have to tell you, he has considerable. Personal guard force, a pack of Breton pets, including this Hainaut fellow we returned to him. As for vices…"

  "Goes for the windward passage, even with girls," Lewrie stuck in. "So we learned from the Filipina villagers, and Chinese whores."

  "The younger and weaker, the sweeter, aye," Twigg snarled with revulsion. "Barring someone doing him in like Marat in his bathwater, he's almost impossible to get at. Our abilities, so to speak, are not that firm in Provence, or along the Riviera. Too much fear, d'ye see, 'mongst adult women, and his tastes run to the small, weak, and helpless. Recruiting a girl-child victim stands little chance, either, that he'd choose her, or that she could summon nerve enough to do the deed. We have a better plan, though."

  "Oh, Christ, and it involves me, does it?" Lewrie groaned. "We played that card. He'll not fall for it a second time."

  "Hot as my hatred for Choundas is, Lewrie, it can't hold a candle to his hatred for you," Twigg cackled, entirely too pleased with himself. "Do you both survive this war, I'd expect he'd be panting to kill you when you're both pensioners. Some things abide. He'll bite."