“Oh, poor bastard!” Westcott whispered under his breath.
Cotton’s flagship sent a new hoist aloft, jerking swiftly to be two-blocked. It was Explain, spelled out.
“No … Boat … Available,” Midshipman Kibworth slowly spelled out, referring to his code book. “Request … Send … Boat.”
Explain was lowered so quickly that it appeared as if Admiral Sir Charles Cotton had tailed on the halliards himself, and in a fit of dire pique.
“Handy bloody word, ‘Request,’” Lewrie smirked. “Oh, do, pretty please?”
“With sugar on it,” Lt. Westcott added, chuckling.
“Send … ing … Boat,” Kibworth read off, at last.
“Whatever was planned for dinner, Shirke’ll be dinin’ on cold crow, or his own hot tripes, after Cotton rips ’em out for him. Well, things seem t’be goin’ well, and I’ve a book to read,” he added, with a longing look up to the poop deck and his collapsible wood-and-canvas deck chair.
“Then, with you on deck, and the Mids in charge of the Anchor Watch, I think I’ll go below and have a nap, sir,” Westcott said. He tapped two fingers on the brim of his cocked hat by way of salute and departed for the wardroom.
* * *
He read ’til time for his own mid-day dinner, came back to the deck and read some more, and drifted off round three in the afternoon, for the warmth was a soporific, not entirely dispelled by a breeze from offshore. Lewrie was roused by the tinging of Eight Bells being struck at the change of watch at 4 P.M.
There was something heavy and warm on his right thigh, and when he opened one gritty eye, he found Bisquit sitting close by his chair with his head and forelegs draped over him, smelling distinctly doggish, and panting with his tongue lolled out. Lewrie gave Bisquit a pat on the head, and ruffled the fur on his throat and ears. That was a mistake, for Bisquit took it as an invitation to hop up onto his chest and stomach like a hot, hairy blanket, and a heavy one, too.
“Oh no, no, me lad!” Lewrie chid him. “That’ll never do. Get off me.” He struggled to rise, to shove the dog off, but Bisquit was having none of it, whining to stay.
“Here, Bisquit, here, boy!” Midshipman Fywell coaxed, snapping his fingers and whistling. “Want a bite of bisquit?” he asked, producing a corner of a half-consumed ship’s bread from a pocket. That freed Lewrie, though the dog’s quick leap and shove with his rear legs made Lewrie let out an “Oomph!”
“Thankee, Mister Fywell,” Lewrie said, getting to his feet, at last. Bisquit flopped down by the forward railings and crunched away.
“Mister Midshipman Hillhouse’s respects, sir, and he sent me to report that our boats are returning.”
“What, the landings are done?” Lewrie asked, scrubbing sleep from his face with both hands.
“Aye, sir, it appears so,” Fywell went on. “The last boat-loads of soldiers and their supplies went in an hour ago, and the General’s transport … the Agent Afloat aboard her, that is … hoisted a Discontinue about a quarter-hour ago.”
“My respects to Mister Hillhouse, and he’s to make sure that all the scuttlebutts are topped off, Mister Fywell,” Lewrie ordered. “The hands’ll be hellish-thirsty when they return. I’ll be in my cabins. Carry on.”
“Aye, sir,” Fywell replied.
Once in the relative coolness of the great-cabins, Lewrie called for a glass of cool tea, and a pint of wash water. He stripped off to the skin, soaked his washcloth, and swiped his body down from head to his toes to freshen and cool himself. He thought of dressing, but the idea of clothing, especially a wool broadcloth uniform coat, just palled. He padded into his bed-space and donned a light linen dressing robe, then went to fling himself onto the settee with his bare feet up on the brass Hindoo tray table to savour his sweetened and lemoned cool tea, gulping it down and calling for a re-fill.
Chalky joined him for some “wubbies” and head butts, and he felt comfortable, at last. All the sash windows in the stern transom were opened at the top halves, and the jury-rigged screen door to the stern gallery let in a halfway decent breeze, though some of the thin twine looked in need of re-roving over the nails; Chalky was relentless in his urge to get out onto the stern gallery and its railings to hunt sea birds.
“Midshipman o’ th’ Watch, Mister Hillhouse, SAH!” the Marine announced with a stamp of boots and his musket butt.
Lewrie opened his mouth to shout back “Oh, just bugger off!”, but thought better of it, and called back “Enter!” instead.
My officer’s dignity be-damned, he thought.
“Ehm … uh, sir,” Midshipman Hillhouse stammered to find his Captain a’sprawl in a robe. “There has come a signal from Newcastle, sir, an invitation to dine aboard her, at seven of the evening, sir.”
“And I won’t have t’request he send a boat?” Lewrie asked, giving Hillhouse an owlish look.
“Uhm, no, sir,” Hillhouse replied with a smile; though he had not been on deck at the time, he’d been told the tale of Captain Shirke’s embarrassment.
“Very well, Mister Hillhouse,” Lewrie said, “make the reply expressing my thanks and pleasure to attend.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Hillhouse answered, backing out of the cabins and ducking his head, sure to spread his tale of how he’d found the Captain.
“Damn!” Lewrie spat once Hillhouse was gone. “Just when I get cool, Pettus, and now I’ll have t’dress, again!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was marginally cooler that evening when Lewrie scaled the side of HMS Newcastle and doffed his hat in reply to the salute from the side-party. The boats from Assurance and Tiger were alongside with his, and he steeled himself for a few more unpleasant hours with Fillebrowne.
“Welcome aboard, again, Alan,” Captain James Shirke said in greeting, and offering his hand. “Well, it’s done. The army is now ashore, and our boring duty’s done, so I thought we’d celebrate.”
“Pleased to accept your kind invitation, Jemmy,” Lewrie told him. “Ehm, just how big a celebration did ye have in mind?” he japed.
“Well, we’ve no musicians, and no half-clothed dancing girls, but we’ll cope,” Shirke promised. “Let’s go aft and join the others.”
Captains Hayman and Fillebrowne were already there, seated, and they rose when Lewrie and Shirke entered. A cabin servant offered glasses of champagne. “Aah!” Shirke said with pleasure as he drank deep of his, smacking his thick lips in delight. “A hot damned day, was it not? Sit you down, gentlemen, sit you down.”
He plunked into a chair himself, took another sip, and called for a re-fill. “I wish I could find a way to rig one of those Hindoo fans in here. Even with the sash windows open, it’s close and warm.”
“A pankah fan, d’ye mean?” Lewrie asked after a sip or two of his own champagne. “You’ve served in the Far East?”
“No, but I met a fellow who had, and he told me of them. A tax collector with ‘John Company,’” Shirke replied. “Came home a ‘chicken nabob’ after ten years in someplace called Swettypore.”
“That was his joke, I expect,” Lewrie said with a laugh. “Every town, fort, and cantonment in India’s just perishin’-hot, and ye sweat like blazes, even after dark. Sweaty-pore.”
“You served in the Far East, sir?” Captain Hayman asked.
“Not officially,” Lewrie told him with a chuckle. “It was ’tween the American Revolution and the start of the war with France, Eighty-Four to Eighty-Six. The French were urgin’ the local native pirates to raid the shipping routes to China, and I was aboard Telesto, disguised as a merchantman t’keep an eye on ’em, and smack the pirates when we could, under direction from some secretive Foreign Office types. Calcutta to Canton and back, round the Spratly Islands and into the Phillipines. Ye don’t need a pankah boy in turban and his breechclout, Shirke. The Chinese and the pirate kings had these big feather fans and servants standin’ behind ’em, thrashin’ away. There’s no need to rig up the ropes and pulleys … though I’m certain the Navy’d have a �
��down’ on you carryin’ a Turk on ship’s books.”
“I would love to hear about that, sir,” Hayman urged. “It all sounds quite intriguing.”
“Old sailors’ tales?” Lewrie scoffed. “We’re here to celebrate, so I’m told, not hear me spin old yarns.”
“Indeed,” Fillebrowne pointedly said, with a throat-clearing sound, then turned to Shirke. “Just what is it we are celebrating, sir? The end of our convoy duties?”
“That, and our release back to our regular posts in the Med,” Shirke announced. “Ah, me. No chance to hoist even the inferior broad pendant!” he added, rubbing his short-haired pate.
“We’ll not remain with Admiral Cotton’s squadron?” Captain Hayman exclaimed in surprise, sounding disappointed.
“Once I managed to get aboard the flagship, mind you,” Shirke said, laughing off the embarrassment and causing the rest to laugh with him, “the Admiral told me he’s more than enough ships available to guard the coast, and extract the army should they run into trouble with the French. He’s none too keen on this new ‘Sepoy’ General that London sent down. He gives him good marks for efficiency and organisation in getting his troops ashore, but I gather that he finds General Wellesley to be a very cold and haughty fish, a most rigid and aloof man.”
“Other than Sir John Moore, he’s said to be the best we have, though,” Hayman offered. “I just wish we could have stayed, in case the French came out from Lisbon or Rochefort, and we’d have had a hot action.”
“After Trafalgar, I doubt the French have any stomach for ventures at sea,” Shirke said with a shake of his head. “Thank your lucky stars, sir, that you’re not called to idle all the way down to Lisbon under reduced sail, and barely under steerage way, playing the army’s right flank. It’s a nasty lee shore, and if foul weather blows in on the Westerlies, you could be hard aground and pounded to pieces.”
“And bored to death,” Lewrie stuck in.
“Hear, hear,” Fillebrowne seconded.
“Besides, sirs,” Shirke said with a crafty, sly look, shifting in his chair, “Admiral Cotton as good as told me that he doesn’t want us. The French and Russian ships at Lisbon are his, and his alone, and he means to have them, come Hell or high water, and we’d dilute the share-out of the prize money when he takes them!” Shirke barked in laughter as he told them that. “There may be as many as eight Russian ships of the line anchored in the Tagus River, and there’s a fortune just waiting to be reaped.”
“Hmm, would they be Good Prize, though, I wonder?” Lewrie objected. “Russia ain’t exactly at war with us, unless their boy Tsar, Alexander, has gone as mad as his predecessor. Mean t’say, he shut down all trade with us t’make Bonaparte happy, but—”
“The Russians did send London some official note from Saint Petersburg,” Fillebrowne interrupted, sounding superior and dismissive. “Though people I know in Government have assumed that the Tsar is merely posturing to please Bonaparte, without presenting an actual declaration of war. A top-up, if you please,” he said to a servant.
“Just because he and ‘Boney’ met on that raft at Tilsit, in the middle of the river, doesn’t make them bosom companions,” Shirke said, scoffing. “If France didn’t have Spain and Portugal on their plates at the moment, they might have a go at him! And, we all know by now that Napoleon Bonaparte’s word is worthless. If I were the Tsar, I’d sleep with one eye open.”
“He’ll not be satisfied ’til the whole world’s his,” Hayman agreed. “The man’s rapacious!”
“That’s the second time today I’ve heard that word,” Shirke said with good humour. “Admiral Cotton used it referring to you, Captain Lewrie. S’truth! And don’t look so amazed.”
Lewrie was caught with his mouth open.
“He had the most recent copy of Steel’s, so he knew who commanded all our ships, and he cautioned me to keep a close rein on that ‘rapscallion “Ram-Cat” Lewrie’ from having a go at the ships in the Tagus, either, and he said that you’re ‘a relentless, rapacious reaper of prize money,’ hah hah!”
“Well, I have had good fortune over the years, but I haven’t gone … reaping on purpose,” Lewrie rejoined. “I’ve just had good luck.”
“You aren’t known as the ‘Ram-Cat’ for your choice of pets,” Shirke pointed out. “Good God, cats! Can’t abide them!”
“I thought you were better known as ‘Black Alan,’” Fillebrowne fussily added. “For when you stole those dozen Black slaves to crew your ship.”
“Liberated, not stolen,” Lewrie corrected. “Their idea, too.”
“Stood trial for it,” Fillebrowne went on.
“Honourably acquitted,” Lewrie pointed out.
“You saw that French corvette, and that big Spanish frigate at anchor at Gibraltar, Captain Fillebrowne?” Shirke asked him. “Alongside those Spanish xebecs? Those are Sapphire’s prizes, all in the last year. Lord, in the old days, none of us thought you would make a sailor. You were the worst cack-handed, cunny-thumbed lubber we’d ever seen!”
“I think it was all the time I spent ‘kissing the gunner’s daughter,’” Lewrie japed, thankful that Shirke had praised him and defended him. “Though, I must confess that the first time I was warned with that, I thought the girl must be a real dirty puzzle if they meant it as a threat! As little as I knew then, I thought it marvellous that they’d allow girls aboard, and wondered where was mine, and what’s her ‘socket fee’! After a few times, I felt … inspired!”
“We couldn’t recognise him by face, and wondered if he could stand erect, he spent so much time bent over a gun,” Shirke wheezed with glee, “and our Bosun and his Mates could swing a starter so hard, they could have lit off the priming powder at a gun’s touch hole with one blow, hee hee!”
“Raised sparks on my arse,” Lewrie said, laughing along. “You know, I can’t remember either you or Keith Ashburn ever bein’ whipped.”
“That’s because we were never caught out at our duties, Alan,” Shirke reminisced with joy, “nor caught at our games and skylarking, either,” he added with a tap on the side of his nose.
“Excuse me, sir, but supper is laid and ready,” the senior steward announced, and they rose to enter the dining-coach, where Shirke had allowed himself a few more luxuries in good sterling silver and glassware and china.
Lewrie noted that Fillebrowne had merely pretended to laugh along with the others, and he caught his agate-eyed glances as they sat down. He looked almost archly surly, which pleased Lewrie.
What is he, jealous, or irked? he wondered; He keeps that up, and I will tell Hayman one or two o’ my yarns!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
All four ships of the escort returned to Gibraltar, and turned their sailors loose on the town’s taverns and brothels. After a day or two of provisioning, though, Captains Fillebrowne and Hayman took their frigates back to sea to rejoin their commands in the central Mediterranean, and the following day Captain Shirke and Newcastle departed, leaving Sapphire by herself, again, and Lewrie was glad to see the back of them, Fillebrowne especially.
He had treated them all to a shore supper at Pescadore’s, the seafood chop-house in the upper part of town near the Convent, and it went well. The next night, though, he and Maddalena had supped at the Ten Tuns, and who should pop in in the middle of their meal but Captain Fillebrowne and Captain Hayman! It was impossible not to ask them to join them. Hayman was the soul of discretion, but Fillebrowne had skirted the edge of propriety, attempting to flirt mildly and taking over their conversations, as if laying the groundwork to assume possession of another of Lewrie’s mistresses.
“He assumes a lot,” Maddalena had commented on their walk back to her lodgings. “I thought all English gentlemen behaved like gentlemen.” She had even clutched her arms cross her chest and darted glances behind them, as if in fear that she’d see Fillebrowne skulking after them.
“Well, we both know that that ain’t true, Maddalena,” Lewrie had said, trying to cosset her. “There’
s Captain Hughes, for a shabby example.” He’d tried to laugh it off, but inside he was fuming, too.
There’s un-finished business ’twixt me and that arrogant shit, Lewrie had thought; Don’t know what it is, but, I just hope we don’t cross hawses again. Is he tryin’ to row me so angry that we’d have to duel?
Fortunately, though, a shared bottle of sparkling wine, and a night with Maddalena, in which she assured him who truly had her affection, was passionate enough to distract him from his qualms.
* * *
“Going anywhere soon, are you, Captain Lewrie?” the Foreign Office’s chief spy, Thomas Mountjoy, asked with mock urgency as they met in the street in front of Mountjoy’s lodgings a morning or two later. “If you are, I’m sorely tempted to go with you.”
“French assassins’re after you?” Lewrie asked. “Or, is it a woman you spurned?”
“There’s a diplomatic disaster just waiting to explode, and I wish to be half a continent away when it does,” Mountjoy told him in what Lewrie recognised by now as real urgency.
“Whatever’s the matter, then?” he asked him.
“That ship that came in yesterday, the Thunderer?” Mountjoy said, stabbing a finger at a two-decker Third Rate in the harbour. “She’s just come in from Sicily with a brace of pretenders to the throne of Spain aboard. One’s Prince Leopold of the Kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies, King Ferdinand the Fourth’s heir—”
“Is he as ugly as his father?” Lewrie asked, suddenly amused by Mountjoy’s distress. “Does he run a waterfront fish shop, same as his Daddy?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t clapped eyes on him … what? Fish shop? Where did you get that?” Mountjoy demanded, most perplexed and thrown off his rant.
“Met Ferdinand ages ago, when my ship put in to Naples, back when Sir William Hamilton was our ambassador, and his wife, Emma, was still slimm-ish. We ate at Ferdinand’s shop, where he cooked for us himself. Quite tasty, really.”
Kings and Emperors Page 22