“A glass of something, sir?” Pettus asked, looking as clean and natty as if the day had never been, as well-turned-out as a civilian servant in a London club.
“God, yes!” Lewrie enthused. “It’s been a long, dry day.” And, as Pettus fetched him a refreshing glass of white wine, as Toulon and Chalky, happily resettled amid their familiar environs with the terrifying din of battle long over, leaped into his lap and made glad mews of joy to be stroked and cossetted in peace, Lewrie could relish the homeyness of his cabins returned to normalcy, with every piece of furniture, every chest, chair, and framed picture put back in the right places.
And after a long, dry-mouthed sip of the light white wine, he could even allow himself a long, happy sigh of near bliss. Pettus had the bottle, and topped him back up for a slower, more meditative drink.
“Galley’s up, and Nettles will be fetching your supper in half an hour, sir,” Pettus told him. “No hope of fresh vegetables or bread from shore, I’d suppose, sir, but he’s putting together a celebratory meal, he said to say. Anything I may do in the meantime, sir?”
“I’d admire did you help me get my boots off, Pettus, and fetch out that old, sloppy pair o’ shoes,” Lewrie decided. “And a fresh pair of cotton stockings. I fear the silk ones I’ve worn nigh two days in a row are quite ruined, by now.”
“Of course, sir,” Pettus said, and went to hunt up the shoes and stockings. Once back, he straddled Lewrie’s calves and tugged off the boots; sure enough, the silk stockings were laddered with tears. They were fine for formal occasions, and for battle; silk shirts and stockings could be drawn from wounds more cleanly than linen or wool, limiting the risk of anything left in ravaged flesh to fester or go gangrenous, but such protection was too delicate to wear with boots, and too costly.
Once in fresh, clean stockings, and comfortable old loosely buckled shoes, Lewrie slumped into one corner of the settee, throw pillows and cushions rearranged for comfort. He threw one leg up atop the seat, the other resting on the low brass tray-table he’d brought back from Calcutta so many years before, and let out another blissful sigh. On the smaller side tray-table stood the wine bottle, and Lewrie poured himself a third glass, all but smacking his lips in anticipation. Yet . . .
As he reached over, then leaned back, something crinkled in his coat’s inside chest pocket. Oh, Lewrie sadly thought; Arthur’s letter.
He withdrew it and broke the wax seal, thinking that the letter was just like Arthur Ballard; folded evenly, meticulously, and the seal forming a perfectly circular blob of wax covering all four corners of the folds which met at almost mathematical exactitude.
Sir (it began) I would beg that you keep this in the strictest of Confidences. I find myself in the very worst sort of personal Contretemps, and, for want of a better Solution, and at the considerable Risk to my career, must inform you that I find it impossible to serve under you as First Lieutenant. It is my intention to request of Admiralty to be relieved of my Position.
Lewrie furrowed his brows in surprise, wondering just what the fellow might have gotten into; gambling debts, the risk of debtors’ prison by over-spending? He’d gotten some young woman in trouble? None of these even remotely seemed likely, not with such a straight-laced prig as Arthur Ballard, he could quickly dismiss.
Though we established a somewhat compatible Cooperation aboard Alacrity in the Bahamas, as Time went by, I found myself loath to call it true Friendship, and, by the end of our joint Commission, felt quite relieved to go our separate Ways.
Truthfully, Sir, I hold that you are Reprehensible, and wish most devoutly to have as little to do with you and your Character as naval Service will admit in . . .
“Bloody Hell?” Lewrie gawped in a very small voice.
Arthur Ballard laid it all out in precise terms; he despised Captain Alan Lewrie, just as he had come to despise Lieutenant Alan Lewrie in the late ’80s. Ballard cited his many reasons; recklessness being one of them; a lewd, lascivious, and adulterous nature, another. He blasphemed freely; he’d shot that captured, kneeling pirate in the head at close range with a pistol in front of the cave on Middle Caicos to urge the rest, and that foul Billy “Bones” Doyle, out and free their captives—just as he’d all but murdered Count Levotchkin’s servant not a fortnight before! The theft of a dozen Black slaves to man his ship; Ballard knew it was a crime, despite what the court, and all the newspapers and tracts in praise of him, said.
He got that pretty-much right, Lewrie admitted to himself.
But it was Lewrie’s rakehellish, adulterous streak that Ballard found the most despicable. Why, he even recalled the name of the Free Black woman Lewrie had rutted with at Clarence Town on Long Island one sultry and boring afternoon, after all these years—even if Lewrie didn’t.
Wyannie Slocum, of course! Lewrie thought, surprised; and, just for a bit, remembering rather fondly . . .
The rumours of Lewrie quickening a bastard son on a rich Greek widow in the currant trade, the rumour of a mistress in the Mediterranean earlier in the war; the scandal of associating with a “painted circus wench,” and how shamefully Lewrie had ignored and abused, and been unfaithful to his wife, Caroline, lo these many years, betraying the . . . “Betraying the Trust of one of the finest women it has ever been my honour to know . . . ,” Ballard wrote.
Damme, it could’ve been Ballard, wrote those bloody letters, not Theoni, if I didn’t know better, Lewrie thought, re-reading what Ballard had penned about Caroline one more time, then leaning back on the settee and taking another long sip of his wine.
He never wed, Lewrie recalled; Turned up his nose at every promisin’ lass we introduced to him. Betsy . . . whats’ername? He thought her . . . all of ’em . . . too “fly” and “flibberty-gibbet.” The way Arthur writes of Caroline, though . . . Mine arse on a band-box, he was in love with her, all these years! he realised with a start.
Lewrie had always fancied that Caroline could coax Ballard out of his grave and aloof manner, and for several hours loosen up in her, and his own, presence ashore. . . . Arthur would even laugh and smile!
At a subscription ball or party at Nassau, Ballard would actually dance with Caroline—no more than two in an evening, Lewrie recalled; and, oh, he’d be gracious enough to ask other women and girls to dance as well in the course of the night; the dutiful sort of thing one did with the older ladies, with fellow officers’ wives, or the unmarried damsels and daughters, yet . . . he’d never followed through.
Do I go through his sea-chests, do I find a shrine to Caroline? Lewrie wondered; The unattainable, the unrequited . . . paragon of womanhood, t’his lights. The poor, sad, unloved bastard!
Yes, there was his affair with Tess cited as the last straw for Ballard; that Lewrie would stoop to associating with common trollops, no matter their feminine charms, and imagine such a sordid item reason for a duel of honour, well! And why was he not home in Anglesgreen in his wife’s company, anyway? How could he be so dismissive and beastly towards such a splendid lady? Ballard had demanded.
No, Arthur Ballard hadn’t had a premonition, as Surgeon Mister Harward had imagined; he’d expected to survive the action, request a posting aboard another ship (perhaps after a brief spell of leave, for medical reasons?) and put Lewrie in his place for good and all.
Coach to Anglesgreen, and place his heart in Caroline’s hands, as he always wished he could? Lewrie mused; Surely, in fiften bloody years, he must’ve met somebody else . . . given some proper girl a go! Poor, sad, lonely . . . deluded . . . prig.
Lewrie finished his glass of wine and stuffed Ballard’s letter into a side pocket of his coat, wondering what to do with it now that he had read it. Toulon butted his head against Lewrie’s thigh, while Chalky came trotting from back aft with his tail up to rejoin them and mewing for more pets, too, from the litter-box of dry sand stowed in the larboard-side quarter gallery. With a firm nod, Lewrie rose and headed for the quarter gallery himself, in need of relief after three glasses of wine.
He shut the door, lifted the lid of the “jakes,” and undid his breeches buttons for a long, easing piss down the metal tube that led past the tuck of the transom directly to the sea. With his buttons re-fastened, he turned to stare out the window panes at the riding lights of the anchored fleet, and the lanthorn-glades upon the waters dancing and sparkling in the dark.
Meditatively, Lewrie withdrew the letter once again and shredded it into tiny bits, letting the fingernail-sized pieces drop into the cat’s litter-box. With the small, long-handled fireplace shovel, he stirred the pieces in deep, as if turning grass under a fallow field before Spring planting. Hoping that no “seeds” would ever sprout from that epistle.
Best leave Lt. Arthur Ballard, RN, a brave and honourable memory to his family, his associates. . . . and everyone else. Courageously lost in the King’s Name . . . and not a jealous, love-sick, and ascetic fool.
“Ah, there you be, sir,” Pettus gaily said as Lewrie came back to the cabins. “Your supper is here, sir. Can’t speak for the quality of the boiled carrots, but the potato hash with bacon is fresher, and there’s half one of the gun-room’s chickens, with some of your good Cheshire cheese rolled in biscuit crumbles, and toasted. Claret with it, sir?”
“Capital, Pettus,” Lewrie said with genuine eagerness for food, though feeling a pang of conscience to sound too eager, after the death and ravaging of some of his men . . . of Ballard’s passing. He sat down at his solitary place at the head of his dining table and scooted up to his place setting, whipping the napkin cross his lap.
Just as a bowl of portable soup was put before him, he caught a strain of music from up forward on the gun-deck. “They sound in decent spirits, considerin’,” Lewrie commented.
“Oh, aye sir,” Pettus agreed, pouring a new glass of good aged claret for him. “Earlier, well . . . you can’t keep our tars gloomy for very long, after all, sir. Once they’re done grieving, that is.”
Earlier, Desmond had played the dirge-like Johnny Faa while the funeral service had been read, and the corpses—those that had not been slipped out a gun-port during combat—were slid overside from beneath the Union Flag, wrapped in canvas and weighted with shot for sea-burial. As Lewrie had come back aboard round dusk, and the labours to repair the ship had ended, and the crew gathered idle during what was left of the Second Dog, it had been Admiral Hosier’s Ghost, an old American air, Katy Cruel, and other gloomy tunes.
Now, though . . . once the hands had eat, and the mess-tables had been cleared away, Lewrie could recognise a gayer minuet tune called Constancy, the livelier Flannagan’s Favourite, and the tune played as they’d stood into action in the morning, The Jolly Thresher.
And by the time that Lewrie finished his soup and started in on his entrée—with two smaller saucers of everything for the famished cats, the crewmen had launched into One Misty, Moisty Morning again.
One Misty, Moisty Morning, when cloudy was the weather
I met up with an old man, he was clothed all in leather.
He wore no shirt unto his back, but wool upon his skin,
singing Howdye-do and Howdye-do, and Howdye-do, again!
I went a little farther, and there I met a maid . . .
As it had been in the morning, perhaps only three or four hands took the main verses, whilst everyone else roared out the short refrain, pounding their fists on the mess-tables, stamping their feet on the oak decks, hard enough to make the frigate’s timbers shudder.
This maid her name was Dolly, ’twas in a gown of grey.
I was feeling somewhat jolly and persuaded her to stay.
And many kind embraces there, I stroked her little chin,
singing Howdye-do, and Howdye-do . . . !
“Amazin’, really,” Lewrie mused aloud after dabbing his lips and taking a sip of wine. “After all they’ve gone through today, the mates they’ve lost . . .”
“Like I said, sir,” Pettus reminded him, “the life of a sailor, or so I’ve learned in my short time aboard, is hard misery, and short commons, most of the time. They’ll take what joy they can, when there’s a reason for it . . . and time enough. After all, sir, it isn’t every day they’re in a real battle, and win it.” They’ll miss their shipmates but . . . not for all that long . . . not so long as they’re still alive, sir, and able to brag about it.”
“Amen,” Lewrie agreed, perking up at the notion; and how apt it was when applied to the late Arthur Ballard. “Amen to that.”
EPILOGUE
Sir Valentine: These banish’d men that I have kept withal,
Are men endu’d with worthy qualities.
Forgive them what they have committed here
and let them be recalled from their exile.
They are reformed, civil, full of good.
And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA,
ACT V, SCENE IV
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The Danes had thrown in the towel, withdrawing from the League of Armed Neutrality. For a day or two, the British fleet had lain at anchor in Kioge Bay below Copenhagen, then departed for the Baltic to confront the Swedes, but that was anti-climactic. They had gotten to sea with their small squadron, but, as soon as they’d learned how the Danes had been beaten, they returned to port at Karlskrona, pointedly warned by Lord Nelson that it would be better did they remain there, if they knew what was good for them!
That left only the Russian fleet to deal with, and there were signs that the confrontation would be at sea, for the amount of drift ice had been greatly reduced by the arrival of Spring. Surely the thaw had reached Reval and Kronstadt, and the Tsar’s warships were now free.
A swift frigate had caught up with the fleet, fresh from Great Yarmouth, bearing orders and mail to the flagship HMS London. Just as soon as the signal flags had been hoisted, every ship had sent a boat to her to collect it. Midshipman Furlow returned in the launch with a large canvas bag, and scampered up the side with it, holding it aloft like a fresh-killed fox at the end of a thrilling hunt as the officers gathered round him and cheered, as happy as the pack of hounds would round the Master of the Hunt. Lewrie’s clerk, the unfortunately named Mr. George Georges, the Purser Mr. Pridemore, and his Yeoman took hold of it and quickly sorted it out for distribution at Seven Bells of the Forenoon; when gunnery practice had ended, just before “Clear Decks & Up Spirits” was piped for the rum ration.
Aft, Lewrie quickly pawed through his own small pile of correspondence, the official letters first. “Victualling Board . . . Sick & Hurt Board . . . general bumf to all ships,” Lewrie muttered as he tore them open and quickly scanned them, laying them flat in a shallow wood box on his desk once read, not in any particular order, to be dealt with later. There was nothing of urgent import regarding him, just the ship; no orders direct from Admiralty. He could turn to the rest.
“Ooh, shit!” he hissed inward through his teeth. There was actually a letter from his wife, Caroline! She had broken her bitter and aloof silence, wonder of wonders, and written him! Naturally, he would leave that one for the very last, sure it was yet another of her acidic screeds . . . the sort sure to curdle his mid-day meal, whether he read it before or after dinner. Tentatively holding it at two of its corners, Lewrie laid it back down on his desk-top.
The rest of his personal mail . . . there was one from his eldest son, Sewallis, and one from the younger, Hugh. There was a bill from a Yarmouth chandler and one from a London tailor. Eudoxia Durschenko had written him—“Leave that’un for the very last,” he muttered—and one from his solicitor, Mr. Matthew Muntjoy. He was about to open it when he caught sight of the senders of a pair of others.
Christopher Cashman, his old friend who’d moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, and had become an American, who’d provided a thoroughly false affidavit for his trial, had sent him a letter! He was about to pounce on that one, when the last really caught his eye.
His barrister, Mr. Andrew MacD
ougall, Esquire, had written him!
“Oh, shit,” Lewrie muttered again, sure that the combination of letters from his solicitor, and his attorney, portended another dreadful stint in a courtroom. With a grimace on his phyz, he opened it.
In neat Spencerian “copper-plate” calligraphy, MacDougall told him glad tidings.
Sir, I take pen in hand to deliver unto you the most amazing turn of events, of which I but lately heard; events sure to elicit within you the greatest Joy and sense of Relief, for, your former Accuser, Mr. Hugh Beauman, is no more. The packet in which he and his Wife and Coterie embarked for Portugal to escape the Folly of their Suit against you missed the landmarks when attempting to enter the Tagus River and the port of Lisbon in a great Gale in late January, just weeks after your Acquittal, and was driven aground not half a mile from shore, with great loss of Life, principal of whom was Mr, Hugh Beauman himself.
“And it couldn’t happen to a better person!” Lewrie whispered, feeling like leaping to his feet and dancing a little jig of mourning; barely containing a whoop and a guffaw of laughter.
Perishing along with him were several of his perjurious Witnesses among his followers, though his Wife was rescued.
And, as MacDougall had heard it, that icily imperious beauty, now sole heir to the lion’s share of the Beauman riches—rivalling the wealth of the famous Walpoles, or so it was said—beyond what profits that went to the elder Mr. Beauman and his wife, now retired in the English countryside, was of no mind to bother with trifles like her late husband’s pursuit of Capt. Alan Lewrie’s life and honour, no!
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