The King's Marauder

by Dewey Lambdin

  “I think I love this thing!” Lewrie crowed as he drew rein at the house, and everyone, even Pettus, who was not much of a horseman, wanted to try the ambler out.

  * * *

  Will Cony couldn’t ride up to accompany him every morning, but Desmond, Furfy, or Sir Hugo’s hired groom, Fowlie, could go along with him on his morning hikes. Fowlie usually rode, leading the ambler as far as Lewrie could walk, then rode with him the rest of the way, but Desmond or Furfy usually led their own mounts to walk alongside him. Both were extremely fond of their own breakfasts at the Old Ploughman, and the chance to flirt with Abigail, Patrick Furfy got tongue-tied and blushed, but Desmond, with a true and merry gift of gab, did the best with her, making the girl’s eyes sparkle and laugh out loud.

  “And that’s how Will and Maggie got together,” Lewrie cautioned, “flirtin’. Ye ready for marriage, Desmond?”

  “Well, I s’pose a man could do worse, sor,” his Cox’n said with a wince at the mention of the word. “Marryin’, though … Gawd! Who’d have a poor sailor f’r a husband?”

  “Maggie Cony,” Lewrie teased.

  * * *

  Each morning, Lewrie forced himself to go a furlong more than the day before, and in the afternoons, after a fortnight, he added a walk about the property, down to the stables and barns, the paddocks and pens, and out to the edges of the cleared land round the house. Bisquit was his company on those strolls, eager for new scents, and a thrown stick … even if the dog did sometimes confuse Lewrie’s walking stick for a toy a time or two, tugging at it to encourage their game. Bisquit would also get distracted by the squirrels or rabbits, but he was, in the main, a good dog and always loped back to Lewrie’s side when called.

  What to do with the hours between the trip to the village and the stroll, though? Lewrie had all his personal weapons, and in his father’s office-library there were enough firearms to field a dozen soldiers, so he added shooting competitions near the foot of the hill to the South, down near the rill, with a rise beyond that as a back-stop. Muskets, fusils, fowling pieces, Hindoo Moghul jezzails, blunderbusses, and all sorts of pistols were tried out, and even Jessop and Pettus and Yeovill became passable marksmen.

  He could have gone hunting in the woodlots, had there been any game worth shooting. He was no longer a Chiswick tenant, denied fish or game which all belonged to the landlord. He was the son of a freeholder on his father’s acres. Furfy, though, quickly found the rabbit warrens and snared a few each week, and Jessop got rather good at potting squirrels with a fusil musket.

  When it rained or snowed, though, Lewrie had little to occupy his time. He would read by a crackling fire, with Bisquit drowsing by Lewrie’s chair, or across his feet, and Chalky, his cat, nodding close to the grate, or spraddled cross one arm of his chair, always with one wary eye out for the dog’s doings.

  On one of his strolls down to the stables, he saw the junior groom hefting gallon pails of water in each hand, and lifting them up and out to show Fowlie how strong he was, and Lewrie got two of them and filled them with rocks, increasing the weight until he could hold them out and pump them over his head, or swing them back and forth, and found that when he crossed heavy naval cutlasses with Desmond or Furfy, his blade felt no heavier than a butterknife. Needless to say, his footwork at cutlass drill still was lacking.

  * * *

  Harvest festivals, church ales, and supper dances came round, and Lewrie did get invited to some, even Sir Romney Embleton’s and at Governour’s house a time or two, but he still had need of his walking stick and did not dance, still had need of Peterkin the ambler horse, hot, steamed towels to wrap, round his thigh, and willow bark teas at least twice a day.

  The village’s surgeon-apothecary hired by Sir Romney Embleton, Mr. Archer, came to cheek up on him every now and then, and he had offered laudanum to ease Lewrie’s aches, but Lewrie declined. By November, the aches were not all that bad, and only came when he over-extended himself.

  Christmas came and went, and Lewrie had Fowlie return the ambler to his owner, Mr. Doaks. He could manage Anson, again! With more exercise, the horse had become more biddable to go at a walk, and when he was put to the trot or canter, it didn’t hurt at all.

  At long last, one morning a few weeks before Easter, Lewrie led Anson all the way to the village, on his own feet without need of his walking stick, with Bisquit frisking along with him.

  “Good mornin’, Will … Maggie,” he said as he and the dog breezed in. “Good mornin’, all.”

  “Mornin’ to ya, sir!” Cony chirpily greeted him. “We’ve some fine ham f’r yer breakfast this mornin’. And, I reckon yer dog’ll be wantin’ a slice’r two, as well.”

  “Here, Will,” Lewrie said, handing him the walking stick. “I’ve no more need of it. Ye can hang it over the fire, or use it for kindlin’. I hiked all the way, today,” he boasted. “Oh, I’ll ride back, but only ’cause it’s perishin’ cold this morning,” he added after he’d taken a seat at his usual table.

  “Huzzah, sir!” Will Cony crowed. “I told ya walkin’ it away’z th’ cure for ya. Wot Mister Archer’d call ‘thera’ … good for ya! Ya ready t’go up to London an’ Admiralty, soon’z the weather breaks, I’d expect?”

  “The first dry day we get, aye!” Lewrie assured him. “Hey, pup! Want some fried ham? Yes? Ah, you’re a good ’un!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Good luck, sir,” Pettus said as he helped Lewrie into his boat cloak and handed him his hat in the Madeira Club’s anteroom.

  “Not much’ll come of this first visit,” Lewrie told him, shrugging off too-high hopes. “All I can manage will be t’let ’em know I’m still alive, healed up, and available. I’ll probably be back before mid-day. But thankee for the good wishes, anyway.”

  It was another breezy and nippy morning, and Lewrie had the club porter whistle up a one-horse hack. He could walk all the way, but damned if he would!

  Lewrie alit and paid off the coachee in front of the arches of the curtain wall at Admiralty, then hitched a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and walked into the courtyard. It looked to be the typical busy morning, for the courtyard was full of slowly pacing officers and hopeful Midshipmen, and the tea cart was doing a thriving business, in sticky buns and sausages, handing out mis-matched mugs and cups as fast as they could be filled.

  “Top o’ th’ mornin’, sir,” a grizzled old tiler rasped at him as he approached the doors. “Though I wouldn’t get me ’opes up too ’igh, Cap’m. ’Less ye come at their biddin’, ye’ll ’ave a long wait, an’ there’s ’underds in there waitin’.”

  “Morning to you, too,” Lewrie said with a faint smile of remembrance. For as long as he could recall, the tilers at the Admiralty were a surly, nigh-insulting lot, former Bosuns or Bosun’s Mates who had become un-maimed Greenwich Pensioners, and old fellows who took great joy in bossing officers about. He was almost back in service!

  Lewrie checked his hat and gloves and boat cloak with the porters, and faced the infamous Waiting Room, which was elbow-to-elbow full, with nary an empty chair to be seen. With so many warm bodies there, the Waiting Room gave off its own particular heat, and smells faintly tinted with salt, tar, and sweat. It must have rained sometime in the wee hours, for Lewrie could also discern the odour of wet wool. Damned if it all smelled … nautical!

  He plastered a calm smile on his face to show confidence, and slowly paced the room ’til he spotted one of the First Secretary’s, Mr. William Marsden’s, clerks.

  “Good morning, sir,” Lewrie said, trying to recall if this one was the “Happy-Making” clerk or the one who dealt with the disappointed. “Captain Sir Alan Lewrie. I wonder if you might see this letter to the Secretary for me, informing him of my availability?”

  “Of course, sir,” the clerk agreed, then broke away to go up the stairs to the offices above.

  Right after his hike all the way to the village on foot, Lewrie had penned a letter to Mr. Marsden, saying that he would be coming up to Lon
don, in hopes of an interview. This letter would tell Marsden that he was in town and … waiting.

  He managed to find a seat after a minute or two, thanks to one very young Lieutenant who thought it a good idea to surrender his to a senior officer who just might be taking command of a ship in active commission, and in need of his skills. He even gave up his copy of the Tatler!

  The magazine proved handy. No matter how long he’d been in the Navy, no matter how many officers he’d served with, there never was a one of them in the Waiting Room that he knew in the slightest when he was there. Lewrie determined that he would sit and read ’til the mid-day rush for dinner, then depart with the throng and go back to the Madeira Club for an afternoon nap.

  I might skip tomorrow, Lewrie thought as he turned pages; Else I look as desperate as those gammers over yonder.

  Though he did not know their names, there were some familiar faces in the Waiting Room. The two “gammers” were Lieutenants in their mid-to-late fourties, salty “tarpaulin men” who still sported queues as long as marling spikes at the napes of their necks, who haunted the place on a daily basis. And, damned if there wasn’t the very same Midshipman who was rumoured to have been calling every day going on three whole years! No-hopers, all, men with no “interest” or patronage who most-like had no income beyond their half-pay, even some Post-Captains and one Rear-Admiral were there this morning, burned permanently brown and as creased as old parchment by long years of previous sea-duty, but now, for one reason or another, un-employable.

  One half-day, every other day, Lewrie told himself; I swear I can smell that stink, too, and I don’t want it on me!

  There was an older Post-Captain in a frayed and worn uniform, with ecru woolen stockings instead of white silk or cotton, who suddenly began to cough as if he would hock up half a lung. The old fellow plucked a handkerchief from a side pocket of his coat and put it over his mouth as he began to gargle phlegm and wheeze for his breath.

  Perhaps a half a day, once a week! Lewrie amended to himself as officers to either side of the old fellow began to lean away, or head for the courtyard tea cart or the “jakes” as the liquid-sounding hacking went on and on, and the old Post-Captain went red in the face.

  “Perhaps, sir…” a Lieutenant nearby suggested, helping him to his feet to steer him outside for fresher, clearer air.

  “That don’t sound good,” a Commander with his single epaulet on his left shoulder muttered to the officers hear him. “Consumption, or Pleurosy, most-like. Anybody know him?”

  “Lots of Consumption ’board my last ship,” a Lieutenant commented with a wry expression. “Winters in the North Sea, and all our hands cooped up below, with no ventilation, our Surgeon said did it. I’d put my money on Pleurosy, though. The poor fellow don’t look as if he’s been at sea in ages.”

  “A bad winter in a boardinghouse, aye,” the Commander agreed.

  Lewrie went back to his magazine, but, after another hour or so, he had to abandon his seat for a trip to the “necessary”, then went out to the courtyard for hot tea, picking up his hat and boat cloak on the way. He pulled out his pocket watch as he stood in the queue, finding that it was nigh eleven in the morning.

  An hour more, and I’m un-moorin’, he told himself as he turned to idly look about the courtyard.

  “Good Lord, sir … Captain Lewrie?” someone called out.

  “Hey? Mister Westcott? Well, just damn my eyes!” Lewrie cried in response as he spotted his former First Officer from HMS Reliant, and broke out in a broad grin, leaving the queue to go shake hands. “What the Devil are you doin’ here, Geoffrey? I thought you were t’go aboard a new frigate.”

  “Bad luck, that, sir,” Lieutenant Westcott said with a rueful expression. “’Twas to be the Weymouth frigate, a thirty-two, coming in to pay off and refit, from Halifax. Onliest trouble was, she never turned up. After loafing about for two months, Admiralty decided she had foundered somewhere in the North Atlantic and gone down with all hands, without a trace. The hands we’d gathered went off to the receiving ships, and the rest of us were left to twiddle our thumbs.”

  “After I wrote Admiralty reccommending you?” Lewrie said with a dis-believing scowl. “I told ’em you’d be best employed commandin’ a ship of your own, even advance ye to Commander.”

  “And for that I’m heartily grateful, sir,” Westcott said, beaming one of his quick, tooth-baring grins that some people found fierce and off-putting, “but, it doesn’t seem to signify with the Navy so far.”

  I wonder if that has anything t’do with our bein’ part o’ Home Popham’s idiotic invasion o’ Buenos Aires last year, Lewrie considered; Did we all get tarred with the same brush?

  “Well, if it’s any comfort, I’ve been twiddlin’ my thumbs down at Anglesgreen all winter, myself,” Lewrie told him.

  “Oh, you don’t . .!” Westcott said, looking him over. “Where’s your crutch, or cane?” he exclaimed with joy.

  “No more need of either!” Lewrie boasted, even essaying a dance step or two to show off, causing them both to laugh, and explaining his winter regimen. “You’re goin’ in to announce yourself?” Lewrie asked. “I’m for tea, myself, then I’ll be right in.”

  “No rush, in my case, sir,” Lt. Westcott said with a despondent shrug. “I’ll join you for tea. Christ, anything’s better than sitting in there all afternoon. I can sometimes conjure that the Waiting Room is the anteroom to Hades … and just as warm!”

  They got their tea, with sugar and a dollop of cream that the vendor swore was “fresh-ish” that morning, and wandered a few feet off to sip and savour the warmth on their hands round their mugs.

  “You’ve stayed nearby t’Whitehall, in London all winter?” Lewrie idly asked, fearing that Westcott was over-extended for funds.

  “Cross the river in Southwark, sir,” Westcott said with another rueful shrug. “Number Nine, Mitre Road. It’s been all quite snug and comfortable, and quite reasonable, too. Some of our prize-money came due, from our fight off the Chandeleurs … in 1803, at long last, hah! And, my father sends me twenty-five pounds per annum, so the half-pay on top of all that has kept me well-fed and entertained.

  “And, there’s the landlady,” Westcott smugly added, flashing a grin. “A rather delightful widow in her early thirties.”

  “A snug berth … as it were, Geoffrey?” Lewrie posed with one brow up. For as long as they had served together, Lt. Westcott had been known as a man simply mad for “quim”, able to discover a willing wench in the middle of a jungle, or upon a desert island. He was, in point of fact, so libidinous that he put Lewrie in the shade!

  In answer, Westcott only cocked his brows and beamed.

  “And, dare I ask, sir, if you and Mistress Stangbourne are still on friendly terms?” Westcott went on, between sips of tea.

  “A sore subject, Geoffrey,” Lewrie told him with a frown, and a wince. “‘Least said, soonest mended’, and all that.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry, sir,” Westcott said, looking abashed.

  “So am I,” Lewrie sadly agreed. “I’ll tell you of it, sometime. Here, now! How’d you like a fine supper with me at the Madeira Club, where I’m lodging? Dine you in, let you sample the best of its wine cellar, and put you up for the night?”

  “Sounds delightful, sir!” Lt. Westcott perked up.

  “Mind, the lodgers retire damned early, but, we could find some amusement after … the theatres, perhaps?” Lewrie suggested.

  “I could give my man, Mumphrey, a night off,” Westcott happily mused. “You remember Mumphrey, sir? One of the wardroom servants from the Reliant frigate? Landsman who served a quarterdeck carronade?”

  “Vaguely,” Lewrie replied, thinking that Geoffrey Westcott was better-off than he’d realised, if he could afford to pay a manservant to do for him, even on half-pay.

  Both men swilled down the last slurps of their tea and returned the mugs to the cart vendor.

  “Well, I must go in and do my weekly begging, sir,” Westcot
t said with a faint laugh.

  “As do I,” Lewrie said, as well. “I’d only planned t’stay ’til mid-day, then go find dinner. D’ye intend to bide all day?”

  “I had planned to, aye, sir, but all I really need to do is to announce my presence, remind the clerks where I lodge, and that I’m still available, so…” Westcott said, ending with a shrug.

  “Aye, let’s sit and plead ’til noon, then find a good ordinary or chophouse,” Lewrie offered. “My treat. Damme, Mister Westcott … no matter our circumstances at present, it is damned good t’see you, again!”

  They turned and walked to the doors together. The tiler looked up and began his spiel.

  “H’its damned crowded in there, Lieutenant, an’ there’s a mob o’ others already waitin’, so, ’less ye’ve been sent for…” he rasped.

  “Heard it! Heard it!” Westcott hooted back with a grin.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Anything for me?” Lewrie asked the club servant behind the anteroom desk as he shrugged off his hat and boat cloak.

  “Ehm … yes, sir,” the desk clerk perkily replied. “A letter from a solicitor, a Mister Mountjoy?”

  “Excellent,” Lewrie said, breaking the wax seal and unfolding the note on his way to the Common Rooms for a warm-up in front of the fireplace. “Ah hah!”

  Mr. Matthew Mountjoy, his long-time solicitor and prize agent, wrote to inform Lewrie that he had just received a tidy sum from Admiralty Prize-Court, and that he had deposited it all at Coutts’ Bank for him. Even with all four ships of Captain Blanding’s small squadron “in sight” when they had fought and taken the four French warships off the Chandeleur Islands off the mouth of the Mississippi and Spanish Louisiana, in 1803, cutting each British ship’s share to a fourth of the total sum, Lewrie’s traditional “two-eighths” was still an impressive sum, and it had been Reliant alone that had run down and taken the other 74-gun ship which had been sailing en flute as a trooper, so her value, less the value of the removed guns, was another welcome amount!