The packet-brig, gaily flying her "Post-Boy" flag, had departed bearing Pelham's boasting reports, Peel's "yes, but" reports and codicils, and Lewrie's several hefty sea-letters to his wife Caroline and his father Sir Hugo, to his ward Sophie, separate long missives to his sons, Sewallis and Hugh, by way of his father's London lodging house, and to his mistress Theoni and his other son, solicitor, and creditors.
Lewrie could pessimistically think that keeping his breeches up and his prick to himself might just be worth it after all. He would save hundreds on ink, paper, and postage on any more bastards; avoiding wrist and finger cramp communicating with additional by-blows would be, he thought, a collateral blessing.
And that monstrous frigate, USS Hancock, had completed repairs, and had returned to the Caribbean, though it was late in the hurricane season, commanded by a spanking-new captain, one Malachi Goodell, who, or so Lewrie was informed on the sly by Capt. McGilliveray, was one of those stiff-necked and overly righteous Massachusetts Puritans and a "New-Light," a Methodist to boot; a man of rectitude who brooked as little nonsense as that famously rigid French disciplinarian General Martinet.
"And wasn't he shot by his own troops at Doesbourg, in 1762?" Lewrie had glumly recalled.
"No matter, he's here, and senior to me and Randolph," Capt. McGilliveray had responded with equal gloom, "and mightily miffed our crews went on such a tear. Brought undyin' shame on our new Navy, and our Nation, he says, and there's to be no more of it whilst he's commanding. 'Thunderation' Goodell's a Boston 'Pumpkin,' bad as a Cotton Mather 'Hell-fire's in your future' altar pounder. He don't much hold with drink in gen'ral, and as for tuppin', well… I doubt any of our men'll set foot ashore 'til next we dock at Charleston, and as for lettin' the doxies an' port wives come aboard to ease 'em, that'll be once in a Blue Moon. Put us on notice, Goodell did, come armed with Word o' th' Lord."
"A 'Conscience Keeper'… God save us," Lewrie had japed. "He cuts his hair bowl-headed like Cromwell's Puritans, does he?"
"Actually, he looks more akin to Moses," McGilliveray had sadly countered, "so wild-haired and bearded he looks like an owl in an ivy bush. A long, thin 'Jack O' Legs' is he. Gloom, doom, and piety… and while you're up, Cap'm Lewrie, I'd admire a drop more o' yer tasty claret, if you're still offerin', thankee kindly."
"And I am, Captain McGilliveray," Lewrie had twinkled, pouring a topping refill with his own hospitable hand. "A good sailor, though, I'd imagine?"
"A right scaly fish, from the cradle," McGilliveray had rejoined, "and one o' th' first at sea when the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety called for ships t'face your Customs vessels. Goodell's fam'ly were smugglin' un-taxed goods in the large way. Ambitious, aspirin'."
"So… he might be amenable to our budding cooperation, do ye think, sir?" Lewrie had slyly queried, hoping against hope that their new arrival would be just as eager to score a notable, newsworthy success against the French.
"Hah!" McGilliveray had scoffed. "You'd be lucky he don't make you walk the plank, do ya go aboard Hancock unbidden. He meets you at sea, alone, and ship-to-ship, he'd like as not brace up and challenge ya t'battle. None too fond o' th' British, is Goodell. Lost one fine armed brig off New Bedford and had t'swim ashore in his small clothes. Fam'ly lost a half-dozen smugglin' boats… burned a sloop o' war off Rockport so your Navy didn't take her, and got captured early in '82. Spent time in the prison hulks at New York 'til after th' Peace got signed, long after Yorktown. Ended up a backhanded hero, for all he tried, but never won much success."
"But… he still aspires, if offered a shot at the French, and capturing Choundas…" Lewrie had pressed, hopes suddenly dashed.
"Oh, I'll allow he's that eager," McGilliverary had mused. "Ya show him a chance, he'll most-like go gallopin', tantwivy as hunters after th' fox. He's the fire-eatin' sort."
"A Captain Hackum, then," Lewrie had wondered, hopes rising.
"Well, aye. I know he's irked that our piddlin' li'l 'Subscription Ships' scored a coup, whilst he was dry-docked at Baltimore, kidnap-pin' crewmen. Boston 'Bow-Wows' and Northern Yankees hold low opinion o' Southerners, t'boot. Goodell met John Paul Jones, th' once and was almost one o' his lieutenants, and he's regretted the lost opportunity ever since. 'Thunderation' good as said he's anxious to tussle with th' French, t'show what the United States, and our navy, can do."
"Sounds like an enterprising fellow," Lewrie had inveigled with seeming admiration, "though perhaps a daunting one. I should meet him. Must, rather… duty requires. You could introduce us, Captain McGilliveray, make the way smooth and straight? Perhaps on neutral ground, not here aboard Proteus, given Captain Goodell's sentiments. He most-like'd suspect we'd clap him in irons again! Must I beard him in his own den aboard Hancock, well, then I must, I s'pose, but…"
"Ya that curious, Cap'm Lewrie?" McGilliveray had chortled, "Or are ya a glutton for punishment?"
"I'm under Admiralty orders to treat United States Navy vessels and their captains with all the respect due those deemed as 'in amity' with His Majesty's Government," Lewrie had glibly stated. "We share a foe, and would not share a signals book did not our respective governments intend us to work together, when our aims coincide. Your Captain Goodell, fearsome though you depict him, is the senior American naval officer in these waters, so it only makes eminent good sense to become acquainted… professionally.
"I doubt knowing him would be quite as pleasureable as your own acquaintance, Captain McGilliveray," Lewrie "chummily" had said, trying to "piss down his back" to grease the wheels, "but still, Goodell, and Hancock, are the most powerful force now about, and it'd be a dev'lish shame did we work at cross purposes."
"Well, there's that," McGilliveray had casually allowed, "but, Cap'm Goodell may have his own ideas about things. And he's new-come from home, so his orders're surely fresher than mine. France might've seen sense and called off its trade war, by now, and we'd know nought of it."
"I shouldn't be telling you this, but…" Lewrie had confided, leaning forward in his chair as McGilliveray had lolled on the settee. To make things even better, Toulon, having perversely taken a liking to their amiable, drawling visitor, was on the settee, too, up against the good captain's leg with his paws in the air, and twining slowly as his chest and belly were idly caressed. "We strongly suspect that the French intend to move a small convoy, but a rich'un, from Guadeloupe to Saint Domingue in the near future. Two, perhaps three, vessels, laden with supplies for the rebel slaves. L'Ouverture or Rigaud, who knows? But do either of 'em end up holdin' the high cards over t'other, they will start fightin' again. Then all the ports get closed, and trade be damned 'til the dust settles. Don't know who your country backs in that horse race… don't care, really," he had lied.
"Don't know as how we've a cock in that fight, either, Captain Lewrie," McGilliveray had lied right back. Just after, though, he had revealed a bit of his nation's preference, perhaps his own, by adding "Seems if those two do go at each other, it'll eliminate one, and make the winner so weak he'd… may be best do those ships get there, and let 'em fight it out and settle it, once and for all."
"Guillaume Choundas, we are fairly sure," Lewrie had lied some more, wondering just what it took to spur the man to further ambition, "is charged with their safe delivery. All he has left to use for that purpose are his two corvettes… what we'd call three-masted sloops of war, and moderately armed akin to our Sixth Rates. Twenty or twenty-four guns. Nine-pounders, most-like. French Navy, National sloops of war, not over-armed privateers. Takin' them, bestin' 'em in a proper sea-fight, at odds…? And they'd have to fight, 'cause Choundas has t'win at something or be sacked, and to abandon the supply ships while saving themselves'd be the last straw, so they must stand and…"
"Your charmin' Mister Peel tell ya all this, did he, sir?" Capt. McGilliveray had snickered, his eyes glim-flashy in secret delight. "Or 'twas that totty-headed new-come, Pelham? Him o' th' hunt togs?'
"Don't know what ye mean, sir," Lewrie had grunted, pre
tending total ignorance, even going so far as to tuck in his chin and "sull up like a bullfrog."
"Yer spies, Cap'um Lewrie!" McGilliverary had hooted with mirth "Yer Foreign Office, or Admiralty, or whoever pays 'em spies. 'Bout as secretive as house fires, th' both of 'em. Peel ain't your clergyman God knows, he don't tutor your midshipmen, so what else could he be?"
"Uhm, well, actually… uhm," Lewrie had flummoxed, blushing for a rare once. "Damn."
"Don't hold with spies, meself," McGilliveray had quibbled.
"Don't know why not!" Lewrie had quickly countered. "Your partisan rangers like Francis Marion the Swamp Fox, your ship's namesake Thomas Sumter, thrived on the aid of patriotic spies. Your esteemed General Washington, so Peel tells me, ran an intelligence network, in the face of which our Foreign Office still stands in awe. So…"
"I can tell Cap'm Goodell this?" McGilliveray had asked. "That it came from the horse's mouth, so t'speak?"
Lewrie had given that a good, long ponder, weighing how wroth, and loud, Pelham's howls would be, of how poor Jemmy Peel would whimper and beat his head against the mizen-mast trunk to have been frustrated by one of his wild-hair whims; again/ Whisky punch wouldn't avail a second time; they were onto that ploy, so the screeches and expostulations'd be horrid. Weighted against all that, though, was the chance of successfully ending "their "collegial" association when Choundas was at last conquered, and with a great deal of luck, he'd never have to deal with them ever again in this life.
That had taken about two ticks of his pocket watch!
"Don't see why you can't, no," Lewrie had blithely assented.
"Well, then. Well, well, well! Prizes, and battle, my, my!" the estimable Capt. McGilliveray had said, beaming and rubbing his hands with relish. "That'd take the trick, Cap'm Lewrie. Cap'm Goodell'd like nothin' better than t'beat you top-lofty Britons at your own game… with your own spies' intelligence."
"So, you just possibly might bring him round to continuing our cooperation?" Lewrie had posed. "Loathe us though he may?"
"There's a good chance of it, aye," McGilliveray had said. "It may be best, did we give 'Thunderation' a day'r two t'climb down from his high horse over th' riots, and let me get his ear. Then have him aboard my ship under some pretence or t'other, where you just happened along, with a pretence of yer own, and since both of ya are aboard, we dine t'gether, and…"
"I could call upon Desmond," Lewrie had quickly suggested. "In your brief fight with the French brig, by the way… the lad comported himself well? A credit to your ship and Navy?"
"Brave, cool-headed, and honourably, sir," McGilliveray had said with great, though more-formal, pleasure. "A credit to his blood; and, may God let me claim in all due modesty, a credit to his raisin', too."
"I should like to hear his account of it," Lewrie had replied, with a note to his voice that expressed his growing fondness. "Though I worry that so much undue attention paid a 'younker,' ahem… from a total stranger, really, a. foreign Post-Captain, and from his own uncle and Captain, ehm… don't want his head turned, or account himself so grand or singled out that it spoils him. Others in his mess despisin' him for seeming cosseted, d'ye see… Cruelty of boys… all that?"
"Aye, children can be cruel," McGilliveray had glumly agreed. "Some thoughtless and repeatin' what their parents say, some spiteful and aware o' what they're doin', but had we truly cosseted him, tried t'keep him from all Shakespeare's 'slings and arrows,' we'd've done a greater harm."
"Has to stand on his own bottom someday," Lewrie had commented.
"Aye. Now, mostly he was in merry pin, dutiful, sweet and sly round his betters, but he could go cock-a-hoop wild, as all boys can, too. First to th' top of th' live oaks, a fearless horseman, a clever student… the sort o' lad'd make most parents pop their buttons t've raised," Capt. McGilliveray had fondly recalled. "But there was ever the slur of 'Injun,' 'half-breed,' or 'Red Nigrah,' and then he'd turn sombre and hawk-eyed… like a caged eagle, his gaze focussed out ten mile or better, like he was 'bout ready t'spread wings and go someplace finer. But you'd be delighted t'know, Cap'm Lewrie, your son Desmond gave as good, or better, than he got… though my dear Martha was put to Job's despair t'mend his clothin' whenever he came home all skinned and bloodied. But ya should've seen t'other lad he'd whipped, 'til they learned he'd take no sauce off 'em. They got older, it got more subtle, o' course. Had to, for we made certain he had th' very best trainin' with sword and pistol, as any young gentleman should, 'til he was known as a dead shot and able blade."
"The code duello makes for careful, courteous gentlemen," Lewrie had said with a knowing snicker, "and circumspect behaviour."
"Don't it just!" McGilliveray had beamed back. "It never came to such, once he and his peers entered their 'tweens. No, 'twas more a matter o' snubbin', of few invitations to social occasions, unless it was the whole fam'ly invited. Young ladies were warned he wasn't a suitable match, no matter how gentlemanly he was, how well-educated and mannerly. Not t'brag, Cap'm Lewrie, but we're a clan o' substantial means, so never doubt that the boy had the best of ev'rything and stood second to none when it came time to 'gussy' up for church or grand occasions.
" 'Cept when he came home from play, or the hunt, lookin' as if he'd wallowed like the Prodigal Son with the pigs, that is!" Captain McGilliveray had chortled, slapping his knee in a "daddy's" reverie; a sort of reverie that Lewrie, so much at sea but for a few rare years on half-pay 'tween the wars, could but dimly understand. He hadn't been there for the outrageous, exasperating, tom-foolery of his sons Hugh or Sewallis, had no parental tales to share about his precocious girl-child Charlotte, except for distant letters, or giggly remembrances he heard from Caroline (or Theoni, now!) months or years after the deeds were done, once he crossed his own doorsill.
"Life's hard on poor orphans," Lewrie had said, squirming with embarrassment; embarrassed, too, to sound so conventionally… pious. "First year or so of my life I thought / was one, I ought to know."
"My dear sir, I'd no idea!"
"Long story," Lewrie had said, wincing and squirming some more. "Never knew my mother… father late to the ball, 'til he discovered me and took me in. Two wars past." Lewrie had harumphed, embarrassed, like any proper English gentleman, to speak too openly of himself.
"Pray God, though, you had one parent who cared enough to take you in, and raise you right," McGilliveray had rejoined; earnestly and piously, "restore to you your proper birthright…"
McGilliveray never did quite fathom why the estimable Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, hoicked up such a snortful bark of amusement!
"So, the lad was more than happy to come away with you and take the sailor's life?" Lewrie had quickly asked in order to cover his droll musing on what a "loving, and caring" father Sir Hugo had really been to lay public claim upon him, or the whys of his claiming.
"Somewhere on those far horizons o' his," Capt. McGilliveray had agreed, "cold-shouldered as he was, t'would've been that, or ride away cross the high mountains, among his mother's lands. Has an itchy foot, Desmond does. And though I doubt he gave it much consideration, some few years of honourable public service in the uniform of his country's Navy wouldn't go amiss, either, we reckoned. Send him to England for further schoolin'… where no one'd know him as half-Muskogee, right off, was another possibility. Where even did they learn of his birthright, bein' exotic might be a help, not a hindrance."
"No, I'd suspect that Desmond did consider it," Lewrie replied. "To take his country's colours in her time of need… to wear uniform and face danger, even crave it!" he had exclaimed, rising to fill their glasses one more time, then pace. "Even to dream of gaining his commission, of coming home one of a few, a rare breed… a Sea Officer with a sword on his hip, not a trainee's dirk, an officer and a gentleman, in an honourable, gentlemanly, and selfless, profession. I'd imagine that glorious return figured prominently in his fantasies, to tweak every tormentor's nose out of joint, put 'em all to shame, stop the wagging tongues… and make all those
high-nosed young misses go green with regret they ever snubbed him. Perhaps even make one of 'em… the one he desired, forlorn and unrequited all his mis'rable 'tween years, see him in a sudden and diff rent light."
"We never really thought…" Capt. McGilliveray had begun, but broke off, before bowing his head and beaming. "I, now, strongly feel that you have the right of it, sir. And are possessed of keen insight into the hearts of young lads."
"Might as well, Captain McGilliveray," Lewrie had brushed off, with a twinkle to his "top-lights" in thanks for the rare compliment. "I once was one… and may still be, God knows. There's more'n a few who've chid me to grow up! So!" Lewrie had chuckled, seating himself near his guest. "You do not think that my intrusive favouritism will do him lasting harm?"
"I do not, sir. You are, after all, his true father, and a man he should know, and learn from. He's starved for… repudiation, now that you state things as you have, and speak to his hopes and dreams. As his captain, I cannot dote on him, but you, sir, well… dote away!"
"And you will introduce me to your ominous Captain Goodell, as soon as you may discover to him the, ah… temptation which our mutual foe Choundas will soon put before him?"
"I shall indeed, sir," McGilliveray had solemnly promised.
"More, I cannot, in good conscience, ask, sir," Lewrie had said back, turning solemnly grandiose, as well, "for which I am eternally in your debt. For so much… in so many things!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
What onerous task Lieutenant de Vaisseau Jules Hainaut had been given, to scour the Windwards and the Spanish Main in search of those two absent corvettes, had barely gotten underway, when, like a pair of old shoes beneath the bed-stead, La Resolue and Le Gascon had suddenly heaved up over the Sou'west horizon not five dawns since his sailing, sullenly dragging in their wakes a lone, dowdy three-masted merchant ship, with a badly faded American "grid-iron" flag hung beneath a much brighter and larger Tricolour to signify her new ownership.
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