The King's Commission

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Yesterday, sir,” Cony said from Alan’s side, where he had been assisting in his restraint. “Got some brandy ’ere, sir, iffen ya feels up ta takin’ some.”

  “God, yes, I’m ready!” Alan said with some heat.

  “A drop or two of tincture of laudanum for that first,” Lewyss suggested, reaching for his case.

  “And then someone please tell me what happened at the riverbank,” Alan ordered, now that he was up in a sitting position on the short cot.

  “Them Apalachee an’ Dons almost done fer us, sir, ’til them Muskogee an’ Seminolee showed up,” Cony related, offering him a squat pewter mug brimming with harsh ratafia, which Alan sipped from avidly. “Thought the ones in the swamp was acomin’ fer us, but they was runnin’ instead. God, they don’t butcher half-fair, sir! Loppin’ off ’eads an’ arms an’ legs and what-all fer the fun of it, aliftin’ scalps an’ laughin’ like loonies, sir. ’Twas the scariest thing ever I did see, even worse’n the fightin’.”

  “What about the rest of our party?” Alan demanded.

  “Well, Andrews got a cut’r two, sir, an’ I got scratched up a piece,” Cony went on. “We lost three of the ’ands dead, them sodjers got five killed an’ ever’body else down with wounds. ’Nother minute’r two, an’ there’d been nobody to save, sir. Near as damnit’s a thing as ever I did see. An’ we lost that nice Mister Cowell, sir. Apalachee nailed ’im all over with arrers, they did.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Cony,” Alan sighed, feeling a wave of sadness. “He had no business getting mixed up in the fighting like us. What a mess. And Captain Cashman?”

  “Fine, sir, ’ceptin’ a scrape here and there.”

  “Thank God for that, at least. Wait! Rabbit?”

  “Missus Lewrie got away fine, sir,” Cony assured him. “Mister McGilliveray took ’er back to ’is people, with your gifts an’ all.”

  “Mrs. Lewrie?” Doctor Lewyss muttered, rolling his eyes.

  “My, you have been a busy lad!”

  “’E said to tell ya, sir, that she’d be took good care of, ’e’d see to that.”

  “She was a sweet little thing at bottom.” Alan nodded. He felt a pang of longing for her, but the idea of being a husband and father made him decide that as Anne Beauman told him, things work out for the best in the long run.

  “You do get into the oddest scrapes, sir, if you’ll pardon me for saying so,” Dr. Lewyss chuckled. “I truly do believe you could turn up a willing tit amidst the agonies of Hell itself. It’s not everyone has your success with the ladies, ha ha! Well, that should do you for now, sir. Tomorrow, should you feel up to it, and suppuration has not set in, I shall have you moved to the gun deck where you may get some fresh air and some sun. ’Tis my experience people heal the faster there.”

  “Thank you, Mister Lewyss, I’d appreciate that,” Alan said, and took another deep draught of the brandy. The laudanum was taking effect and the pain was lessening to a manageable level now, and he felt the urge to yawn, perhaps close his eyes for a nap as long as he was flat on his back with no duties to attend to for the first time in years.

  “Oh, Cony, did Rabbit receive all her presents when she left?”

  “Yessir, she did.” Cony nodded, looking as though something was on his mind, but reticent by class or position to mention it.

  “Something else you want to tell me, Cony?” Alan prodded, knowing his man’s moods by then.

  “Well, sir, I didn’t want ta mention it much, but …” Cony fumbled, turning red with embarrassment. “I know you was fond o’ ’er, sir, but sometimes things work out best.”

  “Fond of her, yes, Cony, but not about to trot her back to London with me,” Alan admitted. “She’d have been unhappy there. Probably been unhappy anywhere close to civilized.”

  “Well, that’s it, sir,” Cony said, summoning up his nerve. “When them Muskogee an’ Seminolee was adone slaughterin’, an’ she’d finished puttin’ some poultice on yer leg, she an’ them other girls went out an’ … Lord, sir … ever’ man you killed, she took her knife to. Scalped ’em for ya, since you couldn’t! Ears an’ weddin’ tackle an’ all, and whoopin’ fit ta bust, sir! Never seen the like, an’ her a gentle little girl, too, sir, with a baby acomin’! Tried to give ’em ta me in a bag, an’ I had ta take it’r shame ya, Mister McGilliveray said, but I put it over the side soon’s we were a few mile offshore. Woulda took that poultice off, too, ’cept Mister McGilliveray said they was strong ’erbs in it, that’d draw the poison out, else you’d mortify an’ die. Said ’e’d seen it work before, an’ it was devilish good medicine.”

  “Must have worked,” Alan agreed after another swig of brandy.

  “Aye, sir, that wound wasn’t half as angry t’day as it was when I saw ya bandaged there on the beach,” Cony agreed heartily.

  “Well, let that be a lesson to us, Cony,” Alan finally said, smiling. “Never trust a woman with a knife, even the sweetest of ’em. They can be handsome as hell, but they’ve all got a mean streak when they’re crossed. ’Specially after they become wives.” He chuckled wearily.

  “Yessir, I guess.” Cony nodded.

  “I think I’ll sleep for a while, Cony,” Alan said after draining the mug and licking his lips. “You’re not harmed? Feeling alright?”

  “Aye, sir, right as rain,” Cony said, taking the mug from Alan’s almost nerveless fingers as he closed his eyes. “You rest up, sir, an’ you’ll be back on yer feet an’ runnin’ this ship sooner’n you can say ‘Jack-Sauce.’”

  “Oh God, do I have to?” Alan murmured just before dropping off.

  “Well, I’ll say goodbye to you, Alan,” Cashman grunted, picking up his weapons kit, now swollen with new items as souvenirs from their adventure. “Heal up and we’ll hoist a few for old times soon, I hope.”

  “Somewhere quiet for a change, Kit,” Alan agreed, hobbling to his feet and limping heavily to the rail by the entry-port with his crutch that Mr. Pebble the carpenter had made for him.

  “You sound like you don’t like excitement anymore. Once you’ve got two good legs to stand on, there’s a world o’ fun to be had out there.” Cashman laughed.

  “Give me a month or so, then I’ll be ready for some amusements,” Alan prophecied. “Though I’d like my excitement a little less neck-or-nothing than this last little bit. I’ll suppose you’ll be going back to Florida when we land troops there, since you know so much about the Indians now. Maybe Shrike will be involved in it. We’ll see each other then.”

  “Bless me, Alan, there won’t be any landing.” Cashman frowned. “With Cowell dead, an’ McGilliveray gone native, there’s no one to say a good word for the idea, an’ I doubt any officer in the West Indies’d spare a corporal’s guard in a rowboat on the plan. Mind you, it could have worked, given half a chance.”

  “Damme, but I’m getting weary of seeing good men die for nothing, Kit,” Alan spat, after a long moment to get over his sudden surprise. “Seems I’ve spent my whole time in the Navy taking part in ventures doomed from the start! Graves in The Chesapeake, Cornwallis at Yorktown, evacuating Wilmington … I could give you chapter and verse from now ’til supper and not repeat myself. Oh, we’re good when it comes to the fighting, but witless when it comes to the planning for them.”

  “All the more reason for fellas like us to live long enough to be generals and admirals,” Cashman barked, giving out with a short, bitter laugh. “We couldn’t possibly be worse than the pack o’ fools we have now. Too used to winnin’ in the Seven Years’ War, I guess, an’ forgot all we learned from that one. McGilliveray was a hopeless stuffy bastard, but he had the right idea, I’ll give him that. Least he’s enough muskets to keep the Rebels from eatin’ his people alive for a time, an’ traders’ll sell ’em anythin’ they want, long’s they come up with enough pelts an’ hides to swap. Well, I’m off. Back to Lieutenant Colonel Peacock an’ his shitten ways. All the best to you. Do write and let me know when you get ‘married’ again, and I’ll be the
re to stand up for you one more time.”

  “Aye, I’ll keep in touch, but I seriously doubt the marrying part.” Alan smiled, taking Cashman’s hand and feeling his sour depression lift for a while. He knew that half of it was being so incapacitated, that and the continuing pain of his wound. He truly liked Cashman, odd a bird as he was, and wished to give him a hearty send off. “Keep out of trouble. And should I get another girl in the family way, you’ll have to stand up with me, else I’d run for the hills. Farewell, Kit.”

  “Hoist a Black Drink for me!” Cashman yelled from the boat after he had gotten himself and his dunnage settled, and then he was gone.

  Alan waved once more and steeled himself to limp with the crutch aft to the steps to the quarterdeck, wincing with each pace. It would have been so easy to let the surgeons declare him unfit for duty, and he could be put ashore until he was fully healed. But Shrike was his world and he could not bear to leave her for another ship after settling in so comfortably. Better the devil he knew than to be relegated to some new pack of strangers and begin the process of mixing in once more, probably in a larger ship where he would have less authority as a second or third lieutenant. After gaining mastery of his duties well enough to serve as a first officer, he would be damned if he would give it up unless made to do so. So he had risen from his cot the day they had anchored in Kingston harbor, and sweated and suffered to appear fit enough to stay.

  The first step, balancing on the crutch with a death-grip on the man-rope, fancy-served with turk’s heads, that served for a banister. A second step. And William Pitt, lashing his tail lazily at the top.

  “Get out of my way, you mangy bastard,” Alan whispered. “Oh for Christ’s sake, don’t do that!”

  The ram-cat daintily hopped down to the step he was on and wound about his bad leg, making himself a moving obstacle to any further attempt to take a step. William Pitt was purring.

  “Happy I’m crippled, are you?” Alan snarled. “Getting our own back, are we, damn your eyes? Give way, you sorry shit-sack.”

  The cat leaped up to the next step, letting him advance, but repeated the performance, rubbing its chin and head on his good leg this time, and twining about him with tail and side like a snake.

  “Need some help there, Mister Lewrie?” Lieutenant Lilycrop asked him.

  “Somebody kill this filthy beast, sir, that’d suit,” Alan said, sweating like a slavey for fear he’d go arse over tit any second.

  “Stap me, but one’d almost think he’s startin’ to like you, sir,” Lilycrop marveled. He came down the ladder and helped Alan up to the quarterdeck. “If you think you can manage it, I’d admire if you joined me in my cabins. You may lean on me, if you’ve a mind. No shame in acceptin’ help now and again when ya need it, sir.”

  “Thankee, sir, I’d be much obliged.”

  Once ensconced in a padded chair, with a glass of rhenish in his hands, he felt much better, though the appraising way Lilycrop was looking at him was a bit disconcerting. Was he being sent ashore, try as he had to appear hale?

  “I’ve given orders you’re to shift your quarters for a while, Mister Lewrie,” Lilycrop finally said. “You’ll be comfortable enough in the chart-space yonder, and all the closer to the quarterdeck, with only the short ladder to manage ’til you’re fully healed.”

  “I’m grateful for your concern, sir,” Alan told him with a grin as his worries disappeared. “Doctor Lewyss says another couple of weeks more and I’ll be fit enough for light duties. I thought you might be considering packing me off ashore, sir.”

  “Oh, not a bit of it,” Lilycrop assured him with one of his round smiles. “We’re used to each other’s ways now, and I’d not like to break in another first officer. Not that one’d be forth-comin’ from Sir Joshua Bloody Rowley for the likes of us.”

  “We didn’t exactly fail, sir,” Alan pointed out. “If he won’t reinforce the overtures we made, it’s his fault if he lets the chance slip away.”

  “He’s nothin’ to reinforce with,” Lilycrop told him with a sour look. “Admiral Hood’s off Cape Francois, blockadin’ the rest of the French West Indies fleet, and Admiral Pigot …”

  “Who the hell is he, sir?” Alan asked.

  “Goddamn, but you still haven’t learned to keep your ear to the ground, boy.” Lilycrop frowned. “Pigot come out to take over from Rodney last year, just after The Saintes, an’ after we got transferred. Anyway, one of de Grasse’s junior admirals, de Vaudreuil or something, has most of his squadron penned up at Cape Francois, and at Porto Cavallo, on the Spanish Main. That’s why there’s to be no ships for any expedition to Florida. All the admirals want a last sea battle, a last crack at the Frogs.”

  “So everything we did was a waste,” Alan spat.

  “We weren’t to know that, not at the time. Admirals change, plans change.” Lilycrop shrugged. “Maybe after the war’s over, we can run traders or agents in there, anyway, and still achieve somethin’.”

  “So we’re just a little foot-note, sir,” Alan went on, getting angry. “Maybe not even that.”

  “That’s the way of it.” Lilycrop nodded, reaching over to tap him on the shoulder. “Don’t take it so hard, Mister Lewrie. You did all anyone could expect of you, and more, from what I heard. Sometimes all you can do is your duty, and your best just ain’t good enough if they go and change the plan on you. Don’t you think even admirals get their best efforts rejected now and again? ’Course, those never turn up in their memoirs, or the naval chronologies. Rest assured, Rowley give us a good report. And a nice pat on the arse on the way out.”

  “Out, sir?”

  “Transfer back to Admiral Hood’s flag, off Hispaniola. We’re to be part of Commodore Affleck’s group workin’ close inshore to keep an eye on the Frogs at Cape Francois. Be good to get back to sea and have somethin’ straight-forward to do, for a change. Maybe get a crack at a merchantman tryin’ to supply the damned place.”

  “I still think we’d have done better going back to Florida,” Alan said, shaking his head. “The French will never come out, sir. We waste our efforts blockading them. And if they’re blockaded, then we have a clear shot at landing the expedition.”

  “But if they learned we were doin’ it, and took ships off-station, they would come out, and then where’d we be?” Lilycrop countered.

  “Then we keep the fleet at sea, waiting for the second chance to defeat them, sir,” Alan schemed. “What better lure to draw them out at all! Look here, sir, I’ll wager you any odds that Admiral Hood had no idea this expedition was being considered. What if we could write him and let him know of it? He’s senior to Rowley, is he not? If he could thin his blockade, provide enough ships to escort the expedition, the French would learn of it. We land our forces at Apalachee Bay, or closer to Pensacola. This de Vaudreuil comes out of Porto Cavallo and Cape Francois, maybe the Dons come out of Havana. Pigot could come west from Antigua or St. Lucie, and Rowley could sortie the Jamaica Squadron. We assemble off the Florida coast, threatening Havana, and meet them in that last glorious battle the admirals want so much!”

  “Damme, you don’t think small when you take the effort.” Lilycrop laughed, then sobered. “But, one thing I’ve learned in this Navy in my time is, most people wouldn’t stir their arses up if you set fire to ’em, Lewrie. They’re happier layin’ back, lettin’ somebody else make the decisions. It’s too much of a risk. It’d expose Jamaica again, an’ this time, the Frogs an’ the Dons might succeed in takin’ it. The watchword is, ‘when in doubt, don’t.’ Good for careers, but hell on the country. Been guilty of it meself at times, God help me. No, this time we’d best let our superiors make the decisions. They don’t look kindly on lieutenants givin’ em advice.”

  “Bad for the career, sir,” Alan said evenly.

  “There you are,” Lilycrop agreed. “I’d forget about writin’ any letters, if I were you. ’Sides, the war’s so close to over, it wouldn’t make much difference anyway. Now, why don’t you see to as m
uch as you feel up to, so we can sail tomorrow. Let Mister Caldwell help you. Him an’ Midshipman Rossyngton can do your leg-work for you. Do the lad good to get a little authority. Park yourself in a comfortable chair on the quarterdeck, if you’re of a mind.”

  “Aye, sir, I shall,” Alan relented, half of a mind to write his letter anyway. He groped to his feet, got his crutch going, and went to the chart-space, where Cony had begun to lay out his kit and his chest. A small fixed bed-box had been cobbled together and fitted to the partition aft of the chart-table, much like a settee. Athwartship as it was, it would be more comfortable to sleep in, and it was high enough to allow him easy entry and exit, even with his game leg, if the seas got up once they were on-station.

  “What career do I have to worry about preserving, anyway?” he muttered to himself once he was ensconced on the mattress, sitting so he could draw out a large-scale chart and study the Caribbean area. “Maybe I should write that letter after all. Not that it’d do much good, I suppose.”

  Alan thought that even if he did write it, and Hood was receptive, perhaps Pigot would turn out to be chary, or Rowley would be too cautious. It would take weeks to draw a consensus locally, and then they would most likely wish to send off to London for directions, and that would take months more. To act and fail on their own would hurt their careers. No one back home in the Shelburne government would care to strand a British army in the marshes where they would die like flies to alien fevers and agues, not this close to the end of the war, while they were negotiating a peace. It would risk Jamaica, or Antigua.

  Yet what was war but a series of calculated risks? It was not an exact science, subject to mathematics, so that odds could be drawn from tables. It was an art, he had been told. How often had he seen success or failure balance on the fine-honed edge of a sword? And how many officers would see only hazard and fail to dare, while some other fire-brand would see slight advantage, and would go forth to sow confusion to England’s foes.