A King's Commander

by Dewey Lambdin

  “And so . . . ?” Lewrie asked, getting suspicious again.

  “We have allowed certain information to be overheard by local informers that such a shipment was forthcoming,” Twigg related, going weaselly and twisting in his chair, a sure sign of trouble. “That it was to come from London, to Gibraltar, then to Port Mahon at Minorca, then up to San Fiorenzo Bay, since it carried the coinage to pay Admiral Hotham’s fleet. Then it would put into Vado Bay, to be delivered to the Austrians. Should it not arrive, Austria might withdraw troops from the Genoese Riviera. Should France get their hands on it they’d be dancing in a positive shower of ‘yellow-boys,’ enough to purchase anything they need, and prop up their new currency at home. Restive . . . the Frogs at home, d’ye see. Subsequently, we’ve revealed the sum to be around £200,000, the name of the ship to carry it . . . and the name of the escort. HMS Jester. ”

  “Now wait a bloody minute, you said it was . . . that we’d . . . !” “Be easy, sir,” Peel suggested quickly, “you’ll burst a blood vessel, keel over in apoplexy, I swear! What better bait can there be for this fellow Choundas? He was a pirate before, the lure of gold is almost irresistible. Plus the hope that you are the escort. Two birds with one. Plus what a coup, with such far-reaching repercussions, were he to weaken the Coalition, or lay all northern Italy open to the French Army with a single deed. With his convoys so savaged recently, and his repute in Paris sinking, he must do something to recoup his own estate. There will be a ship at sea, a ship much like yours, painted in the same color scheme. The merchantman, though, will be a two-decker 4th Rate, of fifty guns . . . a naval vessel. Even does he fetch two corvettes to take her, he’ll be confounded. Even does he escape a second time, his fame will be broken. And there are many French officers who’d love to see him come a cropper.”

  “It will be eminently plausible, Lewrie,” Twigg explained with a sly look. “Nelson has lost the services of Resolution and Speedy for the moment, so he has nothing to spare. Hotham husbands every frigate or sloop of war at San Fiorenzo, and is already short himself. Jester is just refitted, though, currently unemployed. And, because of your supposed errors at Bordighera, and Ushant, you’re not particularly welcome at either San Fiorenzo or Vado Bay. Yours is the only warship to be spared as escort, or dispatch vessel, for the nonce.”

  “While the real shipment, I take it . . .”

  “None of your concern, sir!” Twigg snapped. “The less you know, the less you might blab, by accident. Signorina Mastandrea has already reported to her masters, I know it for a fact. Know their orders to her verbatim. She’s to come to Leghorn, which she has, confirm reports from local informers anent your ship’s state of repair, what orders you might have . . . and when Jester may be expected to sail, and arrive at Vado Bay.”

  “Do they know the ports of call, when I could depart to meet the cargo ship at Gibraltar, and when I finish at Vado Bay,” Lewrie surmised, “they’d have a rough idea of where we’d be, any given day, assuming seasonal winds and seas. Within fifty miles or so. Two ships patrolling . . .”

  Lewrie rose and went to his chart-space, to fetch a large-scale sea chart. He brought it back to the desk and spread it out for Twigg and Peel to look at.

  “I’d expect Choundas to be greedy,” Lewrie pondered aloud, using a pair of brass dividers to march off legs of a course. “And clever. A little fillip, sirs . . . to not only rob the Austrians, but steal the Navy pay chests. Sailors might be used to being one or two years in arrears in their pay, but soldiers usually aren’t. Does he take the ship before she reaches San Fiorenzo, both the Army and Navy are cheated. Debts to local chandlers and merchants go unpaid. Troops and ships’ crews will be demoralized. Aye, Choundas would like that. And so would his superiors. Might even turn Corsican sentiment against us because of it.”

  “Very clever,” Mister Peel muttered, though speaking more of this sailor’s shrewd calculations than of their foe, and sharing a look with his employer, with one brow cocked in reappraisal of all that Twigg had told him of Lewrie’s wits. “You would expect him where, sir?”

  “West of Corsica, and due south of the Îles d’Hyères,” Lewrie replied slowly, stepping off distances. “Were I Choundas, I’d patrol, standing north-and-south along six degrees east, down to the latitude of the Straits of Bonifacio, around forty degrees north, perhaps as high as forty-three degrees,” he told them, sketching out a rough box on the chart with a pencil stub. “A ship from Port Mahon in the Balearics on-passage for San Fiorenzo, or Vado Bay, must pass through this area.”

  He was unaware of Peel’s newfound regard, nor of Twigg’s grudging hooded smile of pleasure; too lost in speculation. And in his own element.

  “Two ships, you think, sir? Average-clear days, each could see twelve miles all about from their mast trucks. Ten miles separation . . . so they could read signals betwixt ’em, say . . . they could sweep a moving rectangle thirty to thirty-five miles long, north-to-south, and twenty-four miles wide. Even at a slow six knots, they’d scour the area twice over each day. It’s too far west of Corsica to expect interference from Hotham’s fleet . . . too far south of France for the escort to expect danger. That’s more likely near Corsica’s nor’west tip, around Calvi, before they get to San Fiorenzo, just as they enter the fringes of the Ligurian Sea. He may strike sooner, lurk off Minorca, but that’s a long way away from his assigned region, sirs,” Lewrie said, tossing down divider and rule, looking up at last. “Unless he’s been reinforced lately, taking two corvettes, his best most like, will weaken his squadron, and hold up any planned convoys till they’re back. He can’t roam too far afield.”

  “Nor for very long, does he wish to keep his head,” Twigg said with almost a purr of pleasure. “So Choundas may be best expected here in this rough area. Where, I trust, it will be he who is the biter bit. Where he will get the greatest surprise of his life. And his last.”

  “A good possibility, sir.” Lewrie shrugged, hedging his bets. “Now, all that’s wanting is for the signorina to get in touch,” Twigg beamed hungrily, rubbing his hands together, “so we may arrange your tryst with her. I’ve taken the liberty of engaging shore lodging, Lewrie. Somewhere quiet, refined . . . where Mister Peel and I may hide ourselves, stand guard. Observe and listen, so we’re sure there’s no interference. That the bait is properly taken, hmm?”

  “Oh, you mean something like this, sir.” Lewrie smirked, opening his desk drawer and dropping her note atop the chart.

  “Why yess, Lewrie,” Twigg drawled, most contented that his scheme was well afoot. “Something very much like that’d do nicely.”

  C H A P T E R 3

  It was raining that night in Leghorn, just enough to temper the day’s balmy warmth, but not enough to cool the evening in the late October afterglow of the Lion Sun season. A sullen, persistent weak rain that made it feel almost as muggy as high summer; just enough rain to gurgle off the roof tiles, trickle down the tiled eaves into the gutters and sigh down the tile or lead down-spouts, or plash on the balconies and window-sills. Which made it almost impossible for Twigg or Peel to hear much of what was said in the adjoining rooms, even with drinking glasses pressed to the thin lath-and-plaster dividing wall, ears against the bases. Twigg heaved another huge sigh of grumpy frustration; that a perfectly good gutta-percha stethoscopic tube had been overpowered by the sluicing of the rain and sough of the wind; that he was too old to be stooping against a wall in such a crabbed position; and that he was far too senior now to still be doing a younger legman agent’s duties.

  “Ah, something, sir,” Peel began to say, perking up.

  “Sssst!” Twigg hissed, straining to hear. “Damme, just . . .” Even without their improvised devices, they could now hear what transpired in the apartment adjoining theirs. Not the whispery billing and cooing of muttered pillow talk, which might contain the questions a woman spy had been tasked to ask, nor the beginning of Lewrie’s replies in which he’d been strictly coached, to be tossed off casually, feigning alcohol-and-lus
t-inspired carelessness, either.

  “My God, man’s a bloody stoat!” Peel whispered, rather in awe of the passionate noises coming through the wall. “Both of ’em. Thrice in the last hour, I make it.” He sighed enviously as he went to the table to pour himself some wine, putting his listening device to a more prosaic use. Twigg remained, sitting lumpish, twiddling his long thumbs, with a scowl on his face as the carefully placed bedstead next door, up against the wall so they could hear better, began to cry out—slats, side rails, and ropes creaking. He grimaced as names were whined or mewed, between groans and muffled enthusiasms for impending bliss.

  “Doesn’t have to make a meal of it,” Twigg carped. “Get on!” “What man wouldn’t, given the chance . . .” Peel chuckled to himself, wondering if there would ever come a time in his Duty to Twigg, King, and Country when he was the actor in such a delightful bit of spy-craft—instead of the listener, or the arranger.

  “Damn this rain,” Twigg muttered, sour. “Damn him . . . ! ” “Following your last advice, he is, sir,” Peel commented, a bit tongue-in-cheek, as he discovered a neglected roast-chicken thigh among the supper plates. “Lay back, grit your teeth . . . and think of England.”

  “Pahh!” Twigg spat, rueing that cynical parting shot of his.

  A soft keening, a frantic yowl of abandon arose, as the head-board began to thump against the wall, in rhythm with audible bull-like pants, and quavery shouts of “God, Claudia darlin’, you lovely . . . !” And those “. . . si, si, Alan, Dio mio, si! ”

  “Pahh!” Twigg reiterated, swiveling on a hard dining chair. “Sounds as if she’s beyond thinking of France, and her revolutionary ardor, too, sir,” Peel dared to snicker. Twigg’s hugely una-mused glower was enough to silence him, to chew on the thigh, as a framed picture on their side of the wall went askew with the last triumphant thuddings, and half screams of mutual rapture. Followed by many groans and weepy, shuddery sighs of content.

  “Now get on with it, you two,” Twigg snarled, impatient for intelligent speech again.

  She really is a blonde, Alan thought, most happily spent, and so pleasantly nestled with her sprawled half atop him, his hands stroking such a wee bottom, a cunningly small waist, and the tops of her thighs. Bouncers on his chest, God yes, big as twelve-pounder shot, but Claudia was so exquisite a miniature. Thankee, Twigg; never say another bad thing about ya, he vowed!

  “Alan,” Claudia huskily whispered, purring and sensuously cat-soft alongside. “I knew . . . moment I saw you, we would be lovers, mi amato. But I never guessed, so . . . meraviglioso, so uhmm!”

  “Cara mia,” he purred back, hoping her clinging fondness, her passion, hadn’t been completely sham. Her eyes going so dewy, open . . .

  “Caro mio,” she chuckled gently, after a long soul kiss. “You will have long in Leghorn, to be my caro mio, my soul, si? And after. We will both be in Genoa, to share this bliss, Alan?” She pressed her face to his shoulder, hugging strong, shifting a thigh across his loins.

  “At bloody last!” Twigg whispered, glued to the wall again.

  Peel remained standing, to finish his wine, so he could put his glass back to King’s Service. The rain still trickled, echoing in the spouts or plonking loudly in the collection barrels at ground level. He went to close the balcony doors, though it would be stifling without the faint cooling breeze the rain had brought.

  Another damned noise, on a street chosen for light traffic after dark, where carriage wheels on cobblestones wouldn’t intrude! Now, at the very worst time, came the clopping, mill-wheel grinding of a coach-and-four in the street below!

  “Close those . . . !” Twigg directed, snapping his fingers at Peel, who shut the doors down to a tiny crack, from which he could see, back in the shadows of their darkened room. Hullo, stopping here? he winced.

  Warily, he felt in his pockets for a pair of small double-barrel “barkers,” in case the coach’s occupants were French bully-bucks, despite Twigg’s blithe assurances that there was no physical danger.

  “Sir!” he alerted in a small voice. “Stopping here, sir!”

  “Not now!” Twigg waved off, too intent on listening.

  A lodging-house tiler emerged with a lanthorn in the small nimbus of torchlight before the doors, and the postillion boy from the back of the coach alit to open the door and hand down a fashionably dressed young lady. Peel relaxed when he saw her pay off the driver, that she’d come alone. No luggage to speak of, either, just the usual drawstring velvet purse, and a small toiletries satchel shaped like a small chest. A most beautiful young Mediterranean lady, with rich dark hair and eyes, a faint olive hue to her high, excited color. Most fetchin’ and handsome, Peel took note appreciatively; quite young, but dressed as grand as any titled London lady—perhaps better. Young heiresses had been ex-Captain Peel’s downfall, so he knew best when it came to appraising his woman-flesh; he thought her £10,000 on the hoof! Peel bared his teeth and snickered, thinking a wealthy Tuscan father was in trouble, if his daughter was off to sport the night with a caddish, penniless lover.

  “No bother, sir . . . just a single lady,” Peel whispered. “Hmmph!” Twigg grunted, squirming as the coach clattered away, drowning out his vigil. “You try, Peel. You’ve younger ears.”

  Peel replaced him at the wall while Twigg stood and stretched to ease the kinks in his back and shoulders, knowing he was definitely too old for this work. He frowned suddenly, turned to share a wary, quizzical look with Peel as footsteps sounded from the stairwell, then from the landing—then in their hallway!

  “Damme!” Twigg sighed, drawing one of his own pocket pistols and pulling the right-hand barrel back to half cock. He crossed to the door on cat-feet to press his overstressed ear to the door. He heard voices in the hall, muffled Italian. Light shifted at his feet through the gap above the doorsill. He dared to open the door a crack, to see who it might be, hoping they’d pass on by to other apartments farther along—but no!

  He pulled the door open a bit more, stuck his head around it, to see a servant rapping on Lewrie’s door! “ Commandante Lewrie?” he said. And the young lady with him, bouncing on her toes in excitement of her great surprise of her unexpected arrival . . . !

  “No!” Twigg gasped. “You silly slut! Why here, why now . . . ?” He thought of rushing to carry her off, but that would cause an even greater commotion. And it was too late; the door to Lewrie’s apartment was opening!

  “Sir?” Peel asked with a puzzled look of ignorance. Then Peel flinched away from the wall, almost dropping his glass in surprise, as he had no more need of it. There was sound, and more than enough, to go round!

  “ Basta!” came a loud yelp of outrage. “Espece de salaud!” “Good God!” from Lewrie, over the shriek of “ Dio mio, Alan . . . !” and the slam of a disturbed headboard. “Che questo?”

  French, Italian, English; a gabble of curses, mostly feminine voices raised in high dudgeon in three languages. Imprecations, many slurs, some huffy cat-yowlings. Then the sound of something heavy and porcelain shattering against the wall, preceding a manly wheedling.

  “It’s his Corsican doxy, Peel,” Twigg growled. “Why now, why here in Leghorn? Damn her to hell, damn her blood, I say! She’s gone and blown the gaff. I’d like to . . .”

  Something else, quite possibly heavier and made of more fran-gible stuff, such as a glass carafe, hit the wall, evoking a redoubled chorus of alarmed yelping from Lewrie, of a certainty, quite possibly Claudia Mastandrea the other. Feet began to drum yonder, bare feet as people were chased, pursued by a constant stream of trilingual invective, or weaker, breathless excuses or pleas in return. Punctuated, of course, by a continual patter and clatter of things being thrown and broken.

  Like spear carriers in the opera, from below-stairs there arose a contrapuntal clatter of shod feet on the stairs, the shouts of landlord and servants to hurry up and shut the noise down, discover what was happening, the hired chorus singing under the principal’s trio.

  Utterly defeated, Twigg
went to the table where he and Peel had shared a surreptitious stag supper, to claw a wine bottle to him, and pour his listening device brimful. Lewrie, he thought; just when you counted on him, he’d always let you down; he’d always bungle his way to disaster!

  Well, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, in the end, the old spy-master had to allow, quite grudgingly; but eventual victory had a way with Lewrie of being preceded by disaster.

  He went to the double doors to the balcony to sip his wine, to lean his weary old cadaver’s head against a cool pane, gazing down at the slick cobbles, the dispiritingly meager rainfall winking as drops fell on puddles or slick spots, flickering with the light of distant torches or lanthorns. All seen through the steamed and streaked condensation of the panes. And wondering what to do next?

  There really was a shipment of gold at sea. The lure, dangled with Lewrie as additional bait to trap Choundas, had also been planned to divert him from the real vessel, the real course. If the Austrians didn’t receive it, if Choundas intercepted it, then everything Lewrie had surmised might come true, Twigg thought miserably. Careful as he had been, he was sure word of that ship had reached the Genoese, then the French, soon after. Two rumors; which to believe? Which was the most plausible for Choundas to follow? And they had been so close!

  By ear, he could follow someone’s progress down the stairs, at last, until their footsteps were drowned out by the continuing battle next door, which showed no signs of abating.

  Twigg perked up a bit, stepped back into his proper element— the shadows—as a lady appeared in the small nimbus of light before the lodging-house entry. Claudia Mastandrea, whistling up her coach, still nipping and tucking to complete dressing, concealing her hastily donned state with a shawl, and a large, saucy hat. She looked up at the balcony, and Twigg went rigid with fear that he’d been spotted.