The King`s Commission l-3 Read online

  "Aye, sir," Peck agreed, favoring his splinted and wrapped arm.

  "Bless me, but we're a damaged lot this evening," Treghues said with an attempt at good cheer. "Prize-master?"

  "Well, I could go into her, sir," Railsford replied shyly. If he were to take Capricieuse into port, he could parley the fame and the glory into a promotion to commander himself, yet badly as he wanted it, he had to act modest, and shrug off his own suggestion.

  "No, I shall need you here in temporary command, unless Dorne is playing the fool about my hurts."

  "You should not attempt to rise from that bunk for at least a week, sir," Dorne warned him, "until we know there is no lasting harm from the splinters I withdrew."

  Treghues winced at the remembrance of how he had been quilled with wood, and the agony of their extraction, some of them acting like barbed arrow-heads that had torn more flesh as they came out.

  "Then I shall rest on my laurels until allowed to rise," the captain said with a small grin. Laurels indeed: he had taken a more powerful ship in bloody combat, with a casualty list sufficiently impressive to awe the Admiralty and the Mob at home. Men had been knighted for less. Captain Pearson of Serapis had been knighted for losing to the Rebel John Paul Jones after a splendid three-against-one defense.

  "Mister Lewrie," Treghues said, turning his head to gaze upon him. "In Lieutenant Railsford's stead, I shall appoint you into the prize. And I think the post of acting lieutenant would not be out of order after today's gallantry."

  "Ah." Alan could only gawp in surprise and weariness. Damme, but don't he shower his favorites with blessings, he thought.

  Treghues positively glowed at him. "You did good service today with the guns, and in carrying the boarding of our prize. And I mind you've been prize-master before, after that fight off St. Croix? See, you shall have those paroled French officers aboard, and I doubt they would stand for being guarded by a master's mate. That captain of theirs probably would be insulted with anything less than an earl for his gaoler."

  Everyone chuckled appreciatively at Treghues' wit, and he had a small laugh himself, before a cough interrupted him and forced him to sit still until it had passed.

  "You shall take a care not to lose my prize, though, young sir," Treghues cautioned with only a hint of humor, and Alan knew if he did, he would be hung from a yard-arm in tar and chains until his bones fell apart.

  They sailed on the last day of January 1782, passing noith-about St. Kitts and to windward of the prowling but ineffective French fleet, Desperate repaired enough to accompany them as escort and surety that Capricieuse would make Antigua without mischief.

  The weather was balmy and the Trades steady, and a carpenter's mate could have commanded the prize, Alan sneered to himself. With the quarterdeck people and the Marines armed to the teeth, and Desperate's guns not half a mile off at any time, the French gave them no trouble.

  Captain de Rosset sulked in the officer's wardroom along with this surviving officers and senior warrants, and Alan made free with the captain's quarters as prize-master, lolling on fine cotton sheets and tippling the best wines and brandies he had tasted since he had left London two years before. De Crillart proved a cheerful companion once he had given his parole-he was only a year older than Alan but a droll wit, not given to too much sobriety about life in general, and unimpressed by life in the French Royal Navy as well. His family did not have connections good enough to gain him a commission in a good cavalry regiment, so the Navy was for him, though most people in France looked down on that Service as second to its magnificent Army. Minor nobility or not, the de Crillarts were a genteelly impoverished lot, and his purse had not run to the fineries of his marquis-captain, which while on passage he savored as much as Alan did, as his gaoler's guest.

  One rather sodden night in the privacy of the cabins, Alan and de Crillart dined together, with Lewrie's hammockman, Cony, serving as waiter.

  "To 'is Brittaneec Majesty, George the t'ird!" de Crillart proposed, raising his glass on high, which pronunciation of "third" sent Lewrie reeling with mirth.

  "'E ees votre roy. What ees so foony?" de Crillart asked.

  "Turd, you said," Alan explained between titters. "Nombre trois, in English, is third, not turd. Turd is merde. Dog merde, merde d'chien, merde d'chat, merde d'homme."

  "Oh, pardon!" de Crillart gasped as it hit him. "Mon dieu!"

  "We call him Farmer George, anyway," Alan went on. "Wants to be thought of as a country squire, when he can't even speak bloody English himself half the time. Vot, Gott in Himmel, eh vot?"

  "To 'is Britanneec Majesty, George the… th… third!" the Frenchman managed this time. They drained their glasses, seated. "The King!" Alan echoed. "And to your king. To his Most Catholic Majesty…"

  "Dat ees the Espagnole, Lewrie."

  "Well, to Louis what's his number, then."

  Then de Crillart had to propose a toast to Treghues, whose name he didn't even attempt to butcher, and Alan countered with one to his own captain, Marquis de Rosset, which drew a flash of anger from his supper guest before the young man drained his glass in a gulp.

  "Not too fond of him, are you?" Alan surmised.

  "'E ees the buffoon, eh?" de Crillart grimaced. "A fool."

  "So is ours," Alan confided, leaning over the table.

  Alan explained how Treghues had been addled by a rammer, cut at to relieve pressure on his brain, and what odd medicine he was taking. He also told of the escape from Yorktown, and what the rest of the Navy had thought of that.

  "You were in Chesapeake?" de Crillart gasped happily. "Moi, aussi! Une fregate in York Reever? Formidable! Capricieuse aussi, le potence to keep you in, n'est-ce pas?"

  "Sonofabitch! Really?" Alan barked. "Cony, he was there!"

  "Oh, notre capitaine very anger you escape. After 'e swear no one get out. And how tres ironique, we fight at last. Capitaine de Rosset 'e… 'e 'ave great anger to pass you. I z'ink 'e 'ave need to be victorieuse, after York Reever." De Crillart shrugged.

  "Ours, too," Alan agreed. "My God, Charles, look here. If we had had a different captain, we'd never have needed to have fought you, just kept you from getting into Basse Terre with that schooner. Treghues needed a victory to regain his bloody reputation!"

  "And de Rosset need le combat to avenge ees criteecs! Merde, eef any ozzer capitaine 'ave Capricieuse, we sail avec no challenge!" de Crillart realized. "So many bon hommes are le mort for zees…"

  "Touchy bastards," Alan supplied.

  "Oui, toochy bastards."

  After that mutual admission, their friendship grew firm, until by the time Desperate and her prize were under the guns of the hill forts in the outer roads of English Harbor, he was sorry to see the fellow have to go.

  They parted with many cries of "bonne chance" and promises to keep in touch, and then the world settled down to a long string of boredom once more. Alan stayed aboard Capricieuse for weeks as prize-master. Sir George Sinclair was out with some of his Inshore Squadron, so only Prize Court officials and the Dockyard Superintendent were available to upset their lives. Some more repairs were made, with little help with spares from the dockyard unless heavy bribes were offered, but there were too few hands from shore to take over charge of her as she was laid up in-ordinary awaiting her fate. Desperate swung at her anchors, too, repaired as well as could be managed under the circumstances, her burst gun replaced, but with no orders to either join Sir George their commodore, or return to St. Kitts.

  Alan was loafing under the quarterdeck awnings, tasting the last of his morning tea, when a frigate came in from St. Kitts noisily saluting the flag and the forts.

  "Hold up on inspection for a moment," Alan ordered. "Tell the corporal to let his men stand easy while I read her hoists."

  Laboriously, in the limited code flags, the arriving frigate spelled out the baleful news that the fort on Brimstone Hill had fallen, and the French now owned the island. Hood and the fleet would be arriving late in the afternoon, after abandoning the anchorage during the preceding night and getting clean away, leaving de Grasse befuddled.

  "So that's all we get, sir?" the senior quartermaster asked him as Alan put the glass away into the binnacle rack. "No more ships took?"

  "If there were, we weren't in sight to share the prize-money."

  Any allied ship within spy-glass distance, even if all the view she had was tops'Is above the horizon, could claim shares in any action that resulted in prize-money, so taking Capricieuse within sight of all the line-of-battle ships in Hood's fleet wouldn't provide enough silver per survivor to make a decent meal in a three-penny ordinary, even counting the head money bonus per man in the crew of the prize.

  "Might get a plug o' baccy at best, sir," the quartermaster spat in disgust, and Alan knew it was going to be a grueling inspection that the quartermaster was about to visit on his small crew.

  "We may only hope for advancement from this," Alan comforted, hoping mere was indeed advancement. He had gotten used to having that large frigate under his sole control, of being an acting lieutenant even for so short a period.

  "Politics," Alan griped, once more a master's mate back in the dreary misery of the midshipmen's mess in the cockpit. "Petticoat influence. Family connections."

  "Don't take it so hard, Lewrie," Sedge told him. Sedge could talk, since he had been confirmed as sailing master in Desperate. "We get a new captain out of it, and you should be glad for Mister Railsford."

  Hood had conferred with the Prize Court and instructed them to purchase Capricieuse into the Royal Navy. Treghues had been made post-captain into the prize, and Railsford, as the senior lieutenant of such a magnificent seizure, had been promoted to Commander into Desperate.

  This also allowed Hood and his flag-captain to do favors for some of their patrons' protйgйs, or promote some of their own. Two young men had gone into Capricieuse as lieutenants of a coveted frigate instead of loafing as very junior officers in a line-of-battle ship. More midshipmen had to be appointed into both ships, more junior and senior warrants transferred, giving promotion to them and their replacements aboard their old ships, more master's mates made of promising midshipmen.

  "There's always an examining board," Sedge yawned as he told his family now in New York of his luck, by letter. "You've had over two years as midshipman or master's mate. Ask of Railsford and he'll recommend your name if they seat a board soon."

  Alan doubted that possibility very much, for there was also the niggling requirement that one had to have been entered in ship's books for six years of sea duty. And from what he had learned from others who had gone for oral examination before a panel of captains, it was more fun to be flayed raw, with the chances of promotion by that route about as sure as the proverbial camel passing through a needle's eye.

  Altogether, Alan was getting very fed up with Sedge. He had started out as a graceless lout, and he was rapidly turning into an insolently superior and graceless lout.

  "Well, I shall shift my dunnage aft. Good luck to you, Mister Lewrie," Sedge drawled in his nasal Jonathon twang, which sound was also a rasp on Alan's soul.

  "And you too, sir," Alan was forced to say to his new sailing master. "May you have joy of your promotion and the pleasures of the wardroom." Damn his blood! Alan added to himself with some heat.

  The new master's mate and new midshipman off Barfleur were in the process of unpacking and stirring around the cockpit, so Alan took himself on deck to get away from them.

  With all the ships back in harbor, it was a damned busy place with rowing boats working like a plague of water-bugs at all hours and a constant stream of flag signals from shore or the flagship.

  "Mister Lewrie, one o' them boats is fer us, looks like," Cony told him, pointing off to larboard.

  "Right. Mister Toliver, gather up your side-party. It looks as if the new first lieutenant may be coming aboard at last. Cony, run aft and inform Commander Railsford."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Once within hailing distance, Toliver the bosun's mate leaned over the entry port and cupped his hands around his mouth.

  "Ahoy, there!"

  "Aye aye!" the bowman in the boat shouted back, putting up two fingers in the air to show that a commission officer was aboard and was for them.

  "Sergeant, muster Marine party and side-men fer a lieutenant!"

  Alan paced back to the quarterdeck nettings overlooking the waist while Marines and seamen formed up to welcome their new first officer, and Alan hoped that he was as equitable a man as Railsford had been in that position. He had seen just a glimpse past the oarsmen to an officer in the stern-sheets, a tanned face under a cocked hat with a dog's vane and buttoned loop of gold lace, a slightly shabby coat bespeaking an officer of lengthy sea duty, and probably bags of experience, a real tarpaulin man.

  Pipes trilled as the new officer's hat appeared level with the lip of the entry port, and he finished scrambling up the man-ropes and battens to stand on the gangway, doffing his hat to the side-party. The duty watch and the working parties stopped their labors to doff their own flat, tarred hats in return or touch forelocks.

  "Oh, stap me," Alan muttered. God, he thought sadly, we need to have a little chat someday about frightening the very devil out of me like this. Fashionably a Deist, he was still imbued with the myths of many a governess, who had crooned or beaten a more personal and vengeful God into him from his breeching on, and he spent a futile few seconds trying to discover just what was so bad that he had done, the last few months at least, to deserve such a fate.

  Their new first lieutenant, the man who could make or break any warrant or hand, was none other than Alan's former master and commander from the Parrot sloop, Lt. James Kenyon! There was possibly no other officer in the entire Navy, much less the Leewards, who had a lower opinion of Alan Lewrie's honor and morals.

  The cruelly ironic thing about it was that it was Alan who had saved the man's command from capture, but had he acted the slightest bit grateful for that act? Hell, no.

  Kenyon had been flat on his back with Yellow Jack, lost in his delirium, when they were accosted by a French privateer brig just days from port and safety. Parrot had already struck her colors, her mate at a total loss, and if Alan had not disobeyed him and opened fire into the enemy ship, setting her afire and scything away her jeering boarding party, Kenyon would now be languishing in some prison hulk on Martinique, if not dead as mutton.

  But when Alan had emerged from the throes of Yellow Jack himself in Adm. Sir Onsley Matthews' shore establishment on Antigua, he found a galling letter from Lieutenant Kenyon, accusing him of everything low and base that the officer could think of. Kenyon had put out one hundred guineas at least to gift Alan with the lovely sterling-silver trimmed hanger he now wore on his left hip, a parting gift intended for Alan to use to defend what little honor he had left, the next time it was called to question, as Kenyon was sure it would be. The memory of those phrases still rankled; "firing into an admirable foe after striking the colors," "violation of a sanctified usage of the sea," disobedience, insubordination, "eternal shame," and much more in the same vein. Kenyon had sworn on paper that he could no longer stomach having Lewrie anywhere near him, and were it in his power, he would toss him out of the Navy before he befouled it with a loathsome stench.

  Kenyon finished taking the salute and began shaking hands with the senior warrants whose lives he would control from that instant, and made his way aft towards the quarterdeck to report to Commander Railsford. Alan doffed his hat to him as respectfully as he could and gauged Lieutenant Kenyon's reaction as he recognized him.

  Just a little help here, God? Alan prayed silently as Kenyon squinted hard and turned down the corners of his mouth in distaste.

  "You, is it?" he said, mouth working as though sucking on some acid fruit-rind. He tossed off a brief salute in return, which allowed Alan to lower his arm. "I heard you'd been posted into Desperate last year. Matter of fact, I was hoping you would still be here."

  "Thank you, sir," Alan replied evenly.

  "No no, don't thank me, Lewrie." Kenyon laughed curtly. "There was always the chance I would not catch up with you, if you had been behaving to your normal standards, and had been dismissed from the Service for licentiousness or another act of disobedience."

  "Still prospering, sir," Alan told him, knowing exactly where he stood now, and determined to ride it out with as much dumb civility as the lowest ordinary seaman.

  "The Devil's spawn usually do, I fear," Kenyon said. "I see you still have the hanger I gave you. Cut anybody lately?"

  "Just that one duel, sir, and that over a young lady."

  "What right have you to wear it 'stead of a midshipman's dirk?"

  "I am a master's mate, sir, confirmed back in December."

  "Indeed?" Kenyon pondered that for a time. "Yes, I'd heard some talk of you being brave and efficient. But we know better about you, do we not, Mister Lewrie? What sort of a sham whip-jack you really are."

  "Excuse me, sir, far be it from me to advise my seniors, but the captain is probably expecting you to see him," Alan suggested softly.

  "Oh, how droll, how politic of you," Kenyon sneered. "And how unlike you to find this sudden modesty about advising, or disobeying your seniors, as you put it. You were quick enough to disobey Mister Claghorne, weren't you."

  "Damme, sir, I saved our ship!" Alan insisted.

  "But at what price, Mister Lewrie?" Kenyon hissed. "Claghorne's authority, my honor, the honor of the Royal Navy? I shall attend our captain, but then I'll be wanting to talk with you further on this matter. Don't leave the quarterdeck."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  "Claghorne is dead, you know," Kenyon said over his shoulder.

  So bloody what? Alan thought as Kenyon left.

  "Old friend, Mister Lewrie?" Sedge asked after the first officer had gone aft to present himself.

  "Ah, he was master and commander of Parrot, my previous ship," Alan replied, feeling weak in the knees. "And second officer of Ariadne back in '80, sir."

  "What, that old receiving hulk in the inner harbor?" Sedge said. "You were in her when she was condemned?"