A King`s Commander l-7

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Soon, Peel, soon," Twigg said airily. "No rush. After all my dealings with the brute, Peel, I must confess to enjoying the sound of it. Quite relishin', in fact. Music to my old ears, my lad. Music to my ears!"

  CHAPTER

  4

  Reduced to t'gallants and jibs, Jester stood into Vado Bay at the tail end of November, after a pointless, but necessary, transit; rushed from Leghorn, south-about Sardinia to Port Mahon on Minorca, and then sent off to Gibraltar and back as an errand boy, bearing a heavy packet of dispatches, some pensioned-off soldiers and Marines, and the sea chests or campaign chests of officers who had perished, so they could be sent home to England.

  There had been at least one tiny satisfaction; awaiting them at Gibraltar had been a set of orders left with the local Navy officials to allow Jester to make good her complement from the pick of hands newly arrived from England in the receiving hulks.

  Twigg's way of making some small amends, Lewrie had discovered, though there was little joy of it. Little joy to be found in much of anything, at the rate things were going, he thought. Phoebe…

  "An' I sink you are not like ozzer men," had been her parting, wailed, shot, no matter what Twigg and Peel had tried to say to her, no matter his own attempt, and pleadings. "I s'ink I trust you, Alain mon coeur, but… !"

  Hoist by mine own bloody petard, he thought to himself, feeling a bit disconsolate, still. Oh, he'd always known their affair was just temporary, an amour eventually doomed by circumstances, but that didn't mean it hurt any less to have it over quite so soon. Or in such a messy way, so shamefacedly… or painfully, for the both of them. That long independent cruise had at least provided enough peace and quiet, and an isolated time to mend and ponder.

  " 'Bout here, sir?" Knolles prompted.

  "Aye, Mister Knolles." Lewrie nodded in agreement. "Round up to the eye of the wind, Quartermaster. Back the fore and main t'gallants… and make ready to slip the best bower, sir."

  As Jester slowly came about, he had time to survey the harbor, and the wide roadstead of Vado Bay's anchorage. There were still some half-dozen prizes moored there, identifiable by being the only vessels stripped of all their canvas, so their crews couldn't make any escape attempts, nor could a French raid from seaward cut them out and sail them away. There were a pair of Austrian supply ships, another brace of British, though little sign that any cargoes were being moved. One small Austrian brig o' war was anchored, with her sails hung slack for airing- seemingly along with her crew, who had what looked to be an idle "Rope Yarn Sunday" going. Only one Royal Navy warship was in the roadstead close inshore, the Tartar brig. The rest were probably out at sea, farther west along the Genoese Riviera. Lewrie eyed the hills and pyramids of provisions and munitions for General de Vins's army, a sign his commissary troops and garrison had grown some since…

  "Signal, sir!" Midshipman Hyde called out. " 'Board Tartar] I make it, 'Have Dispatches'… 'Urgent'… she shows 'Submit'… next is 'Close Me'… 'Send Boat,' no… that's 'I Am Sending a Boat,' sir."

  "Does she, by God!" Lewrie growled, irked by the presumption of a junior lieutenant, or a commander farther down the Navy list than him, trying to order him about so.

  Pretty much what got me in the mess I'm in, he found wryly amusing, after a moment, though; 'bout half a mile alee? Too far to row…

  " 'Vast anchoring, Mister Knolles! Back jibs to larboard, brace the fore t'gallant to starboard tack. We'll anchor close to Tartar."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  Jester came around slowly, falling off the wind again, to ghost across the roadstead to within a cable of Tartar before turning up to fetch-to. But there would be no need to anchor, since one of Tartar's boats was already down, and stroking hard for her side. Lewrie opened his telescope to eye her. Bowman, eight oarsmen, midshipman in the stern sheets at the tiller, and… damn!

  "Ah," he said, his face stony. "Hmm." He almost moaned as he slammed the tubes closed. And feeling an urge to spit, to cleanse his mouth of a sudden foul taste.

  It was ex-Captain Peel in the boat, clinging to a tall hat, with a small clutch of traveling bags at his sides on the thwarts. Peel; no sign of his master, Twigg, but that wasn't cause for much joy. Peel at Vado Bay, as Twigg's urgent emissary, was bad news enough!

  "Bosun, man the entry port," Lewrie directed. "We'll not drop anchor, after all, Mister Knolles, till we've sorted this out."

  "Uhm… trouble, sir, do ye think?" Knolles simply had to ask.

  "You might say that, Mister Knolles."

  To Lewrie's great disappointment, Peel was an agile brute, just as spry as a seaman when it came to departing the boat and scaling the battens to the gangway. Alan had rather hoped he'd slip and break his devious neck-or at least get a good dunking, to wash the spy-stink off.

  "Mister Peel, sir," Lewrie grumbled, doffing his hat as Peel doffed his in greeting. Feeling most uncivil, though.

  "Commander Lewrie, sir," Peel rejoined, just as stonily. "I am required to give you this, at once… to be read at once, sir."

  Peel produced a square of vellum, folded over from the corners and sealed with a large blob of candle wax. Lewrie took it and turned away, took a few paces to larboard for privacy, wondering what new vat of shit he'd tumbled into. He peeled it open.

  "Well, damme…" He frowned in puzzlement.

  It was from Captain Nelson, in his own hand, not his clerk's. Lewrie and jester were to consider themselves under his orders again. But the next paragraph instructed him to place himself and his ship at Mister Peel's service until further notice, and to render to him, and his superior Mister Twigg, any and every service and assistance they requested.

  "Shit," he whispered, hoping he'd seen the back of them, that Twigg had told the truth for once that his duties ashore at Leghorn had been "quits." He'd lied, o' course. Again. And what else was new?

  "Very well, Mister Peel, sir," Lewrie drawled, stalking back to the man. "What assistance do you require from us?"

  "That I am only allowed to tell you in the strictest privacy, sir," the stolid ex-cavalry officer replied rather guardedly, muttering only as loudly as necessary; as if sharing even a cryptic conversation with Lewrie was too much to bruit about in public. "Might I be allowed to urge you to do whatever it is you do, to return to sea, though, sir?"

  "Get underway?" Lewrie hinted, with a faint grin.

  "If that's how sailors phrase it, sir, yes."

  "To where, sir?" Lewrie inquired.

  "Uhm…" Peel darkened, clamming up.

  "Point, if you can't say it," Alan suggested resignedly. "East, is it? Very well, sir. That wasn't so difficult, now was it. Mister Knolles? Secure the anchor party, and make sail. We'll stand out to sea. Get way on her and ready to come about to larboard tack. Once we make an offing, come back to starboard tack, course due east."

  "Aye aye, sir! Bosun? Hands to the braces! Topmen! Trice up and lay aloft! Make sail!" Knolles bellowed.

  It took half an hour to work Jester back to sea, to scoot along inshore, rounding up and gathering enough speed to tack, to stand away from the coast until it was about six miles astern, then come about to the east. Once assured that Jester was secure, Lewrie could head below at last, his simmering anger, and his dubious curiosity, both at a fine boil, by then.

  "So where is it you wish to go, Mister Peel?" Lewrie asked, as he opened the wine cabinet, after shooing his steward and servant out.

  "Genoa, sir," Peel announced finally.

  "But didn't you just come from there?"

  "I did, sir. To await your arrival and deliver those orders to you," Peel admitted, accepting a glass. "My employer said to extend to you his compliments, Commander Lewrie. And his apologies. For the uhm… upshot of Leghorn. And for not being able to fulfill his word to you that he would pester you no longer. But it's quite urgent that you assist us just this one last time, sir."

  "So?" Lewrie snapped.

  "It's a total, bloody cock-up, Commander Lewrie," Peel confessed, his shoulders sagg
ing in defeat. "The trap we so carefully laid… went amiss. Choundas never even went near 'em! They didn't see anything on their voyage. Put in at Vado, then had to scamper back to San Fiorenzo to rejoin Hotham."

  "So I am still your bait?" Lewrie fumed.

  "No, sir, we're a bit beyond that, I fear." Peel groaned as he took a seat, looking as if he needed one. "The real ship… the vessel that was really carrying the gold for the Austrians… well, sir, it's been taken! That Choundas bugger outsmarted us, after all!"

  "Well, damme!" Lewrie exclaimed in surprise. Though he really didn't think it much of a surprise, that Choundas had once more shown himself to be fiendishly clever. "Where, and how, sir? And how much'd he get away with?" he demanded, suddenly all impatience.

  "As to where, Captain Lewrie," Peel sighed, "soon after she left San Fiorenzo Bay. 'Least the solid coin for the Navy, and our garrison on Corsica was safely landed. Perhaps within a hundred miles of Vado Bay? As to when, five days ago, we think. At any rate, four days ago, a French privateer put into Genoa… sailed right into Genoa itself, I tell you, sir! Put all the gold and silver ashore. As for how much? Nigh on Ј100,000! Which is now being used, sir, to pay the recruiting bounty, and to purchase boots and small-clothes at least, to raise volunteers to serve in the French Army! They're drilling and mustering on the main plazas all over the city, Lewrie… swaggering and swilling as bold as brass! Singing their version of 'La Marseillais,' damn' 'em!"

  "But they can't do that, Genoa's neutral, that'd…"

  "The bloody Genoese colluded with the French to take it, sir!" Peel snarled back, still siurmmering with anger and chagrin, days after. "Senator di Silvano and his cronies, we're certain. The Senate allowed the privateer the right to anchor and unload, and they're claiming she has a right to stay as long as she likes, 'stead of enforcing any time limit on a belligerent… since she isn't a French national warship formally commissioned, they say, sir! But, do we do anything to take her, they'll scream bloody murder. Your Nelson sailed in, to see what the hell was going on, but he was too late, and there's little he can do about it but complain. They're shamefaced enough to not demand that he treats the port as a neutral, but does he do anything to seize the privateer, it'd be just the sort of incident the traitorous faction wants. We don't have the force to make Genoa cooperate with us, either. Bloody devious, two-faced…!" Peel sneered, and took a sip of wine-which gave Alan time to sardonically muse that for Peel to deem anyone devious and two-faced was a rare irony, after all he'd been up to!

  "So what does Twigg think I can do about it, Mister Peel?" he pressed.

  "Things are coming to a head, sir," Peel insisted anxiously. "General de Vins has finally stirred himself and his army into motion. Like the gold was his, personal… took from his own quarters! Before I left, with the hope you'd be returning soon, he'd thrown his outpost line right to the gates of Genoa. To show them who's in charge, we may suppose, and marched his forces west of Vado, at last, into contact with the French outposts. He's going to fight, finally, before winter."

  "You still aren't telling me…" Lewrie huffed.

  "It's Choundas, sir," Peel announced suddenly, stone-sober, and bitter. "It was he, took the gold, himself. He's aboard the privateer, at Genoa. He shows no sign of coming ashore, so there's no way for us to get to him. Nelson can't get at him, since Genoa won't tolerate any belligerent action in their bloody 'neutral' harbor. We can expect to be held to the convention that Nelson can't sail for twenty-four hours after he does. Though the Genoese can turn a blind eye to Choundas going out, anytime he pleases, once Nelson sails. Which he was going to do, Mister Twigg told me, sir. The only problem is, I was also told not to expect too much from Captain Nelson's ship. That she was so slow and badly in need of a refit. Practically held together with rope, a foul bottom… you'd know better what they were talking about, sir. I will never understand naval matters."

  "But the rest of our ships, the frigates, Mister Peel," Lewrie inquired. "Surely…"

  "All far to the west, sir, to keep an eye on French ports, where rumor has it that they may be preparing a landing from the sea." Peel shrugged again. "Take a day or two for a tender to gallop off to find them, and a day or two for them to return. And Choundas might be away by then, d'ye see. Meleager left for Leghorn for her own refit. Put in there a week after you left. Speedy and this Tartar are too weak to deal with the privateer, your Nelson thought. Speedy is the one rushed off to whistle up the frigates, anyway, so…"

  "His ship against mine again, then." Lewrie frowned, hesitant to cross swords with Choundas, especially after the last drubbing. "My sloop of war 'gainst his twenty-two-gunned corvette…"

  "No, sir!" Peel exclaimed, with a small sign of glee. "Not his flagship … La Vengeance, we think she's named. Maybe she was used for taking the merchantman with the gold, but he came to Genoa 'board a privateer, what they call a xebec. Fast as the wind, I heard…"

  "Aye, they are." Lewrie nodded, feeling a little surge of hope. "Three-masted, lateen-rigged, much like a pirate's galley. Long, lean, and very fast. Fairly low freeboard and bulwarks, though… tell me, Mister Peel. Have you seen her?"

  "Well, yessir," Peel allowed cautiously. "Though I know nought of boats and such, I was told what Choundas now looks like. Mister Twigg had me boat past his ship, to confirm he was there. And he is, Captain Lewrie. Seemed to know who I was, too, damn his eyes… eye, rather." Peel snorted with faint amusement. "Christ what an ugly bugger. Carve damn' well, you do, sir, I must say! How he knew to go after the right ship, we still can't understand, when the bait was so temptin'… ignore what the signorina gathered for him…?"

  "Too tempting, perhaps," Lewrie sniffed. "Once bitten, and all that. A mite too convenient, and overly clever a ruse."

  "We're supposing Choundas was forced to depend on Mister Twigg's opposite number, a civilian spymaster," Peel admitted softly. "And they do not get along, we've heard. Suspect each other…"

  "No matter, now," Lewrie snapped, opening his desk to fetch out a chart-pencil and a blank quarto sheet of paper. "Since you've seen her close-aboard, could you sketch her? Recall how many guns she carried… and an idea as to their caliber?"

  "S'pose so, sir." Peel shrugged again, bending over the desk to begin drawing. " 'Bout as long as your ship, I think. Not as tall… I think I saw only five or six openings along the one side for guns. One was open… fairly good-sized stuff at either end, though. Big as some siege artillery I once saw at Woolwich. Hellish good weekend, that…" "Short barrels, like mortars?"

  "No, I don't think so, Captain Lewrie." Peel frowned, cocking his head as he bent over his sketch. "Looked average-long barrels, to me."

  Lewrie went to the wine cabinet to refill his glass, riding the easy motion of his warship as she tore through the sea, sails set "all to the royals" in her haste. For once, there was enough wind aloft in the fickle Ligurian Sea to make speed, when speed was vital. He could be off Genoa Mole by sundown.

  A xebec, he pondered; about Jester's length. Shoal-draught, she could stand much closer inshore oн Jester, should they discover her, to escape. Draw about three feet less, perhaps? Long and lean, built low to the sea, and very wet along her gunwales and gangways. Sail-tending was done amidships, fore-and-aft, on a central walkway, and some xebecs were oar-driven, still… Spanish, Venetian, Genoese, Barbary Pirates… they still depended on them as armed, oared galleys. With guns mounted on their forecastles and stern platforms, primarily. Nothing more than twelve-pounders, he thought, anything else'd be too much end weight. Why had Choundas come himself? he fretted. Let's say he already knew that de Vins would take action, that the French Army was ready for a battle, too, and that stealing the gold would precipitate it. Wasn't his prime responsibility with his squadron? Wouldn't that be where any diligent senior officer would be, if things were indeed coming to a head? "Rub our noses in it," he muttered. What had Peel said? It was as if Choundas had known who he was already. Might even have known that Twigg was in the area! And no wonder
he'd failed to take the best bait! But why do the dirty work, himself? Alan still puzzled. When that would isolate him from his squadron, get him penned in at Genoa for days, even weeks? And not bring his own ship? Rely on a privateersman, not under naval discipline, unreliable, untrustworthy, sure to pocket…!

  "Here you go, Captain Lewrie," Peel interrupted, rising to go for the wine cabinet himself. "Dusty work, sketchin' from memory, do ye mind. I can't get it out o' my head, though, that those guns along the side, well… looked no bigger than galloper guns. Four, perhaps six-pounders. 'Bout like horse artillery."

  "Not carronades? Not squat and stubby pestles?" Lewrie pressed as he regarded Peel's handiwork. "Like those on my quarterdeck?" "Nossir," Peel rejoined, certain. "Definitely long barrels." "Too few French copies of carronades to go around, yet," Lewrie said, feeling even more hope. "Nothing they'd sell or share with the war-for-profit mob." Peel had produced a fairly good drawing, complete with arrowed notes regarding the xebec's paint scheme. Dark green hull, with red gunwales and upper works. "She'll be fast, but Jester's quick-work is clean and new-coppered. With a good slant, should she sail, we stand a good chance of bringing her to battle. If I stand off Genoa to the sou'west, about five or six miles inshore. He has to sail soon, to the west, if he wishes to rejoin his squadron. He can't be absent when the big battle's about to come off. Can't count on his army taking the city right off, either. One warship could bottle him up for a month!"

  "Unless he does something else clever, sir," Peel griped moodily. "I'm coming to fear just how clever he really is. Abandon the privateer and go overland in civilian dress, perhaps? Senator di Silvano's farm carts and estate agents could smuggle him out. Then should this ship…"

  "Aye, should we close her and take her, he'd be ashore, laughing his bloody head off," Lewrie sourly agreed. "I assume Mister Twigg has already made arrangements against that?"