The Baltic Gambit

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Hanging?” the Earl St. Vincent abruptly said, seeming to lean back. “Perhaps that might be a touch too draconian.”

  Oh, shit! I forgot! Lewrie chid himself, squirming despite his attempt to look calm. After the Spithead and Nore Mutinies of 1797 it was to Jervis’s fleet in the Mediterranean and off the coast of Spain that the most vehement former mutinous ships, and their guiltiest men, had been assigned. Jervis had had to play the hangman, to see that the sentences of the courts-martial were carried out . . . out of sight and out of mind, as if the whole rebellious affair had been no more than a single night’s drunken riot in the public mind; not the small bundle of kindling that could have ignited a nationwide revolution as bloody as that which had ravaged France in 1789.

  “Three hundred lashes, then, my lord?” Lewrie substituted.

  “What would you say to the notion of the dockyards threatening to stop work, is their pay not doubled, Lewrie?” the Earl gravelled.

  “Doubled? I—”

  “And, that a delegation is bound to London to press those demands upon me?” Admiral Jervis rumbled on.

  “At the very least, I’d sack the lot of ’em, my lord,” Lewrie told him, angered that, at such a critical time, the already well-paid dockyard workers would threaten a walk-out and cripple the fleet still hurriedly fitting out for battles in the East.

  “My thoughts, exactly, sir,” the Earl St. Vincent fumed, with a grim smile on his face that Zachariah Twigg might envy. “Them, and any who abetted them . . . the organisers and conspirators, to boot!”

  “Damned un-patriotic of ’em, I must say, my lord,” Lewrie said.

  “And damn Sir Andrew Snape Hamond, into the bargain, for all of his laxness, that this matter should ever arise,” Admiral Jervis fumed on. “I should bring Troubridge in to replace him, could I do so. To work round him at the very least.”

  Admiral Sir Andrew Snape Hamond had been Controller of the Navy since ’94, in charge of all the various Navy Boards that supervised the dockyards and contractors supplying the Fleet. Lewrie had heard that Hamond had spoken up for him after Proteus had returned from the South Atlantic, getting him his larger frigate, HMS Savage, so quickly after, yet . . .

  Glad Hamond ain’t my real patron, or I’d not have a single hope of another ship, Lewrie thought.

  “You know something of the work of the dockyards, Lewrie?” the Earl enquired. “Their management, or accounting?”

  “Only to be at the receiving end of their . . . ‘largesse,’ ” Lewrie admitted with a bleak smile, and the smile was forced, for he felt a sick feeling that whatever employment “Old Jarvy” might offer wouldn’t be an active commission into a frigate, but a pen-and-ink shore post, about which he knew next-to-absolutely-nothing, and was sure he would be an utter disaster at. Cobblers, stick t’your lasts, Lewrie thought; even if it’s a damned narrow one. Civilian clerks’d be cheaper . . . or copyists under Nepean and Marsden.

  “Who was that young rogue who wrote the Board,” the Earl mused with the slightest hint of frosty humour, “complaining of how little paint his ship had been allotted? ‘Which side of the ship do you wish me to paint, sirs?’ he asked, ha!”

  “I can’t recall, my lord,” Lewrie replied, “though everyone I know wished he’d been that bold.”

  “No matter, then,” the Earl said with a sigh. “I will enquire, Captain Lewrie. You have made for yourself an enviable reputation in the Navy . . . at sea, at least, hmm? In these parlous times, for you to be pent ashore on half-pay I consider a waste. I make no promises for the immediate future, mind, but . . .”

  “I am grateful for your good opinion, my lord, and for keeping me in mind,” Lewrie said, knowing a prompting departure line when he heard one. He got to his feet and delivered a bow. “I will take no more of your time, sir, and thankee, again, for seeing me.”

  Even as he reached for the door knob, there came a knocking and the bustling entrance of the dismissive, hard-faced under-clerk with a sheaf of papers, and an urgent “Out of my way” look on his phyz to claim the First Lord’s attention.

  Oh well, at least he saw me, Lewrie thought as he steeled himself to clomp down those stairs to the Waiting Room with a confident and self-assured air; perhaps a faint smirk in parting for the others who cooled their heels with even less hope of employment than he.

  Now, what the Hell do I do with the rest of the day? he asked himself; The week, and the next?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Alan Lewrie discovered that, populous as London was, it might be possible for him to have spread himself a rather bit too wide about the town, when, in need of stationery, ink, and sealing wax, and upon shopping in the Strand one February morning, he ran into more people than he cared to know . . . at one time, and in the same one place, at least.

  “Alan, me old!” Lord Peter Rushton, an old school chum, expelled at the same time from Harrow as he, came striding along the sidewalk in the opposite direction, with that ever-present amanuensis of his, that seemingly honest “Captain Sharp” Clotworthy Chute . . . another old chum from Harrow who specialised in fleecing the naïve and unwary new-comes.

  “My lord,” Lewrie cried back with a grin, doffing his hat and making a sketchy “leg” in answer. “How goes it in Lord’s? Hallo to you, too, Clotworthy. How goes the ‘gullible heir’ trade?”

  “Ninety-five percent dreadful-boresome, and only now and then int’restin’,” Lord Peter, who now sat in the House of Lord’s (napped there, mostly, during the intolerably long debates), said back.

  “Main-well, old son” was Clotworthy’s puckish reply as he rubbed his mittened hands together, grinning like an apple-cheeked cherub. “Main-well, altogether. I see you’re still ‘anchored,’ as it were? So sorry. Though the London Season’s been a joy, I’d imagine.”

  “I met with the Earl Saint Vincent last week, and it sounded promisin’, but . . . ,” Lewrie said with a shrug.

  “Em, Alan . . . ,” Lord Peter said with a leer. “Now you’re done with that Greek creature, might you mind did I, ah . . . ?”

  “Saw her, did ye?” Lewrie teased.

  “At the theatre, before you saw her off,” Rushton said, leaning closer. “Great God, what tits she has!”

  “What’d your wife say t’that, hey?” Lewrie asked, a brow cocked.

  “Same as yours, I’d imagine,” Lord Peter haw-hawed. “Act’lly, I and she prefer sep’rate residences, now there’s two male heirs afoot. Christ, who’da thought such a sweet chick’d turn so termagant so quick. Clotworthy here’s the right idea . . . he don’t purchase, he only rents for a time. Damme, have you turned hermit on us, Alan? We haven’t seen hide nor hair of you since the trial was over. Where’ve you been keeping yourself?”

  “Know ya don’t gamble, but we thought you’d turn up at some of the better public clubs,” Clotworthy seemed to complain.

  “Well, there’s the Abolitionist crowd,” Lewrie began to explain. “Call a dog like me a good name, and it’s risky to lose . . .”

  “Kapitan Lewrie! Zdrazvotyeh! Hello to you!”

  “Erp?” was Lewrie’s comment as he turned about to see Eudoxia Durschenko alighting from a hired coach a few yards up the Strand, a fur-swathed vision of a winter princess, her lustrous dark hair spilling over the collar of a white ermine coat that reached to her ankles, yet open to reveal a rich dark-red gown.

  “Bugger Theoni Connor, I’ll take her,” Lord Peter muttered in awe.

  “Mistress Durschenko,” Lewrie said, doffing his hat and bowing greetings as she strode up to them, the proper “graceful glide” bedamned. “How delightful to meet you again.”

  “You do not ride in park in the mornings?” Eudoxia said with a fetching pout as she dropped him a curtsy at last. “Do not tell me it is too cold for English gentlemen,” she said with a teasing laugh.

  “Some Navy business, of late,” Lewrie explained. “Gentlemen, allow me to name to you Mistress Eudoxia Durschenko, of the world famous Wigmore’s Peripatetic Extravaga
nza. Mistress Durschenko . . . this fellow is Viscount Draywick, Lord Peter Rushton . . . and our old school friend, Mister Clotworthy Chute.”

  “Ahem!” came a disapproving cough, and there was Eudoxia’s papa, the lanky, one-eyed old devil, Arslan Artimovich Durschenko, again.

  Lewrie doffed his hat to the old fart, forcing a smile; which courtesy Arslan answered with a sniff of disgust. Knowing the man’s distaste for royalty of any country, Lewrie took a little savage joy in introducing him, too.

  “Ah! You are the magnificent bareback rider, and archer, from the circus!” Lord Peter exclaimed. “Saw your performance several times before Christmas, haw haw! Said at the time, Mistress Durschenko was the most amazing of them all, didn’t I, Clotworthy?”

  “ ’Deed ya did, my lord,” Clotworthy assured her. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, the both of you. And you’re the lion-tamer chap, are ya not, sir?”

  “Da” was her father’s laconic answer.

  “We are in winter quarters now, in Southwark,” Eudoxia said in pleasure, “but still do dramas and comedies. Circus begin in Spring.”

  “Well, shall we all have tea?” Lord Peter suggested, simply oozing innocent charm.

  “I be delighted,” from Eudoxia.

  “Nyet,” from her papa, looking like he wished to spit.

  “I should toddle along,” from Lewrie, locking eyes with him.

  “Nonsense,” from Lord Peter.

  “Capital idea!” Clotworthy exclaimed.

  “Pooh, Kapitan Lewrie!” Eudoxia coaxed. “Is perfect raw day for hot tea. We see so little of you,” she added with a lovely moue.

  “As have we,” from Lord Peter. “Seen so little of him, haw! I insist, Alan old son. Come along!”

  “Well . . . ‘’

  “Grr,” from Papa Durschenko, and the sound of irregular yellow teeth grinding.

  “Now, isn’t this lovely,” Lord Peter Rushton enthused once they were all seated round a large table near the fireplace of a fashionable tea-and coffee-house a block down from their mutual encounter. Unlike most coffee-houses that catered strictly to men and their newspapers, this one canted more to sticky buns, pies, puddings, duffs, trifles, and jam cakes. It was warm, dry, filled with several delicious aromas of baking goodies . . . and positively awash in ladies and children out and about their shopping.

  “Uhmm, tea is good!” Eudoxia commented, amazing everyone by stirring a large spoonful of jam into her cup. “Is very Russian, far sweet in tea,” she perkily explained, “sugar not always av . . . available, so use honey or jam. In Russia, tea brewed in big samovar, and served in glasses with metal holders. Very strong, very hot.”

  “How fascinating,” Lord Peter remarked, causing even Clotworthy Chute to discreetly roll his eyes. “So tell me—”

  “Brave Kapitan Lewrie soon go to Russia, he brings back proper tea glasses, yes?” Eudoxia asked, turning to Lewrie.

  “Don’t know as I’ll take part,” Lewrie had to admit, shrugging as if it really didn’t matter to him. “I still need appointment to a ship.”

  “Oh, pooh, you will get,” Eudoxia assured him, blithely confident, and at her most captivating. “You go fight the Tsar, though, you will need warm furs. Ochyen kalodni! Very cold, the winter. And not warm ’til late in Spring. Not have furs, could catch your death.”

  “Freeze solid as tree, da!” Papa Durschenko added with a nasty grin, happily contemplating such a fate.

  “Should we order some cakes?” Lord Peter suggested. “My treat.”

  “Would that make up for all the ‘tatties’ you cadged off me at school, my lord?” Lewrie teased. Both Rushton and Chute ever had been “skint,” no matter their families’ reputed wealth, while at Harrow, so Lewrie had learned to be leery of their appetites. Even after inheriting the title, rents, and acres once his elder brother had been carried off by an unfortunate mayonnaise-based “made dish” gone bad, that the proper heir’s fiancée had cobbled together, there hadn’t been all that much real income . . . not after Lord Peter, and Clotworthy, had squandered a respectable pile of “tin” on their ill-timed Grand Tour of the Continent (right in the middle of the war!), and Lewrie had heard some rumours that Lady Draywick, Peter’s wife, was the daughter of an incredibly wealthy wool merchant with Army contracts, one of those “new-made” commoner families with aspirations to the peerage. These days, though, wealth made in Trade was everywhere, and, like most marriages, it was a canny arrangement for both sides.

  “I doubt a year o’ suppers would make recompence, hey, Clotworthy?” Peter guffawed. “Here, waiter.”

  The bell suspended over the door tinkled, and another party entered the coffee-house. Lewrie looked up and blanched.

  Christ! he thought; Ye gonna walk out, why pick this place, and why right bloody now!

  Mrs. Batson, the “Mother Abbess,” in company with a brace of her whores, with Bob the bully-buck waiter and former boxer playing a role as escort and package bearer, came bustling in, chirping gay as magpies . . . and one of them was Tess!

  A million people in London, they tell me, and yet . . . ! he gawped.

  He had not, in point of fact, visited Mrs. Batson’s brothel in almost a week, hadn’t seen Tess in much more than a dressing gown and some slinky stuff . . . or the altogether! . . . and the transformation was nigh-blinding. Her hair had been styled by a dresser into springy ringlets to frame her face, the centre part now gone, replaced with girlish bangs upon her forehead, and its colour enhanced more toward strawberry blond, with a wee bonnet perched atop her upswept hair.

  A puff-sleeved and high-waisted gown, with a very low-cut décolletage, very stylish and striking, with a modest muslin overskirt and an embroidered silk stole . . . to a casual observer, Tess was gowned as fine as an heiress, yet as respectable as a bishop’s daughter. They’d done something with her toilet, too, the wee-est hint of rouge or paint, the faintest enhancement of her lips. . . . Why, she was delectably pretty!

  She nodded to him, could not restrain a fond, excited, yet shy, smile as a servant took their outer coats and led them to a table.

  “Ah-hmm,” Lord Peter faintly croaked.

  “Hmm,” Clotworthy commented over the rim of his tea cup, as if making an appreciative “yummy.”

  “Aah . . . ,” Lewrie let slip, discreetly nodding and smiling back.

  “Kraseevi,” even Papa Durschenko whispered.

  “Papa!” Eudoxia chid him. “At your age! Da, she is beautiful, but much too young for you.”

  “Nyeh malyenkee byelakoori, dyevachka,” Arslan Artimovich growled back good-naturedly. “Bolshoi krasni galava,” he said, winking and lifting his hands as if hefting something. Lewrie took a second look, and deduced, though he knew very little Russian, that the old devil was more taken by a slightly older red-head, with an impressively hefty set of “cat-heads” and a seductive leer on her face.

  “Papa!” Eudoxia tittered, a trifle embarrassed.

  Bolshoi, that’s “big,” Lewrie puzzled out; and I know krasni is “red”, . . . galava must mean red-head, together? Nyeh is “not” . . . what?

  “Mal-yenk-ee byel . . . ?” he asked Eudoxia.

  “Means ‘little blonde,’ ” Eudoxia explained as the waiter returned to take their orders.

  “Only nat’ral,” Lord Peter tut-tutted, hoisting his tea cup in salute to her father.

  “You think little blonde is pretty?” Eudoxia asked with a sweet smile on her face, yet with one brow arched.

  “Well, I s’pose,” Lewrie said, with a shrug. “If one likes that sort.” He tried very hard not to squirm under her knowing gaze.

  “Poor thing is ryebyonak,” Eudoxia said with a sniff, turning to take a quick squint at the other table. “Little more than child . . . shesnatsat eelee syemnatsat, uhm . . . sixteen or seventeen?”

  “Grack!” Lewrie commented, strangling on a sip of tea, and nigh to spewing a mouthful on the cheery tablecloth. “Indeed? Sorry. Must have gone down the wrong hawse pipe.”

/>   “Girls look like, ah . . . ,” Eudoxia told him, leaning close so she could whisper close to Lewrie’s ear. “Prostitukas. Girls of evening?”

  “Really!” Lewrie exclaimed, pretending to be shocked.

  “London is fill with . . . such,” Eudoxia said, struggling for the proper word allowed in public. “We go to pleasure gardens, theatres . . . walk down street, they are everywhere in bolshoi number.”

  “Godless city,” Papa Durschenko said with distaste; though his eyes were glued to the Rubenesque red-head’s bosom. “Godless country. Not like Russia.”

  “In a respectable coffee-house?” Lord Peter feigned outrage, as well. “What is the world comin’ to?”

  From such a source, such primness was so unimaginable that Lewrie almost brayed out loud; though he did note that Lord Peter’s attention was torn ’twixt Eudoxia and Tess in equal measure. He was all but fingering his crutch, could he have got away with it before children!

  “Furs, d’ye say,” Lewrie piped up, swivelling to face Eudoxia. “I note you and your father are very well garbed. Did you bring them from Russia, or did you find them here in London?”

  “Oh, furs from Russia very old, now,” she said, smiling again. “Circus and comedies so suc . . . successful, we find new. A furrier in Hudson Bay Company, in Haymarket, has beautiful furs! I help you shop for them, yes Kapitan Alan?”

  “Gryazni tarakan,” her father growled. Lewrie knew that’un by heart; “filthy cockroach!” he meant. The one-eyed devil glared daggers, and one hand was suspiciously near his waistband.

  “I couldn’t impose,” Lewrie quickly said.

  “Such an expressive language, Russian,” Lord Peter dithered on. “Tell me, sir . . . what did you just say?”

  “Have to practice acts . . . rehearse, I tell her,” Papa Durschenko lied, his grin so feral that Peter leaned back a bit in his chair. “No time for shopping.”

  “All that in two words, hah,” Clotworthy said with a shake of his head. “Impressive.”