"Oh, aye sir," Pettus agreed, pouring a new glass of good aged claret for him. "Earlier, well… you can't keep our tars gloomy for very long, after all, sir. Once they're done grieving, that is."
Earlier, Desmond had played the dirge-like Johnny Faa while the funeral service had been read, and the corpses-those that had not been slipped out a gun-port during combat-were slid overside from beneath the Union Flag, wrapped in canvas and weighted with shot for sea-burial. As Lewrie had come back aboard round dusk, and the labours to repair the ship had ended, and the crew gathered idle during what was left of the Second Dog, it had been Admiral Hosier's Ghost, an old American air, Katy Cruel, and other gloomy tunes.
Now, though… once the hands had eat, and the mess-tables had been cleared away, Lewrie could recognise a gayer minuet tune called Constancy, the livelier Flannagan's Favourite, and the tune played as they'd stood into action in the morning, The Jolly Thresher.
And by the time that Lewrie finished his soup and started in on his entrйe-with two smaller saucers of everything for the famished cats, the crewmen had launched into One Misty, Moisty Morning again.
One Misty, Moisty Morning, when cloudy was the weather
I met up with an old man, he was clothed all in leather.
He wore no shirt unto his back, but wool upon his skin,
singing Howdye-do and Howdye-do, and Howdye-do, again!
I went a little farther, and there I met a maid…
As it had been in the morning, perhaps only three or four hands took the main verses, whilst everyone else roared out the short refrain, pounding their fists on the mess-tables, stamping their feet on the oak decks, hard enough to make the frigate's timbers shudder.
This maid her name was Dolly, 'twas in a gown of grey.
I was feeling somewhat jolly and persuaded her to stay.
And many kind embraces there, I stroked her little chin,
singing Howdye-do, and Howdye-do…!
"Amazin', really," Lewrie mused aloud after dabbing his lips and taking a sip of wine. "After all they've gone through today, the mates they've lost…"
"Like I said, sir," Pettus reminded him, "the life of a sailor, or so I've learned in my short time aboard, is hard misery, and short commons, most of the time. They'll take what joy they can, when there's a reason for it… and time enough. After all, sir, it isn't every day they're in a real battle, and win it." They'll miss their shipmates but… not for all that long… not so long as they're still alive, sir, and able to brag about it."
"Amen," Lewrie agreed, perking up at the notion; and how apt it was when applied to the late Arthur Ballard. "Amen to that."
EPILOGUE
Sir Valentine: These banish'd men that I have kept withal,
Are men endu'd with worthy qualities.
Forgive them what they have committed here
and let them be recalled from their exile.
They are reformed, civil, full of good.
And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
– WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA,
ACT V, SCENEIV
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The Danes had thrown in the towel, withdrawing from the League of Armed Neutrality. For a day or two, the British fleet had lain at anchor in Kioge Bay below Copenhagen, then departed for the Baltic to confront the Swedes, but that was anti-climactic. They had gotten to sea with their small squadron, but, as soon as they'd learned how the Danes had been beaten, they returned to port at Karlskrona, pointedly warned by Lord Nelson that it would be better did they remain there, if they knew what was good for them!
That left only the Russian fleet to deal with, and there were signs that the confrontation would be at sea, for the amount of drift ice had been greatly reduced by the arrival of Spring. Surely the thaw had reached Reval and Kronstadt, and the Tsar's warships were now free.
A swift frigate had caught up with the fleet, fresh from Great Yarmouth, bearing orders and mail to the flagship HMS London. Just as soon as the signal flags had been hoisted, every ship had sent a boat to her to collect it. Midshipman Furlow returned in the launch with a large canvas bag, and scampered up the side with it, holding it aloft like a fresh-killed fox at the end of a thrilling hunt as the officers gathered round him and cheered, as happy as the pack of hounds would round the Master of the Hunt. Lewrie's clerk, the unfortunately named Mr. George Georges, the Purser Mr. Pridemore, and his Yeoman took hold of it and quickly sorted it out for distribution at Seven Bells of the Forenoon; when gunnery practice had ended, just before "Clear Decks amp; Up Spirits" was piped for the rum ration.
Aft, Lewrie quickly pawed through his own small pile of correspondence, the official letters first. "Victualling Board… Sick amp; Hurt Board… general bumf to all ships," Lewrie muttered as he tore them open and quickly scanned them, laying them flat in a shallow wood box on his desk once read, not in any particular order, to be dealt with later. There was nothing of urgent import regarding him, just the ship; no orders direct from Admiralty. He could turn to the rest.
"Ooh, shit!" he hissed inward through his teeth. There was actually a letter from his wife, Caroline! She had broken her bitter and aloof silence, wonder of wonders, and written him! Naturally, he would leave that one for the very last, sure it was yet another of her acidic screeds… the sort sure to curdle his mid-day meal, whether he read it before or after dinner. Tentatively holding it at two of its corners, Lewrie laid it back down on his desk-top.
The rest of his personal mail… there was one from his eldest son, Sewallis, and one from the younger, Hugh. There was a bill from a Yarmouth chandler and one from a London tailor. Eudoxia Durschenko had written him-"Leave that'un for the very last," he muttered-and one from his solicitor, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy. He was about to open it when he caught sight of the senders of a pair of others.
Christopher Cashman, his old friend who'd moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, and had become an American, who'd provided a thoroughly false affidavit for his trial, had sent him a letter! He was about to pounce on that one, when the last really caught his eye.
His barrister, Mr. Andrew MacDougall, Esquire, had written him!
"Oh, shit," Lewrie muttered again, sure that the combination of letters from his solicitor, and his attorney, portended another dreadful stint in a courtroom. With a grimace on his phyz, he opened it.
In neat Spencerian "copper-plate" calligraphy, MacDougall told him glad tidings.
Sir, I take pen in hand to deliver unto you the most amazing turn of events, of which I but lately heard; events sure to elicit within you the greatest Joy and sense of Relief, for, your former Accuser, Mr. Hugh Beauman, is no more. The packet in which he and his Wife and Coterie embarked for Portugal to escape the Folly of their Suit against you missed the landmarks when attempting to enter the Tagus River and the port of Lisbon in a great Gale in late January, just weeks after your Acquittal, and was driven aground not half a mile from shore, with great loss of Life, principal of whom was Mr, Hugh Beauman himself.
"And it couldn't happen to a better person!" Lewrie whispered, feeling like leaping to his feet and dancing a little jig of mourning; barely containing a whoop and a guffaw of laughter.
Perishing along with him were several of his perjurious Witnesses among his followers, though his Wife was rescued.
And, as MacDougall had heard it, that icily imperious beauty, now sole heir to the lion's share of the Beauman riches-rivalling the wealth of the famous Walpoles, or so it was said-beyond what profits that went to the elder Mr. Beauman and his wife, now retired in the English countryside, was of no mind to bother with trifles like her late husband's pursuit of Capt. Alan Lewrie's life and honour, no!
Mrs. Beauman is reputed to delight in her Widowhood, and the salubrious Clime of Lisbon in particular and in the Society of the English colony in Portugal in general, Purchasing a substantial House in Lisbon, as well as a country Retreat, rather than leasing, and I have it on the best, first
-hand Authority from one of our senior Benchers, K.C., of my Lodge, Grey's Inn, who now represents her interests in London, that all Beauman holdings on Jamaica are now put on the market, Mrs. Beauman having absolutely no Desire to return to the Fever Isles, nor (so it is rumoured) any Desire to have any further Association with the quality of Society found there.
My Bencher also informs me that she hopes to invest in the wine and spirits trade in Portugal…
Lewrie did let out a whoop of glee at that point, slapping his desk-top for good measure, loud enough to startle the cats awake from their nap on the settee cushions, and make Whitsell, his little cabin boy, jump and gawk and gulp.
"Good news from home, sir, pardon for asking?" Pettus enquired from the dining-coach, where he was setting out dinner things.
"The very absolute best, Pettus!" Lewrie exclaimed, imagining that, someday, he could drink a toast to his freedom and continued life without fear of further litigation in a fine Madeira from a Beauman vineyard, and savour its taste doubly well! And, why wait? "Pettus, I'd admire did ye fetch me a wee glass o' port while I go through the rest of my mail."
"Aye, sir."
The last half-page of MacDougall's letter was chatty folderol about London doings, the Spring Season, and hints that the Addington government was seriously considering negotiating a treaty of peace with Republican France, and its First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, of all the insane things! Just as Adm. Duckworth had taken Guadeloupe! Lastly…
By the by, your Solicitor, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy, has told me that you may find News regarding a certain Lady in the currant trade of Interest. He tells me he shall write you with all the Particulars, but it seems that her recent Scandal, the details of which escape me, has found it necessary to Remove herself, her children, and household to Dublin to avoid the Acrimony.
Allow me, last of all, to congratulate you on the complete Ending of your legal problems anent the Beaumans, et al. If I may ever be of service in the future, do consider me, your most obdt. Srvt…
"Well, well, well!" Lewrie chortled, wondering if Dame Fortune could be any kinder to him! He was about to request a larger glass of port, but before Pettus could even pour the first, two faint thumps in the distance could be heard, which thumps caused a stir on the quarterdeck overhead, which he could hear through the partly-open windows of the coach-top. A moment later and his Marine sentry was bellowing the arrival of Midshipman Plumb.
"Lieutenant Fox's duty, sir, and he bids me inform you that the flagship has made general signal for all ships of the fleet to send a boat to her again," Plumb announced.
"Very well, Mister Plumb," Lewrie replied, "my compliments to Mister Fox, and he's to despatch a fresh crew of his choosing. Keep me informed, what it's all about."
"Aye-aye, sir!"
Just after his dinner, and with all but Caroline's letter left to read-he was still fearful of that'un!-the launch returned alongside. Not a minute later, Lewrie could hear another excited stir on the quarterdeck, the scamper of feet on one of the gangway ladders, and the sharp rap of his Marine sentry's musket-butt on the deck as he called, "Midshipman Privette t'see th' Cap'm, SAH!"
"A note for you from the flag, sir," Privette began, coming to the dining table to hand it over, puppy-eager. "George, who conned the launch… Midshipman Pannabaker, sir, sorry… heard a lieutenant on London say it was something about the Tsar, sir!"
Lewrie cocked a wry brow at the lad. With his hat under his arm Midshipman Privette's head still sported a gauze bandage where he had been struck unconscious at Copenhagen. The lad was all but panting in excited curiosity.
"Calm as does it, Mister Privette," Lewrie chid him, "you aren't to over-exert yourself, our Surgeon tells me, not quite yet. Fluster over this surely can't be good for… Holy fuckin' shit!" Lewrie cried after he'd broken the soft wax seal and read the single-page note, and rose so quickly from his chair that he up-ended it. "Tell the officer of the watch… who's on?"
"Acting-Lieutenant Sealey, sir," Privette supplied.
"… that I'll come up," Lewrie ended, going for his hat. Once on the quarterdeck, he could see that Midshipman Pannabaker, fresh from the flagship, had already imparted his rumour to one and all, for he could see a sea of expectant, wolfish smiles.
"Summon all hands, sir?" Acting-Lieutenant Sealey asked.
"Not just yet, Mister Sealey," Lewrie countered, "for we don't know if the situation has changed all that much. What we do know is, gentlemen, that early this morning, one of our scouting cutters spoke a Prussian trading brig, which gave them a copy of a German newspaper… in which it was reported that the Tsar… the mad, despotic bugger… has been assassinated."
He had to hold up a cautioning hand to still the officers' glee.
"The new Emperor of All the Russias is Crown Prince Alexander, a lad not much older than Mister Furlow, here," Lewrie went on. "And, we know what a fire-eater is Furlow, so the new Tsar may be even worse. God only knows will he continue his late father's nonsense of an Armed League of the North, now we've thrashed the Danes, and run the Swedes back to port with their tails 'tween their legs. I assume he's heard o' those events by now, same as we've had news of his father's demise."
"How, sir?" Lt. Farley pressed. "When?"
"Accordin' t'this, he was strangled in his bed-chambers," Lewrie told him, "in the grand palace at Saint Petersburg, the night of…" he referred to the note, "the night of the twenty-fourth of March."
"Not two days after we landed those Russian emissaries, by God!" Lt. Fox marvelled. "My word, what a turn of events!"
"Deuced favourable turn of events, for us, sirs," the Sailing Master, Mr. Lyle, chortled.
Damme, it was! Lewrie realised, stunned; Oh Christ, have we… have I, been part of regicide? Rybakov, Levotchkin, and… Twigg!
Why else had it been so important for Count Rybakov, that shit Levotchkin, to hasten to Yarmouth in such a tear, escorted down from London by Thomas Mountjoy, his old clerk, sent by the Foreign Office? Mountjoy, whose mentor in Secret Branch was, who had been recruited and trained by, Zachariah Twigg, who'd once said that to spare Europe of Russian imperial ambitions would ignite class warfare and terror, civil war and peasant serf rebellion, no matter how many millions of people died.
And, how best t'force the Russians out of the League of Armed Neutrality but t'scrag the insane bastard behind it all, the Tsar! he furiously thought… furious at himself for being fooled into a role in it, if it indeed was an English scheme. A "peace mission," mine arse! Ye wish peace? Kill the leader who wants a war, Lewrie thought.
He shook his head in mute anger as he paced the deck. He had always been Zachariah Twigg's gun-dog, for bloody years, and in all of his dealings with the bloody-handed schemer, had never been told all the truth. There was the possibility that it was the Russians who had approached the Foreign Office, not the other way round, and asked for help,… which would explain why it was that Thomas Mountjoy had been so eager to foist his emissaries off on Lewrie, and wash Government's hands, not even taking the risk of "un-official presence" in the Baltic.
A simple task, oh, and drop these people off, why don't you, on yer way? Countin' me too simple t'puzzle it out 'til much too late, the arrogant old schemin' bastard! And I didn't! he ruefully thought.
He couldn't imagine the new Prime Minister, Addington, hatching such a plan; not if he was so hen-headed as to contemplate negotiating a peace treaty with France right after smashing Denmark and capturing the last French-held outpost in the Caribbean! No, it smacked more of the former Prime Minister, William Pitt, the Younger, or Henry Dundas, the former Secretary of State for War.
Once set in motion, though, and if Addington didn't know about it…! Lewrie realised. The current crop of buffoons, the Earl of Elgin, the Duke of Portland, Lord Hawkesbury at the Foreign Office itself, or Lord Hobart would never have had the nerve… so perhaps England hadn't had a hand in it!
Who's t'say the old Tsar was such an insane terror, the Russians did him in, Lewrie f J
›It's happened to Tsars before, and it's not like he didn't give 'em hellish-good cause t'be rid of him. Like the old sayin'… 'Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown'?
"Pipe 'All Hands,' then, sir?" Lt. Farley prompted.
"My pardons, Mister Farley, but I was just composin' my thoughts on how best to phrase it," Lewrie lied, forcing himself to perk up and sound eager. "Pipe 'All Hands,' aye."
Capt. Alan Lewrie, RN, took himself a contemplative pace about the deck, head down and his hands in the small of his back as the Bosun, Mr. Dimmock, and his Mate, Pulley, fweeped away on their silver calls, and Thermopylae's people not on watch came boiling up from below in a thunderous roar of feet, both shod and bare, on companionway ladders.
Lewrie hitched his shoulders before turning to go forward to the break of the quarterdeck to overlook his men in the frigate's waist, the hands assembled on the sail-tending gangways. The sun was shining in a mostly clear blue sky, and the Baltic glistened and heaved slowly and peacefully, a glittering steel-blue, with only here and there any specks of rotting ice. The wind stood in the Sou'west and, for once, actually felt almost temperate! There would be no more need for his reeky furs, except as a place for his cats to romp, and nap.
"Ship's comp'ny… off hats, and stand easy!" Lt. Farley bellowed. "All hands assembled, sir."
"Thankee, Mister Farley. Lads!" Lewrie began, with expectant faces looking back at him from HMS Thermopylae's 250 sailors, petty officers, Warrants, and boys. "We've gotten a bit of good news…"
AFTERWORD
As one may see, we've come a long way in the conduct of trials since Alan Lewrie's appearance in court. As his barrister, Andrew MacDougall, Esq., told him in Troubled Waters, before his first court appearance, the first trial that lasted more than a single day didn't occur 'til 1794!-and yes, there was no such thing as cross-examination allowed; nor were there government prosecutors. A barrister could go both ways, depending on the wishes of his "brief," not client; Defence Counsel for one trial, then be hi J0;. #160;
The Baltic Gambit l-15 Page 38
