Dear Lord… Phoebe!
Besides the cost of outfitting his new great-cabins (not that grand, really) with the bare minimums of comforts, of furnishings… which great-cabins he could not use since he'd been saddled with half a dozen nonpaying, all-eating, all-drinking passengers-live lumber!-of purchasing cabin stores, wine and such, plates and glassware, a new sea-chest partially stocked with all which was needful, a new hat with proud gold-lace, and at least one new-pattern gold-laced uniform coat suitable to a Commander… there was Phoebe to lodge and support at Gibraltar.
Daft, daft, daft! he told himself yet again, turning his head to glance at the helmsman and the compass course. And discovering her scent on his coat collar, fresh from his very last shore visit of the night before, before taking Jester to sea at sunrise.
He inhaled deep, in spite of all his guilt, his fear and his misgivings, savouring her scent, his memory of her, and her passionate, kittenish, adoring adieu. Yet in spite of all, he could not help himself, could not force himself to let go of her!
All during Jester's time in the docks he slept ashore with her, each moment snatched from duty a heaven-sent joy. And Admiral Hood had given him firm assurances that once his ship was ready, Jester would be returning to the Mediterranean, that Hood had written a specific request for his future services. There was Corsica to be taken to confound the French, after all. Royalist sentiments to exploit among the French on the island, separatist sentiments among the rather recently annexed Italian population, led by some fellow named Paoli, or something like that.
And, dovetailing so neatly with his enchantment with the petite and entrancing Phoebe was the fact that she herself was Corsican! Part French, part Italian, Mademoiselle Phoebe Aretino was. She knew every inch of the island, knew the people who mattered… and was well versed in her island's tumultuous affairs.
Besides being the most intoxicating, besotting, loving, amusing, exotically wee and clinging, yet so fiercely warm and passionate, a most cunning and beguiling, exciting, maddening little minx…!
Lewrie sighed, taking a surreptitious whiff of his collar again, still able to feel her soft lips upon his, see her huge waifs eyes as they peered up at him in total devotion. Daft or not, his affections and his soul were torn in twain. And he knew-feared, rather-that once home with his dear ones, like an antipodal lodestone, like a siren song, he would grow vexed for the feel of her, the taste of her, and be just as eager to put to sea, to hurry Jester back to Gibraltar. Hurry himself back to the arms of his tender young Phoebe.
He saw Bosun's Mate Will Cony by the fife rails of the main-mast in Jester's waist, patiently tutoring some new-recruited landsmen in the identity of the maze of running-rigging belayed on the pins. And Alan smiled, in spite of all his forebodings.
Had it right, Cony, he thought; God knows His rogues when He sees 'em. I wager He'll be gettin' a tremendous laugh t'see us both wriggle… when we get back to Anglesgreen!
A black-and-white kitten, now four months oid, came skittering on the quarterdeck from aft, shoveling a be-ribboned wine cork between his paws, arching, leaping and mewing as he pounced and footballed. He was turning out to be a horrid disaster, that kitten. Couldn't mouse, shied at the sight of a cockroach-and Jester had more than her fair share of that tribe aboard, at present. Loud noises drove him into hiding, in Lewrie's sea-chest, hatbox, or behind the books on the shelves above the chart table. A pest for attention he was, too, all hours of the night-where he pawed and cried for stroking, butting insistently. When he did sleep, it was under Lewrie's chin, abed; or curled up in his hat. Yes, he was a perfect disaster. But amusing, and affectionate, for all that.
Which had, after much thought, suggested his name; a French name for a French cat.
"Here, Toulon!" Lewrie bade cheerfully. "Come here, Toulon!"
With a glad mew, Toulon bounded to his side in awkward hops, to scramble up his coattails and settle on his shoulder for a rub, thrusting his little nose into Lewrie's ear, clawing at his coat collar, and purring with ardour.
Too late to cure him of such sins, Alan wondered? Well, maybe he'll grow out of 'em.
Afterword
Even more disheartening for the allies of the First Coalition, who had been forced to evacuate Toulon, was the attempted destruction of the French fleet and the naval port facilities on the night of 18 December 1793.
French troops were already in the town and on the hills to the west, overlooking the basin. Nearly 800 convict labourers were free of their chains, and acting like patriots. The log and chain boom across the harbour entrance had been closed. The Spanish, however, and contemporary accounts refer to then-desultory performance as "treachery"-of course these are British accounts, and they had their noses far out of joint when they wrote them-didn't appear to have tried very hard. Their work at the arsenals and warehouses didn't go well, and damage to the facilities was not as extensive as the fires might have made people believe. And instead of scuttling the Iris frigate, crammed with those thousands of barrels of gunpowder, they set fire to her on their hasty way out, which caused the tremendous explosion Lewrie witnessed, which blew the Union, a British gun-boat nearby, to atoms.
Sir William Sidney Smith tried to enter the basin after firing docked ships and do what the Spanish had shirked, but was driven away by the volume of gunfire. He did burn two more French 74's, but they were condemned hulks, full of French prisoners of war, whom he freed. At last, as his party retired, having done all they could, the Montreal frigate, the other powder hulk, blew up with a blast even greater than Iris. No one is quite sure how she took light-a French patriot, some mistake by Smith's party, or another pyromaniacal Spaniard who rather thought he'd like to hear something else go "Boom!" that night.
Captain Sir William Sidney Smith selected himself for the venture, and Captain Horatio Nelson wrote of his failure to do more damage, saying, "Lord Hood mistook the man: there is an old saying, great talkers do the least we see." Though Captain Smith later distinguished himself in the Middle East against French troops ashore.
The basin and port were not destroyed, and the French regained the use of many of their ships thought burned. There had been thirty-one ships of the line at Toulon, some in-ordinary, in docks, or being built. Four were sailed away, and only nine of them burned. Toulon held twenty-seven corvettes, brigs of war and frigates. Fifteen were carried off, including Alceste, which the Sardinians lost to the French a few years later, five were burned, and seven left to the Republicans. Some ships on stocks were not burned at all, and the shipyards were back in business soon after.
The worst part of the defeat at Toulon, though, was the loss of civilian lives after the Coalition cut and ran, breaking their solemn promises to safeguard the Royalist sympathisers. The fleet did carry off 14,877 of them, but could not find places aboard ships for more.
At the last, as the rear-guard troops, British, Spanish and Neapolitans, broke and ran when French troops rushed forward, the thousands of people left behind, soldiers and civilians, dashed to the quays and the shores. They waded out, imploring the last boats to save them. They were cut down, shot down or ruthlessly bayoneted by victorious Republican troops. Some accounts say hundreds, others thousands, died in the last hours, or drowned trying to swim after the boats or out to a ship.
General Dugommier protested, it is written (though Napoleon Buonaparte did not), as the Republican deputies set up their guillotines, ending up executing, by their enthusiastic accounts, a brisk 200 a day. Toulon paid for its sin; in the end, it is thought, over 6,000 civilian Toulonese lost their lives one way or another. Men, women and children.
Joseph Conrad wrote a novel, The Rover, which concerned the fate of the Royalists, featuring a young girl driven mad by the Terror, the slaughter, the permanent exile of those unfortunate йmigrйs driven overseas to any port that would have them, like storm petrels, of families and loved ones forever separated by sailing on different ships to disparate corners of the earth. If you can find it in the classics se
ction, read the tale of poor, mad Ariette, victim of the Revolution. And of Toulon.
Lady Emma Hamilton, indeed, could never resist a sailor. After he first met her in 1793, Horatio Nelson was perhaps more besotted by Emma than most biographers suspect-or care to admit. Did he, or did he not, that early? After his stunning victory at the Battle of the Nile, Emma threw herself at his feet, and he gladly picked her up. They remained lovers, public or professional opinions be-damned, until his death in 1805 on Victory's quarterdeck at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Emma Hamilton was a sad case; she really did think of all those men, who'd used her then cast her aside, as her true, long-time friends and mentors. And we believe the depiction herein of this deluded lady is correct, especially Emma Hamilton's desire to tag onto the coat-tails of powerful and influential men and bask in their reflected, shared glories.
By the way-what Charles Greville paid for that Fether-stonehaugh would not was a baby, left in foster-care at Neston, and never reclaimed-by either parent.
There was a Sans Culottes in the French Navy, but she didn't keep that name for long. Originally the Dauphin-Royal, she was a 120-gun 1st Rate. Cooler heads prevailed at last, the wily politicians who took over the French Revolution from the wild-eyed radicals and might have been a touch embarrassed by the earlier revolutionaries' fervour. She became the Orient, and served as the ill-fated Admiral de Brueys' flagship at the Battle of the Nile, where she burned and blew up in 1797, prompting that horridly sentimental poem, 'The Boy Stood on The Burning Deck, whence all but he had fled"… or something like that. Imagine, if you will, a proud and noble forty-four-gun frigate of the fledgling United States Navy being christened USS Tory Thumper, and picture how quickly one might wish to thump the man who so named her upside the head. Then get on to something more suitable, such as Constitution.
Lastly, before anyone gets exceeding wroth with the author and wastes postage or toll charges upon irate phone calls or scathing diatribes, allow him to plead dramatic license. Captain William Bligh was still at Jamaica, having just delivered his breadfruit, at long last, in the Indiaman Providence. There was no way he could have been in London, nor at the Admiralty, to meet our boy Lewrie in late January 1793. You know this. The author, more to the point, knows this. But since mutiny, revolution and all were indeed the spirit of the age, Bligh's appearance in the tale neatly foreshadows that which came later aboard Cockerel, and in France and at Toulon. There, satisfied, now? Besides, it was a slow morning for the author, too, when he wrote that, and he couldn't help himself.
So, there is Commander Alan Lewrie, master and commander into a proper King's Ship, husband, father, lover, scared so bad he would not trust his own arse with a fart…! What will Sophie de Maubeuge say to Caroline in future? How will he juggle wife and family on one hand, and the stunning Phoebe Aretino on the other? Will it last? Will the kitten ever stop nuzzling his ear, or catch a mouse? Will Alan retain the good opinion people seem to have of him, at the moment, anyway? Most importantly, what sort of adventures… and troubles… will he get into next? We think we know… but we're not telling. Yet.
Author's Note
from Alan Lewrie's earlier adventure
The Ring's Commission
Defore diving right into Alan Lewrie's latest naval adventure (if one may do so without besmirching one's own fine sense of honor by exposing it to such a rogue), it might be a good idea to discover just exactly who in the hell this Alan Lewrie character was.
Of course, for those of you with a taste for stirring action and some salacious wenching, you may plunge right on to Chapter One and elude this brief curriculum vitae. But for the more inquisitive reader unfamiliar with the previous accounts about our nautical hero, a reader not entirely taken in by splashy dust jackets and titillating blurb copy, believe me, this chronicler understands your plight. You have found this tome, and it sounded as though it might contain scads of blood and thunder, shivering tops'ls and timbers (as in shiver me timbers, mate), lots of derring-do, and some naughty bits tucked into the odd corner, but it's a wrench trying to pick up on the middle release of a whole series of nautical adventure in mid-tack, as our protagonist has learned to say at this stage of his career.
So allow me to condense this young Corinthian's past for you before getting into all the sex, swords, and sailing ships (not necessarily in that order). I look upon it as a public duty. After all, did C. S. Forester do this for you? No, you had to wait for The Hornblower Companion. Did Sherlock Holmes ever have a biography, or did you have to search for clues in the works themselves?
Alan Lewrie was born on Epiphany, 1763, in St. Martin's In The Fields Parish, London. His mother Elizabeth Lewrie passed away soon after this "blessed event" and he began life a bastard in the parish poor-house (quite appropriately, since the sobriquet of "you little bastard" was said about him by quite a few people in his life).
1766-Rescued from the orphanage and poor-house, ending a promising career of oakum-picking and flax-pounding, for no apparent good reason by his true father, Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby of St. James Parish, St. James Square (unfortunately not the good side), Knight of the Garter, ex-captain 4th Regiment of Foot (The King's Own), member White's, Almack's, Hell-Fire Club, and the Society for the Diminution of the Spread of Venereal Diseases.
There is a long biographical gulf between 1766 and 1776 for lack of information, but since most childhoods are wretchedly uninteresting, who bloody cares?
1776-The American Colonies rebel. Alan Lewrie discovers what a goose-girl will do for a shilling, and chambermaids and mop-squeezers may do for free if one can only run fast enough to catch them.
1777-Entered into Westminster School, obviously to get him out of the neighborhood, instead of being tutored at home with his half-sister Belinda and half-brother Gerald. Expelled same year for licentious behavior, though he did post some decent marks.
1778-Entered Eton, expelled Eton, see above.
1779-Entered Harrow, expelled Harrow. As above, but with the codicil that he was implicated in a plot to blow up the Governor's coach house in youthful admiration for the Gunpowder Plot. There was no mention in the school records of licentious behavior this time, so we must assume that such goings-on were not taken as seriously at Harrow as at other places in those days.
1780-Nabbed in flagrante delicto with his aforementioned half-sister Belinda Willoughby. For once, this incident was not his fault (well, not totally, anyway). Booted from the bosom (so to speak) of his family with one hundred guineas a year and told never to show his face in Society or the family digs again. Turned over to an officer of the Navy Impress Service and entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman, in Portsmouth.
January 10, 1780, signed aboard H.M.S. Ariadne, 3rd Rate, sixty-four guns, Capt. Ezekiel Bales. Seven months Atlantic convoy duties. During this time, he became, believe it or not, a passably competent midshipman, which says volumes for the return of corporal punishment in schools and flogging as a spur to proper naval discipline.
July 1780-Ariadne fights a bloody battle with a disguised Spanish two-decked ship, and upon arrival at Antigua in the Leeward Islands is adjudged too damaged to repair. Her captain and first officer are court-martialed for her loss, the third officer for cowardice. None of this was Alan Lewrie's fault, either. In fact, he acquitted himself well under fire on the lower gun deck and won some small fame for his coolness in action (though readers of The King's Coat remember his behavior differently, especially his wish to go below and hide among the rum casks).
August 1780-Appointed midshipman into H.M. Sloop Parrot, Lt. James Kenyon master and commander. There followed five months of enjoyable duties wenching and swilling all over the Caribbean and Atlantic coast.
January 1781-A new personal best of two older ladies in Kingston, Jamaica, in two days, but, during a week on passage for Antigua, he (1) became second officer when almost everyone senior went down with Yellow Fever; (2) saved the ship from a French privateer brig, burning her to the waterline in the p
rocess; (3) saved a titled Royal Commissioner and his lady who were their passengers; (4) almost had the leg over the lady; and (5) came down with Yellow Fever himself (a damned trying week, in all).
February-March 1781-Recovering on Antigua, then staff-serf to Rear Adm. Sir Onsley Matthews. Met, wooed, and fell in thrall with the admiral's niece, Miss Lucy Beauman. Fought a duel for her honor (her family was awfully rich), killed his opponent, and was posted to sea before he could say "Jack-Ketch."
April 1781 to present-Midshipman into H.M. Frigate Desperate, 6th Rate, twenty guns, Comdr. Tobias Treghues (one of God's own cuckoos). Several successful raiding cruises, raid on the Danish Virgin Islands, many prizes taken. Battle of The Chesapeake, Siege of Yorktown (from which he escaped, or we wouldn't be following his career any longer, would we?). Evacuation of Wilmington, North Carolina, November 1781 (see The French Admiral). Made acting master's mate, confirmed in December 1781.
One might just mention in passing a smallish theft from a captured French prize, a trifling sum, really, of, oh, some two thousand guineas, more ren contres with young ladies of the willing or commercial persuasion just to keep his hand (so to speak) in, and one surprisingly chaste bout of amour with a penniless young Loyalist, a Miss Caroline Chiswick. Chaste perhaps because he had served ashore with her two Tory soldier-brothers and knew what he could expect if he ever ran into them in a dark alley; chaste perhaps because there's damned few places to put the leg over even the most obliging female aboard a man o' war; or chaste perhaps because he had seen The Light, become a better person for his service in the Navy, and really did like her and through her found a new respect for Womankind and-but no, we have deduced a pattern here, and a man's usually true to his nature when the blood's up, damme if he ain't.
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