“Ah, there ye are, sir!” his cabin-servant, Aspinall, exclaimed in great relief to see him, at last, as he came forward from where the great-cabins would be, once the deal and oak partitions were erected. “Sorry t’say, sir, but yer cabins’re a total wreck, again, but soon to be put t’rights. The kitties are safe, ‘long with the mongooses, an’ that damn’ bushbaby. He’s took up with Toulon an’ Chalky, an’ hardly don’t cry no more, long as he can snuggle up with ‘em. No coffee—”
“Aspinall…” Lewrie interrupted.
“I know I’m babblin’, sir, ‘tis just hard t’know ol’ Andrews is gone,” Aspinall said, after a gulp, and a snuffle on his sleeve. “Him an’ so many good lads. But, didn’t we hammer th’ French, though!”
“Aye, we did,” Lewrie agreed, beginning to realise what they’d done, what a victory they’d accomplished, at last. And, beginning to feel that it had been worth it, no matter the price they’d paid. “Is that Irish rogue, Liam Desmond, aboard, do you know, Aspinall?”
“Aye, sir. On th’ pumps, I think.”
“Pass the word for him, then,” Lewrie ordered. A minute later, Liam Desmond came cautiously up the ladderway to the quarterdeck; he’d been summoned before, usually to suffer for his antics. Lewrie noted that his long-time mate, Patrick Furfy, lurked within hearing distance at the foot of the steps.
“Aye, sor?” Desmond warily asked, hat in hand, looking fearful.
Lewrie held out the crushed bosun’s call to him.
“Ah, I know, Cap’m,” Desmond said with a sad sigh of his own at the sight of it, glittering ambery-silver in the glow of oil or candle lamps. “Andrews woz a foin feller, he woz, always fair an’ kindly with us. Sorry we lost him, sor.”
“You once said, during the Mutiny at the Nore, that you’d be my right-hand sword, if all others failed me,” Lewrie gravely said. “I’ve lost my right-hand man, Desmond. Are ye still willing?”
“Be yer Cox’n, sor?” Desmond gaped in astonishment. “Sure, and I meant it, Cap’m! Faith, but ye do me honour, and aye, I’ll be!”
“We’ll get a better, when next in port, but …” Lewrie said as Desmond took the call from him and looped it round his neck on its silver chain. He took a moment to look down at it, battered though it was, sitting on the middle of his chest, and puffed up his satisfaction.
“Have to stay sober and ready at all hours, mind,” Lewrie said, and could hear Furfy groan in pity on the main deck, even starting to snigger over his friend’s new, more demanding, predicament. “And, we could do with Furfy in my boat crew, too, hmm? A strong oarsman. And, we wouldn’t let him go adrift without your… influence.”
“A right-good idea, that, sor,” Desmond chuckled, looking over his shoulder and calling out, “Hear that, Pat?”
“Another favour, Desmond,” Lewrie said. “Get your lap-pipes, a fifer, too, perhaps, and play something for us, now. For Andrews and those who won’t get a proper burial sewn up in canvas, under the flag.”
“Have ye a tune in mind, Cap’m?” Desmond asked.
“Play ‘Johnnie Faa,’” Lewrie told him. It was sad, slow, Celtic, and poignant, sad enough for even the French survivors to feel what it spoke.
Sad enough a tune to excuse even a Post-Captain’s quiet tears?
EPILOGUE
“Quid studiosa cohors operum struit? Hoc quoque curo. Quis sibi res gestas Augusti scribere sumit? quis et paces longum diffundit in aevum?”
“What works is the learned staff composing? This, too, I want to know. Who takes upon him to record the exploits of Augustus? Who adown distant ages makes known his deeds in war and peace?”
HORACE, EPISTLES I, 111, 6–8
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
T here was no need for a fire in the magnificently, and ornately, carved fireplace in the Board Room of Admiralty in London, for it was a fine summer day, and the tall windows had been thrown open to take the stuffiness and enclosed warmth from the room. The equally-showy chronometer on one gleaming panelled wall slowly ticked, and now and then a shift of wind off the Thames forced the large repeater of the wind vane on the roof to clack about to display whether the weather stood fair or foul for British warships and merchantmen to depart, or whether Nature might favour a sally by the French, or a combination of French, Dutch Batavian, and Spanish navies together.
The First Lord of the Admiralty, John, Earl Spencer, sat at the head of a highly-polished table. To his right sat the Controller of the Navy, Adm. Sir Andrew Snape Hammond. Down at the other end of the table, not so far away as to be out of ear-shot, for the Board Room was not so grand in scale as most imagined, Sir Evan Nepean, the First Secretary to Admiralty, sat and shuffled his notes and records brought by a junior clerk, a pen poised to record decisions.
“The man’s not worthy of a knighthood, I tell you, sir! He is a scandal… a seagoing scandal,” the youngish Earl Spencer declared in some heat. “A mountebank, more suited to the company of those scandalous, sordid… circus people Captain Leatherwood rescued.”
“Do we not put his name forward, milord,” Adm. Hammond mildly pointed out between sips of his tea, “then Leatherwood cannot be placed on the Honours List, either …and, in all, Captain Leatherwood had a trifling action ‘gainst a panicked and ‘rudderless’ ship’s company…once those horrid circus people had slain half their officers. It was Proteus that bore the brunt of it, fighting an action lasting one and a half hours, whilst Jamaica barely fired two full broadsides before her foe struck. I grant you, milord, that Captain Lewrie’s, ah…repute is not completely of the best, beyond his fame as a pugnacious and sly Sea Officer….”
“Fame, Sir Andrew?” the Earl Spencer scoffed. “Try notoriety.”
“Even so, milord, he’d earned a bright name in the Fleet before this most recent exploit, and the newspapers, and the public, are falling over themselves in praise of him.” To the Earl Spencer’s distress, Sir Evan Nepean had been saving London papers, from the best publishers to the most scurrilous, and the many articles snipped out and piled on one corner of the table made an impressive stack. Alongside them was a second pile, mostly of Reformers’ tracts, complete with wood-cut art of two frigates battling in what a lubberly artist portrayed as a hurricane. There were portraits of the aforesaid Capt. Alan Lewrie, RN, as well, even more imaginative, and saintly!, along with drawings of Black and White sailors—some labelled with the names of the heroically-fallen Blacks— with Lewrie leading them in the boarding of the French frigate, L’Uranie, as over-armed as an old depiction of a fearsome pirate… without the beard, and with better hair, of course.
“May I say so, milord,” Sir Evan Nepean piped up from the bottom of the table, for many of Admiralty’s day-to-day decisions were his to make, so that the responsible, and lucrative, post of First Secretary held much more influence than most outside the Navy thought. “But, the Reverend Wilberforce and his followers had made a public figure of him already, not quite on the level of an Admiral Nelson, but close. Do we not offer Captain Lewrie significant, and near-equal, rewards that any successful captain, and the public, has come to expect, there might be suspicions that His Majesty’s Government, not just Admiralty, favours the side of slave-owners, colonial planters, and the sugar and shipping interests over what is quickly becoming a widespread sentiment against the institution of slavery.”
“Preposterous!” the Earl Spencer snapped.
“Been a while since Nelson at the Nile, milord,” Adm. Hammond softly stuck in from the other side. “The common folk and the Mob are starved for continued good news anent the war. Even what may be called a minor frigate action for the most part has quite elated them, and Sir Evan is correct, I believe. Lewrie must be awarded something, milord.”
“Beyond the accolades he’s gotten, already?” the Earl Spencer sourly rejoined, tugging the velvet pull-cord to summon them more tea. “Thanks of Parliament, the usual presentation of a plate service, and an hundred-guinea sword from the East India Company for Leatherwood and Lewrie, both?
Both officers granted the Freedoms of their towns or villages, along with the Freedoms of Portsmouth, London…the keys to Hearne Bay, for all I know!
“Both agreed that they were ‘in-sight’ of each other, and with two French National Ships brought in as prize,” the Earl Spencer continued to carp, “so Proteus and Jamaica will reap a pretty penny from being bought into Navy service, as well. The next step might be presenting them at Saint James’s palace, and knighthoods, but…as you say, Leatherwood didn’t do all that much, and Lewrie is simply too…we might as well knight that Cockney, Wigmore, his actresses, and his bears into the bargain! No, Sir Andrew, I am extremely loath to place Captain Lewrie’s name to the King. T’would be too embarrassing.”
“His First Officer, Anthony Langlie,” Sir Evan Nepean suggested more mildly, “promoted to Commander, of course, milord, and given an active commission into a suitable vessel?”
“The usual thing, aye,” Adm. Hammond nodded with a smile on his face, “though I doubt Leatherwood’s First earned the same thing. Or, should we? Right then, both of them promoted,” he happily said after a resigned nod of assent from the First Lord. “A spell of shore leave for both Lewrie and Leatherwood, then, new active commissions for both…to better ships, hmm?” The First Lord cocked his head towards Nepean.
“Jamaica was due to be paid off and hulked, milord,” Sir Evan quickly supplied, after a quick shuffle of his notes. “A very old and bluff-bowed sixty-four gunner, as slow as treacle even when new. Built just before the Seven Years’ War. But, there are several Third Rates of seventy-four guns coming available, and Captain Leatherwood will be honoured to command one, I’m certain. As for Captain Lewrie…hmm.”
He shuffled some more, as a steward in livery entered with tray and pot to replace the used cups and empty tea-pot, then silently went out like a zephyr of summer wind.
” Proteus is fairly new, but has seen rather more action than one may expect, milord….”
“Lewrie was her first, and only, captain,” Sir Andrew stated, as if trying to tweak the Earl Spencer, leaning towards him and grinning.
“The Surveyors think she will require a total refit,” Sir Evan Nepean continued. “Four to six months’ work. Might you wish Captain Lewrie to sit ashore on half-pay that long, milord?”
“By God I do not!” the First Lord barked. “There’s no telling what Deviltry the man’s capable of with that much idle time available him. And…there is the, ah…possibility of being tried for his theft of slaves on Jamaica. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ seems apt, at this moment. I will not knight a man who stands a chance of being put in the dock a few months later. Nor will I allow the papers and public time to discover what sort of man he really is. A new ship, something larger and suitable, of a certainty. Preferably, one able to sail far from England, and possible embarrassment, Sir Evan.”
Exactly what the Foreign Office appointee to the Privy Council suggested might be best for the Crown, Nepean thought, hiding his sly grin. “Ah. In two more months or so, milord, Sir Andrew, an eighteen-pounder gunned Fifth Rate frigate will be returned from the dockyards at Portsmouth, and ready for re-commissioning. She is the HMS Savage, originally built in ‘93, just after the start of the war, and in very good structural condition, barring the usual problems with her bottom, and such. Her former captain has already been reassigned, so…”
“Two whole months with him ashore and unemployed, though,” the First Lord mused with a suspicious frown. “Then, however long it will take him to gather a new crew….”
“There would be no delay in it, either, milord,” Nepean brightly added, “for we are in possession of a letter from both the officers and crew of Proteus… even the Marines and cabin steward lads, expressing their wish to remain under Captain Lewrie, entire.”
“Remarkable,” Adm. Sir Andrew Hammond allowed. He was Royal Navy, man and boy, and knew what sort of officer might elicit such loyalty, even if the First Lord, a civilian, did not appreciate it. “We could pay off Proteus into the Portsmouth yard…where she currently is anchored, I believe? Then turn over Proteus’s people into Savage. Quite neat, milord. And, with little reason for Lewrie to come up to London…into the clutches of the newspapers, hmm?”
“Oh my, yes!” the First Lord quickly, enthusiastically, agreed. “Make it so, Sir Evan. Now, as to the next matter on our agenda…”
The exotic beasts, the jugglers and acrobats, the fire-eater and his bursts of flame from his mouth, the capering clowns and their pig bladders and antics, and the clattering waggons painted in fresh bright red and yellow drew such a crowd as any that the Marine garrison from Portsmouth Dockyards had ever drawn. The circus’s band, replenished by new musicians and outfitted in garishly-trimmed uniforms more imposing than the Army List of generals (including all retired ones), oom-pahhed, crashed, drummed, and tooted along at the head of the parade, children of the town deserting the kerbings for the cobblestones to prance and march along with them, goggle-eyed and shrieking with utter delight at such a wonder! H’elefinks, lions, dancing bears, zebras, and God knew what-all, and some of them, like the performers in their show costumes, had fought the filthy French, and won, for didn’t all the newspapers say so, all the flyers printed by the circus, too, say it?
It wasn’t just any tawdry old circus and theatrical troupe, it was Wigmore’s Travelling Extravaganza, honoured with a proclamation by the Crown, with Thanks of Parliament to boot, back from deepest, darkest Africa, bigger and better than ever, and, “Oh, Mummy! We must see it! We must attend, puh-lease?”
Individual blossoms, whole nose-gays, were flung at the parading performers and beasts, even the hyena and the anteaters, and the red-arsed baboons in their waggon cage, the same sort of accolades given a regiment just back from a victorious campaign, and there was good old Daniel Wigmore on a fine horse, tipping his hat to one and all, a patch-eyed “foreign-looking cove” with a rifle-musket in one hand, and one of his squawling lion cubs on his saddle’s pommel, a cove who could swing to face backwards, turn a flip on his horse’s back, slide down to hang on the side of his mount like a wild Red American Indian, and gallop up the street like the very wind, huzzah!
And, that remarkably beautiful girl on the white horse, riding astride, in breeches and boots so snug you could see… ! and children’s eyes were covered, and women tittered into handkerchiefs, but my!, but she was a horsewoman, too, and with that spiky crown, that flowing mane of curly black hair, and that bow, my Gawd! She was the lovely Eudoxia, slayer of a dozen, two-dozen, odious Frenchmen intent upon her ravishing, or worse, and when she stood on her mount’s bare back, everyone cheered, whistled, and fell in love with her daring, and her bravery.
Then, she swerved from the parade’s course, right to the doors of a venerable old posting house frequented by naval officers. Right onto the sidewalk she forced her horse.
“Kapitan Lewrie!” she gaily cried. “Zdrasvutyeh! Hello, again! Black fellow, Rodney, is healed up, da? Little shooter is well?”
“Mistress Eudoxia,” Lewrie nervously replied, doffing his hat to her, though with one eye on her father, for Arslan Durschenko had brought his horse to a stop quite nearby, and he did hold a musket in his hand, and it might be loaded, and…! “Seaman Rodney is now fine. Fit as a fiddle!” And the crowd about him began to whisper, then cry out, that that-there Navy man was “Black Alan” Lewrie, by Jingo, “The Emancipator,” and “Hero of the South Atlantic,” wot woz in all o’ them tracts an’ sich!
“I s’pose your circus will do well, now that…” Lewrie began to say, but Eudoxia got that impish look in her big, almond-shaped amber eyes, making Lewrie glance at her father, who was scowling fiercely by then, and starting to wheel his horse’s head round, and… !
“Bravest man in all Navy!” Eudoxia loudly declared. “Kapitan is my hero!” A moment before she leaned down, took him by an epaulet, and kissed him smack on the mouth… with a sly bit of tongue to boot, it here must be noted, as the crowd went wild with amusement.
Oh, Christ, don’t do that, not now, not… ! Lewrie frantically thought, though (it here must be noted as well) he did not find the experience completely disagreeable.
“Mummy, who’s that lady kissing Papa?” his daughter Charlotte crossly demanded as his children, and his wife Caroline, bustled from the inn’s doors. “Why’s she dressed like that? Is she foreign or…?”
“Why, I do not know, dear, but I am certain we shall discover who she is, soon!” Caroline Lewrie drawled, fixing her husband with a very jaundiced glare. Middle son Hugh guffawed, his eyes alight with instant hero-worship of the famous Eudoxia, right before his eyes in the flesh (so to speak), whilst Lewrie’s eldest, Sewallis, ever a cautious lad, merely gawked and turned red.
“Is jena? Wife?” Eudoxia asked, turning on her sugary charm. “Mistress Lewrie, wife of bravest kapitan in whole world, who savink us from Fransooski bas … bad peoples, spasiba. Kapitan Lewrie speak of you and dyeti…children so often! Is right word, ‘often’? I am honour-ed to be meetink you!” she gushed. “You comink to circus, you and children? Will be bolshoi show!”
“We will see,” Caroline coolly rejoined. “Honoured to meet you as well, since I’ve read so much about you, Mistress…Eudoxia?”
“Must go, now,” Eudoxia said. “Wantink to say bootyeh zdarovi to Kapitan Lewrie one last time. Meanink ‘bless you,’ yes? For all he do for us. Dosvidanya, Kapitan. Paka snova!”
“Have a grand tour of Britain, Mistress Durschenko,” Lewrie bade her in turn, doffing his hat and making a leg to keep it formal, and innocent. Eudoxia kneed her horse and made him perform a kneeling bow to Lewrie, to the further amazement of the crowd, as she swept something like a formal Eastern salaam while seated on his back, too.
A King's Trade Page 42
