A King`s Trade l-13

by Dewey Lambdin

  "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 Leather-wood, 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, puhlease?"

  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 jenai 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, spasiha. Kapitan Lewrie speak of you and dyed… 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.

  "And that means…?" Caroline warily enquired.

  " 'Goodbye,' and 'see you'… I think, in Russian, my dear," he told her, thanking God that Caroline's only foreign tongue was a little French, for "Paka snova"-"See you, again!"-had been delivered with such a light in Eudoxia's eyes, laden with so much impish promise.

  "And, shall' we attend the circus, Alan?" Caroline icily posed. "Well… I'm certain the children would enjoy it, dear," Lewrie replied with as much off-handed blitheness as he could muster, actually managing to look his wife in her eyes, 'stead of blinking too much.

  "Oh, Mummy, could we?" Charlotte squealed, about to bounce out of her shoes, and her face as squinted as when she needed to pee; and Hugh and Sewallis clamoured for it, too. "We've never seen a circus!"

  "We shall see, children," Caroline told them. "I'm sure that it would be educational. Though, perhaps it might prove too exciting for some of us," she added, a brow cocked in her husband's direction. "I believe your father has seen it several times, already, and, what with all that is needful to commission his new ship, might have no time to spare for further attendance."

  "Well…" Lewrie glibly rejoined, shrugging again, higher. And I never laid a finger on the mort! he thought; Well, maybe a hand, a lip or two, but… damned if I did, damned if I didn't, and Carohne'll think the worst o' me, either way. Gawd, but this is going t 'be a long reconciliation! Ain 't I a bloody hero? Ain't that worth something, in my own house?

  "Come along, children," Caroline serenely instructed, gathering her brood, her regal air parting the press of the crowd before them as sure as Moses parted the Red Sea. "Come, Alan!" she bade her husband with a trifle less patience as he lagged behind a little, wondering for a second or two whether she meant him to be in their company, after all. "We're going to the chandlers' shops for your needs… dearest. Or so I thought," she said for the benefit of the close-pressed spectators.

  "Oh, o' course, my dear," Lewrie replied, joining them at last. He linked arms with her, and plastered as much of an untroubled expression on his phyz as Caroline wore on hers.

  "But, what about the circus, Mummy?" Little Charlotte whined.

  "Oh, we shall attend, dears," Caroline vowed, turning to smile at her children. "Of course, we shall. Your father will take us… for are we not a family, after all?"

  Thank bloody Christ! Lewrie thought with glad relief; There is a thaw maybe. Then, began to contemplate how un-interested, aloof, and semi-bored he must act at the performance that night, and make his wife actually believe it!

  AFTERWORD

  At one time in the far-distant past, I rather naively assumed that I had Alan Lewrie's career in the Royal Navy plotted out with an appearance in a series of major events from his entry into the Fleet in 1780, all the way through to 1815.

  Wrong, wrong, wrong! The more I associate with the rogue, the further afield I end up departing from that early stab at a curriculum vitae. It's as if my rubber bracelet, which bears the initials W.W.L.D.-What Would Lewrie Do-was ensorcelled by a cut-rate wizard down on Lower Broad here in Nashville, quite near Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and the Old Ryman Theatre, so that Lewrie's perverse streak of "Oh no, let's go there!" sometimes takes over. It could be worse; I could have been possessed by the ghost of Hank Williams, and drunk myself to an early death, years ago!

&nb
sp; This all started quite innocently when I ran across a mention in a reference book about a British circus and theatrical troupe that had sailed to America in 1797, and had had a wildly successful year's tour down the coast of the United States, from New England to Savannah, and Lewrie, and I, both said, "Hmmm," about the same time. Him first, me first, I'm still not quite sure, but the thought of actresses, agile acrobats, bareback riders (which had a very sexual connotation in the eighteenth century-figure it out for yourself!), skimpily clad aerialists, breathy little "theatrical" ingenues, and actresses! Did I mention actresses? The only drawback was the clowns and mimes… along with the "Zoo-Doo" left by a menagerie of exotic beasts.

  As for those slaves… the Rev. William Wilberforce and other people whom Lewrie met in London before his little Odyssey were actual people who were in the relentlessly grim process of reforming every wee bit of English Society… the word "Respectable" didn't even come into common usage 'til the late 1790s, after Wilberforce and Hannah More got their talons into things. Sarah Trimmer really wrote dismayingly "cute" children's books, damning all the old blood-and-guts and scare-them-to-sleep folk tales as too traumatic for such shrinking violets as British children. The first roots of the Politically Correct movement put out their first runners deep under the soil at that moment.

  So successful were the Reformers, the Clapham Sect, the Evangelical Society, and the Society for the Abolition of Slavery that Britons became a very tight-assed people, just in time for the Victorian Age. To this day, you put up a sign demanding that Brits line up for something, and you'll get a queue the likes not seen outside ticket offices for Super Bowl seats. As Hannah More gleefully said, "Slowly we shall take away all the bad old influences, 'til the only thing they have to look upon is ourselves." Or something very much like that, but you may get the gist. They were social engineers so successful that they made Lenin weep with envy.