A Fine Retribution

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Sorry, sir,” Faulkes said, “I was forward, in the galley, with Yeovill, when you called.”

  “No matter,” Lewrie told him. “Here, help sort, will you?”

  “Aye, sir. Oh dear. Oh dear, again,” Faulkes said as he began to make a small stack off to one side. “Mister Yelland … Mister Roe, Midshipman Ward … one for Kibworth. One for Lieutenant Elmes?”

  Dead men’s letters, handled as if they were infectious, ’twixt forefinger and thumb pinched to the smallest corners. The Sailing Master, the junior Marine Lieutenant, two fallen Midshipmen, and the former Third Officer, then an host of sailors or private Marines.

  “Send them back to the Post Office, sir?” Faulkes asked.

  “Aye, I’d suppose,” Lewrie glumly agreed, “though what they do with ’em’s anyone’s guess. Who’d pay the post for returned letters? Faulkes … have you been drinking?” Lewrie asked, making the connexion of his clerk and the galley, where the Ship’s Cook, Tanner, always kept a secret stash of brandy, rum, or wine, and by the time that the evening mess was served up, Tanner would be reeling, bawling drunk, to the detriment of the rations, happily “three sheets to the wind”.

  “Only a wee, convivial nip, sir,” Faulkes tried to laugh off, though having trouble with “convivial”.

  “We’ve spoken about that, sir,” Lewrie sternly pointed out. “I trust you are not so deep in your cups that you can manage to fulfill your duties. Hmm?”

  Lewrie had discovered long ago that Faulkes had a problem with drink, more so than the average sailor aboard, but as long as he kept a taut leash on it, he had tolerated his fault. Lately, though, the fellow seemed always to be “cherry merry”.

  “I’ll be fine, sir, honest,” Faulkes vowed, though he seemed a tad unsteady on his feet.

  “You had better be, Mister Faulkes,” Lewrie warned. “Sort out everything for the wardroom, the Midshipmen’s mess, then handle the issue of the rest to the hands before the Noon mess. Minus the rum issue at Seven Bells, hmm?”

  “Aye, sir,” Faulkes said, taut-lipped and abashed.

  As for Lewrie, there was, thankfully, nothing from Admiralty, nor anything official; it was all personal letters from friends in the Navy or from London. Sir Malcolm Shockley, in the House of Commons, sent his congratulations, and an account of the praise he had said in a speech. There was his old school friend, with whom he had been expelled from Harrow, Peter Rushton, now Viscount Draywick, who uttered the same sentiments, and bragged about his speech in Lord’s.

  There was one from Lady Eudoxia Stangbourne, wife of Percy, Viscount Stangbourne, whose self-raised light dragoon regiment was now in Spain as part of General Sir Arthur Wellesley’s army. Her English was much improved, probably with the help of a full-time secretary, from her native Russian. The former trick rider, trick shooter, and ingenue actress with Daniel Wigmore’s travelling circus and theatrical troupe wrote happy congratulations for his victory, along with snippets of news from Percy, and what he was doing, and her hopes that they all could be together again in happier times.

  There was a quick note from his youngest son, Hugh, boasting of what Lewrie’s former squadron was doing on the North coast of Spain, and how many more prizes they had taken, how many French ships they’d burned, and of the addition of a third frigate and two more brig-sloops to Captain Chalmers’s command; Commodore, rather, since Admiralty had granted him permission to hoist his own broad pendant so long as Lewrie and Sapphire were un-available.

  Glad tidings t’make my teeth grind, Lewrie thought of that!

  And, wonder of wonders, there was a letter from his elder son, Sewallis, who hadn’t written or responded to Lewrie’s letters in ages!

  “Damn my eyes, my boy’s a Passed Midshipman!” Lewrie crowed.

  “Ehm, which one, sir?” Pettus asked perking up from polishing silver in the dining coach.

  “Sewallis, my older,” Lewrie happily told him. “His ship put into Portsmouth for provisions, Channel Fleet held an Examining Board whilst she was there, and he passed on his first go!”

  “Why, that’s grand, sir!” Pettus congratulated. “Even though I can’t recall ever meeting your elder, sir, I’m sure you’re that proud of him. A credit to the family name.”

  “He writes that the Post-Captains on the Board told him that he was the best-prepared Mid they’d seen … that his answers were clear as a bell,” Lewrie happily related. “Damn! Just damn my eyes. Well!”

  Sewallis, though, also wrote that while he was now rated as a Passed Midshipman, he had yet to hear anything regarding a promotion to Lieutenant, so he was still aboard the same plodding two-decker 74 he had been in the last two years. In point of fact, Sewallis’s congratulations anent his father’s victory seemed insincere. He seemed bitter that grand things, honour and glory, and adventures, fell so easily on Lewrie, and his younger brother, Hugh, who could not help but write him gloating letters of derring-do and lashings of prize-money. Sewallis, Lewrie recalled, had been aboard ships of the line since running away to sea and practically forging his way into a ship in 1803. Most of his time at sea was spent on the blockade of the French naval port of Brest, standing off-and-on the same marks day after day, week after week, hoping that the French would come out, though they never did. And when the seas in the Bay of Biscay churned up, it would be days or weeks far from land, clawing far out to deep waters for safety, and a brutal sort of seamanship. In Lisbon, when Lewrie and Hugh had time for a brief hour or two together ashore, Hugh had japed, rather snidely, that he doubted if Sewallis had ever heard a shot fired in anger since he’d first gone to sea, and no wonder his rare letters to his brother had prompted Hugh to imagine that Sewallis was “losing interest”, more into drink, flirting, and dancing on his rare times ashore!

  I dearly wish he’d have spent some time in frigates or sloops, Lewrie thought as he set Sewallis’s letter aside, at last; There’s the real school for sailors. Well, maybe when he gets his promotion he’ll get off the “liners” at last, and find some excitement.

  Lewrie had left the old Ariadne, a 64, early in his own career, when she’d been hulked at Antigua, and felt that his real training came in the Parrot schooner, the Desperate sloop, then the hired-in brig of war Shrike during the American Revolution. Those ships had been his schools, and filled with fond memories of action and adventures. Hugh had escaped the Third Rate ships of the line and had already been aboard two frigates; at least he was having fun.

  “Good God,” Lewrie muttered in surprise, for the last letter was from Miss Jessica Chenery, sister of one of his Midshipmen. He broke the wax seal with eagerness and spread the pages on the desk to read.

  Dear Captain Lewrie,

  When first the Accounts of your Battle with four enemy Ships appeared in the newspapers, I felt, as any Patriotic Englishwoman, great Pride in the Prowess of our Navy, though I was Aghast at the papers’ descriptions of how many of the French were slain. It was only after we received Charley’s letter and his description of how Horrid it was, that I and my family were steeped in Dread at how much Risk that my youngest Brother was in, and how shocking it was to him to lose two fellow Midshipmen who had become Dear Friends, and put personal anecdotal characterisations to the Officers and Sailors lost, making them even more Human and too Precious to perish.

  Father suspects that what Charley wrote of the Horror is not a Tithe on the grim Reality, as a way to assure us that his new profession is not quite as Dangerous as it now seems.

  I knew in my heart that, despite your kindly Assurances about a Naval Career for him, as he dearly wished, it would be fraught with Peril, and now I am wracked with constant worry for him, and for you, sir.

  The young lady had not been shy about taking Lewrie to task when he’d collected young Charles Chenery at the family’s manse to bear him off to Portsmouth, and Sapphire. She’d been quite outspoken about her worries, then, though her later letters had been much cheerier. Lewrie felt a qualm that he had so distressed her.

  Fro
m the first Accounts, I prayed that you would have not been Injured, and trust that my letter finds you Well and in good Health. Your ship is now at Gibraltar undergoing Repairs, Charley says, and may not return to sea for some time, I gather? For my part, I count that a Blessing, removing you and my brother from immediate risk of Harm.

  “You can call it that,” Lewrie muttered. “I don’t.”

  Still, she meant well, and Lewrie felt a twinge of gratitude that Jessica Chenery would pray for his well-being, and a respite from whatever perils she imagined that seafarers faced.

  At least she’s too intelligent to believe in sea monsters, he thought with a wee grin; Intelligent, creative … damned fetching.

  He leaned back in his chair, recalling the too-brief meeting at the Reverend Chenery’s manse that cold February pre-dawn morning. It had only been half an hour, perhaps less, before he had to depart so his coach might reach Portsmouth Dockyards before the gates were closed at Midnight, but Jessica Chenery had made quite an impression on him. Much like her younger brother, Midshipman Charles Chenery, she had hair so dark brown that it had appeared black in some lights, and the oddest shade of dark blue eyes. Yawn-inducing early morning, perhaps not half an hour risen from bed, and dressed for warmth, not to impress, in a drab wool gown and grey wool shawl with her hair down and bound loose at the nape of her neck, still … she had been stunning. Clear-complexioned, quite creamy and flawless, in fact, and as she had taken him to task with her fears for her brother in his new career, Jessica Chenery’s warm concerns had made her seem animated; even more animated when she had been urged to display some of her artwork, portraits staggeringly realistic and true-to-life, or amusing prints for children she’d sold. She had even offered to paint him in the future, and had stated her going rate, much to Reverend Chenery’s discomfort. And when they had stood together to admire a portrait of her sister and newborn baby, even a drab brown wool gown could not disguise what Lewrie took to be a slim and girlish form.

  Over the course of the Spring and Summer, he had been surprised to receive several letters from her, some enquiring about a member of her church family at St. Anselm’s, an Army Lieutenant who had not survived the grisly retreat to Corunna with Sir John Moore’s army, and a young fellow who might have become her fiancé, if he’d lived. Then, in another letter, Jessica had included a pen-and-ink sketch of Lewrie, one very detailed and declared by his officers to be a spitting image, and that gleaned from that half an hour in her father’s house!

  Chatty, cheerful letters asking of her brother’s progress, and whose portraits she had painted, the offer to do the illustrations for a children’s book, of meeting his old cabin steward, John Aspinall, who had become a publisher and author of several nautical guides for young fellows wishing to go to sea, after he’d “swallowed the anchor”.

  Aye, talented, creative, well-spoken, and with a gift of expression in her writing … and damned fetching she was. Though, what had Pettus said, his smirk well-concealed, after the portrait had arrived? That “it appears that the young lady has set her cap for you, sir”?

  “Oh, pshaw,” Lewrie muttered again, then sat back upright and returned to her letter. It had turned to breezy news of what Summer in London was like; how she, her father, and their long-time lodger, the widowed émigré French painter, Madame Berenice Pellatan, had gone to the annual flower show, and to the display of the Royal Academy’s art show of this year’s winners and runners-up, and how Jessica felt tempted to submit a piece of her own next Summer, under a pseudonym, of course, and what a jape it would be for a woman to even place, much less win!

  Lewrie imagined the sly “cat that ate the canary” look on her face as she created her submission, and wondered how she would reveal her identity to the staid Royal Academy’s senior members if she did win. He strongly suspected that it would be something dramatic, and a Nine Day Wonder.

  Her father would be mortified, of course, though Lewrie suspected that that worthy was not above sharing in the monetary prize, The Reverend Chenery—vicar or rector, Lewrie wasn’t sure which—had a well-to-do parish, but seemed as miserly and “skint” as an Irish crofter, and none too happy with his daughter’s choice of even daring to have a career, much less the fact that she had made nigh an hundred pounds income the year before. If she was a man, she would qualify to be a voter in her parish. If Jessica found herself a husband Lewrie doubted if her father could scrounge up fifty or sixty pounds per annum for her dowry! Antiquarianism, ancient books, maps, relics from the Greeks, Romans, or Phoenicians that might prove that America had been visited long before Columbus; what rot!

  It was a given, therefore, that Jessica Chenery would not be attracting a suitable mate anytime soon, when most young bachelors would expect double that “dot”, or more, and most “respectable men” would be as aghast as her father with her artistry! Young women who “de-sexed” themselves by dabbling in proper men’s pursuits would be an embarrassment that eligible bachelors’ parents would do anything to avoid!

  And that would be a waste, Lewrie thought, a hellish waste of a fine young lady. Such forward ladies ended up as nannies, spinster housekeepers, or some wealthier lady’s maid!

  Dammit, Lewrie was coming to like her, her good humour and her spirit, her courage to make her own way. And, the fact that she was very fetching and a remarkable beauty was a bonus. Well, “like” wasn’t quite the word for his feelings by then; he was becoming enamoured in a way, enough so that a return to England to pay Sapphire off could almost be said to be a brief blessing.

  I could get my portrait done, he thought with a fond smile; a chance to spend some time with her … before my next ship, of course … and get to know her better.

  To what end, though? he had to ask himself. She was in her late twenties, he was in his mid-fourties; well, fourty-six to be accurate, and he doubted that a young lady of a family with every brother and brother-in-law but for her youngest brother in Holy Orders, would be amenable to sinful tumbles.

  Just a portrait, then, he decided as he finished her letter, then reached for his pen to reply that instant.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “There is always the off-chance that a laminate replacement mast could be fashioned, Sir Alan,” Captain William Lobb told him as they stood in the bustle of the Gibraltar Dockyards. Lobb had taken up his predecessor’s task of building 36-foot gunboats for the defense of the vast anchorage, even though the many larger and better-armed Spanish gunboats that had lurked over at Algeciras and up the rivers were no longer a threat, and if a French army showed up to lay siege it was a given that the Spanish would burn them before surrendering.

  “Laminated,” Lewrie repeated. “I am not familiar…”

  “One constructs several courses of vertical timbers round some much lighter and slimmer core, sir,” Lobb expounded, “much like the Romans formed their fasces … the bundles of axes on long shafts as a symbol of power, and justice. One shaft would snap when put under strain, but a bundle would be as rigid as a single thick mast or spar. It could be made, but, as you can see, suitable planking long enough to reach from the keelson and partner timbers to the height of the main top are simply not readily available, even less so than a one-piece replacement mainmast, unfortunately.”

  “And all those pieces would have to be nailed together, toed I suppose, then bound with iron hoops?” Lewrie asked.

  “Exactly so, Sir Alan,” Lobb sadly agreed, “and, as you can see, most of the lumber here in the yards run about twelve feet long, so it would require a special order from a home yard for pieces of the proper length.”

  “So, I’m stuck here ’til the bottom rots out of her, is that what you’re saying, Captain Lobb?” Lewrie despaired, even allowing himself a slight audible groan, and a tooth-baring wince.

  “I fear so, sir,” Lobb said with a sad shrug of his shoulders. “In my last report to Admiralty, I expressed my frustration, and I do trust, your frustration as well, that I do not see a timely solution. You might have better
luck sailing her home and placing yourself at the mercy of Portsmouth’s artificers.”

  “Mercy, sir?” Lewrie scoffed. “They have none!”

  “We’ve done the best we could…,” Lobb began.

  “I know you have, sir, and I’m grateful,” Lewrie told him.

  “We’ve scarfed in and bound … plugs, as it were, to stiffen your lower mainmast,” Lobb said, taking off his hat to mop himself with a pocket handkerchief for a moment, “and I daresay that they, along with your bracing anchor stocks and rope woolding, will hold up well enough, so long as you don’t put too much sail pressure aloft. It would be a slow passage home, but…”

  “Oh, believe me, Captain Lobb, we’re used to slow in Sapphire,” Lewrie hooted without much mirth. “I doubt we’ve logged nine knots the last two years, and that with a clean bottom! The best I could expect would be a thrice-reefed tops’l, bare upper masts, and a stays’l or two … perhaps no tops’l and a thrice-reefed main course.”

  “Ehm, perhaps stays’ls only, sir,” Lobb suggested. “I share your feelings, Sir Alan. I would much prefer a sea-going command, not this stint of shore duty. My predecessor, Captain Middleton, I believe, has a ship, after his term here was done. I bitterly envy the man.”

  “Well, I suppose I should write Admiralty of my intentions to return home, then do it,” Lewrie said, feeling as if he was giving it all up, trapped into doing so. “My Purser will be ashore to prevail upon you for stores in a day or two. Then, wind and weather permitting, I’ll be out of your hair, at last.”

  “Whatever you need, Sir Alan … within reason that Admiralty will allow,” Lobb said with a light touch, to make a jape of it.

  “Good day, then, sir,” Lewrie bade him, doffing his hat.