A Fine Retribution

by Dewey Lambdin

“We are, Sir Alan,” one Mrs. Stansfield, and next to Jessica the prettiest of the lot, said. “Join us, do!”

  Lewrie was getting used to civilian company, and a distinguished lot they were, Jessica’s girlhood friends from St. Anselm’s and a private grammar school that the parish ran. Mrs. Stansfield was the wife of a young physician in practice with his father; Mrs. Merton was wed to a mid-level clerk at a private bank; Mrs. Pryor’s husband was into steam engines, and perky Mrs. Eaton’s husband was a barrister and son of a silk-robed King’s Bench practitioner. Lewrie was surprised that he liked them all, though the physician and the barrister could be a tad full of themselves. The fellow he liked the best was Mr. Heiliger, and his round, blonde wife, for the Heiliger family had emigrated from Hamburg ages before and was in the brewery business, with their manufactury up the Thames past Windsor; their German-style pilseners and pale ales were spritely and delightful, and a nice change from stouts, porters, and dark ales. The Heiligers also had a small contract with the Navy Victualling Board to supply Deptford Dockyards with small beer.

  “I fear we have been making free with some of your exotic American corn whisky, Sir Alan,” Mrs. Merton giggled. “So fearsome!”

  “A dollop of it in your tea, dearest?” Jessica asked as she poured him a fragile Meissen china cup. “You must be freezing.”

  “Please do, thankee, love,” Lewrie replied, adding sugar and cream to his cup, stirring it up, then finding a seat on one of their delicate side-chairs.

  “It is so much more palatable when mixed with ginger beer,” Mrs. Pryor commented.

  “I’d imagine that almost anything would be improved,” Lewrie japed, which raised a polite laugh. “Rooski vodka, raw gin … paint thinner?”

  “My husband and his father are partial to Scottish whisky now and then,” Mrs. Eaton told them all, with her glass held close to her cheek, “which I do not find agreeable at all. But, did I dare lace it with ginger beer, or even water, I think they would throw me out of the house, ha ha!”

  “A good brandy is heady enough for me, thank you!” Mrs. Merton asserted.

  “Ah, but you’ve never had a Chinese mao tai brandy, which makes even fine Franch brandies taste like soapy water,” Lewrie imparted, happy to prattle along with them. “It is so alcoholic that one can see the fumes condense inside a snifter, and run back down to the bottom. It has what they call ‘legs’. Very tasty, though, for all that.”

  “Alan was in Calcutta, and Canton, ’tween the wars,” Jessica proudly related with a fond smile in his direction, which drew some impressed and curious breaths. “Though I believe you have nothing good to say of Hindoo spirits, do you, dear?”

  “They do have something akin to rum,” Lewrie said with a grin, “with an admixture of cholera. India has sugar cane, and lots of fermented fruit drinks, but the water there makes most of ’em deadly.”

  “Cholera!” Mrs. Stansfield tittered. “Jessica has told us of your rather wicked sense of humour, Sir Alan, which, along with your other sterling qualities, makes you the most agreeable of men to whom she could be wed.”

  Lewrie nodded his thanks for the compliment, casting a beamish look at his wife in silent thanks, but thinking, The mort hasn’t had enough t’drink yet … she can still form compound phrases and not tangle her prepositions! Either that, or she’s a practiced toper!

  “Your Admiral … Charlton, is it?” Mrs, Heiliger asked. “Is he a naval hero like yourself, Sir Alan?”

  “He was my son Hugh’s Captain at Trafalgar, ma’am,” Lewrie told her. “That makes him one of the ‘Immortals’ as far as I’m concerned. A hero, aye!”

  “And were you there, too, Sir Alan?” Mistress Kensington, the lone un-wed spinster of their set, asked. She was a rather mousy and drab young woman whose parents ran the grammar school where she also now taught.

  “Ah no, Miss Kensington,” Lewrie replied. “I was escorting a pair of horse transports to Cape Town, and only heard about it when we put into Funchal on Madeira for water.”

  “Is Admiral Charlton in London to accept a new commission?” Jessica asked with the slightest of frown lines in her forehead. “Should we serve champagne tonight?”

  “On half-pay like me, darling,” Lewrie was quick to assure her, “and looking forward to some time with his wife and children.”

  “Yet, Jessica told us that the man said something to you about some sort of proposal, Sir Alan,” Mrs. Merton enquired, making all of them look at their girlhood friend almost in sympathy. “Dare we ask if it is some plan which might discomfit the French, sir?”

  Lewrie put on a deep frown and hunched forward in his chair, then looked right and left as if searching for enemy spies. “I conjure you all, ladies, that what I say will not leave this room.”

  That caused a rustle of dress material, and some deep breaths.

  “His proposal is…” Lewrie said in a conspiratorial whisper, “that we lift a frigate with hot-air balloons, sail it to Paris, and crash it on Napoleon’s head.”

  God, they took me seriously! he thought, taking in their looks. He popped his mouth open and struck a clown’s pose to assure them that it was a jape, and they broke out in most un-ladylike laughter.

  “Oh, Sir Alan,” Mrs. Stansfield giggled, “you are such a wag!”

  *   *   *

  “So, what was Admiral Charlton’s proposal, love?” Jessica asked after the tea party guests had departed, and they were alone in the drawing room.

  “He wanted t’pick my brains about how I managed raids and troop landings in Southern Spain a few years back,” Lewrie said, drawing her closer so she could lean her head on his shoulder. “How it might be done with a whole regiment, what it’d take, how many transports, and such. Don’t worry, darling, it’s all a flummery, all stuff and nonsense. The Navy’d never spare the ships, the Army’d never give up a good regiment, and it’d cost far too much money wasted on an experiment. And believe me, dear, ‘experiment’ is a nasty, scary word to the people who run the Admiralty.”

  “But, if it isn’t in the cards, then why would he ask you to draw it up for him?” Jessica pressed, fretting and burrowing closer to him. “Does he contemplate gaining a command where he would try it … and, would he ask for you to help him with it?”

  “Far as I know, Charlton’s on the beach, the same as me,” he explained, his mouth against her fragrant hair. “He’s no idea where he’s goin’ next, and his next commission might take him somewhere he has no chance, or need, for such an expedition. It’s all moonshine, but … writin’ it, and cajolin’ you to do some illustrations for me to include,” he said with a squeeze round her shoulders, “even if I have t’ask pretty please, with sugar on it, hey? Well, it’ll keep me occupied through the winter, I expect.”

  “You are sure, Alan,” she muttered into his coat.

  “As sure as I am of anything, dearest,” he told her. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. My foes and their patrons’ll see to that. The only thing I’m sure of is that I should run downstairs and see Yeovill and ask what we’re servin’ for supper.”

  “But, I’ve already spoken to him, and made all the arrangements, Alan,” Jessica objected, wriggling a little in his embrace. “Supper is already planned. Unless you think I can’t manage our household,” she said with a bit of heat.

  “Oh, God, no!” Lewrie hooted. “I’d never say that!”

  Not if I know what’s good for me, I wouldn’t! he thought.

  He was rewarded with a poke in the ribs.

  “Think I’ll go down, anyway,” Lewrie said, giving her one last kiss on her forehead before getting to his feet. “The kitchens are the warmest place in the house, and I could still use a thawing out.”

  “You just want to yarn with your sailors,” Jessica accused, but in a playful way as she rose with him.

  “Well, there is that,” Lewrie cheerfully admitted. “Come on, dogs … kitchen treats!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  As Lewrie made a beginning on Charlt
on’s requested proposal, he found many other things arising to draw him from the endeavour; for it was approaching the Christmas Season, his first with his new wife, in his own house in what seemed ages, and ashore for the first time in his memory. There were letters to be written to people on both sides of the family, to people at sea or who resided too far off to visit, and Lewrie and Jessica occupied each end of the dining table in the warm morning room after breakfasts, scribbling, folding, and sealing with wax and Lewrie’s rarely used stamp of his knighthood, and Jessica took secret delight each time she used it.

  There was the house to decorate with holly, ivy, pine boughs, and coloured wax candles, gifts to be purchased for immediate family and the Boxing Day gifts for their household servants, the obtaining of which kept Lewrie out on shopping errands that prevented him from doing anything about the proposal.

  There were parties to plan, wine and spirits to be laid by for their guests, and a continual round of supper parties at the homes of Jessica’s friends to attend, as well as outings to enjoy the holiday festivities. Dramas at the Theatres Royal, the obligatory attendance at a performance of Handel’s Messiah with Reverend Chenery along, and other symphonies which that worthy begged off as a bit too scandalous (thank God!). Lewrie even cajoled all the younger couples to cram into several hackney coaches and go see the quick-change sketch comedies at Pulteney Plumb’s theatre, which all agreed was most amusing.

  There were family suppers at Saint Anselm’s manse, at Lewrie’s, and even at Sir Hugo’s house, where Charley Chenery secretly goggled over Sir Hugo’s vast collection of risqué novels and satiric caricatures. And, of course, there were the requisite Divine Services, to mark the season, gloomy as they could be, the joy of Twelfth Night parties followed by a heavy-handed Epiphany service. All that was missing was a really rowdy Frost Fair on the Thames, which did not ice over quite thick enough to support the booths, or skating.

  At last, round the start of January, Lewrie finally got serious about scribbling his ideas down, feeling happily satisfied that Christmas as a married man had gone about as sweetly as could be expected, even allowing for Jessica being “under her moon” for a week before Christmas Eve, and insisting on sleeping in the second furnished bed-chamber.

  She had put aside her art work for the holidays, too joyously busy with all the preparations, and the celebrations that went with it, but was now intent on a new series of Christmas-inspired paintings involving dogs making off with the goose or the turkey, or children going wide-eyed over a steaming pudding, and was best left to her own devices whilst inspired, leaving Lewrie time at the morning room table with paper, pen, ink, and his rough, first draughts.

  The basics were easy enough to explain; barges alongside both beams of all three masts at once, anti-boarding nets slung down which the soldiers would scramble; equipment lists necessary for a quick raid, not for camping ashore, or cooking rations. He did some rough and crude sketches of boats going ashore in line-abreast so all the troops could debark at once, the transport ships aligned as close to shore as possible and parallel to the beach, anchored by bow and stern to make a passably useful breakwater should the seas be up.

  But, for the life of him, Lewrie still could not fathom how to land artillery. It would take too long to hoist out of the holds of the transports, too long to ferry ashore in the barges, and would be almost impossible to land from the barges, over their bows, without the entire raiding party, soldiers and sailors, carrying them carriage by carriage, then barrel by barrel, to be assembled. It might take an entire day!

  He dabbled in wild speculation, sketching improbable designs of barges with bow ramps, but never could figure out how sailors could even ply their oars with a fully-assembled field piece sitting amidships of a barge, and the span of the axles, and the wheels, taking up most of the inside beam. Did he include a caisson for powder and shot, it would take two barges to land one gun, and half the battalion to man-haul both together, unless there was a way to sling draught horses over the side to swim ashore, and that would take even more transport ships just for them and their fodder, and…!

  Now I’m sure this’ll never be tried! he groaned to himself.

  Despite his misgivings, and with Jessica’s help with the illustrations, no matter how reluctant she was to further the inanity that, should it look too good it might be deemed feasible, Lewrie ended up with a full proposal to mail to Charlton, and a copy for himself, if even as a folly to be stowed deep out of sight. Besides, there were more important things occupying his time, social obligations that he and Jessica had to attend, and a “hop-master” to visit. It had been years since Lewrie had had reason to tax his dancing skills, but he’d always enjoyed dances, and had secretly thought himself a graceful and practiced man who was quick on his feet, but feared that there was a lot to re-learn of the older figures, and some newer trends to study before he dared take the floor without embarrassing himself, or his new wife!

  *   *   *

  Roughly a week after Candlemas, Lewrie came home from a local bookseller’s with several novels, an assortment of newspapers, and a copy of The Naval Chronicle, intending to read the day away in front of the drawing room fire, when Liam Desmond pointed his attention to some mail on the shiny pewter tray on the entrance hall side-board.

  “Somthin’ from Admiralty, sor,” Desmond said with a wink.

  “Oh, is there?” Lewrie asked, glancing into the front parlour where Jessica was sketching, hopefully too intent to note the arrival of any letters, yet. “Hmm, thankee, Desmond. I’ll be abovestairs.”

  He scooped up the letter from Admiralty, and once relieved of his over-coat, hat, gloves, and walking-stick, hid it between two newspapers, and went upstairs as quickly, and as quietly, as he could.

  Ain’t even Lady Day yet, so what’s this about? he asked himself, thinking that he would have no reason to go to Whitehall to collect his quarterly half-pay ’til the next Quarter Day, which wasn’t ’til the 25th of March. Once in the drawing room, he dumped everything on the settee and took a moment to warm his backside before the fire, then fetched the letter, threw himself into a wing-back chair close to the fire, and tore it open.

  Good Lord, they really want t’do it? he gawped, a quim-hair shy of shouting his reaction out loud. “Please inform the First Secretary of your availability to discuss the proposal you recently submitted to Rear-Admiral Thomas Charlton anent the creation of a landing force suitable for raids against hostile coasts…” he read aloud in slowly increasing volume. “Mine arse on a band-box! They’re really thinkin’ of it? Just damn my eyes! Whoo!”

  “Summat, sir?” Tom Dasher asked from the doorway. “Ya call fer hot coffee?”

  “Hot coffee, aye, Dasher, with cream and sugar,” Lewrie happily agreed, “and a tot o’ rum t’boot!”

  He couldn’t sit still, and had to spring to his feet and pace about the drawing room to re-read the short letter, feeling a rising excitement that it meant that Admiralty would offer him an active commission to implement the plan, hopefully as a Commodore, First Class at last, with a Post-Captain under him to run his new ship, leaving him free to devote all his efforts elsewhere; might it mean a return to a large frigate, or something larger, a Third Rate 74 at last? A Fourth Rate might serve, but there were damned few of those left, and … Get hold of yourself, ye damned fool, he had to temper himself; it may only mean the plan’s approved, and I’m still stuck ashore. Maybe they’ll give it to someone in good favour, like Popham. Charlton said that Popham was plannin’ t’carry the fight ashore on the North Spanish coast. Someone else’ll get all the credit, and I’ll still linger about like a beggar in the streets? Just about what I’ve come to expect, damn their blood! Yet?

  Lewrie had good reason to feel aggrieved, and unfairly, spitefully ill-used, so much so that he almost dreaded getting his hopes up, only to have them dashed once more, like a stray mutt kicked or shooed off too often to dare lick a hand that offered a beef steak. He took a deep, calming breath and
sat back down in front of the fire, waiting on his coffee, and giving the idea a long think. Oh, he could rush to pen a letter in reply at once and whistle up an urchin to deliver it with the promise of a whole shilling … but that would look too needy, too desperate, and he had his pride, and his honour to consider. No, he thought; it would be best did he set Admiralty’s letter aside for a day, read his papers and The Naval Chronicle, perhaps even delve into several first chapters of one of the novels before writing them back a day or two later. Admiralty officials knew that he was re-married, he was mortal-certain, and taking his time to reply might garner the impression that he was now too busy, or too engaged in civilian doings and pleasures, to quiver and leap at the possibly-offered bone, with his tail wagging and many a hungry begging whine!

  Aloof but willin’, Lewrie determined in his mind, even as he wondered how he’d inform Jessica of the letter, and calm her fears of his returning to service with a dismissive laugh or two of how someone else would most-like get the duty, only using his ideas. That’d work, he told himself; She’d buy that, I’m sure. After supper tonight, after a bottle of wine or two.

  “Yer coffee, sir,” Dasher said as he entered the drawing room with a tray and the shiny pewter service.

  “Ah, thankee, Dasher,” Lewrie said, perking up as if nothing was amiss, and tucking the letter into a breast pocket of his coat. Just as he was spooning sugar into his coffee, though, Jessica came into the drawing room to join him, garbed in a paint-spattered smock over her warm winter gown, with her hair pinned up under a mob-cap.

  “Alan, you came in without telling me?” she teased. “Thank you, Dasher,” she added as the lad offered her a cup.

  “You looked so intent on what you were doing that I didn’t wish t’disturb you, dearest,” Lewrie replied with a dis-arming smile, and a reach cross the wee table between them to fondly take her hand.

  “We’ve several letters,” Jessica said after she’d gotten her coffee to her taste, and withdrawing several from a pocket of her smock, sorting through them and naming the writers. “One or two for you, from your son Hugh, and one from Commander Westcott.”