A King's Commander

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Thought we’d have been up-anchor, and away, hours ago,” Mister Midshipman Spendlove rejoined. Though he had already speculated on why the captain had sent his gig back to the ship, just after he had gotten to Gibraltar’s Old Mole landing, a heavy bundle of dispatches in a canvas-wrapped case under his arm. And then he hadn’t returned since noon? And Midshipman Clarence Spendlove, from previous service, knew what tempting lure still lurked at Gibraltar, to ensnare the captain . . . just like Dido from his Latin texts. Dido and . . . whatever his name was! Imprudent reality made his slim erudition flee his head.

  “Mine arse on a bandbox,” Spendlove muttered sotto voce, emulating his commanding officer, once he had a gander at the cutter’s contents. “Mister Rydell, midshipman of the watch’s duty to Mister Knolles, and inform him the captain’s returning aboard. Run, boy! Mister Cony? Bosun o’ the watch, there! Side-party, man the gangway!”

  Spithead nightingales shrilled, Marine Sergeant Bootheby and the first officer, Mister Knolles, presented swords. Marines stamped their feet and slapped walnut musket stocks in salute, as the top of their captain’s hat loomed over the lip of the entry port. Crewmen of the watch, and most of the off-duty watch idling on deck, doffed hats, to pay homage.

  Homage that was returned, by the doff of a gold-laced cocked hat, on Lewrie’s part, once he’d attained the security of the upper oaken gangway deck.

  “Mister Knolles, I . . .” Lewrie began hesitantly, quite unlike his usual demeanor.

  “Aye, sir?” Knolles prompted, wondering why his frank and open commanding officer could not quite match glances with him, of a sudden.

  “Bosun’s chair, over the side, to the boat, Mister Knolles,” The captain grunted. “And a working party. Blackwall hitch on the main-yard stay-tackle, to fetch dunnage aboard.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Knolles replied. “Mister Cony? Rig a bosun’s chair. And a cargo stay-tackle hoist.”

  “Dismiss the side-party, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie ordered, turning to peer over the side, arms spread wide on the bulwarks. “We’re not receiving officers.”

  Ralph Knolles raised an eyebrow, stepped to the side, surreptitiously, and cast a single furtive glance over. Their lone passenger was a woman! A most beautiful young . . . lady? Knolles frowned. Oh, he gasped in recognition. Last time we were at Gibraltar, the captain . . . they said he had a doxy ashore, but . . .

  Hell’s bells, Knolles thought, with a weary sigh, before turning to supervise the working party. It was no concern of his, really, what his captain did, whom he entertained aft on-passage. Knolles had served in ships with a captain’s entire family aboard, had been aboard a 3rd Rate in which every warrant, division, or department head had his “wife” and kiddies along! The solitary, celibate sea-faring life was a convenient fiction, for the most part—mostly for the benefit of the true wives and families left ashore—! But, he never thought Commander Lewrie’d be . . . !

  No, probably not a lady, Knolles sniffed in prim dismissal; an affair . . . most definitely an affair! . . . he had no business in.

  You damn’ fool, Lewrie chided himself; you damn’ fool! His face felt flush, and his clothing chafed him, itchy and sore. Or, perhaps, his very skin, he thought. Yet, he stood atremble with more concern for Phoebe’s safety than for his repute, as she was hoisted aboard.

  He’d really meant to end their relationship, had taken a fair amount of solid coin, and a note-of-hand upon his shore agent, then his London bank, to cushion her dismissal from his life. So short a time, though, in her bewitching presence, and he was as will-less as a drunken gambler.

  “Zat ees effroyable,” Phoebe peeped, once free of the slings of the bosun’s chair, a high color to her own cheeks, but with glitter to her eyes. “ Mais . . . ees très émotionnant! ” With a giggle of fading delight, she slipped an arm through his.

  “Ahum . . . Mister Knolles, allow me to name to you, Mademoiselle Phoebe Aretino,” Lewrie stammered over the social graces. “She will be sailing with us. Mademoiselle is from Corsica, originally, so . . .”

  “Mademoiselle Aretino,” Knolles said, doffing his hat, and making a “leg” in reply to her graceful curtsy. Though his expression was hellish-bland.

  “Lieutenant . . . Knolles, enchanté, m’sieur,” Phoebe rejoined, with her best formal manner. “Ah, M’sieur Spen’loove! Bonjour, encore! You are-ah well?” she cried, as she spotted a familiar face.

  “Ma’am,” Spendlove greeted, blushing. “Aye. Well, uhm . . .” “

  An’ m’sieur . . . Lapin? Non . . . pardon, merci merde alors . . .” Phoebe stumbled. “M’sieur Cony! Ze gran’ ’ero weez ze . . . grenades?”

  “Aye, ma’am,” Cony said, preening, “’twaz grenadoes, we used. Good o’ ya t’remember, ma’am.”

  “Well, hmm . . .” Lewrie flummoxed, once the many introductions were done among the quarterdeck people, who had crowded forward, after word had gone around that a vision had descended from heaven. And that the captain had a doxy! Alan felt as a pilfering thief might, forced to run a gantlet of his mess-deck victims, and their starters or rope ends. “Cony, do you be so good as to see uhm . . . Mistress Aretino’s . . . dunnage, aft? Mister Knolles, I note the wind’ll serve, just. We’ve an hour till full dark. We could be standing out, around Europa Point, by then. Pipe the hands to Stations for Weighing Anchor, and prepare us for getting underway.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Knolles replied, just as glad as Lewrie to escape into something more mundane and maritime.

  “I’ll see Mistress Aretino aft, and get her somewhat settled,” Lewrie promised, “then rejoin you. Carry on, till then, sir.”

  “But, isn’t he married?” Midshipman Hyde queried in a whisper.

  “Aye, but . . .” Spendlove griped, just as softly. “Met her at Toulon. Used to be . . . enamored, I s’pose you could call it, of our Lieutenant Scott, but he passed over when we were sunk. Didn’t have anyone else to turn to, around the time of the evacuation, so . . .”

  “Oh, like the Vicomtesse de Maubeuge?” Hyde said, his tongue firmly in cheek. “I must say, Clarence . . . at least the captain has grand taste, when it comes to women. Wives and doxies, hmm?”

  “My word, Cony!” Knolles grumbled. “My bloody oath! So she is, well . . . was Scott’s paramour, first? Now, our captain’s?”

  “Aye, sir,” Cony said with a faint scowl of worry. “A sweet 1’il thing, though.” He’d known Lewrie’s amatory appetites for years; shared ’em, in point of fact. Reveled in ’em, truth to tell! Going to sea, becoming Lewrie’s “man” so long ago, had opened his eyes to life, broadened his horizons far beyond that bucolic innocence he’d known as a rustic Gloucestershire “chaw-bacon,” with thatch sticking from out his ears. What enthusiasm he had for his new status as the Proper Married Man, he owed to the Lewries’ fondness for each other.

  And what enthusiasm he had for Maggie had been born abed with her. How else was there a Little Will in swaddlings, now, if not for prenuptial passion? Being a practical, commonsensical sort, Bosun’s Mate Will Cony knew from long experience that sailors will usually be sailors, far from home, with months between letters or news. Maggie almost kenned that, as any seaman’s wife should. As they said on the lower decks . . . “shouldn’ta joined, if ya can’t take a joke!”

  Still, he’d always believed that Lewrie would be more discreet than that. He’d even spoken disparagingly of officers who carried a mort to sea, parading before the love-starved, lust-surly “people” what they could not have. If the little sauce-pot had that much influence on him, though . . .

  “She is, that!” Knolles commented, rather wistfully. “Well . . . Mister Cony. Ahem. Carry on.”

  “Aye, sir.” Cony chuckled, knuckling his forehead in salute, knowing he’d been dismissed. Knowing that Knolles had said too much to an inferior, and was seething inside for being so open.

  “Dot de guhl th’ cap’um woz s’sweet on, Will?” Andrews asked, once Knolles had walked away. “De one ya tol’ me ’bout?”
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br />   “Aye, that she be. ’Ope she don’t spell trouble. For him, or us.” Cony shrugged.

  “Law, Will!” Andrews guffawed, his teeth brilliant against the dusk of his skin. “It be th’ same’zit always woz, bock in de Wes’ Indies, durin’ de ’Merican War. Jus’ a whiff o’ quim, not de whole garden. Cap’um, he lose his head ovah de ladies, now’n’ gain. But, he nevah lose it fo’ long!”

  “Mister Cony, make ’em hop to it!” Midshipman Hyde called to them, snappish and still fretful. And more than a little scandalized.

  “Aye, Mister Hyde. Hoppin’, this instant,” Cony answered as he withdrew his bosun’s pipe from a chest pocket of his waistcoat by its ornately plaited lanyard. “Messenger, aft t’th’ capstan-head!”

  “You, too, Andrews,” Hyde added.

  “On me way, t’de quawtah-deck, yassuh, Mistah Hyde, uhuhh!” the coxswain replied, falling back on a West Indies slave patois in subtle mockery, to rejoin the hands of the after-guard, who would tend sheets, halliards, lifts, and jears on the mizzenmast. “Right, lads. Tail on, weaklin’s. De strong men’z walkin’ de capstan fo’ ya.”

  “Canne do ’at, Cox,” a landsman asked, perplexed. “Jus’ ’ave ’isself a lady, all t’ ’is own? Any why cain’t we, I asks ya . . .”

  “’Cause he be de cap’um, an’ you ain’t, Cousins!” Andrews told the fresh-caught lubber, steering him away from a standing back-stay to his proper post on the mizzen tops’l jears. “Law, ye be so dumb, I lay odds ya thought dey call ’im de ‘Ram-Cat’ jus’ ’cause he fond o’ de kitties, didn’ ya, Cousins? Haw haw!”

  Once at sea, Lewrie quit the deck, after Jester was well clear of Europa Point, and reaching easterly on a beam wind, the galley funnel fuming once more to simmer up a late supper.

  Aspinall took his hat to hang up, as Lewrie hesitantly went aft to his day-cabin, suddenly feeling like an intruder in a strange salon.

  There was a slanging match going on, with much hissing, spitting, and a noticeable nimbus of stress-shed fur, as the litter mates, Toulon and Phoebe’s kitten—now half-grown to an almost calico white-and-tan—got “reacquainted.” Toulon on the desktop, pawing the wine cabinet in threat, as her cat cowered atop it, looking over the edge, hunkered up and snarling, trilling deep in her throat between nervous chop-licking.

  “Take no guff off the ladies, Toulon—that’s the way,” Alan muttered as he opened the cabinet doors to pour his own drink.

  “Sorry, sir but I wasn’t goin’ nowhere near ’em, long as they’re in a snit,” Aspinall apologized.

  “No problem, Aspinall,” Lewrie told him, tipping himself a glass of hock. “And what’s your name, little girl? Whatever did your mistress name you? ‘Spit’? ‘Whurdrdrdr,’ did ye say?” he yodeled.

  A traveling case thumped to the deck, in the sleeping coach. A bustle of domesticity, accompanied by a pleased humming tune, sometimes breaking into a soft, half-conscious “la-la’ing.”

  Good Christ, but I’m such a fool! Lewrie told himself, perhaps for the hundredth time since midmorning. Well, ’tis only till Corsica . . . bags of time to ‘wean’ both of us, after.

  The military authorities at Gibraltar had been gloating merry about Admiral Lord Hood’s siege-work, there. The main harbor, San Fiorenzo, had fallen early on, and just recently, the city of Bastia had come into British, or Coalition, possession. Now the French were isolated, hanging on by their fingernails at the extreme northern end of the island, in Calvi. The coastline was so well guarded by Royal Navy ships that a fishing smack couldn’t sneak in with supplies, or reinforcements; neither could the French hope for a piecemeal evacuation over several nights.

  And, to discomfit the Frogs even further, the fleet they’d put together from scattered units in the Mediterranean—or brought back into commission after the Coalition had failed to burn them when they had evacuated Toulon the previous Christmas!—had been countered at sea, rather deuced well! Hood had sailed away from the siege to meet Rear Admiral Comte Martin, and had snaffled the dismal bastard into a sack, in the Golfe Jouan east of Cannes, where he was now embayed and most effectively blockaded; of absolutely no use to the desperate Republican army at Calvi . . . or anyone else, pretty much.

  Toulon interrupted Lewrie’s musings, breaking off his own sort of “siege-work” to rub and purr, and meow for attention, which he got at once. Looking up and sneering a lofty “so there, see?” at the cat atop the wine cabinet.

  “Only the few days, Toulon,” Lewrie promised him. “ Oww! ” Piqued, perhaps, Phoebe’s calico had taken a defensive swat at him, and had connected on his right ear!

  “Oh, merde alors, ” Phoebe cooed, exiting the sleeping coach in a lacy flutter of feminine finery. “Joliette, elle est ze méchanceté, ees ‘naughty,’ oui? . . . ze très naughty jeune fille. I am sorry, mats she ees protec’, uhm . . . ?”

  “It’s my wine she’s protecting,” he groused, placing a handkerchief to his ear. Damme, he carped to himself; the bitch’z drawn blood!

  “Oh, Alain!” Phoebe comforted, taking the handkerchief, and dipping it in his hock, to dab at his ear. “I kees, an’ mak’ . . . uhm . . . a meilleur? Ah, better? Merci. My Englis’, ees . . . better, mais. . . n’est-ce pas? I kees an’ mak’ eet better, hein? ” she cajoled, swishing her hips and gazing up at him with mischievous, impish eyes.

  ”Après souper, peut-être,” he japed in return, any qualms in his head evaporating in another instant.

  “Certainement, mon chou,” she replied, with a promising grin. And retrieving her cat, Joliette, and keeping his wineglass, to sashay off astern to the crude sofa to sit and stroke her beast down. He poured himself another, and joined her.

  Along the way, he got a peek into the sleeping coach, to find that her pitiful collection of luggage he recalled from Toulon before the evacuation had grown considerably. There were now two full portmanteau chests, brimming with yard goods. Not only dresses, but bed linens, coverlets, the wink of pewter. There were unopened crates that had rattled as they’d come aboard—glassware and plates.

  “I was surprised, your removing,” he began.

  “Oh, Alain, to ’ave ze proper establissement pour vous, I mus’ buy ze many s’ings!” she explained, looking as if she would be eager to jump to her feet, dash into the sleeping coach, and display all her new possessions like a birthday child. “To take ze suite, wiz furnishings, uhm . . . ze chair, ze tables, ze bed, oui. Mais, ees ver’ empty? So I change rooms, for save you’ monnai. An’ I buy zose nice s’ings zat mak’ eet . . . familial? More homey? Zo when you are ashore, wiz me, you are non asham-ed.”

  “Aha,” he said noncommittally. It sounded hellish close to hopes of “familial,” domestic bliss; last year’s wren hatchling making a first nest of her own.

  ’Least I’m fortunate, he thought, taking a cool sip of his hock: don’t know why, but all my girls have been the economical sort. Never a spendthrift in the lot! Knock wood!

  Phoebe shrugged, turning pensive.

  “D’avant, w’en I am leetle girl . . .” She sighed. “Papa an’ Maman are très pauvre . . . ver’ poor. ’E ees ze soap-maker? Maman ’elp eem . . or wash ze laundry for ozzers. Sometime ze domestique . . . for ze rich? Ver’ poor. ’Ave nozzing. I go wiz ’er, sometime . . . I see what ozzers ’ave, an I wan’ zat pour moi. For Papa an’ Maman, aussi.”

  She put out a hand to him, to draw him to sit by her side more closely on the sofa, as she tried to explain her life.

  “Papa, ’e nous a quittes, w’en I am seize, uhm . . . sixteen? An’ Maman ees weak, ver’ sick sometime, so I tak’ ’er place, an’ work as ze domestique. At firs’, in Bastia, w’ere we live. Zen I go Toulon,” Phoebe told him, almost sadly, slipping an arm through his, turning to face him. “Oui, I become putain . . . ze petite whore. Domestiques wiz pretty . . . ’oo are pretty, hmm . . . eet ’appens, n’est-ce pas? C’est dommage, mais . . . ? ’Ave ze belle vetements, ze beautiful gowns, go to ze dances . . . ride een ze fine coach? Mais, come ’ome to ze rooms
zat I on’y rent. Ver’ impersonnel, wiz nozzing of mine? Oh, Alain, ’ow ver’ much I wan’ ze ’ome of my own, someday! Furniture I prefer, non w’ot come wiz rent. Forgeev, plais, mais . . .”

  She ducked her head.

  “I take ze smaller rooms to save monnaie, oui. Non jus’ for you’ sake. For moi. Zo I ’ave monnaie for to buy preety s’ings for . . . for zat someday, comprendre? Zo someday, I weel be somebody.”

  “If you needed more, Phoebe . . .” He chuckled.

  “Non,” she insisted, with a somber cast to her features, perhaps for the first time in his experience of her. “You, I adore, Alain, mon coeur. Anozzer man, per’aps ’e ’ave more monnaie, can mak’ me to be ze somebody at once, mais . . . j’m’en fous! Wiz you, I am ’appy! Eef eet tak’ time for to be ze grande lady, c’est dommage. I be mistress to one man, on’y. Vous! Non more putain. We mak’ each ozzer ’appy, an’ I wait for you to sail ’ome to me. W’ere I mak’ you ze domicile, uhm . . . intimé et agréable . . . ’ow you say?”

  “Pleasant and cozy.” He grinned.

  “ Oui, pleasan’ an’ . . . cozy!” Phoebe giggled, rewarding his abbreviated English lesson with a chaste little kiss, and settling down on his side, her head on his shoulder, cooing with delight. “Mon Dieu, I am so beaucoup ’appy you ’ave return-ed, Alain! I mees you so much, I ache for to be ’appy an’ content, again. To be wiz ze on’y man ’oo . . . care for me. ’Oo tak’ si . . . such good care of me! I weel non be expensive, you weel see! Parce que . . . because, I love you so much.”

  “A quiet, little place, then,” he inquired hopefully. Though coin did “chink” about in his head. How much might that “quiet, little place” cost? There’d be furniture, paintings, servants’ wages . . . And quiet, secure lodgings meant good neighborhoods, far removed from the commercial quarter; a coach-and-four might be necessary! The need for china, silver plate, cutlery, lanthorns, and candle stands, beeswax candles by the gross. Drapers and paperers in and out with even more costly . . . ! He took a fortifying sip of wine.