A King's Commander

by Dewey Lambdin

  And good on you, Lewrie thought with rising expectations, feeling his face crease in a wolfish, rebellious grin. Anything that goes contrary to Hotham’s edicts is probably the best course of all. Damn’ fool!

  “Genoa may qualify . . . loosely . . . as a foreign power in amity,” Nelson all but smirked, “but they have proven too irresolute in defense of their neutrality, and their amity with us is but grudging. We will stop up the trade along the coast entirely. No matter which flag is presented. Horrible as it may be to make innocent civilians pay for a war, as against the honorable and Christian usage of a military campaign this may be, I am sure that I have the support of His Majesty’s ministers both at Turin and Genoa . . . and a consciousness that I am doing the right and proper service of our King and Country.”

  “Well, sir . . . !” Captain Cockburn grinned bashfully, sounding as if he had been turned around to a new way of thinking, and was enthusiastic.

  “Aye, we are acting contrary to whatever orders might have come from our senior admiral,” Nelson further confessed.

  Means he didn’t think to issue any, that might’ve, Alan thought. “Aye, we face the risk of litigation over illegal seizures, of political, diplomatic wrangles.” Nelson went on. “No one knows more than I . . . and Commander Lewrie, I recall? . . . of how fraught with possible cost to career and purse such lawsuits that might be brought in Admiralty Court against us. Lewrie and I had a rough old time of it in the West Indies, ’tween the wars, did we not, sir? But we persevered, and succeeded in suppressing illegal foreign trade, in upholding lawful Navigation Acts. And in hanging a few pirates, in the end. Of bringing the biggest rogues to book. So, this is what we shall do, sirs . . .

  “The harbor at Vado Bay will become our main anchorage, and where we will fetch all seizures, no matter how small. Mister Drake, here in the capital, is arranging agents to inspect and condemn our prizes, to pay the freight, release the vessels, sell their cargoes, and hold the monies for us until a real Admiralty Court may adjudicate them. Neutrals may be released, once emptied, should their papers prove legitimate and proper, But, without cargoes, or profit, thus hopefully deterring them from a second attempt. Vessels of belligerent nations to be kept as Droits of the Admiralty, subject to prize money. As will any ship, neutral or belligerent, found to be carrying warlike stores. Now, here are my specific orders, which you will also receive written . . .

  “You will stop and inspect all ships bound for France, or any port now occupied by France, no matter how inconsequential such ships may be,” Nelson ticked off on his fingers. “You will be careful not to give too great an offense, but stop them you will. You will prevent any embezzlement of their cargoes, taking inventory as best you are able against the manifests, should they still be aboard after seizure. The masters will be kept aboard, so they have no certifiable complaints to level against us at some future Court. You may take out of them such people as may be deemed by you improper to remain aboard, either of the crew or the passengers. Most especially those you deem suspect, or who cannot provide proper bona fides. Should they offer any resistance to you, then on their heads be it. As long as your responding force is commensurate and requisite to the situation, I assure you I will uphold you to the utmost of my power, as long as you feel you did your duty honorably, and as best you saw it.”

  That cheered them up considerably. What Horatio Nelson proposed was fraught with risks; professional ruin, a court-martial, financial disaster, and years of litigation so expensive, with possible judgment against error so steep, they’d die in debtor’s prison, without even a penny for beer on Sundays!

  “I know it is not the usual thing,” Nelson said with a smile on his face, a bit shy, “that a senior officer explain himself so elaborately. But I have found, gentlemen, that hastily issued, unexplained or mystifyingly purposeless orders are never half so diligently pursued as those that are made clear, concise, and the sense, the reason for them, fully shared. I promise you all that I will endeavor to share with you all pertinent information, as soon as I come to know it, which pertains to our situation. So that you may feel free to act with more certainty, knowing that you are in full obedience, and full agreement with me, as well. So that we may diligently, enthusiastically, and cooperatively, function more as a like-minded band of supportive men toward the greater good, instead of at half-guessed loggerheads.”

  That, too, drew a “good on you! ” from Lewrie’s thoughts. He’d been clueless too often in the Navy, too compartmented and menial, to suspect why most admirals issued orders, while holding the reasons as close to their waistcoats as whist players with a good hand.

  “Well then, gentlemen, a final glass to success in our new endeavor, and we’ll be about it,” Nelson suggested, summoning his stewards once more. “Written orders that illuminate the points I raised will be given you. The port of Genoa is—at present, mind— cooperative toward port visits and victualing rights. Which ships require supply before putting to sea?”

  Half the captains’ hands went up, Lewrie’s included; victims of capricious, mystifying, and conflicting orders to join the squadron at San Fiorenzo before victualing, before they’d tangled with the French this last time, and San Fiorenzo already short of supplies.

  Nelson gave them a wry expression, perhaps verging upon shammed horror; no captain would usually put to sea without every water butt or bread-bag bungful, his stored rations, especially livestock and fresh meat or flour, crammed into any odd nook or cranny available. And well Nelson knew that fear of running short, or of being deprived. He might have urged them to sail with what they had, but seemed to shrug off the “greed” for oversufficiency philosophically.

  “In that case, then, uhm . . . Captain Cockburn?”

  The young man perked up, his phyz turned all noble and enterprising, and conscious of being singled out.

  “Since your Meleager is better stored than others, you are most ready to put to sea,” Nelson told him. “You will cruise off Vado Bay, in company with, uhm . . . the Tarleton brig, and the Resolution cutter. And in temporary charge. Mister Drake informs me that there is rumor of a Genoese convoy. Keep your eyes peeled for it. Some talk of monies, plate, and jewels, to be transported east from Marseilles in Genoese bottoms, the interception and seizure of which, I am certain, would be most discomfiting to the French cause. Along with the grain.”

  “I would be honored, sir,” Cockburn preened.

  Could a man swagger, still seated . . . ! Lewrie thought sourly; regretting his own selfish desire to cram Jester with last-minute supplies. Lucky bastard! Still . . . even though Jester barely drew more than two fathoms, this duty would involve inshore work, cutting out a merchantman in shoal water, from under the very noses of forts, almost in musket range of the cliffs or beaches. Jester had but two boats on her tiers to use for this, and they were both too small to hold a crew of raiders and oarsmen. He reckoned he might use the delay in harbor to chivvy up something larger, something Mediterranean-looking, shabby but stout, to serve as Jester ’s tender.

  Something so commonplace that her arrival in an occupied port would go unnoticed, until . . . Damme if I’ll cheat myself out of a shot at plate, gold, and jewels! Something just big enough to bear the weight and recoil of swivels, or one of the “Smashers”? he mused.

  The other captains seemed regretful of their avidity, too, bereft that they’d ceded a chance for untold riches in prize money for the lack of a ha’porth of tar, or a stoupful of water.

  “I could . . . ! ” Ariadne ’s captain grudgingly offered, now he saw the fortune he had missed.

  “No no, sir,” Nelson countered amicably. “Do fulfill your every need first, so your Ariadne may keep the seas without stinting your men and thus reducing your effectiveness once there.”

  You damn’ clever hound, Lewrie realized, gaining a sudden appreciation for Nelson’s nacky wits; you want us like-minded and all that—but you want us hungry for loot, too! No better way to light a fire in ’em, than dangle baubles in th
eir faces. Were it just orders, or grain, we’d be keen enough, but now . . . ! He’s more than the dashing, heedless bugger I thought him. Hmm . . .

  “Lucky dog, sir,” Fremantle crowed at Cockburn’s luck, once they were on deck once more, queuing up to depart in reverse order of seniority, and their gigs aligning themselves in a like circle.

  “But for firewood and water, sir . . .” Cockburn simpered, seeming modest; but more than a little certain of how high in Nelson’s regard he really was, compared to the others. Stiff, stuffy, aye, like Lieutenant Andrews said, Lewrie thought; but more prissy than prim. Like a woman with a new ball gown. I don’t think I’m going to like him very much. All my good fortune and patronage aside, being in the right place at the right time—bein’ damn’ successful, too!—and he made “post” in a little more’n a Dog Watch, got a frigate . . . doin’ less than half of what I . . . !

  Right, add Jealous, to Weak and Venal! he scowled. And had to snicker at his own pretensions. Oh, well.

  “Good fortune, sir,” Lewrie offered Cockburn, “and good huntin’.” Extending a hand to be Christian about it, jealous or no.

  “Thankee, Commander,” Cockburn replied stiffly. “One may hope, hey? I’ll try and leave something for you.”

  “That’d be damn’ good of you, sir,” Alan forced himself to say with a smile. You vauntin’ turd! Damn’ limp hand and wrist, cold an’ weak as some . . . !

  “Well, urhm . . .” Cockburn said, retrieving his hand, seeming as if he felt a sudden urge to wash it. “Before we sail, sir. Allow me to give you the name of a rather decent Genoese tailor.” He cocked a brow and gave Lewrie another of those searching, top-to-bottom looks. “Perhaps your delay in port will give you time to obtain the requisite epaulet and lace, Commander Lewrie? One must be properly attired, d’ye see . . . else our so-called ‘neutral’ traffickers might not take you as seriously as they ought.”

  “Kind of you, sir,” Lewrie rejoined, stifling the fiery retort he really wished to say back. It was possible that Cockburn was genuine with his offer, that he really was such a stickler for details. Or was such a toplofty sod he didn’t understand when he gave offense.

  Lewrie, though, had never been more than ready to be chary of other men’s motives, and was pretty sure he was being deliberately galled.

  “For the nonce, sir,” he continued, still with a thankful smile on his face, “I’ll have to let my guns be my guinea stamp.”

  “Ah!” Fremantle coughed with sudden relief. “M’boat. Good day t’you all, sirs. Captain Cockburn . . . Commander Lewrie. Confusion to the French.”

  Alan had to admit he was a bit behind the latest Regulations for Sea Officers’ dress. But then, they almost all were. The latest directives ordained the addition of a vertical scallop “slash-cuff” over the sleeve rings of rank, with the gilt buttons moved inside, and vertical instead of horizontal. And finally, after years of grumbling that the senior naval uniforms were too plain compared to the Army’s, they were allowed to wear epaulets. Commanders got a plain, fringed gold-bullion epaulet on their left shoulder. Captains of less than three years’ seniority got one on the right, while full post-captains were to sport the full pair. Cockburn had already obtained his, though few of the others had so far bothered, so much at sea where it didn’t make one damned bit of difference, on a foreign station out of sight of Admiralty or fussy port admirals.

  “My thanks for your excellent suggestion, Captain Coe- burn, sir,” Lewrie said, continuing to doff his hat, turning to include Cockburn in the salute he’d just given Fremantle. “I’ll toddle on down the queue, if you will excuse me? B’lieve your boat is next anyway, sir?”

  “Quite,” Cockburn replied, giving him a brief, jerky head-bow.

  As Lewrie wedged in astern of Ariadne ’s captain but before the juniors who commanded the lesser ships, he took time to look over the harbor, searching for a useful boat he could purchase as a tender to Jester. Even with a replacement cutter on her boat-tier beams, he had three small boats to work with. A local-built tartane, lateenrigged fishing boat or small coaster would best suit his purpose, he decided, something around fifty-feet long, or so, about half Jester ’s length. A two-master, perhaps, which would be fast enough to chase, shoal-draught enough to go very close inshore . . . and could pay for herself at least fifty times over, were they lucky.

  Another thought struck him, as he was at last being rowed back to Jester in his gig. Were they to wage full-fledged commerce warfare, then why were they limited to the Genoese coast? While Nelson had said little about Savoian ports—nothing, really—hadn’t his hands encompassed them when he’d shown them the chart?

  Wait a bit, Lewrie enthused, squirming on his padded thwart; he had! “. . . any ships bound for France, or any port now occupied by the French,” he’d directed.

  Better pickings, he speculated; easier pickings? Troops all off far to the east, with only small garrisons left in the backwaters, and shipmasters thinking themselves safe as houses that far west. Around Cape Antibes and San Remo, he thought, defenses might be lighter, yet the effect of a raid could hurt the long French supply trains just as badly. Maybe worse; they’d have to divert troops and guns from their march on Genoa to protect those neglected ports, spread their ships too thin, which escorted or patrolled . . . ! And, most profitably, yield the value of contraband cargoes as prize money, with no other British warships “In Sight”!

  Confusion to the French, indeed, he thought with a feral grin of anticipation. Eager to be at it. And to get ashore quickly to grab a tender before the others thought of it. And get those changes to his uniforms done, after all; as long as he was at it.

  C H A P T E R 3

  Lewrie’s problem was being a bit “skint” himself, short of the wherewithal to pay the outrageous prices Genoese masters or captains asked for their fishing boats. So Jester had departed Genoa in mid-July without a tender. Once at sea, though, he’d simply taken a suitable vessel.

  Bombolo, her owner had named her, a tartane of only forty feet in length, tubby and broad-beamed. She’d been running along the Riviera coast, fat, dumb, and happy—Thomas Mountjoy, whose command of Italian idiom was growing by leaps and bounds, told him her name meant “A Fat Person,” and was therefore particularly apt—off San Remo. There’d been no beach to ground on, no convenient inlet into which she could slip, and Jester had cut inshore of her. She was Savoian, and empty of anything of value, save for a few casks of fresh-caught fish. But she had attempted to flee, which Lewrie wrote up in his report as the sort of “suspicious activity” Nelson’s orders had warned him to be on the lookout for.

  A quick palaver, at gunpoint, with her terrified captain, and the deal had been struck. With three casks of their catch in her longboat, the captain and his small crew allowed their freedom to row away—and Lewrie’s offer of £30, in silver shillings—he’d “bought” her.

  “Quoins full out. When you’re quite ready, Mister Bittfield,” Lewrie ordered.

  “Number one larboard gun . . . Fire! ” Bittfield shouted. A ranging shot howled away for the tiny, extemporized “fort” sited on a low bluff overlooking the entrance to the harbor of Bordighera. A sleepy town awoke to the clap of thunder, and the crunching rattle of rocky soil and shale blasted loose from the bluff, just below the redoubt.

  There was an answering bang from the shore, as one of the guns in the three-gun battery returned fire, adding a bloom of smoke to the cloud of dust that hazed the morning air below the thin flagpole and French Tricolor.

  “Cold iron,” Lewrie spat to Mister Buchanon, as he saw the shot fall far short, and wide to the left by at least a hundred yards. And if the battery corrected their lateral aim, they’d still fire astern of Jester, for at least their first or second full salvos.

  “Number two gun . . . Fire! ” Bittfield shouted, pacing aft as if he were firing a timed salute, with the Prussian quarter-gunner Rahl almost frantic as he scampered in advance of him, tugging and trimming the aim and elevation, casting
urgent glances over his shoulder to Mister Bittfield, to see if he was still scowling at him.

  A touch higher, a touch to the right, that second shot; fountaining gravel and dirt just short of the low stone rampart. An officer on horseback appeared, with one or two aides, to the right of the battery, and unslung a telescope. So close was Jester to the steep-diving shore that they could hear the faint, whistle-through-your-teeth tootle of the garrison being called to battle by fifes and drums.

  “Number three gun . . . Fire! ” Bittfield barked.

  “Oh, bloody lovely!” Lewrie beamed.

  That shot scored a direct hit on the rampart; nine pounds of iron ball striking between the two right-hand embrasures. Poor mortar, or no mortar—perhaps the wall had been quickly erected with its stones laid as loose as a Welsh pasture fence—but when the dust cleared, down it had come, creating a fourth embrasure on the seaward side, a ragged gap, with a skree-slope of tumbled rock below it.

  “Number four gun . . . Fire! ”

  Down the deck the tolling went, gun after gun lurching backward on its truck carriage, to chip away at the top of the rampart, smash in low on the wall, skim just over it, or pummel the soil beneath, making a pall of dust and smoke to obscure the French gunners’ aim.

  “Larboard batt’ry . . . make ready for broadside!” Bittfield cried, raising a fist in the air. “Wait for it! On the uproll . . . Fire!”

  Nine carriage guns went off as one, this time, shaking Jester to her very bones, reeling her sideways to windward a foot or two. A shot amputated the flagpole, bringing down the tricolor; the rest battered down a stretch of wall, flinging rocks as big as men’s heads into space. The officer on horseback fought to control his terrified, rearing mount, and the mounted aides vanished. As the dust and smoke cleared, Lewrie could see at least one French field-artillery piece laying canted on a smashed wheel and carriage through the vast gap his guns had blown.