A King's Commander

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Our sovereign’s writ allows me, sir,” Twigg cautioned. Though he showed all signs of relishing Lewrie’s embarrassment.

  • • •

  “There, done now?” Lewrie snapped, once Mountjoy had been told what to do, and had departed for his cot. “How dare you, Twigg. There is the matter of respect from my officers and crew that a captain can’t allow to be trampled! By a goddamned civilian! An outsider, a . . . !”

  “Oh, do sit down and cease your pious rant, Commander Lewrie.” Twigg sighed wearily, making free with Alan’s brandy bottle. “I know you of old, sir . . . perhaps a great deal better than you shall ever, of yourself . . . one more word, and I might decide, in the King’s Name . . .”

  Twigg left his full threat unspoken. But he had invoked enough. Lewrie shut up. And sat down.

  “First of all, sir, you know how impatient I am with the custom and usage of naval or military blockheads.”

  “You made that perfectly clear in the Pacific. Sir.”

  “Secondly, sir,” Twigg went on, ignoring Lewrie’s bile. “Your use of my true name, after I cautioned you to not . . . and in that rather loud voice, too. Tsk tsk. Were it to result in my death, sir, should one of your crewmen blab inadvertently, well. That is one thing. But the utter confusion of a great many schemes, should the enemy come to know of me, or my involvement, were they to begin to suspect that I’m a spy, would unravel more enterprises than this. And result in death, or torture, for a great many others. So I will instruct you this one last time to keep your wits about you, in spite of your resenting me, and kindly refer to me, even in your dreams, as Simon Silberberg, the harmless bank clerk, too ‘gooseberry’ ineffectual to be any harm. Can you do that, Lewrie?”

  “Aye. Sir.” Alan glowered.

  “Good. Sir,” Twigg mocked. “You may not believe this, Lewrie, but . . . I rather like you. I have a great admiration for your qualities as a sailor, and a doer. As a commission sea officer.”

  “Oh, bloody . . .” Alan groaned. “Pull the other one.”

  “No, I do!” Twigg smiled cadaverously. “Whatever made you the greedy, grasping opportunist you’ve become, so much more dangerous and useful than the usual sea dog, I know not. But when you’re of a mind to put your mind to a problem, ’stead of loafing, or muddling through like the rest, you’re bloody inspired. Desperation, perhaps? It’s no matter. I value men like you, Lewrie, they’re damn’ rare. Damme! Bordighera! Caught ’em with their breeches down, and buggered ’em, as deep as a mop stick would reach, my word! And Il Briosco? How many of your contemporaries would be that clever, sir? That devious?”

  “You’re pissing down my back . . . Mister Silberberg.” Lewrie smiled back, a wickedly mirthless smile of ill-humor. “Sounds like I’m set up for something. Know you of old, I do. You use people.”

  “Aye, I do,” Twigg most amiably admitted.

  “Now you think you’re going to use me, again?”

  “Of a certainty.” Twigg chuckled. “There’s even a possibility you’ll enjoy it. This fellow Hainaut will be rejoining soon, his mentor and patron. This French senior officer. Know who he is?”

  “Die Narbe . . . Capt’n Scar,” Lewrie shot back, happy to have a bit of knowledge that Twigg perhaps didn’t, for once. “Early on, last summer, we heard he also went by ‘Ugly Face’ or ‘Hideous.’ Ran convoys to Corsica, too, before it fell.”

  “And do you know many French naval officers, Lewrie? Personally, I mean. Know any of past acquaintance who might fit those frightening sobriquets?” Twigg posed happily. “Think back, sir, do.”

  “We don’t run to the same clubs, so . . .” Lewrie began to sneer, then got an icy chill of dread, felt his stomach contract. “Oh bloody . . . !” Alan gasped, as the shoe finally dropped. He leaned back in utter astonishment, his face paling for a second. “No! Couldn’t be! Didn’t we do for him? They cashiered him, surely . . .”

  “Guillaume Choundas, his horrible little self,” Twigg cackled softly. “Twice as mean . . . and thanks to your efforts, twice as ugly. Cashiered, yes. Pensioned off as a cripple. Not the sort of face one wishes to see in one’s wardroom, hmm? Not handsome enough to wear the uniform of an officer. Always did hate aristocrats, though. Recall . . . a peasant, father a Breton fisherman, out of Saint Malo? Forever going on about the Veneti, those godlike Celtic sailormen of his? Educated, in a fashion. Jesuits, I learned.”

  “ That’d make him twisted as an Irish walking stick.

  “Who best to volunteer, to espouse the Revolution?” Twigg asked. “One of the first to the barricades and all that, and deeply, truly in love and league with everything the Revolution in France means. Active service again, as an officer. A chance to shine again. A chance for Choundas to take revenge on every petty Frog who ever even looked sidewise at him. To lop off a hundred aristocratic heads, a thousand . . .”

  “And he’s here, in charge against us,” Lewrie spat, with weary and bitter amusement. “Well, I’m damned. We should have killed him, long ago, when we had the chance. He was damned good. Might have gotten even better.”

  “You’ll soon find out, Lewrie,” Twigg informed him with a knowing leer. “Once Hainaut tells him who it was stopped his business at Bordighera . . . as I intend for Hainaut to do . . . he’ll come looking for you. Personally. I’m counting on it.”

  Knew I should have become a bloody farmer, Alan thought! Pimp in London . . . my early aspiration? Safe as houses, that . . . consid’rin’.

  “Sir,” Lewrie glowered. “Are you trying to get me killed, on purpose, you scheming old . . .”

  “Not at all, Lewrie!” Twigg was quick to assure him; simpering though, which didn’t sound like much assurance at all. “As I say, I do like you. Professionally speaking. Your sort aren’t worth a tinker’s damn for much beyond war, and well you know it. Neither am I, I must confess . . . but then, my sort of war is eternal. Back home in peacetime I expect I’d find you boringly conceited and unscrupulously smarmy, an idle wastrel and lecher. As I expect you did, too, ’tween commissions, hmm? But that’s what makes you so valuable at war. Laze your way into idle foolishness, then shovel your way from ’neath a wagon-load of manure, and come up smelling like a rose. With guineas in your fists. Do it quite ruthlessly, ’cause you’re too impatient, or desperate, to play by the rules the proper sorts believe in. I’m counting on that remarkable ability of yours. Should you two actually meet again.”

  “So you’d sport a small wager on the home side?” Alan snorted. “Stake my last shilling on you, sir . . . my entire fortune, had I the chance,” Twigg snickered for a moment before turning fore-bodingly dark and somber. “Choundas is clever, but he’s much like you, Lewrie. He’s ultimately ruled by his heart, not his head, no matter how clever he is. I play my game dispassionately. But oh, Lewrie, what a marvelous diversion it is! A personal involvement that misdirects could be fatal for me. So rarely do I allow personal motives to intrude, or allow a motive, or those who would fulfill it, to become personal.”

  “Believe me, sir,” Lewrie sneered heavily, “I’ve noticed.”

  “In this instance, though,” Twigg said with a frown, “I do not think that I err, in allowing myself to feel, just once. Had I been on that beach with you when you chopped Choundas to flinders, I’d have ordered you to complete the work. Had you not, I’d have broken you, then scragged him myself. Knew the work wasn’t done, even though it looked that Spanish officials would hang him as a pirate. Even then, I felt a gnawing suspicion that, ruined as he was, he’d cause us mischief, in future.”

  “So you want me to kill him, personally?” Lewrie blanched.

  “I most passionately, most eagerly, wish his death, Lewrie,” Mister Twigg said with unwonted heat. “Even as a legless cripple, holed up in some noisome Paris cellar, with others to do his bidding, I fear he would still be dangerous. You, personally? More than likely not, sir. I wish to unbalance him, distract him with rage, as I did in Canton, after he had my old partner Thorn Wythy murdered. You’re my c
hink into his armor, Lewrie. Knowing you’re near, the man who maimed him, he’ll be more eager to hunt you than do his duty, his cold and evil logic all confounded and diverted. You’ll be the bait . . . my bait, which . . .”

  “Oh, just thankee, so much! ” Lewrie whispered.

  “. . . draws him to fatal folly.” Twigg pounded on. “And, should he creep to my trap, he will die, at last, no matter who does it. But should he find you . . . should the chance arise . . . I count on you being the one who kills him dead. In fact, should you two meet again, then I insist ’pon it. You are to kill him dead!”

  C H A P T E R 1 0

  Signal is down, sir!” Spendlove shouted.

  “Maintain course, Quartermaster,” Lewrie ordered. “And God help the French. It’s going to be a lovely day. What little joy of it they’ll have. Buggered ’em, by God!”

  “If only we were in on the buggering, sir.” Knolles laughed.

  It was, indeed, a lovely morning, for late August in the Ligurian Sea. There was a noticeable swell, now and then the hint of some foamy chop to the folding wave tops, and a decently brisk breeze for a change. All under a brilliant blue sky, wisped with benign clouds.

  Fremantle’s Inconstant led, breaking away westward, accompanied by the Tartar brig to cover the westernmost small town of Languelia, in the Bay of Alassio. Meleager and Speedy went more easterly, to tackle one of the warships at anchor, what looked to be a French corvette. While Nelson in Agamemnon, being handled like a frigate instead of a tired sixty-four-gunner, Southampton and Ariadne charged directly for the clutch of merchant ships.

  Jester stood on, tail end of the informal battle line that had approached the coast, to remain offshore as the seaward guard for the rest, as they achieved their victory. She stayed on course, alone.

  “’Least we’ll be in-sight, sir,” Buchanon grumbled. “Share in the take.”

  “There is that, Mister Buchanon,” Lewrie smirked. “Though, we could wait till hell freezes over before the Prize Courts approve those shares. Easy money, today. Ah, well.”

  No sign of Guillaume Choundas, either, Lewrie was more than happy to note, which partly explained his sense of content. Rumor had it that “Le Hideux” had a corvette as his flagship, and there were two of them anchored in Alassio Bay this moment, caught napping and facing the heavier twelve-pounder guns of Southampton, Inconstant, and Meleager, those crushing heavy guns aboard Agamemnon ’s lower deck. If he was there in Alassio Bay, and someone else stopped his business, then . . . Facing the wily Frenchman, who’d had the Devil’s own luck, was someone else’s joy, and Lewrie wished them well of it. Ever since Twigg had come aboard with his disturbing news, Lewrie had felt a distinct twanging of nerves.

  Only sheer, dumb luck had saved Lewrie’s bacon in the Far East, when he’d gone up against Choundas before; only desperate derringdo, and neck-or-nothing chance had kept him alive. Why, the bastard would have slain me, if I hadn’t kicked him in the “wedding tackle,” Lewrie thought with a queasy feeling. Could one divide a single second . . . that was how close he had been to being spitted on the man’s sword! A normal foe, now . . . but Choundas? Again? he shivered. Sorry, but the Navy don’t pay anyone near enough to tackle that clever fiend!

  He raised his telescope to watch, glad to be an observer, as the squadron stood into the bay, creating as much confusion and fear aboard the French convoy as a fox might among the chickens. His lips curled in silent delight. They’d made it to Alassio, the destination Twigg and Drake had discovered; dropped their “hooks” and prepared to carry their cargoes ashore, certain that the British squadron was far away to the west. On that shore, he could see tiny antlike figures in the dark blue-and-white uniforms of the French Army, the colors adopted from their old second-line National Guard. Thousands of Frogs, foot, horse, and perhaps some light artillery. Rather a lot of cavalry, he surmised; or draught animals assembled to tow the heavy wagons that the convoy’s goods would have filled?

  Cannon fire, now; blooms of smoke staining the oaken sides of Agamemnon and the rest. Even upwind, the slamming and drumming boom of artillery was lung-rattling. Some scattered return fire from shore, or from the armed ships that had escorted them in. For show, Lewrie thought smugly; a broadside or two so their captains could claim that resistance had been offered, but then . . .

  Neither of the French corvettes appeared to be trying to hoist sail, or save their anchors. The dull glint of iron upon their forecastles. Cutting cable? Yet, so slowly, so raggedly.

  “He’s not here,” Lewrie muttered, lowering his glass, and gnawing on the lining of his mouth in disappointment that Choundas had not been caught with his trousers down. And worry. That he was still out there, somewhere. And that Twigg would arrange for him to fight him.

  “Damme, I could have thought . . .”

  “Let this be a lesson to you, Hainaut,” Le Hideux grumbled, as he awkwardly paced his quarterdeck in bleak fury, “Never believe what is offered to you too easily.”

  “Citizen Pouzin thought it was authentic, so . . .” the lanky midshipman shrugged. He looked a little better. The British had been so good as to present him with a pair of slop trousers, which fit better than his old castoff breeches. A gift, that civilian clerk had told him.

  “Ah, Citizen Pouzin, oui. ” Choundas scowled, lifting the good corner of his mouth in a brief grin. “So easily gulled, that one. I will make sure Paris knows of his gullibility. Should he have gotten the timing wrong, we sail for nothing. But, if this is a ploy to expose the convoy, then he will pay for it.”

  So many places to cover: Nice, San Remo, Cagnes, Antibes, and Cannes. Martin had yet to send him his needed ships, so he could not hope to cover them all. Nor hope to stand out to sea, but not so far out that he could not espy signal fires to alert him where the British might strike. Nor hope to confront them in equal combat, ship against ship, either.

  He glanced at Hainaut, wondering . . .

  Never believe what is offered me too easily, either, Guillaume Choundas frowned. So quickly exchanged, bearing his cunningly gathered information about the British squadron. And the greatest news of all! That Jester, and that bastard Lewrie who’d maimed him, were one and the same!

  When the British did not appear on the horizon, where he’d been assured they would, he’d begun to fret. First in anger, that a chance for revenge was delayed, that he’d have to wait to capture Jester, and carve her smirking bastard Englishman into stew meat, as he had lusted to do these past nine years! So close at hand, yet . . . !

  Anger had cooled, replaced by trepidation; that he’d been told a lie, a cunning English lie, that someone was in league with them and had passed the lie on. Who would wish him humiliated? Pouzin? Yes, that could be it. He’d seemed so anxious to know the date of sailing, so he could make his arrangement, he’d said, but that could have been his way of getting what he needed to know, which he’d told the enemy! There might never have been a smuggled letter from Genoa, at all! It could have been Pouzin’s fabrication.

  Alan Lewrie, though, Choundas fumed in silence, clump-shuffling about the deck, oblivious for once to his crippled state. Lieutenant Alan Lewrie . . . Commander Alan Lewrie . . . Lewrie, Lewrie, Lewrie. Hate him! In the days since Hainaut had returned with that startling revelation of who his foe was, how close he was to vengeance, that name and what he wished to do to the person bearing that name had become almost a litany, like what he had once mumbled in rote duty over rosary beads.

  But now, at sea, where a cooler head could prevail, he had begun to wonder about the timing of that revelation. Why now? Just before a convoy, a vitally important convoy . . .

  It was late August, almost September. Soon, the weather would turn, the gales arise, cutting seaborne supplies by half, even without a British squadron on the Riviera. The first snows would fall in those mountain passes, and soldiers of both sides would go into winter quarters, unable to wage war until spring, bogged or snowbound.

  To use me, he sneered, at last, when a b
linding epiphany struck! To delude me, disarm me . . . to blind me with the brightness of revenge! Someone on the opposing side, someone incalculably clever, had revealed this to me, through Hainaut and perhaps even through Pouzin. Waiting, watching . . . being fed information by traitors and greedy shop clerks . . . biding his time until this could be used against me.

  La Vengeance now stood on East, racing with every scrap of canvas spread aloft, bounding and soaring, cleaving foam with a sibilant, spiteful hiss, like an adder aroused and dangerous, warning everything in sight to get out of striking distance. She stood on alone, though. The rest of his patchwork squadron was too weak, too slow, too thin-scantlinged for what she might discover. The winds had not been that good, the last few days; the convoy and escort force could still be caught up, if they’d found scant winds or foul. There was a chance that Capitaine de Fregate Bayard, the too-handsome beast, would use his innate cleverness, and put in each night in a snug harbor, not daring an evening passage on the open sea. Would he be that clever? Choundas devoutly wished. One of the rare ones, clever and pretty, was Bayard.

  Yet, how many tiny seaports had they passed, getting closer to Alassio, and no sign of them. It didn’t mean that they were really a target, Choundas could tell himself. Perhaps the British didn’t know of their presence. That everything would turn out fine.

  Diano, to larboard and now astern. Only a few miles more, once around the headland that formed the spine of the western heights of the Bay of Alassio. No sign of any enemy warships further out to sea. A thought did cross his mind, that it was a trap; that whoever that very clever fellow was in the British camp, they’d passed the tale, knowing he would do this—rush to the scene, to assure himself. It made the right sort of sense, to Choundas. Who was more important to the war effort than he? With all modesty, he could not think of anyone else whose loss would do more harm to the cause of the Revolution. It was not hubris, that awareness; it was merely his studied opinion, after coolly weighing the facts, and the rest of the participants. Lewrie. Would Lewrie be there? Would anyone? As bait, or . . .