A King's Commander (13 page)

A
oy,
the boat!” Midshipman Spendlove called to the heavy hired cutter, as it neared them, oars dipping in liquid gold water in an amber-tinted Mediterranean twilight.

“Jester!”
came the return hail, from their captain himself. “Must be in a hurry, not to've sent off for his gig,” Hyde opined by his side, on the starboard gangway.

“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?”

“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.