Dewey Lambdin - A King`s Trade

Boot-heels drummed on snowy-scrubbed oak deck planks with an ominous thudding sounding very much like Doom-Doom-Doom!

Caroline'll file a Bill of Divorcement, o' course, Lewrie sadly thought as he passed 'twixt the twin rows of the side-party, doffing his hat to all assembled; she and her brother, Governour, came from old slave-holdin 'folk in North Carolina! Why, they'll curse me as a traitor to the nat'ral state o' humankind!

Of late (with not an inkling of his crime yet revealed to her of course) his wife had actually begun to respond to his letters, again; a chary sort of reply, to be sure, after that still-unknown scribbler who had filled her head with tales of his overseas "doings" with a mistress in the Mediterranean, Phoebe Aretino; a tussle or two with the bustily alluring Claudia Mastandrea in Genoa and Leghorn (even if she had been a French spy he'd been ordered to bed and blab lies to!); about Theoni Kavares Connor, the Ionian Greek widow with the currant-trade fortune who'd removed to London… with his bastard son "Alan" in tow! Since he and Proteus had departed for the Caribbean back in '97, that vengeful gossip's "dirt" had dried up, but… there'd already been enough for Caroline to stew over, and she'd made it quite clear that she was of a mind to shoot him, despised him worse than cold, boiled mutton, and et cetera and et cetera, so there, you faithless bastard!

Caroline's aging mother, Charlotte Chiswick, would most-like go into the wailing vapours, brother-in-law Governour would recall all of his panther-lean and panther-quick reflexes of old, lever his substantial arse from one of his over-strong fireplace chairs, and toddle to a gun cabinet, and her miserly, spiteful uncle Phineas Chiswick… his rasping cackles already rang in Lewrie's fervid imaginings!

In point of fact, being slung out of the Navy into dreary, civilian misery, with all those vultures flapping round his head like a flock of Harpies, forever-more, just might be a Fate worse than Death!

Oh, Death, where is thy sting? Lewrie mournfully chid himself, dredging up a Bible verse (though not exactly sure from which Book of the Good Book). Though, as he turned his arse out-board and began his descent of the man-ropes and boarding battens, he made a quick, mental note to re-read the Book of Job… carefully!

And, he thought as he took a seat in his smart gig's stern; if it's a criminal trial, there's bound t'be a half-dozen "dominees" near to hand, with Bibles t'loan, just hot t 'weep o 'er my damned soul!

"Ready, sah," Cox'n Andrews said in a low voice behind him, at the tiller, fetching Lewrie up from his black study to take note that two of the six oarsmen waiting to row him ashore were Black, ex-slave sailors: big and strong Jones Nelson as stroke-oar, and the wiry young "George Newcastle" (who'd new-christened himself once free after their King, and a bottle of beer he'd seen but never sampled!) as a larboard oarsman, on the middle thwart!

Take out advertisements, why don't we! Lewrie thought, in a gawpish shudder. "Right, then…"he said in a proper sea-captain's low growl of impatience, after re-gathering his courage (which had taken a very sudden tack-about!) "Shove off, lads."

"Up-oars," Andrews called. "Let go dah painter, and shove off, bow man. Out oars, starboard," he ordered as he swung the tiller over hard a' larboard. "Dip oars, starboard… two short strokes. Now… out oars, larboard, ready, and.. – long-stroke, t'gether."

"Well, I think that should about conclude things, at last, sir," the aging Flag-Lieutenant to the new Port Admiral confessed, finally. "Any other matters wanting?" he cheerfully enquired.

"Topping up supplies expended on-passage from Halifax," Lewrie told him, handing over a fair copy of his frigate's lacks, assembled by her Purser, Mr. Coote, the Bosun, Master Gunner, Sailmaker, Cooper, and others. "Though, I s'pose the Dockyard Commissioner's office would be the best place for it."

"The Commissioner, Captain Sir Charles Saxton, will be relieved to hear of it, Captain Lewrie," the Flag-Lieutenant chuckled. "I note your ship received a bottom-cleaning and re-coppering at Halifax, did ye not, sir?"

"We did, sir," Lewrie agreed amiably. "Amazin' what can be accomplished on a good sand and shingle beach, with such dramatic tides."

"My word, you'll be more than welcome, then, Captain Lewrie, I dare say!" the Flag-Lieutenant gushed. "And Proteus is, at present, un-attached? Neither the North American nor the West Indies Station will be expecting you back anytime soon?"

"Not that I know of, no," Lewrie carefully admitted, taking time to cross his legs the other way about, guarding his "wedding tackle" as he did so, and striving to sound breezily unworried.

"Well, then! I shall inform Channel Fleet of your availability, sir! As well as London, of course," the other officer gleefully said, all but rubbing his hands. "Our Admiral Nelson has said that there are never enough frigates to go round, and isn't that the truth of it, sir?"

From the beatific look of hero-worship that seized the lieutenant's phyz, Nelson's repute had gone skyward like a sea-mortar's shell after his victory at the Battle of the Nile, so Lewrie thought it politic, and might improve Proteus 's future employment, to make a boast or two about his connexions to that worthy.

"Served with him twice, now, sir," he off-handedly tossed about. " Grand Turk Island, in '83, just before the end of the American Revolution, then as part of his squadron off the Italian coasts in '94, and '95. Corsica, too, actually… and saw him in action during the siege of Toulon. Oh!" he cried, fingering the medal for Cape St. Vincent on his chest. "He dragooned me to follow him and repeat signals in '97 at Saint Vincent, as well! That was a 'windy' hour or so."

" 'Pon my stars, Captain Lewrie, you did?" the Flag-Lieutenant responded with the expected gawp of astonishment, giving Lewrie a rare chance to preen and forget his impending troubles.

"Prosperin', is he?" Lewrie idly asked.

"Well, aye, sir." The Flag-Lieutenant sobered, looking uneasy, and skittish. "You knew he'd lost his right arm when trying to force a landing at Tenerife, in the Spanish Canaries?"

"Poor fellow, never had a bit of luck at land expeditions, did he?" Lewrie said, with the expected clucks of sorrow. " Grand Turk…"

"A head wound at the Nile, which I am told still pains him and causes sick headaches," the other officer sadly intoned.

"Why, they'll whittle him down to a nubbin, he keeps that up," was Lewrie's rejoinder to that, which gave the Flag-Lieutenant pause, for a leery second.

"Lately, he's… well, there are rumours that he's come under the sway of the King and Queen of Naples, and their corrupt court-"

"Met him, too," Lewrie interrupted. "Runs his own fried fish shop, 'Old Nosey' does. Serves a grand platter. Italians, well.. ."

"All sorts of difficulties with the Neapolitans, Captain Lewrie. And, there's scurrilous talk of the Admiral's dealings with the Hamiltons… the Ambassador's wife, most-"

"Lady Emma?" Lewrie butted in, again, sitting up straighter for closer attention to the "dirt" he expected to hear.

The Flag-Lieutenant dared cock a brow at him as if to ask, You know them, aw.- 5before getting cutty-eyed and breaking his gaze. "He is said to be led about by the nose, like a prize bull, by that lady, Captain Lewrie. That they've, uhm…" he gravelled, actually turning red with embarassment, or remorse for a hero's seeming failings.

Topped her, has he? Lewrie thought, and felt like snorting with derision; Took him long enough, didn't it? Five years or more, since he met her. The way she went after me, Nelson must've been numb from the waist down… or held her off at sword-point like a daft saint!