Dewey Lambdin - King`s Captain

"Even Maggie Cony, Alan," Caroline said, putting aside all her knitting to cross to the desk and stand behind him, one arm caressing his neck and shoulder. "They offered her work in the kitchens of the Red Swan, and I couldn't match it. With the baby and their cottage in the village to keep up… closer to home and more money, you see. I was sorry to see her go, she was such a treasure, but little I could do to keep her, no matter how friendly we were."

And hadn't replaced her, Lewrie noted, saving nearly eight pounds per annum. With the boys old enough, their private tutor had been sent away after the last term just ended. Besides, the new village school was just as good, though nowhere near as uppercrust-and cost a good deal less. No more need of a proper governess, just an older, widowed maid-of-all-work to tend Charlotte. No, grand as it looked, a Lewrie household didn't seem like it'd be awash in footmen, butlers, serving-girls, and such-not anytime soon, at any rate.

"Besides, your name'd not draw workers, Alan," Caroline imparted, sweeping her skirts aside to first sit on the arm of his chair… then lean back and snuggle into his lap. "Mind, we think the world of you, but…"

He interrupted her to steal a gentle, teasing, wifely kiss.

"Unless there's a grand victory like Saint Vincent, most folk could care less about the war," she told him as she nestled in. "And they forget that a week later. Why, last year, the London Mob stoned the King's carriage! Shouting, 'No more King, no more war, and no more Pitt'!"

"They what?" Lewrie stiffened in outrage. "Why, I never heard the like! Be stormin' the Tower of London next! Buildin' guillotines and loppin' off heads! Didn't see that in any papers come by me."

Hold on, yes, I have heard the like, Lewrie reminded himself; back in London, that packet o'penny tracts … those men at Willis's Rooms!

"Higher taxes, price of feeding themselves gone right through the roof, feeding their families," Caroline mused sadly. "And all the men away, in the Army or the Navy. And, believe it or not, even these high wages they're getting, even with a scarcity of able-bodied hands, can't keep up. Levies on everything needful, Alan. Soap, beer, boots, clothing, on candles. Taxes on sugar, salt, coffee, and tea… not that you can still find tea for sale, 'less it's been smuggled across from France, mind," Caroline complained. "Bricks, tobacco, rum, windowpane glass, windows themselves… four pence, mind you, on a copy of a newspaper! I've heard some mine or mill workers earn eighteen pounds per annum and ten of that goes out in taxes or necessities! The same for our necessities… as I'm sure you saw in my ledgers."

"Aye, I did." Lewrie winced at the year-end sum.

"There have been rumours of riots," she confided, nestling closer to him with a worried look. "Labouring groups organising to stop work for higher pay… though they've been outlawed. Along with all of that Rights of Man, Thomas Paine, croaking."

"Never thought I'd hear such tripe, in England of all places," Lewrie sighed, sliding a protective arm about her. "Damme, don't they know, do they stop working, they starve our defences? Don't they know the Frogs are ready to come conquer us? Ungrateful curs! They wish to parle^-vous and bow to a Liberty Tree, see all the churches boarded up and turned into 'Temples of Reason'?"

There came a knock from the entry hall on the double-doors.

"Beggin' yah pahdon, sah," Andrews's voice came soft and melodious as he filled in for a proper butler. "But 'tis Bosun Cony's wife come callin', sah. Missuz Maggie? Say she got t'speak t'ya, sah. It be urgent, she say."

"Um, ahh…" Lewrie grunted, disentangling himself, helping Caroline up from their compromising position, so she could push her gown and her hair straight, and he could reset his waist-coat, shoot cuffs, and appear "respectable." "Very well, Andrews, I'll be out directly. I do declare, Caroline. Speak of the Devil, hmmm?"

"Hardly the Devil, darling," Caroline chuckled. "Maggie's too dear to us to be calling her that. More-like… seeing a red-bird as sign someone'll come unexpected. Like we believed in the Carolinas."

Lewrie opened the doors and stepped out into the entry-hall, to espy a worried-looking Maggie Cony, the flaxen-haired helpmeet to his old friend and compatriot. While not a classic beauty, for a country woman she was usually most fetching, in a strong, no-nonsense way… and more than a match for her absent husband.

"Mistress Cony!" He beamed. "And young Will too! Bless me… nothing's gone amiss since we saw you at church, has it? Something urgent, I heard?"

Will had been detained at Portsmouth for a few days longer, just until the ship could be properly housed in a stone dry dock. Lewrie had issued leave-tickets for the senior hands, and Will should be on his way home, unless the new captain had decided not to honour them. He'd sent a thick packet of sea-letters on with Andrews and Padgett too, as they'd come on to Anglesgreen with his goods. Everything had been just fine, he'd thought…

"Somethin' awful happenin' down t'Portsmouth, Captain Lewrie, sir," Maggie blurted out. "Coach just came with a note from Will… fetched it me at the Red Swan. He'll not be coming home, sir!"

"Well, damme, he shall!" Lewrie declared, "if I have to coach down to Portsmouth myself and set his new captain straight. I give you my word on that, Mistress."

"Worse'n that, sir. Will got his leave-ticket, aye, and his new captain said 'twas alright him comin' on, but… Now he writes he can't leave the ship nor the dockyards. Can't leave Portsmouth a'tall, sir! None o' the sailors can. There's been mutiny in Portsmouth… nigh on the whole Channel Fleet, sir! Navy won't take any orders t'sail, won't stir, 'til their… demands have been met! Oh Lord, Captain Lewrie, sir!" Maggie Cony said, one hand for her son, and wringing the other in her apron. "Mutiny, sir! They'll fetch soldiers t'put it down, an' my Will right in the middle of it. There'll be hundreds kilt a'fightin'… hundreds hanged, 'fore 'tis done!"

"Mutiny!" Lewrie gasped. "What, the whole bloody Fleet? It… that just can't be! They've… mean t'say…!" He sputtered, turning to Caroline for assurance this wasn't a nightmare.

One ship, aye, with an ogre for a captain. Lewrie shivered, wincing as he recalled how close HMS Cockerel was to mutiny with that batch of slave-driving fiends in her gunroom and midshipmen's berths.

He saw Caroline shudder, but seem to shrug too, as if this was merely one more threatening event in a whole year of earth-shaking, and unbelievable, events. With all the anger and want in the land she had just spoken of, all the unrest he'd seen in those penny tracts, those Republican, rebellious screeds…!

Labourers noting, aye… civilians'd do such -he groped for a thread of understanding- but never the tars! Not my jacks! Irish, maybe-but the best part of the Navy- his Navy? And where might it spread?

"Have you Will's letter, ma'am? Good. Let me see that!"

Tamen aspera regum perpetimur iuga,

nec melio parere recuso.

Yet we endure the cruel yoke of kings,

nor though the better man do I refuse obedience.

– Argonautica, Book V, 487-89

Valerius Flaccus

T hey took the shorter road down from Portsdown Hill this time beneath the furiously whirling signal telegraph station, to the slightly inland town of Portsea. It was a clear day, so Lewrie, Maggie Cony, and young Will could espy far beyond Gosport, Haslar Hospital, several forts including the one opposite Portsmouth Point-manned, the forts were. Above the walls of fortifications circling Portsmouth itself, framed 'twixt Portsmouth and Southsea Castle-pent atop the golden-galleon-spire of the Church of St. Thomas A' Becket-lay the Fleet.