Dewey Lambdin - The French Admiral

Angry or not, Forrester managed to clean his plate and call for the cheese after Freeling had removed the joint to save the last of it for Avery.

"A small slice for me," Carey said as Forrester cut into the hoop of fairly fresh Cheddar recently shipped from England.

"Cut it yourself," Forrester replied, still sulking and taking the equal of two men's shares.

"Oink, oink," Carey said again.

"Damn you, will you stop that stupid noise!" Forrester barked, rising from his seat and taking a swing at the younger boy with the back of his hand. Before Lewrie could respond and deflect the blow completely, he had succeeded in cuffing Carey on the head.

"How would you like me to kick your nutmegs up between your teeth, Forrester," Alan warned, grabbing the offending hand and holding it immobile against Forrester's best efforts to free it. "By God, it's blow for blow in here, and well you know it, just like a Scottish feud."

"Goddamn you, Lewrie, unhand me," Forrester commanded, squirming with the effort to free himself. "I'll square your yards for you!"

"The hell you will," Alan said, laughing cruelly. "You may inherit your daddy's title and rents, but you'll always be a churlish, craven pig."

Alan let go of Forrester's arm with a shove that almost unseated him. Forrester glared at him hard while Alan cut himself a slice of the cheese and poured a glass of Black Strap in lieu of port. He knew Forrester's type from civilian life, the bullying sort who would try to get even backhandedly, but would never face an enemy in a fair fight, and he enjoyed taunting him with a merry grin of physical superiority.

"How sadly is our aristocracy fallen, Carey, since the days of the Crusades," Alan scoffed. "Or when they faced Caesar's legions painted blue with woad."

An hour later, the master-at-arms and ship's corporals came about to see that all lights were extinguished for the night to lessen the mortal danger of fire, and they turned in. Alan took a moment while Forrester was forward in the heads to warn Carey to be on his guard in days ahead.

"He doesn't frighten me," Carey said with a smirk. "What can he do to us? Three of us against him."

"But he might get to you when we're not here."

"No matter, you'll settle him for me," Carey said, full of young confidence in his older mates to protect him. "But I'll make him pay for that slap."

"Carey, I think—given the captain's mood—that you leave well enough alone for now." Alan frowned. "Let it go, or you'll get us all in trouble, not just Forrester."

Carey had only smirked at him once more, then skinned out of his clothes and sprang into his hammock to curl up and sleep, and Alan thought no more about it, eager to get to sleep himself for a few hours before his midnight-to-four tour of duty in the middle watch.

Perhaps it was something about blue woad that set Carey off, for at dawn quarters the next morning, all the midshipmen turned up on deck to await the rising of the sun and the possible renewal of the battle with the French fleet, whose riding lights had been visible all night on the south-east horizon, still headed out into the Atlantic under easy sail.

As the grayness of predawn began to lessen the darkness, and the binnacle, belfry, and taffrail lanterns began to lose their strength, some of the men began to titter into their hands and almost bite their tongues to keep from laughing out loud about something.

Must be a grand thing to get them going, Alan thought wearily after another night on deck with only three hours' sleep. There's not all that much to be amused at in this fleet.

"Silence on deck," Lieutenant Railsford snapped, unusually out of sorts.

"Whatever is with the people this morning?" Treghues growled, stalking by the windward rail, unshaven as of yet and unfed.

"Don't know, sir," Railsford replied.

"I'll prove to them they have nothing to laugh about after yesterday, by…" Treghues said, almost blaspheming himself.

I like him better when he has a mug of whatever that stuff is, Alan thought, planning to ask Mr. Dorne if the captain was under any medication; not that he really expected an answer, but he was intrigued anyway by the sudden change in behavior that Treghues evinced whenever he partook of it.

A man next to him on the gun deck began to laugh softly and Alan went to his side. "If you wish to be at the gratings in the forenoon, go ahead and laugh, why don't you?"

"Sorry, sor," the man replied, much too brightly.

"Just what is so all-fired funny to you?" Alan queried, and the gunner jerked a finger in the general direction of the starboard gangway and screwed his mouth shut, trembling with the effort not to laugh.

Alan looked up at the gangway. Nothing funny up there; the yeoman of the sheets looked about as stupid as usual, the marines were mustered properly at the hammock nettings with their muskets, and the landsmen and brace-tenders all seemed normal enough. Lieutenant Peck was pacing slowly, as was his wont, with his burly sergeant in tow, just as every morning.

"Oh, my God!" Alan gaped at Forrester as he came aft from the fo'c's'le belfry. "Carey, you little shit, you've done for us, by God if you haven't! It had to have been Carey… Avery has more bloody sense!"

Forrester had had his countenance adorned during the night. There was blue paint on his face, large dots on each cheek, a false mustache a Hessian guardsman would be proud of, great arching false brows, a streak down the nose and two quarter-circles on the jowls to emphasize their roundness, with a final large blot on the slack chin.

"Jesus," Coke, the bosun, commented as he spotted Forrester. "We're for it now, Mister Lewrie!"

"Amen to that," Lewrie whispered back.

"When'ud ya find the time, sir?" Coke asked once he was past them.

"Me?" Alan yelped. "By God, it wasn't me… honest!"

"Merciful God!" A wail came from aft on the quarterdeck as Railsford spotted Forrester's phyz in the lightening gloom. "Mister Forrester, what is the meaning of this?"

"Mister Railsford?" Forrester snapped back, too sleepy to be wary, too surprised by Railsford tone and totally unknowing the nature of his sin.

"What sort of harlequin are you to appear caparisoned so?"

"Sir?" Forrester replied, on his guard now and feeling about his body to see if he was properly dressed after donning his clothes in the darkness of the midshipmen's mess with no time for a peek in a mirror.

"You… clown!" Treghues shouted in his best quarterdeck voice as soon as he spotted the miscreant. "How dare you turn out like that! Get below and wash that… that foolishness off at once, do you hear!"

"Sir?" Forrester begged, aware that he was in trouble for sure.

"And I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head when addressing the first lieutenant," Treghues said.

"But, sir…"

"Now, idiot!" Railsford commanded.

The word "wash" alerted Forrester to the possible nature of his offense. As he saluted and spun away to disappear below decks, he felt of his waistcoat, his breeches, then his face as a last resort, and was appalled to bring his fingers away still sticky-damp with blue paint.

"Mister Lewrie, get your miserable carcass up here instantly!" Treghues bawled, and there was no denying the summons. With a bitter shrug he scampered aft to a quarterdeck ladder and faced his irate captain.

"Sir," he said, doffing his cocked hat in salute.

"I know your brand of deviltry by now, Lewrie, and this time you shall pay for it in full measure," Treghues said, spittle flying from his lips.

"I did not do it, sir."

"Don't bother to lie to me, Lewrie!"

"On my honor, sir, I did not do it," Alan persisted.

"Avery, Carey, come aft at once," Railsford commanded.

"There's no need for that, Mister Railsford. I know who the biggest sinner in my own crew is, you can be assured of that."