Dewey Lambdin - The French Admiral

The French Admiral (Alan Lewrie #2)

by Dewey Lambdin

Published by McBooks Press 2002

Copyright © 1990 by Dewey Lambdin

First published in 1990 by D.I. Fine, New York

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher.

Requests for such permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, Inc., ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

Cover painting by Dennis Lyall, courtesy of Tall Ships Books.

This one's for

DEREK ROOKE

Former Lieutenant, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

A "Wavy Navy" fighter pilot, who first "got my feet wet" in '76 aboard Seafire off Gulfport and Biloxi.

See what you started?

And for your good lady Louise, and Chris

and Charlotte Rooke of Rooke Sails, Memphis.

But didn't we look grand

touched mahoghany by the sun

with sweat salt and sea salt grit

in that millpond quiet harbor,

everything bagged and furled

and the motor grumbling the pier

with white eyes and white teeth beaming

in the last glimmer of a scarlet sky

as we laughed to finish fifth in class?

Didn't we share a conjurement

a God-hell knockdown wonder

And weren't we so alive?

Coelum non animum qui trans mare currunt.

Those who cross the seas change climate but not their character.

—Horace, Epistle I.xi. 27

PROLOGUE

The French were out. Somewhere on the high seas, on their way to some deviltry in the Colonies, Admiral Comte de Grasse and as many as fourteen sail of the line were assembled. For the British, the Leeward Islands Squadron under Admiral Samuel Hood and the Saint Lucia group under Rear Admiral Francis Drake were already at sea in pursuit. Perhaps just over the horizon, the enemy could be found, and perhaps the British fleet was just hours away from one of those epic sea battles that would decide the fate of the Crown. Or, Midshipman Alan Lewrie thought sourly, we could fuck around out here 'til Doomsday.

There had been a concerted rush to get under way from Antigua, and for a while it had been exciting to see so many ships gathered together with one fell purpose, but after a few days the iron grip of naval routine had canceled out the thrill. Scouting frigates could find nothing of the enemy, and there were damned few frigates to go around to begin with.

Alan began to get the sneaking suspicion that their own fleet was ahead of the French. De Grasse had started from Martinique, south of their own bases in the Caribbean, which might have taken him longer, which was all to the good, if they were to counter any action with the French and the Rebels in combination, allowing them to get to the hinted scene of battle in the Chesapeake or Delaware bays first.

At noon sights, after almost, but not quite, finding a reasonable guess as to their position (and hurriedly fudging a more accurate fix from Avery's slate), Alan had a chance to examine the sea chart pinned to the traverse board by the wheel binnacle cabinet.

He picked up a pair of dividers and measured off a passage at slow speed inside the island chains, instead of taking the outside or windward route. There's a Frog base in Haiti, he thought, and there's the Dons with a fleet in Havana. What if this poxy French admiral stopped off for supplies or more ships? We've seen nothing in the Mona Passage or any other pass through the Bahamas. Only safe route for a fleet of fourteen sail and transports would be the old Bahama Passage, then up the coast of British Florida. Deep water for the most part, good offshore winds abeam most of the way, if not a soldier's breeze north of Savannah…

Alan realized with a small shock to his system that he was enjoying his speculations, which only confirmed his fears that he was beginning to fit into the Navy and gain a real interest in a career as a sea-officer. God, what a horrible fate that would be! he thought. Not that being in the Navy, at sea and thousands of miles from his usual haunts was not bad enough, and none of it his idea in the first place. He had been in uniform for four months shy of two years and lately had had to work at suppressing pride in his newfound skills, and in the mostly good repute he had created for himself as a young gentleman in training.

"Wool gathering?" Commander the Honorable Tobias Treghues asked him with a lofty sniff. If Alan disliked being a seaman more than cold boiled mutton, the captain of H.M.S. Desperate felt the same low regard for him.

"Wondering where the French were, sir," Alan answered, straightening up and tossing the dividers down on the binnacle cabinet.

"How unlike you," Treghues said, and strolled away to the windward rail for a pace before his midday meal.

Stap me, Alan thought sadly. It was bad enough before when he just thought me a rapist and a rake-hell. Now he's been addled by that French gunner with a rammer, he's turned Evangel on us. Probably start leaping about like a Welsh miner at a Wesley meeting next.

Alan sidled off to leeward to stand next to his compatriot Midshipman David Avery, a dark-haired, merry Cornish lad of sixteen, almost seventeen. He shrugged in answer to the unspoken question framed by Avery's raised eyebrows.

"Still hates you, eh?" Avery whispered with a wry grin.

"What else is new?" Alan said.

"Who wouldn't?" Avery shrugged.

"Damned good question," Alan admitted with a soft laugh.

"Signal, sir," Midshipman the Honorable Francis Forrester, their least favorite messmate, shouted from the stern rail. "Attend the flag, sir."

"Mister Railsford," Treghues bellowed. "Hands to the braces and bear up closer to the flag."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Desperate wheeled about and beat up to windward, within hailing distance of Admiral Hood's flagship Barfleur , rounding up alongside to leeward in a flurry of spray. No one could fault her sail tending or shiphandling, for Treghues and his officers were as smart as paint for all the gloom aboard from Treghue's new mental state.

A gig flew across from Barfleur , and a flag lieutenant scrambled up the manropes and battens of the starboard side with a large envelope in his coat pocket. After a brief conference with Treghues, he was back over the side and flying back to his own ship.

"Mister Monk," Treghues called for his sailing master, and that worthy made his appearance on the quarterdeck in his scruffy uniform. "Lay us on a course for Charleston, in the Carolinas. We have despatches for General Leslie."

"Aye, aye, sir," Monk replied, shambling his way to the charts. "Here now, Quartermaster. Lay her due west fer right now. Hands ta the braces, smartly now. The flag's watchin'."

"Charleston," Avery said as they supervised their working parties for the mainmast braces. "We put in there once, Alan. Damned fun place, it was."

"I remember it so as well," Alan replied, almost rubbing his hands in glee. Yes, he had remembered Charleston well, too. It was full of refugees from up-country, run to the port by their rebel cousins. Cornwallis and his troops had been there, and with them had come a great flock of camp followers, traders, whores, and ladies without their husbands. When he had been on the despatch schooner Parrot he had had a wonderful run ashore in Charleston and didn't think things had changed much in the interim. The real problem, though, was going to be getting ashore at all. Treghues might not look kindly on giving him leave.

"Be in soundin's by tamorrer forenoon, sir," Monk said, after he had paced off the distance from their noon position with dividers on his charts.