The King`s Commission

Burney put down his second glass, then was caught short and stumbled off for the beakhead up forward to make water, leaving Avery and Lewrie alone in the midshipmen's mess.

'I don't think this Frog de Grasse is half as smart as we've been thinking, sir,' Avery said shyly. 'We diddled him pretty well today.'

'Aye, that we did. He was badly placed to get to grips with us, too far to leeward and he waited too long to come about from south to north and take us under fire.'

'Might have been better for him if he had reversed course and order as soon as he saw us and waited closer to St. Kitts, yes.' David grinned. 'Gotten to windward inshore of Nevis himself.'

'Frogs like to fight to leeward, though, David,' Alan stated. 'Makes sense if you're a two-decker and can keep your heaviest artillery on the lower deck in action. If you take the windward, your guns are slanting down and even with the quoins all the way out, you don't have the range an upward slanting deck could give you.'

'And they like to fight at long range, too, and shoot for the rigging 'stead of closing for a clean shot.'

'Probably top their whores at arm's length, too,' Alan laughed.

'Won't get to grips like a good Englishman,' Avery added, getting more comfortably into the conversation.

'Like that buttock shop we went to in Charleston on your birthday?' Lewrie reminisced. 'What was it, Maude's?'

'Lady Jane's,' David hooted. 'I still owe you for that.'

'Well, it was only a crown apiece. Or are you thinking of the brawl we got into after we left?' Alan shrugged and made free with the bottle to top up both their glasses.

'I owe you for that one, too. They'd have split my skull in that street if you hadn't been there, sir,' David shot back.

'Sir, is it?' Alan asked. 'Damnit all, David…'

'Well, you are a master's mate now.'

'That's only because we're short-handed. I'm still the same as you, just another midshipman. I could be chucked out of my dog-box and back in a hammock next week. You've been acting like I've been made post. The Navy and its discipline be damned!'

'It's not just what the Navy expects.' David sobered. 'It's the way you came back aboard after Yorktown. Maybe even before then, when we went inshore. Before we were equals… fellow sufferers in this nautical misery, eh?' David essayed a small laugh. 'But you changed, became a hard man. Like you'd aged ten years and I was still seventeen, d'ya see?'

'So you're afraid of me?' Alan gaped. 'In awe of my new grandeur?'

'Nothing like that,' David replied with a sarcastic expression. 'And your grandeur be damned, 'cause you still break the vilest wind of any human I've ever seen. You're miles ahead of me now… Alan.'

'I suddenly became your older brother?' Lewrie chid him.

'Something like that.' David nodded seriously. 'More like you'd come back aboard a commission officer with years of authority about you. You'll make your commission before me, maybe make post before me.'

'If I stay in the Navy after this war is over,' Alan scoffed. 'Damme, I'm sorry you feel that way, David.'

'I am, too,' Avery grimaced, 'but there it is. I still count you my dearest friend, but friendship is based on equality, and we're no longer equal, not as long as we wear uniform. Sorry if I've been acting standoff-ish, but it comes with the Service. If we joshed each other as we were used, then I'd get a caning and you'd get a tongue- lashing. As long as we're aboard ship, at least. Perhaps on a run ashore, things might be different. I hope so, anyway.'

'Then we shall have one, soon,' Alan promised.

Burney came back from his trip to the heads, and Alan stood up to Finish dressing in waist-coat, coat and cocked hat. He went on deck to leave the two midshipmen to their fledgling friendship.

Damme, how did this come about? he asked himself. I'm not two full years older than David, and he's looking up to me like a distant uncle. Maybe if we both make an equal rank, he'll feel different.

But no, he realized. There was a gulf greater than rank between them now, some perception on David's part that saw him as some older and more competent man. He didn't feel old. He was barely nineteen. Looking back on his life, he wasn't sure if he had ever been young and innocent, but by God he didn't feel as old and competent as David implied. He was still groping for his own way in the Navy, and in life, still making stupid mistakes, floundering about in Society like a drowning man clutching at a floating spar, even if his finances and family background had finally been ascertained.

Neither, he gathered with a smirk, was he the same incredibly callow seventeen-year-old that had crawled through Ariadne's entry port soaking wet from a dunk in the Solent because he had no idea how to manage scaling man-ropes and battens up a ship's side. He admitted to himself that he had made progress in skill and knowledge in the Navy, and had gotten a few glimmerings about Life, but was he not the same shameless Corinthian brothel-dandy and buck of the first head who could roister through London streets like a rutting ram-cat with no thought for the morrow except a vague wonderment about where he was going to awaken, and with whom?

'Jesus, this fucking Navy is making a doddering fossil out of me!' he grumbled. 'Let's beat this damned de Grasse and have done with the whole humbug before-my God-before I start taking me seriously!'

The bosun's pipes began to cheep then to break his irreverent reveries. 'All hands! All hands on deck! Prepare to anchor!'

'Mister Lewrie, do ya take charge o' the fo'c'sle!' Monk bellowed in a quarterdeck rasp that could have cut through a whole gale. 'Clear hawse bucklers, seize up ta the best bower with the two-cable line, un prepare ta let go!'

The next morning, de Grasse had at them again. During the night, Hood had ordered his ships to shift their anchorages, so that an unbroken line stood from the point below Frigate Bay. The van ship was about four miles sou'east of Basse Terre, so close inshore not even a sloop could have clawed inshore of her; she was also inside the point and shoal as further cover. Twelve more ships lay astern of her to the west-nor'west, a mile-and-a-quarter to a mile-and-a-half of line-of-battle ships with their artillery ready. The remaining six liners bent about to curve the last of the line to the north, with Admiral Hood's 2nd Rate Barfleur at the apex of the bend. All ships had springs rigged on their anchor cables so they could shift their fire right or left as needed to take on a foe at extreme range as she approached, and swing with her to pour more deadly broadsides into her as long as she sailed past them.

Desperate had upped her own anchors and gotten underway shortly after breakfast, and was now prowling behind the battle line like a caged wildcat, waiting for something to maul should she be given a chance, ready to pass messages, or bear down upon a crippled British vessel to render her assistance.

The Trades were blowing well out of the sou'east, so an attempt to get round behind the line would involve hours of tacking close-hauled, and the ships drawn up en potence guarded that vital flank from the attempt. The French were presented with one hell of a quandary, and the English waited to see what brilliant maneuver the wily de Grasse would pull out of his gold-laced cocked hat.

'Here they come, damn their blood,' Lieutenant Railsford finally spat, after a hail from the lookout at the main-mast cross-trees.

The French fleet was strung out in a perfect order in single line-ahead, a cable's length between ships, aimed like a spear at the head of Hood's line. With implacable menace, they bore down as if they would crash through the anchored ships and smash them in the process. But the lead vessel drifted west, unable to bear close enough to the wind, and now aimed at the third ship in line. When within range, she turned west.

Immediately, Hood's ships returned fire upon her.

'Bless my soul, will you look at that, now!' Treghues rejoiced, slapping his thighs. 'Can you mark her, Mister Railsford?'

'Pluton, looks like, sir, 3rd Rate, seventy-four guns.'

Alan had access to a spare telescope and was standing on the bulwarks with an arm and a leg hooked through the mizzen shrouds for a better view. The French ship staggered as if she had just run aground, surrounded by a thin pall of dust and smoke as she was savaged by the fire of at least four British ships that had swung on their springs to direct their gunfire into her together.

'I can see scantlings flying from her far side, sir!' Alan said. 'They're blowing her to