Country, as Lewrie pointed out, and it's a great pity no one every really goes there… not even the French. When it comes to vacation or holiday time, most Frenchmen and Frenchwomen head for the Mediterranean, to Provence, and the southeast coast, the Cote d'Azur from Toulon to Nice… even if the beaches are gritty and gravelly, the rentals and hotel rates are astronomical, and the sea is as oily as the Houston Ship Channel… perhaps light, sweet crude and diesel fuel saves on suntan lotion.
The whole stretch of coast from Rochefort to the Spanish border, where Lewrie blockaded, could be a European Myrtle Beach. Sadly, there is only one touristy development mentioned in my guide book, an ultramodern sort of low-rent Disneyland by the small town of La Palmyre. (It was mentioned in the novel, so flip back to the map at this point, find it and go 'Huhh,' and ain't this educational?) It's on the North bank above Royan (flip back to the map, again). All in all, even the guide book doesn't call southwest France all that picturesque and 'quaint,' but then, neither are Beaufort, North Carolina, or the dunes at Hatteras, unless you delight in places like Ye Olde Shipwreck Tavern… Come on in, get Wrecked!… which I do, and have the tee-shirt to prove it. The chateaux of the region, though, do produce some of the finest wines in the world, and give testing tours like the Napa Valley, and, do you see a sign that reads Degustation, it does not mean 'throw up here,' but means you can go into a local restaurant or tavern and sample local wines by the glass. Well, maybe it does mean 'throw up here' if you stay long enough.
Commander James Kenyon and his secret life… well. Sir Winston Churchill once quipped that life in the Royal Navy was, in the bad old days, '… nothing but Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash.' If you thought that gay men these days have it rough, most of them preferring to stay 'in the closet' to avoid trouble, consider what it was like in 1800! Being found out, caught in the act, could result in being put in the stocks, outdoors in all weathers, subject to the abuse, rocks, rotten fruit and vegetables of passersby, and could result in death. Some could, after release from the stocks, be branded and marked forevermore, much like a thief, which resulted in a much slower death-sentence of shunning, unemployment, being hounded from one parish to the next, and ultimate starvation. In the Royal Navy, the punishment decreed in the Articles of War was indeed draconian; you're caught, you hang.
Oddly though, life in the Royal Navy for common seamen was like the aforementioned 'winter's day'… nasty, brutish, and short, as well. Desertion rates were so high that sailors were not trusted off of their ships with shore liberty very often. Instead, after six months or so at sea, bumboatmen rowed out to ships Put Out of Discipline, fetching shoddy goods, smuggling rum and gin, and renting out whores for as long as a sailor could afford to keep her on his rations and rum issue, his 'temporary' wife; hence, 'a wife in every port,' and the mess decks became the scene of drunken orgies, with coupling 'tween the gun-carriages with some blankets hung from the overhead for privacy. So, be careful when you call someone 'a real son of a gun,' for that's what the bastards resulting were called.
Obviously, keeping up to eight hundred men aboard a Third Rate ship of the line from a good drunk, a run ashore, a chance to 'put the leg over' a girl in a real bed, not a hammock, in privacy, was un-natural, causing desperation and 'it's just for now' Sodomy and Buggery; much like the temporary homosexuality found in prisons today. During World War II, many U.S. Navy ships in the Pacific, in constant active service of two or three years' duration with only quick port calls for fuel, ammo, victuals, and new movies, perhaps an afternoon on an island beach with two beers and some ball equipment called 'Liberty,' were rumoured to have developed 'Daisy Chains' belowdecks; much like prisons, indeed, and the old Navy term of 'Pogey Bait' equalled the modern-day 'Bunk Punk'; a young lad who must yield or get hurt real bad by older, harder men.
Equally obvious is the fact that only a tiny minority of sailors submitted, took part, or developed a taste for such doings, for most of them were 'righteously' heterosexual, and had been raised in those more strictly religious times to think it a mortal sin. Yet, there would always be some who, until they were 'pressed' into the Navy, leaned that direction, and found one or two fellows of their persuasion aboard any warship, no matter the dire punishment if discovered.
There is also something else working in such situations, as it does in prisons today; harsh conditions make harsh men of the survivors. Some might have developed a taste for the sense of power and control over the weak, meek, and obedient.
Whatever the reason, Sodomy in those days was always a worry for officers to stamp out; but, when it's one of the officers who is homosexual…! As I write this in late October 2006, Masterpiece Theatre on PBS is running William Golding's To the Ends of the Earth, from his trilogy of the same name, and the very first episode deals with the death of a parson who might have been weak, certainly naive, who dared go into the fo'c'sle to preach the Gospel, but ended up drunk and sodomised by some of the sailors, and one of the officers aboard was there to witness it, and possibly urged them on, resulting in his dying from the shame. Was he a willing participant, or not? Blame the victim as a 'Secret Molly,' he brought it on himself, and get out the brooms, to whisk it out of sight, and out of mind!
I've always felt a sympathy for James Kenyon, from the first two Lewrie novels in which he appeared; shoved off to sea by his family to 'make a man of him,' then dismissed from their cares; banking his life in a naval career at which he's rather good, yet… tiptoeing in dread of being found out, and having to play the hairy-chested, upright man, the bluff Jack Me-Hearty expected of a Sea Officer and 'tarpaulin man.'
Everyone in the eighteenth century was two-faced; one projected one's Public Face, a carefully crafted creation that pleased Society, and a Private Face, when the shoes were kicked off, the neck-stock undone, and one could cuss, spit, and belch. There was an odd character named Col. Hanger, a British Army officer who sometimes wore his uniform, sometimes civilian suitings, and sometimes ladies' dresses and hats. Make fun of him, and he'd challenge you to a duel, and most-like slice you into ribbons! He, as a member of the Squirearchy, in an honourable profession, was merely thought 'eccentric,' and delving into his private doings was almost always fatal with that gingery, testy bastard.
In later Victorian times, eccentricity became a British staple; they may still be able to bottle and export it, even in our Politically Correct era. There were many respected men who were alluded to as 'perennial bachelors.' What'd that mean, huh? Something caught at Oxford?
Kenyon is more to be pitied than despised; throw in the power of command, and a long-ago acquired dose of the Clap, which was all but incurable in those days, and throw in it turning into Tertiary Syphilis so that the Publick Facade and the Private Face become confused, and he really had no choice but to hope to die in harness, before getting caught in the act, revealed as a sinful fraud, cashiered, and 'branded' in Society. There still was such a thing as Shame in those days.
For those who still think me a bigot, let me advert to you what another of my tee- shirts says: 'I'd Rather Be Historically Accurate Than Politically Correct.' If one writes historical novels, one has to accept, not condemn, how people felt and thought in the chosen period, warts and all, their prejudices and detestations, with no sugar-coating or glossing over… no cop-outs such as Mel Gibson's The Patriot, where his Black farm workers, when taken away by the British, swear that they aren 't slaves, they just work for him… uh-huh. Like that could happen in South Carolina in 1780! Other than that, I still think it was a helluva movie.
So, here we are, with Alan Lewrie removed from command of his frigate, twiddling his thumbs alone through the holidays, and sweating bullets in dread of what will happen to him in court. The Beaumans, distanced though they are out past Islington, are still capable of getting at him, hot as they are for his heart's blood. There's Caroline, now utterly estranged from him, despite their attempt at reconciliation. And, of course, there's Lewrie's penchant for getting into some sort of trouble when idled ashore, and his near-idiocy when it comes to women that he must squelch.
Will he follow good advice and keep his breeches buttons chastely done up? Or, will he trundle cross the Thames to Southwark to see the circus just once more, take in those new dramas and comedies that Eudoxia mentioned.
Might he, in a truly benevolent and avuncular spirit of charity, instruct the delectable and exotic Eudoxia Durschenko in proper English grammar, spelling, and syntax? Will he be found with his head missing in Vauxhall Gardens, reeking of lion piss?
What do you think? Right, so do I.
