Reefs and Shoals

husband, either.”

“Miss her and little Ben something sinful,” Rodgers confessed in a soft voice. “Ah, the punch! Scalding hot, I trust, or I’ll have ya at the gratings, Dugan.”

“Scaldin’ ’ot, sir,” his servant said with an easy grin.

“And, I doubt ya got yourself rowed out this far in the bloody blizzard just t’see me,” Rodgers laughed. “It’s your son, too, I’d wager.”

“Right in one,” Lewrie agreed. “Is he aboard?”

“Sent him off with the Purser and a working-party about three hours ago, so he should be back soon,” Rodgers said, blowing on his tall china tankard, cupping its warmth against his hands.

“How’s he doing?” Lewrie asked, doing much the same as Rodgers with his own tankard. “Shapin’ well, is he?”

“Oh, he’s settled in satisfactorily,” Rodgers told him. “Once he found his sea-legs. About in the middle of the pack… some older, some younger than he is. A dab-hand at mathematics, sun sights, celestial navigation. He can reef, hand, and steer as well as any.”

“Bags sharper than me, most-like,” Lewrie japed, thinking that his old friend’s assessment of his son’s nautical prowess and progress was grudging at best; as he had feared, Sewallis might not be suited to the rough-and- tumble of the Royal Navy.

“Best way to describe him’d be… earnest,” Rodgers went on between tentative sips of hot punch. “Earnest and diligent, attentive to duty, as smart as paint, all told. Has a mind like a snare trap, and learns quickly. Once he’s learned something, he’ll not forget it, either. A bit sober-sided.”

“He always was,” Lewrie said, “Reticent, sometimes. Shy?”

“Well, if my Mids pulled a prank, he’d be the last I’d suspect of it,” Rodgers hooted. “The one that schemed it, more like. He ain’t a sky-larker, like most of the lads his age. He strikes me as a lad closer to one ready to stand for his oral exams, a Passed Midshipman. Bless me, he ain’t idle, nor possessed of your sense of humour, but… he’s the dependable sort. Give him charge of something and it gets done. And the ship’s people respect him, and obey him chearly. That goes a long way in my book, and damn the likable ones.”

“Sounds like he’s prosperin, then,” Lewrie concluded.

“The lad’ll most-like never tell a good joke, but prospering?” Rodgers said with a chuckle. “Aye, right nicely, I’d say.”

“I’m glad t’hear it,” Lewrie said, smiling at last. “And from a man I trust t’tell it straight, too.”

“A lady made ya wear your baubles?” Rodgers prompted. “It’d be about time ya dipped back into life after… ya know.”

“Met her at Saint James’s Palace, the day it happened,” Lewrie told him. “Rather complicated, really…” And he made a grand tale of meeting Eudoxia Durschenko and her one-eyed father off Daniel Wigmore’s circus ship, how Viscount Lord Percy Stangbourne had met her in London and had decided to woo her, how Eudoxia had spoken so highly of how he’d saved their bacon on a return convoy from Cape Town, and how Lord Percy had dashed up to meet the fellow who’d saved his “intended”, dragging his sister along to greet the new Knight and Baronet.

“Shit on a bisquit!” Rodgers exclaimed. “You’re a Baronet, too?”

“King George was havin’ a bad day,” Lewrie explained. “There were a couple o’ baronets made before me; he’d picked up someone else’s glasses, or… it stuck in his head, and out it popped. I thought it would be corrected, but the senior palace flunkies said that the Crown don’t make mistakes, so there!”

“Swear to Christ, Alan, but you could fall into a lake of shit and come up with a chest full o’ guineas,” Rodgers whooped. “So the lady, Lydia, insists ya wear your honours? All the way from London?”

“Ehm… she coached down to Portsmouth a few days ago,” Lewrie confessed. “We were dinin’ at the George when I saw your Lieutenant Stiles and his wife, and a sailor with them with the ship’s name on his hat, and… here I am.”

“Going to wed again?” Rodgers asked, looking happily expectant. He’d found wedded bliss, after all his years as a bachelor and-like all who had, and as a good friend to boot-was eager to rope others in,

Like a slum missionary, Lewrie cynically thought; He’s found salvation, and won’t let ye go ’til ye’ve enlisted, too!

“Early days,” Lewrie hedged, busying himself with his tankard. “Lydia, ah… was married once before, so she may be shy of touchin’ a hot skillet a second time.”

“Ah, a widow, is she? Any children?” Rodgers asked.

“Divorced,” Lewrie had to admit.

“Uhm. Ah!” Rodgers replied, his face becoming a puzzle.

“No children,” Lewrie offered, with a hopeful note.

“Well, ha,” Rodgers flummoxed, shifting in his chair so hard it squeaked most alarmingly, clearly torn between joy for an old comrade, and his sense of the Conventions. If Lewrie had announced that Lydia was a Hindoo nautch -dancer he’d picked up in Bombay, a swarthy Hottentot maiden from the Kalahari, or a pox-raddled whore he’d tripped over in a Portsmouth alley, Benjamin Rodgers could not have been more stunned.

Should I have called her an actress, or a circus trick-rider? Lewrie asked himself; There’s a lotta that goin’ round, these days!

“You might’ve read about it in the papers, two or three years ago,” Lewrie went on, to fill the awkward silence. “Her husband was an utter beast, with the morals of a drunk monkey, but he could wear a good face in Publick, and fooled everyone. She’s well shot o’ him.”

“Oh, I don’t keep up with all the scandal-mongering newspapers,” Rodgers scoffed. “Gossip, rumours, and slurs don’t signify to me.”

“Unfortunately, Lydia suffered at their hands, even though her suit was… righteous,” Lewrie further admitted. “He’s ruined for all time, and she’s free, and didn’t deserve a jot of it. More innocent than me, ’bout that trial o’ mine for stealin’ slaves.”

“Oh, that ‘Black Alan’ thing,” Rodgers snickered.

“The worst was ‘Saint Alan, the Liberator’,” Lewrie said with a long sigh. “Even though Wilberforce, Hannah More, and their Abolitionist crowd are done with me, I’ll most-like never live that down. Ehm… I told Lydia I owe you a hearty shore supper, with magnums of champagne. If you’d care to meet her?”

“Damme if I haven’t earned one, after four months off Brest,” Rodgers exclaimed, “and I’m down t’my last four bottles o ‘bubbly’, to boot. Good God, stick with frigates, Alan, long as ya can. Once ya get a ship of the line, you’ll die o’ boredom, if the shoals and rocks and the Bay of Biscay don’t get ya first! You’re offering, and I’m accepting, gladly. And I’d be happy to meet your lady.”

“I probably owe ye more than one, just t’ make up for old times and a too-long absence,” Lewrie told him, glad that Benjamin seemed open to meeting Lydia, and waiting to form a first-hand opinion.

The Marine sentry outside the door to the quarterdeck rapped his musket on the oak-planked deck. “Midshipman Lewrie, SAH!” the sentry added with a stamp of his boots.

“Aha!” Captain Benjamin Rodgers said, rising from his chair. “About time, too. Enter!” he called out.

The door opened, admitting a gust of icy wind and a swirl of snow. Mr. Midshipman Sewallis Lewrie stepped in, hat under his arm and his boat-cloak dripping moisture.

“Captain, sir, I beg to report…”

“Look who’s come calling, Mister Lewrie!” Rodgers boomed out.

“Hallo, Son,” Lewrie said, rising from his chair.

“Ha… hallo, Father,” Sewallis managed to say, his eyes as blared in surprise as a first-saddled colt.

CHAPTER FOUR