The King`s Coat

'You were fortunate, Mister Lewrie,' Commander the Honorable Tobias Treghues said, seated behind his glossy mahogany desk in the day cabins of the 20-gun frigate Desperate. 'I am told the officers of the 12th Foot detachment have talked of a syndicate to challenge you one at a time until you are bested. They were not enamored of your choice of weapons, or how you won.’

’Aye aye, sir,' Lewrie said, studying his new lord and master. Treghues was in his late twenties, slim and brown-haired with grey eyes. His uniform was impeccable, as were his cabin furnishings. He showed no signs of poverty, though it had been rumored he was the eldest son of a lord gone to sea to improve the family fortunes with prizes. ’Fortunate also that I had a suitable berth, after losing one young gentleman drowned. and another to the bottle,' Treghues went on. ’Aye aye, sir.' When a midshipman had no better answer, that usually struck the right obedient note without committing to anything. ’You are, for your own safety, to remain aboard until we have sailed. You are not even to place foot in a rowing boat. By the time we return ITom a cruising patrol, the 12th will have gone to St. Kitts and the problem will have been resolved.’

’Aye aye, sir,' Lewrie said, trying to find a new way to do it. 'I do not hold with dueling,' Treghues warned. 'Or hotheaded bucks who cannot resist taking offense at the slightest reproach, like some swaggering Frog duke, Mister Lewrie. Usually bad officers, too.’

’I do not wish to give that impression, sir, but I had-' Treghues waved off the rest of his answer. 'Spare me your innocent and honorable motives. Sir Onsley informed me as to the circumstance. He also gives you a glowing report, so I am aware of your services to the Crown oflate. You may be useful to this ship, but all I want to see from you is duty done in a cheerful and efficient manner. Spare us your blood-lust for the foe.’

’Aye aye, sir,' Lewrie parroted himself. ’Admiral Sir George Rodney has taken over from Admiral Byron, thanks be to God, so we should see some action SooD. Hood and Rodney together, and we'll see an end to these French and Spanish combinations. So, you see what is needed. Get below and into your working rig. I allow you to forgo the waistcoat in these climes, but I expect a midshipman to 1001«. like a proper officer at all times, no matter how junior you may be. That means a regulation dirk: instead of that pretty hanger of yours. And I prefer a cocked hat to the round one. I took you on sufferance-don't give me reason to regret it.’

Lewrie nodded and left the cabins, emerging on the upper deck. Desperate had no poop but a long quarterdeck over the captain's cabin. Her first (and only) lieutenant had quarters below the captain with the surgeon, purser, Marine lieutenant and suchlike worthies. The wheel stood over the captain's cabins on the long quarterdeck. unprotected by binnacle bulwarks. The lower deck was not a gun deck at all, the artillery being sited on the upper deck where the captain lived in solitary splendor. Hands berthed forward on the lower deck. then petty officers, Marines, warrants and midshipmen, and then the offi~ cer's gun room right aft. The orlop and hold were too crammed with supplies to let anyone berth there.» 'What a crosspatch he is.' Lewrie sighed. From the way Treghues regarded Rodney, he must be one of his-not a good sign. Rodney was famed for incredibly bad judgement in appointments.

But the cobbing he had received could not dampen his joy to be aboard any sort of ship once more, and Desperate was magnificent. She was 110 feet on the range of the lower deck. a bit over 30 in beam, of 450 tons burthen. Piercing her upper deck bulwarks were eighteen six-pounder cannon, with two of the new eighteen-pounder carronades on her foc's'l, short guns mounted on swivelling slides that fired bursting shot to no great range-'Smashers'-he was dying to try them out.

Desperate carried Treghues, a first lieutenant named Railsford, Mr. Monk the sailing master and two mates, one bosun and mate, one warrant gunner, one gunner's mate and a yeoman of the powder room, a surgeon named Dome and a mate, five quartergunners, one carpenter and mate, one armorer, one master-at-arms, two quartermasters and mates, a yeoman of the sheets, one coxswain, four carpenter's crew, one ship's corporal, a sailmaker and one sailmaker's assistant, one captain's clerk, the young purser named Cheatham and his steward, four midshipmen, four young boy fifers and drummers, eighteen boyservants, and fifty-six men rated as either ordinary or able seamen, or landsmen. She also carried Marines; a lieutenant named Peck, one sergeant, one corporal, and thirty private soldiers.

She was a 6th Rate, the smallest type of ship-rigged frigate in the fleet, and with Lewrie joining her, was fortunate to be only six hands short of full complement.

Desperate was too light for the line of battle with her fourinch oak scantlings and beams on twenty-inch centers. She was too fast to be tied to a squadron, but also too well armed to waste on despatches like Parrot. Desperate was what was coming to be known as a 'croizer'; she was a huntress on her own in the most likely places to seek out, take, or burn enemy merchantmen, privateers and light naval units.

Lewrie entered the midshipmen's berth to find his new mess mates lounging about the small compartment, sandwiched in without air by storerooms and the mate's dog boxes. The total space was about twelve-by-ten, with barely five feet of headroom between the beams. There was a polished table down the center for dining, chests for seats, and pegs for storage of handy items. ’Hullo. I'm Alan Lewrie,' he said to them, reliving that scene long ago when he had reported below in Ariadne. But there was a difference; he had nearly fifteen months in the Navy, and knew what sort of drudgery and folderol to expect now. He was introduced to the others. There was Peter Carey, a gingerhaired boy of thirteen with the usual modest squirearchy background. There was a gotch-gutted sixteen-year-old pig named Francis Forrester. He was quick to point out that it was the Honorable Francis Forrester, and his elegant manners and bis drawling, superior voice made it abundantly clear that he looked on Lewrie's arrival as another mark of the reduction in tone of their mess.

Lewrie's other companion was also sixteen, a dark and merry Cornish boy that Lewrie had known slightly long before when posted to the Ariadne after it had become a receiving ship. He and David Avery had gone roaming English Harbor together, and had enjoyed each other's company, before Avery had joined an armed transport.

Alan carefully removed and folded up his fine new uniform. He packed the waistcoat away for Sunday Divisions, slipped out of his snowy breeches and dug out a ragged pair of slop trousers. He exchanged his silk stockings for cotton, wrapped his best shoes and donned a cracked pair. His worst faded and stained coat he hung up on a peg. Sadly, he packed the hanger away in his open chest and fetched out his dirk, now showing signs of wear around that 'best gold-plate pommel.’

’Pretty hanger.' Forrester pouted like a sow, picking it up and studying it. 'But your parents should have known better. '‘

‘It was a recent gift,' Alan said, meaning to get off to a fair start, if allowed. 'For saving my last captain his ship. ’

‘Yess,' Forrester drawled. 'Avery has been regaling us with the heroism of your derring-do.' He sheathed the hanger and tossed it into Lewrie's chest like a poor discard at a secondhand shop. ’Did you really kill a man in a duel?' Carey asked, wide-eyed. 'Yes. Dead as cold, boiled mutton. He insulted a young lady of my acquaintance,' Alan boasted, even-toned. ’Carey, we must remember to tremble before the anger of our new manslaughtering Hector,' Forrester said. 'Even if he is, by length of service, junior to you. How long at sea, Lewrie?’

‘A year. Fifteen months total.’

’Then I am still senior,' Forrester said, pleased to hear it. 'June of ' 76. ’

‘We're not lieutenants, Forrester,' Avery replied. 'I actually predate you by a whole month, if the truth be known. We're all equal here. ’

‘Ah, the rebellious Adamses and Thomas Paines have been after you again,' Forrester said in a way that Lewrie could only think of as greasy. 'Remember that I have the signals and you don't, so that makes me senior. And I trust that any new errant newlies shall remember that.’

’We had a man who said much the same thing in Ariadne,' Lewrie said, taking a pew on his closed chest. 'He died. ’

‘Would be having the gall to threaten me?' Forrester's piggy eyes were squinted. 'Now why should I do a thing like that? I'm but stating a fact. You remember me mentioning him, don't you, Avery?’

‘Oh, you mean Mister the Honorable… what was his name?’

‘Fotheringfop,' Lewrie said. 'Ferdinand Fotheringfop. ’

‘Choked on his beef bones, didn't he?' Avery said. ’No, that was Mister the Honorable D' Arcy DeBloat. ’

‘And what, pray, did he die of?' Avery was playing along, to the great delight of young Carey, who was already