Havoc`s Sword

'Drew straws, did you?' Lewrie snorted, hands in the small of his back. 'Diced t'see who'd have to tell me?'

'Uhm, seniority, sir,' Lt. Adair mumbled, blushing as Lewrie twigged to the fact that Langlie, Catterall, and Adair had all felt the summons was Trouble, capital T, and had all turned queasy. For all of their proven courage as Commission Sea Officers, it now appeared there were some things that'd make 'em blanch!

'And you couldn't find little Larkin or Burns,' Lewrie assumed aloud, almost chuckling. His newest, junior-most midshipmen, one a Bog-Irish squire's by-blow, uniformed so poorly it looked as if he'd robbed a scarecrow, and t'other a blinkless, drooling lack-wit.

'Couldn't find 'em, sir,' Adair admitted. 'Most-like, they're still hiding in the cable- tiers or furled themselves aloft in the main course.'

'Goes t'prove, then, that one, or both, just may be smarter than we give 'em credit for,' Lewrie replied. 'Well, give it me, then.'

Andrews slunk below with his shore-going bag while Lewrie broke the wax seal and unfolded the single-page note. He glanced over toward the Palisades, the long, natural seawall, where stood Giddy House, and the shore residence where Admiral Parker entertained.

'Pass word for my Cox'n, Mister Adair. 'Vast there, you men. Back into the boat,' Lewrie snapped. 'We're bound away.' He stuck the letter into a side pocket of his coat, and wishing that he had shaved before the duel, that he didn 't subtly reek of the wine-table at such a pagan hour… or that there seemed to be some sticky, reddish jam patches, some greasy flung-chop smuts, and some scrambled egg stains on breeches, waist-coat, and shirt cuffs at the moment.

The letter stressed his reporting 'Instanter,' underlined twice with some force, so there went a change of clothing, or a sponge-down.

Should've stuck with just throwin' bread rolls, Lewrie sighed to himself as the gig's crew reassembled, as Andrews reappeared to muster them. And damme, but don't he look natty! Took time t'scrub… the bastard!

'Uhm,' Andrews muttered, showing his captain the damp towel and tall pewter mug of sudsy water that he'd fetched along. 'Mebbe on de way ovah, sah, we could, aahh, touch ya up a tad?'

'I take back everything I just thought about you,' Lewrie said with a grateful smile as the bosun's calls phweeped again to salute his departure, leaving Andrews in befuddlement as he doffed his hat and scampered back down the man-ropes and battens to the waiting gig.

CHAPTER FIVE

'Twas Giddy House, the old pile that served as administrative headquarters, not the stately, welcoming, and airy Admiralty House where Admiral Sir Hyde Parker resided, that was Lewrie's destination. He was escorted to the offices of Staff Captain Sir Edward Charles. Was there a piss-proud, drunken, officious prig who despised him more (in the Caribbean, at least) Lewrie had yet to encounter him. He steeled himself for a long, rambling, and abusive tirade before the double doors swung back to admit him.

A rap upon those doors, and the announcement that he had come at long last drew a 'Hah! Come!' roar-Sir Edward's high-handed snip of 'Got ye now, ye bastard!' with an admixture of the enticing coo a starving bridge troll might employ to lure a tasty stray child.

Hat under his arm, with the broken dog's vane and egg-stained front averted, Lewrie entered the 'devil's den.'

'Captain Lewrie!' Captain Charles growled, his blood-shot eyes given youth and clarity by this chance for 'comeuppance.' 'Hah, sir! Damme, a waiter tip his tray o'er ye, did he? The publican's drinks tray, more like. Dis- reput-able, sir, most!' he sneered, savouring the word. ' 'Tis a wonder yer shirt-tail's still in. How dare…!'

'Disreputable, aye,' another voice chimed in, snatching Lewrie's attention to a civilian who stood near the bookcases at the darker end of the spacious offices, in a sombre suit of black 'ditto' enlivened by a green satin waist-coat, and grinning like a sardonic devil.

Christ, just shoot me now! Lewrie goggled, half of a mind to do a bolt. Not him, not another hare-brained…!

'Mister…?' Lewrie managed to say, unsure whether Peel would be under some new alias, or was the Foreign Office spy still sailing under his own colours. Peel, ex-Captain of Household Cavalry, John… no it had been James… James Peel; right-hand man to that devious old cut-throat, Zachariah Twigg, in the Mediterranean, several years before.

'You recall me, surely, Captain Lewrie,' Peel (or whomever) said with a taunting smirk over his obvious discomfiture.

'Oh, indeed, sir… with fondly remembered shudders of dread,' Lewrie countered with equal banter to his tone. 'Though how you wish to be named, this time, is…?' he concluded with a mystified shrug.

'It's still Peel, Captain Lewrie,' Peel chuckled, coming up to take hands with him. 'It serves as good as any. Been years, has it not, sir? Good to see you again.'

'Wish I could say the same, Mister Peel,' Lewrie lightly replied. 'But where you and your old master turn up, there's no one safe. And how is…?'

'Allow me to name to you my new superior, Captain Lewrie,' Peel said, deflecting the question, and turning them to face the other man, who had been lingering near a tall bookcase now burdened with reports and returns rather than books. Lewrie wondered how he could have missed the peacock. 'The Honourable Grenville Pelham… here is our Captain Alan Lewrie, in the flesh at last. Captain Lewrie, Mister Grenville Pelham.'

'Ah-de-do,' Pelham intoned in a high-bred Oxonian voice as he allowed his hand to be shaken, preferring to be grasped by the fingers, not a hearty palm-to-palm greeting. 'Heard much about you, Captain… much, indeed.'

'Mister Pelham, sir, an honour to make your acquaintance.'

No, it ain 't, but what else can y 'say, Lewrie snidely thought.

The Honourable Grenville Pelham, obviously someone's 'promising git,' was a brisk, wee sprout for all his high-nosed manner, a thoroughbred colt. Compared to Peel's sombre suiting, though, Pelham was rigged out in a cream-white linen coat and breeches, cuffs, collar, and lapels trimmed in dark green satin, with a light green waist-coat of nubby silk, all sprigged with looping gilt embroidery. Black shoes and white silk stockings, large brass buttons on coat and waistcoat, shoe and knee buckles that Lewrie suspected were gold, not brass.

And, dammit, but Pelham seemed awfully young to be Peel's, or anyone's, superior; why, he couldn't be beyond his mid-twenties! This dandy-prat put Lewrie in mind of Rear Admiral Nelson, greyhound lean, full of nervous energy, forever wavering 'twixt the languid airs of a proper Crown official and the titters of an impish University boy.

Pelham wore his own hair, fashionably long and wavy, but clipped in the back where a gentleman's queue should ride atop his stiff stand-and-fall collar. His face was pale and peeling with sunburn, his eyes bright and snapping blue-though squinted at the moment, as if just a touch leery, and darting as if impatient with the social amenities.

'Didn't do half of what I'm reputed, sir,' Lewrie said, determined to make a decent impression on somebody, given the state of his own attire, and employing his gruffest 'gentleman sea- dog' air. 'It's all a slander.'

'Uhm, quite,' Pelham said, disengaging his fingers as if discomfited. 'Though you must admit, you are… renowned, Captain.'

'Good God, off on the wrong foot already, are we?' Lewrie felt emboldened (or enough disgruntled by that tone) to remark. 'I assume you spoke with Mister Twigg before sailing out here? Then you heard only the naughty bits.'

'Ahem, well…' Pelham commented, unsure what to make of that. 'Let us begin, then. Thankee, Captain