Havoc`s Sword

'They're at least six miles or better off, Mister Langlie. For now, let's stand down from Quarters and serve the crew their breakfasts. Pass the word to Mister Coote and the galley folk.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

'Mister Grace?' Lewrie called aft, summoning the midshipman to his side.

'Aye, sir?' the lad asked, still afire with excitement.

'Pass the word for Aspinall, and tell him I'd admire a fresh pot of coffee… and tell the gun-room stewards that the officers'll most-like wish a pot of their own, too.'

'Aye, sir!' Grace cried, dashing off forward and below, almost breathless with second-hand battle glee that had yet to flag.

Lewrie paced aft down the windward side of the quarterdeck, as the gun crews removed flintlock igniters, gathered up gun-tools, and re-inserted the tompions in their unloaded, unfired pieces. Mr. Peel was pacing forward, nearer to the centre of the quarterdeck.

'Well, that was exciting for a minute or two,' Lewrie commented.

'And we were not required to fire our guns in concert, either, Peel took fairly hopeful note, as if he had his fingers crossed behind his back-on both hands. 'So far, we haven't exactly sinned by an act of commission, have we? Mean t'say… we didn't do anything overt.'

'Yet,' Lewrie cautioned, with a wee, sly grin that was sure to bedevil Peel's shaky qualms and recriminations.

'We were merely… present,' Peel insisted. 'Just happened by.'

'Still, it's early yet,' Lewrie took delight in pointing out to him. 'Who knows what could transpire 'fore sunset,' he drawled.

'God's sake, don't do that, Lewrie,' Peel almost pleaded. 'You get your sly-boots look on, and there's the Devil t'pay.'

'Pelham owe you money, Mister Peel?' Lewrie badly asked.

'Of course not!' Peel spluttered, nonplussed by such a query.

'You owe him, then?' Lewrie went on, tongue-in-check. 'Engaged to his sister or some such? He catch you with the wrong woman, knows your deepest, darkest, most shameful secret, does he?'

'No, none of that,' Peel insisted, though Lewrie noted that he turned a tad red-faced, and made it too bland for complete credence. 'He controls my career, reports on my fitness for future employment in our little… bureau.'

'That surely can't be all, Peel,' Lewrie said, feigning a pout of disappointment. 'But in some ways, you're not the same confident fellow I knew in the Med. Mister Twigg's a horrid old fart, but I cannot recall you bein' so meek with him, nor can I recall you bein' the sort to hide his light 'neath a bushel basket and not tell him when he's wrong, or give him a better idea.'

'Diff rent era, diff rent superior,' Peel bitterly replied. 'I quite enjoyed working for Mister Twigg, for I could be open with him. And he couldn't abide time-servers and toadies. I was his partner.'

Peel paused, working his mouth as he realised that it was time to reveal some home truths. 'I was a cashiered ex-captain of the Household Cavalry, not quite the ton to polite Society, d'ye see, but that never mattered with Twigg. Pelham is a different proposition entirely.'

'What sort o' blottin' did you do in your copybook?' Lewrie queried, sure there was a tantalising tale to be heard.

'Let's say it involved the wrong earl's daughter, affianceed to a fellow officer, a Major, in the same regiment, for starters,' Peel hesitantly admitted.

'Hmmm… do tell,' Lewrie gently pressed. 'Doesn't sound much like a career-ender, though. Young love… all that.'

'Let us say that the young lady in question, and the gallant Major, deserved each other,' Peel said with a bitter sigh. 'So easily bored, so needful of amusement she was, which cost me dear. We Peels're good landed squirearchy, Lewrie, well- enough off, but we ain't that rich' and the regiment was expensive enough to begin with. Cost of my 'colours' as a Cornet, then Lieutenant, then the vacancy as a Captain? String o' chargers, the proper kit and uniforms, and a sinful mess-bill each month. Skinflint maintenance of my dignity was half again steeper than my yearly pay, and two free-for-all mess-nights in a month all the sprees about town, could put me deep in the hole. Then she came along, I was utterly besotted, lost my head, and then splurged my way even deeper, 'til the sight o' tailors and tradesmen'd force me to hide in stables 'til they'd gone. Toward the end I… our estates are entailed, so my family could've cleared my debts, but I was foolishly stubborn it not come to that, so I…'

'You robbed the paymasters?' Lewrie gently nudged.

'I… I cheated my fellow officers at cards!' Peel ashamedly confessed, come over all hang-dog and unable to look at anything but his shoes. 'To buy her baubles, dine her out, the theatres and such, and I… she swore she'd break her engagement, that she'd marry me, but…'

'D'ye mean t'say, you got caught?' Lewrie gawped.

' 'Fraid so,' Peel told him in a soft voice. 'Always had a knack for cards. I usually came out ahead with honest play, and sure to God you know how easy it is to pluck the sort of hen-heads you find in the better regiments. Snoot-full of drink by ten, lack-wit by eleven, and ready to wager their last stitch on anything you name. Lucky to even see their cards by then.'

'Met a few,' Lewrie commented, hiding his amusement, continually amazed by how arrogantly dense were the second sons of peers of the realm, the sort usually found in the 'elegant' regiments. And the sort drawn to cavalry were the truly whinnying-stupid!

'Thought I could pull it off,' Peel continued. 'God, after I'd skinned 'em, I even lent them some of their losses back, at scandalous interest, and they wouldn't even blink!'

'Their sort, they're lucky they could breathe' Lewrie chuckled.

'Anyway, one night one of 'em wasn't drunk as a lord, and cried 'cheater' on me, the rest took it up, and caught me with an extra card or two where they shouldn't have been, so…' Peel supplied, snorting humorlessly at Lewrie's observation. 'I was asked for my resignation-'Twas that, or a general court, and they'd have done anything to avoid a scandal, not on their hallowed reputation. They forced me to settle up with those I'd fleeced, and everyone but the foot-men had their hands out then. I was allowed to sell my commission, my string of mounts, saddlery, and all. By the time I'd cleared all my debts, though, I was barely left with the civilian togs I stood up in. Horrid stain on the old family escutcheon, too, don't ye know,' Peel japed, trying to make light of it. 'Everlasting shame… the black sheep? '

'Happens in the best of families,' Lewrie cryptically commiserated, with the fingers of his right hand crossed.

'Exactly!' Peel drolly replied, looking Lewrie up and down with a tongue planted firmly in his own cheek, a cynical brow arched.

'You were sayin'…' Lewrie harumphed, coughing into a fist.

'I was near an American emigrant, myself, one of the Remittance Men exiled for his own good,' Peel further informed him, 'but for meeting Mister Twigg. Cater-cousin of my father's in the Foreign Office arranged an interview. Overseas employment, exciting doings, picking up foreign culture and new languages… robust, outdoorsy work…'

'Meet fascinatin' new people… betray 'em,' Lewrie stuck in.

'Yes, good fun, all round,' Peel said, laughing out loud for a bit. ^: 'Til Mister Twigg retired, it was. I suppose you could say I'm… compromised, now, in a way. See, Pelham does have something over me. That Major whose fiancee I diddled, well… his father's country place and Pelham's father's estate are nearly next door. Both fathers took their seats in Lords the same month, and both families attend the same parish church, their ancestral pew-boxes cross the aisle from each other. Knew all about me from the outset.'

'Had it in for you, right off, hey? The bastard,' Lewrie said. 'The arrogant little pop-in-jay!'