The King`s Commission

soldier-brothers and knew what he could expect if he ever ran into them in a dark alley; chaste perhaps because there's damned few places to put the leg over even the most obliging female aboard a man o' war; or chaste perhaps because he had seen The Light, become a better person for his service in the Navy, and really did like her and through her found a new respect for Womankind and-but no, we have deduced a pattern here, and a man's usually true to his nature when the blood's up, damme if he ain't.

One more annoyingly minor matter of biographical minutia before we proceed to the flashy stuff (and I promise broadsides before you can promise broadsides before you can say 'Jack-Ketch'). The alleged rape of his half-sister was discovered to be a theatric staged by his father Sir Hugo to gain unlimited access to a positive shower of guineas from the Lewrie side of the family, but Sir Hugo was diddled in return by Alan's grandmother who obstinately refused to go toes-up at the proper moment, and Alan Lewrie ended up smelling like Hungary Water with two hundred pounds per annum remittance. Since this last involves so much stupendously boresome legal mustification, we hope the reader will appreciate the chronicler cutting that short, as he goes bleary pondering the matter himself.

Acknowledgments

It would be impossible for me to begin an Alan Lewrie adventure without the assistance of the U.S. Naval Institute and its reference books-such as John Harland's Seamanship in the Age of Sail, to mention one of many-and the staff of the History Department of the U.S. Naval Academy. To them, my many thanks.

For details about Turk's Island and Horatio Nelson I am grateful to Mr. Iain MacKenzie of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, who was kind enough to dig up lieutenants' journals and material from contemporary accounts, such as Schomberg's Naval Chronology and Beatson's Naval and Military Memoirs.

I would also like to thank Derek Rooke of Memphis, Tennessee, who culled a lot of material for me. I had to repay him by being his only crew when he wanted to race his thirty-three foot sloop, which is the sort of long, painful and humiliating tale I'd rather not go into, ever, even if we did come in seventh in a class of twenty-eight boats.

Clenell Wilkinson's biography, Nelson, provided good insight into the famous admiral's personality. Thanks also to Mr. Herbert Sadler of Grand Turk Island, The Turks and Caicos, who serves as historian to the islands.

John Richard Alden's The South in the Revolution and Gloria Jahoda's Florida, A History provided details on the role of the Southeastern Indian tribes in the Revolution. A debt must be expressed as well to Charles Hudson's excellent one-volume treatise, The Southeastern Indians, for the wealth of information on the social life, customs and language of the Creek and Seminole tribes.

I Chapter 1

'It is confessed by all that from his youth he

was of a vehement and impetuous nature, of

a quick apprehension, and of a strong and

aspiring bent for action and for great

affairs.'

Life of Themistocle

– Plutarch

The French fleet made a brave sight to leeward, twenty-nine massive ships of the line bearing up toward the smaller British fleet on a bow and quarter line, their gunports gaping and filled with hard iron maws, the white- and-gold battle flags of Bourbon France streaming in the moderate winds, and their halyards bedecked with signal bunting.

'If this is going to be anything like the Chesapeake battle, we're about to get our arses knackered,' master's mate and midshipman Alan Lewrie observed sourly, comparing the twenty-two English vessels against that bellicose spectacle to the west.

'Frogs like ta fight ta loo'ard,' said Mr. Monk, the sailing master, shrugging as he worked on a bite of half- shriveled apple. 'But we got 'em this time. Cain't work ta windward of us ta double.'

Monk waved a stray hand at the shore close aboard to the east past which they barely scraped. Nevis Island ghosted by, crowding the disengaged-side frigates such as Desperate up close to the battle line.

'Un you'll note, young Lewrie, the wind's a prodigy ta loo'ard of an island,' Monk went on. 'Got a kink in the Trades here that'll bear us along on a nice quarter wind. Too close into shore yonder an' we'd be winded by the hills o' Nevis. Too far out as well, but winds come slidin' down the hills and touch water out here where we are. See how yon French are luffin' and fillin' ta keep station further out? Too far out for this little river o' wind we're ridin'. Second lee.'

'If the battle line crowds us much more, we'll be winded. sir.'' Alan observed, noting the strip of azure waters that was shoaling and shallows close aboard to starboard. 'Even if we don't ran her aground we'll end up in the island's lee under those bluffs. Last in line of the repeating frigates. Last in line for pretty much everything since Yorktown, too.'

'Can't go spoilin' the admiral's dinner with our stink, Lewrie,' Monk spat-literally and figuratively, for he wandered over to the binnacle to fire a dollop of tobacco juice at the spit kid. How the man could eat and swallow fruit, and reserve his quid in the other cheek, almost made Alan ill just contemplating the feat.

'Wasn't our fault we escaped, Mister Monk,' Alan said, going to the wheel to join him and peer into the compass bowl.

'Lord Cornwallis give us verbal orders we could try sailin' outa York River, nothin' in writin', see, Mister Lewrie?' Monk smiled with a weary expression. 'Whole army goes inta the sack, titled gentlemen imprisoned'r on their parole for the duration. America lost, and us come out with a whole skin. A damn fine feat o' seamanship gettin' down river an' outa the Chesapeake under Cape Charles, even on a fine day'd be cause fer praise, if you'll allow me t'boast a mite. Night as black as a boot, a whole gale blowin', it'd get most young captains a bloody knighthood. But them dominee-do-littles up in New York sat on their hands an' swore what a damn shame it was losin' the army an' all our other ships, well… it'll take a piece o' time, er somethin' ta rub the shite off'n our boots fer their likes.'

'For what we are about to receive, may the Good Lord make us grateful,' Comdr. Tobias Treghues, Desperate's master and commander said as the French fleet began to open fire at long range. With the wind carrying the sound of cannonading to leeward, it sounded no more dangerous than the thumping of pillows, and the sour grey-tan wall of smoke climbed above the bulwarks and lower masts of the enemy ships, to be ragged away to the west. Admiral Hood's ships began to return fire, and their view of the proceedings was obscured as great billows of expended powder blotted out the sky.

'Now we'll give those French, and this de Grasse, a proper English quilting,' Treghues prophecied with a tight, superior grin.