The King`s Commission

'Thou wilt soon die, and thou art not yet

simple, nor free from perturbations, nor without

suspicion of being hurt by external things,

nor kindly disposed towards all; nor dost

thou yet place wisdom only in acting justly.'

Meditations IV-37

– Marcus Aurelius

Chapter 1

His vouchers and records were under his arm, and in order in a sailcloth bundle. He had traded off his midshipman's rigs, sold that now decidedly shoddy dirk that had once gleamed with 'gold,' and had his new uniforms in his sea chest.

There had been a need to dip into his hidden cache of guineas to pay for his new finery, to equip himself with the luxury of a personal telescope, cases of wine, fresh cabin stores such as cheese and jam. And he had spent money on his man Cony's rig as well; new shoes and buckles (pinch-beck but serviceable), a new tarred hat, short blue jacket with brass buttons and slop trousers.

He had not gotten much sleep, in the end. Between the party that had turned into a drunken brawl, his escape, his passionate night with Dolly, which had lasted until dawn, and then a hectic round of chores, he was just about done in. Up and out on a crust of bread and a single cup of tea to move her to his old lodgings, which were a bit more expensive but much nicer and more refined. A quick meeting with his shore agent to deal with her affairs with her husband's regiment, a gift of twenty pounds to get her settled and tide her over until she could sell Roger Fenton's commission. And, lastly, a quiet word with the agent to tell him to advance her no more than absolutely necessary if she could not sell it.

At least, he decided, gaining his first easy breath of the day in the hired boat, he did not have a debilitating hangover. Her send-off, while the coach waited in the street to take him to the docks, had damned near killed him, and had he partaken as heavily as Ashburn and the others the night before, she damned well might have then and there.

'Da's de Shrike, sah,' the black boatman told him as he sculled his small bum-boat across the still harbor at first light. Around them the watch-bells chimed from over thirty vessels as the morning watch ended and the forenoon began. Alan consulted his pocket watch and grunted in satisfaction that he would report aboard his new ship just a few minutes after the last stroke of eight in the morning.

Shrike, he could see as they got close, was foreign in origin, probably a prize. She sported two masts crossed with square-sail yards, but on her after main-mast he could espy a brailed-up sail on the lowest yard, the cro'jack, which on the three-masters he had served was usually bare. On a brig, though, they would need that main course for more speed, for there would be only the fore-course forward which might be winded if the ship sailed in a stern or quarter wind. Her spanker boom and gaff were also much larger than anything he had seen before, and were fixed to an upright spar doubled to the main-mast, which officially made her a snow instead of a brig, possibly an alteration any captain could make in the rig of his ship without upsetting higher authorities, as long as it did not cost the local dockyard too much in government funds or supplies.

Shrike's jib-boom and bow-sprit were different also, steeved at a much less acute angle to the deck, which would give her larger heads'ls, and, with the big spanker, more windward ability.

'Damme, but she's a shabby old bitch,' he was forced to admit to Cony.

The hull was dark, almost black, but, like an old coat, showing a rusty brown tinge from years of exposure to weather and gallons of paint and Unseed oil. The gunwale stripe might at one time have been buff, but had faded to a scabbed and blistered dingy off-white. And where one expected to see gilt paint around the beakhead, entry port and transom carvings, white lead had been applied in lieu of a prosperous captain's gold. Her masts, though, and her running and standing rigging, were in excellent shape, bespeaking a captain poor in pelf, not care.

'Shrike, the butcher bird,' Alan commented to Cony as he spotted the figurehead and pointed it out. The bird's wings were fanned back as part of the upper beakhead rail supports, clawed feet extended in the moment of seizure of prey, and the hooked bill open to reveal a red tongue. It too needed a paint job to restore the white, grey and brown tones of the real bird.

'Seen 'nough of 'em at 'ome, sir.' Cony grinned in remembrance of his forest-running days in Gloucestershire. 'Spikes their kills ta thorn bushes. Mayhap we'll be a'spikin' some Frogs an' Dagoes the same, sir.'

'We'll see.'

'Ahoy the boat!' came a call from Shrike's entry port.

'Aye aye!' Cony bawled back at them, showing the requisite number of fingers to alert their new ship's side- party to the proper show of respect to be presented.

The bum-boat chunked against the ship's side, and the native bargee and Cony held her fast to the chains while Alan squared himself away and took hold of the man-ropes, which were hung old-style from the entry port, without being strung through the boarding ladder battens. It wasn't much of a climb, though, nothing as tall as a frigate's sides, and he made it easily without tangling his hanger between his legs or otherwise embarrassing himself.

The bosun's pipes began to squeal and the Marines slapped their muskets to 'present arms' as his head came up over the deck edge, and he was about to congratulate himself on arriving with the proper amount of dignity. It was at that moment that an impressively large ginger ram-cat with pale gold eyes of a most evil cast accosted him at the lip of the entry port. The cat took one look at him, bottled up, arched his back, laid back his ears and uttered a loud trilling growl of challenge.

'Fuck you, too,' Alan gasped, almost startled from his grip on the man-ropes. 'Shoo. Scat!'

The cat took a swipe at him, then ran off forward with a howl, there to take guard upon the bulwarks and wash himself furiously as he thought up a way to get even.

'Lieutenant Lewrie, come aboard to join,' Alan said, once he was safely on his feet on the upper deck. There was very little gangway overlooking the waist, just high enough above the upper deck to clear the guns.

'Ah'm Fukes, the bosun, sir,' a male gorilla in King's Coat told him, knuckling his rather prominent brow ridge from which sprouted a solid thicket of white eyebrows over a face only a mother could love. 'This'ere's Mister Caldwell, the sailin' master. Lef'ten't Walsham o' the Marines… an' you'll be the new first lef'ten't, sir?'

'Yes, I suppose I am. I'd admire if you could lend my man Cony a hand with my dunnage. Is the captain aboard?'

'Aye, sir, 'e's aft in 'is cabins. Ah'll 'ave ya took there directly, sir,' Fukes went on, turning to pause and spit a large dollop of tobacco juice into a spit kid. ''Ere, Mister Rossyngton, show the first officer aft.'

'Aye aye, sir,' a rather well turned out midshipman answered. 'This way, if you will, sir.'

Some ship! Alan thought with a sudden qualm of nerves. Fukes and the other senior warrants he had seen on the gangway had been much of a kind; overaged, craggy and white-haired, way senior to him in sea experience. Caldwell, the sailing master, was a gotch-bellied little minnikin in his fifties with square spectacles at the tip of his nose.

Walsham, the Marine officer, was only a second lieutenant, a boy who appeared no older than the run-of-the- mill midshipman, while his sergeant looked old enough to have helped shoot Admiral Byng in the last war. And the doddering old colt's-tooth who sported a carpenter's apron and goggled a drooling smile at him in passing had to be seventy years old if he was a day!

'Mister Pebble, the ship's carpenter, sir. Mister Pebble, the first officer, Lieutenant Lewrie,' Rossyngton introduced smoothly.

'Ah de do, sir, ah de do!' the oldster gammered through a nearly toothless mouth, what little hair he had left on his bare head waving like strands of cotton in the slight wind. 'A' firs' un died, ye know, o' the quinsy, warn't it. Mister Rossyngton?'

'His heart, Mister Pebble,' Rossyngton prompted.