The King`s Commission

unrequited misery, accompanied by someone on a flute who was as mournful a specter as the doctor. Alan didn't think he would enjoy wardroom life, if that was the best entertainment they had to offer. Besides, Lieutenant Railsford had warned him to stay aloof, hard as it would be on his congenial and garrulous nature. Eager as he was for companionship, and no matter how old the others were in the wardroom, he was senior to them, and could only damage his credibility and authority if he was to join in their simple pleasures. He was the captain's voice in all things, the one who would brook no dis-satisfaction with a captain's decisions or allow anyone to carp or cavil.

No wonder old Lieutenant Swift in Ariadne was such a dry stick, Alan sighed, wondering if he was up to all the demands that would be made on his abilities, getting lost in the knowledge that he was pretty much in charge of all the various punishments books, logs, charts, pay vouchers, rating certificates, prize certificates (damned few of those, he noted grimly), quarter-bills, watch bills, and professional records of the entire crew.

It really would have been much nicer to have been second officer in a slightly larger frigate than Desperate, even the fifth or sixth lieutenant in a ship of the line, where he could hide and enjoy the joyous spirit of a drunken officers' mess without having his young arse on the line at all hours.

The paper work was, as usual, putting his mind into full yawn, and he wasn't through half of it. Once more he felt as if a terrible mistake had been made by a clumsy or inattentive clerk in the flagship, putting such a pompous little fraud as himself into such responsibility. No matter what Railsford had said, he felt like a total sham only waiting for the awful moment of truth when he would be exposed to the world.

'Supper,' the servant called from beyond the door.

He tossed the paper work to the foot of his bunk and shrugged into his coat to join the others. Cony was there helping out in serving, and the two midshipmen had come up from their small dungeon in the after orlop where they usually berthed with the surgeon's mate, master's mate and other junior warrants. Rossyngton looked presentable, but Alan had a chance to get a good look at Mr. Edgar, and he was a perfect example of pimply-faced perplexity, all elbows and huge feet, a uniform that appeared to be wearing him instead of the other way around, and that none too clean.

He was introduced to Biggs, the only senior warrant he had not met on his first rounds of the ship, and saw why the captain considered him a weasel. The purser was a slovenly man of middle height who gave an impression of being much shorter and rounder, due to his furtive posture and constantly shifting eyes and hands.

I wouldn't sport a bottle for any one of these bastards if I saw them parching in Hell, he thought glumly.

'As senior in the mess, may I propose a toast to our new arrival,' Caldwell the sailing master intoned somberly.

'Senior, my eyes, damn yer blood,' Mister Lewyss snapped.

'Don't let your dog-Latin go to your head, Lewyss,' Caldwell cautioned. 'I'm not much of a drinkin' man, but 'tis the spirit of the occasion.'

'Since I am seated at the head of the table, let's have done with talk of who is senior, Mister Caldwell,' Alan quipped. 'And I thank you for your sentiments, but I would prefer if you give me first opportunity to propose a toast instead… to Shrike.'

'Aye, to Shrike,' they mumbled, a little abashed that Alan had too pointedly reminded them of just who was senior in the mess, young as he was.

Supper wasn't too bad, really. There was an Island pepperpot soup seasoned with every variety of pepper known to man and flavored with shredded bits of fish; roast kid and fresh bread instead of the usual hard biscuit, along with a wine that could only have been fermented from vinegar, cat droppings and bilge scrapings.

'My word, that's terrible,' Alan sputtered after his first sip. 'Mister Biggs, do you think this wine failed to travel well, or was it dead before boarding?'

'Nothing' wrong with this wine, young sir,' Biggs stated as if he was addressing one of the midshipmen. ''Tis s not claret, but suitable for Navy issue from ashore, same's every other ship in harbor.'

'The wine stinks, Mister Biggs,' Alan said with as much severity as he could summon. 'And you shall address me as 'sir,' without the added modifier of 'young.' It tastes to me as if it had been diluted with water, scrubbing vinegar, and a dollop of poor French brandy to give it a disguising character. Do you concur with that, Mister Lewyss? You're a medical man-see what your nose tells you.'

'Ratafia for sure, sir,' Lewyss said after dipping his long nose into his glass, and pointedly making sure that he addressed the first lieutenant correctly. 'As to the water, it is not the usual kegged water from the holds, but it is a thin wine, that cannot be disputed, sir.'

'How many gallons of this do we have aboard, Mister Biggs?'

'Um, of this particular lot, that is…?' Biggs got shifty.

'Yes, of this particular lot,' Alan went on.

'Why, I believe there was thirty ten-gallon barricoes or so,' Biggs replied in a much more humble tone of voice, almost wringing his hands, with his eyes shifting from one side of his plate to the other, unable to match glances with the others at the table. 'Got a good price on the lot, but not so much as to make me suspicious of the seller's goods, sir.'

'Tomorrow morning, following breakfast, you, the master's mate and the bosun shall hoist all of those barricoes out and taste them to determine their suitability. Mister Fukes, may I trust your palate in judging good wine or bad?'

'Oh, ah kin tell good wine, sir.' The gorilla beamed, spreading his mouth so wide it looked like a hawse hole.

'Perhaps a medical opinion as well, sir,' Lewyss volunteered.

'Thank you for your generous offer, Mister Lewyss, yes, you may consider yourself one of the judges. Now if it's all bad, mind, I want it condemned and returned to the seller. I shall inform the captain of unsuitable stores… I assume the hands are issued this poor excuse for Black Strap as well, Mister Biggs? Well, that'll never do. Turn it in and you'd best let Mister Lewyss and the bosun taste whatever you find in replacement. I trust this shall not upset your books too much.'

It would be a bloody disaster! Biggs probably had not paid three shillings a gallon for the stuff, though the ship's books would show a larger sum, of that Alan was sure after being Mister Cheatham's pupil in Desperate long enough to learn how many 'fiddles' an unscrupulous 'pusser' could work. Biggs would make no money on this exchange.

'Cony, would you be so good as to go into my personal stores?' Alan bade his servant. 'I took the precaution of providing myself with a small five-gallon keg of captured Bordeaux, and in place of this lot, I would be happy to offer it to assuage our thirsts, this evening at least. It's not a really fine vintage, but more palatable than this.'

Biggs was the only one who did not cheer Alan's munificence, but he did put away a fair share of it when it arrived for decanting. Among eleven of them, it went fast, but there was opportunity to send ashore on the morrow for replacement, so Alan didn't think it a bad trade at all. He had stuck a baulk in Biggs's spokes, put him on guard that he would be closely scrutinized from then on, and in so doing to one of their number most despised (as most pursers were), had won a slight bit of grudging respect from the other members of his mess for such sagacity in one so young.

After supper, though, after he had stifled Lewyss and his infernal harp, and Walsham's bloody flute, there were still ship's books to study. He was the only one to keep a lamp burning after the 8 p.m. lights out, listening to the others fart in their sleep, belch, groan and snore prodigiously, listening to the ship as she creaked now and then, and the sound of the harbor watch on the deck over his head, the chime of the bells as time progressed-and several slanging matches between cats who had decided on animosity during their nocturnal turns of the deck.

There wasn't much in the Punishment Book, the log of defaulters and how many strokes they had received for their sins, at least not in the last few months. Ships' crews usually settled down after a while, even the worst collections of cut-throats, cut-purses and foot-pads, once they got used to a master and his ways. There were no entries for less than two dozen lashes, except in the case of boy-servants and the midshipmen, who got caned bent over a gun with a more gentle rope starter. But there were also several entries for three dozen, four dozen, mostly for fighting or drunkenness or sleeping on watch, and some rare insubordination. A captain could not impose more than two dozen lashes with the cat by Admiralty regulations, but Alan had also learned long before that no one at the Admiralty would even open one eye from a long snooze to hear of a captain assigning more; captains were much like God once at sea on their own, and their judgement was mostly trusted unless they were patently proven to be one of God's own lunaticks.