H.M.S. COCKEREL

with a disconcertingly pleasant view.

'Let's go, bosun… Cony,' Lewrie coughed regretfully.

'Come back, do!' the girl whispered as the others preceded him to the stairs, reaching out her room to cup his face in her hands and kiss him with a deep, if lying, passion. 'An't been with a real gen'lm'n, not workin' 'ere, sir. An' la, I'd admire ta!' she teased in a small and throaty tone.

'Christ on a crutch!' he could but moan.

'Doubt they spoiled yer beauty, Lewrie,' Captain Lilycrop told him after their surgeon's mate had attended his hurt and taken a stitch or two in his upper lip. 'An' ye done good service this night, damme'f ye haven't. So, take cheer,' the old man comforted, offering him an ancient leather tankard full of light brown ale.

One of the few delights (admittedly perhaps the only delight) of the Impress Service was serving under his old captain from the Shrike brig again. Lieutenant Lilycrop, now a lofty post-captain, had lost a foot and shin at Turk's Island in '83, just weeks before the peace, and the end of the American Revolution. He'd lost Shrike to Lewrie, too, when Admiral Hood had appointed him to take her over. But Hood had also promised to stand patron to the tarry-handed old Lilycrop, perhaps the oldest, and most without patronage, Commission Sea Officer in the Fleet, until that time.

Lilycrop's hair was thinner, just as cottony white, but better dressed these days; his pigtailed, plaited seaman's queue, which had hung to his waist, was now neatly braided, perfectly ribboned, a fitting (and more fashionably short) adjunct to the awesome dignity the old man exuded in his heavily gold-laced captain's 'iron-bound' coat. His breeches, waist-coat and shirt front were snowy white, not tarry, tanned or smudged by shipboard penury. He now sported silk stockings (one at least), an elegant shoe with a solid-gold buckle, and his old straight, heavy dragoon sword had been replaced by an almost gaudy new blade and scabbard. And his pegleg was a marvel of ebony wood inlaid with gold and ivory dolphins, anchors, crossed cannon and sennet-like braidings as intricate as ancient Celtic brooches.

Exquisitely tailored he might be, but Captain Lilycrop was still the solid, roly-poly pudding, with a stomach as round as a forty-two pounder iron shot. And nothing could be done about that Toby Jug of a phiz, all wrinkles and creases; though his face was now wracked by good food and drink, not sun and sea. The same merry brown eyes lurked and gave spark deep within the recesses of snowy brows and apple cheeks. The same old Lilycrop, thank the Good Lord.

'Near thing, e'en so, sir,' Lewrie commented, rotating his neck and shoulders. 'God, what a shitten business. The Mother Abbess…'

'Old Bridey?' Lilycrop snickered, rubbing a thumb as thick as a musket barrel alongside his doorknob of a nose. 'Well, what could she do? They were 'skint'-eatin' th' ole mort outa house'n home-an' rogerin' like 'twas their private rooms. Bridey, well…' Lilycrop sighed, sitting himself down near Lewrie. 'Aye, I know she looks thick as a bosun, an' fierce-faced'z th' Master at Arms, but 'tis a fearsome trade. Knew her o' old, I did. Just made topman, I had, Lord… fourteen'r so… 'bout when Noah was a quartermaster's mate… hee hee!' the old man recounted wistfully. 'First man's pay in me pockets, first seaman's run ashore. No more ship's boy. An' I run inta Bridey. 'Nother knockin'-shop, no so far from where you an' th' lads were t'night. A rare ole time I had with Bridey. Couldn't o' been a quim-hair older'n fourteen herself back then, oh, she was a rare Irish beauty… all ruddy hair, blue eyes, and skin'z pale an' soft'z cream! 'Course,' Lilycrop harumphed remorsefully, 'I was a diff rent sort myself back then, too. We kept in touch, Bridey an' I.'

'So tonight was more a sort of… mutual favour, sir?' Lewrie inquired.

'She needed p'rtection, I need seamen,' Lilycrop shrugged his assent. 'An' I drop by, now'n again, visit her establishment…'

'Just to keep your hand in, sir?' Lewrie snickered, though it hurt a bit.

'So t'speak, young sir,' Lilycrop wheezed. 'Bridey allus did treat her girls better'n most, got th' handsomest. An' treated her oldest'n best customers t'th' finest her house has t' offer. Did ye do her much damage?'

'Some, sir. Nothing too sore, I suspect, but-'

'Got her ear t'th' ground, Bridey does, Mister Lewrie,' the old man snorted, coming up for air from his ale tankard like a seal blowing foam. 'Bridey'U be back in business t'morro' night, but I s'pect she'll come 'round here, all blowin' an' huffin' 'bout her damages. She'll demand th' Crown square it for her…'

'Make you several attractive offers, sir?' Lewrie smirked. The smirk was easier on his lip than the full-mouthed grin.

'Oh, indeed!' Lilycrop beamed like a beatific cherub, and sucked air through his teeth in expectation. 'Like I say, she's some damned handsome quim in her stable, oh my, yes! An' a poor ole cripple such'z myself can't do 'em that much harm, th' little darlin's… anyways, I 'spect, like I said, that she'll have more trade f r us. I've expense money 'nough t'cover half o' her damages, an' she can make up th' overage. But, she'll whisper th' name an' th' address o' sev'ral more bawdy houses an' hideaways, where seamen're t'be found. An' put some o' her new competition's noses outa joint, inta th' bargain. Oh, 'tis a grand bus'ness, th' Impress Service, Lewrie! A toppin' bus'ness!'

It was for Lilycrop, at any rate. And, as Regulating Captain for the Deptford district, he didn't have to risk life and limb out in the streets, either! He had his lieutenants to do 'the dirty.'

And he was finally making himself, in the twilight of his naval career, a truly princely living. Lewrie hadn't dared to probe into another officer's affairs-a friend's affairs-but he had seen Lieutenant Bracewaight's ledgers a few days after reporting for duty. They'd shared a brace of wine bottles at their rendezvous tavern where they both lodged, and Bracewaight, he of the missing hand, the eyepatch and the wooden dentures, had left them open when he jaunted out back for the 'jakes.'

Still carried by the Navy Pay Office as a half-pay officer with a disablement pension, plus Impress Service allowances and subsistences, the swarthy swine was making fourteen shillings sixpence per day-more than a senior post-captain in command of a 3rd Rate!-and with travel and lodging reimbursed on his own say-so, plus the bonuses paid-five shillings for each raw landsman volunteer signed, up to ten shillings for each ordinary or able seaman brought in, by hook or by crook! And Lewrie rather doubted if Captain Lilycrop was maintained per diem in any less fashion, or denied any bounties of recruitment.

So far, up until that evening, that is, Lewrie had been spared the sordid side of the press. He'd run the tender from Deptford Hard down-river to the Nore, full of hopeful innocents or gloomy experienced seamen. He'd set up shop, to assist the other officers, at rendezvous taverns up and down the river; the Horse Groom at Lambeth Marsh, the King's Head at Rotherhithe, and the Black Boy Trumpet at St. Katherine's Stairs. They'd lay on music, hornpipes, beat the drum, and go liberally with rum and ale. His 'gang' was half a dozen swaggering Jolly Jacks, True-blue Hearts of Oak, as gay and 'me-hearty' as any gullible young calfhead could wish for. They were full of a fund of stories, chanties, japes and cajolery. Enough cajolery that many disappointed landsmen, many a young lad, had enlisted. And real, tarry-handed tarpaulin men, experienced sailors, had joined the Navy during those recruiting parties. Like the men pressed at sea off the Five Sisters, they at least had a chance to claim the Joining Bounty, and go with a pack of their old shipmates, instead of being shoved into just any old crew. They might return to a warship they'd served in before, with an officer they trusted! Navy work might not pay as high as merchant, but the crews were much larger, so the labour was shared out in smaller dollops. The food was regulated in quantity and quality, and in the Navy at least, they could complain, within reasonable bounds, if it wasn't. And there was the liberal rum issue, too!

And there was the excitement, the danger and the glamour of it all, for sailors and landlubbers alike. For many, it was a means of escaping their dreary existence. Boredom played a part, as did failure at trade or domestic service, as did poverty. For many farm labourers, enlisting in the Navy meant freedom from the narrowness of rural life, the mindless drudgery, the uncertain nature of putting food in one's belly-and the uncertain nature of the food itself.

And more than a few volunteers were running away from shrewish wives, demanding sweethearts they hoped to jilt, too many children at their ankles, or lasses turning up 'ankled' and suing for marriage.

Well, perhaps the Impress had more than a few sordid sides, Alan had to admit. At those same jolly recruiting fairs, he'd seen masters connive to offer up their apprentices, to ship them off to sea so they would be spared the expense of feeding and clothing them, then register their indentures at the Navy Pay Office so they could draw off