A King`s Commander

3

'So you never actually saw nor spoke Admiral Montagu's ships, Lewrie?' Admiral Lord Hood inquired, rather offhandedly, to Alan's lights.

'No, milord,' he replied. 'A return voyage from Finisterre might have taken him inshore of me, if he'd planned to peek in at any of the French Biscay harbors, or pass close to Ushant.'

'Damn' good work, though, on old 'Black Dick's' part.' Hood smiled thinly for a moment. 'At least, his Villaret- Joyeuse wished an action. Unlike my opponent, Martin. Well… fewer French liners to return to Brest, the fewer they have to send to reinforce against us.'

Hood seemed preoccupied. A tall sheaf of reports, orders, and fair copies of dispatches mounded upon his desk, and a flag lieutenant and a brace of midshipmen and clerks trundled back and forth with more. And, he'd aged, too. Like Admiral Howe, he appeared worn down by care, far more than he'd looked when Lewrie had last spoken to him back in March. And aren't he and Howe both almost seventy?

'And fewer officers and seamen who know what they're about, milord,' Lewrie offered with a smile. Hood seemed, though, as if he had not heard the comment, so Lewrie blundered on. 'Cut the heads off all their senior officers, or turned them into emigres. Made captains out of bosun's mates. Command by committee, I've heard tell, bad as any Yankee Doodle privateersman during the…'

'Hmm? Aye,' Hood said with a nod, though handing his clerk a freshly signed document for sanding, folding, and delivering. Sounding as if his comment had been directed at the clerk, not Lewrie.

How many times I know better than to rattle on, and yet…!, he chided himself, trying to find a graceful exit line.

'What do you draw, Lewrie?' Hood asked, though already intent upon a new document, which intent furrowed his brows dev'lish gloomy.

'Uhm… two fathom, milord.'

'Ah.' Hood nodded distantly. 'Good. That'll be useful. Well.'

'Should that be all you require of me, milord, I'll not take a moment more of your time,' Lewrie offered his major patron. Trying most earnestly to not offend his commander-in-chief, who could make, or break, any officer's career in an eye-blink. And, Hood had done so before, sometimes over what others might consider to be mere trifles!

'Orders for Jester will be forthcoming, Lewrie,' Hood told him, with a brief but dismissive grin. 'Make good any lacks… firewood and water, an' such…' Then Hood turned dour, and away.

'Aye, milord. Thankee for receiving me, sir,' Lewrie replied, backing toward the door in the day-cabin partitions.

Never know what that man's thinking, he griped, once he was out in the clear; never know whom you're dealing with, one day to the next! S'pose 1 got off fortunate, at that. And got at least one welcoming glass o' claret off him! It didn't matter whether Admiral Lord Hood liked you or not; he could be uncommon gracious in the forenoon, then tear a strip off your arse, for all the world to hear, by the First Dog Watch!

Well, Lewrie had already made arrangements for supplies, with the captain of the fleet, and Mister Giles was off to old HMS Inflexible, the fleet storeship with a working-party, to secure fresh livestock and salt rations, to top off what little they had already consumed on-passage. The ship was in good hands, safely anchored in four fathoms of water, 'as snug as a bug in a rug,' surrounded by larger frigates and 3rd Rate line-of-battle ships.

Phoebe had the right of it, he noted-San Fiorenzo was steep-hilled, a wide and sheltered bay on Corsica's northwestern tip just west of, and below, now-taken Bastia; and about twenty or so miles east of now-besieged Calvi. San Fiorenzo itself wasn't much of a town, a small and drowsy place before the arrival of the fleet, and the Army, who were now busy farther west. Dusty, rocky, and sere, the color of old canvas, it was; roadways, buildings, soil, and hillsides, and many sheltering walls separating tiny farm fields or olive groves, grazings or residences all of a rocky pale-tan piece, but for the dull-red tile rooves, in ancient Roman fashion. What greenery there was consisted of hardy wind-sculpted trees, gorse-like pines, as matted and tangled as dogwoods or coastal capeland oaklets, as tightly kinked as the hair on a terrier's back, and that mostly a muted, well-dusted dark olive, even in the verdant month of June. Phoebe had said the forests were called the 'maquis,' where only the toughest trees could survive.

And San Fiorenzo was hot, even for mid-Tune. Sitting in the stern sheets of his gig, being rowed back to Jester from the flagship, HMS Victory, where one might expect motion to create a cooling breeze, it was beyond balmy warmth. Quite frankly, it was as hot as the hinges of hell! And as stifling and humid as Calcutta on a bad day before the monsoons.

Orders, he mused; upon Admiral Hood's promise, and his inquiry as to Jester's draught. Whenever senior officers had asked that before, it had meant service very close inshore, feeling his way through unfamiliar waters by lead-line and guess. And soon, he thought. If Admiral Good-all's blockade of the French fleet in Golfe Jouan was to continue, he'd need scouting vessels to warn of reinforcement or any attempt at resup-ply by sea. Roads ashore, anywhere in the Mediterranean were so horrid, Hood had intimated, that coasting merchantmen were the fastest and surest conveyors of civilian, or military, commerce. The local road to Calvi was little better than a goat track that wound a serpent's dance over every hillock and ridge. Coalition troops were better supplied from the sea, as well.

There was the blockade of Calvi, too; to sink, take, or burn any local vessels, no matter how small or unimportant, which could deliver even a single cask of water to the Frogs.

Shore service? He rather doubted it, and made an audible sniff of dismissal. Hood already had idled many line- of-battle ships, crews of seamen and Marines sent ashore to help the Army, to man-haul, then man, the heavy lower-deck guns to serve as siege artillery. To strip Jester of even two-dozen hands would leave her useless, swinging around her anchor, just as idly ineffective as any of those decimated liners.

And, after his most recent bitter spell of shore duty at Toulon, Lewrie would gladly have run on his elbows to Calvi and back, with his thumbs up his arse, before being forced to spend a single day playing at soldiers!

Out to sea, within the week, he suspected; and with more than a little joy in the doing, too. Perhaps a long, independent cruise, far removed from pettifogging admirals, commodores, and fleet captains, or any of their pestiferous interferences.

Far removed from Phoebe, too; for a time, at any rate. Sweet though she was, as heady and passionate though their rencontre had been… he was aflutter to be out and doing. And, be far removed from whatever horrendous expenses he was certain his heady, passionate, and sweet relationship was going to end up costing him!

Cost him, perhaps, that very afternoon, he gloomed to himself. Orders surely couldn't come that quickly, but… from what little he had seen of San Fiorenzo from shipboard, and as bustling as the Army traffic and many uniforms in the streets, the prospects of discovering suitable lodgings looked pretty damn' dismal. He'd have to get Phoebe settled that very day. There might not be time afterward.

And get her off my ship, instanter, he concluded, frowning just a trifle more, as he looked past Andrews's shoulder to gaze upon Jester at her anchorage. Gaze almost jealously.

Swore I'd never carry a wench aboard-to myself, too!-and just look what I've gone and done. Caroline to the Bahamas and back, well… that was proper doin's, takin' the wife along. But Caroline went ashore, and stayed there, when it came time to set out on King's business! Should have stuck her 'board a packet, paid her passage to Corsica, 'stead of… well. What's done's, done.

'Sides, Toulon can't abide that Joliette of hers, and…

And, dammit, they're my great-cabins! And I want 'em back!

CHAPTER 4