A King`s Commander

deathbed, sir,' Nelson assured him firmly, speaking a trifle louder, for the benefit, Lewrie imagined, of those trudging, plodding sailors, and the general audience at dockside.

Always did have a touch o' Drury Lane theatrics in him, Lewrie recalled, smiling in reverie.

'You should see what British tars can accomplish, Lewrie,' he 'emoted,' regaining that infectious enthusiasm for a chance to get himself blown to bits, or knighted-whichever came first. 'You simply must ride up and visit us, should you have the chance. Erecting batteries, man-hauling guns over hill and dale, digging trenches and parallels… ah, here's Captain Fremantle! Another of our stalwarts.'

Taller, lankier, and mastiff-dour, was Capt. Thomas Fremantle, whose sole response to Nelson's introduction was a nod and a grunt.

'… shelling the Frogs night and day, storming their positions to keep monsieur on the hop,' Nelson rattled on. 'Minding shot around their own ears no more than peas, I tell you, Lewrie! Been at it ever since the first days of the siege of Bastia. Well, Captain Fremantle might mind shot and shell, after our little… 'incident,' hey?'

'Uhm,' interjected that worthy, shifting in his saddle rather uncomfortably.

'The Frogs got the range of us, at Bastia,' Nelson reminisced gaily, 'and literally blew us off a hillside. Right down off the side of the path. Showers of earth, gravel, and dust. Fremantle was sore hurt.'

'Tore a good pair o' breeches,' Fremantle grunted laconically.

'Now he swears he'll not walk within a musket shot of me, sir.' Nelson chuckled. 'I attract too much attention from their gunners!'

Sounds like Fremantle is smarter than he looks, Alan thought.

'Should I do come visit, sir,' Lewrie said with an agreeable chuckle of his own, 'I'd hope for better horses than these for the journey.'

While all the while swearing that it would take a battalion of gaolers to drag him anywhere near Calvi's trenches. Or Nelson's side.

'Spavined wretches, are they not, sir?' Nelson shrugged, even as he patted his ill-featured mare's neck. 'A poor prad, but mine own, to quote the Bard. And, well… Father's a churchman, and our glebe didn't run to blooded hunters. Then I, away to sea at such a young age… I must confess I am nowhere near as confident upon this horse as I am upon my quarterdeck. This idle waiting, and swinging around the anchors… I quite envy you, sir, your freedom of a smaller ship. Out at sea, our proper place… anything exciting by way of orders for you yet, Lewrie?'

'Onions, sir.' Lewrie sighed. 'Onions and wine. I'm off for Leghorn at first light, pray God the wind returns, to purchase onions to prevent the scurvy.'

'Oh, poor fellow.' Nelson seemed to commiserate for a single sober moment, though he perked up rather quickly, not a second after. 'Still, your turn will come, sir, be confident of it. Once Calvi is ours, we'll all be free to seek out our foes, and win such glory as even a Hawke, Anson, or Drake might envy!'

Lewrie continued to smile, though he did raise one rather dubious brow. Fremantle, though, who'd been slouching like a sack of onions in his saddle, sat up a bit straighter, got a light upon his dull visage, as if he'd just been Saved, and was leaving Church with his Life Amended. Uncanny, how this wee fellow Nelson could inspirit people! 'Well, sirs, if you must ride as far as Calvi before dark, I won't keep you a second longer. And the best of fortune go with you, sirs. Captain Nelson, Captain Fremantle… I'll save you a sack of my very best… mmm, produce, sirs,' he could not help saying with a deprecatory smirk. 'My word on't.'

'Likewise, good fortune attend your voyage, sir, and I would be much obliged for something more savory than 'Army' rations. For the men, d'ye see.' Nelson beamed. 'Godspeed, Commander Lewrie!'

He kneed his spindly mare into motion, to clatter off to join a procession of heavily laden mules, heavily laden sailors, and top-heavy two-wheeled carts crammed with ammunition.

Damme, I just promised to deliver them onions! Lewrie shuddered. Now I'll have to ride up there, once I'm back. Within speakin' distance of Nelson, and let's hope the Frog gunners're sleepin'!

Wherever that firebrand went there was blood and mayhem. And the Devil's own amount of shot and shell involved in a Nelson 'outing.' Forever thrusting himself forward, all that Death or Glory twaddle… and Alan suspected the little minnikin actually believed what he was forever saying.

Still… he could almost essay a feeling of… dare he call it jealousy?… to be left out. Grubbing about in trenches, plagued with insects, flinging oneself flat whenever a shell howled over. Well, an officer could wish to fling himself flat, but had to stand and take it, like a dumb ox. To inspire courage, so please you! Sleeping rough as a gypsy… well, perhaps not. Alan wished to make his name, and his ship's name, at sea, where sailors belonged. Not playing greengrocer, certainly, but…

He felt a hellish snit coming on. Sent off to be a carter for the fleet, 'stead of a fighting cruise. Deprived of Phoebe's charms-that he'd by God paid damn' dear for!-not even one evening with her in their new 'house.' The prospects of a damn' dull supper, with a 'sawbones' for company; they were usually horrid drinkers, and just how much of his wine cabinet would be left to him by the time Jester returned to San Fiorenzo Bay? he wondered.

It all put Lewrie in a Dev'lish black fettle.

Mayhem? Well, God help Mountjoy, when he got back aboard. A chance to shout, to rant and scream at someone, to vent all his frustrations… it sounded damned pleasant, of a sudden!

Book III

Ego, dum cremandis trabibus accresdt rogus,

sacro regentum maria votivo colam.

Now while the pyre feeds on the burning beams,

with promised gifts will I worship Him who rules

the sea.

Hercules Furens 514-15

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

CHAPTER 1

Now this is more like it, Lewrie told himself, fidgetting, but with pride, as he stood foursquare on his quarterdeck, with his hands clasped together in the small of his back. Rocking and swaying on the balls of his feet, easy, as Jester tore through the waters, gun ports open, and artillery run out.

It was a rare day, no error, a brilliant, glittering morning of bright-water winds, whitecaps and horses, the sea heaving and chopping in short, close-spaced waves, and the sirocco up from the south was a force one could almost lean into, a stout, clear-weather quarter-gale, deafening in his ears. A hat-snatcher of a wind into which HMS Jester pounded close-hauled, in pursuit of prey.

A clumsy old Provence bilander already lay far astern, a prize easily snatched up from the clutch of odd vessels assembled in convoy. No matter that she'd sported a massive lateen mains! on her after, or mainmast, the compromise of her foremast crossed with course, tops'l, and t'gallant yards, had made her slow to windward. Taken with but one warning shot fired cross her bows, and a long ten minutes of nail-biting frustration as a boat was gotten down, and a prize crew under Wheelock, the master's mate, rowed over to secure her. Then Jester was off once more, lumping and drumming into wind, spray flying high to either beam, with a bone in her teeth.