A King`s Commander

Nelson ate as if being merely polite. Fremantle muttered, scowled, and inspected every bite, as chary as a customer in some twopenny ordinary who knew a fellow who'd died after eating there. He almost sniffed each new arrival, casting his eyes about as if looking for a hound to try each dish out on first.

He'd have a rough go of it, Alan thought. The carte de menu had no roast beef, no smoking joint of mutton to offer. The choices were mostly fish, wild fowl, pigeon, or chicken, eked out from paltriness of portion with rice, pastas, and tomato gravies. Like the goat ragout he had ordered, at Phoebe's insistence, the arrival of which he was awaiting with a great deal of almost lustful anticipation. And some manner of glee. Just to see the look on Fremantle's phyz when he declared what it was he was eating!

Small pheasants or grouse appeared, and with them, a new course of wine. Squab, most like, Alan thought; how many Corsicans had powder or shot with which to hunt, these days. Squab, on a thin bed of rice, colorful with steamed vegetables and a brown sauce.

One of the waiters came to Nelson's right side to fetch off his near-empty glass of rhenish, and replace it with a fresh stem of some red wine. Just as Nelson reached for it, to drain the last of it down to 'heeltaps.' Their hands collided, the glass turned over, and went smash on the tiled floor.

'Frightfully sorry, tell him,' Nelson snapped, now it was his turn to burn with embarrassment. Once more, he massaged his right brow as if to knead a devil out. And wince with more than mortification.

'Just have 'em corne under your lee from larboard, from now on,' Fremantle attempted to jape. 'There's your answer, Nelson.'

'Perhaps that would be best, Fremantle,' Nelson responded, essaying a matching light tone of voice. 'My sight, do you see… still a bit impaired, sir… mademoiselle. Frogs smashed three guns complete to flinders while I was in the battery. Rock, sand… splinter of something. I had the misfortune to be within feet of a shell that burst. A temporary affliction, I do trust, yet… 'tis hard for me to discern much more than light from dark with this poor eye. Could not spot the fellow to my starboard side.'

'Pray God that will be temporary, sir,' Lewrie said. Should he lose his sight, Alan thought, surely he'd stand a good chance of being 'beached,' and lose his ship. No wonder he'd not made much heroic ado 'pon it! 'Least said, soonest mended,' went the old adage. The least-mentioned a commission-ending, career-ending wound, perhaps the soonest forgotten by their superiors!

'Surely, you saw someone…?' Lewrie wondered aloud.

'Oh, of course,' Nelson assured him warmly, turning nigh jovial to disguise those very fears, 'Doctor Harness, a physician… a surgeon Mister Jefferson. Certified me today, as a matter of fact. 'Sawbones' and 'potion pushers,' I tell you. 'Eye of newt and toe of frog,' that's about all they're good for… all their kind prescribe. I'm down to see Chambers, surgeon to forces in the entire Mediterranean, in a few days. I am most confident my veil will be lifted, as it were, and full vision restored, by then, or shortly after. A few days' rest…'

Lewrie kept an enigmatic expression on his face, though he peered closely at that offending eye. No reason he could see to follow the biblical injunction, to 'pluck it out.' Yet, it did not seem to wax or wane as a normal eye should. Did not follow in conjunction with the dartings of the left orb. And the faint scar that might have been the result of rock or sand, or a tiny splinter… Lewrie kept himself from wincing with nutmeg-shrinking horror when he finally noticed that the scar was not on the brow, only… but far down onto the right eyelid itself!

Poor little bastard, Lewrie silently cringed! Raised a glass in mute sympathy. To restore his own courage, too, and damp the fear that he'd ever suffer such a mutilation himself.

There was a commotion at the entryway. Some shouting in the road, and the scruffing of urgent feet. Calvi, blah blah blah…! Louder in Italian, inside the door. / Francesil Calvi! Waiters translating for a party of British infantry officers on the main floor, and a host of loud hosannas of triumph from them, once the news had been digested.

I Francesi, esse arrendere Calvi, di mattina!

Applause and cheers arose from everyone in the ristorante, Corsican or йmigrй French, Italian, or British. The French would surrender Calvi in the morning. And British forces had, at last, won an important victory in the Mediterranean, to expunge last year's shame of Toulon and its abandonment. And something worthwhile, too; the total ownership of the strategically valuable island of Corsica!

Nelson appeared weary, yet relieved, and wore a faint, bemused smile. He applauded briefly, but remained seated. Fremantle, though, rose to cheer cock-a-whoop, abandoning even those half-mute essays of his at complete sentences to howl and cheer, not even trying to form recognizable words for a minute. Until recalling that English gentlemen weren't supposed to be seen enthusing, and sat back down, abashed.

Thank Bloody Christ, Alan thought, getting to his own feet, and dancing Phoebe about, using the joy of the moment to embrace her in a most wn-English expression of joy. The fleet'll be fully manned again, he speculated; all those seamen and Marines back aboard from the siege. We'll put to sea again, and fight the Frogs proper, at sea! Sail into Golfe Jouan or Gorjean Bay, whatever they call it, and shoot the Frog fleet to kindling, if they won't come out to fight! And get the damn' war over in another three months or so! Austrians, Piedmont, Genoese all ready to march west, into France, and them without ships to serve their troops, protect their seaward flank… why, we'll chop them to Hindu chutney sauce!

And prizes, he further speculated! With few warships left, the French coasting trade would lay wide open and unprotected to his guns. In another three months, Jester could reap a bountiful harvest. Then he could go home the hero, wearing the laurel wreath corona. A gilded laurel- wreath hero's crown, he crowed to himself! With enough money to buy his rented land from damnable old uncle Phineas Chiswick, buy even more acres, have that London town house, at last, into the bargain…!

And see Caroline and the children. Enchanting mistress or no, he'd been on the beach too long before, those four years between commissions, and where his heart lay, and where his lust romped, were two different places entirely. Only one letter had come from Anglesgreen, so far, in reply to the half dozen he'd sent off.

Aye, get this over with quickly, he mused, as he resat Phoebe at their

table; she's a fetchin' little mort, but she'll land on her feet, when I'm gone.

'You gentlemen will permit me?' Alan asked them. 'In the spirit of the news, I think a brace of champagne might be in order.'

Spumante was the best the house could boast; overly sweet, for most tastes, a bit on the cloudy side. But sparkling and spritely on the tongue, frothy with pearly bubbles as they charged their glasses.

'Sirs… mademoiselle contessa…' Lewrie posed to them. 'A toast. To a complete and convincing victory over our enemies. And an even greater one, at sea, soon to follow.'

'Here, here!' they all agreed.

Book IV

Haec deus in melius crudelia somnia vertat

et iubeat tepidos inrita ferra Notos.

May a god turn this cruel dream to good, or bid the

hot South Wind carry it away without fulfillment.

Book III, 'Lygdamus's Dream'

Albius Tibullus

CHAPTER 1