A King`s Commander

'You'll soon find out, Lewrie,' Twigg informed him with a knowing leer. 'Once Hainaut tells him who it was stopped his business at Bordighera… as I intend for Hainaut to do… he'll come looking for you. Personally. I'm counting on it.'

Knew I should have become a bloody farmer, Alan thought! Pimp in London… my early aspiration? Safe as houses, that… consid'rin'. 'Sir,' Lewrie glowered. 'Are you trying to get me killed, on purpose, you scheming old…'

'Not at all, Lewrie!' Twigg was quick to assure him; simpering though, which didn't sound like much assurance at all. 'As I say, I do like you. Professionally speaking. Your sort aren't worth a tinker's damn for much beyond war, and well you know it. Neither am I, I must confess… but then, my sort of war is eternal. Back home in peacetime I expect I'd find you boringly conceited and unscrupulously smarmy, an idle wastrel and lecher. As I expect you did, too, 'tween commissions, hmm? But that's what makes you so valuable at war. Laze your way into idle foolishness, then shovel your way from 'neath a wagon-load of manure, and come up smelling like a rose. With guineas in your fists. Do it quite ruthlessly, 'cause you're too impatient, or desperate, to play by the rules the proper sorts believe in. I'm counting on that remarkable ability of yours. Should you two actually meet again.'

'So you'd sport a small wager on the home side?' Alan snorted. 'Stake my last shilling on you, sir… my entire fortune, had I the chance,' Twigg snickered for a moment before turning forebodingly dark and somber. 'Choundas is clever, but he's much like you, Lewrie. He's ultimately ruled by his heart, not his head, no matter how clever he is. I play my game dispassionately. But oh, Lewrie, what a marvelous diversion it is! A personal involvement that misdirects could be fatal for me. So rarely do I allow personal motives to intrude, or allow a motive, or those who would fulfill it, to become personal.'

'Believe me, sir,' Lewrie sneered heavily, 'I've noticed.' 'In this instance, though,' Twigg said with a frown, 'I do not think that I err, in allowing myself to feel, just once. Had I been on that beach with you when you chopped Choundas to flinders, I'd have ordered you to complete the work. Had you not, I'd have broken you, then scragged him myself. Knew the work wasn't done, even though it looked that Spanish officials would hang him as a pirate. Even then, I felt a gnawing suspicion that, ruined as he was, he'd cause us mischief, in future.' 'So you want me to kill him, personally?' Lewrie blanched. 'I most passionately, most eagerly, wish his death, Lewrie,' Mister Twigg said with unwonted heat. 'Even as a legless cripple, holed up in some noisome Paris cellar, with others to do his bidding, I fear he would still be dangerous. You, personally? More than likely not, sir. I wish to unbalance him, distract him with rage, as I did in Canton, after he had my old partner Thom Wythy murdered. You're my chink into his armor, Lewrie. Knowing you're near, the man who maimed him, he'll be more eager to hunt you than do his duty, his cold and evil logic all confounded and diverted. You'll be the bait… my bait, which…' 'Oh, just thankee, so muchl' Lewrie whispered. '… draws him to fatal folly.' Twigg pounded on. 'And, should he creep to my trap, he will die, at last, no matter who does it. But should he find you… should the chance arise… I count on you being the one who kills him dead. In fact, should you two meet again, then I insist 'pon it. You are to kill him dead!'

CHAPTER 10

'Signal is down, sir!' Spendlove shouted.

'Maintain course, Quartermaster,' Lewrie ordered. 'And God help the French. It's going to be a lovely day. What little joy of it they'll have. Buggered 'em, by God!'

'If only we were in on the buggering, sir.' Knolles laughed.

It was, indeed, a lovely morning, for late August in the Ligurian Sea. There was a noticeable swell, now and then the hint of some foamy chop to the folding wave tops, and a decently brisk breeze for a change. All under a brilliant blue sky, wisped with benign clouds.

Fremantle's Inconstant led, breaking away westward, accompanied by the Tartar brig to cover the westernmost small town of Languelia, in the Bay of Alassio. Meleager and Speedy went more easterly, to tackle one of the warships at anchor, what looked to be a French corvette. While Nelson in Agamemnon, being handled like a frigate instead of a tired sixty-four-gunner, Southampton and Ariadne charged directly for the clutch of merchant ships.

Jester stood on, tail end of the informal battle line that had approached the coast, to remain offshore as the seaward guard for the rest, as they achieved their victory. She stayed on course, alone.

' 'Least we'll be in-sight, sir,' Buchanon grumbled. 'Share in the take.'

'There is that, Mister Buchanon,' Lewrie smirked. 'Though, we could wait till hell freezes over before the Prize Courts approve those shares. Easy money, today. Ah, well.'

No sign of Guillaume Choundas, either, Lewrie was more than happy to note, which partly explained his sense of content. Rumor had it that 'Le Hideux' had a corvette as his flagship, and there were two of them anchored in Alassio Bay this moment, caught napping and facing the heavier twelve-pounder guns of Southampton, Inconstant, and Meleager, those crushing heavy guns aboard Agamemnon's lower deck. If he was there in Alassio Bay, and someone else stopped his business, then… Facing the wily Frenchman, who'd had the Devil's own luck, was someone else's joy, and Lewrie wished them well of it. Ever since Twigg had come aboard with his disturbing news, Lewrie had felt a distinct twanging of nerves.

Only sheer, dumb luck had saved Lewrie's bacon in the Far East, when he'd gone up against Choundas before; only desperate derring-do, and neck-or-nothing chance had kept him alive. Why, the bastard would have slain me, if I hadn't kicked him in the 'wedding tackle,' Lewrie thought with a queasy feeling. Could one divide a single second… that was how close he had been to being spitted on the man's sword! A normal foe, now… but Choundas? Again? he shivered. Sorry, but the Navy don't pay anyone near enough to tackle that clever fiend!

He raised his telescope to watch, glad to be an observer, as the squadron stood into the bay, creating as much confusion and fear aboard the French convoy as a fox might among the chickens. His lips curled in silent delight. They'd made it to Alassio, the destination Twigg and Drake had discovered; dropped their 'hooks' and prepared to carry their cargoes ashore, certain that the British squadron was far away to the west. On that shore, he could see tiny antlike figures in the dark blue-and-white uniforms of the French Army, the colors adopted from their old second-line National Guard. Thousands of Frogs, foot, horse, and perhaps some light artillery. Rather a lot of cavalry, he surmised; or draught animals assembled to tow the heavy wagons that the convoy's goods would have filled?

Cannon fire, now; blooms of smoke staining the oaken sides of Agamemnon and the rest. Even upwind, the slamming and drumming boom of artillery was lung-rattling. Some scattered return fire from shore, or from the armed ships that had escorted them in. For show, Lewrie thought smugly; a broadside or two so their captains could claim that resistance had been offered, but then…

Neither of the French corvettes appeared to be trying to hoist sail, or save their anchors. The dull glint of iron upon their forecastles. Cutting cable? Yet, so slowly, so raggedly.

'He's not here,' Lewrie muttered, lowering his glass, and gnawing on the lining of his mouth in disappointment that Choundas had not been caught with his trousers down. And worry. That he was still out there, somewhere. And that Twigg would arrange for him to fight him. 'Damme, I could have thought…'

'Let this be a lesson to you, Hainaut,' Le Hideux grumbled, as he awkwardly paced his quarterdeck in bleak fury. 'Never believe what is offered to you too easily.'

'Citizen Pouzin thought it was authentic, so…' the lanky midshipman shrugged. He looked a little better. The British had been so good as to present him with a pair of slop trousers, which fit better than his old castoff breeches. A gift, that civilian clerk had told him.

'Ah, Citizen Pouzin, oui.' Choundas scowled, lifting the good corner of his mouth in a