A King`s Commander

And what was that, about a cable less at extreme elevation, at range-to-random shot, where the odds of actually hitting anything, a mile-and-a-half off were pretty much By Guess and By God? Half a sea mile was considered long-range shooting, and most captains and gunners preferred point-blank, which was anything from one cable, right down to close broadsides, with the muzzles sticking almost through the enemy's gun ports-'close pistol shot'!

Had the officials insisted, it would have taken weeks more to outfit Jester; new six- pounders, a full eighteen of 'em, weren't just lying about, after all. Might not even be sufficient stock far up north near Scotland, where most of the foundries had relocated, now they'd gone to coke instead of charcoal for melting and casting pig iron. Wouldn't cost the Crown tuppence, sirs! Bags of Frog round shot aboard, sixty per gun now, and replacement nine-pounder English shot is a lot cheaper than an entire new set of artillery! Please, sirs! Pretty please, sirs? Can't swing idle for a month, sirs!

And, when they'd come, what would he have ended up with? Some of those new, lighter, and shorter Blomefield Pattern pieces, which he had heard had a distressing tendency to burst when charged with newfangled cylinder powder 'stead of puny old corned powder! No, there was only one thing he admired about Blomefields-that neat forged-on loop for the breeching ropes above the cascabel button. His old guns had breeching ropes eye- spliced about the button, while Blomefields let the ropes pass through ring bolts on the truck carriages, then through that loop, easing stress on the breeching if fired at extreme angles. They wouldn't snap their breeching and roll about like rampaging steers if pointed too far forrud or aft in the gun ports, or rip the end ring bolts in the bulwarks loose.

No, he'd have his nine-pounders, and God help the Frog who came within range, mistaking Jester for a quarterdecked ship sloop below the Rates, armed with mere popguns!

He spoke briefly with his surgeon, Mister Howse, that tall and lanky saturnine of the square, mournful face, who always looked as if he needed a shave, even right after shaving; and his surgeon's mate, LeGoff, who played the gingery terrier to Howse's rangy mastiff. No one had herniated yet; there were some sore muscles, but Howse held that horse liniment usually worked just as well on bipeds as it did for quadrupeds.

Midshipman Hyde with Knolles near the double-wheel. Knolles was midtwenties, blond-haired, and sun- bronzed. If some spark of relationship had arisen between him and his charge Sophie-and Alan had pressed 'em damn' hard together-there was no sign of it. Hyde… a year older than Mister Midshipman Clarence Spendlove, at sixteen, a seasoned lad, well-salted and daubed with his 'ha'porth of tar' since he was nine. Hmm… good family, he'd learned, was Hyde. Talented, cheerful, able. A bit on his guard, being so new aboard, but the port admiral had recommended him highly, had lifted him out of a 3rd Rate seventy-four for more seasoning aboard Jester where he'd be one of two, instead of one among twenty-four middies. To do the port admiral a favor usually meant one in return; you scratch my protйgй, I'll scratch yours.

'Yer pahdons, Cap'um,' Andrews said at last, coming onto the quarterdeck. 'But dot Aspinall say yer suppah jus' now come from de galley, pipin' hot, sah.'

'Thankee, Andrews!' Lewrie brightened, as famished as a middie on short commons by then. ' Toulon slunk out of hiding yet?'

'Well, sah, ah 'spect he's ovah 'is sulk,' Andrews chuckled in a deep, soft voice. 'An' when he caught a whiff o' po'k cracklin's, he come on out, sah. 'Twoz all me an' dot boy Aspinall could do, keepin' him off de table. Do ah go forrud an' tell ya cook ya be wantin' cawfee later, Cap'um, fo' dey douse de galley fires fo' de night?'

'No, no coffee tonight,' Lewrie decided. There was a very good chance this wind would veer ahead during the Middle Watch, rousing him from bed. After all the excitement and tension, a good meal would put him under quickly, and he needed some sleep, beforehand. 'You tell him to forget it, this evening, and turn in, the pair of you.'

'Aye, sah. Thankee, Cap'um,' Andrews replied.

'Enjoy the singsong, below-decks.' Lewrie grimaced.

On the berth deck, where 'pusser's glims' still burned on mess tables, the sounds of fiddle, fife, and tuning box could be heard, well into a droning, lugubriously sentimental, dirgelike song. Hands were singing along, some already in their hammocks hung from carline posts and overhead beams; linens, bolsters, and thin mattresses already full of softly swinging seamen, in the minutes before Lights Out.

'Ooh, Law', not dot'un, sah.' Andrews shook his head in scorn. 'Sailors, dey know de words t'hundred o* songs… but only know de one tune. Dot'un. Same'z it woz 'board ev'ry ship I been on, sah.'

He and Andrews went back a long way, to the Shrike brig, and he had become Lewrie's coxswain briefly, before she'd paid off after the war ended. Now he was cox'n, again, in charge of Alan's gig and crew. Andrews had always been reticent about his past. In the West Indies, Lewrie'd been certain that Andrews in his youth had been a house slave, and a runaway. There were no lash scars on his back, he vaguely remembered, but… Andrews could read and write, even then, had skills enough to make ordinary seaman, and had been rated able before they'd paid off. Alan wasn't even sure that Andrews was his real name, but that was the one he was known by at the Admiralty, never a place to be picky about a volunteer seaman's antecedents.

His recent history had been merchant service, a summer in the Por-tugee fisheries off the Grand Banks, then a spell ashore as house servant and valet to a retired Liverpool merchant captain; but that fellow had passed over recently, and he'd lost his comfortable shore position. Now he was both cox'n and great-cabin factotum.

A 'bright,' Caroline had called him, after she'd met him, one of what she termed 'the yard-Cuffies'; the by- blow of a white master or overseer on a mulatto or quadroon housemaid. Part white and part black, and pent like a storm petrel over both worlds, belonging to neither. Her North Carolina, slave-owning family experience, warned her, and Alan, against him, but he was an old shipmate. And a Navy man a lot longer than he'd been a fugitive, furtive slave.

'That tune?' Lewrie asked. He was not all that musical.

' 'Adm'll Hosier's Ghost,' sah!' Andrews snickered. 'I t'ink ah teaches de tune t' 'Ovah de Hill An' Far Away,' fo' we heah any mo' 'bout dot dead mon's spook!'

Toulon was over his sulks, nothing hurt but his fierce feline pride. As soon as he was seated at table, the cat was up his nose, wheedling and begging, tail erect and quivering in gustatory anticipation.

So recent the break from shore, there was still fresh meat on the hoof or paw, or on the roost, aboard, in the manger forrud. Hens, ducks, geese, for fresh eggs, and a rare treat after Sunday divisions. For captain and officers, alone, of course. Goat and kid for milk-or meat, if they did not prosper at sea. A sow and piglets, a brace of ewes and four lambs. There had been a yearling bullock, but he'd gone into the steep tubs in four-pound cuts per eight- man mess, that afternoon, with tripes and tongue and blood pudding, to boot. There were smoked or salted joints hanging in gunroom pantries, captains' stores, everywhere one could find a place to hang a hook. To stave off the day when everyone had to subsist on salt beef or salt pork.

Alan dined on a fine pork broth, mixed with desiccated 'portable' pea soup; fresh loaf bread instead of hard and dry, soon to be weevily and sour, ship's biscuit. A pair of small roast potatoes, piquant with some of Caroline's herb vinegar. And a hefty pile of sliced roast pork, some with the cracklings on; the most succulent cuts from a piglet shared with the wardroom mess.

And, it was fine to dine alone, too, for once, after so many civilian, and perilous, suppers with wife, ward, and children underfoot, sure to tip something over at any moment. Calming, it was, too, to-for a few hours, at least- have some privacy from the never-ceasing demands to be social with his officers. In a few days or weeks, he'd begin a round-robin of dining them in, a few at once, to be sociable. Once the rigidly demanded isolation of command got too great.

There was a rather fine, smooth and dry Bordeaux, which Aspinall had let breathe for an hour (and how the Portsmouth wine merchant got his hands on such a wondrous French wine, he'd ask no questions!).

Fresh greens in a small salad to cleanse his palate for fresh Cheddar, extra-fine sweet biscuits, and a smooth and heady Oporto. Gingersnaps, the biscuits were, another of Caroline's touches, all lovingly packed. Along with calf s-foot jelly; though Alan had no clue as to why-he despised the stuff.

Toulon got his share, on the deck by Lewrie's chair. Cracklin's, pork, a sliver of cheese which he adored. A quarter of a gingersnap with a thin smear of fresh butter; good for his coat and teeth. For as long as butter remained wholesome, that is.

A loll on the transom settee, with all lanthorns in the day-cabin extinguished. A sated Toulon stretched across his lap, being brushed softly, tail slowly curling in bliss. After nine p.m. now, on a sleeping ship, on an empty and