A King`s Commander

To Lewrie's great disappointment, Peel was an agile brute, just as spry as a seaman when it came to departing the boat and scaling the battens to the gangway. Alan had rather hoped he'd slip and break his devious neck-or at least get a good dunking, to wash the spy-stink off.

'Mister Peel, sir,' Lewrie grumbled, doffing his hat as Peel doffed his in greeting. Feeling most uncivil, though.

'Commander Lewrie, sir,' Peel rejoined, just as stonily. 'I am required to give you this, at once… to be read at once, sir.'

Peel produced a square of vellum, folded over from the corners and sealed with a large blob of candle wax. Lewrie took it and turned away, took a few paces to larboard for privacy, wondering what new vat of shit he'd tumbled into. He peeled it open.

'Well, damme…' He frowned in puzzlement.

It was from Captain Nelson, in his own hand, not his clerk's. Lewrie and jester were to consider themselves under his orders again. But the next paragraph instructed him to place himself and his ship at Mister Peel's service until further notice, and to render to him, and his superior Mister Twigg, any and every service and assistance they requested.

'Shit,' he whispered, hoping he'd seen the back of them, that Twigg had told the truth for once that his duties ashore at Leghorn had been 'quits.' He'd lied, o' course. Again. And what else was new?

'Very well, Mister Peel, sir,' Lewrie drawled, stalking back to the man. 'What assistance do you require from us?'

'That I am only allowed to tell you in the strictest privacy, sir,' the stolid ex-cavalry officer replied rather guardedly, muttering only as loudly as necessary; as if sharing even a cryptic conversation with Lewrie was too much to bruit about in public. 'Might I be allowed to urge you to do whatever it is you do, to return to sea, though, sir?'

'Get underway?' Lewrie hinted, with a faint grin.

'If that's how sailors phrase it, sir, yes.'

'To where, sir?' Lewrie inquired.

'Uhm…' Peel darkened, clamming up.

'Point, if you can't say it,' Alan suggested resignedly. 'East, is it? Very well, sir. That wasn't so difficult, now was it. Mister Knolles? Secure the anchor party, and make sail. We'll stand out to sea. Get way on her and ready to come about to larboard tack. Once we make an offing, come back to starboard tack, course due east.'

'Aye aye, sir! Bosun? Hands to the braces! Topmen! Trice up and lay aloft! Make sail!' Knolles bellowed.

It took half an hour to work Jester back to sea, to scoot along inshore, rounding up and gathering enough speed to tack, to stand away from the coast until it was about six miles astern, then come about to the east. Once assured that Jester was secure, Lewrie could head below at last, his simmering anger, and his dubious curiosity, both at a fine boil, by then.

'So where is it you wish to go, Mister Peel?' Lewrie asked, as he opened the wine cabinet, after shooing his steward and servant out.

'Genoa, sir,' Peel announced finally.

'But didn't you just come from there?'

'I did, sir. To await your arrival and deliver those orders to you,' Peel admitted, accepting a glass. 'My employer said to extend to you his compliments, Commander Lewrie. And his apologies. For the uhm… upshot of Leghorn. And for not being able to fulfill his word to you that he would pester you no longer. But it's quite urgent that you assist us just this one last time, sir.'

'So?' Lewrie snapped.

'It's a total, bloody cock-up, Commander Lewrie,' Peel confessed, his shoulders sagging in defeat. 'The trap we so carefully laid… went amiss. Choundas never even went near 'em! They didn't see anything on their voyage. Put in at Vado, then had to scamper back to San Fiorenzo to rejoin Hotham.'

'So I am still your bait?' Lewrie fumed.

'No, sir, we're a bit beyond that, I fear.' Peel groaned as he took a seat, looking as if he needed one. 'The real ship… the vessel that was really carrying the gold for the Austrians… well, sir, it's been taken! That Choundas bugger outsmarted us, after all!'

'Well, damme!' Lewrie exclaimed in surprise. Though he really didn't think it much of a surprise, that Choundas had once more shown himself to be fiendishly clever. 'Where, and how, sir? And how much'd he get away with?' he demanded, suddenly all impatience.

'As to where, Captain Lewrie,' Peel sighed, 'soon after she left San Fiorenzo Bay. 'Least the solid coin for the Navy, and our garrison on Corsica was safely landed. Perhaps within a hundred miles of Vado Bay? As to when, five days ago, we think. At any rate, four days ago, a French privateer put into Genoa… sailed right into Genoa itself, I tell you, sir! Put all the gold and silver ashore. As for how much? Nigh on Ј100,000! Which is now being used, sir, to pay the recruiting bounty, and to purchase boots and small-clothes at least, to raise volunteers to serve in the French Army! They're drilling and mustering on the main plazas all over the city, Lewrie… swaggering and swilling as bold as brass! Singing their version of 'La Marseillais,' damn' 'em!'

'But they can't do that, Genoa's neutral, that'd…'

'The bloody Genoese colluded with the French to take it, sir!' Peel snarled back, still siurmmering with anger and chagrin, days after. 'Senator di Silvano and his cronies, we're certain. The Senate allowed the privateer the right to anchor and unload, and they're claiming she has a right to stay as long as she likes, 'stead of enforcing any time limit on a belligerent… since she isn't a French national warship formally commissioned, they say, sir! But, do we do anything to take her, they'll scream bloody murder. Your Nelson sailed in, to see what the hell was going on, but he was too late, and there's little he can do about it but complain. They're shamefaced enough to not demand that he treats the port as a neutral, but does he do anything to seize the privateer, it'd be just the sort of incident the traitorous faction wants. We don't have the force to make Genoa cooperate with us, either. Bloody devious, two-faced…!' Peel sneered, and took a sip of wine-which gave Alan time to sardonically muse that for Peel to deem anyone devious and two-faced was a rare irony, after all he'd been up to!

'So what does Twigg think I can do about it, Mister Peel?' he pressed.

'Things are coming to a head, sir,' Peel insisted anxiously. 'General de Vins has finally stirred himself and his army into motion. Like the gold was his, personal… took from his own quarters! Before I left, with the hope you'd be returning soon, he'd thrown his outpost line right to the gates of Genoa. To show them who's in charge, we may suppose, and marched his forces west of Vado, at last, into contact with the French outposts. He's going to fight, finally, before winter.'

'You still aren't telling me…' Lewrie huffed.

'It's Choundas, sir,' Peel announced suddenly, stone-sober, and bitter. 'It was he, took the gold, himself. He's aboard the privateer, at Genoa. He shows no sign of coming ashore, so there's no way for us to get to him. Nelson can't get at him, since Genoa won't tolerate any belligerent action in their bloody 'neutral' harbor. We can expect to be held to the convention that Nelson can't sail for twenty-four hours after he does. Though the Genoese can turn a blind eye to Choundas going out, anytime he pleases, once Nelson sails. Which he was going to do, Mister Twigg told me, sir. The only problem is, I was also told not to expect too much from Captain Nelson's ship. That she was so slow and badly in need of a refit. Practically held together with rope, a foul bottom… you'd know better what they were talking about, sir. I will never understand naval matters.'

'But the rest of our ships, the frigates, Mister Peel,' Lewrie inquired. 'Surely…'

'All far to the west, sir, to keep an eye on French ports, where rumor has it that they may be preparing a landing from the sea.' Peel shrugged again. 'Take a day or two for a tender to gallop off to find them, and a day or two for them to return. And Choundas might be away by then, d'ye see. Meleager left for Leghorn for her own refit. Put in there a week after you left. Speedy and this Tartar are too weak to deal with the privateer, your Nelson thought. Speedy is the one rushed off to whistle up the frigates, anyway, so…'

'His ship against mine again, then.' Lewrie frowned, hesitant to cross swords with Choundas, especially after