A King`s Commander

the last drubbing. 'My sloop of war 'gainst his twenty-two-gunned corvette…'

'No, sir!' Peel exclaimed, with a small sign of glee. 'Not his flagship … La Vengeance, we think she's named. Maybe she was used for taking the merchantman with the gold, but he came to Genoa 'board a privateer, what they call a xebec. Fast as the wind, I heard…'

'Aye, they are.' Lewrie nodded, feeling a little surge of hope. 'Three-masted, lateen-rigged, much like a pirate's galley. Long, lean, and very fast. Fairly low freeboard and bulwarks, though… tell me, Mister Peel. Have you seen her?'

'Well, yessir,' Peel allowed cautiously. 'Though I know nought of boats and such, I was told what Choundas now looks like. Mister Twigg had me boat past his ship, to confirm he was there. And he is, Captain Lewrie. Seemed to know who I was, too, damn his eyes… eye, rather.' Peel snorted with faint amusement. 'Christ what an ugly bugger. Carve damn' well, you do, sir, I must say! How he knew to go after the right ship, we still can't understand, when the bait was so temptin'… ignore what the signorina gathered for him…?'

'Too tempting, perhaps,' Lewrie sniffed. 'Once bitten, and all that. A mite too convenient, and overly clever a ruse.'

'We're supposing Choundas was forced to depend on Mister Twigg's opposite number, a civilian spymaster,' Peel admitted softly. 'And they do not get along, we've heard. Suspect each other…'

'No matter, now,' Lewrie snapped, opening his desk to fetch out a chart-pencil and a blank quarto sheet of paper. 'Since you've seen her close-aboard, could you sketch her? Recall how many guns she carried… and an idea as to their caliber?'

'S'pose so, sir.' Peel shrugged again, bending over the desk to begin drawing. ' 'Bout as long as your ship, I think. Not as tall… I think I saw only five or six openings along the one side for guns. One was open… fairly good- sized stuff at either end, though. Big as some siege artillery I once saw at Woolwich. Hellish good weekend, that…' 'Short barrels, like mortars?'

'No, I don't think so, Captain Lewrie.' Peel frowned, cocking his head as he bent over his sketch. 'Looked average-long barrels, to me.'

Lewrie went to the wine cabinet to refill his glass, riding the easy motion of his warship as she tore through the sea, sails set 'all to the royals' in her haste. For once, there was enough wind aloft in the fickle Ligurian Sea to make speed, when speed was vital. He could be off Genoa Mole by sundown.

A xebec, he pondered; about Jester's length. Shoal- draught, she could stand much closer inshore oн Jester, should they discover her, to escape. Draw about three feet less, perhaps? Long and lean, built low to the sea, and very wet along her gunwales and gangways. Sail-tending was done amidships, fore-and-aft, on a central walkway, and some xebecs were oar-driven, still… Spanish, Venetian, Genoese, Barbary Pirates… they still depended on them as armed, oared galleys. With guns mounted on their forecastles and stern platforms, primarily. Nothing more than twelve-pounders, he thought, anything else'd be too much end weight. Why had Choundas come himself? he fretted. Let's say he already knew that de Vins would take action, that the French Army was ready for a battle, too, and that stealing the gold would precipitate it. Wasn't his prime responsibility with his squadron? Wouldn't that be where any diligent senior officer would be, if things were indeed coming to a head? 'Rub our noses in it,' he muttered. What had Peel said? It was as if Choundas had known who he was already. Might even have known that Twigg was in the area! And no wonder he'd failed to take the best bait! But why do the dirty work, himself? Alan still puzzled. When that would isolate him from his squadron, get him penned in at Genoa for days, even weeks? And not bring his own ship? Rely on a privateersman, not under naval discipline, unreliable, untrustworthy, sure to pocket…!

'Here you go, Captain Lewrie,' Peel interrupted, rising to go for the wine cabinet himself. 'Dusty work, sketchin' from memory, do ye mind. I can't get it out o' my head, though, that those guns along the side, well… looked no bigger than galloper guns. Four, perhaps six-pounders. 'Bout like horse artillery.'

'Not carronades? Not squat and stubby pestles?' Lewrie pressed as he regarded Peel's handiwork. 'Like those on my quarterdeck?' 'Nossir,' Peel rejoined, certain. 'Definitely long barrels.' 'Too few French copies of carronades to go around, yet,' Lewrie said, feeling even more hope. 'Nothing they'd sell or share with the war-for-profit mob.' Peel had produced a fairly good drawing, complete with arrowed notes regarding the xebec's paint scheme. Dark green hull, with red gunwales and upper works. 'She'll be fast, but Jester's quick-work is clean and new-coppered. With a good slant, should she sail, we stand a good chance of bringing her to battle. If I stand off Genoa to the sou'west, about five or six miles inshore. He has to sail soon, to the west, if he wishes to rejoin his squadron. He can't be absent when the big battle's about to come off. Can't count on his army taking the city right off, either. One warship could bottle him up for a month!'

'Unless he does something else clever, sir,' Peel griped moodily. 'I'm coming to fear just how clever he really is. Abandon the privateer and go overland in civilian dress, perhaps? Senator di Silvano's farm carts and estate agents could smuggle him out. Then should this ship…'

'Aye, should we close her and take her, he'd be ashore, laughing his bloody head off,' Lewrie sourly agreed. 'I assume Mister Twigg has already made arrangements against that?'

'He has, sir,' Peel assured him-sort of. 'Though we're thin on the ground when it comes to people we can trust, besides the pair of us, Mister Drake, and a few of his hired agents. The Austrians…'

'I'm sure their army has spies in plenty,' Lewrie gloomed. 'In business with Italians all this time, some bad habits must have rubbed off by now, surely!'

'Unless the rumor of a large French invasion convoy was another sham, Captain Lewrie,' Peel pointed out. 'It was a good-enough rumor to draw most of your Nelson's ships off to the west, to counter it. If the French are just as ready for a decisive battle as the Austrians, it may be possible that Choundas doesn't expect to have to go very far, to rejoin. Or wait a week till Genoa is theirs. He knows something, that much is certain, this Choundas. Something we don't, yet.'

'Large crew, this privateer of his?' Lewrie asked.

'About a hundred or so, that I saw, sir,' Peel told him.

'Had to have promised half the booty to them, else they'd never have taken the job on.' Lewrie sighed. 'Why should they risk all that, to sail out at once? They could wait for Genoa to fall. Doesn't mean Choundas would. Fearsome as he is, he couldn't count on a crew of mercenaries to protect him. And she's not a proper warship, disciplined… did you see any uniformed men aboard? Any soldiers, their versions of Marines? Any naval officers, besides him?'

'Nossir,' Peel replied. 'Though what might have been hidden…'

'Not much depth of hold in which to hide anything, aboard shallow-draught vessels such as xebecs,' Lewrie interrupted impatiently. 'No… I expect what you saw was all they had. Hired for the one job, perhaps… but only to transport the gold, not take it, d'ye see, Peel?' Lewrie enthused. 'Choundas couldn't use his flagship to fetch it to Genoa. I hate the man… but I understand him, a little, I think. He's a sailor! La Vengeance, d'ye say? Wager he named her, himself. Chose her paint scheme, so she'd look just like his old'un, the one he lost in the Far East, in eighty-five. Lost her, and two others, too! The greatest shame any captain can stomach. No, he'd never risk her. Never take the chance of losing another command, especially to me… or your Mister Twigg. This privateer's expendable, now she's done his chore for him. She's civilian, not Navy. Does she sail, and we take her, I'll sport you any odds you like, he'll not be aboard. She'll swan off sou'east, paid to lure us on a false scent. While he takes passage west, close inshore. On one of Senator di Silvano's fishing boats or coasters, more like.'

'Well, I'm damned, sir!' Peel breathed out, the victim of twice the surprise; that Choundas could be that clever. Or that Lewrie, for all the deprecating things his employer had said about him, was showing signs of being just as discerning and quick-witted. 'O' course, it makes eminent sense. Once he gets to Genoa, he knows he's a quick way out… that's what he had up his sleeve that we couldn't hope to know!'

'He's a sailor,' Lewrie reiterated. 'Wasn't born to Frog nobility, Mister Peel. Brought up in the coastal fisheries. Not many good horsemen spring from that lot. He won't go overland, 'less forced to.'

'And you knackered his leg, sir, long ago. Make a ride that far all but impossible for him. Though a cart, or