A Jester’s Fortune

'Oh, aye aye, sir!' Cony grinned, knowing his captain's moods from a long, and entertaining, association. 'Side-party! Muster on th' starb'd gangway fer th' cap'um!'

'Welcome aboard, sir,' a harassed-looMng young Lieutenant said after he'd taken Myrmidons welcoming salute; a most impressive turnout, that, Lewrie noted. 'I am Stroud, sir. First Officer.'

'And your captain, Mister Stroud?' Lewrie posed, with an eyebrow cocked in what he felt was a most Charlton-esque demand.

'Uhm, sir, uh… Captain Fillebrowne is ashore, sir,' Stroud stammered, having trouble sheathing his sword in fumbling nervousness. He was one of those frank, open, pudding-faced young fellows, a typical naval nonentity who had, most likely, clawed his way up the Navy's career ladder by sheer perseverance, not wit.

It was barely gone seven bells of the Morning Watch, about half past seven a.m. Jester had had a lucky slant of wind round the tip of the town and into the anchorage, making landfall at 'first-sparrow-fart.'

Lewrie made a production of extracting his watch from a waistcoat pocket, opening it with a flick of his thumb and peering at its face, as if to confirm the time, his eyebrow even higher.

'Portoferrajo in the business of early -rising, Mister Stroud?' he asked, masking the cruel glee he felt. This was even better than catching this Fillebrowne with his hair mussed or with shaving soap round his ears! The fellow'd slept ashore the previous evening, Alan was dead certain. 'Or is your captain?' he asked in a lazy drawl.

'I sent a boat, sir,' Stroud replied, sounding about as miserable as he looked under Lewrie's withering, knowing glare. 'Soon'z we saw you rounding the point, er, Commander…?'

'Lewrie, sir. Alan Lewrie. HMS Jester,' he informed him as archly as he might. From long and embarrassing remembrance of being the butt of such doings in the past, his 'arch' was worthy of a round of applause from the theatregoers in Drury Lane. 'It really is too bad, Mister Stroud. I bear despatches from Admiral Jervis and Captain Thomas Charlton, who is, I am given to believe, standing off-and-on the western shore this very instant, ordering Myrmidon to put out to sea and join him instanter.' Stroud, a much- put-upon junior officer, winced as if someone had just trod on his feet. 'I sent a boat, sir,' he insisted for a second time. 'Captain should be returning…'

Stroud's face lit up like sunshine after a quick peek shoreward, turning Lewrie's attention to a gig that was rowing so quick, on a beeline to Myrmidon, that it looked as if all the Hounds of Hell were at her heels. 'That'll be our captain, sir,' Stroud said, and slunk off out of throwing range, should the confrontation come to it; safely behind the fully accoutred Marines of the side-party. Marines who, Lewrie noted, were so bemused by the impending disaster as to go red in the face and sneak cutty-eyed looks at each other. Whether for a martinet's comeuppance or in commiseration for a good captain who was about to be caught with his breeches down, Lewrie didn't know.

'Ahoy, the boat!' Myrmidon's Bosun shouted the obligatory challenge. 'Myrmidon!' The bow-man shouted back with leather-lunged demand, thrusting a hand aloft to show four fingers, no matter how often this ritual would be performed or how familiar her own gig and captain were to them.

There came the thud of the gig against the hull planking, then a soft curse as the bow-man missed the main- chains with his first try with his boat-hook. The rasp of steps on well-sanded boarding-batten timbers, a faint squeak as the pristine white man-ropes, most neatly served with decorative Turk's Heads, took a load, and twisted in the entry-port dead-end holes.

As Commander Fillebrowne's hat came level with the top batten of the entry-port, bosun's calls trilled, muskets were presented and the Marines stamped their booted feet in unison. Swords flashed with damascened dawn light on glittering silver fittings, and Myrmidon's people came to attention, bareheaded, facing starboard.

The officer who appeared on the gangway, doffing his hat to the crew, was not quite what Alan had expected. That he would be younger, in point of fact even younger than himself, didn't come as too much of a surprise. Service aboard a flagship, under the fond care of his doting 'sea-daddy' and commander of the fleet, was an achingly envied shortcut to the usual years of plodding that most captains-to-be suffered; the sinecure of the very well connected-or immensely talented and promising, Lewrie reminded himself- was allowed to barely an hundredth of the Navy's junior officers.

No, the fact that Fillebrowne was so disarmingly not abashed by a career-ender for most others, was in fact all but smirking, was the shocker!

Fillebrowne was about Lewrie's height, though leaner, and a touch more elegant, even as hurried and disheveled as he looked. He sported rich, chestnut hair and dark blue eyes. Hair most unseamanlike, that; he'd lopped off the usual plaited long queue at the nape of his collar to wear it blocked over the gold lace, and had shorn it short enough to brush forward over his ears and temples, to lie upon his brow, like the style featured on the busts of Apollo-like Roman youths. It was a modern affectation of the youngbloods, the bucks-of-the-first-head back home, he'd learned from Charlton. Who'd been just about as leery over this new fad as Lewrie was. Fillebrowne was a damned handsome beast, too!

'Welcome back aboard, sir!' Stroud gushed, interposing between them before Lewrie could even raise a hand. 'Sir, this is Commander Lewrie, HMS Jester. With immediate orders, sir.'

'Commander Lewrie, sir, how do you do? Commander Fillebrowne. But then, you already know that, I must assume. Your servant, sir. Orders, did you say, Mister Stroud? Then I must also assume it means an immediate departure. Pipe 'Stations for Getting Under Way,' Mister Stroud, then report to me aft, once we are ready in all respects.'

Damn' smooth, Lewrie thought; a languid tone, a hint of deviltry behind his smile, with his eyes twinkling like the cat that lapped the cream pot! And that bloody 'Ox-mumble,' like someone'd sewed his bloody jaws shut! Lewrie was more than ready to take a great dislike to this idle fop, who sounded as if his papa owned half a shire, with more titles to choose from than a dog had fleas!

'My abject apologies, Commander Lewrie, for not being aboard to receive you properly,' Fillebrowne smarmed on, 'but I had a pressing engagement ashore. Will you take a quick cup of coffee with me, sir? Tea? Whilst you discover to me the nature of these mystifying orders?'

With a graceful wave of one hand, a faint touch near Lewrie's arm that invaded his personal space without actually touching-which was an absolute taboo for proper English gentlemen, to actually touch each other unless it was a handshake or they'd known each other for years- Fillebrowne tried to propel Lewrie aft, towards the portal to his great-cabins. As it ordering him to join him aft, as if Lewrie were his junior!

'There'll be no time for that, sir,' Lewrie snapped, turning mulish and stubborn, almost ready to plant his feet before allowing himself to be moved. 'Your ship has been detached from the Fleet to a new squadron, under Captain Thomas Charlton. He's on his way here right now, and we're to meet with him off to the west, soon as-'

'Old Thomas?' Fillebrowne smiled. 'How wonderful!'

Damme, I should have known, Lewrie chid himself; junior or no, I'll have to watch this bastard. He's more lines out than a raveled fothering-patch! Wonder who he doesn't know?

'-as soon as you can scrub her rouge off yer ears, Commander Fillebrowne,' Lewrie concluded, putting a telling shot 'twixt his wind and water. 'Costly piece, was she?'

Oh, God, that was a good'un, Lewrie exulted to himself; reproof, and a caution 'bout 'costly.' As in, costly to one's career. His own eyes twinkled, in spite of his best efforts to appear stern.

'Not tuppence, Commander Lewrie,' Fillebrowne confessed, quite proudly. 'I never pay. Not when there's so many obligin' sorts for free. Must confess I'm much obliged to you for arriving with new orders. Now I may escape this witch's cauldron, without a political scalding.'

'Well connected, was she?' Lewrie enquired, thinking that some aristocratic papa would come looking for Fillebrowne with sword in his hand, and family honour and Mediterranean vendetta in his heart.

'God, no, sir, nothing like that.' Fillebrowne chuckled. 'A vintner's 'grass widow.' Quite tasty morsel, with him