'dragooning thousands into the mines and mills, sir. High wages, aye, but high taxes too, so that no one may make the living one made three years past. Price of grains gone through the roof, yet farmers such as myself barely breaking even e'en in a bumper year! Taxed to death, we are…'
'Hear, hear!' several other gentlemen growled in agreement. 'You'd trust to a French occupation… to lower your taxes!' Lewrie sneered aloud and was gratified to hear an even larger, more vociferous chorus of 'Hear! Hears!' from those of the opposing camp.
'You malign me, sir!' the angelically white-maned Douglas said, rearing back and suddenly looking as fierce as an old but game Viking Berserker. 'Never the French! Rather, a reforming of our…'
The first older gentleman laid a restraining, cautioning hand on his friend's coat sleeve. 'You mistake our motive, sir.'
'Nay, sir,' Lewrie snickered. 'I meant to malign you actually.' Which won him a rowdy round of cheers, the thumping of tankards or fists on the tables from the more patriotic topers. Lewrie had himself a deep draught from his fresh brandy in celebration, knowing that the old fellow could glare fierce but would never press to cross steel with him or 'blaze' with pistols. He could be as nasty as he wished to be! It looked to be hellish-good sport to berate the pair of them as un-patriotic.
I'm off duty-an half-pay 'civilian, 'for the nonce, he reminded himself; no more 'firm but fair'! Damme, I ain't been free to be me malicious old self in a month of Sundays!
'You have your opinion, sir,' the first man said, much subdued. 'We have ours. Do you spend time ashore, you may change yours.'
'I very much doubt it,' Lewrie began. But they were leaving, the first gentleman almost shaking ' Douglas ' to force him to keep mum. They gathered their capes and hats from the 'Abigail' by the door and departed for cheerier taverns.
His shot at amusement over, Lewrie took another sip, heaved up a shrug, and reached over to their table to snag the newspaper they'd abandoned in their haste to depart.
Now this'll be a rare treat, he thought; reading a newspaper which hadn'tbeen smudged nigh-illegible by an hundred previous hands, one which wasn't water-stained, rat-gnawed, folded and crinkled to the fragility of a yellow onion peel. And containing information newer than a month past!
'Ahem, gentlemen,' one of the inn-keeper's assistants announced from the double-doors to the dining room. 'We are now serving.' Those doors were thrown open, and a heady steam wafted out, so tempting that Lewrie's mouth began to water. A first shot at home-cooking, a proper English meal-course after course of his old favourites, he hoped as he rose quickly. A glutton's delight to welcome him back to all which he'd fought for-a glad repast worthy of the Prodigal Son's return!
He crammed the newspaper into a side pocket of his coat, sprang into action, and beat several slower feeders into the dining room! At the first sight of that groaning sideboard, laden with roasts, steaks, chops, savoury fowl- and a pudding the size of a capstan head-Alan consigned the pleasures of political nattering quite out of his mind!
Wartime hadn't thinned the Waiting Room, Lewrie noticed, once he had left his cloak with an attendant. No matter those hundred ships of the line, those hundred frigates, sloops, brigs, and such which required every officer still sound in wind and limb… there were indeed a horde of others waiting. Rear-Admirals and Commodores… rather old fellows no higher in seniority than the Blue Squadron, he imagined, though some might have slowly clambered up the seniority list to the Red… because they'd outlived their contemporaries. Some positively doddered! There were Post-Captains blessed with both epaulets, denoting more than three years had passed since their promotion and at least one active commission at sea. They… the most of 'em… looked healthy enough to sail on the King's business, including junior captains with only one epaulet worn on the right shoulder. A mixed bag, that lot; some spry, healthy, and young, pacing impatiently. Others who looked old enough to be their fathers, plucked by dire need from a sea of lieutenants at long last, those men who'd had no hope of command, of promotion, for they were the unfortunates who were ever at the wrong place at the wrong time, had no patronage or 'interest,' and had never been chosen to serve aboard ships where they could shine in the eyes of an influential man of flag rank.
The same could pretty much be said for men of his own grade, with the epaulet on the left shoulder-the Commanders in the room. They either were too young to be so fortunate or looked too old and worn-out for the rank, the ones who'd go down on their knees and thank God for a 'bloody war or a sickly season,' as the old mess- toast went.
He had no eye for the many hopeful lieutenants and midshipmen in the Waiting Room. The Devil with 'em, he thought, competition! A lap or two about the room, looking for a seat, revealed no officer of his personal acquaintance.
Either the good, he thought sourly, or the twit-like!
The twits he'd served, or served with, he suspected, were well-connected twits and would be at sea that instant. The good men he'd known should be. He took that as a hopeful omen; that either way he was regarded by Admiralty-twit or good'un-he'd soon receive one more active- duty commission and not end up cooling his heels in here with the hopeless!
'Ah, Commander Lewrie, do come in, sir,' the strange new secretary offered. Not too cheerful, considering, Lewrie thought; but he'd not sounded threatening either. 'Evan Nepean, sir, First Secretary.'
'Your servant, Mister Nepean,' Lewrie cooed, as the door was shut behind him. Nepean waved him to a wing- back chair before a desk, then took a seat behind it, spreading his coat-tails carefully before he sat down. He was a much younger man than either old Phillip Stephens, or his deputy, Jackson, had been. Cultured, slim, and rapier-like, and togged out most nattily in the latest civilian style. Something about him, though, that arch look perhaps, that wryly observant glare, made Lewrie think he wasn't a man he'd exactly put his trust in.
'Well, well, sir,' Nepean drawled, in a lofty, nasal accent of the titled and powerful. 'So you are the infamous Lewrie.' He smiled, looking at Lewrie intently over steepled fingers.
'Depending on which 'infamous' you had in mind, Mister Nepean,' Lewrie most carefully replied, shifting from one buttock to the other, crossing his legs to guard his 'nutmegs.' Damme, what'd he heard?
'Why, 'the Ram-Cat,' sir,' Nepean simpered, 'the successful and 'lucky' Lewrie. Toulon, Genoa… of the recently promoted Rear-Admiral Nelson's squadron. The one well-known of-and dare I say it, sir, as highly commended by-a certain ah… audacious and unconventional gentleman from the Foreign Office? The Far East 'tween the wars. A certain Frenchman by name of Choundas? There and, of late, ashore near Genoa? I speak of that Commander Lewrie, sir.'
'Ah!' Lewrie gawped. 'Well, that!' He pretended to preen with at least a shred of becoming modesty. Thankful they didn't keep files on the other part of 'infamous.' 'Nothing, really… just…'
'Some rather, uhm… sub rosa activities this past year in the Adriatic?' Nepean interrupted. 'I've letters on file, hmmrn…' Nepean thumbed through a short stack of correspondence. 'Sir Malcom Shockley the M.P… the millionaire. Lord, what a horrid word, do you not believe? Thankfully, a firm supporter of our faction and of the Prime Minister. One from Lord Peter Rushton in Lords. Though not known for anything much… still, full of praise for your nautical quality. At least his first address to the House of Lords could be construed as actually making sense-which is more than one may expect from one of that august body, so…'
Politics, again/ Lewrie groaned to himself; damme. It had even crept into Admiralty, with this new man Evan Nepean thinking him brave because he was Tory and was spoken for by ones who were Tory! Allied with William Pitt the Younger, am IF IVouldn 't know him from Adam if he crawled up and bit me on the ankle! Nor the old Whig, Fox, either!
