King`s Captain

Lewrie felt like stopping dead in his tracks, or going back into Nepean 's office, concerned about the sheaf of penny tracts which had been hidden in his borrowed newspaper the previous evening. All sorts of rabble-rousing Republican cant: no more King, annually elected Parliaments, votes for the Common Man. What rot! But given his unfortunate penchant for shooting off his mouth, as he just had, of indulging his smarmy wit… he didn't think he'd get another welcome. Or a bit more of Nepean 's time of day.

He dug into his purse and paid on the nail, then waited for his slowly penned receipt for the sum owing. The clerk then opened a tin cash-box, and proceeded to begin counting out a stack of ornately made papers, muttering to himself and referring to a thick ledger.

'Damme, what are those, then?' Lewrie was forced to ask.

'This is the balance of your pay owing you, sir,' the prim old fellow intoned most officiously. 'Less advances previously paid out…'

'Looks like bum-fodder,' Lewrie carped.

'Bank notes, sir'-the clerk tensed-'issued by the Bank of England are hardly, uhm… that which you just described, sir! They are perfectly good, legal tender throughout the realm, sir. There is the shortage of specie to consider, after all! They come in various denominations, you should note, sir… differing colours and such for a one- or two-pound note, the five, ten, and twenty. You will come across the odd fraud, issued by forgers or private or provincial banks… those which have not gone under the past two years, sir. Only these notes are legitimate, so you should give any received in exchange the closest inspection. And, of course, there are none smaller than a one pound.'

'And I'm to be paid in these, am I? My crew, too, when it comes their due? 'Twill be a wonder do they not riot over 'em!'

'I fear so, Commander. But times are so terribly hard.'

'Christ, what's the country comin' to?' he griped, stuffing the neat pile of bills into his coat pockets-they surely wouldn't go in a proper coin-purse!-and wondering how he'd get to Coutts's Bank to deposit them without losing half to a brisk breeze.

'One may only wonder, Commander… wonder, indeed!' that clerk lowed, like a mournful bovine.

CHAPTER FOUR

What a reassuring sameness and familiarity, Lewrie thought, all but squirming with anticipation as his hired coach swept past the stone ruins of the Norman or Saxon castle at the edge of Sir Romney Embleton's lands, mossy old St. George's Church hard by the eastern bridge, then Anglesgreen itself. 'Damme, more change!' he grumbled to himself, as he beheld a whole new row of houses on the south side of the stream, the clutch of new buildings 'round the Red Swan Inn, how the ancient Old Ploughman tavern had taken down a row-house to make a side garden for casual drinkers or bowlers. There was a third bridge…! He clattered past quickly, 'round the curve of the Red Swan, onto the newly graveled road which forked off north, alongside Chiswick lands-taking the turning, he shouted to the coachman-onto a primeval, rutted goat track.

Trust Uncle Phineas Chiswick not to waste a single farthing for pea gravel on his private lane; just like the miserly old fart!

Lewrie sat up straighter, shifting from the larboard window to the starboard, for a first, tantalizing glimpse of his own home! 'God!' he breathed in expectation.

There was a last turning between two (new) grey-brick pillars, onto his own lane, which was proper-gravelled and drained, wide enough for two coaches to pass, and lined with far set back sapling oaks. In twenty-five years, he'd have the makings of a drive found only on regal estates, he marvelled, beaming at Caroline's handiwork and forethought.

There was the house…!

The lane became a circular drive about an immense informal garden, tall and lush with flowers… what sort Lewrie wasn't quite sure, but they were blue, pink, white, pale yellow, rather pretty, uhm… somethings, he thought, a real English country garden that would bloom colourful from March 'til November. Caroline's work, that, and her green thumb.

There had been time for ivy (he was fairly sure he knew ivy when he saw it) to lay tentative creepers on the house front, about the imitation Palladian stucco central portal, and the homey grey brick. New white urns sat on either side of the portal as.. .jardinieres, he puzzled? Big as wash-tubs! Some yews and hollies to frame them between the windows-aye, definitely recognisable yews and hollies.

His hollies, his house, his house… his door! It was a glossy dark-blue, with his silvery Venetian-brass lion door-knocker prominent at its centre… and that door was opening…

He was out of the coach before the postillion could get down to lower the metal step for him, knocking his hat off in the process, and galloping to enfold the brood which erupted from the house.

'Good God, Hugh!' he cried. 'My, boy, my boy!' he whooped, as he lifted him off his feet. 'I'm home! Gad, yer gettin' heavy as any man. Sewallis!' he said, lowering the wildly exuberant and squirming Hugh, to fling his arms about his eldest, who, for once, came into his arms with something akin to enthusiasm to embrace him. Ten, he was by then, and sprouted like a weed, already as tall as Lewrie's chin!

'God, you're a sight for sore eyes, Sewallis. Grown so…!'

'Welcome home, Father,' Sewallis said, teared up and with his lower lip trembling, but clinging to some shred of his sober stoicism. 'We've missed you so.'

'Yay, you're back, you're back!' Hugh crowed, so excited that he was capering sidewise like a cross-gaited pony. 'Did you kill lots of Frenchmen? Did you sink a lot of ships? What'd you bring us? Ooh, what's this… a medal! Hurrah, did you get it from the King?'

'Boys… my God!' He shuddered, hugging them close to either side of him. 'And little Charlotte?' He knelt down, tears in his eyes, as he beheld a perfectly adorable wee girl-child, no longer a squawling chub, but a miniature young lady so like her mother, with her mother's radiant amber-hazel eyes and spider-web fine, light- brown hair, long and bound into a loose tail beneath a missish little mob-cap. 'When I left, you were still in swaddles. Lord, is it you, Charlotte?'

She hung back, a tad leery of him, a coy finger tugging at one corner of her pert little mouth… staring at him wide-eyed, like at a bad bargain. She came within grasping range only at his coaxing.

'Are you really my daddy?' she asked of a sudden, sounding just a bit cross and hiding her pudgy little hands in the folds of her fully flounced little sack gown.

'Well, o' course I am, Charlotte,' he assured her, a tad put off. 'Just been away too long, that's all. Of course I am.'

As if to say, 'Well, that's alright then,' she relented, rushed to reward him with such a radiant and flirtatious smile, and flung her arms 'round his neck. He picked her up and stood, not knowing quite what to do with such a delicate packet, as she at last giggled aloud and gave him a peck on the cheek. Daughters, he thought ruefully, as he returned the favour upon both her cheeks; boys, now… them I can understand! Hell, I was one!

'Did you like the doll I sent you from Venice?' he asked her, as he paced about in a circle to admire her-now that she was satisfied that they were kin, 'Did you get it… all safe and sound?'

'Ooh, Daddy, yessf she squealed with delight. 'Did you bring me another?'

'Alan!' From the doorway.

He spun about to face her. Caroline! He roared her name in joy. It had been three long years; so long he'd almost forgotten what she looked like, even with a miniature portrait hanging in his cabins, almost forgotten what she sounded like.

Hugh was prancing about, wearing his gold-laced hat. Sewallis was being his ever-helpful self, dragging a heavy valise towards the entry. Yet there was his wife, and he could have trampled them all in the dust in his haste to