Troubled Waters

Lyme, there, is fine for the open sea, too, but a fourty-four-gun frigate can't pursue runners close enough ashore any more than can I. Her captain is already come aboard… solid fellow, is Captain Charlton.'

'Captain Thomas Charlton, sir?' Lewrie gawped in surprise, and further pleasure. 'I served under him in the Adriatic, sir, when he had Lionheart, back in '96! This really is an 'old boys' reunion.'

' 'Deed it is,' Ayscough chearly agreed. 'Recall young Hogue, do you? Made Commander last year, and I made sure to request him when I got sailing orders. He's here into a brig-sloop, the Mischief. And a damned good choice o' name, too, for he's energetic and full of it… mischief, that is, ha ha!'

'I'd be delighted to see him again, too, sir,' Lewrie declared. 'I read of his posting, but haven't seen him since Telesto paid off in '84.'

'See him soon enough,' Ayscough promised, 'soon as I despatch you and your fine frigate closer to the coast. Know how the Royal Navy works, Lewrie,' Commodore Ayscough said with a wry scowl. 'Decades of swallowin' ninny's shite, and only findin' a few truly good'uns here and there, so… when one finally has the seniority, and the active commission, one seeks out as many good'uns as one can get away with. What place and influence is worth, that… employ the best one discovered, and make fond daddies happy, to boot! Ah, here's Captain Charlton. I think you know our third guest, Charlton?'

'Good God above,' Captain Charlton said, almost gasping in surprise as he strode up from aft and below to the gangway. 'The last that I heard, Lewrie weren't you to be hung?'

'Decided t'steal away with a frigate and turn pirate out here, sir,' Lewrie japed as they performed the same ritual; first a doff of their hats in formal salute then a hearty handshake.

'He'd have made a good one, as I recall from the Adriatic, sir,' Charlton told Ayscough. 'You must reveal all to me, to us, Lewrie. As we dine upon Commodore Ayscough's generosity.'

'Speaking of, let us repair below, shall we, gentlemen? I promise you an excellent supper,' Ayscough, as host, bade them.

And a most excellent supper it was, for Commodore Ayscough had always set a fine table, and was partial to his 'tucker'; though how Ayscough could provide crisply fresh leafy greens for the salad course, and crisp-crusted, piping-hot bread-not maggoty and hard biscuit-after so long on-blockade, Lewrie could not fathom. Nothing fresh could survive the long voyage from England, even stowed aboard the swiftest packet.

There was a mincemeat pie, the inevitable 'reconstituted' soup, of course, but the main course, instead of salt beef, salt pork, or a chicken from the forecastle manger, was lobster, served up surrounded by boiled shrimp, and even the clarified butter was fresh, not rancid from the tub on the orlop, and each diner got a small dish of a horseradish sauce vaguely reminiscent of the French-style d la mayonnaise, or a remouladel And the wines…! The bottles set out on the side-board all bore distinguished French vineyards' names and varieties not seen in England since the war had begun in 1793, but for a few cases brought in by Channel coast smugglers every now and then, and priced so dear that even the wealthy might take pause before purchasing some.

'How do you do it, sir?' Lewrie marvelled between bites, and a deep, appreciative sniff of his fresh-poured wine. 'One'd think that, by the time you arrived on-station, such victuals'd have long ago run out.'

'Get the bulk of it from the Frogs, Captain Lewrie,' Ayscough gleefully told him. 'S'truth! God, the look on your face!'

'French fishermen put out every morning to earn their livings,' Capt. Charlton was glad to expound. 'Does one of our cutters or brigs close them, these days, they've learned that their boats are too tiny for us to take as prize, so they no longer run in fear of us. British silver… a little British silver… goes a long way.'

'For wine, fresh food, some of their catch, or… information,' Commodore Ayscough cryptically said. 'Give the Frogs this much… They still manage to mint solid coin after seven years of war, whilst we've had to resort to paper bank notes. Not great value to their coinage by this time, of course, what with all the… what do they call it, Captain Charlton?'

'Inflation, sir,' Charlton supplied with a grin.

'And what a pot-mess their coinage is,' Ayscough derisively grumbled.

'God knows what a denier is made of. Soft iron? But, three of them make a Hard, or twelve deniers make one sol, but you're still in the range o' ha'pence. Four Hards make one sou, twenty sous make one livre, six livres make one ecu, and you begin to talk of something in silver… four ecus makes what once was called a louis d'or, before they chopped poor King Louis's head off, that is, and you finally get to gold… 'bout the same as our guinea. All a jumble left over from the royal days, along with local-minted tripe, and how the Devil even the French keep track of values is a mystery to me! More bread, sirs?'

Ayscough's cabin servant made a quick tour round the table with the bread barge, and Lewrie took another thick slab. Now that he knew what he was dealing with, he could put a name to it; a boule loaf.

'Would the French fishermen run from a frigate, sir?' he asked.

'Not any longer,' Charlton informed him. 'No dread of us taking them for spare hands, nor of seizing their boats. Fetch-to within two miles of the shore, and they will most-like swarm you like bumboats in a British harbour. Mind the spirit smuggling, though. Our sailors are not that fond of wine, when they can get rum for free, and most French beers are simply ghastly, but the fishermen will have small flasks of brandy or arrack aboard. Not good brandy, mind,' Capt. Charlton said with a wry expression.

'Pearls before swine,' Ayscough snickered.

'Though the arrack, a rather fiery equivalent to rum, is desirable,' Charlton continued. 'Probably stolen from French naval stores.'

'No American whisky, I s'pose,' Lewrie said with a downcast expression of his own. 'Grew rather fond of it in the West Indies, the Kentucky sort, which is aged several years in oak barrels. Bourbon, I think they're beginning t'call it.'

'Dear Lord!' Charlton softly exclaimed, rather in awe of anyone who would prefer such a strong drink.

'I do have two five-gallon barricoes aboard, but God only knows how long we'll be on-station here,' Lewrie said. 'You've never tried it, sirs? Might I decant a gallon each for you to sample?' he teased.

'A quart, perhaps, for me, Lewrie,' Ayscough replied, grinning impishly. 'For I doubt a Yankee Doodle bourbon can measure up to my Highland Scottish whisky. Usquebaugh, by God…, the 'water of life'!'

'I am set down amid fur-coated barbarians.' Charlton pretended to shiver. 'Vikings with the palates of Philistines!'

Oh, it was grand to be in company with such fine men, officers he had long before learned to trust and rely upon, Lewrie deemed during their supper. Ayscough, that burly fellow with salt-and-pepper hair, clubbed back into an old-fashioned sailor's long queue, his cheerful weathered face, and piercing grey eyes! Charlton, still the tall, lean, and wiry epitome of the genial and articulate, soft-spoken English gentleman-off his quarterdeck, of course- and possessed of a droll and dry wit. Charlton's mild brown eyes and regular, unremarkable features had many times crinkled in amusement in their private moments. And both of them were sailors' sailors, as experienced and canny as any rough 'tarpaulin' man, right down to their toenails.

Away went the last plates and the white wine, and out came their dessert and its accompanying drink; ripe Anjou pears amid crumbled sweet biscuit, drenched in a sweetened brandy, with large blobs of stiffened and whipped cream atop! And with it, a rich, dark Madeira port. 'Magnificent!' Lewrie pronounced it.

'Rather succulent, aye' was Capt. Charlton's restrained praise. 'Bit off,' Ayscough commented, though he was spooning it up like a starved hound. 'Haven't laid hands on any, as of yet, but I've heard there is an orange- flavoured brandy of French distillery, and I cannot help but think that the rob of oranges, combined with a fine and