'Well, there's Nova Scotia and the Maritime provinces, there's Wilmington, North Carolina,' Lewrie suggested. 'Much the same available in New England… Vermont, New Hampshire, and such?'
'Longer voyages, higher prices,' the sad investor grumbled.
'Aye, trust the Yankee skin-flints to take quick advantage of us, and wring every penny they can from our lacks,' another said.
'Do they not embargo us, as well,' a very gloomy cynic down the table posed. 'There's no love lost, 'twixt them and England since the Revolution ended, and despite that little 'not-quite-war' they had in '98, the United States still thinks the French hung the very moon!'
'Demned war's gone on long enough,' someone said.
'Oh I say now!' several cried.
'We've not a single ally left, Bonaparte's driven Naples out of the war and beaten the Austrians so badly at Marengo and just last month at Hohenlinden, they've sued for peace, too,' the doubter retorted. 'Seven years of war worldwide, millions of pounds spent to prop up so-called allies… none of them faithful… the Treasury reduced to issuing paper fiat money, prices five times what they were in '93, and all these horrendous, crushing taxes. And what have we to show for it, I ask you, gentlemen? A few conquests in the West Indies, more lands for rich sugar planters, and nigh fifty thousand of our lads dead, mostly of tropical fevers. Consider the very bread we eat today, sirs… rye, or barley, not wheat, and-'
'Oh dear, there goes the price o' beer and ale!' a younger wag said, sniggering, which at least gave most of them a relieving laugh.
'Staple of your common Englishman, indeed, young sir,' Doubting Thomas quickly said, 'and, as you say, becoming dearer by the minute, as are all foodstuffs and goods. Yet, do our common Englishman's wages increase in like measure? They do not, and this war is pinching the very souls of the people.'
'He's to stand for a seat in Commons, next by-election, or so I heard,' the Army officer in civilian suitings whispered to Lewrie.
'God help us, then,' Lewrie muttered back. 'Ye'd think he was one of those who cheered the French revolution.'
'I'm sure 'twill be a pretty speech, on the hustings,' the Army man hissed behind his hand. 'Bloody Liberals.'
After dinner was done, Lewrie took himself upstairs to his rooms for a lie-down. He removed his coat, undid the buttons of his vest, and tugged off his boots. He plumped up the pillows and stretched out on the new-made bed, welcoming his cats, Toulon and Chalky, who awoke from a snooze on the bench before the fireplace and pounced up to join him with glad cries, arch-backed stretches, and playful expressions.
There was nothing for it but to indulge them, fetch some of their toys from the night-stand, and dangle them by their strings, letting the cats dash and pounce, capture and leap, 'til they were worn out and ready for naps of their own, with Toulon slung against the side of his leg, and Chalky softly purring on a pillow by his head.
Not in the Baltic, mine arse, Lewrie thought as he tried to go to sleep, yet mulling over all he had heard that morning. Nelson was the very fellow to daunt the Danes, Swedes, and Russians. Did he get a fleet into the Baltic before the ice melted at Copenhagen, Karlskrona, or Reval and Kronstadt-before this new Armed Neutrality could get their fleets to sea and combined-he could crush them as completely as he had the French in Aboukir Bay.
As odd a bird as Lewrie considered Horatio Nelson to be, he was a man who did nothing by halves. At the Battle of the Saintes in the West Indies in 1782, Admiral Rodney had been satisfied to capture only five French ships of the line, and let the rest slink off. Lewrie had been at the Battle of St. Kitts, and had watched the famous Adm. Hood repulse the French fleet, yet not go after them after they were cut up and damaged. Adm. Hotham in the Mediterranean in '95, whose laziness and caution had nigh-driven Lewrie berserk, thought he'd done very well to capture a mere two! Well, the wind had been scant, yet…
Cape St. Vincent and Camperdown; Lewrie wore the medals for both great battles, and had seen Adm. Sir John Jervis, 'Old Jarvy,' and Adm. Duncan in action. Despite their estimable repute as scrappers, Jervis had let the Spanish fleet return to port after taking only a few ships as prize (two of them Nelson's doing, that day) whilst at Camperdown, at least, Duncan had managed to overawe the Dutch and force them to go about and head for port, scotching their hope to link up with a French fleet in the Channel and invade England, firstly; then, herded the foe into the shoal waters of their own coast, strung out in a long line of battle, before driving right into them in several columns at right angles, and shattering them thoroughly, taking most of them as prizes in Nelson-fashion.
Or, Duncan-fashion, Lewrie thought with a snigger, recalling the wild-haired, towering Duncan, who'd take you on with his fists for the possession of a wheel-barrow, if his blood was up. And, when does the bloody ice melt in the Baltic anyway? he asked himself, wishing he had asked one of the 'trading gentlemen' at-table an hour before. Truth to tell, Lewrie had never served in the Baltic, and, in point of fact, had only the foggiest notion where Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia were, much less the location of their naval bases. They all lay to the east, he was pretty sure, t'other side of the North Sea, with Russia the furthest east of them all, where one ran out of sea water.
Supper, then up early tomorrow, Lewrie ordered himself; Drop by Admiralty… see in what odour I'm held. Then a bookstore or a map maker's. Another good nap after that, then… the theatre, again, or Ranelagh Gardens?
There would be a grand expositon of new nautical art held there through the Spring, along with a magic lantern slide depiction of the Battle of the Nile, replete with stirring musical accompaniment and a narrator hidden behind a curtain. Lewrie had bought his children one of the smaller magic lanterns at Scott's Shop in the Strand for Christmas, along with Bissinger's chocolates and a new doll for his wee daughter Charlotte; one of the better ones that went for ten guineas. Hopefully, the boys hadn't burned down the house with the oil lamp yet, or broken all the glass slides.
'Supper scraps suit ye, lads?' Lewrie asked his cats.
Toulon cocked his rather large head up over his thigh for a second or two, gave out a guttural, close-mouthed Mrr, then lay back down. Chalky stretched out his forepaws to touch Lewrie's head and yawn, all white teeth and pink mouth, before dozing off again, too.
'That's what I thought,' Lewrie muttered, closing his eyes once more.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lewrie had found himself an atlas, so at least he knew where the possible enemies were; Sayer's amp; Bennett's had Baltic charts and larger-scale charts of their principal naval harbours, so he had a rough idea of how things lay. As for when the ice melted, though, all he'd gotten was a day-long series of shrugs.
Admiralty had been no better. The infamous Waiting Room was an arseholes-to-elbows chamber of hopefuls, so many of them that the fireplace was almost redundant when it came to heating that large room, as the lucky ones holding active commissions or warrants crowded in for a bit, were ushered abovestairs, then came clattering quickly down with a fresh set of instructions and making hasty departures… not without a smirk or two from some of the cockiest of the lucky at those cooling their heels in hopes of employment.
A hint of action, the chance of more older warships being fitted out and manned, brought out even the nigh- dead; oh, it was a grim mob that Lewrie beheld. There were grizzled Lieutenants in their fourties, Captains in need of crutches in their sixties, all of whom had been on half-pay since the end of the American Revolution, whose uniforms were ready for museum pieces, all sniffing the air like white-muzzled foxhounds who could barely walk anymore… bleating like ancient sheep, all rheumy-eyed, for just one more shot at sea.
Christ, is that what I have t'look forward to? Lewrie wondered to himself, appalled. He had sent his name up to the First Secretary, Evan Nepean, 'round ten of the morning. Rather too quickly for belief a silky-smooth young snotty had called out his name and sought him out with a note of reply in hand. For one brief moment, Lewrie had felt a surge of hope. Even through the flunky's smug smirk.
The First Secretary regrets that pressing matters preclude an interview with you today, Cpt. Lewrie; or in the near future. At any rate, there are no openings in the Fleet at present for a Cpt. of your qualities. Given your single year on the senior Cpt's List and lack of seniority, it may be some time before we may contemplate your active employment.
Polite way o' sayin' it'll be a cold day in Hell, Lewrie thought as he quickly wadded up the note and jammed it into a side pocket of his uniform coat, his face reddening in embarrassment and anger. And that smooth young
