King, Ship, and Sword

sideboard in the dining-coach, cup and sauncer in one hand, and the other out for a cheerful shake. 'Heard of you, sir. Good things, all! Welcome aboard my wee barge. Mister Westcott, is it? Welcome aboard to you, as well!'

Blanding was a stocky fellow, no doubt strong as an ox, but giving a roly-poly, aged cherub impression, with his belly girth and his very curly long blond hair, which he still wore clubbed back into a long sailor's queue, bound with black riband. 'The others say they know you well, Captain Lewrie,' Blanding said, waving his tea cup and saucer hand at the other officers seated in the day-cabin. 'Captain Stroud of the Cockerel frigate, and Captain Parham of Pylades?'

'Good God above, it is a family reunion!' Lewrie blurted out at the sight of them. William Parham had long ago been one of his Mids aboard the Alacrity gun ketch, a converted bomb, 'tween the wars in the Bahamas. Stroud…?

'We were together in the Adriatic in Ninety-Six, sir,' Captain Stroud more sobrely told him. 'I was First Officer in Myrmidon, a-'

'Commander Fillebrowne's Sloop of War, aye!' Lewrie said, going to shake hands with him warmly, even though he barely recalled him. 'I do recall,' he lied. 'Congratulations on your command, Captain Stroud. And Cockerel! My first ship in Ninety-Three, as her First Officer. A fine vessel.'

Even if her old captain and all his kin aboard drove us nigh to mutiny and madness! Lewrie recalled to himself.

'And Parham! Look at how you've risen since!' Lewrie went on, greeting yet another old shipmate. 'And Pylades… I'm sure you know that she was with us in the Adriatic, too, with Captain Stroud. Captain Benjamin Rodgers's old ship, and you surely recall him from the Bahamas, ha ha!'

'Indeed I do, sir!' Parham enthusiastically replied. 'Happy to serve with you again, happy indeed. And pray do express my greetings to your good lady when next you write her, and say that I recall her kindnesses to callow young Mids in those days quite fondly.'

'Ah,' Lewrie said, 'I… ' He stumbled as a chill came over the cabins, with Blanding coughing into his fist and 'ahemming.'

'Mistress Lewrie was most foully murdered by the French last year, sir,' Blanding told Parham. 'By that tyrannical despot Napoleon Bonaparte's orders to murder Captain Lewrie, here, as well.'

'God, I am so sorry, sir, I didn't… The news of it did not reach me 'til this very instant!' Parham stammered, blushing deeply.

'The bastard,' Parham's First Officer spoke up.

'Condolences, sir,' Stroud's First Lieutenant said, and Lewrie gawped to see that that worthy was Martin Hyde, yet another of his Midshipmen from HMS Jester.

'Hyde, by God! I've an old friend of yours as my Second Lieutenant… Clarence Spendlove,' Lewrie informed him as they greeted each other.

'Spendlove, sir? Aye, I'd admire a chance to come aboard and renew his acquaintance before we sail,' Lt. Hyde said, glowing with delight.

'Well, now I've drug you all from your breakfasts, pray allow me to provide one whilst we get further acquainted and I discover to you what this is all about,' Capt. Blanding chearly offered. He introduced Parham's First Lieutenant, Bilbrey, and his own, Lt. Gilbraith, all round as they took their seats.

There were hot slices of ham-slabs, rather!-there were crisp rashers of bacon, sizzling spiced sausages, even smoked kippers. With all that came fresh eggs, scrambled or fried to individual order, shredded potato hash, and fresh loaves of bread from a shore bakery, cut two fingers thick, offered with a hunk of butter as big as a man's fist, and four different pots of jam! All sluiced down with coffee or tea, to each officer's preference!

They reminisced for a time, and it was all quite jolly, sharing memories and hi-jinks of younger days. Modestes First Lieutenant, Mr. Gilbraith, mostly followed his captain's example as a trencherman par excellence, chuckling over others' 'war stories' now and then whilst piling it down as heartily as Captain Blanding did. Stroud, well… as Lewrie remembered him, he'd been a drab, much-put-upon figure who made very little impression; a grey sort of fellow of unremarkable expression and wit, or looks.

Two of 'em with but the one epaulet on their right shoulders, Lewrie took note as he ate; less than Three Years' Seniority, and both Parham and Stroud commandin' Fifth Rate 32-gunners? Anyone to join us later, I wonder? Or am I t'be second in seniority, in whatever this turns out t'be?

'All stuffed?' Captain Blanding asked at last. 'Won't eat this well where we're going. Belcher, clear away, then take everyone out on deck for a spell. I'll call should I have need of you.'

A bit more conversation of the idle sort, as the tablecloth and plates were cleared, and fresh pots of coffee or tea set on the sideboard for their convenience, and the steward and cabin-servants left.

'Now then!' Blanding said by way of beginning, rubbing his hands together with as much eagerness as he'd greeted his first helping of breakfast. In point of fact, Capt. Blanding put Lewrie in mind of Commodore Ayscough, with all his boisterous bonhomie and energetic way. Minus the haggises, boiled mutton, and bag-pipers, of course!

'The Crown's decided there's no living with the French, so we're going back to war. No secret, there. What we're to do is to seek out, intercept if possible in European waters, but if they slip past us, go in chase of and bring to action a French squadron preparing to sail to the Americas… specifically, from Bonaparte's little puppet Batavian Republic-Holland to good Christians-for New Orleans. Any of us familiar with New Orleans and Spanish Louisiana?'

'I am, sir,' Lewrie piped up, wishing he could let out the buttons of his breeches after such a feast. 'I was there once.'

'Excellent!' Captain Blanding barked with delight. 'I trust your experience in those waters will prove of eminent use in our endeavour, sir.'

'Why Spanish Louisiana, sir?' Captain Parham asked, raising one hand like a dutiful student. 'I'd think the French would wish to establish a stronger naval presence at Martinique, or Guadeloupe, after we handed those colonies back to them last year, before we place all their coast under blockade once more.'

'Or a new squadron at Cape Franзois, on Saint Domingue. We'd not winkle them out of there without an army,' Lt. Martin Hyde added.

'Sensible conjectures, all,' Captain Blanding congratulated as he stirred sugar into his fresh cup of coffee. 'But the fact of the matter is, about two years ago, Napoleon made a secret treaty with the King of Spain to exchange Tuscany, or Etruria, or whichever piss-pot conquest of his in Italy, for the return of Louisiana and New Orleans. Seems the King of Spain has a new brother-in-law with nowhere to hang his crown… or needs a crown and a place to hang it suitably grand-sounding to suit his dignity. Bonaparte would get the incredibly rich trade entrepфt of New Orleans, and territory to the west of the United States so vast that no one knows how far it goes.

'Well!' Blanding hooted. 'Neither Great Britain nor our republican American cousins would ever stand for that! And even the Corsican half-breed ogre could realise the fact. Yet for a time he did consider building an American empire, and gathered an army in Holland to go take formal possession. This whole past winter, there's been a General Victor in Holland, with an army of three or four demi-brigades, whatever the Pluperfect Hell those are… anyone?'

'My brother-in-law tells me a demi-brigade is about two thousand men, sir,' Lewrie contributed. 'With engineers, artificers, and a large artillery contingent to fortify New Orleans and the forts strung down the Mississippi at the major bends. That might be an army as big as ten thousand men. Can't cram much more than five hundred of them aboard each transport, so that'd be… twenty ships, plus escort?'

'Damme, that would mean at least six or eight line-of-battle ships and frigates,' Capt. Parham spoke up. 'Mean to say, sir… are we all that's meant to oppose them?'

'Thank the Good Lord, this Victor chap was iced in all Winter and has had foul winds all Spring, during which time the situation has changed,' Captain Blanding was quick to assure them, laughing the thought away. 'Even before Easter, anyone could see the war's renewal, if they paid the slightest bit of attention or read but one newspaper a month! We will not face such a large force. You