The Invasion Year

Yeovill bustled in with a large, shallow wooden box-like tray, covered with a cloth. “Good mornin’ to you, Sir Alan! We’ve somethin’ special, to celebrate. And, somethin’ special for the cats, to boot!”

Dammit! Lewrie groused; This could get irksome, all this “Sir” shit… it’ll be bowin’ an’ scrapin’, next!

He would have fired off a bit of temper, a swivel-gun’s worth, perhaps, not an 18-pounder of “damn yer eyes!” but, when he beheld his dinner, he let it slide.

“All fresh from shore this mornin’, sir,” Yeovill boasted. “A parcel of shrimp, grilled in lemon and butter… drippy bacon salad, boiled field peas, and”-Yeovill pointed to each as he named them, revealing the best for last-“spicy jerked guinea fowl, sir! Oh, I’ve a mango custard for a sweet, too, sir… with vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cream.”

“Well now, this is a grand treat, Yeovill,” Lewrie agreed as he sat down. “Jerked, ye say? That’s…?”

“An island style of seasonin’, Sir Alan, sir!” Yeovill beamed. “Peppers and chilies, sweet spices, all together. Zestiest, tangiest saucin’ ever I put in my own mouth.”

“A white wine, sir?” Pettus suggested. “You’ve still most of a crate of sauvignon blanc.”

“Cool tea,” Lewrie reiterated. Long before in the West Indies, a neglected pot of tea, an unlit warming candle, had forced him to sip the rest; that, or toss it out the transom sash-windows and have his old cabin servant, Aspinall, brew up another. With lemon and sugar, it had proved refreshing, and Lewrie had had Aspinall make up half a gallon each morning, ’til the tropic sun was “below the yardarms” and he could switch to wine before his supper.

Yeovill had even laid aside some un-seasoned shrimp, de-tailed and peeled for the cats, along with strips of guinea fowl. Toulon and Chalky did not stand on seniority, naval or social, and dug into their bowls with gusto; Chalky had the odd tendency to purr while he ate!

And, after a few sampled bites from each dish, so did Lewrie!

* * *

After such a fine repast, it was even harder for Lewrie to keep his eyes open, but… there was personal mail to be read. He sorted it out into the most-likely agreeable, first, saving those from tradesmen and his least favourite kin for last.

His solicitor, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy, assured him that he owed no debts, with a long column of double-entry incomes and out-goes to tailors, chandlers, cobblers, hatters, and grocers showing that all his notes-of-hand turned in by them to Mountjoy had been redeemed to the ha’pence.

There was profit, too, now deposited to his account at Coutts’ Bank. Admiralty Prize-Court had finally awarded him his two-eighths for the L’Uranie frigate that he’d taken in the South Atlantic… in 1798! She had not been “bought in” by the Navy right away, but laid up in- ordinary for survey and inspection, for years, before going into the graving docks, and the idle time had not been kind to her material condition. There had been another British two-decker “in sight” when she’d struck, so he only got ?1,250 for her, but still…

But, there was Captain Speaks, and his furious demands for his bloody Franklin-pattern coal stoves that he’d purchased with his own funds for HMS Thermopylae before he’d come down with pneumonia in the Baltic and North Sea Winter, and Lewrie had relieved him of command.

Thermopylae was now in the Bay of Bengal, and might be for the next five years; her Purser, who had offered to ship them off to good Captain Speaks, had not, and was still aboard her. Any letter Speaks sent in search of his ironmongery took six months to reach her, with no guarantee that the letter might not be eaten by termites or Indian ants at Calcutta or Bombay before Thermopylae returned to port after a four-month cruise-longer if she could re-victual in a foreign port-and even a prompt reply would take six more months to make its way back to England. Since Captain Speaks very much doubted if the frigate needed heating stoves in the East Indies, he was raving to discover where they might have been off-loaded! Did he not get satisfaction, he threatened legal action, had retained a serjeant to press his case in Common Pleas, and etc. amp; etc., liberally sprinkled with dire suspicions that Lewrie was up to his eyebrows in collusion with a crooked purser! He would not be brushed aside in such a brusque manner!

… the Value of the Stoves Captain Speaks estimates at ?35 each, and intends to seek a sum of ? 140, plus his legal Expenses. Do please write me on this head, sir, at your earliest Convenience…

“Aw, shit!” Lewrie muttered, strongly considering his crock of aged American corn whisky for a moment. He didn’t know what Herbert Pridemore had done with the bloody stoves, but, Thermopylae had paid off in December of 1801, and they’d have been damned welcome for the Standing Officers, kiddies, and wives who would live aboard her whilst she was laid up in the Sheerness ordinary in Winter… of which the Purser, Mr. Pridemore, was a part! Perhaps he’d meant to ship them to the north of England, but had put it off ’til the Summer, and…

“Bugger ’em,” Lewrie growled. The cats woke from their naps on the starboard-side settee table, the large, round brass Hindoo tray that was so cool to sprawl on during a tropic afternoon. With no invitation to play forthcoming, they closed their eyes, again.

Next, a letter from his father, Sir Hugo.

His rented farm was gone. The two-storey house he and Caroline had built in 1789 for ?800, the brick-and- timber barn they’d erected to replace an ancient, tumble-down wattle-and-daub one with a roof of straw-bug- and rat-infested since the War of The Roses, most-like!-the storage towers for silage and grain, and the brick stables and coach house were now the property of his favourite brother-in-law, Major Burgess Chiswick, and his bride, Theadora; as were all his former livestock, except for a few favourite saddle horses and what crops had been reaped before the transfer of ownership.

“No more pig-shit… no more sheep-shit,” Lewrie muttered with a touch of glee. “Good.”

Less the payment of your last Quit-Rents, Phineas Chiswick, that six-toothed Miser!, offered a paltry ?1,000, as Recompence for all your Improvements. As your Agent in this matter, I insisted that we would take no less than ?2,000, and, since I learned that Phineas had valued the property at ?5,000 for the outright Sale of it to the Trenchers, who would be footing the Bill for their daughter’s Country Estate, forced him, at the last, to accept our Terms.

Since you delegated to me the negotiations whilst you were away at Sea, I subtracted a sum of ? 200 as my Commission, and deposited the rest, ?1,800, to your account at Coutts’. Trust that my share will be spent joyfully, if not wisely, haw!

“And when did I agree t’ten percent, damn his eyes!” Lewrie fumed. Sir Hugo went on for several more pages. The Winter was a raw one, though the Thames had not frozen quite so solid as to allow the proper sort of Frost Fair. Zachariah Twigg had wintered at his rural estate, Spyglass Bungalow, in Hampstead, and had suffered several bouts with the ague. He was now fully retired from even his consulting work at the Foreign Office.

“Good!” Lewrie exclaimed loud enough to wake the cats, again. He’d been Twigg’s pet gun dog since 1784, getting roped into neck-or-nothing, harum-scarum deviltry overseas, time and again, and if that arrogant, top-lofty, and sneering old cut-throat had retired, Lewrie could look forward to a somewhat safer career, from now on.

Sir Hugo had heard from Lewrie’s sons, both now serving aboard their respective ships in the Navy. Hugh, his youngest, was a Midshipman aboard HMS Pegasus, under an old friend, Captain Thomas Charlton, a stolid, steady, and seasoned professional… though Charlton had a sly and puckish sense of humour, and a fond tolerance for the antics of Midshipmen. Hugh had taken to the sea like a cow to clover, and was having a grand time.

Sewallis, well… his oldest boy, and heir-apparent, had slyly amassed enough money to kit himself out, had forged a draft of one of Lewrie’s early letters to another old friend and compatriot, Captain Benjamin Rodgers, and had finagled himself a sea-berth aboard Aeneas, a two-decker ship of the line. His one brief letter to his “granther” told a soberer tale of his self-chosen naval career, so far, but… Sewallis had always