The Invasion Year

un-forgiveable.”

“Quite a lot hangs on it,” Peel pointed out.

“I know very well what you, and Twigg, and his ‘Irregulars’ can do… forgeries and such,” Lewrie gravelled. “If she ever saw a note in my handwritin’, it was seven years ago, and after what I did to her, her kin, and their scheme, I doubt she saved one out o’ sentiment! Why can’t your people cobble up a reply? She wouldn’t know the diff’rence.”

“Forging or altering documents or agents’ reports on military matters are one thing, Alan,” Peel gently objected. “They’re much too dry, concise, and impersonal, whereas personal thoughts and feelings are very hard to reproduce.”

“Surely ye forge credible love letters t’trip up traitors, and expose ’em,” Lewrie scoffed. “Or embarrass people who need t’be given a public ‘come-down.’ ”

“Yes, we do,” Peel cheerfully admitted, “but in those cases, we have samples from both parties, and can imitate their repartee. With you, we have nothing to work with. Oh, we could cobble up something… hire on a poor, unknown romance scribbler, and send her a letter full of high-flown tragedy worthy of Drury Lane dramas, but… after a third or fourth reading, it wouldn’t sound like you, it would not ring true, and she would know… mind, I told you she’s clever?… that it was a fraud. No, Alan, it must not only be in your hand, but from your mind… your soul.”

“I s’pose she wrote it in French,” Lewrie stated.

“Well… yes,” Peel said, his head cocked over. “Seeing as how she is French.”

“Peel… d’ye imagine, on your rosiest days, that I’m anywhere near fluent in French?” Lewrie wryly pointed out. “Christ, I was damn’ lucky t’get through Latin and Greek at school, and most o’ that was on paper, not spoken! I read French even worse than I speak it, and if ye wish Charite t’make heads or tails of it, I’d need a translatin’ dictionary and a bilingual tutor… first t’read hers, then t’write mine!”

Peel frowned heavily, and puffed out his cheeks in a long exhale of frustration; this was an emmerdement he had not pre-considered.

“Ehm… she knew of your lack when you spied on her in New Orleans?” Peel hesitantly asked, as if crossing his fingers.

“We spoke in English,” Lewrie told him. “With so many British or Yankee Doodles tradin’ in New Orleans, settlin’ up-river in the pine woods round Baton Rouge, she and her kin couldn’t avoid learnin’, but she despised them, and English. Fluent, though. Even in bed,” Lewrie added, with a faint smile of pleasant reverie.

James Peel smiled back and raised an eyebrow in congratulatons.

“So… you would write her if you could,” Peel said. “Perhaps a reply in English, which she understands, would be more believable to her than any attempt on your part in French. Hmmm… too many grammatical errors and mis-spellings in your poor French might make you look weak and clownish. After all, she’s the one pleading with you for forgiveness. Hard to accept, from an illiterate fool.”

“Now, I didn’t exactly say I’d-!” Lewrie quickly objected.

“And, does she receive a letter in English, and if it is ever found on her person, in her effects, it would be a death sentence,” Peel cleverly pointed out, then pretended to think better of it. “No, we’d hate to lose her access just after we get it. Better we-”

“Alright,” Lewrie suddenly declared, liking the sound of “death sentence” and unable to think of anyone who could deserve it more.

“You will?” Peel asked, surprised.

“If it’s intercepted, and they lop off her head, that’d be fine with me,” Lewrie said in a level tone, though Mr. Peel, who had known him long enough to see the danger signs, noted that Lewrie’s clear and merry grey-blue eyes had gone as steely-grey as Arctic ice. “Damn the wishes of the Crown, or Secret Branch.”

“Well, I was going to plead that the intelligence she could give us would bring this war to a victorious end, bring down the French Empire, and put Napoleon Bonaparte before a firing squad, but… if you are amenable, I’ll not question your reasons,” Peel most-happily said, with a broad grin and an air of relief. “Uhm, when could I expect it?”

“Don’t press,” Lewrie sternly told him. “Findin’ forgiveness for what she did’ll take some time, and, as you say, it’ll have t’ring true. It wouldn’t, if it’s rushed. If my reply’s too quick, and smuggled to her a week or two later, she’d know I’m lyin’, and then where would ye be?

“I’ll think on it, tomorrow,” Lewrie said. “Once back at sea, I have more than enough time t’ponder it.”

“My dear Alan, I didn’t expect to coach back to London tomorrow with it in my hand,” Peel said with a laugh. “I, my compatriots, and the Crown will be deeply in your debt, though.”

There was a bustle at the forward door as Yeovill entered the great-cabins with a large covered metal barge. “Evening, sir! Supper is ready to be served.”

“Capital!” Lewrie declared before he tossed off the last dregs of his ale and rose to go to the table in the dining-coach. “I trust you’ve a hearty appetite, Mister Peel. Come take a seat.”

* * *

The rest of the evening passed in a much cheerier manner, with Peel regaling Lewrie with the latest London doings, and Lewrie describing the details of the raid on Boulogne, complete with all the bravery of his officers and Mids, and what a partially amusing folly it had turned out to be. In turn, Peel related a recent visit to Mr. Zachariah Twigg’s retirement estate at Hampstead, where Lewrie’s own father, Sir Hugo, had been visiting at the same time. Bitter enemies at logger-heads long before in the Far East in the late 1780s, they’d become the best of friends, as thick as thieves, in their later ages; Twigg, the old cut-throat Crown agent, and Sir Hugo, the rake-hellish, were mad for three-horse chariots, though they were both old enough to know better, and raced each other daily like the idlest, hen-headed young blades who thought themselves immortal, terrorising the county thereabouts. And all accompanied by shrimp remoulade, a drippy-bacon salad, a guinea hen apiece, and a slab of beefsteak each, slathered with a bearnaise sauce that Yeovill had whipped up; washed down, of course, by several bottles of wine.

* * *

Peel departed a little before Lights Out, at One Bell of the Evening Watch, at 8:30 P.M., in fine fettle and halfway “foxed.” Lewrie took a last glass of brandy back to his desk in the day-cabin and sat, staring off at nothing while Pettus and Jessop finished cleaning up and stowing away, and readying his bed-cot for sleep. He brooded, shaking his head now and again in amazement that Peel would even think to ask him to write Charite de Guilleri; in even more amazement that he’d even thought to agree, much less to promise that he would.

Chalky gave out a preparatory “here I come” murf before leaping atop the desk, and butted under Lewrie’s free hand for pets. Toulon sat by Lewrie’s right boot, whining for a little co-operation, so Lewrie turned to offer his thigh for a stepping-stone. A second later, his heavier black-and-white ram-cat was in his lap, kneading the front of his waist-coat, purring lustily.

Lewrie gave up brooding to stroke them both, smiling, and glad to have their company and affection, and the chance to turn all of his attention to them and nothing else, for a long moment.

“Don’t chew on that, Chalky,” he chid the younger cat, which had flopped onto one side and begun to claw at his letter to Lydia, drawing a corner to his sharp-fanged mouth for a nibble: Chalky adored any balled-up sheet of paper, for footballs and chew-toys.

Lewrie took it away from him and held it at mid-chest to re-read what he had penned so far. He’d meant to finish it and send it ashore before Peel’s arrival.

… completed Victualling and taking aboard fresh stocks of shot and powder. Now that is done, I am promised by the Port Admiral that I can place the ship Out of Discipline for at least two days, giving the People a well- deserved and much-needed Carouse.

Most happily, the Weather remains bad and the Winds remain foul, “dead muzzlers” precluding sailing, so do