The French Admiral

own spit.' Alan grinned.

'No matter,' Cheatham said. 'He is our master and commander, appointed over us by the Crown, and that is disloyal talk. Whether it is true or not,' he concluded, ignoring his own remark, which could be taken for the same sort of disloyalty. 'All of us… Mister Railsford, Peck, the sailing master, Mister Dorne… look you, Lewrie, you're a good sailor and you're shaping well as a sea-officer. Before the captain's… misfortune… he thought well of you. It is without credence that he could turn on you so quickly without reason. You have friends in this ship, Lewrie, and we might be able to advert your good qualities to set aside whatever the captain has formed as to his opinion of you.'

'David Avery did not speak to you, did he, sir?'

'Not recently, though he had expressed concern earlier,' Cheatham said, closing the bread room door for more privacy and retaking a seat on a crate. 'Perhaps I could be of some aid to you.'

'On your word of honor that it goes no further, sir,' Alan begged.

'I must discuss it with Mister Railsford, for one, but you may be assured of my discretion. My word on it,' Cheatham assured him.

'I was accused of rape, sir,' Alan began, feeling he had no one else to trust. He outlined how his father had snared him with his half-sister Belinda, how he had been forced to sign away any hopes of inheritance from either side of the family, and to take banishment into the Navy.

'And you have no clue about your mother's side of the family, the Lewries?' Cheatham asked after hearing the tale.

'None, sir, save my mother's name… Elizabeth. They said her parents are still alive, but God knows where, or whether that's really true.'

'Sounds like a West country name,' Cheatham surmised. 'I seem to have heard the name Lewrie before in some connection, but it does not have any significance at present. Tell me about her.'

'She was supposed to have bedded my father before he went off to Gibraltar in the last war, where he won his knighthood, but he left her with nothing,' Alan said. 'He always told me she was whoring before he came back and had died on the parish's expense. He found me in the poor house at St. Martin's in the Fields and took me in, and signed the rolls to claim me. I don't even know what she looked like.'

'But you bear her maiden name.'

'Aye, sir.'

'So perhaps he did not marry her, but felt some remorse to learn that she had died in his absence and left him a boy child.'

'Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby never had any remorse about anything, sir.' Alan laughed without humor. 'I remember a big man coming to claim me and taking me in a coach. First time I ever saw the inside of one. Next thing I knew I had the best of everything. Except for affection, that is.'

Damme, I'm getting maudlin as hell just thinking about this, he thought, feeling a wave of sadness sweep over him such as he had not felt for two years.

'Perhaps you are worth something to somebody, else why keep you?'

'That might explain why I was set up with Belinda, and caught red-handed in bed with her by so many people, especially our solicitor and the parish vicar as well, sir!'

Alan thought a while. 'You mean my mother's people may have had money?'

'No way to tell, not out here,' Cheatham said. 'But my brother works in the City, at Courts' Bank. I could write him and let him make some inquiries on your behalf. If you were set up, as you put it, it would clear your repute with the captain and put your own mind to rest as well. If your father has recently come into money or land through your maternal side, that would be proof positive.'

'It must be!' Alan was thrilled. 'Why else would he send me off with a hundred guineas a year and force me to sign away inheritance on both sides? Sir Hugo never did anything that didn't show a profit. God, Mister Cheatham, if only you could do that! You don't know how miserable I have been, not knowing why I was banished. I admit I was a strutting little rake-hell. And given half a chance, I probably would be again, to be honest. But nothing as bad as they were, at any rate!'

'Then we shall attend to it directly.' Cheatham smiled at him, and the smile automatically raised Alan's suspicions as to his motives. Damme, what's in it for him, I wonder? The life I've lived, there's no way to know when someone really means friendship, except for David.

'Um, I was wondering, sir, why would you…' he began.

'Because whether you can realize it or not, you have friends in this ship and in this world, Lewrie.' Cheatham anticipated him: 'Railsford thought you'd be squint-a-pipes about it. Do you really think yourself so base as not to be able to garner trust and friendship from others?'

'Yes, sir,' he said without pausing to think, and felt his eyes begin to water with the truth of it. Until he had gotten into the Navy, he had never had a real friend, never had a word of approval from his father, his half-relations, or tutors. Now here were people ready to make supreme efforts on his behalf to uphold his honor and good name —what there was of them—and go out of their way to settle all the nagging questions in his mind about his heritage. Too much was happening to keep his feelings in check.

'God, Mister Lewrie,' Cheatham said, almost in tears himself, 'I had no idea, my boy! Forgive me. You do have friends who care about you—not just people with influence who will be good for place or jobbery.'

'I am beginning to realize that, sir.' Alan shuddered. 'Back home, there was no one I could turn to. Jesus!'

'What?'

'In a way this is so disgusting, sir.' Alan smiled in self-deprecation. 'Who would have thought that of all places, I would find… a home… in the bloody Navy! I've spent the better part of my service scheming to get out of it!'

'Why would you, when you're so deuced good at it?' Cheatham asked. 'Oh, I suppose it is natural to be suspicious, growing up a London boy in such a household as you described, but there is good in this world, and you have some of it in you.'

'A streak perhaps,' Alan allowed. 'A thin one, sir. I doubt I'll be buried a bishop.'

'Who can say what you'll amount to?' Cheatham said, cuffing him on the head lightly. 'No, I would not go so far as to say you could ever take holy orders. But you are who you make of yourself, not what others have told you you are. Think on what you have accomplished in the short time you have worn King's Coat—other than wenching and brawling your way through the streets of Charleston, of course. Consider the people you know that think well of you. You could not have earned their approbation without being worthy.'

I don't know about all that, Alan thought. You've never seen me toady when I've my mind set on something. Still, there was the good opinion of Admiral Sir Onsley Matthews and his Lady Maude; also their lovely niece, Lucy Beauman, who was all but pledged to him. And then there were Lord and Lady Cantner, whose lives he had saved in the Parrot. There were probably as many others who hated the sight of him, but he wasn't particularly fond of those either, so to hell with them.

But with Railsford, Cheatham, and, most likely, Mr. Dorne to improve his chances, and even Mister Monk's professional acceptance as a seaman, and the willing cooperation of the other warrant and petty officers who took him at face value, there was suddenly a lot less to fear than he had thought. He took another deep draught of beer, and his prospects suddenly seemed that much brighter.

'I cannot tell you how much this means to me, sir,' he told Cheatham. 'I was despairing that I would be chucked onto the beach to starve if it was up to the captain alone. Maybe there's an answer in my past that would force me to think I'm someone better than the image I have formed of myself ere now. But I'm not betting on it, mind. What if I'm much worse than what I know of myself now?'

'That's our Lewrie,' Cheatham said kindly. 'As chary a lad who ever drew breath. Now let us take a peek into this salt beef cask to see if it's fit to eat, shall we?'

CHAPTER 2

On the 25th of August, 1781, Desperate went inshore once more, to Cape Henry in the Virginias, acting as the eyes of the fleet. Should she run into danger, there was another frigate with her with