The French Admiral

'Freeling, you'll do what I tell you soon as dammit, or I'll have a new steward down here and you'll be hauling on the halyards with the other idlers and waisters. That's after you've been up for punishment and gotten two dozen for insubordination, so move your stubborn arse and do it!' Alan said in a rush. Freeling took a look at him, felt the subtle difference in their prodigal midshipman, and stumbled away to perform his lowly duty without another word, knowing his game of truculent behavior was over.

'Damme, how did you do that?' Avery gawped.

'Life's too short to put up with his insolence,' Alan snapped, opening his chest. He dug out fresh linen, a clean uniform, and took the time to reach down and feel the bundle of gold to reassure himself it was still there.

'What happened to you?' Avery asked, intent on this miracle. 'By God, I thought you were turning hard before you got left behind, but now you seem… I don't know, even more so.'

'I feel I've spent the last few days in hell, David,' Alan confessed. As he scrubbed up and dressed in a fresh uniform, he related his recent experiences to an open-mouthed David Avery, who found it hard to credit that anyone could live through them and still have any shred of sanity or decency left to him.

'Much as I thought I despised the Navy, David, it's a walk in a sunny park compared to land service. By God, I'll be glad to leave war behind me forever, should I live to be paid off, even as a two-a-penny midshipman with no prospects. I'll find something to do. I am just so glad to be back aboard Desperate, where my friends are.'

'Don't be too glad,' David warned him. 'There's talk about her.'

'What talk?'

'About being the only ship to escape before the surrender.'

'Talk from who, these canting whip-jacks, these imitation tars, who found a hundred excuses to stay in New York instead of sailing to fight de Grasse one more time?' Alan sneered. 'By God, it was one hell of a piece of ship- handling to get her downriver and through the shoals and the blockade in that storm, even if she did almost drown me. What did this pack of poltroons do, I ask you? Wrung their hands and said it was too bad. Let's wait for Digby and his three ships of the line. Let's throw dinners and balls and parades for His Royal Highness Prince William Henry. Hey, wasn't Virginia to be his personal royal colony? Let's not sail until all the powder's been replaced, everything Bristol Fashion from keelson to truck! God, I'm sick of the lot of 'em!'

Alan had knocked back his third glass of Black Strap, and the lack of sleep and adequate rations were playing hob with his senses. He was on his way to a good argumentative drunk.

'Even though Captain Treghues had written permission from Captain Symonds to try to break out, the impression is that we ran out on everyone back there,' David said, feeling little pain, either. 'There's nothing official.'

'Aye, backbiting never is,' Alan agreed vehemently. 'Bastards!'

'Passing the word for Mister Lewrie!' a marine called.

'Stap me, if that's Treghues, he'll jump down my throat with both boots on, the state I'm in,' Alan said, setting aside his fourth glass of wine untouched. 'Do I look sober enough to see him if that's what it is?'

'No one ever is, but you may pass inspection. Here.'

David offered him a precious lime from the Indies, a green and semi-shriveled fruit brought aboard God knew how long before, but Alan bit into it and sucked as much of the juice into his mouth that he could stand, to kill the odor of wine on his breath. For safety, he tucked a piece of rind into his cheek to chew on, and went on deck.

'God bless you for that, David, you're a true Christian.'

'Aye, I'm up to the Apocrypha now.' David smiled.

It was indeed a summons from the great cabins aft to see their captain. Alan removed his cocked hat and entered as the marine stamped his musket and bawled an announcement of his arrival.

Treghues had aged. He was sprouting the first hints of gray in his hair at the temples, and his face was thin and drawn as though there was still some lingering effect of that blow to the head back in August—that, or Mr. Dorne's 'slight trephination.' Perhaps it was, Alan thought, the ill repute which Desperate had gathered after her daring escape from the Chesapeake Bay. For the son of a lord of the realm, the slightest hint of incompetence or cowardice that could only be answered by requesting an inquiry, would be galling in the extreme. Even a physically fit man would have trouble dealing with it and sleeping sound at night, and Treghues did not look as though he had been sleeping well.

'Mister Lewrie,' Treghues said, sitting prim behind his glossy mahogany desk, with his hands folded as though kneeling at a prayer rail.

'Sir.'

'Admiral Hood's flag secretary sent me a fair copy of your report regarding your activities ashore. He also sent a short note of commendation with it. I… I find this extremely difficult to say, Lewrie, after our recent contretemps, but he stated, Admiral Hood, that is, stated, that I should be very proud of you. And I am.'

'He did?' Alan beamed with sudden pleasure. 'Thank you, sir, thankee very kindly, indeed.'

'Perhaps this will go a long way to removing the odor which this poor vessel has acquired of late. You are aware to which I allude, sir?'

'Avery discovered it to me, sir.'

'A bitter sort of poetic justice,' Treghues mused, taking up a clay churchwarden pipe and cramming tobacco into the bowl, an activity he had not been known for before. 'I was a bit too hasty to judge you for what you had been before joining the Navy, allowed prejudice to cloud my judgments. And now, I am hoist by my own petard, as the Bard would have said, from the clouded judgments of others.'

Captains ain't supposed to be like this, Alan thought. They don't have to explain shit. Why is he cosseting me suddenly? I ain't changed that much at all, maybe for the worse if anything.

'Jealousy and backstabbing I can understand, but I cannot abide what our escape has done to my ship, Lewrie,' Treghues said sharply, with a hint of that old rigidity and moral rectitude. 'Better we had gone into captivity after burning her to the waterline than endure the sneers from… from these dominee do-littles.'

'You went out with flags flying, sir,' Alan said, only half pissing down Treghues's back, half expressing his own outrage at the unfairness of any recriminations against Desperate and her people. 'That's more than any of these scoundrels attempted. Had they stirred their arses up properly, there'd still be a base on the York, and we'd have been covered in glory.'

Damme, you've let the wine speak! Alan thought. He's going to have me flogged raw. And he's got his memory back. I'm fucked.

'Bless you, that was bravely said, sir!' Treghues barked with a smile that was most disconcerting to see. 'And never a truer word spoken.'

'She's my ship, too, sir. Too many good men died making her what she is, too many died ashore doing everything they could for the army.'

'Aye, you love her, too,' Treghues responded as he lit his pipe with a taper dipped into an overhead lantern. It was hard to tell if the smoke, or the emotion, misted his eyes. 'I had not expected this from you, Mister Lewrie. I was under the impression you hated the Sea Service.'

'I've done some growing up, sir. And there's no law says I can't change my mind about some things,' Alan replied, feeling the wine pricking at the back of his eyes. Damme, he thought, is it the wine speaking, or do I really feel… comfortable in the Navy now? Must be the wine. Bastards like me have no noble emotions.

'By Heaven above, I love this ship,' Treghues said, the smoke wreathing about his head, and Alan thought it possibly the oddest-smelling tobacco had ever come across, almost herbal and acrid, not like Virginia leaf or Turkey. 'We're shorthanded once more, short four guns aft, but we'll make something brave of her yet. Have you really had a sea change, Mister Lewrie? Are you prepared to do your utmost to restore her honor and reputation?'

'Aye, sir.' What other answer was there to a question like that?

'We may receive some older brass nines from the army ashore, short nines, but better than nothing,' Treghues continued. 'And I must make up the lack of leadership and competence. With Admiral Hood's commendation and his conjurement to do something for you as suitable reward, I am appointing you an acting master's mate, effective immediately. See Mister Railsford to change your watch and quarter bills, and then apprise the sailing master of your promotion There is a salary with it, and though there is the chance you may not be confirmed once back in the Indies and shall be liable for stoppages, I doubt that should occur, if you make a good showing during a probationary phase.'

'I… I don't know how to thank you, sir,' Alan said, overcome at the honor paid him. Approval from the flag