The French Admiral

there's a Treghues alive if that's the way they court their women. He couldn't get fucked in a buttock shop!

'What conditions could you lay, sir?' Caroline asked archly, getting a little vexed and anxious to be in the boat with her father, who could be heard grumbling about something already.

'A thousand pardons, Mistress Chiswick, if I offend by generosity, but it is a sin of excess only in the sense that…' Treghues blundered on, not knowing how to stop or get himself out of the hole he had dug with his tongue. 'You would do me a great honor if I knew you and yours were secure for a time. What else could a fellow Christian mean to another?'

'Then I shall accept, sir, though it is not my place to do so,' she finally said, as long as there were no strings attached to that purse. 'And I shall consider it a loan made in fellowship and human kindness, as all mercy should be.'

'Just as long as you do not consider me a total Samaritan, I beg of you, Mistress Chiswick,' Treghues said, sounding almost humble.

'I shall not, sir. And I thank you kindly for all your ministrations to us in our time of need and salvation,' she said.

'I shall keep you and your family close in my thoughts and in my prayers, Mistress Chiswick,' Treghues said, taking her hand.

'And we you, sir. Ah, Mister Lewrie.'

'Mistress Chiswick,' he said formally, though their eyes danced at the sight of each other as he doffed his cocked hat.

'Bless you for everything you have done for us, Mister Lewrie.' She spoke warmly, though she tried to hide her emotions as the captain was still standing there like a catch-fart waiting for an errand. 'We shall never forget you.'

'My regards to Gov and Burge when next you meet. Tell them to write to me and let me know how they're faring. And all my thanks to your parents for showing me true hospitality and what it is like to be in the bosom of a family once more,' Alan said, stepping close to her as she sat swaying in the bosun's chair before the hands tailed away on the stay tackle to lift her out of his life.

'Hoist away, bosun,' Treghues snapped.

Caroline looked annoyed as she began to reach for Alan but she was hoisted out of his grasp before their fingers could even begin to touch. He waved to her and she to him as she went up and over the side.

He stepped to the bulwark to watch her into the boat, and she looked up at him, pantomiming speech, saying 'Write to me, please,' and much in that warm vein, while he returned her sentiments as well.

'As the Spaniards say, Vaya Con Dios. Go with God,' he shouted down to the Chiswicks, then mouthed silently 'Caroline.'

He watched the civilians begin to row the loaded boat towards the shore, feeling suddenly deprived of her presence. Damme, I wish we'd had longer together, he suddenly thought. There goes the only girl I've ever met who was interesting to talk to for more than half an hour. Easy to talk to, comfortable like. And smart, smart as paint, and don't make no bones about it. A good, sweet nature. Maybe a little artless compared to most I've known, like a country girl. Holds herself so stiff, but I'll wager there's a passionate side hidden deep. Might be amusing to be the one to bring it out. Ah well, that'll be never. If only her daddy had some chink, she might be worth keeping up with.

He waved once more and she waved back, and then their boat swept round the stern of an anchored brig out of sight, so Alan turned back inboard to meet Treghues, who was regarding him with an annoyed look of his own. The captain turned away and stalked off.

Oh shit, Alan thought. The silly clown's jealous. He'll make my life a living hell. He wanted her himself, though for what I can't imagine. Might take him a year to aspire to holding her hand.

Alan felt a cold chill in his innards as he further realized that Treghues had to have heard her pass his jury-rigged cabin during the night to go on deck, and could have peeked from the door to see them embrace as he said good night to her.

There was nothing new, however, in Treghues making his life a living hell; he had had months of it already, so he shrugged philosophically and headed aft. Neither of them could have her, and by the time the war was over, both could be either dead or out of contention, while she followed her own mind thousands of miles away. It had been, Alan assured himself once more, merely an idle flirtation, a passing dalliance just because she was there and grateful to him, nothing more meaningful than what passed in society at any drum or rout among the fashionable in London. He vowed to put her out of his mind. He had duties to fulfill, a ship to run, and an irked captain to mollify, if he wanted to keep his new rating.

CHAPTER 16

English Harbor at Antigua was like an old shoe, familiar and comfortable. Storm season was over and the island was beginning to green up after all the rain. After the chill of the American coast, the lush warmth felt good, and the sun baked the decks daily, not as hot as it had been when they had departed for the Chesapeake back in August, but warm enough to thaw out the tired blood.

Desperate was for many days almost the only ship in harbor, for Admiral Hood had taken the Leeward Islands Squadron down to Barbados. The ship lolled in almost idleness as they took on a draft of replacements newly arrived from home in the first transports that would brave the mid-Atlantic Trades before the hurricanes truly left the region for another year.

There were three new midshipmen in the once empty and echoing mess. Two were mere boys of twelve or thirteen, fresh-caught newlies still gawking in wonder at the height of the masts. There was an older boy of some years' service named Burney, about sixteen and so handsome-looking that one was tempted to throw a shoe at him on first sight. He and Avery had hit it off and were busy enforcing their superiority on the newlies with all the old pranks that midshipmen played on each other, and Alan found the two younger ones so abysmally stupid that he had no pity for them and let them make fools of themselves quite easily. The new master's mate was an American from Maryland, a painfully thin and awkward thatch-haired man of twenty or so named Micah Sedge, another victim of the Rebels, almost burning with zeal for bloody revenge.

Almost as soon as they had reached port, Alan had been confirmed by Commodore Sir George Sinclair in his position of master's mate, followed shortly thereafter by Hood's approval as well, so he was no longer 'acting,' and his two pounds, two shillings a lunar month was safe. He still walked small about Treghues, but there had been no sign as of yet that that worthy was contemplating anything frightful because he had not gained Caroline Chiswick's immediate affections.

Sinclair's approbation concerning his new rating had come as a surprise to Alan; he had thought the man nursed a grudge against him because of who Alan's father was and the circumstances in which Sinclair's flag captain, Captain Bevan, had snatched him from London under threat of arrest by the watch for the alleged rape of his half-sister Belinda. Alan wondered if Sinclair really cared one way or another, or if he had been poisoned by his nephew Francis Forrester, now languishing in some Rebel or French prison after his capture at Yorktown. If Sinclair had any animosity at all, it was toward Desperate as a whole for her 'lucky' escape, or towards Treghues for losing the commodore his nephew. They were dead last on the list for provision, powder or shot or rigging, a sure sign of a senior officer's displeasure.

'Mail coom h'aboard, zurs,' Freeling said mournfully as he dumped a sack on the mess table. The midshipmen dived for it, but Alan had but to bark 'Still!' to freeze their grubby paws in midpounce.

'You young gentlemen should know, even from your limited experience, that Mister Sedge and I get first crack,' Alan informed them lazily, seating himself at the table to open the sack. 'Not so, Mister Sedge?'

'Indeed so, Mister Lewrie,' Sedge replied. He was still stiff and uncomfortable in his new berth, but willing to give Alan a grudging try. 'And any packages from home get shared, and not hogged to yourselves.'

'Ah, what do we have here?' Alan asked, laying out the contents. 'A letter for you, I believe, Mister Sedge.'

'Thankee kindly, Mister Lewrie. From me dad in Halifax.'

Alan sorted out the mail, finding several of his own dating back for months, mostly from Lucy Beauman in Jamaica, a few from London from the Matthews, Lord and Lady Cantner, and one from his father's pettifogging solicitor, Pilchard. He hoped it was his annuity; he was getting short.