Текст книги "Hostile Shores"

Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Despite Commodore Grierson’s unfortunate little jest that had frightened the good citizens of Nassau Town and New Providence Island so badly, they would not have, at that moment, trusted their own arses with a fart, the new Senior Naval Officer Commanding in the Bahamas had to be welcomed and regaled with an introductory supper and grand ball, no matter the personal feelings of the aforesaid citizens, who had at last regained their accustomed aplomb, and were back to business. The Governor-General, hoping perhaps that the new Commodore had fired the last shot from his humour locker, staged the affair at Crown expense, a cost which he would try to get underwritten by the better-off of the aforesaid good citizens, or justify to His Majesty’s Government.

Lewrie took pains to sponge off, shave closely, and wait until the very last minute to dress that early evening, so he would not end soaked in perspiration before he combed his hair or left his cabins for the deck. He despised the new style of slipper-like shoes, but he had a good, mostly un-used pair of buckled shoes with coin-silver buckles, into which he stuck his silk-stockinged feet. His breeches were snow-white new, his waist-coat with gilt buttons just as pristine, and his shirt and carefully pressed neck-stock were of silk, as well, stowed at the bottom of one of his sea-chests for such rare occasions. Over the waist-coat, his steward, Pettus, draped the broad blue sash of his knighthood. Lastly, just before departure, Pettus offered him his best-dress uniform coat with the silver and enamelled star of the Order of The Bath pinned to the left breast. Pettus had carefully brushed it earlier, then hung it from a peg driven into one of the overhead deck beams, so the cats, Toulon and Chalky, could not roll on it and mark it with fur. One gold medal hung from a button hole on a ribbon, for his participation in the Battle of Camperdown. Dangling just over the vee of the waist-coat hung another on a pale blue ribbon; that’un was for being at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent.

“You look champion, sir,” Pettus told him as he held up a small mirror from the wash-hand stand so Lewrie could preen a bit, and sweep hair back on both sides of his head. At his nape there was a sprig of hair, neatly tied with black ribbon and no more than three inches long.

Styles were changing, and there were many younger officers who eschewed even a hint of sailor’s queues, deeming them old-fashioned, or best worn by the common seamen up forward, as a mark of class difference. Lewrie’s had been shortened over the years, and he suspected that some-day he might lop his off, too, but not yet.

“Just keep the cats from leapin’ on me ’til I’m in the boat,” Lewrie told Pettus with a laugh. He donned the offered hat, a cocked one with a wide gold lace band round the outer edges, with the gilded button, loops of gold lace, and the fanned black silk cockade over the left eye, the “dog’s vane”. “And I hope someone’s either leashed our dog out o’ the way, or wiped his paws.”

“I’ll see you to the entry-port and keep a weather eye peeled for Bisquit, sir,” Pettus offered.

Thankfully, Bisquit was below with the hands who were just then getting their boiled meat from the galley, hoping for the offer of a nibble or two. Once in the boat, Lewrie sat down on a piece of new, un-sullied canvas to protect the seat of his breeches and coat tails from tar or dirt. “Town piers, Desmond!” he cheerfully ordered.

*   *   *

All the wide double doors and windows of Government House, up Market Street from the piers, were thrown open, and yellow light glowed from within from hundreds of candles. A small batch of liveried musicians were playing light, and somewhat muted, airs to entertain guests as they arrived, were announced, and welcomed inside to stroll and socialise before the supper was announced.

Lewrie took his time to ascend the several flights of stone stairs from one terrace of lawn and garden to the next ’til he was upon the outer gallery. The hike from the docks had all been uphill, and that was asking a lot of a sailor. He stopped to remove his hat, swab the inner band with a handkerchief, and discreetly dab his face and neck. He lingered, savouring the cool sunset breeze, for he could feel a palpable wave of heat coming from inside, from all those candles and so many people crammed into the spacious rooms.

More guests were arriving, by coach, on foot, and some few in sedan chairs borne by liveried slaves. There were officers from the Army garrison and Forts Montagu, Charlotte, and Fincastle in regimental finery, though Lewrie noted that few of them were below the rank of Major, with only a few Captains tossed in. A peek inside revealed the blue of Navy officers, and Lewrie quickly identified a couple of brig-sloop officers, with their Commanders’ epaulets on their left shoulders, and an equal number of Lieutenants. All the Lieutenants in command of the sloops and cutters in port were there, but none of the junior officers or Midshipmen. Evidently, the Governor-General was pinching his pennies, and inviting only senior men. His own First Lieutenant, Westcott, had been sent an invitation, but he had begged off, wishing for a night of shore liberty to pursue his own supper, dancing, and … other things.

It was cooler without his hat, so Lewrie tucked it under his arm. There were many newly arrived guests who wished to linger in a cooler air, knowing what to expect in a Bahamian summer, and Lewrie chatted them up, accepting and making introductions and chit-chat.

In point of fact, once named to the civilian gentlemen and their ladies, sons, and daughters, Lewrie was pleasingly surprised by how he was praised for his desperate sortie, in some cases almost gushingly, and his face reddened in honest humility (well, he could only play-act humble all that long!) and he declared, over and again, that he had only done his duty, no matter the odds.

Medals be-damned, they’re callin’ me a hero for that!

“You will enter with us, Sir Alan?” one older lady beguiled.

“I do b’lieve I’ll wait a tad longer, ma’am,” Lewrie told her. “The evening breeze, and the aromas from the flower gardens, are just too delightful.”

Yet another coach creaked to a stop at the foot of the hill on Market Street, an open coach which carried Commodore Grierson and his Flag-Captain, Meadows, and Lewrie turned away, wishing to delay rencontre with the fellow ’til the last moment. He looked round for a tall planter or bush behind which he could hide.

“Are you avoiding me, Sir Alan?” a lovely voice asked in petulance. He spun about to espy the “grass widow”.

“Why, Mistress Frost! Priscilla!” Lewrie exclaimed. “You are invited tonight? Your presence makes the occasion all the more delightful. And, how splendid you look!” he gushed in pleasure as he went to the top of the last flight of steps to offer her an arm after a bow.

Might tonight be the night? Lewrie fervently wished; After all, I’m nigh the bloody hero of the hour!

The object of his lust, Mistress Priscilla Frost, would be the desire of any man. She was a wee woman only five feet four inches in height, with a creamy pale complexion, a mass of artfully styled red-auburn hair, and bright green eyes. This night, her filmy sheath gown was of mint green, cut delightfully low, and was almost sheer enough to reveal a slim young body that was promisingly bouncy-looking, with perky breasts that even a modest bandeau to press them down could not completely hide. To top all that off, she was a woman of a sinuous, languid, and teasing demeanour.

“It is too bad that we shall not be seated close together,” she said with a moue, and a waft of her fan. “I expect you shall be seated nearer the top of the table, whilst I must languish far down, with the ‘chaw-bacons’, ha ha!”

“Well, there’s the mingling before, and the dancing after,” Lewrie said, trying on a leer. “Uhm … I note that Mister Frost is not attending with you? He’s still down at Grand Turk?”

“An American ship came in with mail, and he sent me a short note,” Priscilla told him with another pout. “He’s found a market at Cape Franois, on Haiti, and has sailed there to look into the possibilities, so … he will be delayed some more weeks.”

“Oh, what a pity,” Lewrie commiserated.

“Lord only knows what dangers he might face among the savage Blacks of that foul place,” Priscilla said, not sounding all that much concerned for her much older husband’s safety.

“They’re a blood-thirsty lot,” Lewrie told her, looking over her shoulder to see Commodore Grierson mid-way up the flights of stairs. “Be a dear, Mistress Priscilla, and stroll with me into the garden for a bit.”

“Why, Sir Alan! Captain Lewrie, will you ruin my repute in Nassau?” She did so with a fetching air of mischief, a merry glint in her eyes, and a tap of her fan against his chin.

“Only with your complete permission, dear lady,” Lewrie purred in kind, with a flirtatious laugh. “But, I’d rather put off havin’ to greet Commodore Grierson ’til later. Much later.”

“Oh, that fatuous clown!” Priscilla huffed. “But of course, I shall aid you in that.” She offered her arm to be supported by his and allowed herself to be led towards the gardens. “What a thoroughly thoughtless act! Why, I was so terrified that the French had come to impoverish us all that my maids and I were packing in a perfect panic, until it was revealed that his ships were ours! Everyone is wroth with him…’tis the talk of the town, and none of it complimentary, let me tell you! Do I get the chance, I would tell him what I think of him to his face!”

“Then I shall be sure to introduce you,” Lewrie assured her. “Do look and see if he’s gone in, yet.”

“He is just about to enter,” Priscilla whispered conspiratorially after a quick peek. “Oh!”

“Oh?” Lewrie asked in dread that Grierson had spotted him.

“Do you enter and be announced after him,” Priscilla schemed in wicked glee, “you would be certain to hear louder approval. You would … as the actors say … up-stage him?”

“What a clever girl you are!” Lewrie said in open praise. “For that I stand completely in your debt … and in complete admiration of you, to boot,” he added with another leer.

“Debt and admiration, Sir Alan?” she cooed, looking up at him with a lazy and flirtatious smile … and an artful hitch of her breath that lifted and swelled her breasts. “Such complete admiration must be rewarded. Amply rewarded, hmm?”

“Where admiration may turn to worship?” Lewrie dared hint, leering yet again. She slowly batted her lashes and nodded her head to agree.

Huzzah, I’m aboard! Lewrie exulted to himself.

“Walk me back to the entrance, Sir Alan,” Priscilla said, turning practical, “before people have reason to talk. Make your entrance a bit after me. I shall prepare the ground. A minute or so later?”

Lewrie saw her to the grand entrance doors, bowed her away, then lingered a bit more. Over the mutters of attendees and the musicians, there came a thump of a long cane, and a loud voice announcing the entrance of Captain Henry Grierson, Commodore of the Bahamas Squadron, and his Flag-Captain, Captain George Meadows. Lewrie smiled in delight as the crowd inside paid no particular heed; there was no applause. Indeed, conversations seemed to cease!

Finally, he shot his cuffs, settled his waist-coat and fiddled with his neck-stock, took a deep breath, plastered a benign grin on his phyz, and went inside to check his hat, then name himself to one of the liveried “catch farts”, who passed his name on to the major-domo with the long and heavy cane.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of His Majesty’s Ship Reliant!” the old functionary called out.

“Huzzah!” someone called out. “The hero of the hour!”

“Oh, bravely done!” Priscilla ringingly declared, and began to clap her hands, which prompted others to join in.

The fierce scowl on Commodore Grierson’s face was priceless, no matter how much bad blood was engendered, and Lewrie secretly delighted in it, even if it cost him later.

*   *   *

Nassau Town was not like London; its Society consisted mostly of commoners, albeit successful ones. A gala gathering such as this supper ball in England would never allow people engaged in “Trade” to attend! Nassauans could not even be described as Squirearchy who owned land and lived off gentlemanly farm incomes, cottagers’ rents, and shares in the Three Percent Funds. For the most part, the largest plots of land that Nassau’s upper crust owned were the town lots on which their houses sat, where their goods warehouses were situated, or their stores did business.

Lewrie suspected that Commodore Grierson had a low opinion of people engaged in Trade, lumping them in with pie men, knife grinders, or green grocers and store clerks, and could not fathom the conversations over the supper table, the pre-dinner socialising, or at the edges of the dance floor about profit-and-loss, new markets, and opportunities.

He looks damned uncomfortable and mute! Lewrie thought; They’ll give up on him altogether and talk past him in half an hour!

Lewrie, for his part, simply had a grand time, even if he was seated at least eight people away from the promising Priscilla. There was his rash sortie to be congratulated for. There was his destruction of so many French and Spanish privateers, the very bane of mercantile and maritime trade, and his re-capture and return to their owners of several prize vessels.

How had he won his knighthood? Lewrie gave them the Battle of the Chandeleur Islands off Spanish Louisiana in 1803. He had to tell them of his medals, of course, though Lewrie could (modestly!) relate that he had been present at the Battle of the Chesapeake during the American Revolution, had gotten trapped at the siege of Yorktown yet had escaped the night before the surrender, had been at St. Kitts when Admiral Hood had stymied de Grasse, had stumbled into the Glorious Fourth of June in 1794 while being chased by two French frigates and had ended up driven towards the lee of the French line of battle, and been with Nelson at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent.

“I was forced to go with him!” Lewrie chortled. “I had Jester at the time, a sloop below the Rates, near Nelson’s ship at the rear of Admiral Sir John Jervis’s line, and Nelson swung out of line to wheel about, all by himself. Had I not hauled my own wind, he would have rammed me. He shouted over, ‘Follow me, Lewrie, we’re off for glory!’ and so I went. His ship, mine, and one or two others who followed traded fire with the Santissima Trinidad, the largest warship in the world, a four-decker with one hundred and twenty guns! Huge cannon balls went whizzing by, but we weren’t hit, and I doubt we even marred her paint, but it took ’em five minutes or better to re-load! After that, he went on to win his first honours.”

“You know the estimable Admiral Nelson, Sir Alan?” an older matron gushed.

“We’ve met several times, ma’am, it is my honour to say,” Lewrie told her. Even if he is a glory-seekin’, press-hungry, temperamental arse! he thought.

First at Grand Turk Island in 1783, with no mention of how the rashly assembled attempt to oust the French invasion force had failed so miserably; at Toulon, France, at the conference just before the evacuation of Coalition forces; ashore on Corsica just after Nelson had lost the sight of his eye (with no mention of Lewrie’s mistress of the time who had dined with them!), then serving under his command along the Genoese and Ligurian coasts when Napoleon Bonaparte had invaded the Italies.

“Last I saw of him was the night before the Battle of Copenhagen,” Lewrie reminisced.

“You were there, sir?” a brewer of note asked.

“I was, though there was no ‘tin’ handed out for Copenhagen,” Lewrie replied. “We were not officially at war with the Danes, so…”

Lewrie told them of taking HMS Thermopylae into the Baltic, all alone, to scout the Swedish and Russian harbours, and the expanse and thickness of the ice that kept their fleets in port (again, with no mention of the Russian noble he carried who tried to murder him over the love of an Irish whore in London!) and of how he found him when he re-joined the fleet on the night before the battle.

“The great-cabins had been stripped for action, but for a brazier, some lanthorns, and Nelson’s bed-cot,” Lewrie described, sensing a hush round his part of the table as people leaned closer to listen in rapt interest. “It was cold, windy, and raw, just perishin’ cold in the cabins, and Nelson was tucked into his bed-cot, fully dressed, and with a chequered great-coat over his uniform, wrapped in blankets, propped up on pillows. His long-time servant, Tom, kept him supplied with hot tea, cocoa, and soup whilst Nelson dictated his orders for the morning. No notes, just from the top of his head, listing each ship under him in order of battle, assigning each which numbered ship in the Danish line to be engaged. It was uncanny! As I left, with my assignment with the frigates under Commodore Riou—a grand man and a fine seaman!—I saw the Midshipmen in the outer cabin, seated on the deck with candles, taking down Nelson’s dictation from a Lieutenant, so each ship should have written orders. I was never so awe-struck than that night, for we were anchored just out of gun-range from the Danish line of battle, and I could stand and look at their ships all lit up as they ferried shot, powder, and volunteers from shore … like Caesar must have looked upon the campfires of an enemy army, the other side of the battlefield.”

Up the table, Commodore Grierson gave him an exasperated squint.

“And did the gallant Admiral really put his telescope to his bad eye, Sir Alan?” a younger woman asked.

“I was not aboard his ship to witness it, ma’am, but I’m sure he did, just as all of us were aghast to see Sir Hyde Parker’s signal to ‘Discontinue The Action’, when we were winning,” Lewrie assured her. “We with Commodore Riou had finally forced our assigned opponents to strike, and were engaged with the Trekroner Forts. One could look astern to see that we were already victorious.”

As for that rumoured French fleet under Villeneuve that sailed for the West Indies, Lewrie could put them at ease. “I got a letter from my youngest son, Hugh, who is serving aboard a seventy-four under Admiral Nelson, informing me that Nelson and the entire Mediterranean Fleet were setting off in pursuit. Long before the French may achieve any mischief, they will be hotly engaged and utterly defeated, and the Corsican Ogre, Boney, will have lost most of his navy!”

That raised a hearty cheer, and a toast to Nelson, followed by one to the Royal Navy, followed by one waggish proposal for Napoleon to be hanged at Tyburn, and his tiny body hung in a bird cage on London Bridge!

“He’s not all that tiny,” Lewrie japed. “It might take a larger cage … much like the ones used to hang pirates on display.”

Wonder of wonders, Lewrie had met Bonaparte, face-to-face?

Up-table, Commodore Grierson heaved a silent “Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

“The first time, I was his prisoner, temporarily.” Lewrie was more than happy to relate how Bonaparte, then a mere general of artillery, had blown up his mortar vessel east of Toulon, and had ridden down to the beach where the survivors had staggered ashore.

“Didn’t make a bold picture,” Lewrie chortled, “breeches drainin’ water and my stockings round my ankles. He came to gloat and call for my parole. I told him I couldn’t, for half the crew and gunners were Spanish or French Royalists. I swore the French were from the Channel Islands and really British, so they wouldn’t be butchered on the spot, or guillotined later, and I handed him my sword, a rather nice hanger gifted me years before. We’d have been marched off, but for the arrival of a squadron of ‘Yellow-Jacket’ Spanish cavalry, so I got rescued. He’s about four inches shorter than me, is Boney, a dandy fellow with clear skin … not the yellow or Arabic brown in the caricatures, with blue-ish eyes. The second time we met, in Paris during the Peace of Amiens, he’d put on a little weight, but…”

It did not take any arm-twisting for Lewrie to relate how he and his late wife, Caroline, had taken a second honeymoon to Paris to see the sights—everyone was doing it!—and of how he had taken several swords of dead French captains in hopes they could be returned to the families. It was a young, ambitious chargé d’affaires from the newly-reopened British Embassy who had managed to arrange an exchange of those swords for his old hanger, from Napoleon’s own hands in the Tuileries Palace.

“Didn’t go well, at all,” Lewrie laughed. “Bonaparte showed up in a general’s uniform and raved about why we hadn’t sent him an Ambassador yet, even if his was in London, why we hadn’t evacuated Malta like we promised, and that we had no business tellin’ him to get out of Holland and Switzerland, I don’t recall what all. To boot, Caroline and I were the only British there, and we got stared at and ogled like a pack o’ rabid wolves. Just after that, we got word from another English tourist that Bonaparte had sicced his secret police agents on us, and we’d best flee France instanter.”

He told them of fleeing in several sets of disguises, arranged by the other English couple, who had smuggled French aristocrats out to safety from prison or the guillotine, how they had almost gotten to a waiting rowboat on a remote beach near Calais.…

“There were cavalry and police on the bluff above,” Lewrie said more somberly. “We made a mad dash for the boat, but, just as I was hoisting Caroline in, she was shot. She passed away in the boat, not a minute later.”

That drew an aubible gasp and rumble of mutters. Even Grierson was wide-eyed. “Foul murder … Bonaparte a criminal, too … damn the French, root and branch … could be made out, here and there.

“Now, both my sons are in the Navy, Hugh was always to be, but his older brother, Sewallis, was so hot for revenge that I feared that he would enlist as a private soldier, or ship before the mast, did I deny him,” Lewrie sadly said. Truth was, Sewallis had forged his way to sea as a Midshipman! “My daughter lives with one of my brothers-in-law in a little village, Anglesgreen, in Surrey. Though my father has a small estate there, he’s mostly up to London and has little to offer towards a young girl’s raising. Too old, now, to tend to a young’un.”

No, Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby, damned near a charter member of the old Hell-Fire Club, liked young, so long as the girls were over eighteen, and obliging!

“So, when I received orders to Reliant in April of ’03, I was more than ready to sail against the French once more,” he concluded.

“A toast! A toast!” a youngish gallant cried, standing, and drawing others to their feet. “To the gallant Captain Lewrie, a man of grand adventures!”

Lewrie sat modestly with his hands in his lap to be honoured, bowing his head to left and right, admittedly with his ears burning.

*   *   *

Once the supper was over, the ladies excused themselves to the parlours for tea whilst the men gathered higher up the table for port, nuts, and sweet bisquits, and more talk of trade and the war. Lewrie excused himself after a while and went out on the front gallery for a breath of air, and to swab his face of perspiration; it had been nigh a steam bath inside, as he had feared, and the dance would be even worse. There were many supper guests who had the same idea, both men and women. Lewrie envied the fact that the women could cool themselves with their fans, something a gentleman could not.

“Your pahdon, sah, but, are you Captain Lewrie?” a liveried Black servant tentatively asked by his elbow.

“I am.”

“Dis note be fo’ ya, sah.”

Lewrie stepped closer to one of the entrance way lanthorns to peel it open and read it, and his face lit up with a feral smile.

My house. Come by midnight.

P

Can this evening be even more perfect? he asked himself.

Inside, the musicians struck up the opening strains of formal airs for the minuet, and Lewrie steeled himself for the ordeal to come. He must squire as many ladies present as he could, from the wife of the Governor-General down to the youngest … with Mrs. Priscilla Frost in the queue, quite happily … without showing any favouritism. It could last for hours, right to the livelier contre-dances. He considered bowing out of those after an essay or two; there must be some shreds of dignity that a Post-Captain in the Royal Navy should show! Besides … the livelier dances would continue beyond midnight.

And he now had someplace else more desirable to go!