Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey

"B-boarders!" he insisted, the ringing in his ears smothering his own words.

"Surgeon's Mate!" someone was keening.

"Never fear, sir… we'll take her for you," someone very like Langlie whispered, leaning down over his face as he was jostled by many hands, soaring aloft like a freed soul, with something hard and narrow under him as he was quickly bound with ropes like some damned soul for spitting and roasting on the Devil's rфtisserie.

"Proteuses… away boarders! Away boarders!"

"No, repel boarders, not…!"

He was sure he'd said it, but no one paid him any mind but for Mr. Durant, who was making clucking noises and shaking his head sadly.

Daylight was gone; he was plunged into reeking, foetid darkness, feet-first into the "fug" of unwashed bodies, bilges, and stinks; below into glim-lit Hades. To the cockpit on the orlop, where the wailing and shrieking of the eternally damned soared and chorused in an atonal agony. Those saved, above, shouted Hosannas of blissful and eternal joy- though they were making a rather noisy, tinkery, metallic and feu de joie music along with their paeans!

"It must come off, at once," Mr. Thomas Shirley, the twentyish surgeon, lowed like a cow, spouting some dry, esoteric dog-Latin.

"Non, non… ze humerus is broken, not shattered, m'sieur," Durant (or somebody Froggish, anyway!) insisted. "See, ze axillary responds when I stick 'is palm, and…"

"Ow! Bloody…!"

"Ze blood loss suggest ze axillary artery is non torn, aussi? Cut eez coat and shirt off, s'il vous plaоt… gently. Ze ball pass through complete, you see? M'sieur Capitaine? Drink zees, an' think ze pleasant thought." Followed by more "Ahumms" and Latin gibberish.

A large pewter cup of rum was shoved under Lewrie's nose and he drank it down, just before a leather gag was put between his teeth to bite on when the pain got severe… which it did!

They probed, retracting wool coat and silk shirt shards, taking out slivers of bone and tiny splashes of lead, Durant insisting that a watered tincture of brandy be splashed around inside the wound, over the instruments, before they squeezed, twisted, and pried at his arm to see how it lined up before getting shot… and re-set it!

"A simple fracture, after all, sir."

"Sonofagoddamnbitchl'llbloodykillyourmiserableFrogass!"

"You are welcome, M'sieur Capitaine. Next?"

He was bound in linen, with lots of batting, also soaked in the French йmigrй's watered brandy, that stung like Blazes; over the bandages, two wooden belaying pins were bound taut with twine; some spare Number Eight sailcloth, the lightest aboard, was fashioned into a neat sling; and he was stowed forrud on a straw-filled mattress, armed with another hefty measure of rum, then ignored.

"We took her, sir! We took her!" Langlie was crowing about a quarter-hour later, coming to his side with flecks of blood (hopefully someone else's!) on his coat facings, his cheek, and shirt. "Oh, 'twas a hard fight, but we took her! You were right to call for boarders, Captain Lewrie. Had they formed and attempted to board us, well…! But we beat them to it, and broke their spirit into the bargain."

Lewrie could but gawp at him (a trifle drunkenly by then) and wonder what the Blazes this idiot was babbling about!

"Very good, sir. Just get me out of this cess-pit and back to my roomin' house, 'fore the wife finds me, hey?"

"Sir?" Lt. Langlie gawped in puzzlement.

"Oh, never mind, I'm too sleepy t'care."

"And that, sirs, is how I conquered a Dutch frigate," Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, concluded with a blithe laugh. "Stood up shirtless, strapped to a carryin' board by the windward mizen shrouds, with a cup of rum in my hands, towin' out our prize! Speaking of… allow me to propose another toast. To Lieutenant Anthony Langlie, my able First Officer, and the true hero of the piece. He placed the Batavian Navy Orangespruit, a thirty-six gun Fifth Rate frigate, on a platter for me, and served her up… well done!"

His fellow diners gave out a loud, prolonged cheer, along with the curious onlookers who had gathered to peer over their shoulders as the tale was told, and they clapped and laughed, as well. Handsome women in the height of Fashion that season fanned and flushed, or made as if they'd swoon. They raised a rousing "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow," to which Lewrie nodded and smiled, raising his port glass in answering salute and acknowledgement.

Of course, it made a good tale, a 32-gun taking a 36-gun; what the public expected their Navy to accomplish. Of course, he did not tell them of his mistakes, of stumbling about in the smoke, damn near lost, of his sin of over-confidence, of yielding the wind-gauge to the Dutch so stupidly, being drawn like a lamb to the slaughter into the mouths of the guns of a doughty, wily, and desperate enemy captain, who had taken much the same precautions as he, to be the biter and not the bit, that day!

No, this crowd wouldn't appreciate unvarnished truth, nor would they tolerate another toast, this to the dead, the maimed and gutted, to those men now minus limbs or sight, and doomed to a lifetime of poverty ashore, with but a pittance of a pension to atone for a too-brief moment of glory.

Nineteen killed, listed with the simple "D-D" in ship's books for Discharged, Dead and interred at sea, out of sight and mind. And twenty-nine wounded, too, with fourteen of those merely Discharged… landed ashore at Sheerness and lumbered off to a naval hospital, never to return to duty, should they survive the ministrations.

For the Dutch, it had been a slaughter-pit, as well; over sixty dead and over an hundred cruelly wounded. That was the sort of harvest that England 's public liked; the greater the number of enemy slain, the higher

cost in British lives, well… the greater the honour! Losing captains had been knighted for bravery after such fights, since they'd run up a high "butcher's bill" of their own people before striking!

Perhaps he should tell them the cost, he speculated; they might get a vicarious thrill from so much distant blood! All due to his work, his cockiness, his famed "luck," and his "tradition of victory"!

While they cheered and clapped, his beloved Proteus languished in a Sheerness graving dock, her guns and stores warehoused ashore as the shipwrights repaired her many hurts. She was as nearly shattered as the captured Orangespruit! Damn 'em all! he thought; no matter what face I put on it, 'twas a costly damn' victory. Something I could never say even to Caroline in strictest privacy. My father, well… he knows of it, he's a military man, I spilled my secret to him, but… Caroline!

He almost felt like breaking down and blubbing in public, after all! And fearing that Dame Fortune had decided to turn on him and feed him to her wolves!

"A flutter of the cards, Captain Lewrie?" Mr. Lumsden asked.

"Ah, no," Lewrie soberly replied. "I feel as if I've stretched my luck far enough, lately. Haven't heard from the Prize-Court yet…"

"Our reckoning, I should think," his father quickly suggested as he spotted his son's wavering. "We should be gettin' home, son, gettin' some part of a good night's rest. Do you gentlemen excuse us? I keep at Willis's Rooms when in town. Do call upon me, and we could pursue the matter of a gentleman's club further, perhaps discover some backers who might also find the notion intriguing…?"

They said their good-nights, gathered their hats and cloaks from the tiler, then stood chilled at the kerb outside whilst a young "daisy kicker" servant of The Cocoa Tree whistled them up a hired carriage to bear them home.

CHAPTER THREE

It was "fashionably" well past midnight before they entered the lodging house, with but a yawning servant to unlock the door for them and offer candles so they could light their way abovestairs. Willis's was otherwise dark and broodingly silent, the cheery fires in the common and public rooms banked, the equally cheery bar now shuttered. Sir Hugo assured his son that, failing the publican's commerce, he had a bottle of good Frog brandy in his room.

Lewrie by then was exhausted, and not much in need of a drink; he'd had half-enough for a lifetime, thankee very much!

The spirit's willin, but the body's weak, he thought, in awe of the other diners' capacity, of his father's ability to put it away with nary even a slurred word. Navy's ruined me, damn 'em, he decided, as he fumbled out his key, peering about owlishly.

Lewrie hesitated before the door to his set of rooms, key finally in hand, wondering should he knock or scratch first. With a sorry curse, softly muttered, he rued again fleeing the park with his father, of coming back so late and so "in the barrel" and bedraggled, instead of rushing back to Willis's after merely an hour's pause to argue things out with Caroline, and defend himself, once she'd cooled down.

"Devil with it," he grumbled, inserting the large key; well, he tried to, but there was but one wee candle in the passageway, the key was perversely upside-down, then backwards, and the slot, though large, seemed to be queerly mobile!

At last he managed to unlock the door and enter the rooms, glad to see a fire in the hearth, low and orange, flickering scant light off the brass reflector plate. Only a single candle guttered on the tiny wine-table near the settee, upon which a form huddled.

"Bless me!" the form groaned, sitting up, half-scaring Lewrie out of a year's growth! "Oh, 'tis you, sir," his manservant Aspinall said, rubbing sleep from his eyes like a toddler. "Meant t'sit up an' wait for ya, Cap'um Lewrie, but…"

"No matter, me lad, no matter," Lewrie replied, waving overly wide, and unsteady on his "pins." "The wife's asleep, I trust?"

"Erm, uhh… no sir," Aspinall said with a wince. "She's gone, sir… her and the children, all. Packed up an' took the coach back to Angles-green, Lord… hours ago, sir. Not long after she come back by herself. Long 'fore dark, for certain."

Aspinall had tricked himself out in snowy white slop trousers, a clean new shirt, a red neckerchief, and a short sailor's jacket with a set of shiny brass buttons. He sloughed off a dark blue grogram greatcoat under which he had been napping, and felt about with his toes for his new shiny-blacked shoes, those with the real silver buckles that Lewrie had bought for him after coming ashore.

"Ah," Lewrie replied, after a long, deep sigh. "I see."

"Can I get ya anything, sir? Didn't know as how you'd dine, so I sent down for some…"

"No thankee, Aspinall," Lewrie said, removing his cocked hat and boat-cloak, which Aspinall rushed to gather in.

"Still some cold roast pork an' bread, sir. Make a good snack. There's some wine, and…"

"I dined, not so long ago, no," Lewrie replied, trying not to snap at his manservant; it wasn't his bloody fault. Though, from the half-empty carafe of wine, the skimpiness of the remaining slices of pork, and the half-loaf, Aspinall had dined well, he thought. And why not? Stuck in the middle of a domestic battle-royal, not knowing the details, and loath to step out to visit his ailing mother here in London, to go much beyond the public rooms belowstairs 'til his master returned… Lewrie could picture poor Aspinall standing well out of the way, wringing his hands, unsure whether he should help them pack, or scurry off and hide 'til the thunder had subsided.

"Go get some rest, Aspinall. Turn in. I can mangage. I might even discover my own bed, if my luck's in," Lewrie throatily said.

"I'll build up the fire, sir, an' heat a warmin' pan. Won't be a tick," Aspinall uneasily offered, overly anxious to please. Simply plain anxious, Lewrie could imagine. 'What shall become of us?' as Sophie had fretted earlier today… was it yesterday, by now?

"Well, then…" Lewrie demurred, tearing at his neck-stock and collapsing upright on the settee.

"Uhm, Missus Lewrie left that note, sir…"

How could he have missed it, leant against the carafe of wine. Was that a not-so-subtle slur about his "beastly" nature?

Aspinall became even more cringingly unobtrusive as Lewrie took up the note, broke the seal, and unfolded it. For being penned in the heat of the moment, Lewrie decided, it was as forebodingly chilly as a hunk of Arctic ice! Though claiming she'd never suspected a blessed thing at the time, Caroline's worst suspicions had been confirmed, in the blink of an eye. The gist of that accusing, anonymous letter she had gotten, enumerating her husband's sins, was proved true! Back in their rooms after the row, she'd dredged confirmation from poor Sophie de Maubeuge, their ward; yes, he'd had a mistress in the Mediterranean, Phoebe Aretino, kept at Gibraltar 'til his return in '94, kept as well on her home island of Corsica… the dread secret that Sophie had held all these years, spilled at last! Phoebe Aretino, a conniving, mercenary Corsican whore he'd met at Toulon, the damning letter had described her, Lewrie's long-term mistress, so any dalliance could not be excused as a lone moment of weakness, and even much worse than any passing idea Caroline had had about Theoni Connor, whose appearance in the park had set all this off! Though confirmed in Caroline's mind was his adultery with Theoni, now, for the anonymous letter had spelled it all out for her… both the first back in the spring, and the latest!

How he had cossetted Theoni Connor, perhaps the first night he'd taken her aboard HMS Jester after rescuing her from Serbian pirates in the Adriatic, how he'd schemed and finagled to have her and her actual son Michael sail to Lisbon as his guests in his great-cabins, how he'd paid court to her in that port before she'd taken the packet to Liverpool and the in-laws of her late husband! God above, but Caroline had an inkling of an attractive, busty Italian courtesan in Genoa, and in Leghorn, and…!

She'd be shootin' lava 'bout that'un! Lewrie told himself, with a sick and swoony feeling of doom as he dashed a hand cross his brows; Theoni's more blessed in that department, too, and Caroline's more…petite! Damme, don't she know men don't marry teats… they just want t'sup on em a tad, now and then?

Though how in Blazes anyone, much less the anonymous scribbler, knew that much was beyond him; Phoebe, for certain; Theoni, well maybe. But Claudia Mastandrea, too? No, who could've known that much, and who could despise him enough to write his wife and tell all? He had suspected Commander William Fillebrowne, who had openly boasted of taking Phoebe's "saddle" after she and Lewrie had thrown in the towel with each other; he'd been in Venice, in their squadron, in the Adriatic when Theoni Connor turned up, but Claudia was long before his time, an actual, official "mission" handed him by that old Foreign Office spook, Zachariah Twigg… damn his blood! That was supposed to be very secret!

He'd also suspected Lucy Beauman, his first and frustratingly unrequited lust way back in the "early-earlies" of 1780. Now Lady Lucy Shockley, she'd been in Venice, too, also taken with that Fillebrowne; his lover, in point of fact, behind her decent (huge and filthy rich) husband's back not six months after they were wed, the filthy baggage! Lucy and Fillebrowne together, for mutual revenge?

He'd spurned her offer of a tumble or an affair, should handsome Fillebrowne go stale, or fail to clear all his "jumps"; perhaps at the same time, for all he knew or cared. So rich, spoiled, and pampered… Lucy was not a woman to cross, and Fillebrowne…!