The King`s Commission - Dewey Lambdin

A quick trip below into the holds assured Alan that their ship would not sink, though the repairs and patches had not stopped the leaks but had only slowed them to a manageable in-flow.

"We'll be at the pumps all the way ta Antigua, sir, but we've got a chance, iffen we could fother a patch er two," "Chips" told him.

That seemed good encouragement, which lasted only until Lewrie got to the surgery on the lower decks, and Dorne gave him the bad news.

"Mister Monk has passed over," Dorne began, in between suffering seamen as the leather cover over the midshipmen's chests was sluiced clean of blood and torn flesh with a bucket of seawater. "The loss of blood was too great, I'm afraid. And our captain was struck down in his moment of greatest triumph as well."

"Dead?" Alan asked, ready to spew at the sights and smells and sounds of the surgery. Could we be lucky enough to be rid of him? he thought.

"No, praise a merciful God, merely splintered, and if suppuration does not set in, he stands a fair chance for recovery. Hoist him up here," Dorne directed as a moaning body was laid out on the table. "That arm shall have to come off. Who is he, one of ours?"

"A French seaman, I believe," Cheatham the youngish purser informed him after looking at the pile of clothing on the deck that had been cut off the unfortunate. Cheatham took a swig of rum from a cup, to steady his own nerves, then offered it to the Frenchman's lips for him to suck on as an anodyne.

"Wondered where he was," Alan muttered, shivering with chill at the sight of the man's rivened arm, and the instruments that Dorne was removing from a bucket of bloody water for reuse.

"Who?"

"Treghues," Alan said.

"Non, non, mon dieu, non!" the Frenchman screamed as the weary loblolly boys took hold of him to keep him still, and Dorne lifted up that arm and quickly flensed the flesh away above the major wounds, not five inches below the shoulder. Cauterizing irons sizzled to stop the flow of blood from opened arteries and veins, and the air was putrid with the reek of scorched flesh, and the savage rasp of a bone saw.

"Oh, Jesus," Alan said, turning away, ready to faint, ready to "cast his accounts" on the slimy deck.

"Fifteen seconds, I make it," Dorne grunted, pleased with himself as the amputated limb dropped to the deck. "It is a point of pleasure to my professional skills that I never cause undue suffering by taking long, once a course of action has been found. Sutures, quickly now, while he is unconscious. Hogan, more cotton bast for this."

Alan staggered away from the table, almost tripping on the legs of the many wounded who groaned and cried out in agony.

"We win, sor?" someone asked.

"Aye, yes we did," Alan nodded, almost unable to speak.

"Tis Judkin, sir, is the captain arright?" the captain's servant asked, his face almost muffled with bast and bandages, with only part of his mouth free.

"I am told he shall live, Judkin."

"'At's right good, sir, 'e's a good master ta me. 'Ere, Mister Lewrie, 'tis Mister Avery over here," Judkin piped, full of good cheer. "Mister Avery, sir, Mister Lewrie's come a'callin' on ya."

Avery had been stripped bare and covered with a scrap of sail, and what flesh was exposed had been scorched by the explosion of that burst gun, cooked the color of a well-done steak, oozing red.

"Oh, Jesus," Alan reiterated, kneeling down by his friend as David Avery gasped air through his open mouth. "David? Hear me?"

Avery seemed to be trying to whisper; his lips moved, but no words could be made out. His eyes opened for a moment, bloodshot as cherries floating in coal sludge, staring blankly at the deckhead.

"David, 'tis Alan," Lewrie said louder, bending down near the young man's ear. Avery only closed his eyes and gave no sign of awareness, but continued to breathe as though each one would be his last. His body was shivering as though the touch of air on that overheated flesh was excruciating. "Do you want anything, David? Water?"

There was no response, just the uneven heaving of that charred chest. Alan stood back up, almost cracking his head on a deck beam in his haste to flee the compartment, tears flowing down his face.

Too many people he had come to like had just died, too many of the warrants and mates he had dealt with on a daily basis for nearly a year in Desperate, so that it felt much like the grief a sole survivor would feel of a Red Indian massacre.

"Ah, Lewrie!" Sedge called out as he spotted him on deck. "I was wondering where you'd got to. Mister Coke needs help with jury-rigging the mizzen mast. Well, get with it! We've not time to moon about!"

Chapter 3

Peaceful night in Frigate Bay, with a light breeze flowing over the decks, bringing cooling relief to crowded mess areas through wind-scoops and ventilators. Lanterns burned at the taffrail, binnacle and fo'c'sle belfry, and work-lanterns glowed as the last of the major hurts to Desperate were repaired. Saws rasped, hammers and mallets thudded now and again as something was tamped home in the torn deck or bulwarks.

Commander Treghues was propped up by a mound of pillows in his bed-box hung from the overhead below his repeating compass. His midriff was banded about snugly with white gauze and bast, as was his left arm and shoulder. Beyond the hinged-open stern windows in the transom the riding lights of the fleet could be seen, and close-aboard, the lights of their prize, the twenty-eight-gunned 5th Rate Capricieuse.

Freeling had been borrowed from the midshipmen's mess to tend to the captain's needs, serving him a cup of wine laced with his favorite medication, and to serve glasses of wine to the assembled officers and senior warrants.

Alan nodded over his glass, wishing he could lay his head down on the fine mahogany desk and go to sleep on the spot, as Lieutenant Railsford droned on through a list of repairs still necessary to both their own ship and the captured frigate.

"Admiral Hood's flag-captain has assured me he shall be taking charge of those prisoners able-bodied enough to cause mischief to us, sir," Railsford concluded. "Doctor Dorne has replenished his medical supplies well enough to tend to the wounded, both ours and theirs, and a surgeon's assistant shall be coming inboard at first light to aid."

"Very good," Treghues said softly, too sore to take a deep breath or reply with his usual force. "Doctor Dorne, how many of our men show a fair chance for recovery?"

"About eighteen, sir. There are nine that I can do little for, limited as we are. Should we get them to hospital, one or two may yet be saved," Dorne replied heavily, looking as exhausted as a man could and still draw breath himself.

"Our casualties, Mister Railsford," Treghues asked.

"Mister Monk, sir," Railsford said, referring to a quick tally of the dead and badly wounded. "Mister Weems, the master gunner Mister Gwynn, midshipman Avery, Murray the after quarter-gunner, Sergeant McGregor of the Marines, Corporal Smart, Tate the senior quartermaster…" Railsford intoned, going through the long list. Altogether, they had lost eleven dead and twenty-seven wounded, with many of the dead from the senior warrants and department heads.

Damned near a quarter of the crew and Marines, Alan sighed to himself, tipping back his glass of celebratory claret without tasting it. He held out the glass for Freeling to refill, and the lugubrious lout sprang to do his bidding, now that he had a chance to strike as servant to a victorious captain instead of a jumped-up midshipman.

David had died just about an hour after Alan had gone back on deck, never regaining consciousness, which Dr. Dorne assured him was a blessing, for they could not salve his worst burns without bringing away bits of charred flesh on the bandages.

"Mister Sedge is more senior, I believe?" Treghues asked. "He was appointed acting sailing master by poor Mister Monk himself, I recall?"

"Aye, sir," Railsford agreed, and Sedge sat up more erect to preen as his name was mentioned.

"Then we shall honor Mister Monk's dying request. Mister Sedge, you are acting sailing master of Desperate."

"Thankee kindly, sir." Sedge beamed.

"Mister Tully to be advanced to take Gwynn's place, and the Yeoman of the Powder Room advanced to gunner's mate," Treghues went on, his mind wonderfully clear for all the claret he had put aboard, and his eyes shrunk to pinpoints by the drug. "A deserving quarter-gunner for Yeoman of the Powder Room?"

"Hogan, fo'c'sle chase-gunner, sir," Alan heard himself suggest. "I sent him aft to clear away the raffle after that brass gun burst, and he did good service."

"Aye, a good report. Make it so, Mister Railsford."

"Aye, sir," Railsford assented, borrowing quill and ink to make corrections in his quarter-bills.

"Promote whom you think best into the other positions and give me their names for my report to Admiral Hood," Treghues said, "along with those Discharged, Dead. How many men shall we need for the prize?"

"A dozen hands, sir," Railsford reckoned, "and I'd suggest a file of Marines under a corporal to keep an eye on the senior Frogs and the wounded who may try to retake her once she's away from under Barfleur's guns."

"Make it eighteen hands and I shall be grateful to you, Mister Peck, if you could supply ten Marines under a corporal into her."

"Aye, sir," Peck agreed, favoring his splinted and wrapped arm.

"Bless me, but we're a damaged lot this evening," Treghues said with an attempt at good cheer. "Prize-master?"

"Well, I could go into her, sir," Railsford replied shyly. If he were to take Capricieuse into port, he could parley the fame and the glory into a promotion to commander himself, yet badly as he wanted it, he had to act modest, and shrug off his own suggestion.

"No, I shall need you here in temporary command, unless Dorne is playing the fool about my hurts."

"You should not attempt to rise from that bunk for at least a week, sir," Dorne warned him, "until we know there is no lasting harm from the splinters I withdrew."

Treghues winced at the remembrance of how he had been quilled with wood, and the agony of their extraction, some of them acting like barbed arrow-heads that had torn more flesh as they came out.

"Then I shall rest on my laurels until allowed to rise," the captain said with a small grin. Laurels indeed: he had taken a more powerful ship in bloody combat, with a casualty list sufficiently impressive to awe the Admiralty and the Mob at home. Men had been knighted for less. Captain Pearson of Serapis had been knighted for losing to the Rebel John Paul Jones after a splendid three-against-one defense.

"Mister Lewrie," Treghues said, turning his head to gaze upon him. "In Lieutenant Railsford's stead, I shall appoint you into the prize. And I think the post of acting lieutenant would not be out of order after today's gallantry."

"Ah." Alan could only gawp in surprise and weariness. Damme, but don't he shower his favorites with blessings, he thought.

Treghues positively glowed at him. "You did good service today with the guns, and in carrying the boarding of our prize. And I mind you've been prize-master before, after that fight off St. Croix? See, you shall have those paroled French officers aboard, and I doubt they would stand for being guarded by a master's mate. That captain of theirs probably would be insulted with anything less than an earl for his gaoler."