A King`s Commander - Dewey Lambdin

"Enter." Lewrie sighed around a chunk of salami and goat cheese. "Excuse me, sir," Mountjoy said as he entered. "But I expect you're almost ready for me to make a fair copy of the report from your rough, sir?"

"Just about, Mister Mountjoy. Glass o' chianti?" "Aye, sir, that'd be welcome."

"A tad puckerish, is chianti," Lewrie admitted. "But it grows on one. Aspinall, a glass for Mister Mountjoy. And a top-up for me." "Aye, sir."

"A bit of news, too, sir," Mountjoy offered. "That French prisoner Mister Knolles brought aboard is Flemish. Did as you bid, sir, tried to speak with him, but I do declare, sir, I've never heard worse French in all my born days. But, most happily, Mister Rahl the quarter-gunner happened by."

"Mister Rahl," Lewrie posed, a trifle dubious. Rahl couldn't put four words of the King's English together with a pistol pointed at his head. "The Austrian Netherlands, sir. Or rather, should I say, what was once the Austrian Netherlands," Mountjoy explained. "A polyglot, sir. Flemish, Waloon, bastard Dutch, a version of French as far from good French as Birmingham 'mumbletonian' is to English. But they do still know the tongue of their conquerors, sir. German. Mister Rahl was Wie Gehts?' and Was Machts Du?' with the clod, quick as a wink, sir. Our M'sieur Hainaut is the usual story these days. A 'prentice seaman, from Antwerp, or thereabouts, of French blood, sir. Joined up eager as anything, soon as the Frogs drove the Austrians out. Bad as the Frogs need skilled men, they took him on as a petty officer, much like Mister Cony…"

"Bosun's mate," Aspinall said, almost under his breath, back to entertaining the cat after fetching the wine.

"Uhm, quite… " Mountjoy frowned. "Anyway, sir, Hainaut rose to become a midshipman, double-quick. Acting, one might suppose. And poorly paid, if that's the best uniform he could afford, what? Earned the notice of a senior officer, came under his wing…"

"Patronage," Lewrie supplied to enlighten Mountjoy's continuing ignorance.

"Oddly, he won't tell me who he is, sir. Just refers to him as 'Die Narbe.' Rahl tells me that means 'The Scar,' Captain. Capitaine de Vaisseau Scar, sir. Might be another German who threw in his lot on the French side, but Mister Rahl believes it's more a nickname, sir. But then, German names, I've found, are much like Red Indian names… holdovers from tribal times, when 'Strong Arm' and 'Bear-Killer' were popular. So it could be a proper name, no matter what Mister Rahl believes. I gather this Captain 'Scar' is in charge of coastal convoys and their escorts." Mountjoy blithely shrugged off, taking a sip of his wine.

"Sail hoi" came the interruption, making Lewrie almost tip his glass over.

"Later, Mister Mountjoy," Lewrie said, getting to his feet and into his coat and hat; and finishing his wine. First things first, he told himself. "Do you go ahead with the fair copy of the report, while I see to this." A final pat on Toulon 's head, and he was out the door and pounding up the ladder to the quarterdeck.

"Where away, Mister Buchanon?"

"Three points off th' starboard bows, sir," the sailing master told him, pointing an arm in the general direction. "T'gallants 'bove th' horizon, so far, Cap'um. I make us 'bout ten miles off th' coast, an' 'bout ten miles east o' San Remo. She's almost bows-on, sir, an' that could mean she's on a course t' a French-held port."

"From somewhere to the sou'east, then…" Lewrie mused. "From Leghorn? To San Remo?"

"Very possible, sir. Might be one o' 'em so-called neutrals 'ey told us t'watch for," Buchanon agreed.

"Check with the signalman-striker, Mister Buchanon. Have him fetch out that French Tricolor we used off Ushant. And order Lieutenant Knolles in La Follette to come under my lee. I'm sure he has a tricolor aboard… but he'll be needing one of our smaller ensigns, to declare his proper identity when the time comes. A boat ensign'll do."

"One aboard Bombуlo now, sir," Buchanon reminded him.

"Very well, have him send a boat for that one," Lewrie schemed. "Damme, Mister Buchanon, were you an Italian captain, running goods to the Frogs, what would you make of our motley group?"

"Be relieved, sir," Buchanon guffawed. "Couple o' French warships, escortin' a three-ship convoy long th' coast? Just th' thing. Better'n runnin' afoul o' one o' 'em nasty Englishmen!"

"Would you be tempted to come close enough to speak them, sir?"

"Were I worried 'bout any Royal Navy ships in th' area, I would, sir. Aye, I surely would sail right up an' ask, 'fore I put in to San Remo. Might have too much wagered to lose, else."

"Let us devoutly hope, Mister Buchanon," Lewrie enthused along with him. "Once we've our flag situation settled, we'll harden up to windward a point, as if we're standing out to 'smoak' him. Like what a properly wary escort'd do."

"Very well, sir."

"I'll send Knolles a quick note. Tell him to guard the prizes while we're gone. And what we're about. And conform to my flag when I show them false colors. Damme!" Alan swore in wonder again. "I do believe this could turn out to be a Dev'lish profitable day!"

"It could, at that, sir!"

"Oh! Mister Rydell," Lewrie said, snapping his fingers at the small lad. "Nip below and order Mister Mountjoy to come to the quarterdeck. And for him to fetch my new gold-laced coat, with the epaulet. And my full dress hat. Has the gentleman a sword, he's to fetch that from his cabin, as well."

"Aye aye, sir," Little Rydell replied with a puzzled look.

Thankee, Captain Cog-burn, Lewrie thought with a wry grin; one of us, at least, is going to look very convincing to that ship.

CHAPTER

5

"Ooh Law', Sah," Andrews drawled, doffing his hat and making a formal leg, "but don' ya look pretty. Why, ah expects dey ain' nevah been such a dashin' lookin' cap'um in de whole Royal Navy, sah."

"I really…" Mountjoy protested bashfully, aware that he was the object of the entire ship's amusement. "Sir, how can I pose…?"

"Put your hands in the small of your back, sir," Lewrie said, beaming. "Frown a lot. Right, Mister Spenser?"

" 'At's a cap'um's way, sir," Spenser said from the wheel.

"And when you speak, do it from deep down in your chest," Alan further instructed Mountjoy. "And shout. Shout very loud," he said, handing him a brass speaking trumpet. "Imagine you've not had a spot of joy your last ten years, entire, sir. Or the gout. Whichever you think makes you the gloomiest. Begin in French. Should they wish to, switch over to Italian. I'll be right by your elbow, prompting you to the proper commands in English, so you can shout orders to the crew in Frog. I'll pass them, in English, through Mister Rydell to Mister Porter and the master gunner, soft enough so they won't hear me. I must say, though, Mister Mountjoy," Lewrie was forced to snicker, "but you do cut a most dashing, and nautical picture."

"Uhm, sir." Mountjoy sighed, feeling put upon, in spite of the necessity for him to be tricked out in Lewrie's best coat and hat, and wearing a spare sword borrowed from the gunroom. "But wouldn't it be best, sir, to pose as your first officer, while…?"

"No, sir," Lewrie countered. "That might have been the way in the Royal French Navy, beneath the dignity of a titled captain. But a captain

come up through the hawsehole'U shout his own questions. Be ready, she's within half a league of us. Practice bein' a Tartar. A loud Tartar, mind. Scoggins? Hoist the French colors."

"Aye aye, sir!" the signalman-striker shouted back, hauling at a flag halliard on the mizzenmast.

With the most powerful glass aboard, Lewrie could almost recognize the shivers of relief that went through the people on the strange brig's quarterdeck. Instead of edging astern, as she had been to shy away, she now resumed her old course, straight for them.

"Mister Knolles's hoisted his own false colors, sir," Buchanon said, almost in a conspiratorial whisper at Lewrie's side.

"Very well, Mister Buchanon, thankee." Lewrie nodded emphatically, edgy and fidgety with worry of all that might still go awry. It was many a slip, 'twixt the crouch and the leap, as Caroline ever said.

"Her own colors," Mountjoy drawled out in a regular voice, an arm extended to point. "Mean t'say… there's her own damn' flag, at last!" he amended, suddenly gruff, and rather loud, too, in what Alan feared was a fairly accurate impersonation of his own style.

Damme, do I sound that fearsome? he asked himself.

"Tuscan, sir," Buchanon identified first. "And a house flag I don't know."

"Let's pray it's a house flag," Lewrie said, "and not a secret recognition signal." They'd tried, in the hour that HMS Jester and the strange brig had taken to close each other, to interrogate the French midshipman, but he'd gone even surlier, and more mute, once the subject had been broached. Surely there were signals, Lewrie thought; must be, if they're to approach French forts that could blow 'em to flinders! A godsend for the entire squadron would be the discovery aboard the brig of her codebook, which would let them raid any harbor they wished for a time, before the French changed the signals.

"Wearin', sir," Buchanon grunted. "Two cable up t'windward."

"Helm alee, Mister Spenser. Two points to weather. Close her. On tippy toes," Lewrie told the helmsmen. "Nothing too sudden."

"Two points t'weather, sir. 'Andsomely," Spenser replied, chuckling.

"Can they hear us yet, do you think, sir?" Mountjoy asked.

"Not upwind of us," Lewrie scoffed. "Nor in the middle of a jibe. Mister Porter? Brail up, and reduce sail," he shouted.

The rather pretty brig wore her stern across the wind, and took in sail herself, slowing and sloughing atop her bow wave, and falling leeward at a slight angle. Warily keeping the wind gauge oн Jester but approaching to as close as half a cable, possibly less.

"She'll be fine catch, sir," Buchanon murmured, rubbing fingers as if shining a guinea between them. "A damn' handsome thing."

Dark green gunwale over well-oiled oak, with only a miser's pale yellow gloss paint in lieu of a braggart's gilt, was the brig. Rigging was well set up, the wood of her yards and lower masts freshly painted in white, and her running rigging was almost golden-hemp new. Lewrie eyed her with his glass, estimating her length at around eighty-five or ninety feet, just a little larger than their brig-sloop Speedy. And there was gilt on her, he noted; a figurehead lady was gilded, as were the upper beak-head rails, and the trim around her quarter galleries.

A pretty thing, he thought; and a richly done'un!

A shout from her quarterdeck, as she fell down alee, within two hundred yards. In French! "Qui va la?"

"Answer them, Mister Mountjoy," Lewrie prompted.

"Uhm…" Mountjoy quivered nervously, coughing and practicing a false basso, sounding like a mastiff with a chest cold.

"La corvette Emeraude, Marine de guerre Franзais!" Mountjoy said through the speaking trumpet, sounding a bit shriller than Lewrie might have liked, a touch too quavery. "Ici capitaine de frйgate … Hainaut! Et vous? Qui vive?"