H. M. S. Cockerel (53 page)

“I promise you, Charles,” Alan intoned.

“Promesse,
on . . .
votre honneur!”

“On my honour, Charles, as an English gentleman . . . as a commission officer in the Royal Navy, I swear to you, I'll take care of them. I'll see them someplace safe,” he croaked, blinking back tears.

“Bon,”
de Crillart sighed, shrinking away. His hand, as cold as ice, slipped from Lewrie's hand.
“Bon,”
he said again, the breath his last, hissing out to rattle in his throat as his eyes glazed over. Alan closed them for him, crossed his arms upon his breast.

“Goddamn,” he whispered, sitting back on his heels.

“Good feller, 'e waz, sir,” Cony said in sympathy.

“So were a lot of men, just died,” Lewrie grunted, chin on his chest. “God help me, Cony, I'm so weak, I . . .”

“Alluz are, sir, after th' battle's done. Help ya up, sir?”

“Yes, thankee, Cony.” He got to his feet, swabbing his face on his sleeve. “Many others?”

“Fair number, sir. Mister Porter an' me, we're makin' th' list.” They began to walk forward through the carnage, making a quick inspection. “
Radical,
she's beat up hellish-bad, sir. Stove in, an' leakin', I 'spects. Mister Porter's been below here, sir, says she come through in good shape, below the waterline. Jus'
looks
damn' bad.”

There were bodies everywhere one looked, pulped, halved, broken and punctured, flopping in death throes, half-buried beneath overturned guns. There the doughty Major de Mariel, then another French soldier. A pair of the 18th, almost arm in arm as they died. A cavalryman hung over the starboard gangway. Men in civilian clothing, with their white armbands, strewn about like slaughtered game birds. But mostly French Republican sailors, thank God—hewn down, hacked down, scythed down by musketry, double-shotted iron, and cutlasses. Moaning, empty-eyed wounded clutching their hurts, sitting on the decks in shock.

There was a cannon shot, a deep-bellied roar.

“Oh, God, no!” Lewrie wailed, losing his rigidly enforced calm. “That bloody frigate!”

He and Cony dashed forward, leaping over obstacles, to ascend to the foredeck where they might have a view. There, close-aboard, was a warship, her pristine masts and yards towering over the two entangled ships. Flying a White ensign and “Do You Require Assistance.” Lewrie waved to her, both arms wide. She was huge, bluff and tall, a massive two-decker 64. Where had
she
sprung from, he wondered?

“Sir!” Spendlove shouted from
Radical
's
quarterdeck, aft at her taffrails. “Mister Lewrie, sir! What signal do I send her, sir?”

“Send her ‘Affirmative,' Mister Spendlove,” Lewrie shouted back. “And I'm damned glad I am to see you alive, by the way, lad!”

“Makes two of us, sir!” the imp grinned, bloodied but whole. “I have her private number, sir. She's
Agamemnon,
Capt. Horatio Nelson! Beyond, there's
Mermaid,
5th Rate 32, Capt. John Trigge,” Spendlove prated on, even as he bent on the “Affirmative” to a signal halliard. “And
Cockerel,
sir. She really
did
go for help, like you said, sir!”

“Sir!” Bittfield, the senior gunner, was yelling, too, trying to draw his attention. “Takin' on water bad, she is, sir. Hadda get all the dependents up t' th' weather deck, sir. Best we get our people back aboard soon, we don't wish t' lose 'er, sir.”

“Cony, fetch Mister Porter and all the men he can gather up,” Lewrie ordered. “Patch what you can, until
Agamemnon
sends her hands to aid us. And get everyone, no matter who, working on the chain pumps.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Lewrie crossed over to
Radical,
working his way out the jib boom sideways on the foot ropes, to the bulwarks in which the corvette's bow was deep-sunk. Looking down, he could see crushed planking between two rows of vertical hull timbers. Perhaps that was the worst damage, none of it too far below the waterline, he hoped.

He gained the larboard gangway and looked down into the waist. Women and children milled about down there, weeping and wailing, crying to heaven. Surgeons moved among them, loblolly boys were fetching up more from below, on the orlop. Wounded women! Dead, lolling children!

Dear God, that last broadside she got off, just before we went up in-irons, he quailed. The collision, everything come adrift below . . . ! I killed 'em, winnin' my damned . . . victory!

He was at the head of the larboard quarterdeck ladder, about to descend, when Phoebe came rushing from the press to its foot, came up to throw herself upon him, laughing and weeping at the same time.

Thankee, Jesus, she's alive! Thankee! he thought, hugging her no matter who saw them. Stroking her hair as she babbled, one minute trembling and bubbling over with joy, the next instant bawling fit to bust—all punctuated by hiccoughy French tripped off so fast he couldn't catch a word in twenty.

“Calm, Phoebe, calm . . . I'm alright now. Calm,” he shusshed.

“Oh, Alain,
merde alors,
ze
canon . . . !
Beaucoup femmes et enfants,
zey
tuer.
Keel!
Si
très
beaucoup
. . . hurt!”

“Charles!” came a scream from below them. Sophie de Maubeuge scrambled up the quarterdeck ladder, blood on her gown. “M'sieur Lieutenant Luray, Charles . . . ?”

He let go of Phoebe, extended his arms to her. But she did not accept his embrace, but stopped short, paling, as she realised what he was about to say, by the expression of grief and sympathy on his face.

“Non, non, mon Dieu,
non!
”

“Mademoiselle vicomtesse, je regrette . . .”
he said gently, taking her hands instead.
“Charles Auguste, Baron de Crillart . . . il nous à quittes.”
Before she had time to take a breath for another hysterical scream, he told her the rest.
“Aussi, Chevalier Louis de Crillart, il nous à quittes.”

God, how I hate that bloody phrase, he thought;
nous à quittes
. . . left us, gone away from us. Like it was
their
bloody idea!

Sophie let go of his hands, put them to either side of her head as if to tear her hair out by the roots, and screamed and screamed, as she sank to her knees. Had not Phoebe gone down to her, she would have tumbled to the base of the ladder, broken her neck. Phoebe cradled her head upon her breast, crooning to her, gentling her, while Alan stood, embarrassed by his role and his slowness . . . his uselessness.

“Charles . . . Louis . . . !” Sophie wailed, gone white, with her eyes ready to roll back into her head in a faint. “Madame!”

“What?” Lewrie started, finally noticing the blood on her gown.

“Oui, Alain,”
Phoebe whispered as he went down to them, looking up with tears running free on her face, as bleak as if she'd lost someone, too. “Madame de Crillart. Ze
murs,
uhm . . . walls? . . . zey break open.
Boulets de canon?
Ze
grande dame, elle est mort. Pauvre petite mademoiselle
. . . she 'as lose 'er
famille entier
. . . 'ave no one, now.”

“I . . .” he whimpered, turning away, overcome. And sure that it was all his own bloody fault! “Oh, bloody . . .”

“Go, I see to 'er,” Phoebe urged. “You' ship, she . . .”

Lewrie staggered away across the littered quarterdeck, and his borrowed cutlass clattered to the deck as it slipped from his nerveless fingers. He fetched up at the battered taffrails by one of the stern-chasers which still radiated spent heat. Scrubbing his face with both hands, trying to deny what he'd done, wondering if he could have done something different, taken another course of action that wouldn't have gotten so many innocent and helpless slaughtered.

Off on the nor'east horizon a frigate was flying, pursued by a British ship. Near the transports, both fetched-to and looking as if they'd been knocked about,
Cockerel
cruised slowly. And the corvette he'd crippled had struck her colours, a Royal Navy ensign flying at her taffrail. How had the civilians fared aboard those transports, he wondered; had they suffered this much, after putting up token opposition, then striking? He feared they hadn't.

Damme, he thought; I could have stood on, just a few minutes longer, endured her fire, and help would have arrived, these French would have had to sheer off, soon as they saw our warships closing . . . !

He turned to the sound of tumult, saw wounded men being brought aboard, the healthy slowly crawling across the bulwarks as empty-eyed as the defeated, saw his mates and petty officers putting them to work on the chain pumps after they'd embraced their families, and gotten a sip of something to relieve their dry mouths.
Agamemnon
fetching-to and lowering her boats—boats crammed with strong, helpful sailors to salve his ship and his prize. And saw men who'd faced battle and suffered come back aboard to find a loved one departed.

Shouldn't be like this, he groused. Hard as the aftermath of a battle is . . . shouldn't be like this.

Men could fall, be cruelly wounded and linger in their agonies among shipmates, in a tough masculine world where men could josh the dying, buck them up to go game or offer awkward comfort. And grieve for good friends departed, of a certainty, as their canvas-shrouded corpses were put over the side with round-shot at their feet. But to
hear
the lamentations of the orphaned, the widowed . . . 'stead of imaging some far-off bereavement, notified half a year later that the son, the father, the brother, the husband or lover was Discharged, Dead . . . !

“Shouldn't ought to be like this,” he muttered, leaning on the taffrails for a few, last private moments, letting his own tears flow, choking on his own bereaved sobs before stern duty recalled him.

Phoebe had quieted Sophie de Maubeuge, last vicomtesse of her lineage, turned her over to the care of another aristocratic family's women, and made her way back up the quarterdeck ladder to find him. She saw him far aft, leaning forward, head down, squeezing the rails, and her heart went out to him. She hitched up her skirts, ready to run to him, but Spendlove intervened.

“Ma'am?” he called, stepping in front of her, snuffling himself as the list of familiar hands who'd fallen accumulated in his ledger, as he recognised the bodies of friends and mentors and troublemakers from a full year's association. “Don't. Not now.”

“M'sieur Spen'loove,'e need . . .” Phoebe pled weakly.

“Ma'am,” Spendlove objected gently, taking her nearest hand, “I know you an' Mister Lewrie . . . well, t'ain't my place to say, what's . . . but, ma'am? Do you care for him? Do you
love
him?”

“Vis all ma 'eart!” she declared, weeping anew at the force of her affection.

“Then, ma'am . . . give him a minute or two more, if you do,” Mister Midshipman Spendlove dared to suggest. “He'll be back with us. For now, though, ma'am . . . let Mister Lewrie . . . let our
captain
have a cry.”

L ' E N V O I

Cessere ratemque accepere mari. Per quot discrimina
rerum expeditor!

They have yielded, they have received the vessel
on the sea. I find my way, now, through many a
change in Fortune.

Argonautica
Book I, 216–218
Valerius Flaccus

C H A P T E R 1

T
wilight
at Gibraltar on the decks of H.M.S.
Victory,
the fleet anchored about her, with glims and binnacle and belfry lights agleam, and lanterns strung by entry ports, poop and quarterdeck aboard the flagship. Wardroom and great-cabin lights reflected off the waters from over forty vessels. And from the transports from England: the ships that had brought, just a few weeks too late, the regiments of British Redcoats that might have made the difference, the ones held back too long by indifference, miscommunication. They'd put in to Gibraltar just days before Admiral Hood's ships had returned from the defeat at Toulon, as if in the worst sort of mockery. They had been held at Gibraltar, pending instructions from Hood to send them on to him, though he had no idea of their arrival at all, and was even then arranging for the hurried evacuation of Coalition forces.

Lewrie paced fretfully, turned out in the best that local chandlers could boast, now his packet had come from home; pristine new breeches, waistcoat and shirt, and a new hat. He'd clung to the Hessian boots, though—they seemed to be all the rage among Sea Officers lately—and, perversely, to the tatty older coat. He wore an elegant smallsword at his hip, taken from the captain of the corvette he had captured as prize, though he still longed for his original hanger.

“Lieutenant Lewrie?” a flag lieutenant called at last. “Milord Hood is now free, and may see you, sir.”

Lewrie crossed the vast expanse of
Victory
's quarterdeck, aft to the admiral's quarters under the poop—but was brought up short by the sight of Capt. Howard Braxton leaving those great-cabins. He seemed ill, as ill as he had in the days just after his recovery; spent and old, white-faced, the incline of his mouth to larboard even more pronounced.

“Sir,” Lewrie said icily, doffing his hat properly in salute.

It took Braxton a moment to notice him. When he did, he turned even paler, almost dropped the bundles of log-books and ledgers he bore. Then his eyes flared before slitting in anger, and mottled ire coloured his cheeks. “Goddamn you, sir!” Braxton bleated in a harsh whisper. “Happy now, are you, Lewrie? Happy
now?
May God damn you to hell!” he hissed, before stalking away for the entry port.

“Hmm, well . . .” Lewrie shrugged to the flag lieutenant.

“Indeed, sir,” that worthy rejoined with a sad, embarrassed moue.

“Lewrie. Good,” Admiral Lord Hood grunted, as he mused upon the paperwork on his desk in the day cabin to which Lewrie had been shown. A festive display of linen, crystal, fine china and a sideboard buried in bottles he'd seen, in the dining coach and reception area. Evidently, the admiral would host a supper party that evening.

“Milord, so gracious of you to receive me,” Alan replied.

“Take a pew, sir. A glass of something? Do avail yourself of a quite decent brandy, there, on the side table. Pour one for me, as well.” Hood signed his name with a quill pen before rising to cross the cabin to join him. Hood accepted the glass Lewrie offered him and sat himself in the matching high-backed wing chair, crossing his legs as if ready to converse with a close acquaintance at his London club.

“Now, sir,” Hood began, after a refreshing sip. “Read your account of
Cockerel
's performance last week. And that report I requested of you, anent her past since her commissioning. Appalling, simply appalling! But . . . there will
be
no court martial, I have to tell you, sir.”

“I thought . . . sorry, milord,” Lewrie sighed, disappointed, a bit appalled himself at the reach of patronage and politics.

“Matter's been dealt with,” Hood was quick to assure him. “Can't abide being lied to, either by omission or commission. Most certainly, I cannot abide a scoundrel who will not support a fellow captain brought to action . . . a total poltroon, no matter how plausible his explanations. Nor one, sir, who will falsify log entries in such fraudulent manner.”

For a disconcerting moment, Alan thought Hood was speaking of
his
actions, wondering if Braxton had lied his way out once more, even if his words on the quarterdeck sounded as if he hadn't.

“Braxton, sir,” Hood continued with a disgusted snort, “should never have had command of a harbour-watch cutter. Fascinating, really. Made all the appropriate noises 'bout fetching aid. Claimed he took your prize frigate,
and
that horse transport, can you believe it, for a brace o' warships, so he felt free to scuttle off, the situation being so well in hand! Changed his tune when pressed, though, said he could not accept battle against three
frigates,
could
never
be expected to do so . . . conveniently forgetting that he'd already misidentified
your
two ships, and was later amazed to learn that two foes were corvettes! Admitting, in essence, he'd put discretion above valour, and fled. Not only showing cowardice in the face of the enemy, but disobeying a direct order—from mine own hands, sir!—to safeguard the laggard ships to his utmost. What he
could
have done with a single 5th Rate 32, had he remained . . . your valiant action, sir, proved that most assuredly. As for lying to me, anent Naples . . . he and his clerk, most likely, rewrote portions of
Cockerel
's
log for that period. No mention of sickness . . . yet never thinking that I would have in my possession correspondence from Sir William Hamilton which proved him a complete liar, sir! Well!”

“Didn't think he'd go
that
far, milord,” Lewrie replied, easier.

“Put it to him direct,” Hood said with a wolfish grin. “Take a court . . . of mine
own
appointing, d'ye see, sir . . . take his chances with a board of seven post-captains. Or he could, for reasons of health, throw up his command, ask to be relieved immediately, and go on the half-pay list. Return to civilian employment. Resume his service with ‘John Company,' lucrative as that is. But, I was quick to assure him, I would append to his letter of resignation, a letter of mine own to Stephens and Jackson, and our Lords Commissioners, that while he may be continued on the roster for post-captains—indeed, may attain, should he live; to the very pinnacle of that list—he should never have another appointment of any kind . . . seagoing command or sinecure ashore. And further, that even should Captain Braxton rise to the highest seniority as post-captain, he shall never . . .
never,
sir! . . . be ‘Yellow-Squadroned' as a flag officer. I believe that takes care of that problem, do you not as well, Mister Lewrie?” Hood all but snickered.

“I do, indeed, milord. Most handily dispatched. With the very least harm to his son's career. Or to his family.”

“I fully expect his letter of resignation aboard by eight bells of the morning watch. Failing that, well . . . !” Hood chortled, almost looking forward to a court martial. “Now, sir . . .
Cockerel.
She shall have a new captain aboard by eight bells of the forenoon, should Captain Braxton oblige me, and himself. Tell me all about her. Who needs weeding out. And explain this, uhm . . . mutiny which took place, sir.'“

For the next quarter-hour, Hood listened, having his flag lieutenant in to make notes. Nodding grimly, surprising Lewrie by laughing when he came to the mutineers.

“Aye,” Hood said at last. “Mister Clement Braxton deserves a second chance. The midshipmen must be separated and assigned to new ships. Under a new order of captains. Tell me, Lieutenant Lewrie . . . you ended up with most of those men whom your captain deemed troublemakers. Did they ever cause you any grief, sir?”

“
None,
milord,” Lewrie could state with assurance.

“Damme, loath as I am to turn a blind eye to an act of mutiny, or to condone the crime by taking no action against the perpetrators,” Hood gloomed. “Terrible times we live in, Lewrie.
Rights of Man
and this spirit of revolution, a world turned upside down, as it were . . . time out of mind, we've kept our sailors in strict discipline with the lash, which they understand. Now, faced with two nations which have revolted against the proper, ordained authority of their betters . . . I fear your Captain Braxton may become a more common figure aboard our ships, in future. As our tars absorb the radical, leveling teachings of the American Rebels and these French we fight, we may all have to become ever more watchful and taut-handed to keep Jack obedient. I should . . .”

“Excuse me, milord, but . . .” the flag lieutenant interrupted. “Your guests should even now be arriving.”

“Aye, enough for now, then. You will do me the signal pleasure of dining aboard as my guest, Lieutenant Lewrie?”

“With all gratefulness for your kind hospitality, milord!” he replied, stunned by the invitation.

It was hearty English fare. Portable Navy soup, local fish in a vinegar sauce, chicken with vegetable removes, then salad, and roast beef, of course. Lewrie was in heady company: Admirals Cell, Goodall and Cosby; Captain Elphinstone off
Robust;
Nelson off
Agamemnon
and a dozen more distinguished officers;
Victory
's
rear admiral, Sir Hyde Parker, and her flag-captain, John Knight; Holloway off
Brittania
and Sir Thomas Byard off
Windsor Castle;
Flag-Captain John Childs Purvis of Goodall's
Princess Royal
and Cell's flag-captain Thomas Foley from the
St. George;
with a sprinkling of commanders toward the middle of that groaning table and a smattering of lieutenants who had distinguished themselves on detached service at Toulon at its foot.

With the food came lashings of wine, a new one with every course—national origin be-damned—of which Lewrie took full measure, down near the token midshipman who served as Mister Vice at its far end. It was a convivial, very sociable supper, with many toasts made and drunk, and officers proposing individual “A glass with you, sir” duet toasts among themselves almost every minute. To observe them, it would have seemed hard to believe that these were officers who had just taken part in an appalling and embarrassing defeat.

Finally the last plates were cleared, the linen and water glasses removed, and cheeses fresh from England, nuts and extra-fine sweet biscuit set out with the port bottles, which began to circulate larboardly.

Hood was prosing on from the top of the table, conducting a conversation concerning the material condition of the ships brought away from Toulon, and no one sounded exactly pleased, Lewrie noted, though a touch “squiffy.” Few of those prize vessels sounded like they'd been exactly good value returned upon their investment.

“Lieutenant Lewrie,” Hood called out, making Alan start in his chair and set down his glass of port. “That vessel you brought off . . .
Radical,
was she? Tell us of
her
state, sir.”

He explained the weeding, the slovenly dockyard work done by the French, the iron and copper, and the further damage she'd taken.

“Milord, gentlemen . . . I fear she may require a full quarter of this next year in dock, to set her right,” Lewrie concluded, queasy with all eyes upon him. “Decommissioned, though . . . a chance to rename her?” he said with a quirky and shyly ingratiating grin.

“Quite!” Vice-Admiral Cosby grunted. “Can't have a ship named
Radical
in our Navy.”

“Nothing radical allowed, ha ha,” said Sir Thomas Byard, quite amused (and half-seas-over with drink).

“And those two corvettes you fought, Lieutenant Lewrie,” Hood probed on. “The, uhm . . .”

“Oh, the
Sans Culottes
and the one we disabled, milord, the
Liberté,
”
Alan replied, sitting up straighter, or trying to. “Both are in decent condition, milord.
Liberté
requires minimal repairs . . . new masts, spars and canvas, mostly.
Sans Culottes,
perhaps a month in the yards to repair battle damage. Other than that, fully found.”

“Three warships, the gallant Lieutenant Lewrie has won for us, gentlemen,” Hood announced. “Though with so many of our vessels ‘in sight' at the moment the corvettes struck their colours, I fear little in the way of prize money and head money as reward.”

“Dare I say, though, milord,” Captain Nelson posed, “that given the parlous state of his prize frigate, lightly armed as she was, and with so many untrained civilian volunteers aboard . . . to dare a full three enemy vessels, cripple one, and
take
a second . . . was an act of such conspicuous skill, not to mention pluck and bottom . . . that Lieutenant Lewrie's gallantry, and his victory, were the true rewards.”

“Hear, hear!” they shouted, lifting their glasses high, pounding their fists on the table.

“And I suppose,” Hood said with a twinkle in his eye, after the tumult had died down, “that we may avail ourselves of those two ships' time in dock to decommission them, and rename them as well.
Liberté,
perhaps, is innocuous, but . . .”