The French Admiral (43 page)

“Even though Captain Treghues had written permission from Captain Symonds to try to break out, the impression is that we ran out on everyone back there,” David said, feeling little pain, either. “There's nothing official.”

“Aye, backbiting never is,” Alan agreed vehemently. “Bastards!”

“Passing the word for Mister Lewrie!” a marine called.

“Stap me, if that's Treghues, he'll jump down my throat with both boots on, the state I'm in,” Alan said, setting aside his fourth glass of wine untouched. “Do I look sober enough to see him if that's what it is?”

“No one ever is, but you may pass inspection. Here.”

David offered him a precious lime from the Indies, a green and semi-shriveled fruit brought aboard God knew how long before, but Alan bit into it and sucked as much of the juice into his mouth that he could stand, to kill the odor of wine on his breath. For safety, he tucked a piece of rind into his cheek to chew on, and went on deck.

“God bless you for that, David, you're a true Christian.”

“Aye, I'm up to the Apocrypha now.” David smiled.

It was indeed a summons from the great cabins aft to see their captain. Alan removed his cocked hat and entered as the marine stamped his musket and bawled an announcement of his arrival.

Treghues had aged. He was sprouting the first hints of gray in his hair at the temples, and his face was thin and drawn as though there was still some lingering effect of that blow to the head back in August—that, or Mr. Dorne's “slight trephi-nation.” Perhaps it was, Alan thought, the ill repute which
Desperate
had gathered after her daring escape from the Chesapeake Bay. For the son of a lord of the realm, the slightest hint of incompetence or cowardice that could only be answered by requesting an inquiry, would be galling in the extreme. Even a physically fit man would have trouble dealing with it and sleeping sound at night, and Treghues did not look as though he had been sleeping well.

“Mister Lewrie,” Treghues said, sitting prim behind his glossy mahogany desk, with his hands folded as though kneeling at a prayer rail.

“Sir.”

“Admiral Hood's flag secretary sent me a fair copy of your report regarding your activities ashore. He also sent a short note of commendation with it. I . . . I find this extremely difficult to say, Lewrie, after our recent contretemps, but he stated, Admiral Hood, that is, stated, that I should be very proud of you. And I am.”

“He did?” Alan beamed with sudden pleasure. “Thank you, sir, thankee very kindly, indeed.”

“Perhaps this will go a long way to removing the
odor
which this poor vessel has acquired of late. You are aware to which I allude, sir?”

“Avery discovered it to me, sir.”

“A bitter sort of poetic justice,” Treghues mused, taking up a clay churchwarden pipe and cramming tobacco into the bowl, an activity he had not been known for before. “I was a bit too hasty to judge you for what you had been before joining the Navy, allowed prejudice to cloud my judgments. And now, I am hoist by my own petard, as the Bard would have said, from the clouded judgments of others.”

Captains ain't supposed to be like this, Alan thought. They don't have to explain shit. Why is he cosseting me suddenly? I ain't changed that much at all, maybe for the worse if anything.

“Jealousy and backstabbing I can understand, but I cannot abide what our escape has done to my ship, Lewrie,” Treghues said sharply, with a hint of that old rigidity and moral rectitude. “Better we had gone into captivity after burning her to the waterline than endure the sneers from . . . from these dominee do-littles.”

“You went out with flags flying, sir,” Alan said, only half pissing down Treghues's back, half expressing his own outrage at the unfairness of any recriminations against
Desperate
and her people. “That's more than any of these scoundrels attempted. Had they stirred their arses up properly, there'd still be a base on the York, and we'd have been covered in glory.”

Damme, you've let the wine speak! Alan thought. He's going to have me flogged raw. And he's got his memory back. I'm fucked.

“Bless you, that was bravely said, sir!” Treghues barked with a smile that was most disconcerting to see. “And never a truer word spoken.”

“She's my ship, too, sir. Too many good men died making her what she is, too many died ashore doing everything they could for the army.”

“Aye, you love her, too,” Treghues responded as he lit his pipe with a taper dipped into an overhead lantern. It was hard to tell if the smoke, or the emotion, misted his eyes. “I had not expected this from you, Mister Lewrie. I was under the impression you hated the Sea Service.”

“I've done some growing up, sir. And there's no law says I can't change my mind about some things,” Alan replied, feeling the wine pricking at the back of his eyes. Damme, he thought, is it the wine speaking, or do I really feel . . . comfortable in the Navy now? Must be the wine. Bastards like me have no noble emotions.

“By Heaven above, I love this ship,” Treghues said, the smoke wreathing about his head, and Alan thought it possibly the oddest-smelling tobacco he had ever come across, almost herbal and acrid, not like Virginia leaf or Turkey. “We're shorthanded once more, short four guns aft, but we'll make something brave of her yet. Have you really had a sea change, Mister Lewrie? Are you prepared to do your utmost to restore her honor and reputation?”

“Aye, sir.” What other answer was there to a question like that?

“We may receive some older brass nines from the army ashore, short nines, but better than nothing,” Treghues continued. “And I must make up the lack of leadership and competence. With Admiral Hood's commendation and his conjurement to do something for you as suitable reward, I am appointing you an acting master's mate, effective immediately. See Mister Railsford to change your watch and quarter bills, and then apprise the sailing master of your promotion. There is a salary with it, and though there is the chance you may not be confirmed once back in the Indies and shall be liable for stoppages, I doubt that should occur, if you make a good showing during a probationary phase.”

“I . . . I don't know how to thank you, sir,” Alan said, overcome at the honor paid him. Approval from the flag was a mere formality in such cases, and the Admiralty in faraway London paid no attention to such mundane matters, not like making someone a commissioned officer or giving a young boy command of a ship. If he did not do something completely stupid during the trial period, he would be made a full master's mate within two months or so. And from that very instant, he was a junior watch stander, a deck officer in a shorthanded ship, with better quarters than a hammock, the right to wear a sword instead of a boy's dirk, and two pounds, two shillings a month of real pay (or certificates attesting to it in lieu of coin) instead of being allowed money from his annuity. His rations would be the same, the air below decks would be the same, and the dangers of the sea would be the same for all, but everyone below David in rank would now have to call him “sir” or Mister Lewrie.

“Miscreant or not, you have earned it,” Treghues said, turning prim once more, as though he had said too much and had let down that rigid guard a captain must keep over his emotions, or had failed to maintain the separation from the ship's people that made his authority absolute. “That will be all, sir.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Alan replied crisply. Damme, maybe I can make a commission out of this after all, he told himself once he was on deck and sniffing at the coolness of the air.

“Seen the captain, have you?” Railsford asked, as though he knew what the news was already.

“Aye, sir. He has appointed me master's mate, acting for a time,” Alan related proudly. “Who would have thought it?”

“Well, if you do not wish to accept the promotion . . .”

“No, sir, I'll accept gladly,” Alan hastened to assure him.

“Congratulations, then. Now get you below and sort yourself out into your new quarters. Take one of the mates' dog-boxes,” Railsford said kindly. “But if you fuck off or let this go to your head, I'll kick your arse for you, see if I don't.”

“I'll not let you down, sir,” Alan replied.

“Or the captain,” Railsford whispered, stepping close to him. “He needs us badly now. No matter how he slurred you in the past, the poor man needs our help. Captains cannot ask, and they cannot be seen to be in need of anything. Were you my younger brother, and you let him down, I'd break you and send you forrard in pusser's slops. It's not just obedience you owe him or the loyalty which is his due, but true loyalty. May I count on you for that, Mister Lewrie? Have you that devotion?”

“Aye, sir,” Alan said. “I believe I do.”

“No more of your moonshines, no more boyish pranks and japes,” Railsford went on. “You're in an important job now, and too many people depend on you. I know you fairly well, and I trust you with the well-being of this ship when you have charge of the deck, as you will, shorthanded as we are. The captain has put his utmost trust in you as well. That's something new for you, being trusted, I know.”

“Aye, it is, sir,” Alan had to admit, feeling a surge of pride that people were beginning to put power in his hands and delegate authority to his judgment, something that would never have happened in his former life as a rake-hell back in London. “Very sobering.”

“Odd choice of words with the reek of the wine-table on your breath.” Railsford grinned suddenly. “Enough said for now, then. Get.”

Alan went below to the lower deck, then aft to the midshipmen's mess and took hold of his chest to drag it into a vacant dog-box cabin, to Avery's consternation. He had Freeling make up his narrow berth and hung up some spare clothes from the pegs. Like the tiny quarters aboard the schooner
Parrot
that had been meant for privateer prize masters, the dog-box was made up of thin deal partitions and a canvas door that enclosed a space just large enough for the bed, his chest, a tiny book rack, a mirror and wash stand, and the line of pegs that would be his wardrobe; but it was his, all his, and he could shut the door like a commissioned officer and turn off the sounds of the ship when he was off watch, could even have a lie-down instead of waiting for the evening pipe to call the hands to reclaim their hammocks. There was a small pewter lamp gimbaled on a swinging mount over the head-board of the bed, which he could burn later than others to read in bed, if he felt like it, until nine at night.

He doubted, though, if he would be using that berth much, not if he wished to shine at his new duties and not let Rails-ford down after the serious nature of the warning he had given him. He did not know if he really felt that devotion to Treghues that Railsford had asked for; Treghues was too alien to his sybaritic nature, too cold and puritanical, too swept up in morality (which was damned rare in these times), but the gunner, Mister Gwynn, had said once before that Treghues would take a great affection for someone for the oddest reasons and dote on them before turning on them again for reasons unknown. The wheel had come half circle, and he was no longer a Godless sinner in the captain's eyes. He was now in favor, and he did not intend to let anything put a blot on that new reputation, not if he could help it.

He could, however, show true devotion to Railsford, and to Monk and the other senior warrants who had held a good opinion of him even in the worst days of Treghues's displeasure. He could feel a warm stirring in his soul when he thought of
Desperate
tarred with a dirty brush, and that could sustain him. By devoting himself to earning his advancement he could fulfill everyone's expectations, and backhandedly give Treghues his share in the process.

“It's going to be hard work,” he whispered to himself in the privacy of his little cabin. “But I've learned enough to handle hard work. I can do this. But damme if I can see how I can have much fun in the next few months.”

Was it unspoken displeasure at
Desperate?
It was hard to figure out, but, with the passing of the equinox, the Leeward Islands Squadron had to go back to the West Indies, or winter on the American coast, so they sailed.
Desperate,
however, was left behind, to replace artillery at first, refit and restock provisions, and then be sent off with some lighter ships for Wilmington, North Carolina. Lord Cornwallis had taken most of the good troops in the south up to Yorktown, and they were lost forever. Charleston was still strongly garrisoned but had no men to spare for the minor ports. Wilmington would be evacuated, and
Desperate
would take part in the evacuation flotilla, the strongest ship in their little gathering. With Monk, Alan spent hours off watch, poring over the Cape Fear charts, for it was the very devil of a place to enter safely.

South of Onslow Bay and a former pirate's lair known as Topsail Island, there was a long peninsula that hooked south like a saber blade, narrowing at the tip to a malarial spit of sand which held Fort Johnston to guard the entrance inlet to the Cape Fear River. There were dozens of low islands and seas of marsh and salt grass gathered around the mouth of the river, and only one safe, deep pass. The lower reaches of the river were pretty desolate, except around Brunswick, a town gradually losing out to Wilmington sixteen miles further upriver, and now almost taken back by the weeds and scrub pine. Wilmington was on the east, or seaward, bank of Cape Fear, hard to get to but a safe harbor in storms and a bustling trading center. For a time it had been Cornwallis's headquarters before he had marched off to disaster in Virginia. Now the garrison that had been left behind, the troops and guns at Fort Johnston, were to be evacuated. Along with them would come the hundreds of Loyalists from the south-eastern portion of the colony, who had already fled the wrath of their cousins up-country.