The French Admiral (48 page)

“One does what one can for the young women of this world, sir,” Alan replied feeling just a little smug at Railsford's attitude and from the crew's reaction. They had taken the unfortunate Chiswicks into their care as gently as if they had been their own aged parents.

“You slyboots!” Railsford went on. “Still, it was a decent act. So unlike the old Lewrie, I'd wager there was a different person masquerading as a master's mate.”

“I promised the Chiswicks I would look out for them, sir,” Alan said. “Even a rake-hell may have a heart now and then.”

“Still, our rake-hell would not have had a heart if the girl was not so lovely.”

“Do you find her so, sir?” Alan grinned tightly, cocking a brow.

“A bit too tall for fashion, but that don't always signify.”

“Mister Lewrie?” Treghues called from the larboard quarterdeck ladder.

“Aye, sir.”

“That was a charitable thing you did, sir, bringing that family out here to
Desperate.
I'm told most of the shipping is filling up, and I have word from ashore that there are more people who wish to depart.”

“Aye, sir, people who could not rub shoulders with the rich and fashionable, who need their
space,
” Alan sneered. “Or merchant captains who want five pounds a head for a two-day journey at best. They'd gouge the dead for a shovelful of dirt on their coffins.”

“And that,” Treghues stated primly, “is why a gentleman, or one who has any pretensions to gentility, should never consider a career in Trade. It's all buying and selling and usury and following the dictates of Mammon to the exclusion of any decent sentiments. Easier a camel may pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man, or one who has traded in the misery of his fellow man, enter the kingdom of Heaven.”

But prize-money's just devilish fine, Alan thought cynically.

“I want you to go ashore again, Mister Lewrie.”

“Aye, sir?”

“Give my compliments to Major Craig and his staff. There are but the ships reserved for the troops and their equipment. If there are more loyal subjects who wish to embark, I shall find room for them in those merchantmen, if I have to do it with Peck and the marines to enforce it. And, since you have started the procedure, we shall take on as many who wish to go. Look especially for those poor and with few possessions who will not crowd us overly much. We may double up the wardroom and senior warrant berths. It has not been so long that you slept in a hammock, and as you say, it is only for the two days.”

“Aye, sir,” Alan said, trying to keep from screaming. Damme, I believe I have fucked up again. There won't be room below decks to swing a cat without getting fur in one's mouth at this rate.

On November 30th, only two days behind schedule, the flotilla of ships and coasters hoisted anchor and made their way slowly and carefully down the Cape Fear River on the very first of the ebb tide. To the chants of the leadsmen, they braved the shoals and eddies. Their passengers, and there were a lot of them by that time, crowded the decks to take their last looks at Wilmington. When Alan had a chance he took a look at the place, too. He had had fun there, and the next time he saw it there would most likely be a new flag flying over it, lost forever to the egalitarian notions of a jackass stubborn pack of rogues who had defied their King and had muddled their way to victory over one of the most powerful nations and the most powerful navy in the world. That most of their victories had been the result of even more incredible muddling on the part of the King's forces was hard to bear. What debt they would owe the French and Spanish, and what form of payment their insincere allies would demand, would possibly shatter the existing world order, placing both of the Indies in jeopardy. Until some damned Whig majority was voted in and brought the whole shameful thing to an end in a wave of weariness and self-abasement (but call it what it was, abject surrender), the war would probably stagger on, mostly to prevent the Frogs and Dagos from grabbing everything in sight. And if the Whigs cried penury for the huge debt run up by the war, they could walk off with everything England had, and leave her as helpless as the Danes, with few overseas possessions, little trade, and a Navy more suitable for a child's daydreams on a duck pond. Would the French be so encouraged by this that de Grasse would go home and put together the invasion force that succeeded in crossing the channel and recreating the Norman Conquest, Alan wondered?

“Ten fathom, ten fathom with this line!”

Alan drew his attention back to the ship and took a bearing on one of the tiny sandspits in midchannel. They would pass it safely to larboard, in a channel marked from their earlier ascension as better than fifteen fathoms. No danger.

The Chiswicks were on the taffrail, looking sternward at the land they would never see again either. The father was propped up on the flag lockers, his wife to one side and Mammy to the other to support him. Caroline wore her dark red traveling cloak with the hood thrown back, gripping the ornately carved taffrail with hands that looked kid-glove white, even at that distance. Alan had suffered in silence aboard
Desperate
before and had found solace aft out of everyone's way, gripping the rail in that way, so he could sympathize with her at that moment.

Once Wilmington had fallen out of sight astern and nothing was left but the barren narrow cape and the bleak salt-grass meadow shore, she came forward to about the larboard mizzen chains, more intent on the working of the ship than in pining away for the shoreline.

“Mister Lewrie, do ya see them marsh grasses yonder?” Monk asked.

“Aye, sir. Swirling,” Alan said. “Wind's heading us a point. Hands to the lee braces, prepare to harden up! Quartermaster, stand by to give us a point free.”

“Clear ta starboard, iffen we do,” Monk grumped, staring with a telescope at the shore to their right. “Half a mile afore we gets inta trouble over there.”

“Here it comes,” Railsford said, gripping the hammock nettings.

The wind ruffled cat's paws on the choppy waters, and
Desperate
leaned heavily as the gust hit them.

“Give us a point free!” Railsford called.

“Bosun, tail on the lee braces!”

“Don't forget the tops'l set,” Railsford cautioned.

“Tops'l braces, off belays and haul away!” Alan cried. “How's her helm, quartermaster?”

“Worn't 'nuff fer a good bite at first, sir, but she's fine now,” the quartermaster said, as he and his mate spun the wheel gingerly a few spokes at a time to demonstrate better control with more flow on the rudder.

“We get headed like that again and we'll have to bear up sharp and tack her on a short board to larboard before we can come back onto the safe pass,” Alan griped.

“Somebody whistlin' on deck?” Monk asked, peering about to see if someone was violating one of the cardinal superstitions of a seafarer's life. Whistling on deck
always
brought the wind, usually from a direction and in such strength that would put lives at hazard to reef down aloft. Even marines and idlers knew better.

“Wimmen on a ship, Mister Monk,” the quartermaster whispered. “I'd take a whistler any day.”

Alan didn't mind women aboard ship, especially the particular woman who had come to observe him in action, and he was pleased that he was showing well, being all nautical and tarry-handed, conversing as an equal with the first officer and the sailing master.

“Taut enough, sir?” Alan asked Railsford.

“Aye, Bosun, belay every inch of that!”

Alan turned as though to peer at the cape peninsula with one of the telescopes, and in so doing took a look at Caroline Chiswick. Her color was high, whether from emotion at being driven from Wilmington as a refugee or from the sea breeze, he could not say, but she was smiling, which was more than she had done in the last few days after being ensconced aft, and when he glanced at her, she gave him a wider smile, which he could feel all the way down to his toes. Pauper or not, she was an attractive diversion until he could get back to the West Indies.

The wind shifted once more, this time backing almost a point and a half, giving them a perfect breeze to make it out to sea past the last low islands. The first rollers in the open bay struck her and set her pitching her bows up and rolling to starboard.

“Hands make sail, Mister Railsford,” Treghues ordered. “Plain sail, with two reefs in the tops'ls for now and two reefs in the courses. And I'll have the main topmast staysail run aloft to steady her helm.”

“Full an' bye'll get us our offin', sir,” Monk said, studying the long, whipping commissioning pendant aloft as a rough wind indication.

“Make sail and then we'll harden up and lay her close-hauled,” Treghues said. “Mister Coke, better get some more buckets on deck. Our live lumber will be casting their accounts into the Atlantic, soon.”

“Aye, sir.” Coke glowered, thinking of the ruin of his pristine decks as their passengers began to spew.

Half an hour later, with
Desperate
in the lead to windward, the evacuation fleet stood out to sea headed roughly sou'-west to make an offing from that treacherous shore where the soundings were always wrong and they had enough sea room off a lee shore should the wind turn foul. The passengers were indeed having a rough time of it, losing their breakfasts over the side, or hugging the buckets. All the Chiswicks but Caroline went below to get out of the raw wind. Now free of duties until the day watch, Alan went to the windward rail to join her.

“This is quite exciting, Mister Lewrie,” she said, her face glowing in the breeze and her hair ready to escape from her pins. “I never knew there was so much involved in sailing. All those men going aloft and walking on air, it seemed, to work on the sails! Do you do that?”

“I did, until my promotion,” Alan said.

“You have had a promotion,” she said. “How wonderful for you.”

“I was a midshipman, have been for almost the last two years. In a way, I still am, but I was made acting master's mate the first week of November. Until then I spent half my life aloft.”

They chattered on until Treghues came back on deck, and Alan took her hand. “If you wish to stay on this side of the deck our captain will oblige you, but I must go to loo'ard.”

“Why?”

“It's tradition. The windward side of the quarterdeck is for the captain alone, and the rest of the watch standers must go down to leeward.”

She accepted his hand and he led her down the slanting deck along the nettings at the front of the quarterdeck.

“You call it loo'ard once and leeward the next,” she said. “I believe you are speaking a foreign language.”

The next half hour, until Treghues retired aft, they spent laughing as he explained a sailor's life, some of the pranks they played on each other, and the seeming nonsense of the seaman's vocabulary, until Alan noticed she was shivering in the wind, which had turned quite cold.

“You'll catch your death up here. You should go below and get warm. They'll be piping dinner soon, anyway,” he told her.

“Forgive me, Mister Lewrie, but I could not bear to do so. I have monopolized you, I fear, for purely selfish purposes, but I could not face another moment in the cabin. Getting away for a while has been most refreshing.”

“I'm sorry there is only you to . . . bear up under this burden on your family,” he said.

“I was raised to be self-reliant,” she said, her face growing pensive as she stared back toward the distant shore. “All of us were. But lately, there has been so
much
duty, and no one to help me cope.”

“I know what that is.” Alan grinned. “This promotion has piled a load on me, too.”

“The morning you came in answer to my note, I was ready to give way to despair. Without your timely assistance, we would still be looking for a ship. Thank you for taking charge as you did, Mister Lewrie. I appreciated that more than you could ever know.”

“I was glad to be of any help to you,” he said, turning gallant. “Someone as young and pretty as you, Mistress Chiswick, should not have to bear such a heavy burden. There are gayer things to consider.”

“Why, thank you, Mister Lewrie.” She colored prettily. “But surely such amusements as you suggest are only folly and frivolity. Perhaps in better times, but for now, we do what we must, and I would be an ungrateful daughter to even think of such things while my momma and daddy need me. Just as you must suspend your own amusements until the ship is tied up in some harbor, is that not so?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” He shrugged.

“Our journey began long ago, upriver,” she said, trying to be light about it but not able to hide the sadness in her. “Now we're only on one stage of it and where we'll have to go from Charleston I don't know. Maybe back to England with our relatives in Surrey, as you suggested. Maybe the Indies, or Florida or Canada, or the Moon.”

“Then will you consider frivolous things?” he prompted, to get her out of her sad mood.