“Well, thank God for small favors,” Alan smiled in relief. He turned the letter over to read the rest of it.
Regarding the vacancy in command of Shrike, basing my Decision upon the favorable notice you have elicited in past by your
gallant
,
resourceful and honourable past Service; having myself formed an admiration of your Abilities during the affair in The Chesapeake, and your plucky conduct during your
escape; and, having had further converse with the gallant Captain Nelson, and receiving from him an whole-hearted approbation of your Character; I did most recently consider taking
you into Barfleur as 6th officer, from which post of favour you might find an opening for Advancement. But, after greeting your Lt. Lilycrop, and soliciting his own recommendations after Lt. Sharpe's recent Misfortune, I trust that command of a small brig of war shall suffice. Be assured that in future you should not be in any way hesitant in considering me your admiring Patron, or in availing yourself of any kindness I may be able to extend to you.
Yrs;
Sir Saml Hood
R. Adml. of the Blue Squadron
“
Jesus Christ,” Alan breathed with a shudder partly of delight, partly of dumb-struck consternation. “I'm going to have to start taking all this nautical shit a lot more seriously!”
He had always thought Admiral Hood a poltroon, for his inexplicable behavior in hanging back at the Battle of The Chesapeake. Even the empty defensive victory at St. Kitts had not changed his opinion muchâthey lost the island anyway, hadn't they? And now this!
The man must be more of an addle-pate than I thought, Alan told himself, his hands trembling as he scanned the second sheet of paper in the packet and saw what it represented. Anybody that'd give
me
command of a King's ship has to have his buttocks where his ears ought to be. Mind you, I ain't arguin' much.
He looked up at the people on the quarterdeck; Rossyngton with his slight smile because he knew the secret first; Caldwell on tenter-hooks to find out what it was all about, and sweating that it perhaps might represent a chance for him to keep his acting lieutenancy.
I'd better do this before they change their bloody minds, he thought, feeling an urgency to read himself in before that new officer from
Bedford
came aboard. They still had at least a mile to go before they were close enough to hail her, and a cutter from Barfleur had not even reached her yet.
“Mister Caldwell, assemble the ship's people if you would be so kind,” he ordered.
“Aye aye, sir. Ship's company!” Caldwell boomed. “Muster aft and face the quarterdeck!”
Once they were gathered, wondering what this new summons was about, Alan folded out the sheet of vellum and scanned it so the words would not be unfamiliar and trip him up at this unbelievably fortunate moment.
“Issued aboard HMS
Barfleur
, flagship to the Leeward Islands Squadron, this 20th day of March, in the year of our Lord, 1783. From Sir Samuel Hood, Rear Admiral of the Blue. To Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy. Sir; it is my wish and direction that you take upon yourself the charge and command of his Majesty's 12-gunned brig of war,
Shrike
⦔
He paused and looked up, feeling as if someone would shout over to them that they were “just
kidding
!” But there were no signs of laughter from the handsâno pulled faces or sidelong glances of alarm. They stared back at him, nodding as though his superseding to command in place of a real sailorman was his due.
So he savored every syllable, every nuance as he finished reading the document aloud.
Shrike
wasn't much, too small, and below the Rate, for a more senior officer, he realized. And she had been brought in as prize on a foreign station, so the dream could end the day after the war ended, and that blessed event could occur at any moment. Even if she stayed in service, there was only a year left of her original three years' commission. But for now, she was his.
What else should I say? he wondered, once he had rolled up
the precious document. “A new captain,” he finally began slowly, “brings to his next command his own way of doing things. But since
Shrike
is my first command, and since I have learned the most in how to exercise command in her, from an officer we all revere as a real tarry-handed sailor, I can think of no finer way to begin than to continue as if Lieutenant Lilycrop was still with us in spirit. His order book, his discipline, and his strictures stay in effect. They were sensible and fair, and I see no reason to depart from them, or any way to improve on them at present”
Not trusting himself to utter one more word, he turned to Mr. Caldwell and nodded, and Caldwell dismissed the hands to their duties.
There was no whole-hearted cheer such as Lilycrop had gotten. But no one was cursing and skulking, either, and no one was throwing loose objects at him, so Alan could be satisfied with his reception, if only slightly disappointed that he did not receive the same affection Lilycrop had evinced from them. Several hands were smiling broadly, and they went off to their work at least somewhat cheerful.
“Ah, Mister Caldwell,” Alan said, noticing Caldwell's hangdog expression at last. “I believe that Commodore Affleck is to be allowed to appoint a lieutenant into us, to take my place. Sorry you could not keep your acting status. I did mention you to the admiral when I wrote concerning the captain.”
“That's alright, sir,” Caldwell said, though it didn't look alright. It would have been his best, and perhaps last, opportunity to attain to a commission instead of a warrant, and he was already approaching fifty. “Who would you like for cabin-servant, sir? And your cox'n?”
“Cony,” Alan said without a second's hesitation, and then gave the matter of cox'n some thought. A third of the hands were Island Blacks, and Andrews was at least listed as a free-born volunteer. He was deserving of some notice after Florida. “Andrews for my cox'n.”
“Aye, I'll make it so, Captain,” Caldwell replied.
That has a nice ring to itâ
Captain
! Alan thought happily.
“I'll be aft for a moment,” Alan said. “Summon me when we near
Bedford
.”
He made his way aft of the wheel and the main-mast trunk, to the low poop and the coach-top built into it to allow standing headroom for entry to the hanging cabin. There was now a Marine sentry on duty, who banged his musket on the deck and
brought it up to salute as Alan opened the door that offered the short flight of steps below.
His cabins! Though they seemed more spacious with all of Lieutenant Lilycrop's poor furniture gone, they didn't look all that grand. The black-and-white checkered canvas on the deck was frayed, and the wall paint had not improved with age. He could see that this unlooked-for promotion was going to cost him, to equip himself with dining space table and chairs, a sideboard, a wine cabinet, desk and chairs, and paint. Not to mention more lamps, and silver and plates. Still, he was now in receipt of five shillings per day instead of his earlier two shillings six pence; eighty-four pounds a year, for as long as it lasted, figured at the miserly twenty-eight days per lunar month of the parsimonious Admiralty.
“Thought I'd shift yer dunnage, sir,” Cony said, entering the cabins with loose bedding and linen under his arms. Alan could hear a couple of seamen struggling with his heavy sea chest.
“Oh, there 'e be, sir. That damn cat,” Cony snapped.
“Hmm?” Alan replied, coming out of his inventory of expenses. “Oh, him.”
“Over the side with 'im, sir?” Cony asked.
William Pitt was stretched out on his side on the bare, straw-filled mattress of the hanging bed-box, tail curling lazily and supremely at ease, washing himself, as if he had won the space for himself with his claws. The kitten Belinda was huddled as far away as she could get on the sill of the transom windows, bottled up and sitting ready to pounce in flight. Between hisses, she licked her lips and chops nervously, for fear of what the bigger male cat would do.
“You mangy young bastard,” Alan said, walking up to the bed. “Think you earned the right to stay aft just 'cause you did for that Lieutenant Sharpe, hey? Think I'm grateful to you or something?”
Pitt did not bristle up as he usually did when Alan got anywhere near him, but rolled to his stomach with his front paws stretched out, looking up with his yellow eyes. Alan put out a tentative hand, half expecting to get his fingers ripped off, but was surprised that William Pitt allowed him to actually touch the top of his wide, battle-scarred head and gently rub him between the ears.
“Well, I'm damned, sir,” Cony whispered.
It didn't last long, of course; after a few too many rubs, Pitt had claws out and ready to swat, shaking his head vigorously.
Alan realized that it was probably not going to be one of those affectionate relationships between man and animal, such as the young cat Belinda offered; more like adopting a wild beast with whom one could maintain a wary but grudging regard.
“Well, maybe I should be grateful,” Alan relented. “Sweetling.”
William Pitt made his disgust plain by laying back his ears and assuming a most pained expression.
“Chuck 'im out an' over the side, sir?” Cony asked.
“No, let him be for now, Cony. There's room to spare.”
CRASH! went the Marine's musket on the deck. “Sailin' master, SAH!” he bellowed.
“Enter.”
“We're about two cables off
Bedford
now, sir, ready to fetch-to to receive her boat,” Caldwell reported.
“Very good, Mister Caldwell, I shall be on deck directly.” He followed Caldwell out onto the quarterdeckâ
his
quarterdeck, where the warrants and others allowed the use of the deck headed down to leeward to leave him the captain's prerogative of the windward side.
I suppose I can pull this off, Alan told himself. I had a good set of teachersâRailsford and Lilycrop. Even Kenyon, God rot the sodomite. If it's peace soon, how bad can it be? And then I can go home with honor. Who knows, they might even be daft enough to give me another commission, or another command? If I'm careful, this could be all cruising and claret!
But a second after boastful musing, he felt a tiny shiver of presentiment. Things had gone too well lately, and from hard experience he knew that every time he felt the slightest bit smug and satisfied, something always went disastrously wrong in his life. The ancient gods had always taken umbrage with satisfied mortals, had they not?
“Turne, quod optanti divum promittere nemo, auderet, volvenda dies en attulit ultro.”
Â
“Turnus, what none of the gods would have dared promise to your prayers, see what rolling time has brought unasked.”
Aeneid
IX 6-7
âVirgil
O
n April 6, 1783, Admiral Hood, whilst cruising off Cape Francois, received intelligence that a preliminary peace had been signed at Versailles in January. M. de Bellecombe, French governor of the Cape, sent a ship to his squadron, inviting Admiral Hood and His Royal Highness Prince William Henry, then serving as a midshipman aboard
Barfleur,
to enter the port and receive the honors due them.
Hood declined, though he did despatch the
Bloodhound
sloop into harbor to take the salute of the French.
Schomberg's Naval Chronology
does not tell us what thrilling deed, or, given the feeling against the French at the time, what egregious screw-up
Bloodhound
had committed to give her this dubious honor.
British agents were quite active among the Creek, or Muskogean, Indians, and their relatives the Seminoles, as well as with the Cherokee, trying to inflame all the Southeastern tribes to side with the Crown in the Rebellion to take pressure off Charleston, their last remaining port south of New York. What the members of the expedition feared would happen to the Indians did indeed occur; they became more “civilized” after the Revolution until they dressed, lived and acted much like white settlers, with wagons, farms, carriages, plantations and mansions for some, and even black slaves of their own. And they were still dispossessed, kicked off the land by armed bands, and resettled in the Oklahoma Territory by the Andrew Jackson administration in one of the great, un-mentioned shames of American history.
There was a real Muskogean/Scots student who left his studies in Charleston and went back to aid his people in 1779, one Alexander McGillivray, on whom I based my character. Unfortunately, he backed the Spanish under Governor Galvez and kept his people out of the Revolution, though he hoped for much
the same settlements and agreements as my fictional McGilliveray did. The problem was that no matter which horse they backed, the Indians would lose their bet, for no one was prepared to live in harmony with them.
Captain Horatio Nelson's encounter at Turk's Island took place pretty much as described. Nelson was repulsed and forced to sail away with his tail between his legs. This event has rarely, if ever, been mentioned by any of his biographers. Contemporary accounts such as
Schomberg's Naval Chronology
and
Beatson's Naval And Military Memoirs
give the impression that Captain King of
Resistance
was senior officer present and never mention Nelson at all! And Nelson must not have been very proud of it, for even his
Sketches of My Life
, published before he died at Trafalgar in 1805, failed to make note of it. Why Captain King deputed himself to a lower-ranking upstart has never been explained. Perhaps Nelson cowed him by dint of over-powering personality and the urge for action.
Nelson was indeed lucky he kept his commission. He rushed in rashly, throwing 167 sailors and Marines with no field artillery against 530-550 troops and talented naval gunners, with artillery, and antiship batteries heavier than anything his frigates mountedâthe 18th Century equivalent of a reinforced battalion.
It was recorded by Midshipman Prince William Henry that Adml. Sir Samuel Hood tore a rather large strip of hide off Nelson's backside in private for not reporting to the fleet first, for assuming a position of “acting commodore” which he had no right to, and, finally, for failing to retake the island. Perhaps mollified by the fact that Nelson hadn't suffered any major casualties, and had known when to fold his tents and quit, Hood didn't break his career, as he had other officers' who hacked him off. The famous Nelson luck was acting overtime.
The Jemmy (James) Trevenen mentioned just before the conference aboard
Albemarle
was first officer of
Resistance
. He wrote his sister Betsy later that the whole affair was a “ ⦠ridiculous expedition, undertaken by a young man merely from the hope of seeing his name in the papers, ill-depicted at the first, carried on without a plan afterward, attempted to be carried into execution rashly ⦠and hastily abandoned for the ⦠reason that it ought not to have been undertaken at all.”
Trevenen was another of Captain Cook's officers from the Voyages of Discovery. Like King, he was a real tarry-handed tarpaulin man of no mean skill as a seaman and navigator, but was forced to work his way up through the Royal Navy slowly,
while people like Nelson (and Alan Lewrie) seem to lead charmed lives of “interest” and quick advancement. He was a bit miffed that
Resistance
had captured two French warships off Turk's Island (which started the whole thing) and no one, least of all himself, benefited from their capture in promotion or command. And since the war ended weeks later, their value in prize-money wasn't a tenth of what it would have been earlier, so one can understand his frustrations.
Captain, later Admiral Lord Nelson, never had a scintilla of luck on land. He came close in Nicaragua, but the expedition failed due to sickness among the troops and a lack of drive on the part of the Army. Nelson lost an eye and an arm on land, or so close to it as to make no difference. And he was always a little touchy when it came to criticism. According to Clenell Wilkinson's biography, Nelson was vain, open to flattery, and liable to over-react when his actions were questioned. No wonder he never mentioned the Turk's Island defeat in his putative autobiography.
Â
So, there we are, then. Through no fault of his own, and by a series of fortunate flukes, our young hero is now master and commander into a small brig of war, but the war is over. What shall his future be? Shall he take heed of past warnings and behave himself for a change? Shall he stay up to windward of nubile young ladies with well-armed daddies; eschew the charms of “willing widows”; stay sober and industrious and make the most of his career opportunities in the Navy?
Perhaps
Shrike
will pay off and he will finally get a chance to go home and live the sort of life he's been looking forward to. Or will Soft Rabbit and a young master Lewrie pop up? And just where do William Pitt and Belinda figure into this?
I'm afraid you'll simply have to wait to find out, as do I when dealing with an impetuous fellow. Wherever Alan Lewrie shows up, though, we all know that nothing will ever be the same.
Dewey Lambdin
Elm Hill Marina
June 10, 1990