Dewey Lambdin - The King

"You're too kind, Sir Onsley," Burgess remarked, sitting prim and nervous on the edge of his chair by the roaring fire. He wore his best pale blue "ditto" suit, with a plain, long-skirted older waist-coast, and clutched a black cocked hat across his knees. His own glass of brandy sat untouched on the side table.

There hadn't been much enthusiasm shown for his efforts to get a position so far, and the Chiswicks had prevailed upon Alan to see if he had any influence with anyone at all, a task Alan had happily undertaken because it would allow him to see Caroline almost every day.

"Devil I am, young sir, devil I am," Sir Onsley maundered. "I say no more'n the plain truth. I'm a plain old tarpaulin hand meself, not given to pissin' down some young'un's back for no cause."

Oh, spare us, Alan almost groaned! Sir Onsley's flagship Glatton hadn't stirred from her moorings once in a full three years' commission, and had been rumored to be hard aground on a reef of beef bones. It had been his small ships and tenders to the flag that had done the dirty work against the French, Spanish and Dutch and had reaped Sir Onsley a princely one-eighth of their prize money, which had sent him home rich as Croesus to a place on the Board of Admiralty, where he'd drowsed the last three years of his career away.

Still, he was a useful old stick, Alan thought, and kept his expression respectful and admiring. Who knows, Alan might actually have need of his good offices in future, slim as that chance might be now there was peace, and nine-tenths of the Navy laid up to rot.

"Been to Sam Hood about this yet, Mister Lewrie?"

"Not yet, Sir Onsley," Alan replied. "I did write to him, just a short note. No reply so far. I doubt he recalls me, fond as he might have seemed after Turk's Island. I'm sure he passed it off as one more half-pay officer looking for employment for himself."

"There's devilment afoot still in this world, young sirs," the old admiral warned them, laying a thick, be-ringed finger to the side of his rather large and drink-veined nose. "Losin' this war's encouraged the Frogs no end. Their Navy showed rather well in the East. I know not why the nation feels so secure. All I hear up in the House of Lords is deficits and bankruptcy, hand-wringin' and budget-cuttin'. Meantimes, they're over there on the Continent just diggin' like the furtive rats they are, looking for an openin' to throw us over for good and all, damme their blood. And heroes such as you pair sit on the beach, twiddlin' your thumbs, instead of being allowed a chance to stop their frightful business wherever it emerges."

Alan stifled a yawn, covering it with another sip of brandy. He paid court to the Matthewses at least twice a fortnight when they were in London, to keep his low rent on his set of rooms, and to lay his ear to the ground for any hint of great affairs that could help him prosper. He'd heard this screed, chapter and verse, too many times before to rise to it this time. He nodded sagely, though, which Sir Onsley took for much the same hearty approval as earlier.

"Lewrie there's a nacky one, the sort of young feller who knows I speak the truth," Sir Onsley pointed out to Burgess. "By God, Mister Chiswick, sir, if Alan'll speak for you, that's good enough for me. I can't promise you an easy place. I'll not say more now. Too many plans afoot at the moment. But a place, I can promise you, and there's my word on't for sure!"

"That's marvelous, Sir Onsley!" Burgess gasped. This interview had seemed the last slim thread of hope to save him from bringing in the sheaves for his uncle Phineas, and Alan had privately assured him it was bound to be disappointing at the end, but suddenly here was this word of assured employment. "As a serving officer, sir? Pardon me if I inquire at least a little."

"With the East India Company," Sir Onsley nodded. "I'm on the board. I'm privy to certain… nay, it'll be discovered to you later. I should think at least as a lieutenant, Mister Chiswick. Tell me now, and tell me true if you're a mind for it. And a heart for it. It'll be damned hot and dusty duty, halfway round the world and like as not it'll be sickness, bugs and flies, and God knows when you'll lay eyes on your dear family again in this life. But 'tis a duty like as not'll confound our foes better than anything you'd accomplish in a lifetime of regular soldierin'. Are you game for it?"

"I am indeed, Sir Onsley!" Burgess piped up. "Lead me to it!"

"ToppinM" Sir Onsley shouted back, wincing a little at the end as he moved his gouty foot and suffered a spasm of agony. "I'll speak to the Board tomorrow. Leave me your bona fides and all that to show them. Irregular… skirmisher… Indian fighter. Just the sort of lad we need. Mister Lewrie, I do believe Fate sent you to me with young Mister Chiswick's plaint at exactly the right time."

"And grateful I am you could do my friend a service, Sir Onsley," Alan replied, flat aback at this energetic development. He had not seen the old twit that bombastic, or awake, in years. And Alan could hardly wait until they could get back to St. Clement Street to tell the rest of the Chiswick family. Most especially Caroline. She would be impressed to no end that it was Alan's influence and connections that had turned the winning trick for her brother.

It would disappoint her, though, that he would have to sail around the world, into that land of pagan Hindoos she had feared so much, where Burgess would be exposed to so many cruel diseases and chances to die a young, untimely death. Matter of fact, Alan wondered if he'd done Burgess much of a favor at all. Sir Onsley was sober enough to not let slip what sort of devilish danger this new duty was, but it didn't sound like anything Alan would want a part of, not if he had at least five minutes' warning, and a head start. Some new wrinkle on what Lieutenant Lilycrop of Shrike had termed "war on the cheap," dreamed up by some crystal-ball gazer, map reader and quill-pusher who had no idea about what life was like outside his own doorway, much less how deadly it could be for the men on the shitten end of the stick a world away.

"Mum's the word, my lads, until you hear from me by letter," Sir Onsley cautioned. "But stand ready to shift yourselves at a moment's notice. No man is to hear word of this appointment."

"You have my solemn oath, Sir Onsley," Burgess promised proudly, which oath Alan had to chorus as well.

"Damme, but Caroline is going to kill me," Alan sighed once they were in a hired coach on their way home. "I had no idea things would turn out like this, Burgess."

"I shall be forever in your debt, Alan," Burgess assured him, taking his hand and giving it a hearty squeeze of gratitude. He was all but piping his eyes in joy at his sudden salvation from civilian dullness. "Don't fear what Caroline thinks."

"Well, he didn't make it sound like Canterbury Fair, you know. God, what have I gotten you into? If anything happens to you, and it sounds hellish like it might, I'll never forgive myself. And neither would your dear sister," Alan objected.

"You've given me the world, Alan!" Burgess said with a catch in his voice, his face aglow like a martyr promised crucifixion before sunup. "Oh, 'tis fine for Governour to farm and pore over the accounts. He's set up with a vicar's daughter in the county. But for me, Alan… you remember when you took me aboard your frigate during the siege as a guest of the wardroom?- Just the smell of a ship…"

"Foul as they smell," Alan drolly pointed out.

"The smell of distance," Burgess waxed lyrical. "Of adventure in faraway places. Hemp and tar, salt and spices…"

"Pea-soup farts and rotting cheese," Alan said, scowling.

'To lay eyes on the East Indies, to live a life of new things to taste and smell, my God, how wondrous it's going to be!" Burgess went on in his rapture. "Oh, it'll be hard, I know. And it'll like as not be dangerous. But the chance for glory! More'n most people'd ever suspect! You must know, I'm not cut out to be a farmer. Before the Revolution, I'd half a mind to run off and trade with the Cherokee over the Appalachians. To see what there was to see, cross mountains and rivers, all the way to the other ocean. And now you've given me my chance, Alan. I'll break free. Now I'll know what you felt as a sailor. You do not know how much I've sometimes envied you your life as a Sea Officer."

"Just as long as you do come back a chicken-nabob," Alan said, realizing there was nothing he could say to dissuade Burgess from making a total fool of himself. "And when you do fetch home all those diamonds and rubies, better tote along a small sack for me as well. I mean, damme, who'd have thought old Sir Onsley would have a place for you? I warned you going in, it was a slim hope, a clerking position at best. This, though… well, maybe you should think about it…"

"I'd have never forgiven you, for certain, if that was all I could aspire to," Burgess cracked, thumping him on the knee. "Damme, you should be glad for me, Alan. Glad as I am."

"Well, if it pleases you, Burge, there's nothing more I can say," Alan surrendered. How could he tell him he thought the lad was not cut out for desperate doings, any more than he was cut out for farming? How do you tell a friend you think him too starry-eyed to prosper?

"Alan Lewrie, I should despise you!" Caroline hissed at him harshly, once the celebration had begun. She took him by the hand and led him to sit with her on a ratty older sofa away from the others, who were singing and mixing a large bowl of lemons, sugar, hot water and gin for a gala punch.

"Caroline, I swear I had no idea…" he began. It was the first time he'd ever seen her angry at anything or anyone, and it was most disconcerting to be the target of her anger.

"This… this hush-hush adventure you've gotten poor Burge into," she whispered. "No word of what it was? No inkling of how much danger there'll be?"

"None. Only that he's to keep mum and be ready to be received in a few days, one way or another," Alan told her sadly, feeling just a trifle sheepish under her hot glare. "I was all amort that the old fool'd offer anything at all, much less something like this, I tell you truly. And Burgess didn't have to accept it so quickly, either. He could have asked for a few days to think it over, but no, he had to just leap up and go all shiny-eyed over it. Don't take it out on me, I beg you, Caroline. I did what Governour and your mother bade me. I used what influence I could. How was I to know it'd turn out like this?"

"But so far away from us," Caroline insisted. "With the chance we'll never see him again in this life! Oh, I know it isn't your fault, Alan, but… you must see how frightened I am for him. He's always been so…"

"Unprepared for how cruel life can be?" Alan whispered back.

"You recognized it, too?" she gasped, taking his hand and wringing it like a washcloth, pressing his hand to her troubled breast, surely unaware in her bereavement of what she was doing.

God Almighty, Alan thought, feeling his innards lurch at the touch of her. I could spend the rest of the day like this!

"He'll go under, sure as Fate, I know it," she said, weeping softly.

"It's what he wants, Caroline," Alan told her. "Better one chance at an adventurous life than drudging on a farm and feeling trapped. He told me as much. God pity him, he envies me all the shit… sorry… I've been through. All the exciting and exotic places I've sailed. And he may prosper. I've seen others do so, in the Navy. God help me, I prospered, and I didn't know a futtock shroud from a horse's fetlock when I first began."

"But you're the sort of man who does prosper, Alan," she told him, lowering her hand, and his, to her lap before her mother noticed. "If only I knew there was someone as courageous and steady as you to look after him out there in India, or wherever he's going to be."