Dewey Lambdin - A Jester’s Fortune

"Quite so, Captain Rodgers," Charlton was forced to agree.

"Never even met the Hungarians yet, sir," Fillebrowne sniffed primly. "Nor any help from their little squadron of coasters."

"Doin' main-well so far, sir," Rodgers grumbled. "An' 'thout a jot o Austrian aid, either! We'll manage fine… way I see it."

"Ah, but should the traffick increase, sirs," Charlton warned them sternly, "should the French take over even a few well-armed small ships… we can't be everywhere at once. Nor, unless we sail together, be of sufficient strength. Guard the straits only, and the French may play merry Hell on the Italian east coast. Shift patrols over there, closer to Ravenna and Venice, and the straits become a thoroughfare to smugglers and French merchantmen. We're badly in need of reinforcement. I tell you, sirs, badly. Did we have a third frigate and sloop of war, we might- might, mind-just barely cope. One group for the straits down south, one for the Balkan coast, and one patrolling higher up in the Adriatic… keeping an eye on Ravenna and such."

"So, we split up into singletons, sir," Lewrie suggested. "The frigates, at least, and pair Jester and Myrmidon. There's your three groups." Much as he disliked the idea of sailing with Fillebrowne!

"And what did our first spell at sea shew us, sir?" Charlton objected right crankily. "That there are ships enough to intercept already… without an increase in numbers. And only so many hands we may spare to man them, before we are forced to return to Trieste. Or run the risk of battle so poorly manned we're barely able to tend sail, much less fight. Do one or the other, but not both, sir!"

"No chance there would be any help forthcoming from the Fleet, sir?" Fillebrowne prompted, sounding almost wistful.

"Not with these newly captured Tuscan ports to watch, atop the others we were already thin-stretched to blockade, sir, no," Charlton assured him. "There are never enough frigates or sloops, sore as their lack is felt in time of war. Even before this Bonaparte marched, we'd gotten all he could spare. Damme, had we twice the force, though…!" He sighed, sounding more than a touch wistful, too. "Surely our Lords Commissioners should know this cruel fact, should have laid down ships other than 'liners,' by the score!"

Uh-oh! Lewrie thought. Things must have come to a pretty pass if he's blamin' Admiralty for 'is problems!

Perhaps someone kind should have made a helpful suggestion, said some comforting words of encouragement to him. Lewrie felt the urge to commiserate with the much-put-upon Captain Charlton.

Onliest trouble was, there wasn't anything close to clever that could be said, certainly not by Lewrie, nor by the others, even if they had been of a mind to. It was up to Captain Charlton; he was a senior post-captain in charge of an independent squadron. Officers slaved all their lives-toadied and schemed, some of them-sweated round-shot they'd not put a single foot wrong their entire careers, to get where he was at that moment, with that much power, with that much responsibility. And all the recognition, fame, honour, glory, pride and perquisites which came with it.

Until one chose wrong, o' course.

The man's spitted, Alan thought, keeping his face bland and junior-like. Poor bastard's got a spit run up his arse, right through to the apple in his mouth! Spitted and broilin" over a hellish-toasty bed o' coals. Turnin' and bastin', Lewrie could conjure, all but writhing in agony.

And may I never rise higher than post-captain of a frigate, he further thought; pay's decent, and there's always someone t'tell you where t'go, what t'do. Wouldn't have his responsibility for-

"Well, sirs," Captain Charlton said, after a long and uncomfortable silence, during which his dumbstruck inferiors had sat quiet, and as thankfully mute as Lewrie had. "If Austrian or Hungarian help is not to be forthcoming… nor is Venice able-or even of a mind!-to help herself, then I do believe that we must explore what is perhaps the only solution open to us. Uhm, that is to say, a possible solution which I and Major Simpson of the Austrian Navy discussed… as onerous as it may sound to you. A temporary, uhm…"

Charlton waved a frustrated hand, as if even he didn't quite hold with it, and already sharing the blame should it not work out.

"The only local source of reinforcement which could free us of inshore patrolling and allow us to cover all our responsibilities, it seems, gentlemen… are the Balkan pirates."

Now, there's somethin' I never thought to hear! Lewrie admitted, all but cringing. He darted a quick glance to Ben Rodgers, who looked as if he had been butted in the belly by an underhanded boxer: mouth open, eyes ready to roll and on the verge of sucking air in a frantic "Eeepp!"

"But sir-" Lewrie began to protest.

"Said it'd strike you all as onerous," Charlton snapped, cutting him off, "but what other choices are there, Commander Lewrie? Pray, do place before us another."

"Well, sir, I…" Lewrie was flummoxed, trying desperately to come up with something-anything!-other than that.

"Novel, I must say, sir," Commander Fillebrowne cooed softly, with the sound of grudging admiration in his voice-as if he was yet unconvinced, but could not deny the logic of it. "May I infer, sir, that Major Simpson will issue them Letters of Marque?"

"We discussed that, Commander Fillebrowne," Captain Charlton admitted, still fretting. He was still most uneasy with his decision and writhing in his chair in that former roast-pig agony for another moment as he turned to Fillebrowne. "Maritime law is rather touchy 'pon the subject of privateers, however. Did Austria issue a pirate band Letters of Marque and Reprisal, they would have to declare them Austrian subjects, to begin with. Would have to allow them to work from Trieste, since the home port must be stated. And they would have to sail under the national colours of the nation which issued the documents. And, I rather doubt any Balkan pirates could be stood here, do you, sir?"

Charlton took a sip of wine and almost had himself a chuckle of sardonic amusement in contemplating the sight of illiterate, seagoing peasants and cutthroats in placid Trieste 's beer cellars.

"And, given the long-standing hostility 'twixt Austrians and the various minorities down south, I equally doubt the pirates would enjoy the association, either, so… no, sir. There will be no letters from the Austrians."

"Not from us, then, surely, sir!" Lewrie carped.

"Nor from us, Commander Lewrie," Charlton told him. "I haven't that authority in the first instance, and as I said, this arrangement… should it even be possible to make such an alliance… would be of a temporary, ad hoc nature. Sub rosa, so to speak. Not the sort of thing one wishes bruited about. A rather loose, informal arrangement."

For a man who'd been writhing just a second before, Charlton had gone rather calm, Lewrie thought. Now that his decision to co-opt piratical bands was out in the open, and had not immediately been shouted down, Charlton seemed to have firmed the decision in his mind, and it was not going to be a topic for discussion.

"War on the 'cheap,' " Lewrie muttered.

"You said, sir?" Charlton queried most petulantly.

"Something one of my old captains said, sir," Lewrie answered, chin up. "When we were trying to talk Red Indians into alliance with the Crown back in '82. Came up again in the Far East, with South Sea pirates, 'tween the wars. War on the 'cheap,' he called it, sir. And no good ever came from either."

"S'pose you'd be preferring the Uscocchi, sir?" Fillebrowne said, breezing on as if there'd been no objections.

"I would, indeed, Commander Fillebrowne," Charlton mused, patting his unruly hair back in place. "Splendid fighters on land, since they're Croat. And deuced good seamen, too, as the Austrian officers at our welcoming supper told us. Catholic, don't ye know. Fiercely devoted to their religion."

"Holy war, sir?" Lewrie posed. "There's a Pandora's Box we-"

"Devoted to a religion, sir, that is at least European!" Captain Charlton shot back, glaring him to silence once more. Or at the least trying to. "And I tell you, Commander Lewrie, I begin to tire of your particular sense of humour, forever drolly mocking and-"

"I'm not japing, sir. Not this time," Lewrie assured him with a dead-level and dead-sober gaze. "I've seen war on the 'cheap,' and it's a blood-red horror, sir. Fought by… well, sirs, one can't call massacre and ambush fighting, exactly. Rape, pillaging, torching and leveling, and once it's begun, there's no calling it back, sir. Blood calls for blood, revenge… Corsican vendetta, Scottish feud, and there is no European, civilised control over it once it's got rolling, sir."

"War waged by, as you just admitted, Commander Lewrie, savages! Red Indian tribes in the Americas? South Sea islanders and heathens in tattoos and breechclouts?" Charlton boomed, his blood up. "What the heathens do 'mongst themselves, once armed with European weapons, isn't our concern, I tell you! What they can do with them 'gainst our enemies is. What feuds and grievances the Balkan inhabitants suffer are already centuries old, sir, and will still be brewing long after we're gone. To co-opt, as you put it, a band of coastal pirates of whatever persuasion-temporarily-will make no difference. Whether they are at each others' throats with Roman short-sword and spear, or flintlock muskets and bayonets-with bloody cannon!-is moot. As odd as they are, the Slavs of the Balkans are Europeans, Commander Lewrie. Cut off from the finer things of life, admittedly, but still Europeans. They're not your painted Indians."

Are they not, sir? Was on Lewrie's tongue, but he thought it'd be a bit beyond insubordinate to say it. No one had dealt with Balkan peoples yet, other than the odd brush with them off Brae and Bar, so he wasn't so sure that Charlton was completely wrong, or that he was so completely right, either. He screwed his face up, almost biting at a cheek in purse-lipped frustration, and kept silent, reddening.

"Catholic, Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox, those are European religions of a sort, sir," Charlton rushed on, as if he'd already wrestled the main points of the logic behind his decision to the ground. "Not as rational, I'll grant you, none of 'em, as the Church of England, nor Protestantism. Yet each has redeeming features of Christianity at bottom. The Dalmatian peoples do not have the Inquisition, as civilised Spain does, after all! As hand-to-mouth as they live, according to the accounts you brought of the few you encountered, they might even be of a placid, bucolic nature. Rustic, poverty-stricken peasants, toiling 'pon a few miserable, rocky acres or less, like so many Irish tenant crofters. Closer to the soil, closer to God, perhaps? Denied the luxuries of civilisation, may they not be closer to that Frog Rousseau's depiction of 'noble savages'? But, sir! Christians! Europeans. Capable of-"

"Turks're out, I take it, sir?" Rodgers interrupted, posing such a ludicrous notion that Charlton looked fit to lean over and bite him.

"Right out, Captain Rodgers!" Charlton barked. "As I was about to say, the Dalmatian peoples are, at bottom, European stock. Capable of civilised doings, of forming firm pacts, of disciplining themselves and their behaviour. Look at the many units in the Austrian or Hungarian armies, for God's sake! Capable of following orders, of knowing a right from a wrong, and acting upon that knowledge with… with…! Well, if not from a gentlemanly sense of honour and propriety, then with the innate sense of honour and propriety which centuries of Christian dogma's drummed into them. It's not as if we're allying ourselves, even temporarily or expeditiously, with Gibraltar Apes! Nor with any of those swart kings of Dahomey, who sell their own kin to slave-dealers… or satanic beasts, after all!"