Dewey Lambdin - A Jester’s Fortune

Jervis fell back on Gibraltar, but that base was top easy for a combined Franco-Spanish fleet to blockade, and he'd end up trapped and useless to anybody. He retired further, to Lisbon.

It's now dark days for England. Austria is out of the war, and the First Coalition is gone. Spain is allied with France. The French Navy is slowly getting better at its trade, ready for overseas adventures to retake lost islands and colonies. The Spanish weren't slouches, either, contrary to myth. Nor were the ever-able Dutch, who lurk in the North Sea or off the tip of Africa. There are rumours of insurrection in Ireland-more so than the usual festers, this time.

The Royal Navy will soon have woes of its own from the untold thousands of impressed seamen and new-come volunteers, who chafe under harsh conditions-low pay, poor food doled out niggardly by "cheeseparing" pursers, and the brutal naval discipline from "jumped-up" new officers in a fleet too quickly expanded and too hard-pressed to be so picky in selecting leaders. Mean t'say! They made Alan Lewrie a Commander, didn't they? Or might they be so desperate they'd jump him to post-rank? Oh, but surely…!

So, here's our hero Lewrie, in the tail of '96, just a tad bit older, perhaps only a wee iota wiser. He's fallen off the waggon with the entrancing, lovely and exotic Mrs. Theoni Kavaras Connor (and what real man wouldn't, I ask you?), in spite of his vow to almost, but not quite not, again. What portends from this amour, how long will he or she last- and will it end in heartbreak as Lucy predicted (spiteful baggage!)? Is there unfinished business between them? Will Sir Malcolm Shockley praise him in Commons; or will Lucy have a say about that, too? Will Toulon slaughter wee little Whiskers one dark night?

Will Commander Fillebrowne be gulled over those bronzes? Will Clotworthy Chute show us a clean pair of heels in his escape, never to diddle with Lewrie's life again?

Will Captain Charlton ever realise Lewrie humbugged him and sent his piratical enterprise down the "tubes"? Will he face ruin, and take Lewrie down with him, for spite?

HMS Jester has less than eight months left of her commission, a date that usually requires a long, expensive rebuild in a proper shipyard- and a temporary decommissioning, right? Alan Lewrie could be on his way home, quickly; or might he be at Lisbon in February of the new year, there's a little scrap called the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, or Nelson's "do" at Teneriffe? Or at home, just in time for a little more hair-raising adventure, such as…?

No, that'd be telling. Whatever happens, I think we all know by now that Alan Lewrie, R.N., will end playing it fast and loose, trimmed damn close to the winds, as usual, no matter where. On the ragged edge- again.