Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey

Lewrie went aft to the transom settee and splayed himself slack-spined on the cushions, his head resting on the sash-window sill for a cool breeze.

Choundas, by God! he thought; can't the bastard find anything better to do than follow me round the world? I've taken my best shots at him, surely someone'd call me 'out' and send in another batsman to finish him off! Thankee, Id rather not, this time, but do keep me posted.' Bet that'd go down well! Damme, if fame an' glory ain't a cursed buggery… do one thing flashy, and they never give you a rest!

He shut his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to recall the bastard. From the description Mr. Durant had read, he'd hit Choundas's arm, not the chest he'd aimed for. Two hundred yards, even with a Ferguson rifle, was an iffy shot. Their sword-fight on a beach at Balabac in the '80s… hacking that hateful face into ruin with a last-second, blind slash to save his very life! Ham-stringing him and forcing that leg-brace and mask on him, making Choundas stump and limp with a cane evermore…! By now Choundas should be a shambling ogre, the stuff of children's nightmares, an implacable Nemesis tracking him down, a beast to fear, but… Lewrie found himself grinning a bit, seeing him not as his Doom, but as a crippled… clown!

Not as quick as he used t'be, I'll warrant, Lewrie thought as he fanned the front of his shirt for coolness; it can't be his sword and mine crossed, this time… he '11 order others. No matter how well he chooses, his minions could never measure up to him/

It also struck Lewrie that Choundas wasn't part of that massive French fleet, not part of General Bonaparte's, or of Admiral de Brueys grand aspirations, either!

Who'd want a man that gruesome in one's entourage! Lewrie felt like giggling; He'd put people off their feed! Damme, has Choundas had a comedown… tsk-tsk?

The French Revolution had a habit of eating its own; condemning and executing its early firebrands who were too crude, radical, and brutal to present on the world stage, too identified with The Terror, and its excesses and slaughters. They had a habit of turning on each other, too, denouncing and guillotining both leaders and followers of losing factions in their ever-shifting grasps for absolute power!

And Guillaume Choundas was surely one of the last of the "judicial" murderers who'd purged the aristocrats from his own navy, then purged the "suspect" who didn't give the Revolution their entire soul.

More than enough reasons to shuffle him off, out of sight; his foul repute, his butt-ugly appearance, his continual embarassment to the glittering, polished "new men!"

Choundas's appearance in the Caribbean, Lewrie thought, was an exile; a last chance to redeem himself at best, a callous dismissal to the deadly Fever Isles where he could die, unwanted and un-loved, at the worst. He'll be desperate! Lewrie surmised with sudden joy; he'll take more risks than he'd usually dare, to vindicate his ugly self!

"Vulnerable," Lewrie whispered aloud, drawing out the word, syllable by syllable, to savour its import. "Third time's the charm, by God?"

He jerked to his feet, ready to scrabble to the quarterdeck to shout this revelation to the world, chest swelling with eagerness for the meeting with his arch foe; eager to shout his suddenly discovered sense of courage, when before he might have trembled in his boots with dread. Choundas, and his machinations, would be the Devil one knows, knew too well for terror. If he felt the slightest check on his emotions, it was wariness. He could face Choundas clear-headed, not swooning with anxiety, in future! A shambling, limping, crippled clown!

"Marvellous!" he muttered joyously, aflame to speak to someone, write someone, about this sudden change of heart. But whom}

Caroline? No, he'd told her about his early adventures, and of encounters with Choundas. She knew him too well, or thought that she did. He'd been breezy about the man, swaggering as a proper hero must. To express, to confess, that he'd always feared him would be weakness. And to blather on about no longer being fearful would be even worse, a Frenchman's insouciant gasconading boasts. There was no way to rejustify himself in her eyes, even did she break the seals and read his letter, instead of using it for fireplace tinder.

Theoni Connor? Again, no. She had always seen him as heroic, and any admission of past dreads would demean him with her. He could explain just who this bкte-noir was, at least lay out the odds of the possible future confrontation, now they were due to cross each others' hawse, but… maybe weaning himself of Theoni Connor was the better course. It was three years before Proteus sailed home to pay off, and at least two months each way for letters.

He could write his father, baldly stating, "By the by, that dog we chased in Asia is now here, and we hunt each other. The weather is fine…" That might be best, he thought; surely his father would be able to put a flea in Sophie's ear, and that would get back to his own household in short order, reawakening concern for him in Caroline's heart. Again, that was two months' mail packet passage before the news could affect anyone, for good or ill.

Cashman? He felt like telling somebody] Cashman, though, was hip-deep in selling up his plantation, was too distracted with his ongoing feud with Ledyard Beauman… and his gleeful, cackling preparations for that duel. He was an old friend, a man, a seasoned soldier, so surely he 'd understand, did a respected, courageous officer relate a few twinges of worry over an old foe's reappearance, and how he had found a way to deal with him… over a few bottles of champagne?

Perhaps the next time he was ashore, visiting Kit; though that was an unbearably long time to sit on the matter. And, when ashore, their time would mostly be spent on the duel, since Cashman meant to hold him to his promise to second him, and the over-formal punctilio of the code duello would prove exacting.

The curse of command, Lewrie sourly realised, deflating from a brief moment of exuberance; good tidings or shiverin' shits, there's not a single soul you can tell! The public masque ya wear in Society… yer good odour as a hero won't allow it ashore, either! he thought with a self-deprecating scoff over "hero."

No, he would have to "play" the imperturbable Royal Navy stock character, as seen on stage, saving his innermost feelings only for a "good woman." After all, that was what a life's helpmeet was for, the role in life as stock characters for "good women."

Or bad'uns, who don't parley any English, Lewrie told himself with a smirk; to unburden oneself just might be an active verb, there! In more ways than one.

"Aspinall, how are we set for something cold to drink?" Lewrie asked the empty great-cabins, and his manservant popped his head from his small pantry, where he'd been doing some sennet-work napkin rings.

"Pitcher o' cool tea with lemon an' sugar comin' up, sir!"

Lewrie went to the desk and ruffled Toulon 's belly fur, tickling him under the chin. The cat awoke in a trice, and after a brief yawn and stiff-legged stretch, he began to wriggle and writhe about, eager for some play, tail whisking again, and his eyes wide.

"You poor old puss," Lewrie said with a sigh, fingers escaping quickly snapped jaws and batting paws for another "attack" upon belly fur, that put Toulon into a fit of flipping from side to side. "May not know it, but you're my onliest audience, Toulon. You've the only ears I can whisper into. 'Cause you're the only one who can't blab."

"Mmmrrph!" Toulon replied, trapping a hand and rasping tongue on a finger.

"I love you, too, you rascal."

P erhaps it's not a good omen for Alan Lewrie, but the captains and admirals who participated in the Battle of Camperdown had no luck at all. Too tainted, perhaps, with the worst part of the Nore Mutiny in the spring of 1797, their ships' crews the worst and most threatening to naval and social order (see King's Captain for Lewrie's part in it), none of them, even after winning a victory and eliminating a threat of joint Franco-Dutch invasion of England itself, none of them prospered. And one, the captain of Agincourt , was cashiered for cowardice.

The way the Dutch fought, close-up and courageous, shattered as many British ships as they lost. None of the Royal Navy ships served for very long after being extensively repaired; nor were any of their hard-won prizes taken at Camperdown worth anything, either. They were bought in, also given extensive repairs, but five or six years later, most of them ended up as non-sailing hulks or harbour receiving ships.

By the way, those purists who might object to the Orangespruit frigate being there… sure, I knew she was a very old warship in '97 and was probably a hulk by the time of the battle, but she was a 36-gunner, and the name was very Dutch, and since I know little of Holland beyond tulips, windmills, cheeses, and beers, well… I'll not steal a victory from a real captain and his capture, and I'll not name a ship Edam or Gouda , either. Lewrie will get his share of prize money from her taking, and that's all he cares about, thankee very much.

Many thanks to the U.S. Naval Institute Press, and Michael A. Palmer, for Stoddert's War regarding the rebirth of the U.S. Navy and its operations during the Quasi War with France in the Caribbean, and thanks to Ty Martin, USN (Ret) and former skipper of Constitution for a list of proposed ship names of American frigates that weren't used… so I could "borrow" one for the USS Hancock. I suspect we will run into Hancock and Captain Kershaw again. Mr. Martin's book, A Most Fortunate Ship, details Constitution and her operations in the Caribbean during the Quasi War, as well as her later illustrious career.

By the way, the founding of Washington "City" and the District of Columbia where President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the Capitol in 1793, was a neat little boondoggle with government money, and some so-called "upright" characters made themselves a "shower o' tin" buying up swampland for a song and selling it for scandalous profits. My my, how things never change!

Thanks also go to "Bosun" Bob Scappini and his rowdy crew up in Rhode Island, who wore themselves out re-enacting a Revolutionary War artillery unit 'til, after shifting battery eleven times one day under a broiling sun, they found one of my books and decided that becoming the "Landing Party" off the American Sloop of War Providence might just be a lot cooler, and not involve so much heavy lifting!

They also sent me a tape and lyric book they'd made of sailing chanteys and pulley-hauleys, from which the words to "Nottingham Ale" came. May the Ship's Company Landing Party "splice the mainbrace"! And beat the Middies from Annapolis, next long-boat race.

Thanks also, again, to Bob Endone for the year-long loan of a set of books about the Royal Navy and the era from his vast collection, and for attempts to dig up some information about Haiti and the slave revolt.

Haiti, or Saint Domingue… well. Ask three Haitians about it and you'll get five differing opinions, and a lot of shifty-eyed looks. Even now, it's an uneasy subject, how their ancestors founded the first independent Black nation anywhere in the world, and a poorly represented topic, too. I had to order research material, mostly reprinted in generic-bland trade paperback form, done by order from digitized storage, one of which was one of the worst "historical novels" I had ever read, and which shall remain nameless and authorless. A Brief History of The Caribbean by Jan Rogozinksi (Meridian Books) was very helpful, and explains the background, from Columbus 's arrival, the massacre of the Arawak and Carib Indians, the introduction of sugar cane and necessity of slavery, along with the resultant uprisings and revolts.