The Invasion Year (37 page)

“God, how I wish to kiss you!” she whispered.

“Then let’s do!” Lewrie urged, putting his arms round her.

“Do I look like a sailor’s … doxy, do you call them … this way?” Lydia said with a happy, throaty chuckle after she threw her arms round him and shared a long, deep kiss with him.

“It’s a seaport, and I don’t
give
a damn if
you
don’t!” Lewrie laughed. “Never a doxy, not
you,
Lydia … a captain’s
lady,
is what people will think. And a damned handsome lady, at that.”

“Even one so scandalous?” she teased after kissing him again.

“Oh, bugger that,” he shrugged off. “What’s scandalous about riddin’ yourself of a beast? I’d hope … well.”

“Hope what, Alan,” she purred, looking up at him a bit, her eyes alight.

“That what’s begun would continue … hard as that may be with me at sea,” he confessed, feeling a physical surge of warmth filling his chest. “With
Reliant
to operate in the Channel at least for the rest of the year, it won’t be months between letters, if you … mean t’say, if I could have your permission t’write, and…”

“Of
course
I wish you to write me, as often as possible!” she declared. “Just as I swear that I will respond to each, and write to you, even should yours be delayed, or you are too busy. Really, Alan, after what
has
passed between us, it’s hardly possible to mis-construe
me
as a spinster-girl whose parents’ permission you must ask, now does it?” She hugged him closer, laughing again. “Though I appreciate the thought, mind,” she wryly added, her smile japing but fond.

“Often as possible,” Lewrie promised as they resumed strolling along, crossing the cobbled street to the wide wooden beams of the seaside quays.

“Tar and salt … the seashore smell,” Lydia mused. “When we went to Brighton for the Summer ocean bathing, I always delighted in its freshness.”

“Quite un-like what a
ship
smells like,” he japed back. “That reek that greeted you, in spite of all we could do? The manger, our mildew, our wet woolens, our pea-soup farts and sweat? I thought you might heed a scented handkerchief, for a minute or so. The way your nose wrinkled?”

“Well, I must own to
slight
notice,” she confessed, chuckling again, concentrating on the toes of her shoes for a moment. “But, I
do
crinkle my poor nose when amused, or … gawping in awe of all that you showed us,” she said, looking back up at him again.

“Rather a
nice
nose,” Lewrie fondly told her.

“Oh, tosh! Now you’re being kind,” she demurred.

“No, I’m not,” Lewrie baldly stated.

Three watch-bells chimed from the nearest merchantman, lying alongside the quays, quickly followed by the chimes of dozens more as half-hour glasses ran out a bit later.

Lydia looked to him, part in puzzlement, part in appreciation.

“Such a lovely sound … though a lonely one,” she commented, her head cocked over to listen to the last, distant
dings
.

“Three bells … half past seven,” Lewrie told her. “I s’pose we should be headin’ back, before Percy gets worried and comes lookin’ for us. Our supper will be late bein’ laid.”

“I do not mind our being late,” Lydia said, hugging him again. “Nor do I much mind Percy fretting. The last few years he’s become quite good at fretting over me, more’s the pity. Yes, we must return to the inn … but slowly, please?”

“Aye, milady,” Lewrie agreed.

“Aye,” Lydia echoed as if savouring the strangeness of the word.

“Then there’s a good pirate’s ‘aarrrh,’ ” Lewrie added. “I use it now and then, for fun.”

“Aarrhh!” she cried, trying it on and finding it thrilling. “I rather like the sound of those bells. They chimed all through our visit aboard your ship. Whatever do they mean, though?”

“Well, a ship’s day begins at Eight Bells of the Forenoon Watch, at Noon,” Lewrie explained as they strolled arm-in-arm, half snuggled down the now-dark street, “and each half-hour, a ship’s boy turns the sand-glass and strikes one bell for each half-hour that passes ’til he reaches eight, four hours later. We name each four-hour watch—”

“So
much
to learn of your world!” Lydia said, almost gasping. “You must tell me as much as you can, and direct me to books where I can discover more!”

“It’s much like learnin’ Russian, or Greek, I warn you!” Lewrie cautioned her. “Sailors’ cant is contrary and sounds like nonsense to a lubber like you.”

“A lover?” she chuckled.

“Lubber … not even a ‘scaly fish,’ yet,” Lewrie told her.

“And when you return, might you quiz me on what I have learned? Might you bend
me
over a gun and make me … ‘kiss the gunner’s daughter’ with a what did you call it?” she enthused, skipping ahead of him a step or two, their hands together.

“A twine-wrapped length of rope … about this long,” he said, freeing his hands long enough to indicate a length of eighteen inches. “A stiffened rope starter a Bosun’ll use on the slow-coaches.”

“Mercy, sir!
That
long, is it?”

“Perhaps, do ye
have
t’be … bent over a gun, I could discover something
else
that’d serve,” he said with a leer, a bit startled by her boldness … but liking it very, very much!

“Yayss, I surely think that you could,” Lydia drawled, coming back to tuck herself against him as they walked on towards the welcoming lanthorns of the inn.

Just damn my eyes, but I
like
this woman!
Lewrie happily told himself as they dared to embrace and kiss just once more before they had to go in, a kiss that lasted and lasted, but could not last long enough.

BOOK IV

We are come to a new era in the history of nations; we are called to struggle for the destiny, not of this country alone but of the civilised world.… We have for ourselves the great duty of self-preservation to perform; but the duty of the people of England now is of a nobler and higher order.… Amid the wreck and the misery of nations it is our just exultation that we have continued superior to all that ambition or that despotism could effect; and our still higher exultation ought to be that we provide not only for our own safety but hold out a prospect for nations now bending under the iron yoke of tyranny of what the exertions of a free people can effect.

            ~PRIME MINISTER WILLIAM PITT (THE YOUNGER)

    ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT, SUMMER 1804

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“Idyll’s over,” Lewrie muttered, once he had signed for a thin set of ribbon-bound and wax-sealed orders
hand-delivered
direct from Admiralty by a taciturn older Lieutenant; the fellow knew nothing and said little more, then departed to catch the morning coach to London before it left without him.

Lewrie ripped the ribbons upwards, breaking the seal, and unfolded the orders. For a brief moment, his eyes strayed to another, smaller sealed note on his day-cabin desk, one from Lydia Stangbourne. Which would he
prefer
to read first? But, there was no helping it; he puffed out his lips in irritation as he turned back to the orders.

“ ‘… take upon yourself the charge and command over HMS
Fusee,
Bomb (Eight), Lieutenant Joseph Johns (Three)…,’ ” he read under his breath, almost mumbling. “There’s
three
Joseph Johns in the Fleet?” he wondered aloud. “Who would’ve thought it? Ah … ‘has aboard at this time Mister Cyrus MacTavish, Esquire, and his Chief Artificer to perform certain experiments with the devices that Mister MacTavish has designed and fashioned. You will render all aid and support to the timely experimentation, and trial implementation of said devices against French harbours and gatherings of craft amassed for the possible sea-borne invasion of the British Isles. You will see that your officers and men become cognisant of all mechanical details of said devices to support such experimentation and possible implementation with all despatch. You will provide both escort and material support to Lieutenant Johns, his vessel, Mister MacTavish, and his Artificer in this endeavour…’ ” Lewrie wondered if that meant he had to dine them all in each night, and serve them their grog ration, too.

“What the Devil … ‘You are also most strictly cautioned that this endeavour is of a most highly secret nature, and you are not only to protect HMS
Fusee,
the devices, and their designer and fabricator from capture by the enemy at all hazards, but you are also strictly charged to restrict the secret of the existence of said devices from any naval personnel or civilians not directly involved in the afore-said experimentation.’

“Well, there goes shore liberty and any more chance o’ puttin’ the ship Out of Discipline t’ease her people. Whew!”

Which step to take first? Brief his officers on the so-far unseen mysterious “devices,” or go find this
Fusee
bomb and speak with Lieutenant Johns, this MacTavish fellow, and his un-named artificer?

Did he have time to read Lydia’s note? No. With a long sigh, he swept both secret orders and
billet-doux
into the top right-hand drawer of his desk and locked them away.

“Shove me into my coat, Pettus, and pass the word for my boat crew,” he ordered.

*   *   *

It took a shore call upon the Port Admiral to discover exactly where HMS
Fusee
was anchored, then required a long row into the Medway and through the protective boom to discover
Fusee,
which streamed to the tide near the old receiving ship HMS
Sandwich,
which old three-decker
still
emitted the same old reeks of impressed misery that he’d encountered when manning his first frigate, HMS
Proteus,
in 1797.

For a vessel engaged in a secret endeavour, her Harbour Watch was remarkably slack; Lewrie’s gig was only an hundred yards off before someone woke up and hailed them. The scramble to man the side for the arrival of a Post-Captain
could
be called comical, were it not so serious.

“Captain Alan Lewrie, come aboard to speak with your captain,” Lewrie announced to the single Midshipman present.
Fusee
’s crew was about the bare minimum, not over fifty hands all told, so no more than one Midshipman was required.

“Here he comes, sir … Lieutenant Johns,” the older lad said, almost in relief, as a tall and lean fellow in his mid-thirties turned up on the bomb’s quarterdeck.

“Joseph Johns, your servant, sir,” the fellow said, doffing his hat with a jerky half-bow from the waist. Lt. Johns was scare-crow thin, with a prominent Adam’s apple, a long wind-vane of a nose, and noticeable cheekbones. He looked to be a perfect non-entity but for a pair of eyes that seemed aflame with enthusiasm. “We’ve just received directions from Admiralty that you would be in charge of us, and of our … ehm,” he added, jutting a pointy chin forward to his bomb’s foredeck, where two thirteen-inch sea-mortars would usually be emplaced in side-by-side wells, heavily re-enforced with great baulks of timber to withstand the shock of their upwards discharge, and the down-thrust of recoil. Now, the wells were shrouded by what looked to be a scrap tops’l so large that it might have come off a frigate. Looking in that direction gave Lewrie the impression that the canvas shrouded six great water casks; he also took note of a long and heavy boom rigged to the base of the bomb’s foremast, and a hoisting windlass so it could be employed as a crane …
forward
of the mast, not aft.

“Pardon me for seeming remiss in searching you out, sir, but as I said, orders came aboard not half an hour past,” Johns went on.

“Mine preceded yours by no more than an hour, Mister Johns. It is of no matter,” Lewrie allowed, clapping his hands into the small of his back and craning his neck to look upwards. “I had a converted bomb in the Bahamas, ’tween the wars, but
Alacrity,
as a gun-ketch, had her masts equally spaced, like a brig, and the mortar wells were fore and aft of the foremast. Your
Fusee
resembles a three-master that’s missing her entire foremast, and sports but main and mizen.”

“The newer construction allows both mortars to work in concert, sir, bows-on to a target, ’stead of anchored beam-on, and
becoming
a better target,” Lt. Johns laughed. “I admit the new ones look queer, but with much larger jibs and fore-and-aft stays’ls, they
will
go up to windward at least a point closer.”