Hostile Shores (8 page)

Lewrie took his time to ascend the several flights of stone stairs from one terrace of lawn and garden to the next ’til he was upon the outer gallery. The hike from the docks had all been uphill, and that was asking a lot of a sailor. He stopped to remove his hat, swab the inner band with a handkerchief, and discreetly dab his face and neck. He lingered, savouring the cool sunset breeze, for he could feel a palpable wave of heat coming from inside, from all those candles and so many people crammed into the spacious rooms.

More guests were arriving, by coach, on foot, and some few in sedan chairs borne by liveried slaves. There were officers from the Army garrison and Forts Montagu, Charlotte, and Fincastle in regimental finery, though Lewrie noted that few of them were below the rank of Major, with only a few Captains tossed in. A peek inside revealed the blue of Navy officers, and Lewrie quickly identified a couple of brig-sloop officers, with their Commanders’ epaulets on their left shoulders, and an equal number of Lieutenants. All the Lieutenants in command of the sloops and cutters in port were there, but none of the junior officers or Midshipmen. Evidently, the Governor-General was pinching his pennies, and inviting only senior men. His own First Lieutenant, Westcott, had been sent an invitation, but he had begged off, wishing for a night of shore liberty to pursue his own supper, dancing, and … other things.

It was cooler without his hat, so Lewrie tucked it under his arm. There were many newly arrived guests who wished to linger in a cooler air, knowing what to expect in a Bahamian summer, and Lewrie chatted them up, accepting and making introductions and chit-chat.

In point of fact, once named to the civilian gentlemen and their ladies, sons, and daughters, Lewrie was pleasingly surprised by how he was praised for his desperate sortie, in some cases almost gushingly, and his face reddened in honest humility (well, he could only play-act humble all
that
long!) and he declared, over and again, that he had only done his duty, no matter the odds.

Medals be-damned, they’re callin’ me a hero for
that
!

“You will enter with us, Sir Alan?” one older lady beguiled.

“I do b’lieve I’ll wait a tad longer, ma’am,” Lewrie told her. “The evening breeze, and the aromas from the flower gardens, are just too delightful.”

Yet another coach creaked to a stop at the foot of the hill on Market Street, an open coach which carried Commodore Grierson and his Flag-Captain, Meadows, and Lewrie turned away, wishing to delay
rencontre
with the fellow ’til the last moment. He looked round for a tall planter or bush behind which he could hide.

“Are you avoiding me, Sir Alan?” a lovely voice asked in petulance. He spun about to espy the “grass widow”.

“Why, Mistress Frost! Priscilla!” Lewrie exclaimed. “You are invited tonight? Your presence makes the occasion all the more delightful. And, how splendid you look!” he gushed in pleasure as he went to the top of the last flight of steps to offer her an arm after a bow.

Might tonight be the night?
Lewrie fervently wished;
After all, I’m nigh the bloody hero of the hour!

The object of his lust, Mistress Priscilla Frost, would be the desire of any man. She was a wee woman only five feet four inches in height, with a creamy pale complexion, a mass of artfully styled red-auburn hair, and bright green eyes. This night, her filmy sheath gown was of mint green, cut delightfully low, and was almost sheer enough to reveal a slim young body that was promisingly bouncy-looking, with perky breasts that even a modest
bandeau
to press them down could not completely hide. To top all that off, she was a woman of a sinuous, languid, and teasing demeanour.

“It is
too
bad that we shall not be seated close together,” she said with a
moue,
and a waft of her fan. “I expect you shall be seated nearer the top of the table, whilst I must languish far down, with the ‘chaw-bacons’, ha ha!”

“Well, there’s the mingling before, and the dancing after,” Lewrie said, trying on a leer. “Uhm … I note that Mister Frost is not attending with you? He’s still down at Grand Turk?”

“An American ship came in with mail, and he sent me a short note,” Priscilla told him with another pout. “He’s found a market at Cape Fran
ois, on Haiti, and has sailed there to look into the possibilities, so … he will be delayed some more
weeks.
”

“Oh, what a pity,” Lewrie commiserated.

“Lord only
knows
what dangers he might face among the savage Blacks of that foul place,” Priscilla said, not sounding all
that
much concerned for her much older husband’s safety.

“They’re a blood-thirsty lot,” Lewrie told her, looking over her shoulder to see Commodore Grierson mid-way up the flights of stairs. “Be a dear, Mistress Priscilla, and stroll with me into the garden for a bit.”

“Why, Sir Alan! Captain Lewrie, will you ruin my repute in Nassau?” She did so with a fetching air of mischief, a merry glint in her eyes, and a tap of her fan against his chin.

“Only with your
complete
permission, dear lady,” Lewrie purred in kind, with a flirtatious laugh. “But, I’d rather put off havin’ to greet Commodore Grierson ’til later.
Much
later.”

“Oh, that fatuous clown!” Priscilla huffed. “But of
course,
I shall aid you in that.” She offered her arm to be supported by his and allowed herself to be led towards the gardens. “What a thoroughly thoughtless act! Why, I was so terrified that the French had come to impoverish us all that my maids and I were packing in a perfect
panic,
until it was revealed that his ships were
ours
!
Everyone
is wroth with him…’tis the talk of the town, and none of it
complimentary,
let me tell you! Do I get the chance, I would tell him what I think of him to his face!”

“Then I shall be sure to introduce you,” Lewrie assured her. “Do look and see if he’s gone in, yet.”

“He is just about to enter,” Priscilla whispered conspiratorially after a quick peek. “Oh!”

“Oh?” Lewrie asked in dread that Grierson had spotted him.

“Do you enter and be announced
after
him,” Priscilla schemed in wicked glee, “you would be
certain
to hear louder approval. You would … as the actors say … up-stage him?”

“What a clever girl you are!” Lewrie said in open praise. “For that I stand completely in your debt … and in complete admiration of you, to boot,” he added with another leer.

“Debt
and
admiration, Sir Alan?” she cooed, looking up at him with a lazy and flirtatious smile … and an artful hitch of her breath that lifted and swelled her breasts. “Such complete admiration
must
be rewarded.
Amply
rewarded, hmm?”

“Where admiration may turn to worship?” Lewrie dared hint, leering yet again. She slowly batted her lashes and nodded her head to agree.

Huzzah, I’m
aboard
!
Lewrie exulted to himself.

“Walk me back to the entrance, Sir Alan,” Priscilla said, turning practical, “before people have reason to talk. Make your entrance a bit after me. I shall prepare the ground. A minute or so later?”

Lewrie saw her to the grand entrance doors, bowed her away, then lingered a bit more. Over the mutters of attendees and the musicians, there came a thump of a long cane, and a loud voice announcing the entrance of Captain Henry Grierson, Commodore of the Bahamas Squadron, and his Flag-Captain, Captain George Meadows. Lewrie smiled in delight as the crowd inside paid no particular heed; there was no applause. Indeed, conversations seemed to cease!

Finally, he shot his cuffs, settled his waist-coat and fiddled with his neck-stock, took a deep breath, plastered a benign grin on his phyz, and went inside to check his hat, then name himself to one of the liveried “catch farts”, who passed his name on to the major-domo with the long and heavy cane.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of His Majesty’s Ship
Reliant
!” the old functionary called out.

“Huzzah!” someone called out. “The hero of the hour!”

“Oh, bravely done!” Priscilla ringingly declared, and began to clap her hands, which prompted others to join in.

The fierce scowl on Commodore Grierson’s face was priceless, no matter how much bad blood was engendered, and Lewrie secretly delighted in it, even if it cost him later.

*   *   *

Nassau Town was not like London; its Society consisted mostly of commoners, albeit successful ones. A gala gathering such as this supper ball in England would never allow people engaged in “Trade” to attend! Nassauans could not even be described as Squirearchy who owned land and lived off gentlemanly farm incomes, cottagers’ rents, and shares in the Three Percent Funds. For the most part, the largest plots of land that Nassau’s upper crust owned were the town lots on which their houses sat, where their goods warehouses were situated, or their stores did business.

Lewrie suspected that Commodore Grierson had a low opinion of people engaged in Trade, lumping them in with pie men, knife grinders, or green grocers and store clerks, and could not fathom the conversations over the supper table, the pre-dinner socialising, or at the edges of the dance floor about profit-and-loss, new markets, and opportunities.

He looks damned uncomfortable and mute!
Lewrie thought;
They’ll give up on him altogether and talk past him in half an hour!

Lewrie, for his part, simply had a grand time, even if he was seated at least eight people away from the promising Priscilla. There was his rash sortie to be congratulated for. There was his destruction of so many French and Spanish privateers, the very bane of mercantile and maritime
trade,
and his re-capture and return to their owners of several prize vessels.

How had he won his knighthood? Lewrie gave them the Battle of the Chandeleur Islands off Spanish Louisiana in 1803. He had to tell them of his medals, of course, though Lewrie could (modestly!) relate that he had been present at the Battle of the Chesapeake during the American Revolution, had gotten trapped at the siege of Yorktown yet had escaped the night before the surrender, had been at St. Kitts when Admiral Hood had stymied de Grasse, had stumbled into the Glorious Fourth of June in 1794 while being chased by two French frigates and had ended up driven towards the lee of the
French
line of battle, and been with Nelson at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent.

“I was
forced
to go with him!” Lewrie chortled. “I had
Jester
at the time, a sloop below the Rates, near Nelson’s ship at the rear of Admiral Sir John Jervis’s line, and Nelson swung out of line to wheel about, all by himself. Had I not hauled my own wind, he would have
rammed
me. He shouted over, ‘Follow me, Lewrie, we’re off for glory!’ and so I went. His ship, mine, and one or two others who followed traded fire with the
Santissima Trinidad,
the largest warship in the world, a
four
-decker with one hundred and twenty guns!
Huge
cannon balls went whizzing by, but we weren’t hit, and I doubt
we
even marred her paint, but it took ’em five minutes or better to re-load! After that, he went on to win his first honours.”

“You
know
the estimable Admiral Nelson, Sir Alan?” an older matron gushed.

“We’ve met several times, ma’am, it is my honour to say,” Lewrie told her.
Even if he is a glory-seekin’, press-hungry, temperamental arse!
he thought.

First at Grand Turk Island in 1783, with no mention of how the rashly assembled attempt to oust the French invasion force had failed so miserably; at Toulon, France, at the conference just before the evacuation of Coalition forces; ashore on Corsica just after Nelson had lost the sight of his eye (with no mention of Lewrie’s mistress of the time who had dined with them!), then serving under his command along the Genoese and Ligurian coasts when Napoleon Bonaparte had invaded the Italies.

“Last I saw of him was the night before the Battle of Copenhagen,” Lewrie reminisced.

“You were there, sir?” a brewer of note asked.

“I was, though there was no ‘tin’ handed out for Copenhagen,” Lewrie replied. “We were not officially at war with the Danes, so…”

Lewrie told them of taking HMS
Thermopylae
into the Baltic, all alone, to scout the Swedish and Russian harbours, and the expanse and thickness of the ice that kept their fleets in port (again, with no mention of the Russian noble he carried who tried to murder him over the love of an Irish whore in London!) and of how he found him when he re-joined the fleet on the night before the battle.

“The great-cabins had been stripped for action, but for a brazier, some lanthorns, and Nelson’s bed-cot,” Lewrie described, sensing a hush round his part of the table as people leaned closer to listen in rapt interest. “It was cold, windy, and raw, just
perishin’
cold in the cabins, and Nelson was tucked into his bed-cot, fully dressed, and with a chequered great-coat over his uniform, wrapped in blankets, propped up on pillows. His long-time servant, Tom, kept him supplied with hot tea, cocoa, and soup whilst Nelson dictated his orders for the morning. No notes, just from the top of his head, listing each ship under him in order of battle, assigning each which numbered ship in the Danish line to be engaged. It was uncanny! As I left, with my assignment with the frigates under Commodore Riou—a grand man and a fine seaman!—I saw the Midshipmen in the outer cabin, seated on the deck with candles, taking down Nelson’s dictation from a Lieutenant, so each ship should have written orders. I was never so awe-struck than that night, for we were anchored just out of gun-range from the Danish line of battle, and I could stand and look at their ships all lit up as they ferried shot, powder, and volunteers from shore … like Caesar must have looked upon the campfires of an enemy army, the other side of the battlefield.”