The King's Marauder (3 page)

That wound was not the only one he’d suffered in his twenty-seven years in the Navy, but by God, it had been the most painful, a shrieking agony that seemed to last as long as the pangs of Hell! Even the thought of it made him shiver. He’d come to from a fever and laudanum-laced stupor to find himself in constant, throbbing pain, bound up in baby swaddles, fouling himself, and helpless, unable to crawl out of his hanging bed-cot and make it to his quarter-gallery, for an embarrassing fortnight. When he did manage to move without the pain immobilising him, it had taken Pettus and his cabin-servant, Jessop, to support him for a fortnight more.

At least I could wipe mine own arse!
he thought.

When he could put slop trousers or breeches on, and attend to ship’s business once more, there had first been a crutch to aid him, with a watchful Pettus or Jessop at his elbow, still. Graduating to a walking stick had felt like marvellous progress, but … he had had need of it from their break in passage at St. Helena all the way to England, through de-commissioning
Reliant,
reporting to Admiralty, and going home to Anglesgreen, and his father’s house. At least Sir Hugo had patterned his house after a rambling Hindoo
bungalow
so there were no stairs to manage!

He’d gone on half-pay a
cripple,
a weak-legged shambler with a dubious future. Even mounting or dis-mounting a horse, or taking a morning ride at only a walk, not a trot, was a fearsome chore, and could cause a dull and deep ache! For a time, Lewrie had dreaded that not only would he never be called to service again, there was a good chance that he would be doomed to be only
half
a full man!

Thank God,
again,
for Will Cony,
he grimly thought.

*   *   *

Over the years since first settling in Anglesgreen near his in-laws in 1789 to live upon a rented farm, whenever Lewrie had returned, whether from London or the sea, his first stop had always been the Old Ploughman public house. In the early days, when old Mr. Beakman had owned it, the Old Ploughman looked and felt smoky, grimy, and ancient, as it indeed was, the interior dim and low-ceilinged, the plastered walls and overhead beams dark with hundreds of years of hearth smoke.

Its customers were mostly the common folk of the village, with small farmers, cottagers, and day labourers thrown in. The finer Red Swan Inn, a larger and airier red brick building which sat at the far Western end of the long, grassy-green common which ran along the narrow river that bisected Anglesgreen, had always been the best establishment but it had not been for Lewrie. The richer Squirearchy gathered there, including Sir Romney Embleton, the largest landowner around and magistrate, and his spiteful son Harry, who had “had his cap set” for Caroline Chiswick, who had married Lewrie instead, just before taking on his first, command of little HMS
Alacrity
in 1786. They had returned three years later with one child born and another on the way, making Harry grind his teeth anew. No, Lewrie would never be welcome in the Red Swan, even now that Harry had managed to find a woman who would put up with him and had a family of his own!

A few years back, Lewrie’s long-time manservant, cabin-steward, and Cox’n, Will Cony, had come back to Anglesgreen with carefully saved prize money, with a foot shot off to end his own Navy service, and he and his wife, Maggie, had bought the Old Ploughman from Beakman, and had turned it into a much cleaner, brighter tavern, where Lewrie would always be welcome.

And such was the case when his coach rattled to a stop on the gravelled turn-out, bearing Lewrie, Pettus, Jessop, and Yeovill, with a second dray waggon following with Liam Desmond and Patrick Furfy aboard, which bore all his cabin furnishings and personal goods.

“Captain Lewrie, sir!” a fit and good-looking young fellow in a publican’s blue apron called out once he had come out to see what the noise was about. The lad looked like a younger version of Will Cony, but Lewrie couldn’t recall his name, right off. There were three boys born to the Conys, and Lewrie’s sons had played with them, no matter what his in-laws and Uncle Phineas Chiswick thought of it.

“Little Will, sir!” the lad prompted, beaming fit to bust.

“Good Lord, the spittin’ image of your dad at his age!” Lewrie exclaimed as he carefully levered himself off the bench seat into the doorway of the coach. “Where
do
the years go? ‘Little’, my eye!”

“Father! Captain Lewrie’s come home!” Little Will shouted over his shoulder towards the half-opened doors. “Come quick!”

Lewrie put his good left leg on the first of the folding metal coach steps, clung to the door to place his sore right one on it, then slowly descended, wincing when he put weight upon his bad leg. Once on the ground, his stout walking stick eased the pressure. Just at that moment, Will Cony came out, began to smile a welcome, but froze, and got a worried look oh his face.

“Dear God, sir, but what’ve the bastard Frogs done t’ya!” Will gasped, coming close as if to give him a shoulder to lean on. “Let’s git ya in outta the cold, and sit ya down with a mug o’ warm ale.”

“Wasn’t the Frogs, Will, but the Dons, this time,” Lewrie said. “And aye, a good chair and a pint of your best’d be more than welcome. Ale for all. Summon the coachee and the waggon driver, Pettus, and I expect they’re in need, too.”

Christ, we could make a passable pair o’ drummers!
Lewrie imagined as they went inside. Will Cony’s artificial “board foot” boot shuffled and thumped with each step, right alongside the matching tap of Lewrie’s cane almost made a
rubato
rhythm!

He shed his hat and greatcoat and took ease in a sturdy wooden chair at a table near one of the fireplaces, letting out a wee sigh of relief from pain. A moment later, though, and Lewrie was struggling to rise as Maggie Cony and the other two Cony sons came bustling out from the kitchens. “La, don’t ye be gettin’ up, Cap’m Lewrie!” Maggie cried. “Lord, but it’s good t’see ye back, hurt or no. Ye remember Thomas and Anthony, little Tony? Well, none of ’em so little now. Ye’ll be suppin’ with us here?”

“I sent word ahead to my father’s place that we’d be arriving, so I expect his house staff’s layin’ on something, but thankee for the offer, Maggie,” Lewrie explained. “I wouldn’t want them to put themselves out for nothing. Now I’m ashore on half-pay, you’ll be seein’ more than enough o’ me, for mid-day dinners, and t’read the papers.”

“A pint o’ the fall ale, sir,” the fetching brunette waitress Lewrie recalled from three years before said, bustling to the table with a tray of filled mugs. “An’ may I be so bold as t’welcome ye back, sir,” she added, with a smile and a brief curtsy.

“Thankee, uh…” Lewrie replied, stuck for another name.

“Why, ye recall Abigail, Cap’m,” Will Cony said, laughing out loud. “She started with us a bit afore ya got
Reliant
and went away. Don’t know what we’d do without ’er.”

“Ye could pay me more, am I that good, Mister Cony,” Abigail teased before turning away to see to the others at the table.

“So, ya paid her off, at last, sir,” Will Cony said, “an’ what o’ th’ local lads I rounded up for ya?”

Lewrie could reassure him that of the twenty volunteers that Will had recruited from Anglesgreen and the farms around, all but two of them were alive and well, though by now surely parcelled out to other ships in need of crew whilst
Reliant
went into the graving docks to be substantially rebuilt. It was the way of the Navy, as Will Cony ruefully knew.

“Hated t’give ’em up,” Lewrie admitted. “The local lads might have come aboard as raw Landsmen, but they made fine topmen and Ordinary Seamen by the end. All of ’em a parcel better than the dregs from the County Quotas. Even worse than what the ’Press dragged in for us, in the old days, Will. My word, that is a damned fine ale, as good as you’ve ever brewed!” Lewrie told him, after a first, deep taste.

“Aye, we’ve had a couple o’ good years,” Cony modestly boasted, “fine barley, fine rye, and splendid hops, and folk hereabout tell me even the Red Swan can’t match us. But…” he went on, sighing, “nowadays, folk’re callin’ for city-brewed ale, beers, porters, an’ stouts, and there’s chapmen in all the time, floggin’ waggonloads o’ kegs, an’ tryin’ t’sign me up t’one brand, exclusive. Puttin’ th’ squeeze on us somethin’ fierce. Fine for a big town with lots o’ taverns, but here?”

“
I’d
drink yer ale th’ whole day long, Mister Cony, an’ even say no t’Guinness!” Patrick Furfy hooted from his table.

Lewrie had no time to tell Cony of his adventures, nor how he had been wounded, promising that he would be back in another day, once he’d gotten settled at his father’s estate.

“It may be I’ll become a
permanent
fixture,” Lewrie said with a grimace, tapping his right thigh. “The Navy may not have me anymore.”

“Well, it ain’t like the Dons shot it
off,
sir!” Cony exclaimed. “Or, yer ‘saw-bones’ shortened ya. A few months in the country’ll do wonders for ya, we’ll see t’that. Maggie’s cookin’ll put some meat on yer bones, an’ we’ll have ya dancin’ by spring. Look at me, sir, with my foot shot off. I
walked
meself t’rights, an’ now I’m as spry as a
pup,
an’ wot
I
could do,
you
can do, s’truth. I’m yer man fer that!”

“I may take you up on that, Will,” Lewrie promised, though not putting too much hope in the offer. “As for now, though, we’d better be gettin’ on to my father’s place before dark. What’s the reckoning?” he said, reaching for his coin purse, and the new-fangled paper currency.

“You settle in, and come on back down, when yer up to it, Cap’m Lewrie, and we’ll see to ya,” Cony offered again.

CHAPTER THREE

The Old Ploughman just might be the only place in Anglesgreen where Lewrie felt true comfort. He certainly did not feel at ease at his father’s house. Of only one storey or not, Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby had built
Dun Roman
to ramble all over the gently sloped hilltop, incorporating the ancient ruin of a stone watchtower into it, with a Hindoo-style covered gallery across the front of the central section, English weather be-damned, a gravelled roundabout drive in front of that, with a Mediterranean-styled fountain, replete with three very lasciviously carved water-bearing nymphs in the centre, all surrounded by terra cotta planters and flowering shrubs, in season.

Just how much loot
did
the old fart fetch back from India?
he was forced to wonder;
And where did he develop such good taste? And then he just
had
t’name it so lamely!

“Done Roaming”, which was the real meaning upon which the pun of
Dun Roman
was based, was more fitting on a weekender tradesman’s cottage in Islington, for God’s sake! Oh, it had been grand when Lewrie had first seen it, ages ago, and once inside, it had gotten made over over the years into a marvel. Spacious entry foyer, first salon to the right, library-office-study to the left; formal dining room aft of that, smaller
en famille
breakfasting room off that, then the entertaining hall astern of all those, big enough for a game of tennis, and the rare ball. There were two wings, with four bed-chambers in each, with his father’s the largest. One could use a guide to find one’s way about, making Lewrie feel as if he was but temporarily residing at a sumptuous hotel!

The house staff was new to him, too, as much as he and his entourage was to them, so everyone felt wary and on guard, from the cool and dignified butler, Mayo, his wife the housekeeper, the footmen and maids, maids of all work, the stout old cook, Mrs. Furlough, who looked on Yeovill as a threat to her job security, right down to the coachman and grooms and the wee young scullery maid!

Lewrie had a set of rooms dedicated as his, with some of his old settee furniture, writing desk, and books and bookcases from the time that he and his late wife, Caroline, had rented a farm and had run up a pleasant house when they’d come back to Anglesgreen from the Bahamas in 1789 … painfully, Sir Hugo had hung Caroline’s portrait in there, the one done in ’86 when she’d been a new and happy bride.

At least he had Pettus as someone familiar to do for him, and Jessop, when he wasn’t hanging round the barns and stables, gawking and full of a thousand questions, since he’d never been on a working farm before, having been dredged up on the streets of Portsmouth. As for Desmond and Furfy, they’d been to Anglesgreen before, and after a few days of loafing, had pitched in with the farm work, what little there was with winter coming on, assisting the estate manager and the grooms, exercising the saddle horses and teaching Jessop to ride.

Chalky, Lewrie’s mostly-white cat, and Bisquit, the former ship’s dog, had a myriad of rooms, wardrobes, cabinets, and corners to explore in the house, though the youngest footman had to be assigned to keep an eye on the dog so the polished wood floors and expensive carpets didn’t get soiled.

Poor Bisquit. As
Reliant
was de-commissioned, draughts of sailors were paid off and re-assigned to other ships, leaving Bisquit without his long-time playmates and those who would sneak him treats. No one could think what to do with him. The Midshipmens’ mess which had snuck him aboard as their pet in the beginning certainly could not take him to their new ships, and neither could the Commission Officers; any new captain of theirs might have Bisquit thrown ashore to fend for himself! Even the Standing Officers who remained with the ship ’til she was at last scrapped could not keep him; their wives and children would be living aboard with them ’til
Reliant
was out of the yards and re-commissioned and would eventually have to place the dog’s fate in the hands of the frigate’s new captain. At least Lewrie had a farm, or, technically, he had access to his
father’s
estate, where Bisquit could thrive, and, should Lewrie ever gain a new ship and an active commission, the dog might remain, so he had decided to fetch Bisquit along, with a stout leather leash tied to his collar should Bisquit get too distracted and lope off on the journey to get hopelessly lost.