Kings and Emperors

“My son, Hugh, was at Trafalgar,” Lewrie reminisced. “With Thomas Charlton. Just a Mid, then. And my other son, Sewallis, was under Benjamin Rodgers for a time. Remember Rodgers, from our time in Charlton’s squadron, do ye, sir?” he asked, addressing Fillebrowne.

“A … capable fellow,” Fillebrowne idly allowed with scant praise. “Rather fond of champagne, as I recall.”

“Aye, wouldn’t put a toe out t’sea without several dozen-dozen in his lazarette,” Lewrie replied. “A grand fellow, is Rodgers. I’ve known him since the Bahamas in Eighty-Six.”

Shirke’s steward a

“Worked with your old First Officer, Stroud, in Eighteen-Oh-Three,” Lewrie commented. “He had the Cockerel frigate, when we were sent t’hunt down a French squadron all the way to Spanish Louisiana, just before the Frogs sold it to the Americans.”

“Indeed?” Fillebrowne replied between spoonfuls of ox-tail soup, as if it was no matter to him.

“I was First Lieutenant into her round the time of Toulon,” Lewrie went on, “’til they needed sailors t’man some captured French warships.”

“Stroud, well,” Fillebrowne said, dabbing his lips with his napkin. “I am surprised he was made ‘Post.’ A good-enough organiser and ‘tarpaulin’ sailor, but he always struck me as a dullard, a most un-imaginitive man. Takes all kinds, I would suppose. He stayed aboard when we were anchored at Venice. Had no curiosity, nor any urges to savour the city’s pleasures, either.”

“That’s the First Lieutenant’s job, is it not, sir?” Hayman joshed. “To present his Captain a going concern, no matter what his own preferences might be?”

“And allow his Captain his runs ashore among the pleasures, hmm?” Lewrie posed, with a glance at Fillebrowne.

“’Til he’s made ‘Post’ and has his turn, hah!” Shirke laughed.

“What a city is Venice,” Lewrie slyly prompted, “and so full of valuable things goin’ for a song at the time, with everyone fearful of the French marchin’ in and pillagin’ the place. I recall you did well there, Captain Fillebrowne.”

“Oh, well, I suppose I did,” Fillebrowne agreed, perking up. “I obtained some paintings, furniture, and a marvellous pair of Greco-Roman bronzes that had just turned up on the antiquities market, found in shoal water off the Balkan coast.”

“Captain Fillebrowne is a collector, with an eye for values,” Lewrie told the others. “Runs in the family, don’t it?”

“Yes, it does,” Fillebrowne said, breaking a smile, at last. “Father, uncles, aunts, and my elder brothers all did their Grand Tours, and I was exposed to such things early-on. Could not help developing a discerning eye, what?”

“I thought t’give it a flutter,” Lewrie went on in a casual way, “but an old school friend of mine, Clotworthy Chute, warned me off. He and Peter Rushton were in Venice, lookin’ for a way out when we were there, and he told me that the bulk o’ such were shams, moulded over forms, then put in salt water for a month or two, so even he couldn’t tell whether the things were made in Julius Caesar’s time, or last week. He’s an eye, too, and runs a reputable antiquities shop in London, now.”

In point of fact, Lewrie knew that Fillebrowne’s treasured old bronzes were shams, ’cause Clotworthy Chute had had them made, then sold them to Fillebrowne for hundreds of pounds, laughing all the way to help Lewrie get his own back!

“Indeed,” Fillebrowne archly replied, looking worried. “As I recall, this Chute fellow was the one who authenticated them for me, and brokered their sale.”

“Well, there you are, then!” Lewrie jovially said. “Nothing t’worry about. As for me, Chute found me some dress-makin’ fabrics and some drapery material, toys, and a brass lion-head doorknocker.”

Fillebrowne peered closely at Lewrie as if wondering if he was being twitted, but the cabin servants cleared the soup course and set out the grilled fish, and the bustle of activity seized Fillebrowne’s attention.

Over port, cheese, and sweet bisquits, Shirke briefly outlined his plans for convoying, assigning Lewrie and Sapphire to a flanking position, with Captain Hayman’s Tiger to be the “bulldog” or the whipper-in at the rear of the convoy to chivvy slow sailing transports to speed up and keep proper order. Lewrie made it plain that his ship was not fast enough for that role, and that Hayman might have to give Sapphire a reminder to keep up. “I plod, sirs, even on the best days!” he said with a deprecating laugh.

*   *   *

“If you will not stand on the order of your going, sir, I wish a word,” Shirke said as they went out to the quarterdeck once supper was done.

“Well, of course,” Lewrie agreed, wondering what Shirke had in mind. Tradition demanded that Lewrie debark first, but …

He and Shirke doffed their hats to salute Fillebrowne’s departure, then Hayman’s. Shirke pulled a slim cigarro from a pocket and leaned over the compass bi

“May I offer you one, sir?” Shirke asked.

“Never developed the habit,” Lewrie told him. “Thankee, no.”

“Hayman seems a nice-enough young fellow, don’t you agree?”

“Nice? Aye, I s’pose so,” Lewrie said, canting his head over to one side. “Eager t’win his spurs, with his first frigate, and his promotion. He didn’t even look disappointed t’be the ‘bulldog.’”

“Were I in his shoes, I would have pouted,” Shirke confessed with a chuckle. “Ad hoc squadrons, thrown together at the last minute … perhaps we’ll learn to rub together on passage to Cádiz, before we pick up the troop convoy. Fillebrowne, though. You worked with him before. What the Devil is he, a naval officer, or an art collector?”

“A bit of both, really,” Lewrie said with a shrug. “He did as good as one could expect in the Adriatic, but with little to write home about. His storerooms and part of the orlop stowage were full of valuable acquisitions, so he may have been touchy about taking too much damage. I can’t recall him being engaged on his own, and when we were sailing as a four-ship squadron, we took prizes without more than challenge shots bein’ fired.”

“Is there bad blood between you two?” Shirke asked.

“The arrogant prick took up with two women close to me, and boasted of it, slyly,” Lewrie admitted. “One a former mistress, the other the wife of a patron, a ‘cream-pot’ love of mine during the American Revolution, and neither such a loss, or a wrench, to make me kick furniture. I don’t know what his problem is, but for my part, I just don’t like him for bein’ an idle grasper. That’s not t’say that I can’t work with him. I’m senior to him on the Captain’s List by at least a year, and seniority’s a wondrous thing if one’s feelin’ spiteful,” he concluded with a wry laugh.

“Yes, and I’m senior to you,” Shirke pointed out with a sly twinkle.

“Feelin’ spiteful?” Lewrie teased.

“Not a bit of it,” Shirke told him. “What passed between us in the old days was youthful skylarking, and nothing personal.”

“The molasses in my hammock?” Lewrie asked. “Sendin’ me aloft t’pick dilberries? The paintbrush full o’ shit when I was the figurehead when we played ‘buildin’ ’a galley? Good God, but I was so naive! ‘Gild the figurehead’s face!’.”

“Aye, you were the most clueless sort of ‘new-come,’” Shirke said, and they both laughed over long-gone Midshipmen’s pranks. “I simply wished to see if you still held a grudge against me.”

“You were never a Rolston, just a prankster,” Lewrie replied. “Like you say, it was all youthful skylarking, and no harm done, to my body or my mind.”

“Good!” Shirke said, offering his hand. They shook; then Shirke drew on his cigarro for a minute. “Whatever did happen with Rolston, after old Captain Bales broke him to a common seaman?”