Kings and Emperors

“It’s been too damned long, Hugh, a dog’s age and more,” Lewrie told him, smiling widely, even as he dreaded the consequences to come.

“Aye, it has, sir,” Hugh eagerly agreed, then turned serious as he sensed his Captain behind him. “Ahem, my pardons, Father, but, do you allow me to name to you my Captain … Captain Richard Chalmers of the Undaunted frigate. Captain Chalmers, sir, allow me to name to you my father, Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of HMS Sapphire.”

At least he sounded proud to do so.

“Honoured to make your acquaintance, Captain Lewrie, and the very man I was ordered to seek out,” Chalmers said in a forceful baritone, chin up, and doffing his hat in salute.

“Honoured t’make yours, Captain Chalmers,” Lewrie said back, “and from what I’ve read of your exploits in my son’s letters, a man after my own heart.”

Hugh called him a high-minded sort, too, Lewrie recalled; whatever that means. Here comes the embarrassin’ part.

He turned to include Maddalena, plastering a grin on his phyz and striving to make a bold showing.

“Captain Chalmers, son, allow me to name to you Miss Maddalena Covilhā,” he began. “Miss Covilhā, allow me to name to you Captain Richard Chalmers, of the Undaunted frigate, and my son, Midshipman Hugh Lewrie, also of the Undaunted.”

That’s enough, no explanations, he thought, waiting for the reaction.

Before they had attended the supper ball to welcome General Sir John Moore to Gibraltar the year before, Maddalena had fretted over her social graces, and had sought out a tutor. Her curtsies, and her address to them were perfectly refined. “Captain Chalmers, Midshipman Lewrie, I am pleased to make your acquaintances, gentlemen, though I fear it will be of a brief nature, given the urgent matter which brings you to Gibraltar.”

Captain Chalmers tried to hide a scandalised frown, looking as if he knew for certain what Maddalena was, and did not appreciate being introduced to a doxy. Hugh stood and nodded with his mouth open, an uncertain smile on his face.

What, she’s a cundum stuck to her hair? Lewrie groused to himself; Are my breeches buttons undone? Aye, he’s high-minded for sure!

“Miss Covilhā,” Hugh hesitantly responded, doffing his hat to her in involuntary courtesy. “You … ehm … are…?”

“Portuguese, young sir,” Maddalena said with a sweet and disarming smile. “There are many of us here at Gibraltar, who fled the French invasion.”

“Ah, Portuguese, aye,” Hugh flummoxed, casting a startled look at his father.

“But, I delay you gentlemen,” Maddalena went on, bestowing one more smile on one and all. “You must prepare to sail to rescue brave General Sir John Moore and his gallant army, and there is no time for the social niceties. With your permission, I will take my leave of you, sim?”

By God, an English girl presented at Court couldn’t do that better! Lewrie thought with pride, and surprise of her diplomatic skills.

“Miss Covilhā,” Lewrie said, sweeping off his hat and laying it upon his chest as he made a leg to her. “Meu amor,” he silently mouthed to her, though, with a brief, impish smile. His bow prompted the others to follow suit, no matter what they thought of her.

“Gentlemen, Captain Lewrie,” Maddalena said, dipping them all a departure curtsy, low, long, and with a graceful incline of her head. As she looked up at last, she mouthed “Fofa” to Lewrie in a shared jest; “Sweetie!”

“Well, what’s first on the menu, sir?” Lewrie asked Chalmers in a sudden, business-like tone. “Firewood and water, provisions from the dockyards, or will you wish to speak with General Drummond to be apprised of the latest information regarding the mess the Army’s got itself into?”

“Saving the Army, is it?” Chalmers gruffly asked with a confused look on his face. “I was only told that a convoy forming here was in need of additional escorts, and my Commodore offered my ship for the task. Frankly, I’d hoped I’d be bound for England, but…”

“You heard that we have two armies in Spain, sir?” Lewrie asked him. “Good. Well, so do the Frogs, and Napoleon himself is over the border with nigh a quarter-million troops. We’ve less than thirty thousand, somewhere round Salamanca, we think, smack in the middle of the Spanish mountains in Midwinter, ru

“Egad!” was Chalmers’s drawn-out, stu

“Amen!” Hugh Lewrie whispered, though still looking off to follow Maddalena’s receding figure. To Lewrie’s eyes, the lad didn’t look disappointed in his sire, but … appreciative.

“Let’s get on to the Convent, then,” Lewrie suggested, “and let General Drummond fill you in. There’s little he can do to help, from here, and explainin’ it to you will make him feel better, I’m sure.” He led off but Chalmers paused long enough to send Hugh back to the boat, and back to the ship.

“I hope to dine you and the Commanders off our two other ships aboard this evening, Captain Chalmers,” Lewrie bade, “and I wonder if you might allow my son to come, too. Catch up on old times, and see some of my retinue he knows.”

“It would be grand to see Desmond and Furfy, again,” Hugh said, casting a pleading look at Captain Chalmers.

“Well, somebody has to sit at the bottom of the table and pose the King’s Toast, I suppose,” Chalmers relented.

“Chalky’ll be glad t’see ye, too, Hugh, him and Bisquit. He was a good companion when I was laid up healin’ at Anglesgreen last year,” Lewrie said. “And, you can fill me in on what you’ve heard from Sewallis, and what he means by claimin’ he’s become a champion dancer, hah!”

“I look forward to it, sir,” Hugh said, beaming as he doffed his hat to his Captain and his father, and dashed back to the boat.

*   *   *

A whole two minutes passed in silence as Lewrie and Chalmers ascended the cobbled street uphill towards army headquarters.

“I am given to understand that your eldest son is also in the Navy, sir?” Chalmers at last enquired. He didn’t sound too pleased.

“He is,” Lewrie had to admit. “He’s spent the last five years aboard two-decker seventy-fours. He’s twenty-one, now, but lacks the last two years before he can stand for his Lieutenancy. His present ship pays off next year, and I hope he’s appointed into a brig-sloop or something below the Rates. I’ve always thought that smaller ships are the best schools for seamanship.”

“How did he…?” Chalmers asked, curious. In proper British families, it was the younger sons who went off to the Army, Navy, or the Church, sparing the heir and guarantor of the continuance of the family line.

“Sewallis found a way round me and his grandfather, and wrote an old friend of mine, gaining his own berth,” Lewrie sketchily explained, leaving out the lad’s forgeries. “He saw us sendin’ Hugh off and wanted his own chance to get vengeance against the French for the murder of his mother during the Peace of Amiens. They were shooting at me, but hit her, instead, the bastards.”

“Ah?” Captain Chalmers commented, sounding as if he found the account a bit too outré. “I do recall a comment your son, Hugh, said once. Tried to murder you? Who, and why?”

“Napoleon’s orders,” Lewrie told him. “Though I still don’t know why or how I rowed him at a levee at the Tuileries Palace in Paris. He fussed about our keepin’ Malta, interferin’ in how he was ru