"A scurrilous comment 'bout our admiral, sir?" Andrews recoiled in mock horror. "Probably not a jot on what I've already heard, but… then into Victory under Hood as tenth lieutenant. Then into Speedy after a few months. You know the benefits of the flagship's wardroom, and may we all thank God for it, I say. Had Speedy for just a little over four months, and did incredibly good service in her, too. Then was jumped to "post" into Inconstant when Captain Montgomerie had to ask for relief."
"Mercurial." Lewrie sighed.
"A month in her, then into Meleager, Commander Lewrie." Andrews chuckled. "No, I should think mercurial can't quite convey how quickly he's rising! A good enough sort, I've gathered. Captain Nelson thinks the world of him. Sober, high-minded, a taut hand… though a bit of a stickler. Stiff and stuffy, but…" Andrews shrugged again. "Why?"
"Just want to know with whom I'm dealing, Lieutenant Andrews," Lewrie discounted. "After all, we'll be depending on each other…"
"Oh, I get your meaning, sir." Andrews brightened. "Haven't a worry in the world with him at your back, sir. When it comes to combat, Captain Cockburn's a perfect Tartar. Doesn't look the sort, does he? But then, neither does Captain Nelson, were one to judge solely 'pon a fellow's appearance, Commander Lewrie. Though I must say, you appear as… dare I say, sir?… as dashing as your past exploits repute you to be?" Andrews drew a finger down his own cheek, as if to scribe the cutlass scar on Lewrie's. "God help the French, Commander Lewrie, our captain remarked when he learned Jester, and 'Ram-Cat' Lewrie were to be part of our squadron."
It was quite refreshing for Lewrie, now that he was somewhat a "senior" officer, to be toadied to, gushed at, to have a subordinate "piss down his back" as he had over the years to senior officers. All he could do was blush in surprise, scuff his shoes, and make a stab at "shy" noises.
"Ah?" Lieutenant Andrews chirped, when a midshipman came to his side. "Very well, Mister Nisbet. Gentlemen, sirs? Captain Nelson is now able to receive you, and allow me to express his apologies for keeping you waiting. If you will follow me, sirs…?"
Nelson's stepson, Josiah Nisbet, Lewrie gathered, looking that somewhat portly, smug young man over; God help Nelson, he thought; as bad as old Forrester, back in Desperate. And thinking about old times in the American Revolution, he could not help wondering… one of his old captains, aboard Desperate-Tobias Treghues-one of God's Own Cuckoos, he. Offend him once, and you were in his bad books forever. And I think I just offended another of his tribe, Cockburn. Well then, God help me … again!
Stewards circulated, trotting out glasses and wine as senior men took seats near Nelson's desk, and the rest stood as close as they were able. It was a Tuscan red, a tad dry and puckery, but it was as close as Nelson might come to a proper "Welcome Aboard" claret, after a year or more in the Mediterranean.
"Gentlemen, good day to you all," Nelson began once they were supplied. "I should like to start by proposing a toast. To our squadron. To us."
"To us!" they chorused, tipping back their glasses.
"It is a fragile, and may soon seem like an arduous and frustrating, task upon which we have been embarked," Nelson continued. "One, I trust… given your zeal for its performance… which shall not prove to be unrewarding, or absolutely vital to our cause. But one that may seem to pose you on tenterhooks, should this duty be pursued properly. Top-up for you? And then I will reveal it to you."
The stewards came around again, and Lewrie found a place to slouch against a carline post with his second glass in his hand.
"We are, as you may know, under orders to liaise with the Austrian Army, and their allies the Piedmontese, commanded by General de Vins. To be his left flank, as it were, and act as a wing of his cavalry might, at sea, to scout out and discover, then harass and destroy, any attempt by the French to advance eastward along the coast. General de Vins aims to advance west, clearing the French from those ports and fortified towns of the Genoese Riviera, containing French expansion, then driving them back behind their own borders. Eventually, it is hoped," Nelson said forcefully, "he will bring them to battle and destroy them, clearing the way for a second invasion of the French portion of the Riviera and Provence. That task is made daunting by the nature of the country. Inland, there are steep mountain roads, little better than Corsican goat paths, these narrow passes that are easily defended. Suppling his army inland will be most difficult. And equally difficult for the French, do you see," he said, sweeping a hand over a large map on his desk, at which they all craned their necks to peruse.
"The French aim is to spread eastward, seizing the Genoese Republic, Piedmont… then all of the Italian peninsula. We've checked them at sea, so far, so the army France assembled to retake Corsica has been diverted… to here, east of Toulon. They come forward slowly, depending on coastal merchant ships for supply. Hence the necessity for our squadron in these waters, to harass their trade… and to protect ours. We are, gentlemen, much like a cavalry vedette or piquet-post, a force flung forward-most, at the very lance-tip of contact with our foe. We may help delay, therefore assuring the defeat of, their plans. Or, we may most surely lose this campaign entire. For the time," Nelson told them proudly, "we are the most vital naval squadron in the Mediterranean. Perhaps in all of European waters. Things…" Nelson was forced to admit, sobering, "have not gone entirely in our favor.,."
He outlined the reverses the Coalition had suffered. The Austrian army under General Coburg had been defeated, and run out of Belgium. An Austro-Prussian force across the Rhine had been run back to the east side, which forced the Prussians to split off from the Austrians, and sign the Treaty of Basle with France. Holland had been overrun, its ice-bound navy captured-by French cavalry charging over the ice!-and was now a mostly enthusiastic French Republican possession called the Batavian Republic. And the unfortunate Duke of York's army, mostly Hessian and Hanoverian mercenaries, had been run from Dunkirk into Flanders, then into Holland as it was being conquered, and finally into Germany, where the Royal Navy had fetched off the officers, their baggage, and a large part of the supply train… but the men had mostly been abandoned, and lost. Spain, never much of an ally, anyway, had just signed a treaty with France, and had quit the Coalition!
Closer to home, Austria and Sardinia were still officially in… but Genoa and Tuscany were wavering, and what the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in Naples might do from one moment to the next was… iffy. With Tuscany now neutral, Leghorn and Porto Especia could no longer be considered allied, Royal Navy, bases, though they could refit and victual individually during a limited stay… as could every belligerent's warships! Genoa, directly in the path of both armies, maintained her shaky, but still friendly, neutrality; quite unable, or unwilling to defend her own territories. Or too frightened of the consequences!
"The trade with the French is bolstered by many Danish, Dutch, Tuscan of a certainty, vessels. Perhaps we shall see Spanish vessels seeking to profit, presenting the most plausible, but colorable, papers. Even Genoese ships are suspect. And must be stopped."
Hullo, Alan gawped, slouching a bit less; hell of a way to deal with a neutral… almost an ally!
"This coast now occupied by the French, properly of the Genoese Republic, along here west of Vado Bay…" Nelson said with a sweep of his hand over the map, which encompassed Porto Mauritio in the far west, the harbors of Oneglia, Diano and Alassio, Luano and Finale, as well as a host of lesser ports, fishing villages tucked into almost every sheltered inlet on that steep-to, rocky coast, all the way to the wide sweep of Porto Vado and Vado Bay. Even further west, along the coast of formerly Sardinian Savoia-from Cape Antibes, Nice, and San Remo – the Riviera presented a hundred places where shoal-draught coastal trading ships could shelter, almost take to the shingly, stony beaches overnight, like ancient Greek or Roman galleys. It had more hidey-holes than a well-wormed cheese!