“So, you have actually met Bonaparte twice, Sir Alan?” Captain Hayman tentatively asked, with a tinge of awe in his voice.
“Aye, Captain Hayman,” Lewrie told him. “The second time, in Paris, I must’ve rowed him beyond all temperance, for the next thing my wife and I know, we’re bein’ chased all the way to Calais by his police agents, lookin’ t’murder us.”
“Indeed,” Fillebrowne said with a lazy, half-believing drawl.
“It was in all the papers, just before the war began again,” Hayman said. “My condolences, sir, late as they may be.”
“Thankee, Captain Hayman,” Lewrie said with a grave nod.
Hayman noted his medals, and Lewrie explained his presence at the Battle of Cape Saint Vincent, and how Nelson’s ship had wheeled out of line and practically forced Lewrie’s Jester to go about, or be rammed, else, and join him in countering the Spanish fleet, just two ships in the beginning. Yes, he’d been at Camperdown, too, just after escaping the Nore Mutiny, right after making “Post.” He had been at Copenhagen, too, but there was no commendation for that.
“I was at the Glorious First of June, too, sir,” Lewrie said, “but that was accidental. I was bein’ chased by two French frigates, and stumbled into it.”
“I was at the Nile,” Shirke announced, “still a Lieutenant in a frigate, and we couldn’t see much of it, really. Except for when Ocean exploded. Cannon fire so loud, you couldn’t hear a thing, then boom!, and it went so quiet, you could’ve heard a cricket chirp for nigh-on a quarter hour.”
“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 announced that their supper was laid, and they all repaired to the dining-coach to take seats.
“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 binnacle’s lit lamp, opened it, and got his cigarro afire, and took a few puffs.
“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.”