The man’s a fool, Lewrie told himself; an old “colt’s tooth” more int’rested in wealth than in his young wife, so he deserves whatever he gets.

The husband in question was in his early fifties, rich enough already, but was off for the better part of the month to the salt works on Grand Turk, far to the South. He was also dull, bland, strict, and abstemious with few social graces, or so Lewrie had found him the two times they’d met at civilian doings ashore.

Captain Alan Lewrie, in contrast, was fourty-two, much slimmer at twelve stone, and had a full head of slightly curly mid-brown hair, bleached lighter at the sides where his hat did not shield it, and was reckoned merrily handsome and trim.

Lewrie had also been a widower for nigh three years, since the summer of 1802, and that fact would set the “chick-a-biddy” matrons to chirping in welcome, in hopes of “buttock-brokering” one of their semi-beautiful daughters off to someone with income and prospects. He was, in short, one reckoned a “catch”, a naval hero.

Admittedly, despite the “heroic” part, Lewrie was also reckoned a tad infamous; he’d been the darling of Wilberforce, Hannah More, and the Abolitionists dedicated to the elimination of Negro slavery in the British Empire, and had stood trial in King’s Bench in London for the liberation (some critics would say criminal theft!) of a dozen Black slaves on Jamaica to man his previous frigate, ravaged by Yellow Jack and dozens of hands short. In point of fact, Lewrie was against the enslavement of Negroes, or anyone else, but was not so foolish as to crow it to the rooftops, or turn boresome on the subject. His repute was titilating, but not so sordid or infamous that he did not make a fine house guest.

The lady in question…Lewrie recalled that she seemed amenable to his previous gallantries, and how she slyly pouted and rolled her eyes when her “lawful blanket” prosed on about something boresome, and how she rewarded Lewrie’s teasing jollities, and a double entendre or two, with smiles, a twinkle in her eyes, and some languid come-hither flourishes of her fan.

Perhaps this would be the day to see if he would “get the leg over”! Such was becoming most needful, to do the “needful”.

Lewrie felt a twinge of conscience (a wee’un) as he thought of Lydia Stangbourne, his…dare he call her his lady love?…far off in England. But, Lydia was thousands of miles and at least two months away at that moment, and both had agreed that their relationship was still “early days”; no promises had been made by either, no plighting of troths or exchanges of gifts of consequence. On their last night at the George Inn at Portsmouth before he’d taken Reliant to sea, she had laughed off the very idea of marrying him, or anyone else, again, after the bestial nature of her first husband, and the scandal which had plagued her after her Bill of Divorcement in Parliament had been made public. To all intents and purposes, Lewrie was a free man with…needs.

“Hmmph,” his Cox’n, Liam Desmond grunted, interrupting Lewrie’s lascivious musings. “Coulda sworn that brig sailed hours ago, sor…th’ one with th’ big white patch in her fore course? But, there she be, goin’ like a coach and four.”

“Aye, she did,” Lewrie agreed, shifting about on the thwart on which he sat for a better look, and wishing for a telescope. The brig had put out a little after dawn, when Lewrie was on the quarterdeck to take the cool morning air as Reliant’s hands had holystoned and mopped the decks. “Did she not go full and by, up the Nor’east Providence Channel? Now, here she is, runnin’ ‘both sheets aft’, bound West.”

The weary-looking old trading brig was not two miles off the harbour entrance, and her large new patch of white canvas on her parchment-tan older fore course sail proved her identity.

“Is them stuns’ls she’s flyin’?” Desmond asked in wonder.

As they watched, a small puff of dirty grey-white gun smoke blossomed on the brig’s shoreward side, followed seconds later by the thin yelp-thump of a gun’s discharge. The many local fishing boats out past the harbour entrance, off Hog Island, saw the shot and they began to put about, too, some headed West as if fleeing to the Berry Islands of Bimini, and some headed back into port in haste.

Oh, mine arse on a band-box, Lewrie thought with a chill in his innards; It’s the bloody French, come at last!

Mere weeks before, after returning to a hero’s welcome from a successful raid on a privateers’ lair up the St. Marys River in Spanish Florida, disturbing rumours had come from forther down the Antilles that a French squadron of several ships of the line under a Frog by name of Missiessy was raiding the West Indies. Even more worrisome was a letter that Lewrie had gotten from his youn gest son, Hugh, who was serving as a Midshipman aboard a Third Rate 74 under one of Lewrie’s old friends which confirmed the escape of Missiessy’s squadron from the British blockade of French ports, and the news that an even larger part of the French Navy, a whole fleet under an Admiral Villeneuve, had left Europe an waters, and that Vice-Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson was taking the whole Mediterranean Fleet, of which Hugh’s ship was a part, in hot pursuit…also bound for the West Indies.

With the former Se nior Officer Commanding in the Bahamas and his two-decker 64 accidentally run aground at Antigua, for which the fool was to be court-martialled (and good riddance to bad rubbish as far as Lewrie was concerned), the onus of defending the Bahamas had fallen to Lewrie, since his 38-gunned Fifth Rate frigate was the largest ship on station, and he was the only Post-Captain present on the scene. For that dubious honour, he was allowed to fly the inferior broad pendant, a red burgee that sported a large white ball, and style himself Commodore, even temporarily.

Unfortunately for him, the defence of the Bahamas was a task as gruelling as any of Hercules’ Twelve Labours. Nassau and New Providence, the only island of much worth, the only decent-sized town, were lightly garrisoned, fit only to hold the forts which guarded the port, and besides Lewrie’s frigate, there were only two or three brig-sloops and a dozen smaller sloops or cutters to patrol the long island chain.

Captain Francis Forrester, the unfortunate former Se nior Officer Commanding (the idle, top-lofty, and fubsy gotch-gut swine!) had got it in his head that it would be the Spanish who would be the main threat, but Lewrie had laughed that to scorn, as had any one else with a lick of sense; the Dons were nigh-powerless any longer, with their few warships in the West Indies rotting at their moorings, blockaded by the Royal Navy. But, with the French out at sea, and nearby…perhaps storming down the Nor’east Providence Channel that very moment!…

Damn my eyes, Lewrie gloomed to himself, after a bleak glance round Nassau Harbour; We may all be dead by supper time.

He had precious-little with which to make a fight of it; his frigate, the 12-gun brigantineThorn, but her main battery was made of short-ranged carronades, not long guns, and Lt. Darling would get his ship blown to kindling long before he could get in gun-range. There was Lt. Bury and his little Lizard, a two-masted Bermuda sloop that had only eight 6-pounders, and Lt. Lovett’s weak Firefly in port. The larger brig-sloops, Commander Gilpin’s Delight and Commander Ritchie’s Fulmar were patrolling the Abacos, and Acklins and Crooked Island, respectively.

We’ll have to go game, Lewrie thought; but go we will, even if it’s hopeless. At least my will’s in order.

“Back to the ship, Desmond,” Lewrie snapped. “Smartly, now!”