And when are ye goin’ t’offer me a glass o’ wine, ye top-lofty bastard? Lewrie fumed to himself.

“Who made you such an offer?” Grierson demanded.

“That was the word that Commander Gilpin of the Delight brig brought me, when he and Commander Ritchie and Fulmar returned to the islands from Antigua, sir,” Lewrie told him. “And, might I enquire, what has happened with Captain Forrester?”

Somethin’ dire, I hope! Lewrie wolfishly thought.

“An old friend of yours, was he?” Grierson said, simpering.

“Not particularly, no, sir,” Lewrie baldly admitted, grinning.

“His court-martial found him acquitted of the charge of endangering his vessel,” Grierson related, “even though un-bending the cables from the anchors and buckling the hawseholes was thought premature.… On the greater charge of abandoning his responsibilities he was found guilty, and has been relieved of his command, with a letter of admonishment. He will be off to England on the next packet.”

“Oh, poor fellow!” Lewrie exclaimed, his sarcasm so thick that everyone within earshot, familiar with the case, fought sniggers.

“Mersey will be in the dockyard at Antigua for months to patch her bottom, Captain Lewrie,” Captain Meadows supplied, “and will then be assigned to another officer.”

“And, most likely added to the strength of the Antigua Squadron, in place of Athenian,” Commodore Grierson announced as if it was so.

“What of the French, then, sir?” Lewrie asked. “We’ve heard but rumours of Missiessy and Villeneuve.”

“Missiessy had but a small squadron,” Grierson informed him with a smirk, “and may be on his way back to France. There’s been no word of him for weeks. As for Villeneuve and his large fleet, reports say that he made landfall at Martinique and Guadeloupe to land fresh troops for their defence. He’s sailed from there, but has made no sign that he would move upon Jamaica or Antigua, or land a force to re-take the Black rebel colony of Haiti. As far as anyone may determine, his fleet has become a Will-o’-the-wisp, a ghost.”

“So, it’s long odds he might come here?” Lewrie further pressed, wondering why the Admiral commanding at Antigua had stripped himself of ships to defend the Bahamas if he still had cause to worry that his own “patch” might still be in danger.

“Before we were despatched, an aviso cutter from Admiral Lord Nelson came in to English Harbour, announcing that he and his fleet were near the Windwards in pursuit of Villeneuve,” Grierson went on in a blasé manner, “so it may be that the French will pass near the Bahamas as they run back to European waters, but will pose no real threat. The French would fear to linger, ha ha!”

“So, you may not stay long?” Lewrie posed.

“Once the threat is well and truly over, I expect I’ll have to give up my other sixty-four, and perhaps my frigates, but the Bahamas will be my responsibility ’til Admiralty decides to replace me,” the new Commodore replied, rather archly, and nigh purring with pleasure.

Which means I’m redundant, Lewrie told himself; Will he allow me to keep my wee squadron together? Or, are they all now his?

“Well, sir, the fresh news which you’ve discovered to me is most reassuring, as is the presence of your squadron,” Lewrie told Captain Grierson, nigh-blushing to “trowel it on”, though feeling that he was eating a bowl of steaming turds. “Now that I don’t have to sink you or force you to strike, might I take my leave and rejoin my ship?”

“Hmmm … well,” Commodore Grierson paused as if considering his decision as gravely as a king contemplating a royal decree. “If we have nothing more to discuss at this moment, you may, Lewrie.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lewrie said, doffing his hat in parting.

“Mind, sir,” Grierson added, “you and I must put our heads together later, to inform me of the particulars of the islands and of the other vessels which will be under my command. Once the social niceties have been held ashore, what?”

Christ, no wonder he is dressed so well! Lewrie thought; He was lookin’ forward to a hero’s welcome and a grand ball!

“But of course, sir. Adieu,” Lewrie said, bowing himself to the gangway and the entry-port to make his departure.

Commodore Grierson doffed his bicorne briefly as Lewrie went down the battens and man-ropes to his boat, surer in his opinion of not liking him.

I could loathe him, Lewrie thought as he entered his boat.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Let fall the main course and get the ship drivin’, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie called as soon as he got upon his own quarterdeck. “Get us into port before one o’ those new-comes take our anchorage!”

“Drive it will be, sir,” Lt. Westcott agreed. “Bosun, set all to the royals! Topmen aloft! Trice up and lay out to make sail! Sheet home the main course and shake out all reefs!”

“Not that it will do much good, sir,” Mr. Caldwell the Sailing Master laconically said. “Our hull is as weeded as the New Forest.”

“What is Commodore McNaughton like, sir?” Westcott asked, once the crew was at their tasks and sail was spreading.

“Dead as mutton, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with a wry moue. “His replacement is Captain Henry Grierson.” A twitch of a corner of his mouth spoke volumes to his First Lieutenant. “Does anyone know of him?”

“The Griersons, sir?” Midshipman The Honourable Entwhistle spoke up. “I know something of the family.”

“Do tell then, Mister Entwhistle,” Lewrie bade him.

Entwhistle’s father was a Baron, so all of his brothers and sisters (’til the girls married, of course) were entitled to be called “Honourable” except for the eldest brother, who would inherit all and become the umpteenth Baron Entwhistle. Of course he and his family would know a bit about almost everybody. Entwhistle had entered HMS Reliant in April of 1803 a rangy eighteen-year-old, but was now a man grown, and an experienced senior Mid looking forward to standing for the oral examinations before a board of Post-Captains to gain promotion to Lieutenant.

“They are related to Sir Henry Dundas, sir, now Lord Melville,” Entwhistle told him, “and I do believe that the Admiral commanding at Antigua is some sort of in-law to the Griersons.”

“Damn! Dundas! That murderous fool!” Lewrie groaned.

When the war with France broke out in February of 1793, Sir Henry Dundas had been Prime Minister William Pitt’s Secretary of State at War, and Dundas had been brim-full of schemes to fight the French, most of which involving invasions and expeditions to the East Indies to expel France from her last slim grip in India and in the China Trade. In the West Indies, the scheme was to conquer all French colonies that rivalled Great Britain in the lucrative exports from the Sugar Islands, monopolising sugar, molasses, and rum. Both of the Indies were deadly for Europeans, who had to endure Malaria or Yellow Fever during the hot seasons, along with Cholera and Dysentery and God only knew what else the rest of the year. All those hopeful expeditions had resulted in the deaths of over sixty thousand soldiers and sailors who had perished of disease, not battle or glorious conquests.

Dundas had become Henry, Viscount Melville, and had been named First Lord of the Admiralty in 1804, replacing stalwart and honest-to-his-bones Admiral John, Earl Saint Vincent, “Old Jarvy”, who had waged a gallant but failed attempt to clean out the greed, venality, corruption, and speculating of Navy suppliers, contractors, the dockyards themselves, and even the Navy Board. Viscount Melville, though, who had been Treasurer of the Navy twice in his political career, knew where the side-profits were, and had come to be sneered at as “Lord Business As Usual” almost from the moment he took office.