And whilst there'd been war with the French, as tall frigates prowled like tigers in the night, bright-eyed and hungry to claw at each other, as line-of-battle ships formed to bellow, to make or break history, he would have been nothing but a spectator, and one far back in the cheap seats, too! He would farm, hey! Read the news down from London, in the Naval Chronicle, brandish his walking stick and "Huzzah!" each victory… or write scathing letters to the Times.
Caroline needed him, though, would prefer this time…
He shuddered with revulsion at the image of his respectable civilian future-Caroline or no.
No, like his father, Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby, of the 4th, the King's Own, now of the 19th Native Infantry, had said to him once, after they were reconciled in the Far East…
Damme! He realized, shivering again, recalling the details of a half-abandoned past. They had been arguing in a seething tropic rainstorm, hot as shaving water. It was at Bencoolen, on the Malacca Straits, ready to sail for the Spratlys, just my tiny ship and his regiment, to fight more pirates than the New Forest has nuts! Beat the bastards, too… oh, didn't wejustl Oh, it's all moonshine, this death or glory chatter. Yet…!
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Hugo had said: "Might not have been a glad soldier, boy… but I became a good'un." Or something like that.
Growl he may, but go… aye, he believed he would. There would not be a second asking if he turned the Admiralty down. His place on the list would be scratched out, his commission thrown over.
Alan Lewrie might not have been a gladsome tar, either, but he knew in his heart that, by God, he'd become a damned good Sea Officer. And there would be no peace for his already restless soul if he didn't take the King's Shilling and serve, just one more time.
"Y'r pardons, sir," Lewrie said, as if coming out of some trance. " 'Tis been so long since I had to pen an official letter, formalities quite escaped me. You've found the brandy, I trust?"
"Rum, sir," the messenger replied quite happily, baking before the morning fire, his large mug of laced tea in his hand. He had not taken the slightest notice that Lewrie might have been delaying, dithering or hesitant to accept the possibility of an active commission. In fact, what delay he might have at last noticed he would have liked, so he could warm himself against another cold ride and make free with Lewrie's fine, sweet dark Jamaican rum.
"Rum for me, too, it seems. 'Clear-Decks-And-Up-Spirits,' seven bells of each forenoon," Lewrie grunted with guilty pleasure as he put the finishing touches to his note of acceptance. He shook sand over it and blew on the ink so it would not smudge. He folded it carefully and applied candle wax to form a seal along the outer fold.
'There you are, sir. I expect to be in London by nightfall, and in the Waiting Room by tomorrow morning."
"Then I shall keep you no longer, sir," the messenger stated, finishing his laced tea with a gulp, and stuffed the precious note into a hard despatch case, where fully two dozen more were already crammed, then bowed a swift departure.
Lewrie went to his wine cabinet and poured himself a glass of dark Jamaican, inventorying the study for items to take along. Would he get a ship of his own this time-something small, like Alacrity^. Wine cabinet, fold-leg desk, caddy for tea, coffee, chocolate and sugar, extra chest yonder… pewter Ian-thorns down from the garret, just in case. Ferguson rifle there, the fusil musketoon, too, and-
No, he thought, taking a welcome, and bracing, sip. I'll go a lieutenant still, most like. Dog's manger of a cabin in the wardroom, not room for much beyond a sea-chest, and little else.
He held the small glass of ram up to the firelight. It was almost opaque, and the alcohol fumes wafted the sweet, lush, adventurous scent of far-off West Indies molasses about his head, rife with promise of potency and over-the-horizon, beyond-the-sunset, larger-than-life adventure. Excitements! Honour and glory be damned.
He took another sip, savouring the rawness of the rum's bouquet. Soon it would be passer's-issue rum, cheap pop-skull, the weary seaman's anodyne. With the rum, he could almost begin to sniff a whiff of ocean. The hemp and tar, the steep tubs and the fat used for slush on running rigging, the iodine tang of open, rolling seas, the fresh-fish aromas of storm wrack and the tidewater mildewed mustiness of harbourside, of hot sand and kelp baking under a cruel sun on distant strands, and the dank-cave breath of a ship, wafting up through limber holes, and carpenters' walks from below-unwashed men, paint and wet wool, old cooking greases, of seasoned oak and sweating iron artillery.
Caroline, he thought, at last. What to say to her? Sorry, dear, but I'd crawl to Whitehall on my knees to escape the boresome shit my life's become? Dear as you are to me, dear as Life is with you and the boys, it isn't you-'tis me?
He tossed off his rum impatiently, steeling himself for the hurt words he was sure would come. He set the glass on the mantel, reached up and took down his sword-not a proper officer's straight smallsword but a hanger, a slightly curved, single-bladed hunting sword, much like a light, elegant cutlass. It had stayed hung there for years, far out of reach of inquisitive little hands. There was dust on the royal-blue leather scabbard, and it had not gotten the strenuous attention their tableware did from the maids. He ran his fingers over the slightly tarnished silver lion's-head pommel, the dark blue hilt wrapped in silver wire, the belt hook on the chase, the front and side handguards formed like argent seashells.
He half-drew it to test its edge against a thumbnail. But it was a Gill's, a fine blade, and had lost none of its keenness. No matter how long it had hung, neglected and idle.
II
Nee vero ipse metus cumsque resolvere
ductor, sed maria aspectans "heu qui datus
iste deorum sorte labor nobis!"
Now verily did the leader himself
forget all fears and cares, but gazing on
the seas, "Alas," he cried, "how hard a
task is here set us by heaven's will!"
– Valerius Flaccus
Argonautica, Book IV, 703-705
If great London also bore loathsome reeks of its own particular devising, at least they were urbane and cosmopolitan. And Lewrie, in his mounting excitement to be returning to the city of his birth, and gateway to the wider world beyond, took no notice of them. Farm lands and villages got closer together, villages became towns, until once they had passed Guildford, the conurbations crowded each other until they seemed one vast burgeoning of the capital, brimming over with bustling enterprise, like a boiling pot.
Lodging was almost impossible to find. All the coaching inns were full, as were the private residences which would let rooms, and the use of the parlours, to guests. Sparsely furnished rooming houses were out of the question. Even those dubious "rooms to let"-which usually signified hourly rates for the sporting crowd-were taken by officers of both Army and Navy being called back to their colours.
They finally alit upon a hideously expensive posting house just before dark, after hours of rumbling through the streets. It was near King's College and Somerset House, on Catherine Street, just off the Strand. Being a posting house, though, accustomed to travellers who came to town in their own coaches, it could be expected to be clean and quiet enough to suit the most fastidious high gentry or titled visitor, and set a decent table.