"Nothing more, sir. If you would take possession of the orders, and affix your name in receipt of them, ah… here," Keane said, opening his canvas bag to produce a ribbon-bound and wax-sealed bundle of paper, a short receipt form, and a stub of pencil. "Save me a row out to your ship in this weather, do you see, and grateful for it, ha ha!"
Lewrie shoved the orders under his boat-cloak, into a side pocket of his uniform coat, then looked for a flat surface. "Turn round, Mister Keane, would ye be so kind," he said, employing the man's back as a writing desk on which to press the form and pencil his name down. "There ye are, then, Mister Keane, and take care of that cough."
"I fully intend to, sir, and thankee for your solicitous-" Keane tried to say, interrupted by another bout of fluid coughs. He had the good courtesy to turn himself away, alee of both Mountjoy and Lewrie 'til he was done.
"A hot mustard salve," Mountjoy hopefully suggested, "followed by candled tea cups applied, to draw out the humours, perhaps."
"A scalding bath, followed by a bowl of stiff-laced punch, sir" was Lewrie's sage advice. "Drunk in a bed piled with covers, and hourly changes o' warmin' pans. It don't work, ye can't feel any worse in the morning, Mister Keane."
"I thankee again for your solicitation, sirs, and take my leave to follow your advice," Keane said, bowing from the waist. "Godspeed," he concluded, before turning to lope for the nearest warm tavern.
"So… what the Devil is it, this time, Mister Mountjoy?" Alan Lewrie sourly demanded as he led his former clerk towards his waiting boat.
"It is more in the nature of a diplomatic mission, sir," Thomas Mountjoy told him, frighteningly cryptic and tight-lipped.
"Meanin' some diplomat's throat must be slit, I s'pose," Lewrie sarcastically rejoined. "Does Twigg have somethin' t'do with this?"
"He did participate in the initial consultations, yes," Mountjoy answered, though loath to say too much in the open. Lewrie increased his pace, if only to warm up, forcing Mountjoy to toddle along off his larboard quarter to keep up. "Mister Twigg was not instrumental in the choice of ship, or captain, however, sir. Does that mollify you."
"By God it does not!" Lewrie groused. "I should've known gettin' an active commission so quick'd have a catch to it. I'd get leery even if Twigg was only walkin' by Admiralty, or Whitehall, and wasn't at the bottom of it… whatever it is."
"Once completely laid before you, sir, you'll see that it really is quite straightforward," Mountjoy attempted to console.
"Well, they all begin that way, don't they, Mister Mountjoy?" Lewrie shot back, past gut-churning dread to a good fume. "Christ on a crutch, sir… will that foul old schemer ever be shot o' me? Or, me of him?"
"Perhaps when he passes from this mortal coil, at last, Captain Lewrie," Mountjoy said with an enigmatic smile. "Yet, when he finally does… God help England," he stated with a touch of awe and respect for his patron.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A Franklin stove?" Mountjoy enthused once Pettus had taken his overcoat, hat, and cane, and had seen to his captain's things as well. Mountjoy rubbed his chilled hands over the stove, savouring the heat.
"And thank God coal's cheap in England," Lewrie said, enjoying his early-morning splurge with the Purser in much the same fashion. He cocked an ear and looked about. "The parrot's gone!"
"Aye, sir," Pettus told him after he'd hung up their things on the row of pegs. "Mister Ballard sent him ashore with Perry, just at the change of the watch. Coffee, sir?"
"Nigh-boilin', aye," Lewrie gladly agreed, turning to lift the back of his coat to the stove. "Won't do in a sea-way, but our Surgeon, Mister Harward, says it's best for the ship's people, are they kept a bit warm. Thermopylae's been prowling the North Sea and Baltic all wi;
"Though, one might imagine that the body heat they generate, along with the warmth of the galley fires trapped below, would provide some heat," Mountjoy speculated, facing about to thaw his own bottom. "Hallo, you've made an addition! Hallo, Toulon, you old rascal. And who's the new one, sir?"
"That's Chalky," Lewrie told him as the cats tricky-trotted to greet the new arrival. "Came off a French brig we made prize in the West Indies. Well, the Americans took her, but Chalky came aboard as a gift."
"The Quasi-War 'twixt the United States and France, yes, sir," Mountjoy replied, kneeling and wiggling his fingers to attract Lewrie's cabin-mates. "My mentor, James Peel, wrote me of it, and your part."
Peel tell you my American bastard gave me the cat? Lewrie wondered, for Mountjoy's tone bordered on the cryptic again, as if he was smirking.
"Too bad Guillaume Choundas got away," Mountjoy commented, once Toulon had taken a tentative sniff, and had decided that Mountjoy was vaguely familiar.
"The American navy defeated his ship, so they had custody of th' shit," Lewrie explained, heading for the settee. "I tried to lay our claim on him, but…"
"Well sir, with the disagreement with France settled, the Yankees no longer had reason to hold him on his parole," Mountjoy said. "I think he's back in France… though in none too good odour with their new First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte. Our sources say that Choundas is pensioned off from their navy, and no longer much of a threat. Lurking round Paris, looking for active employment, Mister Twigg said.
"It was most diplomatic of you, the way you acceded to the American claims, sir," Mountjoy said, looking up from his kneeling position on the floor, where Toulon was now rubbing him and purring as he was stroked. "The manner in which you cooperated with the United States Navy gained their trust, and kept our tacit support of them from public purview, as well."
"So I can be diplomatic, can I?" Lewrie scoffed. "Meanin' this should be a walk in the park?"
"Something like that, sir… oww!" Mountjoy meant to say in compliment… before Chalky, feeling left out, nipped him for attention.
"Should've warned ye 'bout Chalky, he's the jealous sort," Lewrie said. "Well damme, Mister Mountjoy, here it is almost Old Boys' Week. First my old First Officer, Arthur Ballard, turns up as Thermopylae's First Lieutenant, and now you. Makes one wonder, do ye hang about in Yarmouth long enough, ye run into everyone ye ever knew. Ah, coffee!" he exclaimed as Pettus appeared with the black-iron pot, and cups. As soon as Mountjoy took seat in a chair across from him, before the cats could claim a lap, Pettus poured the coffee for them, then sat the pot atop the Franklin stove, tautly lashed down in the middle of the great-cabins, and firmly embedded in a tin-lined wood box filled with sand.
"Diplomatic, ye say," Lewrie said after a warming sip, once he had laced his drink with fresh-grated sugar, and some cream drawn from the frigate's nanny goat, kept in the forecastle manger up forward.
"Uhm…," Mountjoy cautioned, casting a glance at Pettus.
"One of those 'mum's the word' moments, Pettus," Lewrie said to his new servant. "You and Whitsell take a turn on deck for a bit. Now," he said, once they'd departed. "Just who is it does Twigg wish me to murder? Or, would shovin' 'em over the side in the dark of night do?"
"In your orders from Admiralty, sir," Mountjoy uneasily began, glancing about for hidden witnesses, or for ears pressed to the windows of the coach-top overhead, "which you shall open and read shortly, you are directed to sail for the Baltic, preceding the fleet, and reconnoiter the ports of Copenhagen, Karlskrona, Kronstadt, and Reval to determine the thickness and condition of the ice which, at present, prevents the ships opposing us from sailing, and combining."
"All by our lonesome little selves, Mister Mountjoy?" Lewrie had to gawp and goggle. "Just who the bloody Hell dreamt that up?"
"I believe it was a suggestion from Admiral Nelson, sent to Captain Thomas Troubridge, who is now seconded to a seat on the Board at Admiralty, and relayed to Lord Saint Vincent, the First Lord, sir," Mr. Mountjoy related in a low, conspiratorial tone. "Whilst neither I, nor anyone at the Foreign Office, are privy to the thought behind the plan, I gather that the consensus was that, should a lone British frigate enter the Baltic, her presence would not be cause for much alarm among the powers in the Armed League of the North, do you see. Even with a war in the offing, it is only natural that, in the pursuit of a diplomatic solution to our contretemps with the Danes, Swedes, and Russians, messages from His Majesty's Government would still be delivered to our ambassadors 'til the very last moment, and their delivery by a fast frigate, not a packet brig, would elicit no undue response."