The French Admiral by Dewey Lambdin Page A

into the day watch before they caught up with the fleet, but before then, not even an errant cloud on the horizon could be mistaken for a tops’l.
    â€œFall out the hands from quarters, Mister Railsford.” Treghues gave the order from the quarterdeck nettings overlooking the waist of the upper deck. “Pipe the hands to breakfast.”
    â€œAye, aye, sir.”
    â€œExcuse me, sir, but who is midshipman of the watch?” Alan asked Railsford.
    â€œYou had the middle?”
    â€œAye, sir, both of us. And we shall have the forenoon as well.”
    â€œGet you below and eat, then,” Railsford said. “Might as well get into working rig, too, or your shoregoing clothes are going to get too dirty.”
    They stumbled down to the lower deck and aft, past the marine compartment to their tiny midshipman’s mess, which was right forward of the master’s cabin and the first lieutenant’s. Young Carey was there already, digging into a bowl of gruel liberally mixed with salt meat and crumbled biscuit, slurping at his small beer with evident enjoyment. His eyes lit up as he saw them, not having had the chance to ask them how much trouble they had gotten into.
    Midshipman the Honorable Francis Forrester was also there, round and glowing even though the morning was still cool, and also busily feeding. Cater-cousin to their captain, one of the original midshipmen from her commissioning, nephew to their squadron flag officer, Sir George Sinclair; an airily superior young swine they could have gladly dropped over the side on a dark night.
    â€œI had hoped you had stayed in whatever sink or stew you had discovered in Charlestown,” he said between bites. “Was it worth it?”
    â€œWe had a wondrous meal the like of which you would have considered a snack,” David told him, stripping out of his good uniform. “We drank some rather good wine, and then we repaired to a most exclusive buttock shop and rantipoled about until we had exhausted their entire stable.”
    â€œDon’t waste a description of the women on him, Avery,” Alan said as he dug into his chest for working-rig quality uniform items. “Didn’t you know that Francis is still an innocent in that regard? Come to think on it, I cannot remember ever seeing evidence of his manhood, and there’s not a scrap of privacy in this mess.”
    â€œWell, from what I hear, you’ll be paying the price for your little escapade,” Francis retorted hotly, but unwilling to try his arm against the two of them—they had bloodied his nose more than once in the past. “Hope you enjoy watch and watch. Hope you like watching me enjoy a good bottle of wine while you sip your water.”
    â€œYou’re a swine, Francine,” David said. “A portly sow with two teats.”
    â€œGoddamn you!” Forrester roared, almost ready to rise, in spite of past experience.
    â€œBlaspheme a little more softly, please,” Alan said. “Before the captain decides to share the misery out. He’s not in the best of moods today. Come to it, neither am I, so watch yourself and walk small about us.”
    They sat down to their bowls of mush, and the mess steward set out a pitcher of water before them, eyeing them with a certain sadness.
    â€œHave a heart, Freeling,” Alan entreated. “Slip some small beer our way, won’t you?”
    â€œOh, ah god a ’eart, Meester Lewrie, zur, bud iffen ah dew, ah won’ ’ave no ’ead when ’a capum ’ear of eet,” Freeling responded.
    â€œBloody hell!” David said, taking a sip. “At least it’s not wiggling today.”
    â€œNot even half brown. A good vintage,” said Alan.
    It was around three bells of the day watch, just after gunnery exercises, that Desperate caught sight of the fleet on the horizon to the north-east, after a good sail north along the coast with a soldier’s wind. They