The Invasion Year (28 page)

“Such an
arduous
task,” Miss Blanding piped up, sounding as she chanted. “As
daunting
as any labour of
Hercules,
to deal with so
many
un-co-operative merchant captains.”

“Like herding cats,” Lewrie rejoined with a grin and a wink.

“Or, much like the early years of King David, when he was but a humble shepherd boy,” the Reverend Blanding the younger added.

Oh, Christ, here come the bloody
sheep,
again!
Lewrie cringed.

“First to slay Goliath, then to see his flock to safety, aha!”

“Quite so, Jeremy, quite so!” Chaplain Brundish praised.

“The slaying part was a lot more fun,” Lewrie told them.

“The French, of
course,
” Miss Blanding said, her cheeks colouring a bit at her daring to speak in company, no longer reckoned to be a child, who should be seen but not heard. “Father wrote us of your
bereavement,
Captain Lewrie, and, dare I note the
satisfaction
that the victory over them I would
imagine
provided you?”

“Well, a touch of mine own back, aye,” Lewrie gruffly answered.

He was saved by his father’s arrival, with a glass of wine in his hands, and it was Lewrie’s task to make the introductions all over again.

“You must be very proud of your son this day, Sir Hugo,” Captain Blanding purred.

“Indeed, Captain Blanding, indeed I am,” Sir Hugo boasted, rocking on the balls of his slippered feet. “Amazed, too, I must own, for I never thought he could direct his boyhood boldness into useful work … but, God help the French, hey? He ever tell you how he was sent down from Harrow, and why? Lord, but he was a caution in those days!”

“Why, no, I don’t believe so, Sir Hugo,” Blanding said, cocking his head to one side.

“My lords and ladies, gentlemen and gentlewomen … the King!” a functionary bellowed, with a thud of his mace.

Way was made to either side of the great hall, like the parting of the Red Sea for Moses; there was a fanfare, an end to the sprightly string music from the court orchestra, and a great deal of deep bowing and curtsying. Heads and gazes were lowered, but … some once-only guests like Lewrie did peek, as did the gossip-mongers, looking for a sign that King George was still in decent health, or fading fast; and to be sure, members of the Privy Council and the under-ministers of the latest Pitt administration searched for clues regarding the continuation of the present monarch, and their prestigious offices.

Well, he
looks
sane,
Lewrie told himself;
but, there’s no real way t’tell, is there?
Whilst he was still in the West Indies, one of his father’s letters had noted that King George had opened Parliament in February by addressing the body as “my Lords and Peacocks”! Since Lewrie had never really seen him in the flesh before—a parade of fast-trotting royal coaches jingling through St. James’s Square where Lewrie had grown up (admittedly not the good side of the square, much like his family’s repute!), a hat in a window, and a glance of a pudgy and serenely bland face for an eyeblink—he had only the portraits in the gallery of Ranelagh Gardens to go by, and if he’d met him in a shop in the Strand, he wouldn’t have known him from Adam!

The King
was
looking a tad rickety. He’d always been a hefty fellow, as rotund as the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, as Captain Blanding and his brood, but now the King’s scarlet-trimmed and gold-laced dark blue suitings looked as loose and free as a flagging jib.

“Queen’s ill again?” he heard someone whisper. “Where’s she?”

“And, here comes Prinny,” another muttered.

“His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales!” the major-domo cried.

Down the crowd went again in bows and curtsys, as a lesser fan-fare sounded.

“Be the Regent soon, you mark my words,” someone snidely hissed.

“God help us, then,” a woman whispered back. And, once the King and the Prince of Wales had passed them, and they could stand upright again, the same woman remarked, “The Prime Minister’s in no better condition. He’s played out.”

“Well, we’ve Lord Canning and Lord Castlereagh,” her companion pointed out. “
And
a pack of ninnies. The William Pitt government now consists of William, and Pitt, and the scribblers,” he japed.

Sir Hugo’s letter had expressed concerns that when William Pitt had returned to office, he’d refused to find a position in his ministry for Addington, whom he’d supplanted, and refused his own cousin and friend, Lord Grenville. Pitt had even angered the Navy by turning out Admiral Lord St. Vincent, “Old Jarvy,” as First Lord of the Admiralty, just as his campaign to root out corruption, malfeasance, graft, and double-dealing in the Victualling Board and HM Dockyards had begun to solve some of the long-standing problems. He’d replaced him with a man who could have cared less, Henry Viscount Melville, Lord “Business As Usual”! Government was run by an un-talented pack of nobodys.

“Looks a tad off his feed, don’t he?” Sir Hugo whispered with a raspy sarcasm. “Though Prinny’s bulkin’ up nicely, good as a prime steer.”

“Where’d ye find the wine?” Lewrie asked.

“For you, that’s for after,” his father rejoined. “No matter do
I
get squiffy, but you … you’re the trick-performin’ pony in this raree-show.”

“Why’d ye bring up our Harrow bomb-plot?” Lewrie further asked.

Long ago, Lewrie at a callow sixteen, and a clutch of his fellow rake-hells at Harrow had decided to emulate Guy Fawkes’s plot to blow up Parliament, and had obtained the materials with which to lash back at the school governor by blowing up his carriage house. They’d been caught right after, of course, Lewrie with the smouldering slow-match in his hands, and expelled. It was a feat to be dined out upon, but not a fact to be blurted out to a superior officer who might imagine that Lewrie still harboured pyrotechnical urges.

“Gawd, you’re clueless!” Sir Hugo said with a snort. “See how Miss Blanding was makin’ cow’s-eyes? Ye told me they were stayin’ in London t’find her a suitable match. Want
t’be
that poor bugger?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, they
couldn’t
…!” Lewrie objected.

“You’re better off than most they’ll find,” Sir Hugo sniggered. “And a bloody hero, t’boot, with a knighthood and a bank full o’ prize-money. Well, God help ’em with
that
project, and pity the poor fool saddled with
her,
soon as she pups an heir or two, and ends as round as her parents. Best they know your warts, right off.”

“Captain Lewrie … sir,” Strachan intruded with an impatient schoolmaster’s “vex” to his languid purr. “
Might
you find the time to join us, sir? All are in place but for you.”

“Oh … coming,” Lewrie replied, following the equerry to the middle of the carpet to join the others. He stood by Captain Blanding, took a deep breath to settle himself, and did some last-minute tugging at his shirt cuffs and the bottom of his waist-coat to settle them.

“A
grand
moment,” Blanding whispered to him, grinning like Puck. “A
proud
moment, nigh the finest in my life, Lewrie!” He was almost overcome with emotion and awe of the occasion. “Well,” he quibbled, “there was my wedding day, and the arrival of the children, but … to be so honoured!”

“And Rear-Admiral sure t’come, soon after, sir?” Lewrie hinted.

“Oh well, aye, but … to stand before His Majesty, our Soveriegn, to converse with him!” Blanding went on, looking as if he would keel over in a faint, or whirl like an Ottoman Dervish and snap his fingers in glee.

Thud-thud-thud
from a ceremonial mace, and a richly toned voice was calling for Captain Stephen Blanding of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy to come forward. For a stout fellow, Blanding did most of that ritual well; deep bow atop the third rosette in the carpet from the dais, advance, stop, and bow again; it was the kneeling part that gave him a spot of bother.

A senior courtier stood by King George to hold an unrolled parchment for him to read from. “Captain Blanding … Captain
Stephen
Blanding … in honour of your stellar career as a Commission Sea Officer in our Royal Navy, and in grateful recognition of your splendid victory over a French squadron at the Battle of the Chandeleur Isles, we name thee Knight and Baronet,” the King intoned, stumbling a bit over the words as if he missed his spectacles. Down came the sword to tap Blanding on each shoulder, and it was done. There
were
some words exchanged that hardly anyone ten feet away could catch, then Captain Blanding was up and bowing and backing away for the last bow on the proper rosette, and he half-turned to Lewrie, gaping with joy and with actual tears in his eyes.

Like he just got healed by Jesus,
Lewrie thought, finding this ceremony, and the most un-godlike appearance of the King, a bit of a let-down. Blanding might be reduced to a quaking aspic, but for himself, Lewrie could only chide himself for a cynic and a sham.

“Captain Alan Lewrie, of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy, will come forward!” the courtier intoned.

Third rosette;
Nice carpet,
Lewrie thought, looking down at it as he made his formal “leg”;
I like the colours.
Then it was head-up and stride forward, looking over both the King and the Prince of Wales.

A bit drifty,
Lewrie thought of the former, noting how George III was turning his head about like a man looking for where he had left his hat;
Bored t’death,
was his thought of the Prince.
Was he got up too early this mornin’, or do his nails really need a cleanin’?

The last bow, then the kneeling, and the lowering of his head, but … he really
was
a tad curious to witness what was about to come, so he looked up without thinking … hoping that King George would be a
mite
more careful with how he slung that sword about.

“Captain Alan Lew … Lewrie,” the King began, leaning to peer at the ornate document the courtier held out for him, “in honour of your stellar career as a Commission Sea Officer in our Royal Navy…”

Christ, can’t
anybody
pronounce it right?
Lewrie thought with a wince;
It ain’t like
he’s
a foreigner, is it?

“… grateful recognition of your inestimable part which led to victory over a French squadron at the Chandeleur Isles,” the King said in a firm voice, though leaning over to squint myopically at the parchment the courtier held, then leaned back to conclude his words. “We do now name thee Knight and Baronet,” he said, looking out over the hall, over Lewrie’s head.

“Ahem?” the courtier tried to correct.

What the bloody…?
Lewrie gawped;
How’s that? Did he just…?

King George looked down at Lewrie, then at the sword, with a bit of puzzlement, then tapped Lewrie once on each of his epaulets.

“Ahem?” from the courtier a little louder.

“Knight and Baronet,” King George III reiterated in a mutter, as if making a mental note to himself. “Knight
and
Baronet!” he said once more, as if that sounded better. He returned his placid gaze out to the crowd once more, grinning as if quite pleased with himself.

“I, ah … allow me to express my gratitude, sir … Your Majesty, mean t’say,” Lewrie managed to croak, sharing a glance with that courtier who was shaking his head, with his eyebrows up.

“What? Hey?” King George asked, looking back down at Lewrie as if he’d never seen him in his life, and how the Devil had
he
got there.

“Uh … that I’m proud and pleased to be so honoured, Your Majesty,” Lewrie tried again.

“Well, of course you are, young fellow, and well-deserving of it, too!” the King rejoined, beaming kindly; addled as an egg, Lewrie deemed him, but kindly! “Now, up you get!”

Lewrie rose to his feet, his mouth agape as he performed a departing bow. Though his head was reeling, he managed to pace back with measured tread ’til he reached the third-from-the-dais rosette in the carpet, made a last “leg” with his hand on his breast, then half-turned to sidle into the larboard half of the crowd, looking for Sir Hugo and Captain Blanding. When he found them, safely deep in the second or third row of onlookers, he spread his arms wide and blared his eyes in a cock-headed grimace of “what the Hell just happened?” incredulity. He was in
serious
need of a stiff drink, something stronger than the wine that his father had discovered!