H.M.S. COCKEREL

Chapter 3

"Mi'ng arf on a,…!" Lewrie cursed as he struggled to rise, running a tongue over his teeth to see if they were still all there. He tasted hot blood, coppery-salty; could almost smell it, like the damp winds off the Thames. "Get th' baftuds!" he roared to his "gang" as he got to his feet again, knocked down with a (fortunately) empty chamber pot swung at his head by a desperation-crazed sailor just off a West Indies trader.

It had sounded like a mischievous lark when they'd set out on their raid earlier in the evening. Surround a ramshackle old lodging house converted to a sailors' brothel; confer on the sly with the old Mother Abbess who ran it, so she could sell half a dozen or so of her worst-paying customers, who had taken the place over as a refuge, into the hands of the 'Press; creep up on them as they were well engaged with girls, passed out drunk or asleep, and take them in a well-timed rush.

" 'Ere's yer hat, sir," Cony offered.

"Phankee, Cony," Lewrie attempted to reply. "Bu' where'f me head?" He was only half-jesting, as his vision swam.

" Split yer lip, sir… looks worse'n h'it 'tis."

Whores were shrieking, furniture banging, the pairs-of-stairs thundered ominously, making the thin lath and plaster partitions judder like the old pile was about to come down about their ears. Harsh male voices roared defiance on either side, with the occasional cry of a man getting the worst of some encounter. Truncheons beat a meaty tattoo, punctuated by the sound of a door being smashed down.

A shadow flitted past Lewrie's notice from one of the rooms, loomed up in front of him. It was a sailor, a teenaged topman by his build. He gave a great gasp as he realized he'd dashed the wrong way, skidding to a halt with his mouth open to cry out.

"In th' Kinf s name!" Lewrie shouted first, bringing his truncheon down to thud on the lad's shoulder and neck. The fellow dropped like a meal sack.

Damme, but that felt good! Lewrie exulted to himself.

"Oy, min' me furnishin's, yew!" the Mother Abbess commanded as she lumbered her bulk up the stairs. "Gawd, one o' me very baist fackin' cheers smashed! Ahh, shut yir gob, Helena! Stewpid bitch!"

A spectacularly developed young whore, all poonts and angular curves, was wailing her head off, garbed only in a thin, open, man's shirt. Lewrie stopped to judge her performance for a stunned moment.

"Clumsy bastits, take keer, will 'ee, now!" the barge-shaped Mother Abbess carped. "Nought woz said 'bout trashin' me place, sir! Fifty poun' damages, ye done, if it's a fackin' farthin'!"

"You wished them out, ma'am," Lewrie commented, spitting in a corner to clear his mouth. "You should have liquored 'em better, 'fore we came. They'd have gone easier."

"Liquor 'em, hah!" the old whoremongress cackled mirthlessly. "An' thaim 'thout tuppence betwixt 'em? Free gin, it'd been, an' 'ey'd a got suspaictin'. Helena, will 'ee stop 'at cat-erwaulin'? Ye ain't hurted. Hesh, hesh'r ye will be!"

The dark-haired girl hiccuped to sudden silence and leaned on the broken jamb of the door to her grubby little cubicle. Perhaps because of her mistress' harsh glower, and her pudgy shaken fist, sign of a sound thrashing later. Perhaps because the sounds of melee diminished at last, with only the odd thud now and again, or a heartbreaking groan or two of pain.

"Ah, there ye be, sir," Lewrie's burly bosun's mate reported as he rumbled down the passageway, dragging a squirming sailor under his arm in a headlock. "Got 'em all, we did, sir. Eight hands, t'gither. All prime seamen. Oh, make 'at nine, sir. See ye got one, too!"

"Lemme go, ya bastard!" the "prime seaman" in the head-lock hissed. "I gotta p'rtection! A 'John Comp'ny' p'rtection!"

"Now what's a West Indian trader called the Five Sisters doing with an East India Company Protection, hmm?" Lewrie smirked. "And how recently did you buy it? Wasted your money on a forgery, if you did. There's no protection covers you. Face it, man… you're took fair."

"Sir, f r God's sake!" The man wriggled to face him, looking much like a beheaded victim under the burly bosun's Henry-the-Eighth-ish armpit. "Frigate stopped us down-Channel, soon'z we wuz in Soundin's. Took twelve hands… put eight Navy aboard t'work her in. We anchor in the Downs, befogged, an' a Nore tender takes 'nother eight! An' only lef us four t'do their work!"

"An' how many volunteered, hmm?" The bosun purred, lifting the man almost off his feet, forcing him to look up at him awkwardly.

"Well, half o' 'em, th' firs' time, an'… three th' last," the seaman confessed sheepishly, then found some courage. "But that'z coz they'd been took, no matter, an' least if ya volunteers, ya gets the Joinin' Bounty, an' yer pay gets squared, on th' spot, see-"

"Then why not emulate them, and volunteer yourself, not sneak about?" Lewrie asked him. "Don't you wish to serve your king?"

"King George ain' off rin' twenny-five guineas th' man, f r a roun' voyage, sir. Hoy, yer right, sir! I'm a volunteer, sir!"

"Much too late f r that," the bosun chuckled, shaking his whole frame, and jiggling the reluctant sailor with him. "Matey," he cooed.

"Bloody…!" Cony whispered under his breath. "Twenty-five guineasl" Those were royal wages, and the war not even barely begun!

Of course, it was suspect whether those merchant masters and ship's-husbands who offered such royal wages would ever pay up, for many were happy to see the Navy press their hands before putting in and paying off. In some cases, they even connived at it with Impress officers who'd tip them the wink, for a bribe, and certify that all wages were accounted for, up to date of impressment. And Navy hands had to be put aboard to assure that a ship had enough hands to reach harbour; what amounted to free labour. It was a wonderful bargain.

Lewrie had a chary eye for the Mother Abbess of the brothel, too. Twenty-five guineas, these last fortunate sailors had pocketed, yet now they were so poor they "hadn't tuppence betwixt 'em"? Quim and gin, room and board, with perhaps more, paid the woman to shelter them before Five Sisters was laden and ready to sail, with a midnight dash from whorehouse to the docks at the last minute… a fee paid too, perhaps, for "long clothing" so they could do their dash without being recognised as sailors. And the forged protections…

And, Lewrie realised, she'd just made an additional ninety shillings from his own pocket, as the bribe price for revealing them!

They must have been too noisy, demanding, or upsetting… or had spent too freely too quickly. Else, she'd have been glad to have merely stripped them of their last farthing before turning them out her door and waving her fond goodbyes. Else, she might have simply sold them to merchant-ship crimps for more money. There must be some small measure of revenge being exacted, if she'd stoop to a Navy press-gang in Wapping.

"Any commotion in the streets yet?" Lewrie asked, going to the door to Helena 's squalid little bed-chamber, and reaching past her for a fairly clean towel with which to dab his damaged lip.

"Nary a peep, sir," the bosun assured him. "I'd 'spect ev'ryone about'd admire t'get a good whorehouse back in service."

"Yes, it does seem to cater excellent wares," Lewrie chuckled, still looking at Helena. The girl glanced down, fetch-ingly shy, then back up; a bolder, practiced "come-hither" twinkle to her eyes.

" 'Ere, lemme tend yer lip, sir," Helena cooed, taking the towel and dipping it in a water basin. "Can't let a fine gen'lm'n such'z yerself leave our house lookin' bedraggled, can we, now?"

"Get 'em in irons, bosun, and we'll be on our way, before the situation, and the neighbourhood's mood, changes on us," Lewrie said.

"Ya gotta go s' quick then, sir?" Helena pouted playfully.

"I, uhm…" Lewrie sighed. It had been six weeks since he'd reported for duty at Deptford, six weeks since Caroline had departed for home and the children, torn in two by her affections and duties. Helena was a wonder, compared to her drabber sisters in the knocking-shop, most of whom could only look delectable to men who'd been six months on-passage, and had no taste to begin with. Helena was young, not over sixteen or so, not so coarsened by the trade, and…

And his man Cony, who had so inexplicably insisted on volunteering, in spite of the obvious advantages and comforts Anglesgreen afforded him, was practically breathing over his shoulder. Anything Cony might see would be sure to find its way to Caroline, sooner or later…

And there was the threat of the Mob. Other sailors might see them, and drankenly decide to brawl to "liberate" their fellow tars. Civilians full of anger, or boredom, who'd raise the hue and cry, and set upon them, the brutish instruments of oppression by the national government against their local. Englishmen, being enslaved by other Englishmen! It would be too much, and the only voice those prickly, pridefully independent locals had was the Riot.

"Some other time, perhaps?" Lewrie promised vaguely, tipping his hat to her. She curtsied to him quite prettily, spreading the bottom hems of her shirt, her only garment, like the heavy skirts of a ball gown, which rewarded him with a disconcertingly pleasant view.

"Let's go, bosun… Cony," Lewrie coughed regretfully.

"Come back, do!" the girl whispered as the others preceded him to the stairs, reaching out her room to cup his face in her hands and kiss him with a deep, if lying, passion. "An't been with a real gen'lm'n, not workin' 'ere, sir. An' la, I'd admire ta!" she teased in a small and throaty tone.

"Christ on a crutch!" he could but moan.

"Doubt they spoiled yer beauty, Lewrie," Captain Lilycrop told him after their surgeon's mate had attended his hurt and taken a stitch or two in his upper lip. "An' ye done good service this night, damme'f ye haven't. So, take cheer," the old man comforted, offering him an ancient leather tankard full of light brown ale.

One of the few delights (admittedly perhaps the only delight) of the Impress Service was serving under his old captain from the Shrike brig again. Lieutenant Lilycrop, now a lofty post-captain, had lost a foot and shin at Turk's Island in '83, just weeks before the peace, and the end of the American Revolution. He'd lost Shrike to Lewrie, too, when Admiral Hood had appointed him to take her over. But Hood had also promised to stand patron to the tarry-handed old Lilycrop, perhaps the oldest, and most without patronage, Commission Sea Officer in the Fleet, until that time.

Lilycrop's hair was thinner, just as cottony white, but better dressed these days; his pigtailed, plaited seaman's queue, which had hung to his waist, was now neatly braided, perfectly ribboned, a fitting (and more fashionably short) adjunct to the awesome dignity the old man exuded in his heavily gold-laced captain's "iron-bound" coat. His breeches, waist-coat and shirt front were snowy white, not tarry, tanned or smudged by shipboard penury. He now sported silk stockings (one at least), an elegant shoe with a solid-gold buckle, and his old straight, heavy dragoon sword had been replaced by an almost gaudy new blade and scabbard. And his pegleg was a marvel of ebony wood inlaid with gold and ivory dolphins, anchors, crossed cannon and sennet-like braidings as intricate as ancient Celtic brooches.

Exquisitely tailored he might be, but Captain Lilycrop was still the solid, roly-poly pudding, with a stomach as round as a forty-two pounder iron shot. And nothing could be done about that Toby Jug of a phiz, all wrinkles and creases; though his face was now wracked by good food and drink, not sun and sea. The same merry brown eyes lurked and gave spark deep within the recesses of snowy brows and apple cheeks. The same old Lilycrop, thank the Good Lord.

"Near thing, e'en so, sir," Lewrie commented, rotating his neck and shoulders. "God, what a shitten business. The Mother Abbess…"

"Old Bridey?" Lilycrop snickered, rubbing a thumb as thick as a musket barrel alongside his doorknob of a nose. "Well, what could she do? They were 'skint'-eatin' th' ole mort outa house'n home-an' rogerin' like 'twas their private rooms. Bridey, well…" Lilycrop sighed, sitting himself down near Lewrie. "Aye, I know she looks thick as a bosun, an' fierce-faced'z th' Master at Arms, but 'tis a fearsome trade. Knew her o' old, I did. Just made topman, I had, Lord… fourteen'r so… 'bout when Noah was a quartermaster's mate… hee hee!" the old man recounted wistfully. "First man's pay in me pockets, first seaman's run ashore. No more ship's boy. An' I run inta Bridey. 'Nother knockin'-shop, no so far from where you an' th' lads were t'night. A rare ole time I had with Bridey. Couldn't o' been a quim-hair older'n fourteen herself back then, oh, she was a rare Irish beauty… all ruddy hair, blue eyes, and skin'z pale an' soft'z cream! 'Course," Lilycrop harumphed remorsefully, "I was a diff rent sort myself back then, too. We kept in touch, Bridey an' I."

"So tonight was more a sort of… mutual favour, sir?" Lewrie inquired.

"She needed p'rtection, I need seamen," Lilycrop shrugged his assent. "An' I drop by, now'n again, visit her establishment…"

"Just to keep your hand in, sir?" Lewrie snickered, though it hurt a bit.

"So t'speak, young sir," Lilycrop wheezed. "Bridey allus did treat her girls better'n most, got th' handsomest. An' treated her oldest'n best customers t'th' finest her house has t' offer. Did ye do her much damage?"

"Some, sir. Nothing too sore, I suspect, but-"

"Got her ear t'th' ground, Bridey does, Mister Lewrie," the old man snorted, coming up for air from his ale tankard like a seal blowing foam. "Bridey'U be back in business t'morro' night, but I s'pect she'll come 'round here, all blowin' an' huffin' 'bout her damages. She'll demand th' Crown square it for her…"

"Make you several attractive offers, sir?" Lewrie smirked. The smirk was easier on his lip than the full-mouthed grin.

"Oh, indeed!" Lilycrop beamed like a beatific cherub, and sucked air through his teeth in expectation. "Like I say, she's some damned handsome quim in her stable, oh my, yes! An' a poor ole cripple such'z myself can't do 'em that much harm, th' little darlin's… anyways, I 'spect, like I said, that she'll have more trade f r us. I've expense money 'nough t'cover half o' her damages, an' she can make up th' overage. But, she'll whisper th' name an' th' address o' sev'ral more bawdy houses an' hideaways, where seamen're t'be found. An' put some o' her new competition's noses outa joint, inta th' bargain. Oh, 'tis a grand bus'ness, th' Impress Service, Lewrie! A toppin' bus'ness!"

It was for Lilycrop, at any rate. And, as Regulating Captain for the Deptford district, he didn't have to risk life and limb out in the streets, either! He had his lieutenants to do "the dirty."

And he was finally making himself, in the twilight of his naval career, a truly princely living. Lewrie hadn't dared to probe into another officer's affairs-a friend's affairs-but he had seen Lieutenant Bracewaight's ledgers a few days after reporting for duty. They'd shared a brace of wine bottles at their rendezvous tavern where they both lodged, and Bracewaight, he of the missing hand, the eyepatch and the wooden dentures, had left them open when he jaunted out back for the "jakes."

Still carried by the Navy Pay Office as a half-pay officer with a disablement pension, plus Impress Service allowances and subsistences, the swarthy swine was making fourteen shillings sixpence per day-more than a senior post-captain in command of a 3rd Rate!-and with travel and lodging reimbursed on his own say-so, plus the bonuses paid-five shillings for each raw landsman volunteer signed, up to ten shillings for each ordinary or able seaman brought in, by hook or by crook! And Lewrie rather doubted if Captain Lilycrop was maintained per diem in any less fashion, or denied any bounties of recruitment.

So far, up until that evening, that is, Lewrie had been spared the sordid side of the press. He'd run the tender from Deptford Hard down-river to the Nore, full of hopeful innocents or gloomy experienced seamen. He'd set up shop, to assist the other officers, at rendezvous taverns up and down the river; the Horse Groom at Lambeth Marsh, the King's Head at Rotherhithe, and the Black Boy Trumpet at St. Katherine's Stairs. They'd lay on music, hornpipes, beat the drum, and go liberally with rum and ale. His "gang" was half a dozen swaggering Jolly Jacks, True-blue Hearts of Oak, as gay and "me-hearty" as any gullible young calfhead could wish for. They were full of a fund of stories, chanties, japes and cajolery. Enough cajolery that many disappointed landsmen, many a young lad, had enlisted. And real, tarry-handed tarpaulin men, experienced sailors, had joined the Navy during those recruiting parties. Like the men pressed at sea off the Five Sisters, they at least had a chance to claim the Joining Bounty, and go with a pack of their old shipmates, instead of being shoved into just any old crew. They might return to a warship they'd served in before, with an officer they trusted! Navy work might not pay as high as merchant, but the crews were much larger, so the labour was shared out in smaller dollops. The food was regulated in quantity and quality, and in the Navy at least, they could complain, within reasonable bounds, if it wasn't. And there was the liberal rum issue, too!

And there was the excitement, the danger and the glamour of it all, for sailors and landlubbers alike. For many, it was a means of escaping their dreary existence. Boredom played a part, as did failure at trade or domestic service, as did poverty. For many farm labourers, enlisting in the Navy meant freedom from the narrowness of rural life, the mindless drudgery, the uncertain nature of putting food in one's belly-and the uncertain nature of the food itself.

And more than a few volunteers were running away from shrewish wives, demanding sweethearts they hoped to jilt, too many children at their ankles, or lasses turning up "ankled" and suing for marriage.

Well, perhaps the Impress had more than a few sordid sides, Alan had to admit. At those same jolly recruiting fairs, he'd seen masters connive to offer up their apprentices, to ship them off to sea so they would be spared the expense of feeding and clothing them, then register their indentures at the Navy Pay Office so they could draw off the impressed apprentices' pay! He'd seen rivals in love, or those selfsame jilted young girls, get their own back by whispering the location of a prime hand. Unhappy wives could find a way to pack off the brute who beat them once too often. Relations, usually in-laws, could rescue their family's good name, and their daughter or niece, from a marriage or engagement to someone unsuitable, if he was sound enough to man the tops of a fighting ship, or pulley-hauley in the waist.

And there were the lads, bastards like himself, who'd proved to be an embarrassment. Putative fathers would bring them 'round, tip the recruiting officer the wink, and leave them gamely weeping as future cabin servants, powder-monkeys or landsmen. Mothers, who had too many mouths to feed as it was… widows who might get their new man to marry if the brat was gone!… or wives who wished to dally without testimony from sons to unwitting or absent husbands and fathers…

And, there were the raids on taverns, brothels and lodgings, like the one they'd pulled that night. That took a different "gang," with no need for Jolly Jacks and "me-hearty" True-blue Hearts of Oak. Cudgels of oak, more like!

The brutal fact was that there were a myriad of landsmen, but no surplus of seamen, and it took at least a third to a half of a crew of a warship to be made up of seamen, if she had a hope of getting to sea and surviving once she'd made her offing. Englishmen would not tolerate conscription for any military service; that smacked of brutal central government oppression. The only way left was the 'Press. And only seamen were liable to be pressed… supposedly. Though many innocent civilians caught in the wrong place at the wrong time were swept into the tenders. Yet the 'Press was so opposed by local magistrates, and the courts deluged with wrongful-taking suits, the Impress Service so thinly manned, that they could never "sweep the streets," as the public's popular image held. It had to be done with craft and guile. With stealth and speed, in the dead of night.

"So you expect another raid soon, sir?" Lewrie asked at last.

"T'morro' night, I'd wager, soon'z Bridey whispers a few words in me shell-like ear, hee hee! An' ye done well, so I've a mind ye'll go on that'un, too."

"Of course, sir," Lewrie sighed. "Uhm, have any letters come?"

"Nothin' from yer good wife t'day, Mister Lewrie," his superior grunted. "Aye, if a feller's goin' t'commit th' folly, then I give ye points f r good taste, me lad. She's a livin', breathin' angel, Mistress Lewrie is. Even finer'n all th' others I saw ye squirin' in th' West Indies. An' they was mighty fine."

"I was hoping the Admiralty-?" Lewrie prayed.

"Nothin' from them, neither. Oh, I know ye b'long at sea, an' it rare breaks me heart t'see ye took so low, Mister Lewrie," Lilycrop commiserated, topping up his ale. "I've wrote meself. Locker, down t'th' Nore… Jackson an' Stephens, an' Admiral Hood, too. Nothin'z come back t'me, official, so far, neither. Did get wind o' somethin', though…" Lilycrop frowned.

"Yes, sir?" Lewrie sat up hopefully.

"'Member how ye used t'speak about politics so glib, Lewrie?"

"Aye, sir?"

"Well, from what I gather, unofficial-like, 'tis petty politics holdin' ye back. Some rear admiral, name o' Sinclair?"

"Oh, shit. I knew he hated me more'n cold, boiled mutton."

"And, there's another… some retired rear admiral. Not on any board, but he has lots of patronage an' influence… man ye crossed in the Bahamas, I hear tell."

"Commodore Garvey?" Lewrie gasped. "He's Yellow Squadron scum! How could he sway my appointment?"

"Aye, that's th' name," Lilycrop nodded between healthy swigs. "Rich as Midas, I hear, tied fall th' nabobs in th' City. Civilians don't know Yellow Squadron… nor what it means. They retire a fool'r a cheat, they bump him in rank, 'stead o' cashierin'r court-martiallin' th' bastard, an' he's Rear Admiral o' the Blue, respectable-lookin'z anythin'. Rumour is, ye exposed 'im, him an' a pack o' thieves, your last commission. An' now he's thick with th' thieves this side o' th' ocean who liked th' old way o' Bahamas dealin'. High-placed thieves, too. That means under-th'-table, petticoat talk… rich City society wives'n mistresses with th' ear o' Navy Board wives'n mistresses. I 'spect that's why ye sat these last years on th' beach t'begin with."

"My God, I never thought…!" Alan exclaimed. Of course, the last few years ashore, I didn't give a further Navy career the time of day, he confessed to himself. Show up at my door, back when we'd first started, and I'd have run the bastard through who'd have sent me back to sea so quick!

But now there's a real war…! He sighed, squirming with impatience to do something more meaningful than coshing drunken sailors on the head and dragging them off by their ankles.

"Fear nought, me lad," Lilycrop cautioned. "Corral enough men, ye'll get yer ship. Look at Bracewaight. There's rumours he'd done an arrangement… he fetches in 200 seamen, they give him an active commission. One-handed'r no, he's still a dev'lish sharp scaly-fish, an' just as wasted here'z ye are. There's a midshipman, down t'th' Nore, braggin' that his hundredth recruit'11 fetch his lieutenantcy! 'Course, he's a high-up Dockyard sea-daddy f r a patron, I'm told."

Two hundred pressed men, Lewrie almost gagged? At the rate I'm going, that'll take 'til next Christmas, and how long'll this war last?

And with just whom, exactly, did one make such a Devil's bargain?

He vowed to "smoke out" Bracewaight at the first opportunity. And write yet another pleading, weekly letter to the Admiralty.

Chapter 4

Old Bridey, the Mother Abbess, must have had decades of hard begrudgements to work off (or far costlier damage done to her establishment), for the next few days, and nights, were filled with raids.

The Impress Service dealt with deserters, both those who ran deliberately and stayed away, and those who "straggled." There were some who'd run, intent upon life-long escape from Navy service. And there were some who volunteered over and over again, collecting the Joining Bounty, then taking "leg-bail" to enlist under another alias. Their raids netted about a dozen of the worst offenders, and put the fear of capture in many others.

Then, there were the "stragglers." These were seamen who had missed their ship's departure, gone on unsanctioned "runs ashore" on a whim, gone adrift from working parties intent on a stupendous drunk, a mindless rut, with no thought for the morrow. Or long-term sailors with good records who'd been granted shore leave, but had been robbed or otherwise "delayed," who had a mind to rejoin, and were anxious to go back aboard. Hands didn't exactly join the national war effort, didn't sign up to fight "For King and Country"; they wanted to be aboard, and gave their primary loyalty to, specific ships and crews. Fellows from the same neighbourhood or village, the same shire, friends (or people they felt comfortable with). And the Impress Service was their clearinghouse.

Men who'd been put ashore sick or hurt into Greenwich Hospital, but had recovered, they were particularly vulnerable, for they owned pay certificates, or solid coin for once, and there were many jobbers and "sharks" who preyed upon them to buy up their certificates for a pittance, then turn them in at the Pay Office for full value. And get the released hospitallers drank, penniless and desperate. Desperate enough to fear returning to the Fleet, and sign aboard a merchantman or privateer.

So some of their raids were in the nature of rescue missions to reclaim those befuddled men before worse befell them; the Navy "getting its own back."

Tonight it was to be deserters, the genuine articles this time, not stragglers, and the "gang" was the round dozen of the toughest of hands. True deserters would face punishment, and would fight like a pack of badgers to stay free.

Their hideout was above an "all-nations," a dramshop serving a little bit of everything, at the back of a winding mews of dockyard warehouses. It was a mean and narrow building, dwarfed by the height of the warehouses, hard up against a blank brick wall which separated it from one of the worst "Bermudas" of Wapping, a slum so gruesome and crime-ridden, and its lanes and alleys so convoluted, that their escape from any threat would be assured, if they had warning.

"One door art th' back, sir," the crimp whispered in Lewrie's ear, his breath as foul as rotting kelp. "Winders'z bricked up, 'cept fer that'un ye c'n see. Winder Tax," he shrugged. "But I'd s'pect 'ey got 'em one jus' boarded over, 'bove th' wall, sir."

How Lilycrop, or Bridey, had talked the crimp into aiding them, Lewrie could not fathom. Crimps usually were in competition with the 'Press. The Navy had to use their own gangs, for locals stood a fair chance of being found beaten to a pulp, or dead, if they were spotted helping round up people for the Navy.

The old Mother Abbess, Lewrie decided, leaning away to escape the stench, must know where he buried the body! Took his clothes, too, no doubt; the crimp's body odour was, if anything, even more loathsome than his breath! He smelled like a corpse's armpit!

"Down to the end of the mews, bosun," Lewrie instructed, after giving it a long look. "Two hands atop the wall, either side of their bolt-hole window. You've placed two more at the back entrance?"

"Aye, sir. Snuck 'round a'hind th' warehouses."

"One to stop the front door, once we smash in."

"No need f r 'at, sir," the crimp muttered, producing a sack of tinny, clanking objects from within his greasy coat.

"You have a key?" Lewrie goggled.

"Manner o' speakin', like," the crimp chuckled softly, thumbing through a set of picks and tiny pry-levers, selecting them by feel in the dark, foggy gloom. "Best lock's on th' shop side, not th' stairs door. Been in afore, I has, an' nary a drap'd I get, th' knacky ol' whore-son!"

"Let's go, then," Lewrie murmured, changing his grip on his truncheon. They flattened themselves against the front of the warehouses, vague darker shadows in the night, in single file. Alan gave the dramshop another squint as they got closer. There was one door to the alley, offset to the left of the storefront, and the window, or bulkhead bay, that formed the majority of the narrow building's face, was tightly sealed by large barred shutters.

"I gets 'is lock t'op'm, sir…" the crimp informed him in a gay, professional afterthought, " 'Ey's a door t'th' right, 'at's th' shop. Pair-o'-stairs onna lef… that's y'r pigeon, sir. Up ye'll fly. I'll be waitin' backit th' corner. Ah, tha's me darlin'!" he wheezed as rusty tumblers clicked. A light thumb on the latch, and it was open. "Wait!" The crimp drew out a small flask of oil, and atomized the hinges of the door with as much loving care as a woman might, to apply her favourite, most alluring scent.

"On y'r own now, sir," the crimp bowed, and lightfooted his way to the far end of the alley, farthest from observation.

"We'll creep, far as we may, men," Lewrie ordered. "First sign of alarm, though, we go like blazes. Lanterns hooded, 'til I give the word. Right?"

They slunk into stygian blackness, feeling softly with toes for the first step of the riser, groping for a railing that was not there. And measuring the height of the subsequent steps, and their depth, one cautious tread at a time. Nine men, including Lewrie, his bosun and Cony, all trying to breathe, to climb as silently as possible; though to Alan's ears, they made as much noise as a like number of grunting, rasping hogs in that narrow, airless passage.

Lewrie held up one hand to warn his gang to pause for a moment, so he could listen. He thought he heard soft murmur-ings, a snatch of throaty laughter from above. Unfortunately, his men couldn't even see their hands in front of their own faces, much less his, so all he did was bunch them up to a chorus of grunts, subdued yelps of surprise, of awkward feet thunked on creaking boards, and the thud of truncheons on the peeling plaster walls.

"Hoy, wazzat?" came a cry from above.

"Go!" Lewrie screamed, almost on his hands and knees to grope upward quickly. "Lanterns! Go!"

There was a hint of light, so he could espy a tiny landing and an array of doors at the top of the steep stairs. One of them opened a crack, spilling more light, right ahead of him. Lewrie scrabbled to his feet and dove for the door, crashing into it before the people behind it could close and lock it. He stumbled through at waist level, avoiding the slash of a jack-knife above his head. Before the assailant could slash again, he was brought down by a truncheon smashing on his arm. The knife dropped from his numb fingers.

"In the King's name!" Lewrie howled, lunging at the startled young sailor on the cot before him. He used his truncheon like a pike to knock the breath from the lad, and curl him up like a singed worm around his bruised stomach, gasping for air.

There was more ruckus from the center room, as its denizens discovered that their escape route through the boarded-up window which let onto the stews was filled with press-gang hands.

"Jeez-Ms!" the bosun exclaimed with disgust. "Bloody…!"

"Got these, sir," Cony told him. "Christ!"

Lewrie turned about, taking his eyes off the younger sailor for a moment. His assailant was knelt on the floor, against the wall near a wardrobe. Cony and two more hands were already binding him in irons. Oh, he was a sailor, no doubt about it; tattooed and sun-baked, a ring in his ear in sign he'd survived a sinking sometime in his past. And as grizzled and stocky as a longtime bosun's mate. His clothes were sailors' "short clothing" and purser's slops-though the man was now bare-arsed nude, still sporting the remains of a prodigious cock-stand.

"Oh, bloody…" Lewrie muttered as he grasped the situation. He turned back to the younger sailor and ripped the filthy linen sheet away from him. He too was naked.

"Please, sir!" the lad whimpered, looking up with pleading in his large, doe-like eyes. Except for the usual ruddy sailor's tan, he was… pretty; pretty as some biddable young miss! "Please, sir!" he begged again, almost fluttering his lashes in hopes he could stir pity. "Warn' wot ya think, sir, I swears it! Warn' my fault, sir!"

"A Goddamned sodomite!" Lewrie almost gagged.

"Don' take me, sir… they'd flog me somethin' awful. They'd hang me, sir! I'm a good topman, sir, see… ain't never been flogged? Ain't been no trouble 'board ship, sir."

He reached out in supplication, tears rolling unashamedly down his face, and Lewrie flinched back from his touch, fended him off with the truncheon.

"Don' never mess 'board ship, sir," the young seaman began to blubber. "An' won' never 'appen agin, sir. Won' do h'it no more, I swears it. Fell in wif bad comp'ny, sir. Run outa money, an'… an' I needed money, sir. Drink an' bad companions, sir! Sir!"

"Irons here," Lewrie barked, snapping his fingers for his men.

"Oh, please mates, don' do h'it! I'll go back, swears I will. Ain't no trouble wif me messmates…!"

"Ain't no mate of yer'n, ya bugger," one of the gang growled as he advanced with a set of fetters. " 'Old still now… rrdssyl"

Lewrie stumped stiff-legged from the chamber, onto the landing, peeking into the other rooms for confirmation. He had not only stumbled onto a nest of deserters, he'd stepped right into a proper dungheap.

No wonder they'd run, he thought. Sodomy was one of the few of the thirty-six Articles of War, besides murder and mutiny, the Navy really did hang people for.

"Gawd, sir," his bosun spat, "ain't just deserters. This here be a boy-fucker's buttock-shop. Center room, sir… musta been seven 'r eight o' th'… things… t'gither when we busted in, as evil'z…anythin'! Not all of 'em seamen, though, Mister Lewrie. Dramshop owner, e'z one, too. Caught 'im in th' front room, we did. Had 'im a lad in 'ere no bigger'n me youngest boy Tommy, th' bastard. Two of 'em'z ship's boys. An' a coupla… gen'lmenl"

Lewrie took a look in the front room. It was much larger than the other two chambers, part bed-chamber and parlour, and quite well furnished compared to the rest. A chubby old reprobate sat unmanacled on the edge of the high bedstead, trying to cover part of his nudity by shrouding his groin with his hands, wide-eyed and high-browed, and striving to appear as sheepishly innocent as a dog might, caught licking the Sunday roast. But cowering up by the pile of pillows, weeping fit to bust, was a cherub of a boy, not over ten years old.

"That… suet-arse was buggering that boyV Lewrie demanded.

" 'Pears he wuz, sir. In bed with 'im, naked'z Adam, anyways."

"You misconstrue, sir," the harmless-looking old bugger began to explain, shaking his head as if it was a very tiny, silly mistake. "I can assure you, sir, you see-"

"Save it!" Lewrie snapped. 'Tell it to the magistrate." The man gasped, paling with dread. Hauled before a court on a charge of sodomy, he'd face hanging for his peculiar tastes. A public whipping, then days festering in the stocks on display as his most hopeful prospect; but subject to the taunts, fruit, stones and physical abuse of the Mob. And few survived that, either.

"Didn' cuff 'im yet, sir… bein' a civilian'n all," the bosun commented. The 'Press had been sued before for even laying hands on civilians, no matter how briefly. And the bosun was a cautious, and experienced, Impress man. "T'other bugger'z in 'ere, sir."

Alan stomped to the door of the center chamber. There he saw what he could only construe as the aftermath of a backgammoner's orgy. Cheap, low beds lined the walls, feather mattresses and blankets stood service for the carpet. The room reeked of spilled rum, gin, brandy and ale. Several candles guttered in the corners, so the participants might take pleasure in observing, between bouts. Even by that guttery light, Lewrie could pick out several seamen, and a pair of snot-nosed, shivering ship's boys, from the pasty-skinned, maggot-pale civilians.

One of the civilians-again, unfettered-had hurriedly dressed. His clothes were elegant and expensive-silks and satins, fine-cut figured velvet coat and breeches, expensive shoes, the accoutrements of a courtly salon slug. And a courtier's smug airs.

"I am a gentleman, sir," he began, with a sneer at discovering an officer to whom he could complain. "I am a civilian. I am not, nor have I ever been, a sailor, sir. Therefore you have no authority over me, and I insist you let me pass, at once!"

"But you are a bugger, ain't you?" Lewrie countered. "What if we just call for the 'Charlies' and hold you 'til a magistrate comes?"

"You would not dare, sir," the slim young courtier simpered. "No magistrate would sanction the 'Press in his domain, sir, even were he aware of your presence… which awareness I most sincerely doubt," the man shot back, sure of his ground. "Show me your warrant, sir, or confess that your actions this evening have no sanction."

Damme, Lewrie groaned; a bloody sea lawyer! And, no, we don't have a warrant to show. That's why we were successful tonight. Word couldn't get out, and the streets about weren't warned to expect us.

"I see" the slim aristocrat purred in triumph. "So it will be impossible for you to detain me, d'ye see. Nor summon any local authorities 'pon me. Nor hold me 'gainst my will. You alone have authority to detain, to lay hands upon me, sir, but your writ does not extend to your minions. And your bully-bucks have already laid hands upon me, striven to prevent me from dressing, or departing. That constitutes, of itself, a wrongful-taking… for which you, and you alone, are liable before a court of justice, sir." He was singsonging with glee.

Damme, he's well versed, too! Damn his eyes!

"And I feel it my obligation to caution you, sir, that I am from a most influential and powerful City family. With a circle of friends far more powerful than are yours, I'd expect, with legal assistance far beyond your miserable purse. You are in difficulties enough already. Detain me a moment longer, and whatever befalls you will be a greater measure of chastisement than ever you might imagine. Now let me pass, I say!"

He has me by the short hairs, Lewrie gloomed to himself; all he had said was true. He could be bound up in court for months. Oh, the Admiralty would pay his legal expenses, bail him out of debtors' prison if he lost the judgment, and if the fop demanded a huge settlement. But he'd be out thousands over the matter. And he couldn't risk losing every farthing he had.

"You speak for the others, too, I take it?" Lewrie found spirit enough to sneer in return.

"My dear sir, I care little for any but myself," the man confessed gaily. "These sailors are properly in your limited jurisdiction. They and the rest… well, it was dull sport, after all. I will take my manservant yonder, and depart. Should you have no objections?"

"Get out," Lewrie grumbled at last. "Get out, and be damned to you, you…!"

"Adieu," the elegant young bugger smirked, making a "leg" and sweeping his showy, egret-feathered hat across his breast. "Bonne nuit. Though not, you will understand… au revoir… n'est-ce pas?"

"Sufferin'…" Lewrie sighed, slamming his truncheon into his palm, over and over, as the courtier and his shivering "man" departed.

"Aye, 'at stinks, sir," the bosun muttered sourly. "Nothin' ye could do, else. Not with th' likes o' himl"

"He left one of 'em behind, at any rate," Lewrie observed, as he walked deeper into the orgy chamber to gaze down upon an unconscious form huddled hard up against a cot.

"Well, 'at'uncutupabitrough, 'e did, Mister Lewrie. Hadta bash 'im a good'un. Gawd! 'Ese pore tykes. Just babes, some of 'em. Wish we could go 'fore a magistrate. Local parish might take 'em in, set 'em right, 'fore they gets buggery in their blood."

"This parish?" Lewrie scoffed, still squirming over his defeat. "What could they do? Already Irish bogtrotter poor. Full of future victims. Can't have boy brothels in rich parishes. Like that sneerin' shit, just left? Prays the loudest in his family pew, I'd wager, and plays upright for all to see. Can't take his sort of pleasure in a good parish. But that's what the East End is for, ain't it?" And I should know, Lewrie shrugged in wry self-awareness. In my early days, I was all over the East End whores, Drury Lane to Cheapside. 'Least, they were girlsl And I paid well. Full value and more.

"What say we let 'ese litt'lest beggars go, Mister Lewrie?" the bosun almost begged. "Coupla cabin boys, 'eir sort'd not be missed f r long, no with s'many volunteers. We take 'em in, sir, all they get is caned, then discharged, anyways. T'other tykes, well…"

"Aye, bosun, turn 'em out," Lewrie decided, unable to look the quivering, fearful children in the eyes. "Tongue-lash before they go, though. Put some fear o' God in 'em. But we take the rest with us."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Lewrie went to the last, unconscious, civilian by the cot. He rolled him over with his foot, hoping for signs that he might yet be a seaman, subject to impressment. And his pitifully weak writ.

"Well, damme!" he gasped, as if butted in the solar plexus. It had been years! 1780, if it was a day! That last bitterly cold morning when the naval captain and his brute of a coxswain had come for him, in his father's house in St. James', to drag him off as an unwilling midshipman. There, lying at his feet in enforced "repose," was the bane of his adolescent life. Even with a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, a livid bruise on his cheek and blood matted in his lank, sweaty blond hair, the bastard appeared to be sneering, in truncheon-induced sleep! No, there was no mistaking the rail-thin, haughty, thoroughly despicable face of his half brother Gerald Willoughby. His backgammoning, windward-passage-preferring, butt-fucking sodomite Molly of a half brother.

"Oh, God… thankee, just!" Alan whispered with sudden glee-How many nights he'd swung in his hammock aboard Ariadne, his first ship, with silent tears of rage coursing his cheeks, wasting all that precious sleep with schemes of revenge on all who had connived to push him off, a hopeless, clueless victim, to sea.

His father, for Alan's inheritance he'd hoped to steal; their solicitor Pilchard, who'd forged and swindled in the cause; his icily beautiful half sister Belinda, who'd lured him to her bed so he could be discovered "raping" her; even the parish vicar who'd been duped into being witness to his alleged crime.

Most especially, this taunting, cruel, sneering, trouble-making, back-stabbing, lying, canting, sneaking, arrogant swine!

Lewrie's ardour had at last cooled, though he had relished news of them. By '86, off for the Bahamas, he'd almost put them out of mind. He did learn, though, that Pilchard had been arrested long before, for forgery, theft and huge debt; and if he hadn't done a "Newgate hornpipe" on the gallows, then he was a prime candidate for the first convoy to New South Wales, now England had once more a place for those doomed to be "transported for life."

Belinda… their mutual father'd robbed her and Gerald of their dead mother's inheritance, too; run through every penny, and hadn't got his hands on Alan's, so they'd been turned out, penniless. He'd heard she made her living on her back. He'd even seen her listed in the new gentleman's guide to Covent Garden whores… a high-priced courtesan, in the latest edition.

Gerald, well… they didn't publish guides for what he did. He had survived, after a fashion; toadying, fawning, conniving and scheming to ingratiate himself with every member of his peculiar "tribe" in London, to sponge off others' largesse, so he could still make a grand show about town in the latest fashion, in the best circles. As long as he allowed other men of his stripe to ride him.

Lewrie almost giggled as he took in how low Gerald had fallen in the years since he'd last heard of him. A stupendous comedown, if this establishment was the best he could afford to frequent. Or the meanest strait he'd been reduced to, as a market for his fading wares. Getting buggered for sixpence, instead of guineas.

There was a carefully folded pile of civilian long clothing he took to be Gerald's. Lewrie knelt to examine them. He still sported silk stockings, yes, but they were raveled above the knees and darned where they'd run. His shirt boasted a puffy lace jabot, but the rest, which the waist-coat would hide, was a faded, much-mended horror from a rag-picker's barrow. The seat of his pale blue velvet breeches was worn shiny, his once-elegant satin waistcoat had patches of bullion and silver embroidery missing. And his hat! Gerald had been rather keen on fashionable hats. Gerald's wine-coloured beaver was greasy with too much past sweat, table oils, hair dressing, and stained by overlong exposure to the elements.

Alan poked about until he found Gerald's carefully hidden purse, a worn-bare, figured-silk poke. It held a mere two shillings eleven pence. Prompted by past remembrance, he dug into a cracked shoe, delving into Gerald's favourite hidey-hole, and found… a single crown. And this was the top-lofty bastard who'd feared going out of an evening unless he could sport at least fifty pounds! He'd thought it ungentlemanly!

Lewrie stood up suddenly as the lank bastard groaned and rolled his head, exposing teeth grayed by the mercury cure for pox. He spun on his heel and fled the room, before Gerald awoke.

"Bosun," he called, trying to keep his rising malevolent grin in check. "Bosun Tatnall?" "Sir," that worthy grunted.

"Seems to me there's nought we may do to shut this horror down. Nothing official, that is, but…" Alan began, biting his cheek.

"Burn h'it t'th' groun', sir, that'd suit," Tatnall scowled. "Probably a dozen more like it in spitting distance. But, we could do some real good this night, even so," Lewrie went on. "Can't stay open without its owner, or its star performer up yonder," Lewrie joshed, almost elbowing the man in confidential camaraderie. "Do you not think that old tripes-and-trullibubs would make a fine volunteer, bosun? Once you convince him that joining's a sight better than being hanged for a bugger?"

"Oh, aye, sir!" Tatnall agreed heartily. "An' if th' bugger tries 'is ways 'board ship, they'll flay 'at maggoty flesh off n 'is bones! Cut a feller soft'z 'im like fresh cheese, 'ey would, sir!"

"Pity about that shop door below, too, bosun. When we left it, it was locked, but 'tis a rough location, after all. Pity some criminals from the stew broke in and drank him dry." "Oh, aye, sir!" Tatnall concurred again. "A hellish pity!" "I'll speak to that crimp of ours. He must have friends who'd savour a bottle or two," Lewrie snickered. "Take our deserters and the owner to the tender. I'll deal with our crimp, and catch you up later."

"I'll see to 'em, sir, never ya fear."

And I wonder if that crimp knows where a good tattoo artist may be found this time o' night, Lewrie wondered to himself, hellish happy with the evening's outcome, after all.

Bound and gagged, blindfolded, both muffled and disguised by a filthy sheet, Gerald Willoughby could but grunt, squeal and attempt to curse as the tattooist plied his skills at Bridey's knocking-shop. The old drab had bales of castoff slop-clothing to garb Gerald in, and the crimp delighted in his smart, newly exchanged gentleman's togs.

The tattooist did complain, though, as he laboured over Gerald's pale, hairless and shallow chest, as the whores hooted encouragement to him, at the poor state of his "canvas," at the boot-blacking he had to use; at the weak light and the watching crowd as he strove to complete his masterpiece.

It was rather good, though, considering how Gerald behaved, how violently he struggled against every quill prick, the liberal tots they poured down his maw. The rum won out. Towards the end, his thrashings abated, and he rambled gagged snatches of song, before his lights at last went out, and he began to snore.

And once he was thoroughly comatose, Lewrie, the chuckling crimp and their unwitting accomplice Will Cony, delivered Gerald Willoughby, Esquire, into the gentle ministrations of the Deptford district 'press tender. There to sleep off his monumental drunk-there to be sweetly wafted down-river to the Nore as an impressed sailor-there to awaken with a shriek of horror to a new Me and trade.

Lewrie was mortal certain Gerald no longer had a single influential or fashionable patron who might spring to his aid, so there could be no hope of rescue from without. And from within, Gerald, garbed in slop-clothing, and sporting an especially fine (though new) chest tattoo of a rope-fouled anchor, listed as taken by an Impress officer by the name of Brace-waight, could protest until his face turned blue that he wasn't a sailor, to no avail whatsoever. No, his only hope of escape would be to declare himself for what he was.

But, once 'pressed, he fell under the harsh strictures of the Articles of War, most especially Article the Twenty-Ninth:

If any person in the Fleet shall committ the unnatural and detestable Sin of Buggery or Sodomy with Man or Beast, he shall be punished with Death by the sentence of a Court Martial

Oh, it would be a fine and manly, though austere, life Gerald would be entering, Lewrie thought smugly. Wind, rain, the perils of the sea, foul food, rancid reeks, stern discipline, days aloft on the yards dependent on fickle footholds, the risks of battle. Flogging.

And the weeks and months spent cheek-to-jowl with hundreds of fit, healthy, lithe young men, cooped up on the gun decks, swaying in a narrow hammock, with not one whit of privacy-living as celibate an existence as so many damned monks!

Or else, of course.