CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

What am I doin' up here? Lewrie asked himself for the tenth time in five minutes as he steadied his most powerful telescope on the rat-lines of the upper shrouds in the main-mast fighting top. Swaddled in his furs, he was certain he resembled a shaggy cocoon wherein a larva slept, glued to a sturdy twig; it was certainly cold enough for him to adhere to any metal, did he grasp any without his woolen mittens.

Going aloft had never been one of his favourite activities, not since his first terrors as a Midshipman, who was naturally expected to spend half his waking hours in the rigging, chearly "yo-ho-hoing" and scrambling about with the agility of an ape. Damn his dignity, but he had eschewed the backwards-leaning final ascent of the futtock shrouds, and taken the lubber's hole, instead of clinging upside down like a fly on the overhead. All to take a gander at Kronstadt.

He didn't know quite what he'd expected when first learning his destination; Arctic glaciers and the entire Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland completely covered with vast sheets of ice several yards thick; littered with upwellings of ice like a boulder field, or a plain full of Celtic dolmens, a titanic Stonehenge.

But the fact of the matter was that the Baltic Sea was fairly open, boisterous and rolling, as much an ocean as the Atlantic or the North Sea, with the ice confined to still, protected waters, harbours, and short friezes along the beaches.

Thermopylaehad scouted quite close to Reval, within a league of the naval port and its breakwater batteries, two days before, and had spotted the Russian navy preparing for war. They had counted the number of line-of-battle ships and frigates still locked in the ice, seen how many already had their masts set up and yards crossed, and the smoke from forges, barracks, shipwrights' manufacturies, and what both Count Rybakov and Capt. Hardcastle had identified as the bakeries and smoke-houses where rations were being prepared.

Even more ominously, they had all seen the hundreds, thousands of peasant workers out on the ice sheets afoot, chopping and chipping a channel wide enough for two large warships abreast, seen and heard the explosions as kegs of gunpowder were used to blast the thickest of the ice-or at least blow deep-enough craters, which the men with axes and shovels could attack, after.

Now, here was the principal naval harbour of Russia's Baltic Fleet, not three miles away, and it was the same story. Every now and then, an explosion spurted a dirty cloud of powder smoke aloft, along with a shower of ice chips (sometimes a serf along with it) behind the breakwater mole, or in the roads near the harbour entrance, the sound coming seconds later as a soft pillow-thump, and a tremor in the sea that thrummed through the frigate's bones. But, just as at Reval, no one had tried a shot at them from those heavy 42-pounder cannon along the mole, or the harbour entrance bastions… no matter how infuriated the Russians might be by the sight of a British frigate, all flags flying, lying just beyond maximum range. It was uncanny, as if stiff final diplomatic letters declaring a state of belligerence had to be exchanged first. Or whenever the Russians could finally get those ships of the line to sea, sail West, and announce a state of war with their first broadsides.

Lewrie tugged a mitten off with his teeth, reached into a pocket of his furs for pencil and paper, and quickly made notes on all he could see, then steeled himself for the descent to the deck once more.

Why am I doin' this? he asked himself again as he went through the lubber's hole, with his booted heels fumbling for firm purchase on stiff, icy rat-lines.

"Many ships, sir?" Lt. Ballard enquired, once he was down.

"Rum, first," Lewrie demanded. "Nigh-boilin', if God's just. Settle for tea or coffee, 'long as it's hot!" His teeth chattered and his words slurred from the stiffness of his jaws.

"Ah, that's better… thankee, Pettus," he said after a welcome swig of coffee from the ever-present black iron kettle. "The Russians' main fleet is back at Reval, Mister Ballard," he said, reading from his notes. "Here, I saw two un-rigged 'liners'… Third Rates, I make 'em. But there's nine frigates with their masts and yards set up, and what looks t'be five or six bombs, along with God knows how many floating batteries for harbour defence… useless at sea. Oh, there's several more Third Rates and larger in the graving docks, or on the stocks under construction… or would be, if it weren't so bloody cold… but the real threat's back West of here."

"They are chopping and blasting lanes through the ice here, as well, sir," Lt. Ballard commented with a faint grunt of puzzlement and a frown. "Even though there is not much to get out to combine with the Reval ships? Odd."

"They most-like want those frigates out," Lewrie decided aloud, gulping down more hot coffee. "I would."

In Reval, they'd seen twelve Third Rate 74s, three 100-gunned vessels of the Second Rate, and one huge First Rate, which the Naval List had named the Blagodat, of 130 guns. There were also three more warships slightly smaller than Third Rates, more of the sort of vessel employed by Baltic powers and the Dutch, which might mount anywhere from sixty to seventy guns. Still, mercifully iced in so solidly that horse-drawn sledges and working-parties on foot had done the ferrying and stowing instead of barges, sheer hulks, and hoys.

"Not as dire as I thought, Arthur," Lewrie said with a relieved smile, and a quick glance upward to where he had clung in shuddery terror. He looked back just quick enough to see Lt. Ballard wince at the use of his Christian name, and purse his lips in distaste.

What is his problem? Lewrie thought, vexed, and that, too, was for the hundredth time, this voyage. He keeps that up, I'll start considerin' him in the 'hate Lewrie' club.

"Mister Lyle, sir," Lewrie said, turning away to consult with the Sailing Master. "Where might we land our 'live lumber' best?"

Soon be rid of 'em! Lewrie exulted inside; Thankee, Jesus!

"Well, it appears there's less than a half-mile to a quarter-mile of ice off the shores hereabouts, sir," Mr. Lyle opined as he and Lewrie bent over the smaller-scale chart of the Kronstadt and St. Petersburg approaches. "We could row them to the edge, have them send for a coach."

"Too close to Kronstadt," Lewrie objected, "and we've trailed our colours to ' em already. I expect their army's astir like an anthill. Uhm… what about here, on the north shore? This little port town of… Sestroretsk? I doubt it's ten miles from Saint Petersburg, by road," he said, pinching fingers together against the distance scale of the chart, and placing them against the map. "There's even a road from there to the capital… and if Peter the Great left anything behind, it's probably a good'un, too. Mister Ballard?"

"Sir?"

"Get us underway, course Nor'east, for this piddlin' wee town here on the chart," Lewrie ordered. "We'll land our diplomats there, and be shot of 'em."

Lewrie went below to his great-cabins and found that his guests had already packed up their essentials, and looked eager to leave his company, as well. Off Reval, Lewrie had considered dropping them off at another wee place on the coast called Paldiski, but Count Rybakov (damn his genial, urbane soul!) had demurred, saying that it would be more than a week before they could reach St. Petersburg by troika and that he must seek out someplace closer.

"Ah, Kapitan!" Count Rybakov exclaimed upon seeing him, "There is good news? You have chosen a place to land us?"

"Sestroretsk, cross the bay on the north shore, my lord," Lewrie told him, stripping his furs off for a while. They stank like badgers, and had begun to itch him something sinful. "Far away from any of your country's forts or garrisons, but within mere miles of your destination."

"I know of it, and the road to Saint Petersburg is quite good, even by troika" Rybakov replied, as pleased as if Lewrie had presented him with King George's keys to the Tower of London, and all of its treasures. "No wolves, either, ha ha!" he laughed, snapping fingers in glee. "We are within hours of home, Anatoli. Is it not splendid?"

"At last," Count Levotchkin agreed, with the first sign of any real enthusiasm he'd evinced since first coming aboard. He'd dressed for the occasion in a new bottle-green suit, top-boots, and a striped yellow waist-coat and amber-gold neck-stock. And, for the first time since he'd come aboard Thermopylae, he even looked sober!

"We must express our gratitude to Kapitan Lewrie for our swift, and safe, passage, Anatoli," Count Rybakov insisted, looking round the great-cabins at their separate piles of luggage and chests, over which their manservants, Fyodor and Sasha, still fussed. There were three piles, Lewrie noticed, the third the largest by far, and mostly made up of crates and middling-sized kegs. "We bought far too much before sailing, Kapitan Lewrie… what is the sense of taking vodka or Russian brandy ashore with us? Like how you Angliski say, 'carrying coals to Newcastle,' ha ha?" the nobleman chortled most cheerfully. "Caviar, pickled delicacies… all so available in Saint Petersburg, and for much less. We leave it to you as our gift, Kapitan," he said with his arms wide, and a smile on his phyz worthy of a doting papa, "in recognition of the great service you do us, in the cause of peace for all our peoples."

"Well, don't know as I can rightly…," Lewrie began to object, wondering how many jots and tittles in the Articles of War he would be violating did he accept; charging passage aboard a King's ship? Taking a bribe for services rendered? Breaking bulk cargo for his own use? Extortion? What could an attorney make o' that? he wondered.

"Do we take it with us, Kapitan, it would take hours longer to unload and row ashore," Count Rybakov reminded him, "putting you and your ship in greater danger. Really, we insist, don't we, Anatoli?"

"It is as Count Rybakov says, Kapitan," Count Levotchkin seconded, sporting a smile upon his phyz which put Lewrie in mind of the expression "shit-eating." "It is a small expression of gratitude."

"Well, if ye won't land it, and won't take it with you…," Lewrie said at last, "then I accept, though it's hardly necessary."

"Then it is settled," Count Rybakov cheered, beaming.

It was mid-afternoon by the time HMS Thermopylae came to anchor off the small coastal town of Sestroretsk. The small harbour inlet was iced up solidly, of course, its larger fishing boats locked immobile, its smaller rowboats drawn up on the shingle, upside down, for the winter, and the floating stages of its pier resting on the ice. Off the beach and solid ground, there was at least two hundred yards of dingy white ice; the depth in which Thermopylae could swim restricted her to lay off another quarter-mile.

All three ship's boats were hoisted off the tiers and overside-the cutter, launch, and captain's gig-then manned with a Midshipman and six or eight oarsmen apiece, as the main course yard dipped, swung, and deposited stout rope nets of dunnage into the two larger boats. The gig was sent ashore immediately, right to the edge of the ice floe, with Count Rybakov's servant, Fyodor, and Capt. Hardcastle, who was the only other man aboard somewhat fluent in Russian, to arrange for transport, carriage and dray waggons, or sledges. The gig could not reach the pier, of course, and spent many minutes at the outermost edge of the ice, with two men in the bows using a boarding axe and a gaff pole to smash through the thinnest, rottenest parts 'til the boat could go no further, and there was enough thickness for a man to trust his life upon it. Lewrie watched Fyodor and Capt. Hardcastle gingerly step out of the gig and tap their way shoreward, pace by wary pace, pausing to see if the ice would hold their weight, and listening to the ominous creaks, groans, and crackles, most-likely.

Lewrie lifted his telescope to scan the town. Sestroretsk looked sleepy, filthy, and smoke-shrouded from its many chimneys. It was a place mostly of wood construction, half the residences made of logs, with shake-shingled steep rooves. Its one church looked more like a barn, with the grain silo replaced by a bell tower on one end, and an onion-domed second tower at the other, the dome, and its odd-shaped cross, the only spot of real colour in town. Evidently, Lewrie imagined, paint was at a premium in Russia. Tall drifts of snow lay hard against every building, driven by the prevailing winds, or their last blizzard. And the people…! There were only a few civilians about who sported European-style suits or dresses; the bulk of them wore an assortment of shapkas or ushankas with huge ear-flaps, tall felt boots, (men and women, both) and extremely baggy pantaloons or pyjammy trousers… all smothered, of course, in rough hide coats lined with wool piling, mangy furs, or blankets and quilts for extra warmth. And, to Lewrie's continuing edginess, most of them stood gazing dull-eyed at the strange, foreign frigate, as if they were so many cattle or sheep with about as much curiosity!

"It is a great pity that what little you see of my country is a poor village," Count Rybakov said from Lewrie's side, come up to the quarterdeck unbidden amid all the shifting of cargo. "Our great Tsar Peter changed us in one generation from an Asian country to a European nation, and blessed Ekaterina… Catherine… contributed more to awakening us from barbarism to civilisation, but… so much remains to be done before we truly become as neat and pastoral as your rural shires, Kapitan Lewrie. As well ordered as villages in France, or our cities as impressive as London, Paris… or even Dover or Yarmouth!

"But we are patient," Rybakov mused, "and those things will come, in time. As long as we do not spend our blood and treasure on useless wars, yes? Ha! Look at it. So close to Saint Petersburg, yet no one tries to make it even a 'Potemkin village'! What a hovel!"

"Potemkin…?" Lewrie asked.

"One of Catherine the Great's court… one of her lovers, in fact," Rybakov admitted with a worldly-wise shrug. "Whenever she wished to travel to see her people, by river or by coach, Potemkin made sure that good roads were laid out, if only a single day of travel before the Tsarina's entourage. Villages on the routes were re-made and painted just for her passing… She always stayed overnight with great landowners at their country mansions, or palaces, you see. If Great Catherine went by river, Potemkin erected false villages, just the faзades, back from the banks as her ship went by. We Russians… we are very capable of deluding ourselves, ha! To seem, but not quite to be."

Expect yer vodka helps ye, there, Lewrie smugly thought.

"Ah! Fyodor has reached the pier, at last!" Count Rybakov exclaimed, clapping gloved hands in glee. "And I believe I see horses and carriages at the inn… carriages and sledges, in their stables. Atleetchna! Excellent!"

"If the ice will bear the weight of horses and waggons, and if they can get up and down off the ice, ashore, aye," Lewrie said, wary of risking his ship's people at the thinnest, rottenest edge of that ice sheet to unload the boats and bear the cargo to the sledges.

"We shorten the trip, Kapitan," Count Rybakov assured him with an easy, wry grin. "After all, there are many peasants there, and for twenty kopeks each… perhaps five pence in your money… they will chop and saw a way for your boats to ice which will bear the weight. It is winter! They have nothing better to do. Fyodor has more than enough coin to arrange this, I saw to it."

Indeed, after a long palaver, perhaps a harangue from Fyodor, villagers came flooding off the shore, down the stairs to the landing stages, with axes and saws, and came out to the edge of the ice where the gig waited to begin their labours. Ashore, three sledges emerged from the stables on their runners, and horses were put into harness to pull them.

"Let's get the launch and cutter under way, Mister Ballard," Lewrie ordered. "Pass word for the gig to return, and stand ready to bear our passengers ashore, once the sleds are loaded. And warn the lookouts aloft to keep their eyes peeled for any sight of infantry or cavalry on the road."

Sestroretsk might look isolated and without a garrison of its own, but it was damned close to St. Petersburg, and God only knew how many regiments. It was surrounded by scrubby, winter-fallow fields, and a massive swath of pine forest, in which a brigade could lurk.

The serf labourers made quick work of cutting an inlet through the ice sheet, wide enough for a royal barge, and about thirty yards or so deep. Their breath steamed in the frigid air, but they grinned and stamped their booted feet and pounded or jabbed their tools on the ice to show that it was safe. Sure enough, by the time the first boat poled its way into the tiny man-made inlet, the first sledge was there, about fifteen yards back from the new edge, and the serf labourers, in a flurry of arms and legs and strong backs, toted the cargo from boat to troika as quickly as Thermopylae's people could manhandle it out.

"Russia has so many strong backs and hands, Kapitan Lewrie," Count Rybakov told him as the last of his light luggage was fetched to the gangway and entry-port by two sailors. "Millions of them. That is why no one will ever begin a war with us. It may not be modern, nor is brute strength and numbers elegant, but… it will suffice."

"I s'pose, my lord," Lewrie pretended to agree, though thinking of what a modern army with muskets and artillery could do to medieval peasant levies, poorly trained and led. Or, what the British Navy could do to what he'd seen so far of Russia's best, at sea.

"Almost… almost," Count Levotchkin muttered to himself with rising anticipation as he joined them by the entry-port. "Pachtee vryemya, Sasha. Pachtee vryemya, da?"*

"Da," his hulking manservant grunted back.

"Side-party to assemble for departing honours, Mister Ballard," Lewrie ordered. Thermopylae was at Quarters, with at least half the guns of the larboard battery, which faced the shore, and half of the starboard battery facing the sea, manned and ready. Marines were in full kit, and under arms, and all officers but Lewrie wore swords on their left hips. "And, there's the last of the second boat's cargo on the sledges, at last!" he exulted.

"I say dosveedanya, Kapitan Lewrie," Count Rybakov said offering his bared hand for a departing shake, "That is 'good-bye.' Adieu, and may God keep His eyes upon you, and grant you and your ship a safe and swift passage back to England. It is a grand thing you do for our countries, might I even say a holy thing, to keep peace between Russia and England!"

Before Lewrie could do a thing about it, Count Rybakov clasped his arms round him, bussed him on both cheeks, and danced Lewrie about the deck, jostling him like a child, with his boots in the air!

"Well, now, my lord… uhm!" Lewrie spluttered, to the amusement of his watching crew. Rybakov at last set him back down.

"A safe journey… short though it may be to Saint Petersburg, yourself, my lord," Lewrie offered, after he'd gotten most of his dignity back, and his hat re-settled on his head.

"Well, then… it is time," Count Rybakov said in conclusion as he stepped to the lip of the entry-port and looked down at the gig waiting at the bottom of the boarding-battens, and the main channels.

"Ship's comp'ny, off hats, and… salute!" Lt. Ballard barked in his surprisingly deep, carrying voice, doffing his own cocked hat by example, as the Marines stamped their boots and presented muskets, and the Bosun, Mr. Dimmock, and his Mate, Mr. Pulley, piped a departing call. The count turned inwards, back to the sea, and seized hold of the man-ropes to begin his cautious descent. Once Rybakov's hat was below the lip of the entry-port, Count Levotchkin went to the edge and turned to face inboard as the call continued, and the crew stood to attention, doffing their flat, tarred hats.

"Dosveedanya, Kapitan," Levotchkin said, giving Lewrie a final, mocking sneer, as pleased with himself, it seemed, as a cat who lapped the cream. "Enjoy your journey," Count Levotchkin added, his blue eyes alight.

What's he mean by that? Lewrie asked himself as he stood there, doffing his own hat. (though abhoring the required honour) and caught a faint shift in Levotchkin's gaze; over his shoulder at something.

"Seechas, Sasha!" Levotchkin snapped, his face going feral just as he began a spry descent down the frigate's side.

Seechas… "now"? Now, what? Lewrie wondered as he recognised the word, feeling an odd prickle up his spine that forced him to begin to turn to look behind him.

"Bloody Hell!" Marine Lt. Eades cried, the first, loudest voice of alarm, as the Bosuns' calls squealed to a sudden stop.

Midshipman Tillyard grasped Lewrie's left arm and pulled hard, sending him stumbling towards the nearest Marine private by the entry-port, who didn't try to catch his captain, but was busy bringing his musket down from Present Arms to Poise, lowering the muzzle in rough aim behind Lewrie. It was a second Marine who caught him before he stumbled through the open entry-port, to fall overside and drown, for, like most British tars, Lewrie could not swim.

"Ya bastard!" Lt. Eades snarled, swinging with his already drawn sword, from ceremony to combat, making somebody howl.

Sasha, the shave-pated burly manservant, was grasping his hand and roaring with both sudden pain and frustration. The dagger he had whipped out of his left overcoat sleeve was falling from his grip, its hilt bloodied from his thumb, half-severed by Lt. Eades's blade.

"Murder!" someone shouted in the din.

Not done yet, Sasha let out another bull-roar and shouldered his way forward, towards Lewrie, half-knocking Midshipman Tillyard off his feet, and taking hold of the young man's half-drawn dirk with his good hand!

"Weapon!" Lewrie demanded of the Marine who'd kept him from going overboard, ripping the Brown Bess musket from the fellow's shocked and nerveless grasp. It wasn't loaded, but the bayonet was fitted.

Marine Sgt. Crick and the first private met Sasha first, with readied bayonets, Sgt. Crick getting his blade in, though Sasha's pile-lined hide coat blunted Crick's thrust. Lt. Eades slashed at his back, but the coat acted like armour. It was the Marine private who jabbed at Sasha's eyes, then reversed his musket and delivered a forehead smash that finally brought the brute down to his knees, swinging wildly with Tillyard's dirk, and still trying to rise and finish his master's orders! Lt. Eades's next slash connected alongside the Russian's bald head, clipping off the top of his right ear, followed by a brass-bound musket butt right in the teeth from Sgt. Crick that sprawled Sasha on his back, spitting teeth and blood, half senseless, so he could be dis-armed.

"Get up, you son of a bitch!" Lewrie snarled, edging round inboard of the entry-port. He lowered the musket to level the bayonet at Sasha's chest as he groggily got back to his knees, half-crawling to face Lewrie, as if only death would dissuade him. "Sasha failed, Levotchkin!" Lewrie shouted to the boat alongside. "He let you down! Are you man enough t'come back up here and do your own dirty-work? Or are ye the same drunken butt-fucker ye were in London?"

Hmmm… bet that needs some explainin', Lewrie thought, hearing the buzz of confusion among his ship's people.

"Ye just couldn't use a fetchin' whore like Tess the right way, could ye, Levotchkin?" Lewrie taunted. "Your sort likes t'terrify 'em, and make it hurt. Make it vile! What, ye get your first practice on sheep, or pigs, Levotchkin? Ye prefer the 'windward passage'?"

In the gig below, Count Levotchkin howled in rage, cursing back in Russian, French, and English so rapidly and heatedly that only a few choicer words could be made out.

"Get on your feet, ye murderin' scum," Lewrie urged Sasha with the glittering point of the bayonet.

"Put 'im in irons, sir?" Marine Sgt. Crick asked, bristling.

"No, not yet," Lewrie said. "I've something else in mind. Hoy! Levotchkin!" he shouted overside again. "Tess told me she damned near puked her guts out, ev'ry time ye showed up at the brothel. She hated ev'rything about you! Ye frightened her. Said for all she got out of it, ye might as well've stuck your puny prick down the neck of a wine bottle, all the way cross the room from her! So disgusted by ye, she couldn't even feign it with you. Come up here and face me, ye little poltroon!"

"Oh Lord, sir, you'll not…," Lt. Ballard exclaimed, sounding primly appalled. "Not again. It isn't…"

"I said, get on your feet, you… ya idysodar charochko,"* he spat at Sasha, jerking the bayonet tip upwards.

There was another strangled cry from the gig, and a hissing argument 'twixt Rybakov and Levotchkin, along with threats from Lewrie's Cox'n, Liam Desmond, and Stroke Oar, his mate Patrick Furfy. Whether to sit where he was, or be a man and scale the ship's side to face the consequences, it was hard to tell in all the shouting.

Sasha shook his head to clear it, spitting a couple more teeth and blood, swiping his rough hide coat sleeve to clear his eyes from his freely bleeding head wound, and managed to stagger and sway to his feet, still defiant, with an arrogant, pugnacious sneer on his face, breathing heavily through his nose like a bull in a Spanish fighting arena, still game to charge the cape.

"Sir, you cannot intend to simply kill him!" Lt. Ballard protested. "It's not within our jurisdiction, not-"

"Just rid the ship of trash, Mister Ballard," Lewrie flippantly said with a shrug of his shoulders, though his eyes, usually a merry blue, had gone as grey and cold as ice. He took a step forward, with the bayonet levelled at Sasha's chest. "Not coming, Levotchkin?" he shouted. He stamped forward another pace driving Sasha backwards.

"Mister Rybakov won't let 'im, sor!" Cox'n Desmond shouted back. "We're t'hold 'im, 'fore ye kill 'im, sure, says he!"

"And so I would, were he man enough," Lewrie loudly responded. "After all, he's the one who's been talkin' so long about challengin' me to a duel… for his own putrid honour. But too much a coward to face me, direct, Had t'sic his pet dog on me, instead. Hoy, Anatoli! Tess liked bein' with me! Wanted t'be under my protection, in a wee place of her own, and never see or hear of you again!"

Lewrie stamped forward once more, jabbing with the bayonet, and making Sasha back up towards the entry-port.

"Well, if ye won't come up and pay the piper, ye spineless, backgammoning little souse, I s'pose ye won't," Lewrie shouted a final time, looking disappointed. "I'll send your brute back to ya."

Sasha understood some English, and a smattering of proper laws. The Angliski Kapitan would rid the ship of trash? That irked, but he was surrounded by levelled, bayonet-tipped muskets, and officers with drawn swords, and could only swallow his rage at being bested. Someday he would have a second chance. He sends him back to Count Anatoli, as well? Because what the other Angliski officer said, that they did not have the legal right? His shattered mouth would heal, the cut on his head would heal, to match the other scars on his body. It was good!

"Get off my ship, Sasha," Lewrie growled, jabbing the bayonet at the man's eyes, and swiping that smug look from his face at last, and putting anger and caution in its place. Lewrie forced him to the very lip of the entry-port, facing inwards as the others had done their descents. Sasha's hands groped back behind him for the edge of the opened bulwark, fumbling on the cap-rails in search of the upper knots of the man-ropes. "I said… get off my ship!"

Stamp forward with the left foot, reversing the musket to smash the brass butt plate into Sasha's broad nose, making him "spout claret" in a fresh, red stream, and go cross-eyed!

Before his hands could get a grip on the man-ropes, the stout rope stays of the main-mast shrouds, or the bulwarks, Sasha teetered on the lip of the entry-port, arms flailing backwards in circles for balance, one foot behind him hoping for something solid that was not there. He over-balanced and went over the side backwards, roaring like a bear that had lost its grip in a tall tree, and was crashing to earth through the branches. Head and shoulders down, boot heels brushing the hull, there was a meaty thud, then a great splash as Sasha hit the gig, then the icy sea.

"Yob tvoyemat!" Count Levotchkin shrieked.

"Oh, my Lord!" Lt. Eades croaked as he and many others dashed to the bulwarks to peer over. Lewrie took out his pocket handkerchief and swung the Marine's musket barrel-down. He dipped the handkerchief into a gun-tub of slushy, half-iced-over water, and thorougly cleaned Sasha's blood from the butt-plate and buttstock, then went to the Marine from who'd he'd taken it, and handed it back.

"Thankee for the loan, Private… Leggett, is it?" he said in much calmer takings, almost as casually as if he'd merely taken it to inspect it, and had found no fault.

"Uh, aye sir… Leggett, sir," the stunned Marine stammered. "Uhm… thankee fer cleanin' it, sir."

"Get him! There he is! Haul him in! Quick, there!" a babble of voices cried instructions and encouragements, to which Lewrie paid no heed as he rinsed his handkerchief in the frigid water butt. Once somewhat clean and wrung out, Lewrie looked up to see Lt. Ballard goggling at him, deeply frowning.

"What, Mister Ballard?" Lewrie asked. "The son of a bitch tried t'murder me, at his lily-livered master's orders. You've a problem with that?"

"Where might one begin, sir?" Arthur Ballard gravelled, almost too disgusted to speak, his normally placid features a'twist in a grimace, and untypical emotion in his voice; as if he gazed upon a rotting pile of entrails and offal, aswarm with fat flies. "It was murder on your part, sir, and I-"

"Arthur, he had it coming," Lewrie pointed out.

"Do not presume to… excuse me, sir," Ballard said, choking back whatever objections he had before he became openly insubordinate to a senior officer. His face turned stony, his eyes indifferent and hooded. "I'll say no more for now, Captain Lewrie," he said, turning away to return to the quarterdeck from the gangway.

"Bastard's a goner, sir," Lt. Farley came back from the bulwarks to report, with a hasty doff of his hat. "Bashed his head in when he struck the stempost of the gig, then went under. Drowned, it appears, sir. That, or the ice-cold water finished his business. Serves him right, might I say, sir. God only knows what treachery foreigners are capable of!"

"Get your dirk back, Mister Tillyard?" Lewrie enquired, looking about the deck to his saviours. "Stout lad, and quick thinkin', t'tug me out of his reach. Thankee."

"My pleasure, sir," Midshipman Tillyard said, trying to come over all modest, as befitted British heroes.

"Lieutenant Eades, sir… my commendations to Private Leggett, Sergeant Crick, and Private… him, there," Lewrie continued with his praise. "Private Degan? Aye, and your quick actions sir. Lopped off his thumb, was it?"

"Aye, sir," Lt. Eades replied, more prone to preening than Tillyard, and all but buffing his fingernails on his red coat. "Fellow was perspiring, as cold as it is. I should have twigged to that, but put it down to his efforts to carry the last of our passengers' dunnage."

"No matter, Lieutenant Eades… you did for him," Lewrie said with a grin. "Thankee. Mister Ballard?"

"Sir?" the First Officer replied from the quarterdeck, turning to face Lewrie with his hands behind his back.

"Soon as the gig's back alongside, we'll rig the boats for towing astern," Lewrie instructed. "We've spent enough time close ashore what might soon become a hostile country. Once everyone is inboard, haul us in to short stays and get the ship under way. I wish us t'be as far west of Kronstadt as possible by the end of the First Dog."

"Very good, sir," Lt. Ballard crisply replied, as though nought had passed between them.

Lewrie went to the shoreward bulwark to watch the gig pull for the town. Count Rybakov sat sullen and slumped on a thwart, looking deeply sad. Count Levotchkin sat on another, with Sasha's soggy body resting against his shins, and could have been weeping with his failure.

Wish it'd been him, not his man, Lewrie thought, feeling that the affair twixt him and that young fool would have to be finished, sometime in the future. Without Count Rybakov around the next time, or someone else as level-headed, and there would be no stopping that arrogant shit.

Lewrie raised his gaze. It was rapidly growing dark, as it did in such high latitudes; not even Five Bells of the Day Watch, and dusk was gathering, and with it, the cold and the wind. A wind from out of the Nor'east, a flesh-freezing wind from the North Pole, it felt like. An icy wind that perfectly matched Captain Lewrie's mood.

"Well, that was an exciting hour or so," Lt. Farley muttered as he and the other officers conferred forward of the binnacle cabinet as Thermopylae sprinted Westward from the Gulf of Finland in the darkness. Lt. Farley was about to conclude his stint of watch-standing, and his good friend Lt. Fox was about to take over at the end of the Second Dog Watch. Lt. Eades was there, as well, for one of the gifts Count Rybakov had left behind was several boxes of cigars, which the Captain had passed on to the gun-room; though they couldn't smoke them below.

"Wonder who this Tess they spoke of is?" Lt. Fox said with a roll of his eyes. "A cut above your run-of-the-mill seaport doxy, I'm bound. One might say she comes highly recommended, what? A Russian aristocrat… and the Captain, hmm?"

"Is he not married, though?" Lt. Farley pointed out.

"When did that ever stop a fellow?" Lt. Fox chuckled back.

"Now you are being crude, sir," Lt. Ballard, standing with them, cautioned.

"One may only hope, Mister Ballard," the irrepressible Lt. Fox rejoined.

"To be crude, sir?" Ballard snapped.

"To wangle an introduction, sir," Fox cheekily explained.

"My word, but so far, this voyage has been bags more exciting than the whole past year, entire, under poor old Captain Speaks," Lt. Farley said, changing the subject to something less risky.

"Just going to say," Lt. Fox was quick to agree, puffing happily on his cigar.

"Uncanny, this," the Sailing Master, Mr. Lyle, said by way of greeting, after a peek at the compass, and a report from the chip-log aft. "She's clapping on seven and a half knots, even under reduced sail. By dawn, we should be well West of Reval, and exiting the Gulf of Finland. May we imagine that the Captain's seals whistled up this fortunate wind for us, gentlemen? For I cannot think of a better, and at just the right time, too."

"Uncanny, indeed, Mister Lyle," Marine Lieutenant Eades agreed. "So many things about this voyage have been."

"Just saying…," Lt. Farley stuck in.

"Quick thinking, sir," Lyle said to Eades. "Thought you'd hack that Russian in half, for a moment."

"Not for want of trying, Mister Lyle," Lt. Eades was happy to explain, again. "That hide coat of his, though… might as well have been plate steel, like knights of old, else I would've laid his backbone open."

"All over a whore," Mr. Lyle sourly commented, "Well… " Lyle slyly added, quickly glancing between his fellow officers.

"I believe Captain Lewrie's name of 'Ram-Cat' in the Fleet is not for his choice of pets, alone, hmm?"

"Must be hellish-fetching!" Lt. Fox most wistfully said.

"Ahem!" from the brooding Lt. Ballard. "Your pardons, Mister Ballard," Lyle said, "but I was merely speculating that our new Captain is a man of many parts."

"Just so, Mister Lyle," Lt. Farley chimed in.

"A man of many parts, indeed." Lt. Arthur Ballard coughed into his mittened fist, and cleared his throat in a pointed way, to silence further speculations. Discussing rumours about senior officers was simply not done, not even in the privacy of the gun-room, for it led to insubordination and undermined a commanding officer's authority, dignity, and proper discipline.

"You served under him before, Mister Ballard?" Lyle continued, undaunted. "I thought you said you had. Dear God above, has he always been so… bold?"

That was a safer word than the one Lyle had first composed.

"Gentlemen," Ballard said in the darkness, turned away from the dim illumination in the compass binnacle, so they did not see how his face clouded. "I will say this and no more, and let there be an end to such." He paused for a long moment, carefully choosing his words, so he would not be guilty of the same violation. "Captain Lewrie has ever had a… mercurial streak. You, sirs, have no idea of how many parts is Captain Lewrie made."

*P B Q ›*= almost time.

*ya idysodar charochko = (roughly) you son of a whore mother.

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