The King's Commission by Dewey Lambdin

last year. Matter of fact, I was hoping you would still be here.”
    â€œThank you, sir,” Alan replied evenly.
    â€œNo no, don’t thank me, Lewrie.” Kenyon laughed curtly. “There was always the chance I would not catch up with you, if you had been behaving to your normal standards, and had been dismissed from the Service for licentiousness or another act of disobedience.”
    â€œStill prospering, sir,” Alan told him, knowing exactly where he stood now, and determined to ride it out with as much dumb civility as the lowest ordinary seaman.
    â€œThe Devil’s spawn usually do, I fear,” Kenyon said. “I see you still have the hanger I gave you. Cut anybody lately?”

    â€œJust that one duel, sir, and that over a young lady.”
    â€œWhat right have you to wear it ’stead of a midshipman’s dirk?”
    â€œI am a master’s mate, sir, confirmed back in December.”
    â€œIndeed?” Kenyon pondered that for a time. “Yes, I’d heard some talk of you being brave and efficient. But we know better about you, do we not, Mister Lewrie? What sort of a sham whip-jack you really are.”
    â€œExcuse me, sir, far be it from me to advise my seniors, but the captain is probably expecting you to see him,” Alan suggested softly.
    â€œOh, how droll, how politic of you,” Kenyon sneered. “And how unlike you to find this sudden modesty about advising, or disobeying your seniors, as you put it. You were quick enough to disobey Mister Claghorne, weren’t you.”
    â€œDamme, sir, I saved our ship!” Alan insisted.
    â€œBut at what price, Mister Lewrie?” Kenyon hissed. “Claghorne’s authority, my honor, the honor of the Royal Navy? I shall attend our captain, but then I’ll be wanting to talk with you further on this matter. Don’t leave the quarterdeck.”
    â€œAye aye, sir.”
    â€œClaghorne is dead, you know,” Kenyon said over his shoulder.
    So bloody what? Alan thought as Kenyon left.
    â€œOld friend, Mister Lewrie?” Sedge asked after the first officer had gone aft to present himself.
    â€œAh, he was master and commander of Parrot, my previous ship,” Alan replied, feeling weak in the knees. “And second officer of Ariadne back in ’80, sir.”
    â€œWhat, that old receiving hulk in the inner harbor?” Sedge said. “You were in her when she was condemned?”
    â€œMy first ship, sir,” Alan informed him.
    â€œWell, what sort is he, then?”
    â€œKenyon’s a taut hand, very professional,” Alan went on, putting on a grin and an air of old comradeship that he most definitely did not feel. “You’ll find him a fair man, sir.”
    Unless he hates the fucking sight of you, Alan qualified to himself. Then he’ll be a raving bastard.
    â€œWas he much of a flogger?”
    â€œNo, sir, and neither was our old Captain Bales.”
    â€œAll’s right, then,” Sedge sniffed in his Jonathon twang and paced away to his own concerns, satisfied that Desperate would be getting a first lieutenant much like her new captain in spirit,
and that there would be no unreasonableness to upset his new rating.
    Fuck it is, Alan thought, and wondered why these things had to happen to him so continually. First Kenyon’s animosity after Parrot, then that bloody duel with that sneering fop of an Army lieutenant. In Desperate he could do nothing right in Treghues’ eyes, but had almost won the man over when up pops Sir George Sinclair and his flag-captain who was the same man from the Impress Service that had carted him off to Portsmouth to sling him into Navy uniform. Treghues had turned on him meanly, and probably would still despise him if it had not been for that blessed French gunner and his damned rammer. Erratic insanity could sometimes be a blessing. He had settled the smut on his name back home, found a family he