The French Admiral (Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures)

451 Pages·2002·1.16 MB·English

by  Dewey Lambdin

FICTION $17.95 US | $22.95 CAN
“A grand satisfying yarn. . . . Series fans as well as newcomers will
relish Lambdin’s unerring depiction of Navy politicking . . . and, in DEWEY
fact, all the rich details of late–18th century life at sea and ashore.”
LAMBDIN
—Publishers Weekly
“Fast moving at sea, nicely lewd ashore, a hugely likable hero, a The The Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures #2
huge cast of sharply drawn supporting characters; there’s nothing
Alan Lewrie
missing. Wonderful stuff.”
—Kirkus Reviews Naval
Adventures #2
I
T’S 1781. Midshipman Alan Lewrie chafes against life in the
Royal Navy, but to his amazement he finds himself winning
respect aboard HMS Desperate. But the American colonies
continue their war of independence, and Desperate is called upon
to fight the determined rebels and their French allies. Lewrie and
his sailors join the loyalists on land and learn the brutal truth of
civil war where brother turns against brother. Amid the flaming
wreckage of the once-proud city of Yorktown, Lewrie must prove
THE
his mettle to his commanding officer and to himself.
F
RENCH
ADMIRAL
Dewey Lambdin is a self-proclaimed “Navy brat”
and a sailor since 1976. He has worked as a director,
writer and producer for television and advertising.
Besides the Alan Lewrie series, he is also the author
of What Lies Buried: a novel of old Cape Fear. He
lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
ISBN:978-1-59013-021-6
51795
The Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures #2
McBOOKS PRESS
MCBOOKS
www.mcbooks.com
PRESS
9 781590 130216
The French Admiral
The Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures
The King’s Coat
The French Admiral
The King’s Commission
The King’s Privateer
The Gun Ketch
H.M.S. Cockerel
A King’s Commander
Jester’s Fortune
King’s Captain
Sea of Grey
Havoc’s Sword
The Captain’s Vengeance
A King’s Trade
F
The rench
A
dmiral
DEWEY LAMBDIN
The Alan Lewie Naval Adventures #2
MCBOOKS PRESS, INC.
ITHACA, NEWYORK
Published by McBooks Press 2002
Copyright © 1990 by Dewey Lambdin
First published in 1990 by D.I. Fine, New York
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher.
Requests for such permissions should be addressed to
McBooks Press, Inc., IDBooth Building, 520 North Meadow St.,
Ithaca, NY 14850.
Cover painting by Dennis Lyall, courtesy of Tall Ships Books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lambdin, Dewey.
The French admiral / by Dewey Lambdin.
p. cm. — (The naval adventures of Alan Lewrie : no. 2)
ISBN 1-59013-021-9 (alk. paper)
1. Lewrie, Alan (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great
Britain—History, Naval—18th century—Fiction. 3. United
States—History—Revolution, 1775-1783—Fiction. 4. Yorktown
(Va.)—History—Siege, 1781—Fiction. 5. Midshipmen—Fiction.
I. Title
PS3562.A435 F74 2002
813’.54—dc21 2002000138
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Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4
This one’s for
DEREK ROOKE
Former Lieutenant, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
A “Wavy Navy” fighter pilot, who first “got my feet wet”
in ’76 aboard Seafire off Gulfport and Biloxi.
See what you started?
And for your good lady Louise, and Chris and
Charlotte Rooke of Rooke Sails, Memphis.
• • •
But didn’t we look grand
touched mahoghany by the sun
with sweat salt and sea salt grit
in that millpond quiet harbor,
everything bagged and furled
and the motor grumbling the pier
with white eyes and white teeth beaming
in the last glimmer of a scarlet sky
as we laughed to finish fifth in class?
Didn’t we share a conjurement
a God-hell knockdown wonder
And weren’t we so alive?
Coelum non animum qui trans mare currunt.
Those who cross the seas change climate
but not their character.
—Horace, Epistle I.xi. 27
The Southern
Colonies
Yorktown
k
c
e
N

s
n
i
k
n
e
J
PROLOGUE
T
he French were out. Somewhere on the high seas, on their
way to some deviltry in the Colonies, Admiral Comte de
Grasse and as many as fourteen sail of the line were assem-
bled. For the British, the Leeward Islands Squadron under
Admiral Samuel Hood and the Saint Lucia group under Rear
Admiral Francis Drake were already at sea in pursuit. Perhaps
just over the horizon, the enemy could be found, and per-
haps the British fleet was just hours away from one of those
epic sea battles that would decide the fate of the Crown. Or,
Midshipman Alan Lewrie thought sourly, we could fuck
around out here ’til Doomsday.
There had been a concerted rush to get under way from
Antigua, and for a while it had been exciting to see so many
ships gathered together with one fell purpose, but after a few
days the iron grip of naval routine had canceled out the thrill.
Scouting frigates could find nothing of the enemy, and there
were damned few frigates to go around to begin with.
Alan began to get the sneaking suspicion that their own
fleet was ahead of the French. De Grasse had started from
Martinique, south of their own bases in the Caribbean, which
might have taken him longer, which was all to the good, if
they were to counter any action with the French and the
Rebels in combination, allowing them to get to the hinted
scene of battle in the Chesapeake or Delaware bays first.
At noon sights, after almost, but not quite, finding a rea-
sonable guess as to their position (and hurriedly fudging a
more accurate fix from Avery’s slate), Alan had a chance to
examine the sea chart pinned to the traverse board by the
wheel binnacle cabinet.
He picked up a pair of dividers and measured off a passage
at slow speed inside the island chains, instead of taking the
outside or windward route. There’s a Frog base in Haiti, he
thought, and there’s the Dons with a fleet in Havana. What