Dewey Lambdin - King`s Captain Страница 23

"Mizzen tops'l?" Lewrie fretted in a whisper. "Spanish reef 'til we're round and clear of the barge?"

"I would, sir, aye."

"Very well. Mister Ludlow? Hoist the spanker and stand by to brail up the mizzen tops'l… Spanish reefed, and ease the weather brace. Stand by to hoist the inner jib once we're off the wind."

"Aye, aye, sir," Ludlow parroted, barking orders through a brass speaking trumpet so there'd be no confusion (well, as little as possible anyway) and no chore left undone for lack of hearing. That done, he turned inboard to look at Lewrie, waiting for a nod of acknowledgment that his orders were complete. And did he barely smirk, with one eye cast aft towards the afterguard and that recent incident?

It could have been innocent, Lewrie fumed; wryness over a newly gettin' whomped. Or was it wryness over me bein' soft?

Peacham and Ludlow, so he'd learned in the few days he'd had to familiarise himself with ship and crew, had served together before; and Peacham had come aboard on Ludlow 's recommendation. The younger gentlemen volunteers were of the previous captain's choosing, allowed berths to foster support and "interest" with patrons.

Damme, Lewrie fretted; is Proteus t'be Cockerel all over again? A pack o' brutes I'll have to watch like a hawk 'fore they ruin this ship with starters an' the lash? Beat an' cuff this crew right from the start an' poison her? Damme, there's mutiny enough in the Fleet already for that shitten sort! Won't they ever…?

"Brail up mizzen tops'l, bare the inner jib tack!" Lewrie shouted. Proteus swung up bows to windward a bit too far for his liking, tops'ls rustling and unable to draw enough wind. The tide would carry her about, but…

"Better… wait for it…" he counseled, as his frigate wafted on, angled for the centre of the river bend, pointed right at that unfortunate barge which was now seen to be towing two empty lighters, each with a scrap of lugsail aloft on short masts to help out. An eye for the lee shore, judging drift to leeward once they turned, and…

"Helm over, Quartermasters," he cried. "Lee tops'l braces, lee jib sheets! Hoist the inner jib, hoist spanker!"

Proteus began to swing to the right, taking the faint breeze on her larboard side, the tops'ls wheeling about and filling once more as the winds found them, the mizzen tops'l creaking as it pivoted, and the spanker filling and whooshing from left to right above the quarterdeck. There was a chuckle of water 'neath her stern, 'round her transom post and her rudder, as she began to gather way, faster than the tide could draw her.

Missed you by a bloody mile! Lewrie crowed to himself, seeing the barge captain waving a fist (and making some very English gestures) in his direction as Proteus bore off and began to rumble downriver… at least two musket-shots clear of collision with barge or lighters.

"Quartermasters, a full point to weather… mid-channel," Lewrie instructed. "Once abeam the wind, allow nothing to loo'rd."

"Aye, aye, sir… nothin' t'loo'rd," Mr. Motte the senior said.

There's one tricky bit over, Lewrie congratulated himself; now… only four or five more t'go 'til we're safe as houses. He gave his First Officer, Ludlow, another searching glance; but he was huddled in his coat, round-shouldered and enigmatic once more. Lewrie turned to spy aft at Peacham and the afterguard, but could find nothing amiss in that direction either. Some hurt feelings, a touch of sulkiness…?

Well, do I have potential trouble aboard, he assured himself, I have time to get it sorted out at the Nore. Cure some newlies' ignorance fore sailing further, sort out the truly stupid, and.. .

"Three-master in the main channel, sir!" Mr. Winwood hailed with some urgency. "Breastin' the tide under all plain sail."

"Making leeway of course?" Lewrie winced, leaning over the larboard bulwarks to peer out.

"Afraid so, sir."

"Well, we'll try to pass alee of her," Lewrie said, hands firm in the small of his back as he strode back towards the wheel, with more confidence in his voice than his innards. "She's the pilot's so-called bags of room to weather. Quartermaster, maintain course, but give us a point alee when I call for it. No more than a single point, mind."

Brace up, you bastard, he thought, else! Make leeway like a wood chip, and we'll surely collide, you…!

Shit! Just, shit!

BOOK THREE

Fit fragor, aetheris ceu Iuppiter arduus arces

Impulerit, imas manus aut Neptunia terras.

There is a crash, as though Jupiter had risen in might

and overthrown the citadels of heaven,

or Neptune 's arm had rocked the foundations

of the world.

– Argonautica, Book V, 163-64

Valerius Flaccus

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Gloomy damn' place, Lewrie sighed to himself, as he emerged on the quarterdeck by his private after-companionway ladder, abaft of the great-cabin's coach-top. It had rained during the night, after they'd dropped anchor, and though it was now mid-May, the wind had a bite to it. He'd allowed himself a full bottle of burgundy with his solitary supper, a stout brandy before, and two glasses of a good aged port out of that ten-gallon barricoe he'd bought at Fortnum Mason's… to celebrate a safe arrival off Sheerness. To settle his nerves. In point of fact, his nerves had gotten so steady-somewhere following cheese and sweet biscuits-that he'd been temporarily immobilised! Aspinall and Andrews had had to pour him into his hanging bed-cot! But he felt he'd more than earned his over-imbibing.

Proteus lay safely anchored just off Garrison Point, her heaviest "best-bower" down, with a stream-anchor astern to keep her from fouling another ship should the wind or tide take her. Before going aft to his lone celebration, he'd summoned the crew to gather 'round the break of the quarterdeck, had congratulated them for a safe passage downriver, had joshed them gently on things that had gone wrong, and had pointed out how to improve. Then, he had ordered a bullock slaughtered for their supper and had ordered "Splice The Main-Brace," to make an extra issue of rum. "Won't always be thus," he'd cautioned them; "once at sea, we won't make such jolly distinctions. Proper performance of duty will be expected as commonplace. Then we'll only celebrate surviving a storm the taking of a rich prize… or beating the Be-Jesus out of the French!"

Depressing he griped to himself, wringing the already thick sheaf of official paperwork between his hands-meaning both his "head" from taking aboard his load of spirits the previous evening and the sight of Sheerness and the tossing Nore besides. They were about equal for depressing.

Low, muddy, shoaling, and windswept, and even a bright day of sunshine probably couldn't make Sheerness any fairer a prospect. It was a garrison town, a warehousing and dockyard town, ringed with forts which usually fell early to any foe who tried to enter the Thames or Medway. Stopping them was the job of the more-substantial forts at the many tight bends in the Thames or Medway further upriver. The ships assembled here were not organised in a proper fleet, flotilla, or squadron. They were just here, because the Nore and Sheerness were at the mouth of the Thames and Medway, near enough to London and the many shipbuilding and armaments industries in the capital's environs to supply them at little cost in shipping.

Dozens of ships, he noted, taking a deep breath of clean air, as he waited for his gig to be reported ready; dozens of warships, he corrected himself. There were night on an hundred or more merchantmen close at hand waiting for a suitable wind and tide to proceed up the Thames to the Pool of London and the thousands of cargo-handling docks. Or waiting for a wind-shift to carry them seaward, to join a convoy forming in the Downs. Full-rigged ships, ocean-going vessels deep-laden with treasures, the lofty Indiamen or packets from the Caribbean. Coasters and colliers filled with fish, coal, timber, pig iron, tin, wool, bales of manufactured clothing, or shoes from other small ports in the British Isles. And trading smacks loaded with oysters or poultry, eager to be first to market for a hungry city-they were all here or off on the horizon, streaming dense as poured treacle from night anchorages off the Leigh Sands, the Warp, and the Maplin Sands, up the Queen's Channel along the Yantlet Flats… even the short way 'round from the Whitstable oyster beds, up the shallow, narrow Oaze to the Swale, from Faversham behind the Medway Boom, to Queenborough.

He'd prefer (had he his indolent druthers!) to sleep in, nurse his indulgent "head," and curl up with a good book and a warm cat, but there were "duty calls" he must make this dreary, nippy morning; upon Vice-Admiral Charles Buckner, for one, the "Officer In Command of HM Ships and Vessels in the River Medway and At The Buoy of The Nore," to give his full title-who had promised to solve his manpower shortage. And upon the Commissioner of HM Dockyards at Sheerness, Captain Francis John Hartwell, to arrange the lading of the tons upon tons of supplies due Proteus to put her in full fig: bags of biscuit, kegs of salt-meats, waxed cheeses, dried peas, ground flour by the boatload, the powder and shot and cartridge cloth to fill her magazines… and whatever his Purser, Mr. Coote, might wish to stow below for later. She was even short of rum, wine, and small beer at the moment, and afloat above her load waterline.

"De boat be ready, sah," Andrews reported at last.

"Very well, let's be going." Lewrie sighed, stuffing his paperwork into a sewn sailcloth haversack slung over his shoulder beneath his boat-cloak and wishing he'd had time for another restoring pot of coffee!

Things went well ashore. Buckner was an old fellow, welcoming as could be asked for, though seeming troubled. Lewrie put that down to his being in charge of everything, and nothing, for he had no command over the warships gathered in the Nore, only with an eye to fitting them, manning them, making repairs, and passing them on to other units.

He'd had some good news, even so. The semaphore telegraph had wagged the news that Admiral Howe's negotations with the mutineers at Spithead were going well, and a final solution now looked very likely.

"One which, I trust," Admiral Buckner had sighed, "will settle the grievances once and for all. Not only for Channel Fleet, but with the mutineers at Plymouth too, Captain Lewrie. And… uhm, a close-run thing. There was some fighting at Spithead aboard a few ships… nothing too drastic, but… the sort of thing which might have caused a violent rebellion had it spread. Spread much wider, d'ye see."

"Something akin to the Culloden business, sir?" Lewrie had asked, feeling a tad more perceptive by then; Vice-Admiral Buckner had had a large coffee pot at hand and had been most liberal in sharing. "Captains acting a bit too forcefully… engaging in perfidious, two-faced dealings, aye." Buckner had nodded. "Captains were forced to… uhm, back down in the face of resistance. Sensibly, I must allow. The retention of a single ship… the return of a vessel or two to proper order could never balance against the rancour incited-among vessels beyond Portsmouth." Buckner had most mystifyingly hinted.

"D'ye mean here, at the Nore, sir? Or at Great Yarmouth too?" "There have been, uhm… letters of grievances sent me, Lewrie-so far from individual ships-requesting shore-leave, back pay, food issues much like the demands of the Spithead mutineers. The removal of certain officers and mates they deem tyrannical or overly harsh, aye." Buckner had gloomed, and Lewrie had realised that his troubled mien was due to more than his usual travails. "Nothing organised so far. And pray Jesus when word of settlement arrives… as I am mortal-certain we will receive in a few more days… the terms and conditions will be mollifying throughout the Navy."

"A sloop of war named Jester was not cited as one of the ships where violence erupted, was she, sir?"

"Ah, no, Captain Lewrie. I do not recall any mention of that ship. Your last command, I suspect, sir? Rest easy… on that head, at the least. Now, sir… how many men did you say you desired? My, my!"-

The last task of his day's work away from Proteus. With a precious letter from Vice-Admiral Buckner and his Regulating Captain of the Impress Service safely in hand, he went aboard HMS Sandwich to pick up more seamen (hopefully!) and some more warm bodies to fill in the gaps in his watch-and-quarter bills. He stopped to pick up Lieutenant Ludlow to go along with him to aid him in the choosing.

Sandwich was crammed far beyond his most horrid imaginings. It reeked like an abattoir despite being scrubbed daily, the sickly, foetid reek of a hospital ward where hopelessly sick or wounded men were left to perish in their own good time.

As Buckner's flagship she was fully manned, ostensibly fit for sea at a day's notice, stocked and stored and armed for battle not one hour out to sea against any Dutch ships which might try the Thames and Medway again, as they had in wars of the previous century.

But she'd been saddled with hundreds more new-comes and recently impressed sailors, with all the other receiving ships already full with others. Buckner had been specific that they must choose from among the potential hands aboard Sandwich, not the other hulks. To reduce the odours, Lewrie suspected most cynically; when he made his rare appearances aboard her.

God, they were a villainous lot! He'd thought that the people who'd greeted him aboard Proteus had approached "villainous," but this crowd gave "villainous" a whole new aspect! Not only were they clad in rags and greasy civilian clothes, the most of them, but they shivered in bare feet, bare shins devoid of stockings, and even the ones who gave the appearance of nautical experience could barely boast of a single, thin shirt and a pair of torn, stained slop-trousers, a neck-kerchief, or a hat of any description. They smelled like a corpse's armpit, emitting a sour cloud of steam from being pent so close and thick below decks and freshly exposed to the cool open airs. Some were speckled with a host of rash-marks; fleas, lice-bites, saltwater boils, and ulcers that had grown large as the wens and buboes seen with the Black Death! Doddering oldsters, pitifully shivering children, barely in their teens. Long-haired, grey-haired, gap-toothed. As miserable an assortment of wretchedness as ever he'd imagined!

"This is Captain Lewrie… of the Proteus frigate," Sandwich's officer shouted to the hundred or so gathered amidships. "He is come for willing hands. A frigate, lads! Now who'll step forward to volunteer for her? Anyone? Nought of you willing to serve your King and Country in a fine, tall frigate? Damme!"