Dewey Lambdin - King`s Captain Страница 29

Yet so far in Sheerness and the Nore, those rumored tidings hadn't done much to ease the fervour of the newest mutineers. If anything, news of a peaceful, agreeable settlement had only sparked a new wave of frolic, riotous street parading and shore drinking-but no hint of acceptance of a settlement here.

So for another morning, Lewrie studied the shore with a glass, so close off Garrison Point, he could all but taste the meat and drink. Sailors, done with meetings at Checquers Public House, their chosen shore rendezvous, paraded the streets, tricked out in red cockades and waving their infernal plain red flags of rebellion. Each large group had its hired band, and the sounds of competing melodies blended into an atonal jollity as one pack collided with another with a rival band and simply had to out-tootle, out-blare, or out-drum the others. Even atop the ramparts of the shore forts, drunken sailors could be seen-troublingly arm-in-arm with equally drunken soldiers, or hanging with arms round each other's necks, swaying and singing airs.

Respectable citizens of Sheerness, Lewrie didn't doubt, were all inside behind locked doors, huddled over their silver plate and valuables. Yet the streets were full of garish trulls and sharpers; poorer civilians out for a good time as long as it lasted; or secret traitors and rebels of Republican bent out to stir up even worse troubles?

Children and women also capered and danced with the sailors. There was a chance they were legitimate wives, come down to Sheerness to support their sailor menfolk. Or, as Lewrie also sourly surmised, whores out to make a killing off the myriad of sailors given liberal amounts of shore leave for a rare once.

Not that they had to go ashore for that, Lewrie sighed, as he lowered his telescope and collapsed its tubes; publicans' and pedlars' bumboats plied the harbour waters, ferrying cargoes of gew-gaws out to the ships, proffering the temporary "wives" to seamen who had coin enough to support and claim them. Without a strict watch set by the Bosun and harbour watches, he was mortal-certain every doxy bore small flasks of spirits under her gowns, inside her stockings or hat, to sell in spite of the Fleet Delegates' edict against private spirits.

Oh, Proteus was a merry ship! Music wafted up from the seamen's mess deck, from the forecastle too, for several bumboats lolled under her entry-ports, and real wives and children, and false wives, strolled the gun-deck or danced in drunken, half-clad abandon, groping at their men, being-groped and pawed, before being led below for a quick fumble 'tween the mess tables with two blankets hung for privacy.

Caught staring down from the quarterdeck too long, one blowsy blonde bawd jerked down the top of her ragged sack gown and shimmied, flaunting a brace of pendulous, but rather impressively sized teats at him, shrieking and calling him a "dirty ole awfcer!" drawing the attention of several of his hands to her antics, to his staring.

God, what a dirty puftle, he snorted in derision! Yet doffed his hat and, beaming, bowed her a courtly "leg."

She shrieked again, then blew him a kiss, before turning to have her dugs groped by her partner. The men had laughed-not at him, he suspected; it had sounded good-natured.

And Able Seaman Bales, seated atop a 12-pounder's breech, with his arms crossed over his chest, cast him a brow-raised glare, with a shrewd cast to his phyz after that brief antic.

Point for me, Alan told himself as he paced away, ignoring that glare; now he's sure to think up something else new to undermine me and my authority. Has to!

It was dev'lish-queer, Lewrie thought; this confrontation 'twixt me and this Bales creature… he seems t 'take it so damn' personal! Not just a scheming sea-lawyer born for mutiny an' damn all officers, but… like he hates officers in general, but me in the most particular!

He fetched up at the traffrails and leaned on them, gazing out to sea, and wondered if there was an advantage to save Proteus in this fellow Bales's seething dislike; some way to use that against him, as a fatal weakness. But for the life of him, Lewrie could not recall a Seaman Bales in his past whom he had offended, from any former ship.

Kin to his old first captain, aboard HMS Ariadne, way back in 1780? Surely not-kin would come into the Fleet a midshipman, in spite of Captain Bales being cashiered after his court martial at English Harbour, Antigua. That was the way of the world, and "interest," in the Royal Navy. Sons of fools weren't quite the fools that their fathers were… 'Til they proved it, of course! Lewrie snickered to himself!

Then-"Oh!" struck him.

What if this Bales was old Bales's kin, too penniless and without influence at Admiralty to get the usual "leg up"? Then he would have had to ship as a volunteer, go "before the mast," at first. But with a good education, surely he'd have advanced past his mostly illiterate fellow sailors, have made Master's Mate by now?

"Damme," Lewrie whispered to himself, "wasn't me cost old Bales his career. I spoke up for him, lauded him." Even if I did lie like a rug, he ruefully chid himself; toadyin' for a good name of my own! And no way to get to the bottom of it… without asking this Bales!

"No, goddamn your eyes, no! And take your fool's face to Hell, you impudent gutter trash!"

Lewrie turned about, wincing at the tone and recognising that voice. It was Midshipman Peacham, railing at one of the hands from the afterguard-doing exactly what he'd warned them not to do days before!

Hands in the small of his back, reminding himself once more about being dignified, deliberate, and slow, he paced towards the altercation; but the seamen knuckled his forehead and sloped off before he could arrive, face suffused with what looked like murderous resentment.

"Mister Peacham, sir… something amiss?" he intoned.

"Captain, sir!" Peacham fumed. "These disputatious… hounds! I have never heard the like for Jack-Sauce, obstreperous…!"

"Such as?" Lewrie purred, keeping a solemn face.

" 'Ahem, sir,' he says to me, Captain, Sir"-Peacham stammered in a face-suffusing heat of his own-" 'beggin' yer pardon, sir,' he poses! 'Would you be so good as to advance me the "socket-fee" for a doxy of my own, sir?' the bastard asked! Purser to dispense funds for his rut…?"

"As you say, Mister Peacham." Lewrie sniffed, striving to keep a straight face. "A bit of Jack-Sauce. Unless, of course, you thought he was serious…?"

"I will not abide it, sir! Never!" Peacham declared stiffly.

"Oh, yes you will, sir… for the nonce, as I said below a few days ago? You do recall that, sir? Me, in the gunroom?" Lewrie posed. "Tolerant, paternal, unruffled, and patient 'til this is ended. Now, do you have wits remaining, sir… recall his name and rating, make a sharp note of it and wait for that 'later.' To see if he was merely taking the chance to make a jest at an officer's expense, whether he was put up to it, or… whether there was something malicious about it."

"Malicious, of a certainty, Captain, sir!" Peacham averred.

"We'll see, once they're back in discipline, Mister Peacham," Lewrie told him. "Now go below and duck your head. Stay there 'til you've mastered yourself. So you won't explode the next time one of them twits you, hmm? Do they discover you're likely to rage at 'em, the more they'll try you on. For the fun of it," Lewrie cautioned. "And do they discover you're vulnerable, it might be one of the real ringleaders who'll try to get you to rise to their bait-and cause real trouble."

"Ahh…" Peacham sighed, sounding damn' close to an insubordinate cry of disagreement. He swallowed heavily, cringing as if rebuked.

"There, see how easy that is, Mister Peacham?" Lewrie snickered, instead of bellowing at the fool. "Practice, sir… practice."

"Aye, aye, sir," Peacham said, doffing his hat and departing.

Another thing to puzzle over, Lewrie frowned, as he paced back to the hammock nettings overlooking that boisterous waist of the ship and the "country-dance" revelry going on there. Ominously, Article the Fifth issued by the mutineers had specified that all ships were to keep their navigators aboard; as if, should their mutiny fail, they could sail off the ships they'd seized… to foreign, enemy ports?

But most ship's committees had put officers ashore. Captains had been sent packing, most willingly, and revolted by the betrayal of their crews. Committees had deemed some officers, midshipmen, and mates as "Soul Drivers" and cruel, abusive tyrants and had jeered them over the side right-chearly, vowing they'd never allow them to return. Not in this lifetime, they wouldn't. And had Howe agreed to that?

But aboard Proteus … no one had been denounced or turned out, yet. Well, grumbled about, denounced in a fashion, but…? That was a bit odd-something else for Lewrie to ponder; why ever not?

And can I goad 'em to put Peacham and Ludlow off? Lewrie speculated. Christ, both of 'em two loads for the proverbial camel's back…! Sooner or later, not being masters of themselves, they'd pop off, issue too great an insult to someone, and the crew would have another reason to resent authority, even after this was finished! Proteus might also be finished, and his command of her with it! The Admiralty might turn out the entire crew, captain and officers, and start fresh.

Three sailors mounted the larboard ladder to the quarterdeck, as if daring each other to do so. Lewrie steeled himself for a bit of Jack-Sauce, and saw Able Seaman Bales from the corner of his eye, still seated atop the breech of the 12-pounder gun, but watching most carefully, with his tongue in his cheek.

"Uhm… beggin' yer pardon, sir," one of them chortled, elbowed into speech by the ones flanking him and a bit behind for protection. "Permission t'speak, Cap'um, sir," he said, removing his hat.

"Go ahead." Lewrie sighed, already wearied.

"Would ya be so good, sir… as t'issue each man a bottle o' gin fer breakfast, Cap'um, sir?" the unfortunate managed to say, shivering with mirth. The others were blubbering their lips in strangled glee.

"Oh, for God's sake." Lewrie sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Is that all?"

"Wellsir, uhm… aye, sir. Thet is…"

"Me, I'd love to oblige you, frankly," Lewrie told them.

"Ah, sir? Really, sir?"

"But you know the rules, lads," Lewrie blathered on. "Naval regulations, and your own leaders, say there's to be no private liquor allowed, ever. So I'm afraid I can't. But… d'ye see your so-called temporary captain, Seaman Bales, there…" Lewrie smiled.

"Uhm…"

"Now, do you ask him, well… he might relent and allow you. I heard it said he has a private income beyond his Navy pay," Lewrie extemporised. "How else'd he come aboard with such a complete kit hmmm? Do you ask him nicely, he might take you ashore with him and sport you to yer gin. Just ask him."

"Sir, ah…" they goggled at him, and at each other.

"Well, go on!" Lewrie urged, most "mately." "Ask him. 'Nothin' ventured, nothin' gained,' as they always say. And good luck!"

"Er, aye, aye, Cap'um, sir, we will!" the spokesman enthused with a hopeful sound. They trooped down the ladder to the waist, scampering to approach Bales, and put their outrageous demand to him.

Lord, Alan shrugged, there's three simpler than yer average tars!

Before Bales could begin to bark at them and disabuse them, he glared upwards at Lewrie with a look of pure rage.

And take that you sly bastard! Lewrie thought.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Alan was writing Caroline a letter, though when he could get it to her, he wasn't sure. Much like the fate of most letters written when at sea, to be held until they put into a foreign port, met a ship sailing for home, or rendezvoused with a squadron flagship, the delegates had decreed that no letters would be allowed to go ashore.

Writing was a difficult chore, for Toulon, when not striving to catch and kill the waving quill pen's end, had developed a fondness for stretching his sleek, furry length atop anything Lewrie attempted to write or even read. Desktop, dining table, or the chart-table, it made no difference. Did he make paper rattle, Toulon would be there in a heartbeat-and in a most playful, insistent mood, rolling over onto his side or back to bare his white belly, and push or pat with his paws until he got some petting. Or, brought labour (of which, Alan assumed, most cats highly disapproved!) to a grinding halt.

" Toulon, now… damn yer eyes!" Lewrie fretted, shifting pen and paper closer to him. But over the cat rolled, right onto his back and put all four paws in the air, his thick, hairy tail lazily lashing, and purring in idle, impish delight. Squarely in the middle of the letter.

"Aren't you supposed t'sleep or something?" Lewrie groaned, on the verge of surrender. "It's daytime, fer God's sake. It's what cats do! Eat, shit, sleep… eat, pee, sleep. Don't you know the drill?"

"Weow?" Toulon demanded, wriggling nearer the desk's edge with his pitiful face on.

There was a rap on the outer door.

"Captain, sir?"

"Enter," Alan snapped.

"Sir, there's a boat coming alongside," Mr. Midshipman Catterall informed him as he stepped inside.

"Gunn'l down with gin, is she?" Lewrie frowned. "That why the hands are cheerin' so lusty?"

"Uhm… I gather one of the key ringleaders has come to call on us, sir." Catterall blinked back. "But nary a bottle in sight, sir. Come empty-handed, Captain. A very poor house-warming guest."

"Bugger him, then," Lewrie said, forced to smile in spite of the interruption by Catterall's jest. He rose and made his way forrud to go on deck. "I s'pose we must see this apparition for ourselves… and if he wishes to wet his throat, he'd best have brought his own spirits. Lead on, Mister Catterall."

"Aye, aye, sir," Catterall said, with a sly grin. "I'd expect rabble-rousing is a dry endeavour sir."

Lewrie smiled again, as he clapped on his hat.

And let's just hope it's not that lunatick, McCann, again!

Well at least, thought Lewrie, it wasn't McCann the hands were cheering, though that idiot was in the party of visiting leaders of the mutiny, hanging back in the rear for once, like a spear-carrier in an Italian opera.

Lewrie thought to take his rightful place amidships by the nettings at the forward edge of the quarterdeck so he could study this new arrival, remember faces if not names for later, and remind his mutinous crew just who should be in charge. But the visitors usurped that post, marching directly from the starboard entry-port to the quarterdeck, and forced Lewrie, Catterall, and the few other midshipmen and officers who had come to answer their own curiosity to hang back far out of range of being tainted by appearing too curious-or tacitly supportive! They ended in a clump near the taffrail flag lockers, almost out of earshot, and mostly ignored by the enthusiastic sailors who were hoorawing what seemed an important visitor.