“Three broken and replaced, sir,” Lewrie replied.
“I … see,” the clerk said warily, “And one dozen flint spares for each gun, six-pounders to carronades, bagged, I take it?”
“You’ll find all the tompions aboard, too, sir,” Lewrie pointed out. “Recently re-painted the proper red. And, if you look close, you will find that all train tackle, recoil, and run-out rackle is in new and serviceable condition, as are all the breeching ropes and truck-carriages. The axles freshly greased, as are the carronade slides.”
“I must see for myself, sir,” the clerk insisted with a wimpy little attempt at a grin. “We must be thorough.”
He stepped over to a row of 18-pounders laid out in a line, ready for hoisting overside to the waiting barge. One of his helpers was kneeling, entering serial numbers into a ledger to see if they all matched those issued when Vigilance had been taken out of ordinary and re-armed under the unfortunate Captain Nunnelly, whom Lewrie had supplanted.
“Odd, sir,” the helper said, fingering the muzzle ring of one of the guns. “They all look as if they’ve been sawed at.”
“Sights, sir,” Lewrie said.
“Sights?” the older clerk scoffed. “On naval guns, haw haw!”
“They work,” Lewrie assured him. “I had sight notches filed in the guns of my last two ships, and trained my gun-captains to use ’em for closer shooting.”
“Never heard the like, sir,” the older clerk sniggered as if it was the greatest jape. “Why, one could almost say that they have been damaged.”
“A skilled artillerist are you, sir?” Lewrie asked. “Or do you just count them? My guns were breaking French regiments ashore at a mile away to support the troops I landed.”
The fellow bristled, plucked at his neck-stock, but did not make a reply.
“Lash her up, there, lads,” Bosun Gore was shouting at the men binding the gun’s barrel ready for hoisting. “You men! Tail on the yardarm lines and be ready to lift away!” Brace men, stand ready to swing it out!”
Would the Gun Wharf official accept them, or would he balk and quibble some more? Lewrie glared at him, and the man seemed to melt. He nodded curtly, and the working party put their backs into it, and off the deck and into the air above the bulwarks the 18-pounder went.
“Good,” Lewrie said with a satisfied nod. “Good.”
Now, who else do I have to over-awe? Lewrie thought.
“Boat ahoy!” a Midshipman called to an approaching cutter.
“Letter for your Captain!” came an answering shout.
“Come alongside!”
Lewrie left the ship’s waist and went up to the quarterdeck to see what the letter was about, leaving the clerks standing about, glad to be shot of them for a moment.
A minute later, and an immaculately uniformed young Midshipman scaled the boarding battens, saluted, and handed over a wax-sealed letter, taking a breathless moment to look all round at the activities and the swarms of working parties as if he was in the Navy, but not yet of it.
Lewrie went into his great-cabins, tossed his hat at a wooden peg on an overhead deck beam, and sat at his desk to open and read the letter, noting that it was from Admiral Lord Gardner.
My dear Captain Sir Alan Lewrie,
I have reviewed the letter you left at my offices this two days past, and I quite agree that the egregious Manner in which various Officials of Portsmouth Dockyards have comported themselves anent the De-commissioning of your Ship, HMS Vigilance, seems to have been conducted much more Scrupulously than necessary, reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition. I have made it Known among those various Officials that I have counted you as admirable Officer since our first Dealings in 1804, and that such Zealous, yea Over-Zealous handling will not be Tolerated. I do pray that you find the Onerous Process of surrendering your Command more Pleasant in Future. Once the Process is done, do inform me, and I will be delighted to dine you in, at a Date and Time to be determined.
“Well, bless my soul, we’re saved!” Lewrie shouted to the deckheads, thrusting the letter upwards. He put the letter in his desk, and returned to the quarterdeck with a jaunty step, and, admittedly, a touch of swagger. “How does it go, Mister Farley?” he asked the First Officer, who was just coming up from the waist.
“Well, it’s rather odd, sir,” Farley confessed, “We were ready to wrangle with the clerks come aboard, but … all of a sudden they have turned into baa-lambs.”
“A bit of influence from on high, sir,” Lewrie boasted. “It matters who you know, sometimes.”
“Let’s be thankful for that, sir,” Farley said with a laugh, “from whatever quarter. We should have all the upper-deck guns off by dusk, I’d imagine, I’m saving the forrud end of the waist for the carriages, then we’ll begin with the twenty-four pounders from the lower deck tomorrow after breakfast.”
“Very good, sir,” Lewrie replied, grinning as he looked aloft at the mastheads which had already had the topmasts struck down to a “gantline.” “I believe things will go much easier, the next week or so.” He lowered his gaze and spotted John Kitch loitering round the bottom of the larboard ladderway, looking up, his flat-brimmed hat in his hands, turning it round and round.
Lewrie went down the ladderway to the waist.
“Beg pardon, Captain sir,” Kitch spoke up, “but, could I have a word with you?”
“Aye, Kitch,” Lewrie agreed, savouring his wee victory.
“It’s about the draughts, sir,” Kitch began. “I’d like to go wherever the Navy sends me, sir.”
“Oh. I had hoped that you’d come up to London with the rest of us, and … wait ’til I got a new command,” Lewrie said, surprised.
“I did that the last time, sir, and … well, idle and pleasant as it was … I ain’t cut out to be in service to any house, not even yours, Captain,” Kitch slowly explained. “The Navy’s the only Life I knows, sir, and ya can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
“You’ve talked it over with Desmond?” Lewrie asked.
“He thinks I’m daft, sir,” Kitch admitted with a grin, “but I’ve good prospects, being rated Able Seaman and all, laid by some money from prizes, and my mind’s made up, sir. I hope ya forgive me for jumpin’ ship, as it were, but … there it is.”
“Well, I’m going to miss you, Kitch, as will Desmond,” Lewrie told him. “But, I quite understand, and wish you well wherever you end up. Who knows, you could strike for a petty officer’s berth if you wanted. Quartermaster’s Mate, Gunner’s Mate?”
“Mast Captain’s my best bet, sir,” Kitch allowed. “I never got mathematics wrapped proper round my head. That, or Bosun’s Mate.”
“Ah, too damned many things to count as a Bosun’s Mate,” Lewrie said with a laugh.
“Long as I got ten fingers, I could cope, sir,” Kitch said as he knuckled his brow in a parting salute.
Immediately after Kitch turned to go, Lewrie had only taken a few steps before his long-time Cox’n, Liam Desmond, was there, hat in hand.
“Kitch speak with ya, sor?” Desmond asked.
“Aye, he did,” Lewrie replied. “Don’t tell me you’re next to go.”
“Ah, no, sor,” Desmond said with a shake of his head. “Like I told ya at th’ Nore, sor, I’m yer right-hand man, long as ya need me. But, like Kitch told me, how he ain’t keen on bein’ a house servant in livery, well … once you’re settled in London, sor, I might be more use to ya down at Anglesgreen, seein’ t’th’ livestock an’ such. Grew up workin’ th’ farm back in Ireland, least ’til ya get orders back to sea. I could do ya better there.”
“And poppin’ into the Old Ploughman for some of their ale?” Lewrie teased.
“That, an’ their pot pies, sor, aye,” Desmond chuckled. “A fine way t’end a good day’s work.”
“Well, I’ll have Deavers, Dasher, and Turnbow, so I should think I could spare you, Desmond,” Lewrie allowed. “It wouldn’t have a thing to do with their waitress, Miss Abigail, would it?”
* * *
Two days later and John Kitch was gone, along with over seventy sailors summoned to be transferred to a Third Rate 74 just fitting out after a complete refit in the yards. Her new Captain was not a fellow whom Lewrie knew by reputation, and had evidently had bad luck at his recruiting “rondy,” unable to attract enough men to work his ship out of harbour. Lewrie spoke with them before they departed, assuring them that their new Captain would be getting a fine draught of Ordinary, Able, and Landsmen sailors who knew their jobs well.
And, slowly, Vigilance lightened and floated a bit higher as the last of the guns, truck carriages, tons of roundshot, and gunpowder were landed ashore, as the large water butts sufficient for six months at sea were broached and drained into the bilges, then pumped out overside, and the butts broken down into hoops and staves. Salt meat casks beyond the immediate needs of the dwindling crew were swayed out, then sent to the warehouses. Barrels of cold tar and pitch, kegs of nails and screws, the Sailmaker’s locker and Bosun’s stores dis-appeared, so Vigilance could show the world even more of her barnacles and weeding, and expose the upper plates of sea-stained copper.
Each day, another draught of man were ordered off, and the pay clerks came aboard to issue them their chits for back-pay, with the Purser and his Jack-In-The-Breadroom carefully itemising deductions due Mr. Blundell’s accounts before the final sums were written down.
Lewrie’s own cabins began to resemble an empty garret as rugs were rolled up and bound, the settee grouping and the Hindoo brass tray table were wrapped ready for removing, as the wine cabinet and wash-hand stand were emptied and stowed in protective scrap canvas, with particular care for the day-cabin desk and impressive sideboard in the dining coach. Crates, kegs, ankers, and barricoes of spirits and wine were piled high.
“What about the dining table, and chairs, sir?” Deavers asked.
“Mmm, sort o’ rough, ain’t they?” Lewrie said, giving the set a good looking over. “I don’t have a dining room big enough for ’em, and my wife’d shriek in horror if she laid eyes on ’em. I bought it all from old Captain Nunnelly, ’cause he said he had no more use for ’em, either, so … let’s just leave ’em. What’d I pay him, twenty pounds? I can’t remember. Small loss.”
And, eventually the morning came when Captain Whitehead and his junior officers and Marine complement left the ship, leaving no more than two-dozen crew still aboard, in addition to the Standing Officers who would serve as harbour watch and shipkeepers when Vigilance left the dockyards and was laid up In-Ordinary. Even the Midshipmen were paid off, and the only one left aboard was Charles Chenery, Lewrie’s brother-in-law, who would wait to coach to London with him and the men of Lewrie’s small retinue.
Scows were hired for the next morning to take aboard all of his goods and furnishings, and dray waggons were contracted to deliver it to London. Lewrie at last went ashore to dine with the Port Admiral, Lord Gardner, and Vigilance was no longer his own.
The next morning, the last official paperwork was looked over and signed, and the ship became just another de-commissioned hulk in the harbour, worn and tired, streaked with salt stains, and not one stitch of canvas bound to her bare yards. The only thing grand that still adorned her was her gilt-crowned lion figurehead, left to peer with one paw shading its eyes for an open and fair horizon that she might never see again.
“Come on, Charlie, lads,” Lewrie beckoned by the dray waggons and large coach, “let’s get aboard and set out for London.”
“It doesn’t seem fair, sir,” Charles Chenery griped, looking back at their ship as if drinking in the last drops of her courage and spirit. “We did so many grand things with her.”
“Aye, we did,” Lewrie agreed, forcing himself not to despair. “And Life itself ain’t fair, right, or just. Come on, let’s be on our way. We may have to stay overnight at Guildford if we don’t get a move on.” Or even Liphook.”
Lewrie looked to the top of the coach where several chests and sea bags were lashed down to see if all was in order. He spotted the wicker cage that Chalky would have been in, no longer carried inside the coach, but relegated to excess baggage.
Just dammit all to Hell! he thought.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They did have to take lodgings overnight just outside Guildford, and an expensive proposition that was, what with coachman, drivers on the drays, and Lewrie and his retinue to feed and bed down, plus their breakfasts the next morning, and a light dinner to tide them over short of London.
But, eventually, after Kingston, their destination lay before them. It was a sunny Autumn day, with high-piled white clouds slowly coasting Eastwards above … well, above a faint grey haze of coal smoke that almost obscured the many Parish Church steeples and the soaring domes and towers of the greater cathedrals. City bells could be heard chiming even before they got near Southwark and the expanse of the Thames.
Soon, soon! Lewrie silently urged the time and miles to pass as his return to his home, and reunion with Jessica, drew nearer, making him fidgety and anxious for the first sight of Dover Street, and the first glimpse of his dear wife’s face. He had sent along a letter the day before they set out, alerting her to his expected arrival, but the lateness of their starting, and the need to stop at Guildford, put paid to his expectations. He hoped that she would not have been too dis-appointed.
His head was out the lowered sash windows in either coach door, having to share with the other passengers crammed into the interior as landmarks passed by. Westminster Bridge, then up Whitehall past Horse Guards and the Admiralty to Charing Cross, then a short jog down Pall Mall to Wardour Street for another turn onto Piccadilly at last, then … a right turn into Dover Street.
“Huzzah! Will ya look at that!” Lewrie cried as he espied his house, its door and the Doric lintel above it adorned with a draping rope of long-stemmed flowers twined together. “We’re here!”
He bolted from the coach the moment the coachee drew reins, dashed to the door and raised the well-polished brass pineapple door knocker to pound it for admittance.
“And where the Devil did that thing come from?” he muttered.
“Coming!” a muffled voice inside said.
A key clacked tumblers in the lock, and a bolt screaked as it was turned, and the door swung open to reveal his old cabin servant, Pettus, now the house butler.
“My stars, Captain Lewrie, sir!” Pettus gushed, beaming. “Come in, sir, and welcome home at last! Dame Lewrie? Ma’am? It’s…!”
Lewrie stepped inside, sweeping off his hat to fling at the entry hall sideboard. Charles Chenery joined him, just as Jessica came down the stairs from the drawing room above in a rush, ladylike demeanour be damned, her shoes thudding on the stair treads. She paused for a brief moment at the foot of the stairs, her lovely face breaking into an expression of utmost joy before they rushed each other so he could gather her up in his arms and lift her off her feet to press her whole length against him, face burrowed against her neck, and hers against his.
“Oh, my Lord!” she said, sounding breathless and on the edge of tears, “My love, my dear love, you’re back!”
“Jessica, I’ve longed for this moment,” Lewrie swore to her as their lips met in a long soul kiss. And there were tears moistening her cheeks that he tried to kiss away.
“It’s been too long, dearest Alan,” she said, shuddering.
“I’m home now. Hope I make up for the absence,” Lewrie said, on the edge of a silly laugh.
“Good to see you, too, sister,” Charles Chenery said, “Oh, ware the hounds!”
Bisquit, and Jessica’s Cocker Spaniel, Rembrandt, came thundering upstairs from the kitchen and cellar, barking and baying. Bisquit bounded round Lewrie and his wife, whining pitifully, ’til Lewrie let Jessica go to kneel down and pet/tousle with his old ship’s mascot and almost got bowled over as Bisquit pressed against his chest and licked his face, tail whipping madly.
“Welcome home to you, too, Charlie,” Jessica said, welcoming her younger brother with a fond embrace, and a peck on the cheek. “My word, but you’ve shot up like a weed! You are all out elbows and wrists, in need of a new uniform, I dare say!”
Her dog looked a little puzzled about Lewrie’s arrival, but he knew Charlie of old, and barked for attention and reunion “wubbies.”
“Darling, you remember Deavers, Desmond, Yeovill, Dasher, and Turnbow?” Lewrie said as he got back to his feet.
“Indeed I do,” Jessica sweetly said, greeting them all, giving Dasher a tousle of his hair. “There’s fresh bedding belowstairs, and cook has planned a feast for all tonight. Father will sup with us, Charlie, along with Madame Berenice, of course. Should we have your luggage brought in, dear?”
“Oh, of course,” Lewrie said, turning to his men. “My furnishings can go into the coach house out back. My desk, hmm … there’s a small room just above the entry hall. That’s a good place for it and all my books. Sorry t’put you to work so soon.”
“We’ll see to it, sor,” Desmond told him, tipping Pettus a wink, who doffed his dark coat and traded it for a dark green apron suitable for work.
“You must show me all you’ve done since I’ve been gone, love,” Lewrie bade, and Jessica was girlishly happy to oblige, almost skipping on light feet as she led him into the front parlour, her art studio.
To Lewrie’s lights, she was even more fetching than when they had first met, when he’d first become entranced and besotted. She wore her long, dark hair coiled up into an ornate coif, baring a little of her graceful neck. Her eyes seemed to sparkle, large, expressive, and a peculiar shade of blue darker than the normal hue. She wore a fine white-lace trimmed gown of pale blue with half sleeves, below her elbows, a low, square neckline, and puffed at the points of her shoulders, her neck set off by an ivory cameo on a thin gold chain. Her gown was high waisted, set off with a white sash, and falling straight—Lewrie lastfully took note—over her firm, flat belly and slim hips.
Much Ado About Lewrie Page 12