King's Captain

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Either’d suit just as well, Captain Lewrie,” the pilot replied, with a long, lazy yawn, as if it were no matter to him. “Bows alee’d save a spot o’ labour when we get to the bend. But there’s bags of sea room alee, sir. Bows a’weather, you’d have to tack at the bend … and do you end up ‘in-stays,’ well …”

  There was that, Lewrie thought; trying to tack in the narrow confines of the river bend, most-like with a dozen contrary vessels coming upriver and vying for sea room. Should they not get her bow ’round, she’d drift on the tidal current, right onto the far shore’s mudflats! He’d been reading accounts of how to weather the Medway, had tried to recall his one-and-only downriver passage from so long before. That had been with a helpful beam wind from the West-Nor’west. He’d lain awake and schemed, played a tiny paper boat model down the river chart (when Toulon wasn’t swatting it halfway to France or Peterborough!) in all imaginable weather conditions. This one, though, was the one he’d feared worst, almost as bad as a leeward tide, with wind and current flowing the same direction, which would have had them dragging anchors astern at the “trip” to keep from being hared along quite out of all control and at a prodigious rate of knots!

  No, this crew’s not well-drilled enough for a proper tack. Alan sighed, feeling his innards shriveling. We’d muck it, sure’z Fate! It was bows alee for them, and all the sail-handling and helm commands he would give—arse backwards!

  “Back and fill, then … bows alee,” Lewrie decided aloud.

  “Nought t’fear, sir.” The pilot yawned again.

  Easy for him t’say. Lewrie glowered. Think I’m fearful, do …?

  “Larboard bower’s a’cock-bill by the ring-painter, sir,” Ludlow supplied, sounding much more agreeable and cooperative this day, now he had something nautical and challenging to do. Or delighting in goading his new captain into folly, Lewrie could also conjure! Taking joy from his dithering and delay. “Shank-painter’s free, and we’ve a stream-anchor prepared astern, as you ordered, sir. Just in case.”

  “Very well, Mister Ludlow,” Lewrie snapped, steeling himself, and for a dread, blank moment trying to recall what commands to issue and in what order. He cast a glance aloft at the commissioning pendant to see how strong the wind was and whether it was steady or not. It was firmly out of the Nor’east, dead foul of the tide and river.

  “We’ll sheer her ’round first, gentlemen,” he pronounced with a nip to his voice. “Helm hard-over to larboard … hard alee, Quartermasters.”

  Streaming back from her mooring buoy by a single cable, Proteus already had steerageway, with that tide sluicing past her rudder and down her sides. With the helm hard-over to leeward, the tide forced her to turn, still tethered, bringing her stern up into the wind and her bows down towards the lee shores to the South.

  She was held to the permanent mooring buoy by a single hawser up forrud, doubled from the starboard hawse hole to the metal ring atop the buoy and back to a belay, at fairly middling-stays. He’d placed Mr. Midshipman Adair, his best and brightest so far, all the way forrud in charge of letting slip.

  “Mister Peacham,” Lewrie barked, wheeling to face his eldest of the middies, who stood with the afterguard in charge of the mizzenmast. “Stand by to hoist spanker to get her stern ’round. Mister Ludlow … stand ready with the tops’ls and inner jib.”

  Up her stern came, Proteus angling more across the tideway with her stern almost directly into the wind. Any further and she’d snub on that mooring cable, Lewrie knew, fail to wheel far enough Sutherly to set sail, yet … for good or ill … they had to let go, to trust in the wind and tide to take her and let her get a touch of way on so they could sail her off and not trip over the buoy—or drift helplessly to strand her on the south bank!

  Soon … wait, she’ll snub … now! Lewrie thought, drawing in a preparatory breath. “Mister Adair … let slip!” he almost screamed. The wind … had it come almost due aft yet? A touch of veering on his left cheek? “Man the captsan! Haul in! Smartly, now!”

  She was free, untethered. Horny bare feet pounded the deck as the hands on the capstan thundered about in a circle, breasting to the bars, the pawls ratcheting as fast as a trotting horse’s hooves, winding the messenger cable inboard about its drum, with the heavier hawser “nippered” to it. That heavy cable groaned and grated through the eye of the hawse hole.

  With no sails aloft, Proteus was taken by the out-flowing tide, adrift slowly astern, still so slowly turning with her helm hard-over, and her 740 tons of deadweight too much for the wind on her tall sides, her masts, and the maze of her rigging. There, the wind, a tiny touch on her larboard quarters!

  “Hoist away aft, Mister Peacham! Sheet the spanker hard a’starboard! Mister Ludlow … let’s begin with the foretops’l.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Ludlow piped back, all enthusiasm, yet sounding dubious in spite of it. “Hoy, there! Let fall the foretops’l! Brace starboard! Clews … halliards … jears, an’ haul away!”

  Up the yard went from its rest upon the foretop, with topmen out on the foot-ropes freeing the brails, the clews singing in the blocks to haul the lower corners down to bare them to the wind, the canvas rustling and shivering as it began to belly in fits and starts, loose-footed.

  Proteus was now swinging, not quite under control yet, drifting and driven by the tideway, the spanker forcing her stern down and her bows up, so she lay Sou’easterly, almost abeam the river, and angling more and more windward.

  “Mister Adair! Bare the inner jib, larboard tack!”

  Just enough pressure on her bows to keep her from swinging up too far into the wind, and getting her foretops’l laid aback on the mast! And that muddy, dangerous lee shore about as far away as Lewrie could spit, it seemed!

  “Main tops’l, Mister Ludlow, hoist away!” Lewrie pressed for more sail and more control. “Mizzen tops’l too … but brace her all aback!”

  Christ, he gloomed, just about ready to drop the larboard bower and surrender, admit he was a fraud, give up this nonsense, and slink off! She was now athwart the tideway, beam-onto the wind, hauled off by that shred of the inner jib’s tack for the moment, but still making way mostly East, which would drift her onto the shore any second, did the tops’ls not fill and … !

  Come on, lady, you can do it! he groaned to himself; God knows I’m not sure if I can, but you … !

  Hmm, though …

  The tops’ls were now fully alive, almost thundering as they were set wind-full. Slackly wind-full, but bellied out and drawing, braced ’round to be brushed by the wind, to shape it and cup it for an instant before it soughed past at an acute angle.

  And Proteus began to steady, broadside to the wind, sailing into the wind, and making an awkward course to the Nor’east, still a bit too near that lee shore than Lewrie cared for, but … ! She was going downriver with the tide, her fore and main tops’ls giving her lift, and the mizzen tops’l all aback to act as a brake as if she was cocked up to windward, fetched to! Turning a bit too much to windward, so …

  “Mister Peacham, brail up the spanker to the gaff for a bit,” Lewrie called, after a long moment of thought. “Mister Adair, douse the inner jib … for a bit!” he shouted forrud.

  And without the wind’s pressure on the spanker to act directly opposite of the usual effect, which would normally have swung her bow off, she steadied once more, a bit more broadside to the wind and the river. Got it now, I think! he told himself; bows get too high, I re-hoist the inner jib up forrud and that’ll push her bows back down. Does she trend too far off the wind, I re-hoist the spanker aft, makin’ her stern-heavy. Rudder … well, hmm. What rudder? We’re sailin’ as fast as the tide, so we’ve no rudder control at all ’til we reach the river bend and try to haul our wind and sail Large to the Sou’east …

  And if it all goes to shit, he assured himself, though still a bit more than a tad shuddery; we just douse sail and drop anchors. Do we meet a string o’ barges, or get goin’ too fast, we brace the tops’ls aback to sl
ow down. Balance wind ’gainst tide … just sit in one spot for a bit … ? As long as the wind complied and continued out of the Nor’east, it was—quite illogically and most disconcertingly—what was known as “smooth sailing”!

  “Neatly done, sir,” the river pilot drawled, with a beamish eye. “Incredible, ain’t it … what you can do with a ship, do you set your mind to it? Short handed you may be, Captain Lewrie, but you’ve a talented batch of officers and mates. Includin’ yerself, sir. Goes without sayin’.”

  “Ah … hmm, well,” Lewrie cautiously allowed, wondering if he was being twitted. There was still plenty of river left in which he could come a spectacular cropper. Don’t know what the blazes I’m about, he chid himself. Never done this in me life; don’t know … damn’ fraud!

  “This’ll be the worst stretch, sir,” the pilot went on, rocking on the balls of his feet, looking as if he’d be inclined to sing or hum in another minute. “No traffic this early it seems. Once to the bend Sou’east into Gillingham Reach, we’ll be off the wind on larboard tack. Inner, outer jibs, an’ foretopmast stays’l to get her bows down, then we’ll fly for a spell. Tricky bit there, sir, oh mercy!” the pilot enthused. “Tricky as anything.”

  “Indeed!” Lewrie snapped, feeling more reason for misery.

  “Traffic, for certain, in Gillingham Reach, sir,” the man went on, most blithe. “Upriver boats huggin’ the weather shore, and us to cross the Reach and hug it too … beam-reachin’ the wind for the main channel. Nasty shoals t’loo’rd, I can tell ye, so ye won’t wish to be forced down on ’em. Where the channel narrows, ’fore it opens up once more? Sutherly pass below the shoals is possible, but ’tis fearsome narrow, and this tide’ll be ebbin’ too quick to trust to it by the time we get there. Short, sharp, beat t’weather into the northern channel where there’s more room, I’d suggest, Captain Lewrie. Barring the odd lighters and ignorant barge captains, hey? Or some brute of a ‘liner’ comin’ upriver for a refit, ha, ha? No worry though, sir. We’ll be right as rain. Right … as … rain, ha, ha!”

  If I didn’t need him so damn’ much, Lewrie grimly told himself, I think I could most cheerfully kill him!

  “Uhm … Mister Ludlow. Sheet home the spanker,” he instructed instead, bleakly taking in their progress, taking notice of what lay outboard, again. “We’re stern-high.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!”

  He looked aft. Amazingly, Chathman and Rochester’s spires were already far astern, the King’s Stairs unable to be seen. He’d sailed his family “under the horizon” and hadn’t had the time to give them a final backward glance, even a last wave of his hat. Proteus, according to the small-scale chart tacked to the traverse board by the binnacle cabinet, was already nearly two miles downriver, within a mile of the bend into Gillingham Reach and making a goodly way on the strengthening tide. He’d been too busy to notice, would still be busy … about as busy as a one-armed tavern wench, ’til they got into the estuary by Queenborough, within sight of Sheerness and the wider mouth of the rivers in the Nore anchorage, where they could drop anchor at last between the Isle of Sheppey and the Isle of Grain.

  He felt a surge of remorse, which rose to dominate his worries of handling this strange new ship, for ignoring his family so completely. Yet beneath his qualms from imagining the disaster which still could happen … he felt a sense of relief. Loved and cherished as they were, he was free of them, freed from their concerns, their domestic …

  God, yer such a callous bastard, he sighed to himself!

  Across the lowlands, marshes, and mudflats, the Nor’east winds brought a faint hint of deeper waters, of ocean beyond. He was free, almost asea once more, in a spanking-new frigate. With a bit more luck to this short passage, he’d be at the edge of the sea, almost ready for anything …

  Whack! Quickly followed by an outraged yelp.

  Lewrie turned to see one of the new-comes in the afterguard on his knees by the weather braces for that backed mizzen tops’l. Mr. Peacham stood over him, with a petty officer close by, whacking at his palm with a rope “starter.”

  “Gittup, ya stewpid git!” the petty officer snarled. “You’ll learn t’keep yer hands off that brace ’til I tells ya t’tail on!”

  “Worn’t gonna free it,” the lubber carped, getting back to his feet, “’twoz just seein’ ’ow ya tie h’it proper … ow!”

  Midshipman Peacham cuffed the volunteer on the side of his head, sending him sprawling again. “None of your civilian sauce, damn you! No back talking to your betters!” He held out a hand to demand of the petty officer his starter, as if he planned to lash the unfortunate to the deck until he learned. The other new-comes stood aghast, and even the few experienced men of the afterguard looked cutty-eyed over it.

  “Mister Peacham, sir!” Lewrie barked. “A word with you. Sir.”

  Peacham put on a bland expression and came to his side, dutiful and obedient.

  “Mister Peacham,” Lewrie muttered, leaning close so others could not hear. “We’re short-handed and barely a herd, much less a crew yet. I will allow the Bosun and his mates to ‘touh up’ crewmen when necessary, but damme if my midshipmen will lay hands on our people. You will not indulge in such again, sir. Do I make my meaning clear to you?”

  “Uh, aye, sir. Perfectly clear, sir,” Peacham managed to choke out, still striving for blandness, though seeming appalled by the idea that physical force would be denied him.

  “Officers are not allowed such,” Lewrie expanded with a growl of displeasure. “You, sir, are an officer in training. You must learn to enforce discipline and obedience without resorting to violence on your own part. That’s what the senior hands are for.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” Peacham nodded.

  “And you will caution your petty officer to save his starter, and his fists, for worse reasons than a new-come’s curiosity,” Lewrie concluded. “Storm, battle, imminent shipwreck, a real cause for haste, sir! Not to preface a warning about accidentally slacking the mizzen weather brace. Can he not instruct and lead without his starter, then I’ll find myself a likely lad who can. You will put him on notice on that head, Mister Peacham. Firmly and forcefully. Lead … not drive!”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” Peacham nodded again, sounding grave, but looking a touch wary of his new commanding officer’s ways. He doffed his hat and departed.

  Lewrie whirled about to see if Proteus had gone out of control during his intimate tirade, but found her drifting along rather nicely, still broadside-on to the river and the wind, and nearing the bend into Gillingham Reach. There was a small two-master anchored on the weather shore, unable to stem the tide with her sails on that light wind. She was far out of the main channel and would present no threat. Over the waving marsh grasses and stunted trees, he could see what he took for a large sailing barge ’round the bend. It was going to get exciting in a minute!

  “When we bear up to windward, then haul off, sir?” he enquired of the river pilot. “How much depth is there, do we intend to shave the eastern lee shore and avoid yon barge, sir?”

  “Bags o’ water, sir, ’til you’re within half a cable of shore,” the pilot breezed off with a wave of his hand in the general direction. “Barge’ll bear up, I’d expect, Captain. He already sees us, and he’ll not wish to get any further down to loo’rd than he is at present,” he said, then took a half-step closer to caution, “Were I you, sir, ’tis about. time to bare the spanker and swing her bows windward, ready to haul off and fly once we’re mid-channel of the bend, sir.”

  “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 l
ittle 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.