King's Captain

by Dewey Lambdin

  Spooner signed aboard, then Richard, then Brahms …

  “German, are you, Brahms?” Lewrie asked.

  “Crikey, me a Dutchie, sir?” The East End Londoner guffawed.

  Two older fellows came up, both with hard hands of common labourers now fallen on hard times, drink, or a faint brush with the law.

  “Smyth, sir,” one said, cloaked in a blanket and little else. “With a ‘wye,’ sir. Ess-Emm-Wye-Tee-H’aich.”

  “Rumbold, sir,” the other announced, this one almost bald with but a monkish fringe of white-ish hair above his prominent jug ears. “I was a waggoner, sir. Know some ’bout ropes an’ such …”

  “Better than those who don’t know ropes or knots, Rumbold,” Lewrie assured him, steering him towards the growing clutch of men by the lower entry-port.

  Some smaller, younger lads just into their teens volunteered; fit for servants now; later they could train them aloft as budding topmen. Soon as they fed them back to where their ribs didn’t show, that is, and hosed them down under a wash-deck pump so they would no longer resemble a pack of chimney-sweep’s apprentices.

  “A frigate, d’ye say, sor?” a man dared to ask from the middle of the remaining horde. “Them as go swift as th’ very birds, sor?”

  “A frigate, aye,” Lewrie responded, put a bit on his guard by the man’s deep Irish brogue. As if he didn’t already have enough of those on his books already. He’d hoped, in the far east of England, to scrape up mostly English sailors.

  “Lord!” Ludlow sneered in harsh voice, “Paddies! All brawn and no wits. Can we not be a little choosier, Captain, sir?”

  “Furfy, I am, sir, and that proud I’d be t’get off this prison-barge, Yer Honour … me an’ me mates too,” Furfy boasted, elbowing at some others near him. “We ain’t sailors, nossir, but we’re strong, as yer officer says, and fit, sir … eager t’learn?”

  “Of a mind to join your mate, Furfy, are you, men?” Lewne asked.

  “Kavanaugh, sor. Aye, that I be,” one piped up quickly.

  “Cahill, sir.” Then, “Ahern, sir. Aye, I’ll stick wi’ Mick.”

  “Sir, ya feed Mother Desmond’s boy Liam three meals a day, and I’m yours f’r life, so I am!” another chortled, doffing a ragged, and shapeless, farm hat, a Black Irishman, with ebon hair and blue eyes.

  “Mind your manners, you boggish cur!” Ludlow snapped. “Not him, sir, beggin’ yer pardon. Too much the sky-larkin’ sea-lawyer to me.”

  “Any skills, Desmond?” Lewrie enquired, despite the caution.

  “I read some, write some … taught others some, sir. Fiddler, play uillean pipes … songs an’ stories. Figure cyphers an’ numbers. And a strong back, when all else fails me, sir. Bit o’ th’ auld harp?”

  “A sea-lawyer, as I said, sir,” Ludlow sneered. “One step shy of the gallows, I’ll warrant. A hopeless drunkard too, most-like.”

  “Faith, sir,” Deamond began to protest, with a smile on his face, “but what man alive’d say ‘no’ to a drop o’ th’ …”

  “I’ll go into her, sir!” someone from the far side announced as he clambered up from below, dragging his possessions in a hammock-roll and a seabag. He stepped forward to doff a tarred, round, flat-brim sailor’s hat. This one, at least, had kept the bulk of his issue kit and was dressed in worn, faded, mended, but clean seaman’s clothes, and looked to be a real tarpaulin hand in his middle thirties. He wore a full beard and mustache, despite the fashion for being smooth-shaven—perhaps to conceal the hint of a dark red scar which sketched his left cheek and the tinge of blue-blackness which stained his face—a flare-up from a powder charge or a burst from a gun’s barrel as the fellow had sponged out in a previous battle.

  “Bales, sir,” the bearded fellow reported crisply, standing at an easy attention with his head up, quite unlike the remaining volunteers’ hunched, hopeless shiverings. “Able Seaman, sir. And a middling good gunner, sir.”

  “Bales, hey?” Lewrie grinned in pleasure. “Had an old captain named Bales. How’d the other recruiters miss you, Bales?”

  “Just come aboard last evening, sir, is why,” the man replied. “Turned over from Hussar—28, sir—paid off at Deptford.”

  “Good, we’ll take you, Bales,” Lewrie decided. “Join with the others yonder. Now, Desmond …” Lewrie said, turning back to the Irishman. “Any useful skills?”

  “Strength for th’ hard labour, sir,” Desmond admitted, still chipper even under Ludlow’s glare, “but wit enough t’learn a sailor’s trade. A stout an’ willin’ heart, sir, an’ ever a cheery disposition for any task ye put me. Fell in with Furfy an’ th’ lads, an’ I’d hate t’part from ’em, sir. Be left behind, a’mournin’? Like th’ auld song goes, Cap’um … ‘one sword, at lea-est, thy right shall guard … o-one faithful har-up shall praise thee,’” Desmond actually sang out in a high, clear tenor.

  “Which old song is that you cite, Desmond?” Lewrie chuckled.

  “Why, ‘tis th’ auld ‘Minstrel Boy,’ sir!” Desmond replied.

  “Well, ‘Minstrel Boy,’ you don’t wish to part from your mates; then I’m not the one to turn my nose up at a real live volunteer. Go join ’em and be ready to transfer over to Proteus.”

  “I thankee from th’ bottom o’ me heart, sir, that I do!” volunteer Desmond boomed, doffing his hat once more and bowing from his waist. He plucked up his small bundle of belongings tied up in a thread-bare shirt and dashed to rejoin his friends before Lewrie could change his mind, despite Lt. Ludlow’s grunts of disapproval.

  They winnowed a few more and came within five hands of the full number of ninety-one seamen, or young teens who could be trained as seamen, and made up most of their lack in lubbers, waisters, and servants—those stout but stupid, too old to send aloft. They could use anyone who could serve on the gangways to haul in teams on halliards, braces, lift-lines, clews, buntlines, or jears; or serve the guns on the run-out tackles to drive them up a sloping deck to the gun-ports.

  There were no others aboard Sandwich even remotely healthy, or suitable, and more than a few that even made Lewrie feel a twinge, now and then, of suspicion of a criminal background.

  He’d done what he could to man his ship and get her ready for sea. Now, according to Captain Hartwell, he might have as long as two weeks before receiving orders to sail and join some squadron of ships, where Proteus, like all fast frigates, was all too rare and desperately needed. It would be up to his officers and petty officers from here on out to drive, lead, drag, or harangue them into a crew.

  All three of his ship’s boats were working, as were a brace from Sandwich, to ferry the new hands over to her. Lewrie stood by the rail with a faint smile on his face, thinking how discomfited his Purser, Mr. Coote, would be. He’d have to issue the most of the new-comes a fresh set of slop-clothing, plates, spoons, shoes, blankets … when they’d already lost, gambled away, or sold a first issue; and his books would be as badly out of joint as his nose, Lewrie was mortal-certain!

  As he made his way to the entry-port to take a salute from HMS Sandwich’s side-party, he felt he had good reason for another celebratory indulgence with his supper that evening. For one, he’d missed his midday meal for all his errands; for a second, he’d succeeded at one more vital step in making Proteus a serviceable warship, safeguarding his precious commission into her; and third … he’d found a way to put a “pusser” in a bad mood!

  Not bad, for a day’s work! he decided.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Bloody, gloomy damn’ place, Lewrie thought even more grimly the next morning. It was overcast, a touch windy, and both seas and skies were fretfully grey. Sheerness hadn’t blossomed overnight either—it was still the same low-lying pile of crowded warehouses, manufacturies, and houses, crammed together any-old-how. Only the sea walls and the bulkheads which elevated it, above the high tide made it look substantial and fortified.

  And he already had a discipline problem.

  He had barely shaved and scrubbed his f
ace and neck in a liberal basin of shore water, sat down to his breakfast of fried eggs, a hash of bacon and shredded potatoes, and fresh-baked shore bread, when he heard a commotion without the gun-deck entry to his quarters. He slurped up a scalding portion of coffee, took a morsel of jammed and buttered toast and chewed quickly before the marine sentry’s musket butt thundered on the deck planking.

  “First off’cer … SAH!”

  “Enter,” Lewrie managed to mumble past his tasty quid, allowing himself as much bile into his voice as he wished for such an ill-timed interruption of his few moments of morning calm.

  “’Morning, sir,” Ludlow grunted, ducking his head to clear the overhead deck beams, with his hat under his arm. “Beg t’report, Captain … three men on charges. One for theft, sir … T’other two for the fight that resulted.”

  “Who are they then?” Lewrie sighed, scowling over the rim of his cup.

  “Thief was Landsman Haslip, sir. Caught dipping into Landsman Furfy’s seabag. Landsman Desmond caught him at it, and they both lit into him, sir.”

  “God help the poor bastard then.” Lewrie shrugged, remembering that this fellow Haslip was a puny, shifty runt with the air of a practiced gaolbird, whilst the new-comes, Furfy and Desmond, were burlier, younger; and Furfy had fists the size of middling pot roasts! “Haslip still breathin’, is he … there’s a wonder, Mister Ludlow?”

  “Looks like a fresh-skinned rabbit, sir,” Ludlow told him, but without a trace of humour which that remark might have drawn from him. “Ship’s Corporals attempted to intervene, Captain. But those Paddies wouldn’t have it and took a swing or two at Burton and Ragster, sir.”

  “Shit.” Lewrie frowned, laying down his fork.

  “Told you we should have been choosy, sir …’bout taking those damned Irish aboard,” Ludlow grumbled. “Nothing but trouble, the lot of ’em … their whole bloody shiftless race.”

  Gloomy, he said it, but with a trace of glee for being proved to be correct; hiding it damned well, he must have thought to himself, but Lewrie glared back at him.

  “Irish … Yankee Doodles … Cuffies … or bloody tattooed savages, Mister Ludlow,” Lewrie barked, “now they’re ours, it doesn’t signify. Discipline and punishment are the same. We’ll treat them all the same too, no matter where a hand springs from.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Ludlow nodded, with a trace of weariness.

  “And, sir,” Lewrie griped, “you may suggest all you wish, ’long as it’s for the common good. But, sir … you’ll not take that doubtful tone with me. Or play ‘I told you so.’ Hear me, sir?”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Ludlow cheeped, all obedient, though with his eyes slitting, either in surprise or distaste.

  “We’ll discuss this later, sir,” Lewrie told him. “As for our offenders … I’ll hold ‘mast’ at Two Bells of the Forenoon. Warn your midshipmen or mates to be ready to testify about their behaviour … good or ill, along with the Ship’s Corporals.”

  “Very good, sir. I’ll do it directly, sir,” Ludlow said as he bowed his way out.

  Lewrie picked up his knife and fork and began dining once more. Toulon jumped up on the table with a prefatory “Ummph!” to sniff, lift one paw as he sat, and fan the air as if begging, with his mournfully abused face on. “Mew?” he barely managed, as if too famished to ask.

  “Aspinall, hasn’t this cat had his breakfast yet?”

  “Aye, ’e has, sir,” his servant said, leaning out from the pantry, wiping his hands on a stained dish-clout. “Three strips o’ bacon all by hisself. An’ thought well o’ th’ tatty-hash too, sir.”

  “Well, damme … fetch his plate, Aspinall.” Lewrie sighed. “I think another dab’d do him. Mister Padgett?”

  “Aye, sir,” his clerk replied from aft in his day-cabin.

  “Look up Landsman Haslip in ship’s books. See if he’s a Quota Man or how he was recruited,” Lewrie directed, as Aspinall returned with the small bowl which Toulon usually ate from, with another heap of hash from the sideboard in it. “Hmmm … another dollop for me as well, Aspinall. It’s main-tasty this morning,” Lewrie said, taking a pleasureable moment to watch his ram-cat tuck in most daintily.

  “Not a full day aboard and you’re already in trouble, lads,” Lewrie pretended to sneer at Furfy and Desmond, who stood hatless and hangdog before his desk. “Did they read the Articles of War to you aboard Sandwich? Or once you were in the Impress tender?”

  “Yessir,” they muttered, unable to look him in the eyes.

  “Read us a power o’ ‘whereases,’ aye, sir,” Furfy expanded.

  “Article the Twenty-third, lads …” Lewrie intoned, “says that ‘no one shall quarrel or fight in the ship, nor use reproachful or provoking speeches tending to make any quarrel or disturbance, upon pain of imprisonment’ … or whatever punishment I think fit. Now Proteus is still in port. This could, d’ye wish it, be sent ashore for court martial. But I don’t think you’d like that much, would you?”

  “Uh, nossir … no, Yer Honour, sir.” They cringed.

  The Court Martial Jack was already flying across the harbour, as a board of Post-Captains off some of the line-of-battle ships convened to deal with a whole raft of malefactors aboard HMS Inflexible, an old stores-ship, this morning.

  “Formal charges’d put you in irons, cooped up in another ship’s brig, ’mongst strangers,” Lewrie informed them. “Might take days … before they got ’round to your case.” He forced himself to glower hot. Furfy’s use of “Yer Honour, sir,” told him the bulky fellow had been in the dock before. “And your trial’d go ’bout as fast as havin’ yerself a hedgewhore … ’in, out … repeat if necessary.’ Now, do you insist on your rights then …”

  “Nossir … no, so please, Yer Honour, sir!”

  “Now, then.” Lewrie sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Goin’ for Haslip, that I can understand. A thief caught red-handed by his shipmates deserves a thrashing! There’s none worse to have aboard a ship than a thief who’d steal from his own kind. But once the Ship’s Corporals came to break it up, you should have stopped right there … d’ye hear me? You caught him, well and good. They’d have taken over, brought him to me on charges, and you’d have been blameless, see? It would be up to ship’s justice, my justice, from then on. Like you’d turned him over to the ‘Charlies’ or the Bow Street Runners in London. You will not continue to thump him t’get your own back. You will not take a poke or two at Burton and Ragster, the ‘captain’ of your working party, a petty officer, or midshipman! Know why, you idiots? Allow me to point out Article the Twenty-first. ‘None shall presume to quarrel with his superior officer upon pain of severe punishment … nor strike any such—upon pain of death! Or, otherwise, as a court martial shall find the matter to deserve.’ Never will you lay hands on those above you. Or even back talk ’em. Now do you get it, my pretties?”

  “Oh, arra!” Furfy groaned, turning pale.

  “Lord save us, sir, we … !” Desmond wavered, looking like-about to faint in dread.

  “They read it to you; you should have known,” Lewrie cut him off. “There is no excuse for it, most especially ignorance. Landsman Furfy, Landsman Desmond, I find you guilty of refusing to cease fighting, of disobeying lawful orders to desist, and of quarrelling with a superior. Since, however, you are only a week in the Navy, and less than a day aboard Proteus, I will … this once, mind! … be lenient. Do you ever come before me again in violation of Article the Twenty-first, I will have you triced up and flogged bloody raw! As for now …”

  They blanched, shared a worried look, then turned their gaze on him, all but quivering in their shoes.

  “Ten days bread and water. Ten days deprived of rum, wine, or even small beer. Bread to be ship’s biscuit, not ‘Tommy.’ No tobacco either. And you will both serve as hammockmen to the Ship’s Corporals for those ten days, atop your other duties: fetchin’, scrubbin’, and scourin’ their laundry and such.”

  No rum, no wine, no beer? No tobacco to ease their idl
e hours? It was a death blow! And to survive on water and biscuit, when every other man was eating shore-bread, fresh meat from shore … !

  “Dismissed,” Lewrie snapped. “Now, for Landsman Haslip, Mister Ludlow.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Ludlow nodded. There it was again—another querulous note in his voice that hinted of disapproval of leniency for Furfy and Desmond; what he’d wished for was the maximum of two-dozen lashes. “Pass the word for Landsman Haslip to present himself!” he barked at the Marine inside the great-cabin.

  “Passin’ t’word fer Landsman Haslip!” the outer sentry echoed.

  Then there came the sounds of cheering, a chorus of ‘Hip, Hip, Hooray! ’ which made Lewrie turn up the corners of his mouth with wry amusement. The crew must have been on the Irishmen’s side in the matter and were expressing satisfaction for his lenient sentence despite the risk they ran to dare approve or disapprove. A first sign of spirit in this new crew of his? he wondered.

  No, he thought a moment later, as a scrubbed-up Haslip was led in from the gun-deck, past his dining-coach, chart-space, and pantry.

  It wasn’t coming from Proteus’s forecastle; it was too far off for that and sounded as if it was getting louder, as if it was coming from a great many ships at the same time. He furrowed his brows and rose from his desk to discover what holiday might elicit such cheers from every warship at the Nore, dissonant and un-organised.

  “Mister Ludlow, we miss something? Restoration Day, perhaps?”

  “Don’t know, sir?” Ludlow puzzled. “Not Restoration Day, for certain. That’s not for …”

  “Off’cer th’ Watch, Mister Wyman, SAH!” the outer gun-deck sentry cried, slamming his musket butt with the crash of an explosion, and the tone of his shout more urgent than “parade-ground.”

  “Captain … !” Lieutenant Wyman gasped as he burst in, almost wringing his hat in his hands, his complexion flushed. “It’s mutiny, sir! The Nore too! Every ship, sir … hands cheering in the rigging … plain battle flags flying, and … yard ropes rove, sir!”