The King's Marauder

by Dewey Lambdin

  Like me and … Lewrie thought, well, a lot of people!

  “So, when Insley saw Gable, all he saw was the ignorant, cunny-thumbed Midshipman he once was,” Lewrie decided, “and all Gable saw was his old tormenter? Bound t’be an explosion, sooner or later.”

  “Lieutenant Gable, I gather, saw himself as the protector of Sapphire’s people from Insley’s ruthless discipline and punishments,” Westcott added, “and as Insley’s former victim. He spoke freely of it in the wardroom. Robin Hood? A knight-errant seeking the Holy Grail? On a godly mission, to him, no doubt. Lieutenant Harcourt sneered at his … quest, and told me that Gable was a molly-coddling ‘Popularity Dick’ who let the hands get away with murder. Lieutenant Elmes did allow that Insley was a tad too strict, but that’s as far as he’d go to express any opinion. Caught in the middle.

  “You’ll see what I mean when you look through Captain Insley’s Order Book,” Westcott told Lewrie. “I brought a copy of yours from Reliant, but I haven’t put it into use, yet.”

  “We’ll go over my old one and make alterations to account for a much larger ship and crew,” Lewrie said. “Aye, I will look the old one over, and see if any of Insley’s standing instructions are of any use to us. Did Insley have any other admirers?”

  “Harcourt; the senior Mid, Mister Hillhouse; the senior Marine officer, Keane; and the ship’s Master At Arms, of course,” Westcott told him, “two or three of the older Mids, too, Britton and Leverett. Most of the other Mids seem sorry that Gable’s gone.”

  “We’ll have t’keep a close watch on them, and bring ’em round to ‘firm but fair,’” Lewrie determined, “and, keep a close eye on the hands, as well. As soon as a somewhat more lenient rule is established, they’ll be sure t’test us, the ‘sea-lawyers’, gaol sweepin’s, and the sky-larkers.”

  “Sure as Fate, sir,” Westcott agreed with a grin, “but, we’ll handle them, the same way we whipped Reliant’s people into shape.”

  “I count on you gettin’ that done, Geoffrey,” Lewrie assured him. “That’s why I was so eager t’have you as my First, again.”

  “Won’t let you down, sir,” Westcott promised.

  Bisquit, bored with trotting round the poop deck and marking his territory with a squirt or two, came to lay his head on Westcott’s knee and nuzzle for attention.

  “There’s a rabbit pelt in his crate,” Lewrie said as he rose to his feet, “and some other of his toys. I think I’ll go below and see what my cabins are like. You two … amuse yourselves for a bit.”

  “I think I shall, sir!” Westcott agreed, getting to his feet, as well. “The dignity of my office be-damned.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “God, I could play tennis in here!” Lewrie muttered under his breath as he entered his great-cabins, which were divided into a dining coach to larboard, a very large bed-space to starboard, then the day cabin aft of those which spanned from beam to beam and ended at the quarter-galleries, the transom settees, and the door to his outdoor stern gallery beyond. The partitions which delineated the compartments were thin wood, not canvas stretched over light deal frames, painted a pale beige with white mouldings, and double doors led from the day-cabin to the bed-space and dining coach on the forward walls. He had to share his quarters with four of the quarterdeck 6-pounder guns, but otherwise he had bags of room for his wine-cabinet, desk and chair, his round brass Hindoo tray table on its low platform, and his settee and chairs set up on the starboard side.

  “There’s so much space, sir, we’ve put your wash-hand stand in the bed-space, along with your chests,” Pettus told him as he fidgetted with the angle of the collapsible chairs round the tray table.

  “Mus’ be plannin’ on shippin’ ’is woman aboard,” Lewrie heard from the bed-space, where the Ship’s Carpenter and his Mate were hanging up his suspended bed-cot.

  “Nah, ’e just likes t’sprawl-like,” he heard Jessop comment. “But ’e’s a terror wif ’em ashore, an’ th’ First Off’cer, too. Been a widower some years, now, th’ Cap’m ’as.”

  “A glass of something, sir?” Pettus said, over-loudly to warn them that Lewrie was in ear-shot.

  “Aye, Pettus, I would,” Lewrie replied, equally loudly, and winking at his cabin-steward. Nervous coughs came from the bed-space. The Carpenter and his Mate gathered up their tools and slunk out into the day-cabin, where Lewrie introduced himself, learning that their names were Acfield and Stover, and thanking them for their trouble.

  He got a glass of rhenish and went out on his wide and deep stern gallery to savour some fresh air. Pettus had already opened the upper halves of the transom sash windows for ventilation, and to make sure that Chalky would not get out of the cabins that way, but the cat was hellish-quick to dash out the door with him, then leap to the top railing of the gallery’s barrier, and Lewrie just as quickly grabbed him by the scruff of his neck before he tumbled overside.

  “Bad place for you, Chalky … bad!” Lewrie chid him. “It’s not wide enough for you.” He sat the cat down on the deck.

  I’ve already lost one cat, and damned if I’ll lose another! he thought, determining that his stern walk might be an attractive perk but one that he might not be able to enjoy all that much without keeping a wary eye out for Chalky and his antics. Before the cat could jump back up there, he herded it inside and shut the door and went to the settee.

  “Take your flummery, sir?” Pettus asked.

  “Aye, Pettus, let’s get me back into everyday rig,” Lewrie agreed, shedding his best-dress uniform coat which bore his two medals and the star of his knighthood, then the sash which lay over his waist-coat. “I’ve done all my ‘impressing’ I’m going t’do, today. We’re going t’have t’watch that damned door to the stern gallery, ’less the damned cat gets out, hops onto the railing, and goes overboard.”

  “We’ll see to it, sir,” Pettus promised. “Ehm … I had a wee chat with Mumphrey, Mister Westcott’s man? Seems there was a bit of a scramble when Mister Westcott came aboard last week. The Second Officer, Mister Harcourt, had already moved himself into the First Lieutenant’s cabin, and Midshipman Hillhouse had shifted his traps to the wardroom. When Mister Westcott turned up, both of them had quite a come-down.”

  “Indeed?” Lewrie coolly sniffed.

  “Mumphrey says there’s a cabin off the wardroom just for your secretary, and there’s a day office for him, too, to larboard of the helm, so I expect Mister Faulkes will feel right regal for a change. On the starboard side of the helm, there’s a sea cabin for the Sailing Master, just forward of your bed-space. I hope the fellow doesn’t snore too loudly.”

  “If he does, we’ll scrounge up some spare blankets to hang on the forrud bulkhead,” Lewrie chuckled, “or if the hands at the helm take to singin’ in the middle of the night.”

  The double wheel and the compass binnacle cabinet were just a few feet beyond the doors to his great-cabins, sandwiched between the day office and sea cabin, and sheltered under the poop deck; a very handy arrangement.

  “Mumphrey also told me there’s a fairly big spare cabin on the starboard side of the wardroom, right aft, sir,” Pettus chattered on, “where a Captain would go, if this ship carried a Commodore, who gets these cabins.”

  “God forbid!” Lewrie hooted. “I haven’t even gotten comfortable in here, yet! Hmm … I fear Faulkes will have t’be disappointed. If the Master’s sea cabin is so close to the helm, that day office would make a grand chart room, with my slant-top desk and chart racks where Mister Yelland, the watch officers, and I can roll ’em out flat and do our plots. Faulkes already has his own desk over yonder,” Lewrie said, nodding his head towards the larboard corner of the day-cabin, close to the door to his quarter gallery.

  “Ehm … Mister Westcott left the former Captain’s ledgers and books for you, sir,” Pettus went on. “I put them on your desk.”

  “No rest for the lazy,” Lewrie said with a sigh. “You’d best brew me up a pot of coffee, Pettus. They’ll be boresome-dry going.” />
  He had to read all of them, closely; there was too much risk of being docked in his pay, else. HMS Sapphire’s voluminous inventories of items put aboard by the various Boards of Admiralty, her guns, her shot and powder, boats, sails and spare sailcloth, galley implements and pots, lanthorns, small arms, sand glasses, rations, her miles of ropes and cables for both standing and running rigging, had been signed for by her former captain, and every niggling replacement item had had to be documented. Normally, Lewrie would consult with the previous commanding officer to balance the books and account for losses or wear, but that was now impossible. The ship was his, as were all the thousands of “things” listed in her ledgers that he would one day have to account for, to the least jot and tittle, and be charged for if things went adrift.

  No wonder some captains prefer t’go down with their ships, he thought in wry humour; They couldn’t afford t’replace ’em even if they were as rich as the Walpoles!

  Add to that careful perusing, there were the muster books and the assignments given to each hand for every evolution, the stacks of loose papers showing expenses and requisitions from the Sheerness Dockyards which had not yet been entered into the proper ledgers, and Captain Insley’s Order Book and punishment book. He would be at it long past suppertime. What Lewrie really wished to do was prowl the ship from bilges to the weather decks, bow to stern, but that would have to be put off to another day.

  Lewrie determined that he would dine Westcott in for a working supper, and would keep his clerk, Faulkes, past his suppertime, too. Westcott had been aboard a week longer than he, and would know by now enough to get him past the paperwork. As for Faulkes, well …

  So much for him bein’ an idler with “All Night In”! Lewrie told himself with a wee snicker as he opened the first book in the pile.

  * * *

  The fifty private Marines of Sapphire’s complement traditionally were berthed forward of the officers’ wardroom on the upper gun deck; mutiny was not an un-heard-of occurrence. Lewrie’s Cox’n, Liam Desmond, led the bulk of the Captain’s retinue to a spare mess-table just forward of the Marines, now they were done with setting up the great-cabins, in search of their own berth spaces. They set their sea-chests round the table to sit on, and hung up their sea-bags along the thick and stout hull between a pair of gun-ports. Bisquit accompanied them out of curiosity to see where his friends were going.

  “Diff’rnt than Reliant,” Patrick Furfy commented, looking round at the rows of 12-pounders, and the seeming hundreds of sailors idling at the other mess tables. “They ain’t room t’swing a cat.”

  “Could be worse, Pat,” Desmond said, chuckling. “We could be on the lower gun deck, with nary a breath o’ fresh air.”

  “’At’s Crawley’s table,” an older sailor told them.

  “Who’s he?” James Yeovill, the Captain’s cook, asked.

  “’E’s th’ Cox’n,” the older fellow said with a sour look, “an’ ’is boat crew berth there.”

  “I’m Liam Desmond, Cap’m Lewrie’s Cox’n,” Desmond told him. “Me mate and stroke-oar, Pat Furfy, there … Cap’m’s cook, Yeovill, and them there’s Pettus an’ Jessop. Th’ Cap’m’s men.”

  “Been with him f’r ages an’ amen,” Furfy vowed.

  “It’s still Crawley’s mess table, I tells ye,” the older hand growled.

  “What, all f’r him alone, sure?” a younger man scoffed aloud. “Crawley an’ Cap’m Insley’s people’re ashore t’tend him in th’ hospital, an’ most o’ them’ll come back aboard’z plain Landsmen an’ Ord’nary Seamen … if they come back at all. Michael Deavers, I am, an’ I was in Cap’m Insley’s boat crew, but…” he said with an iffy shrug.

  “Then I reckon ye still will be,” Desmond told him.

  “Maybe Cap’m Insley’ll keep his cook and servants on after he’s faced a court,” Deavers went on, “but, th’ rest of ’em belongs t’th’ Navy, no matter the come-down.”

  “With him long, ye say,” another sailor nearby asked, taking a cold pipe from his mouth. “What sorta officer is Cap’m Lewrie?”

  “He’s a scraper, arrah,” Furfy boasted, warming to the subject. “We been in more fights than we’ve had hot suppers.”

  “Much of a hope f’r that in this ship!” another sailor griped. “All we’ve done is convoy work inta th’ Baltic an’ back f’r months on end, an’ nary a shot’ve we fired.”

  “Cap’m Lewrie’ll find us some action,” Yeovill spoke up, “he always does, sooner or later.”

  “’E come aboard all tarted up, wif star an’ sash, an’ medals,” the older hand sneered. “Born to it, wos ’e? Silver spoon in ’is mouth an’ all?”

  “Won ’em!” Furfy barked. “We were with him at Camperdown and Copenhagen, an’ he was at Cape Saint Vincent afore that. He got his knighthood f’r defeatin’ a French squadron off Louisiana back in ’03, so he earned it, fair an’ square.”

  “Tartar, is he?” a younger sailor asked. “A hard flogger?”

  “Firm but fair,” Desmond assured him. “The Cap’m ain’t much of a flogger, but ya give him good cause an’ he’ll have ya at th’ gratings.”

  “Proteus, Savage, Thermopylae, and Reliant,” Furfy added with a grin, “none o’ th’ Cap’m’s ships did much floggin’ at all.”

  The younger sailor looked relieved, then began to smile when Bisquit, sensing a kind soul, trotted to him and began to nuzzle his hands for petting.

  “‘At’s Bisquit, he is,” Jessop said.

  “Cap’m’s dog?” the sour older hand asked.

  “The ship’s dog aboard Reliant,” Pettus told him. “Our Mids rescued him from the flagship at Nassau. Mersey’s Mids brought him aboard, but her Captain and officers had purebred hunting dogs, and threatened t’drown Bisquit in a sack if they snuck him back aboard again. When Reliant paid off, no one else could take him, so Cap’m Lewrie took him on. But, he’s still pretty-much the ship’s dog.”

  “He’s a fine’un, no error,” the younger sailor crooned, “ain’t ya, boy? Aye, ya are! Want a piece o’ hardtack?”

  “Th’ onliest beast who’d appreciate it, hah!” Furfy laughed. “Bisquit’s th’ only one who likes somethin’ that hard t’chew!”

  “An’ yer beef bones, wif a shred o’ meat on ’em,” Jessop said. “Ye’ll not have t’heave ’em out th’ gun-ports wif Bisquit aboard.”

  “Well, now we’re situated, I suppose we should get back aft, Jessop,” Pettus announced.

  “Aye, and I need to go forward and meet the Ship’s Cook, and set my goods up in the galley,” Yeovill said, getting to his feet, cautiously. The overhead did not quite allow standing head room.

  “Oh, ye’ll just love ol’ Tanner!” the older sailor said with another sneer. “Th’ one-legged bastard’s been tryin’ t’poison us since we been in commission! I swear ’e pisses in th’ cauldrons just f’r spite! ’E’s a damned sour man, ’e is.”

  “And you ain’t?” Deavers teased.

  “Damn yer eyes, Deavers,” the older fellow snapped. “Ye wish a change o’ mess, yer welcome to it.”

  “Aye, I think I do,” Deavers decided of a sudden. “I see ya have but five for an eight-man mess, Cox’n Desmond, and if ya say I’m t’stay on in th’ Cap’m’s boat crew, I might as well shift my traps to yours, an’ tell the First Officer of it. How about you, Harper?” he asked the younger sailor.

  “Be fine with me, Michael,” Harper agreed.

  “Then, when Crawley an’ his lot come back aboard, if they do, you can have ’em, Thompson,” Deavers said to the older hand. “You’ll all get along’z thick as thieves, hah hah.”

  “Better mess-mates ’an th’ likes o’ you!” Thompson shot back.

  Bisquit left off gnawing on his chunk of ship’s bisquit as his old friends departed, looking anxious ’til Deavers and Harper shifted their chests and sea-bags to Desmond’s table, then settled back down on his belly to crack the bone-hard treat. And, by the time he’d eaten the last crumb, the dog found th
at he had won two new friends who would ruffle his fur, let him lay his head on their thighs, and tease him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I’m beginnin’ t’think that a two-decker fifty’s not the worst ship to have, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said about a week later, after he had prowled his new command from the cable tiers to the fighting tops. “I’m especially impressed with the iron water tanks, and those iron knees.”

  “Well, we still have to pump from the tanks to fill the scuttle-butts so the hands can use the dippers when they need a sip or two,” Lt. Westcott said as they emerged from the upper gun deck to the weather deck and fresh air. After a time, all ships developed a permanent stink that could not be eradicated, no matter how often the bilges were pumped out, the interiors scrubbed with vinegar, or smoked with burning faggots of tobacco leaf. Salt-meat ration kegs reeked, after years in cask, fat slush skimmed from the cauldrons when those meats were boiled had its own odour, and was liberally slathered on running rigging to keep it supple. Add to that the ordure from the animals in the forecastle manger, damp wool and soured bedding, the hundreds of sailors who went un-washed for days on end, and their pea-soup farts, and un-warned civilian visitors could end up stunned and gagging.

  “Those knees, sir,” Westcott went on. “With so many warships ordered round ’92 and ’93, and so many merchant ships being built, to replace losses, the Chatham yards had them forged by way of an experiment, and the class designer, Mister Hounslow, thought them a grand idea. They make her much stiffer, less prone to work her timbers in a heavy seaway. In point of fact, I heard that there is new talk of building ships with complete iron frames, with the hull planking to be bolted on, later. I asked the other watch officers and the Bosun how she held up in the North Sea and the Baltic and they were very happy with her … in that regard, at least.”