“Fingers crossed, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie hopefully said.
“And one’s tongue on the proper side of one’s mouth, too, sir,” Westcott said with a laugh.
“Haven’t heard o’ that’un,” Lewrie confessed.
“Oh, I hear it’s all the go at Woolwich, these days, sir,” Westcott japed, referring to the Royal Arsenal and artillery school.
“Carry on, then, Mister Westcott, and remind ’em t’aim damned careful,” Lewrie ordered.
Muffled cries below carefully put the gunners through the many steps of gun drill; Cast Off Your Guns, Level Your Guns, Take Out Your Tompions, Run In Your Guns, Load With Cartridge, Shoot Your Guns, then Run Out Your Guns, Prime, and Point Your Guns.
“By broadside … on the up-roll … fire!”
HMS Sapphire shuddered, shoved a foot or so to starboard as the larboard battery went off as one, with stentorian roars and a great pall of powder smoke that only slowly drifted alee, masking the target.
“All over the place, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth, posted aloft in the main-mast cross-trees, shouted down.
“Overhaul your run-out tackle, and swab out your guns!” officers on both gun decks cried.
Guns were charged with fresh powder bags, shotted, then run out once more. Sapphire grumbled and roared again as the many carriages’ truck wheels squealed, as un-told tons of artillery lumbered up to the port sills. Lewrie thought that their time was acceptable; his pocket watch had a second hand and his gun crews were close to his demanded three rounds every two minutes.
“Point your guns!” was the order, and gun-captains bent over to peer down the lengths of the cannon, fiddling with the wooden blocks, the quoins, under the breech-ends, or called for their tackle men to heave with crow levers to lift the rear ends of the guns to shift tiny increments to right or left, lifting the carriages a few inches.
“By broadside … fire!”
Sapphire’s larboard side erupted in another titanic roar, and wreathed herself in yellowish-grey powder smoke, with hot red-amber jets of discharge jabbing out, mixed with swirling clouds of sparks.
“Closer, from right to left, sir!” Kibworth shouted. “Short, or far over!”
“Overhaul your run-out tackle, and swab out your guns!”
A third broadside followed within the required two minutes, then a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth. Despite the mildness of the day, the gun crews began to work up a sweat as they fed their cannon, ran them back out, heaved upon the levers to shift traverse, heaved again to lift the breeches so the quoins could be inched in or out to elevate their barrels, then stood clear, making sure that the recoil tackles and run-out tackles would not foul—and that their feet were safe—before the next broadside roared out.
Fifteen minutes elapsed from the first broadside, and the hands were beginning to slow, much as they would in battle, for human muscle could only do so much arduous labour for only so long. They were not machines. If they were in real combat, lasting an hour or longer, the broadsides would be discharged closer to one a minute, and those would be ragged, stuttering up and down the ship’s side as if “Fire At Will” had been ordered.
“Smothered, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth shrilled in a joyous whoop. “The target’s smothered in shot splashes!”
As the smoke drifted clear and thinned, Lewrie raised his telescope to behold a long, disturbed patch of white water round the white-painted target cask, a patch which stretched at least one hundred yards from right to left, and perhaps only fifty or sixty yards in depth. Had they been firing at an enemy ship, there would have been misses to the right or left of the foe, ahead of her bows or astern of her transom, but the bulk of the heavy shot would have taken her “’twixt wind and water”, smashing into her sides.
“I think we’re finally gettin’ somewhere, Mister Westcott,” he said, with a sly grin beginning to form upon his face. “You lads,” he addressed their youngest Mids, Ward and Fywell. “Scamper down and tell the officers on the gun decks to mind their traverses.”
“Aye, sir!” and they were off, as quickly as monkeys.
Two more broadsides were fired, with even more excited shouts from Midshipman Kibworth. Word had been passed to the gun crews of the “smother”, and despite their weariness, the pace of serving their guns had picked up a bit. Finally …
“Target’s destroyed, sir!” Kibworth screeched. “It’s gone!”
Lewrie abandoned the middle of the quarterdeck and dashed to the lee side, whipping up his telescope. “Yes, by God! Yes!”
That patch of disturbed sea, churned foamy white by the impacts of all those roundshot, was about the same size in depth, but shorter from right to left, very much shorter, which would have smashed into an enemy warship from bow to stern, with very few misses ahead or astern. A fine mist from feathers and pillars of spray was falling.
“Secure!” Lewrie bellowed. “Cease fire!”
That welcome order was passed down from the quarterdeck to the upper gun deck, then the lower gun deck, and the ship fell silent, at long last; an eerie, ear-ringing silence in which the normal sounds of a ship on-passage, the faint groans of the hull, the piping of the wind, and the clatter of blocks, sheets, and halliards suddenly sounded alien.
“Pass the word, you lads,” Lewrie said to the Mids, Fywell and Ward. “My compliments to all, and that that was damned fine shooting!”
“Quite suitable aiming,” Lt. Westcott commented as he and Lewrie pulled their wax ear-plugs out. “At much longer ranges, though, we wouldn’t be all that accurate.”
“At much longer range, Geoffrey, neither would the French, or the Dons,” Lewrie replied, with a twinkle in his eyes. “How much gunnery practice d’ye imagine they get? Much like their seamanship, it is all ‘river discipline’ in harbour, and hope they can pick it all up on their way to somewhere. I think we’d stand a good chance, better than them, at any rate, do we run a’foul of them.”
“One hopes, though, that our enemies show enough courage to try us at ‘close pistol-shot’,” Westcott jibed.
“Hmm … only a Frog seventy-four would dare,” Lewrie mused. “And, what are the chances of one o’ them turnin’ up?”
Sapphire slowly returned to normal routine. The gun-ports were shut, flintlock strikers removed and returned to storage, crow levers, swabs, and rammers stowed, the guns swabbed down to remove powder smut, the tompions re-inserted, and the guns run up to the port sills to be bowsed and lashed secure. Sailors gathered round the water butts on both gun decks to slake their great thirsts, then lowered their mess tables from the overheads, fetched their stools from the orlop, and took their rests.
Pettus came up from deep below, as well, with Chalky in his usual wicker cage, and Bisquit on a leash. Once in the waist, he let the dog go, and Bisquit, who was always frightened by the great dins of the guns, whined, whimpered, and dashed about to try and take assurance from one and all. When the ladderway was clear, he trotted to the quarterdeck, tail held low and tucked, to yelp, whine, and make a Yeow sound at Lewrie and Westcott, pressing hard up against their legs to get pets, flopping to the deck planks to get his belly rubbed, and for Lewrie’s hand to find that sweet spot that made one of his hind legs twitch. After a few minutes, Lewrie stood back up and Bisquit got to his feet, too, to place his paws on Lewrie’s waist-coat for a thorough head and neck rub, his tail whisking quickly, again, and erect once more.
“Mister Elmes, you have the watch?” Lewrie asked.
“Aye, sir,” Elmes replied,
“I’ll go aft, then,” Lewrie said. “And once again, my compliments on damned good practice with the great guns.”
“Aye, sir, and thank you, sir,” Elmes said, greatly pleased.
* * *
“Tea, sir?” Pettus asked as Lewrie cast off his hat, coat, and sword belt. Lewrie cocked an ear to hear Six Bells of the Forenoon Watch being struck up forward at the forecastle belfry; eleven of the morning, and half an hour before the first rum issue of the day for the ship
’s crew.
“I b’lieve I’ll have a goodly glass o’ that white wine, instead,” Lewrie decided, “the one that’s been coolin’ in the water tub.”
I think I’ve earned it, this morning, he told himself as he sat down at his desk in the day-cabin and got out a sheet of paper to begin a letter to his eldest son, Sewallis, who was still aboard HMS Aeneas under his old friend, Benjamin Rodgers, on the Biscay blockade.
“Interesting thing, sir,” Pettus prattled on as he pulled the cork from a bottle of a tasty, if smuggled, sauvignon blanc. “As we were coming up from the orlop.”
“What’s that, Pettus?” Lewrie asked, opening an ink bottle and dipping the tip of his steel-nibbed pen.
“The ship’s people, sir,” Pettus said. “They were in glad takings … happy, and pleased with themselves … of a job well done?”
“Aye?” Lewrie prompted, waiting for more.
“Joshing and grinning, laughing out loud?” Pettus said further as he held up a wineglass to the light from a swaying lanthorn to check for smuts. “One could almost say that they’re in much the same spirits as the people in your previous ships, sir.”
“Well, that’d be gratifyin’,” Lewrie said. “We’ve had too much division over Insley, or Gable’s, followers.”
“Fact, sir,” Pettus said, pouring a glass and stowing the wine bottle back in the cooling tub. “’Twixt your putting that Clegg to the gantlet, and their gunnery this morning, I do get the feeling that our Sapphires are won over, sir. More … shipmate-y?”
“Good God, is that a word?” Lewrie joshed as Pettus fetched him his wine.
“If it isn’t, it should be, sir,” Pettus slyly replied.
Lewrie took a first sip, finding the wine savoury. He would have begun his letter, but Chalky was over his fright, and found that he could keep his master from drinking and writing both, as he leapt into Lewrie’s lap to sniff at the glass and demand pets … now!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Out past the Lizard, then Land’s End, and past Soundings, the Atlantic had become a much emptier sea, and, as Sapphire’s convoy had altered course South for the transit of the Bay of Biscay, the sight of other ships had become even rarer. That was not to say that they sailed in complete isolation.
Now and again, the lookouts would disturb the day’s routine at the slightest hint of what might be another ship’s tops’ls, t’gallants, or royals peeking over the horizon, paler wee shapes more substantial than a phantom imagined from a combination of light and shade in the colours of cloudbanks rising on the Westerly winds. From the cross-trees of the mainmast, a sharp-eyed lookout could see out to twelve miles in all directions on a good day, and a ship of decent size for an Atlantic crossing, hull down but with all the sails of her upper masts standing, could be espied another two or three miles beyond that.
While the ships of the convoy went about their drills, swabbing, sail trimming, they might look warily over their shoulders whenever a strange sail was sighted, and would remain wary ’til whoever it was had passed on on a diverging course, and slipped back below the horizon upon their own innocent occasions.
Now and then, a strange sail might take half the day to emerge over the horizon, only five or six miles off, and on a reciprocal course; neutrals, mostly, Swedish, Danish, Prussian, or Russian merchantmen making their way home from the Mediterranean or Africa. They would dip their flags and pass on, growing smaller and smaller ’til only their upper-most sails were visible, then to disappear.
All those contacts, the solid and the spurious, were of great concern to Lewrie and his officers, for clever Frenchmen could fly a false flag to delude their prey ’til the last moment. He found himself on deck with a telescope, and fingers crossed for luck, quite often, for many a cautious hour ’til he could let out a long-pent breath of relief, and turn to pleasanter things.
Worse, perhaps, were the nights when only a pair of weak taffrail lanthorns could be made out. At night, lookouts were called down from the cross-trees, and the lookouts of the Evening and the Middle Watches were posted at bow and stern, on deck, where their range of view was much reduced, which meant that those enigmatic passing ships were much closer, and their identities could not be determined.
In the first week on passage, they had seen American merchant ships, too, crossing astern, or far ahead of Comus in the lead of the long column. Lewrie knew that they were bound for France, and should be stopped and inspected for contraband. That was Orders In Council, and the list of contraband goods expanded faster than breeding rabbits, but … Lewrie let them pass unmolested. There were whole fleets of Royal Navy frigates and “liners” much closer to the Yankees’ destinations which could fulfill that office, and he had a convoy to guard at all hazards. If he hared out of line and went after them, he’d leave the convoy on their own for a few hours, or order them all to fetch-to and idle ’til he’d boarded and inspected the suspect vessel, then get them back into order and under way, again, wasting good weather and a good wind.
Besides, he rationalised to himself, he wasn’t sure that his lumbering two-decker 50 could catch a swift Yankee merchantman if her master felt like making the pursuit a long stern-chase! The Americans built very fast ships! Being out-footed and out-sailed would just be too embarassing.
More cheering and reassuring, though, were their encounters with British convoys. One day during the second week at sea, there was an East India Company “trade” of at least sixteen tall and grand Indiamen, so big that they could easily be mistaken for Third Rate ships of the line. Those merchantmen were escorted by two frigates and a 74-gunner. Despite the war, the convoy system managed to maintain monthly departures and arrivals, spanning the East and the West Indies, North America, South America, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic. Six months or better out from Canton in China, or Calcutta or Bombay, they were in the home stretch with all their wealth assured safe docking in the Pool of London.
After a few more days of perfect isolation on an empty sea, a fresh convoy arose on the Southern horizon, one much smaller but perhaps just as rich, flying the blue-white-red horizontal-striped flags that denoted a Portugal convoy, and sure to be filled with ports and madeiras, sherries, costly liqueurs, fruit preserves and bottled citruses. This convoy passed quite close, within a mile of Lewrie’s, and both groups of ships waved hats and shirts and raised lusty cheers of welcome to each other. The England-bound sailors might have cheered to see what they might have mistaken for a squadron of warships which meant additional safety for a few hours beyond their own two escorts, and the hands of Comus, Sapphire, and the soldiers aboard the transports surely cheered the liquid delights aboard the convoy! Whether they could drink them, or not.
* * *
HMS Sapphire rang to the clatters and clangs of an hundred poor Welsh tinkers all tapping away as her hands went through the steps of cutlass drill, paired off in mock melee to hone their sword-play. On the open poop deck, Lewrie was squared off against their senior Marine Lieutenant, the stern John Keane, Lewrie’s short hanger versus Keane’s straighter and longer smallsword, and frankly, Lt. Keane was the better swordsman, very fast and darting, with a very strong wrist. Lewrie was in his shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, working up a sweat and beginning to pant at the exertion, which seemed as wearying as any real combat he had ever experienced.
Keane lunged, and Lewrie countered with a twist to bind, then stepped forward inside Keane’s reach, his left arm fending off Keane’s sword hand, bull-rushing him backwards and giving him a thump in the chest with the silver, lion-head hilt, then a mock slash with the flat of his blade that, had it been for real, the wickedly honed edge would have dis-emboweled the man.
“I trample on your entrails, sir!” Lewrie hooted in triumph.
“I expire, sir, thinking last thoughts of Mother,” Keane said in matching jest, though he didn’t look as if he approved of Lewrie’s ploy, or the hardness of that thump.
“As hellish-good as you are, sir, that was the only way
that I could prevail,” Lewrie cheerfully admitted. “But, a boarding action, a melee, with enemy sailors tryin’ t’kill ye any-old-how is not as fine as the elegance of a swordmaster’s salle. That’s why I prefer the hanger … I can always get inside or under my opponent’s guard.”
“A break for water, sir?” Lt. Keane suggested.
“Gad, yes,” Lewrie heartily agreed. “I’m dry as dust.”
The First Officer, Lt. Geoffrey Westcott, also in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, had been matching blades with Midshipman Leverett, and that pairing took a water break at the same time. Westcott’s harshly-featured face was split in a grin as he delivered a final suggestion to Leverett, who had been schooled, like all young gentlemen of means, in the sword, but was learning that elegance and grace wouldn’t stand a Chinaman’s Chance if shoved nose-to-nose, elbow-to-elbow into a melee with barely enough room to employ a sword. Westcott looked as if he had handily bested the young man, with tactics as “low” as Lewrie’s.
“A good morning’s workout,” Lewrie said after wetting his dry mouth with a first dipper from the scuttle-butt. “Pretty-much the only decent excercise an officer can get, aboard ship. Several brisk turns round the deck don’t hold a candle.”
“Indeed, sir,” Lt. Keane agreed. “Though I have contemplated ascending the stays and ratlines to the tops, a time or two.”
“Your dignity, though, sir,” Midshipman Leverett jibed, as he waited his turn at the water butt. “That’s an acquired skill.”
“How’s the leg?” Westcott asked in a barely audible whisper.
“No problem at all,” Lewrie whispered back. “Not a twinge.”
Lewrie had known too many older officers who had been so long at sea who were halfway lamed by the rheumatism engendered by the cold and damp, their continuing careers a perpetual misery of aches and pains, much less anyone who had been as “well-shot” as he had been. He felt damned grateful to have avoided the rheumatism, so far, and to have healed so completely. Well, gout’s another matter, he told himself with a wee laugh.
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