King`s Captain l-9

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Dear, Lord," Lewrie sighed. Very softly and circumspectly, it should here be noted. "A bad-luck ship… a 'Jonah'?"

  "Who's to say, sir?" Proby groaned, sounding a tad miserable. "But here's a stranger part. Good sawyer in Nicholson's yards, he's out on the slipway with his little boy… to cut the dog-shores. Comes 'round afore her bows, trying to think of what to do. She misses that high tide, and it's days more before she's depth enough to launch proper, without damaging her quick-work. Everybody watching, and he just walks up to her forefoot, lays a hand on her cutwater-it appeared that he said something-then… one shove of his little boy's hand and she gives out the most hideous groan, like the cradle is about to give way and break up. But instead… away she goes, smooth as any launch as ever I did see."

  "Ah, well!" Lewrie felt reason to say with a relieved chuckle, yet a bit of a shiver. "And here I thought you were about to say how she crushed him and his boy… drew blood on her naming day. Wheew!"

  "Ah, but the sawyer and his son, sir… they're Irish!" Proby most ominously pointed out, hunched up in his cloak as if he was fearful of sitting too erect. "Irish, d'ye see. Seen many an odd thing in my time concerning the launching of ships. Most go smooth as silk and no problem, 'cause they're just a 'thing' at that moment and don't get their soul 'til after they've been in saltwater for a spell. Now and then, though, there are the blood-drinkers. A sloop of war once mashed three men when she veered off the straight-and-narrow on her way in, and God help every man-jack who served aboard her, 'til she ran aground five years later and drowned her entire crew off the Hebrides. There's a two-decker 64 from this dockyard that's cost the careers of four captains by now, and she's… I'll not call down bad luck by naming her… had more strange accidents and deaths among her crew than any other of her type. Man-a-month dying, last I heard of her. Even Bellerophon, sir… blowing a perfect gale the night before her launching. Came to see if the shores would hold 'til morning, and there she was afloat… Launched herself, d'ye see? Christened her myself, after the fact. I think she was so eager to swim, Captain Lewrie, that she wouldn't wait. Aye, the 'Billy Ruff n' had an odd birthing, sir. But for the life o' me I cannot recall an event stranger than Proteus, not in years!"

  "Well, that's coincidence, surely…" Lewrie objected. "That she came from the same yard. And the matter of the sawyer…"

  "Like she approved of Merlin, though the Church wouldn't, then balked at being Proteus" Proby rhapsodised, as if in awe of the odd. "And only a Gaelic blessing made her accept it… groaning over it but going in, at last… at the touch of a mere lad."

  "Well, since then at least there's been no sign…" Lewrie said. He thought sign too close to portent, and after a slight cough, amended that to, "There's been no troubles in her or with her?"

  Proby shrugged, as if forced to say it, like a reluctant witness giving damning testimony against a friend.

  "There is the matter of her previous captain."

  "Aye?" Lewrie posed, wondering if his leg was being pulled.

  "Captain The Honourable William Churchwell. Man in his earliest four-ties, as best I could judge, sir," Proby went on. "A bit of the Tartar, or so I gathered from others, a real taut-hand. But a most experienced officer. Dined with him several times, once he'd come down to read himself in command-Just after she went into the graving dock for her coppering. A most righteous man too, Captain Lewrie, brought up strict in the Church, and… for a Sea Officer… a very proper and sober Christian. Would have the hide off a seaman did he hear even a slight blasphemy or profane oath. Rare in the Navy, his sort."

  Bloody right they are, Lewrie thought, keeping a non-committal glaze to his features; a sea-goin' parson. Damn' rare breed those… thankfully!

  "Abstemious too, sir. Rarely touched more than a single glass of wine an entire meal, sir, and could only be pressed by the convivial folk to a rare second. Seen it myself," Proby related. And they both shook their heads in wonder at Captain Churchwell's contrary nature; it was a rare gentleman who'd put away fewer than two bottles of wine a day__it was the expected thing, part of a gentleman's ton.

  The coach slowed, rocking on its leather straps as it came to a stop just by the King's Stairs, which led to a boat-landing. They alit, which activity delayed the rest of Proby's tale. Below the stairs lay a gaily painted ten-oared barge, Commissioner Proby's own, flying his personal flag; and hard by, a more plebeian hired cutter occupied by Aspinall, Andrews, and Padgett, laden with cabin-stores and furnishings, and Toulon in his wicker travelling basket.

  "Ah, there she is, Captain Lewrie," Proby said, filled with pride of his latest creation for the Royal Navy. "A beauty, is she not?"

  "All ships are, sir… but aye! This 'un…!" Lewrie swore, at his first sight of her. "She's lovely!"

  Tall, erect, trig, and proud, glistening with newness, her tarred and painted sides shining and reflecting back the prismatic light flash of river water, HMS Proteus was indeed a lovely, new-cut precious gem of the shipbuilders' arcane science. Her bowsprit and jib-boom were steeved slightly lower than most frigates he'd seen, the way he liked 'em, for that meant larger heads'ls with more draw, closer to the deck, and more ability to go like a witch to windward. Her entry was not an apple-cheeked bulb from the waterline up, but angled slimmer and tapering narrower, to merge far before her cutwater in an aggressive, out-thrust extension of her sprit and head timbers, her cut-water angled a few degrees more astern than was customary to give her grace. Even at a quarter-mile's distance, without a glass, Lewrie could discern Frenchness in her pedigree, with a touch of stocky English usage aft, where she widened and flared for accommodation space and storage as far forrud as possible. He knew, just from looking at her, that her forecastle could be burdened by a pair of 6-pounder chase-guns and a pair of 24-pounder carronades, and still have the buoyancy and form to her front third to ride up and over even the tallest storm-wave without ploughing under, like a ship with a too-fine entry might.

  Tumble-home inward from the chain-wale and gunwale, narrowing to save top-weight, all neatly proportioned like a surface-basking whale, broken by the row of gun-ports and the upper gunwale, which was painted a rather pretty buff tan. There was the glitter of gilt paint 'round her larboard entry-port, which at that angle as she lay bows upriver, streaming from a permanent moor, faced them; gilt glitters too, further aft where the quarter galleries jutted out from her curved sides and nearly upright stern timbers. A commissioning pendant swirled and curled high aloft, a small ensign in the eyes of her bows-a harbour jack-and the Red Ensign of a ship yet to be assigned to a particular squadron or fleet, an "independent ship," now and then outfurled to a lazy breeze. And all as pristine-new as the ship herself.

  "I thought you would not mind did we use my barge to take you out to her 'stead of requesting of her to send over your gig," Mr. Proby said, after taking a long, satisfying gander of his own.

  "Thankee, Mister Proby, that's most accommodating of you, and I would be honoured," Lewrie said, unable to tear his gaze from her, in a lust to be abroad and too impatient to wait for a boat to row shoreward to fetch him… like a parcel.

  My frigate! he exulted, even if she was accursed; my frigate, my first frigate! The freedom, the power… those guns of hers! God help me, but I do love 'em. Ships and guns… and the reek o' both!

  "Andrews?" he called over to the hired boat. "I'll go in the barge. Do you see my dunnage to the larboard port?"

  "Aye, aye, Cap'um!" his Cox'n shouted back.

  They descended the King's Stairs, got into the barge, and were shoved off. It was after Proby's Cox'n had a way on her, and steering clear of shore, before Proby continued his tale.

  "Ah, Captain Churchwell," Proby sighed, toying with the lapels of his cloak. "He and his chaplain came ashore to dine with me that last evening. And as sober a lot as ever you could wish for, Captain Lewrie."

  "The last evening? You don't mean t'say…?"

  "Saw him to his gig, just there at the King's Stairs, as we did just now in my
coach," Proby gloomed, turning a weathered face downriver to keep an eye on the ships in his charge, the refits and all of the new construction still skeleton-like on the slipways; and to get a whiff of ocean, Lewrie suspected.

  "And not a half-hour later, his chaplain was dead. Drowned." Proby sighed.

  Well, a chaplain, that's no loss, Lewrie thought most sourly; a reverend on a ship's a bit gloomy-makin' anyway. Haven't seen one of 'em worth a tuppenny shit, and most vessels sail without 'em.

  "How terrible!" he felt compelled to gasp though.

  "Dead calm, just at slack water it was, sir," Proby said, with another dis-believing shake of his head. "Not a breath of wind stirring, and no cause for Proteus to roll or toss. Side-party up on her gangway ready to render honours.

  "It might have been someone on the main deck took a poke with something through the scuppers, but no one could recall seeing hands on deck that late at night, other than the side-party up above the gun-ports on the starboard gangway. But…"

  "But, sir?" Lewrie pressed, feeling his hands twitch once more with impatience, as Proby turned the tale into a two-volume novel.

  "For no apparent cause, sir… she heaved a slow roll starb'd," Proby whispered, leaning close to Lewrie on the thwart they shared near the sternsheets. "The chaplain, Reverend Talmidge, was halfway aloft, and Captain Churchwell was just by the lip of the entry-port, when she did her roll. And then, sir!-Captain Churchwell gave out a yelp, like he was stung by a wasp, he told me later-and lost his grasp on the man-ropes. He slipped and fell backwards, slid down into Reverend Talmidge and knocked him loose as well, and they both hit the water and went under. Right 'twixt ship and boat, without touching either, sir… not a mark on the gig, as there would have been had the Reverend Talmidge struck his head on her gunn'ls and knocked himself out. Captain Churchwell came to the surface a moment later, and his boat-crew pulled him out. But the chaplain never did. Now both men were strong swimmers, I was told, since boyhood; and Captain Churchwell thought that the chaplain might be beneath the gig, trapped and unconscious, and he dove under, searching for him, but never found him. He was never found, Captain Lewrie."

  "That's odd," Lewrie had to admit aloud. "Usually a drowned man comes up, sooner or later. Downriver, perhaps…?"

  "We searched, sir, indeed we did. Captain Churchwell had boats on the river not a half-hour later," Proby told him. "He sent news to me, requesting everything that'd float to search, as far as Gillingham Reach, the first morning and for several days after; but nary a sign of him did anyone see. And even did a man strike his noggin and put himself out well… being 'round ships, ports, and rivers the most part of my life Captain Lewrie, I've seen men fall overside, seen drownings aplenty, God save me. And the most of 'em do come up, right after they fall in. 'Fore their clothes get soaked, they've enough buoyancy for at least a single surfacing, if they've a scrap of air in their lungs."

  "Well, perhaps he drew in a breath, but underwater…" Lewrie surmised. So far it was a tragic tale, perhaps indicative of his new ship's__

  perverse nature? he shivered-Gaelic, Druidic, and Celtic soul. Certainly there was a frigate near her like, HMS Druid, built back in the early '80s, and there'd been a spot of bother at first over her name, with the Established Church's Ecclesiastical Court upset by an allusion to the old pagan ways and the necromancing Druids. He had never heard, though, that she'd been trouble. Made into a trooper, last he'd heard… with guns removed, en flute, so she could transport a whole battalion at once.

  But the way Proby was glooming and ticking the side of his nose, as if in sage warning, he wondered when the other shoe might drop.

  "It could be as you say, sir, for I've seen that happen also," Proby confessed. " 'Mongst the drunk-as-lords, the ones who did strike their heads. But, sir… Reverend Talmidge was stone-cold sober when he entered that gig. And no one could recall him striking his head… no dented wood, no smear of blood or hair…?" Proby shrugged. "And may I remind you, noted to be a strong swimmer. I sometimes wish our Lords Commissioners might follow the example of the Dutch Navy. They require every man-jack sent to sea to learn how to swim, or know how before joining. And their surgeons and surgeon's mates can revive a drowned man in almost miraculous fashion by laying him out face-down over a large keg laid on its side. Roll him back and forth and, more than half the time, he begins to cough and sputter and spew up what he swallowed or breathed in. And is returned to the living, Captain Lewrie, like Lazarus called out from his grave by Our Dear Saviour. I have seen that done too, sir, in my time."

  "So he lost his chaplain, sir. But you said he was her previous captain?" Lewrie urged. "What made Captain Churchwell… 'previous'?"

  "Oh, sir," Proby groaned, looking appalled. "Close as brothers they were to each other… cater-cousins from the same county, the same social set. Captain Churchwell was as heartbroken as a man who'd just lost all his brothers and sisters at a single stroke!"

  "He threw over his commission due to grief, Mister Proby?" Lewrie frowned. Well, it did take all kinds, he felt like saying.

  "I'll warrant there was a certain amount of grief, the cause." Proby nodded, looking seaward once more, towards HMS Proteus, to judge how near she was. "And guilt, for he was the one who'd jostled Talmidge when he slipped and fell. And that was an odd thing too, in addition to her strange roll. The man-ropes were spanking-new manila, hairy as so many badgers and dry as dust. The batten steps had been fresh-tarred, with sand scattered for a good foothold. No cause for him to slip at all. No linseed oil anywhere in sight for him to slip on with hand or foot."

  "Prickly strands of manila… that might have been what he said stung him, sir," Lewrie suggested, turning to eye his new ship also.

  "Sting a lubber, sir," Proby grunted most querulously. "Or sting a lady's soft hands. But never a tarry-handed sailor like him. Had a bear's grip, he did… and all over rope-handling callouses."

  "So?" Lewrie shrugged. "Why that night then?"

  "I recall most vividly him saying that it felt like he'd gotten stung by several wasps at once, Captain Lewrie," Proby told him. "At the tail end of winter, when they're still a'nest? No, he claimed the ship… bit him!"

  "Beg pardon?" Lewrie gawped. "Bit him, did y'say?"

  "Claimed she hated him and was out to kill him too," Proby told him, shrugging. "Not five days later, he wrote Admiralty asking for immediate relief. Aged ten years, he appeared, as haggard as a dog's dinner. Unkempt, his hair turned grey almost overnight, I tell you. And falling-down drunk, sir! Him, so abstemious before, but in his cups right 'round the clock afterwards. Running on deck at all hours, claiming he heard voices warning him to leave or die? Mister Ludlow claims he smelled sober in the beginning, even when he told the most horrendous fantasies and saw things no one else on deck saw, sir. Turned out the Marines to search his cabins more than a few times and claimed there was someone there, but nary a sign of an intruder there was. He began drinking soon after that. After the first two days, I think it was. Babbling to himself, weeping before the hands… 'twas a sorry spectacle Captain Churchwell was when he took the coach back to London. Never seen a man so shattered in body and soul."

  "Perhaps he was one of those secret topers, Mister Proby," Lewrie wondered, "who hold it well and hide it well. Does a man play a role well enough in public… and don't most people…?"

  "Seen more than my share of those too, in my time, sir"-Proby chuckled-"claiming to be the strictest abstainers… but experience gives the lie to their lies. Didn't look the sort. That sort of lust for drink will show in a man his age. In Sea Officers more than most, as I'm certain you've noted. No, sir, I may attest to you that this demonic craving for spirits was sudden. And the poor devil was quite capsized."

  "Well, perhaps she bit him after all, sir. In a way? Bottle-bit?" Lewrie could not help saying, with a quirky smirk.

  Proteus was near now-not a musket-shot off-and the barge was steering to pass under her out-thrust bowsprit and jib-boom, about ten yards in front of h
er bows to gain her starboard side. There was a thunder of feet as her partial crew was mustered, the shrill of bosun's calls to summon a side-party.

  "Boat ahoy!" came a shout from her larboard cat-head, from the strange midshipman of the harbour watch.

  "Proteus/" Proby's midshipman in the sternsheets cried back, to warn them that their caller was not just any officer, but her new captain. The bow-man thrust four fingers in the air, showing the number of side-men to be mustered.

  "Perhaps she did, Captain Lewrie," Proby snipped, sounding as if he was put off by Lewrie's cynical comment. "Perhaps she did, at that. And the very oddest thing was, sir, the poor Captain Churchwell and the Reverend Talmidge both, sir… were Anglo-Irish. Son of an Irish peer, Churchwell was, from near Drogheda. And Talmidge the younger son of another, gone into the ministry. Both families were land-owning in the large way," Proby drawled. "The most extensive estates, equal to whole counties, with hundreds, if not thousands, of poor Irish tenants. Absentee landowners, most of the time, with them living well-off in Dublin or London most of the year. Anglo… Irish, sir! Protestant folk. Now were a ship to find her soul and resent her name, it just might be that, does she prefer something Gaelic or Celtic-like some of this fellow Ossian's romancings-she might have resented a Protestant English churchman and a taut-handed Tartar of a captain? Hmmm?"

  "Murder, perhaps, sir," Lewrie said, after he'd gotten his jaw re-hinged. "But by someone in the crew. One of those United Irish I'm certain you've heard about. A sea-lawyer Quota Man who'd gotten what he thought was an unfair portion of the 'cat'? Half o' that lot are better off in prison or swingin' from a gibbet at Tyburn. One or more of their poorest tenants come into the Fleet to find him over them and couldn't resist takin' revenge for bein' turfed off their little plots?"

  "All those possibilities were considered, Captain Lewrie, but so far, there is no plausible explanation. Oh, but she's a wondrous ship, sir. As lovely as a swan, do you not think? But who ever knows how a ship will turn out? Even more unpredictable than children, sir. And heartbreaking to see them turn off evil, to see them fail to be the sort you'd wished them to be. Ships, sir." Mr. Proby sighed, a bit wistfully philosophical. "I do believe, Captain Lewrie, that ships live, after a fashion. Call it heretical, or pagan… or simple-minded superstition, but being 'round 'em so many years, I've come to believe it. Mariners suspect it, merchant or Navy. As I'm certain you do."