A Hard, Cruel Shore

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Oh,” Westcott said, wincing himself. “I’d best check with the Bosun and his Mates on that head, sir.”

  “The iron water tanks…” Lewrie grimly mused.

  “I’ll look for leaks, sir,” Westcott promised.

  “Now, as if ye didn’t have enough on your plate, Geoffrey,” Lewrie went on, “Mister Snelling says it’s five cripples, not three, who need discharges. Where d’ye think we’re going to find replacements for ’em?”

  “Five?” Westcott gawped, then let out a thin whistle. “All of them Able or Ordinary, and all topmen? Damn my eyes. Hmm, we have some teen boys who’ve gone aloft, mostly for fun so far. And, there may be some younger Landsmen who might be trained. The slight increase in pay ’twixt a Landsman and an Ordinary Seaman ain’t much, but I could use it as a lure. I’ll see to it, sir,” Westcott said with a morose expression.

  * * *

  The next day, and Mr. Posey was back aboard with some of his artificers to have a look-see at the dead-eye block sheaves and the channel platform bolts, and, after a long inspection from outside, a tight tramp through the carpenter’s walks ’twixt the inner and the outer hull scantlings, he surfaced with a dour look on his phyz.

  “You’re right, Captain Lewrie,” Posey said, whipping out that sodden handkerchief for a blow of his nose, a gargle of phlegm, and a spit alee over the side. “We’ll have to replace them all, before we fetch the sheer hulk alongside.”

  “You found a mast?” Lewrie hopefully asked, perking up.

  “Ah, in point of fact, no, sir,” Posey had to impart. “There is nothing of the proper dimensions in stores, at present. Though I may have hopes of employing a Third Rate’s foremast, it may take a few more days to see if it can be re-fashioned.”

  “Very well, then, Mister Posey,” Lewrie had to allow, feeling that his ship and his active commission could be doomed. “I leave it to you and your artificers.”

  Three pounds, ten shillings a week, he gloomily thought; ain’t nowhere near enough!

  * * *

  A day later, and his senior Mids made their way to the towering Second Rate 98-gun flagship for their examinations, looking cleaner and neater than he’d seen them in a year entire. He saw them off from the entry-port and wished them well.

  Hours later, he heard the cutter coming alongside, and went on deck to welcome them back. And oh, but they were a merry crew! Well, two of them were.

  “Welcome back aboard, gentlemen,” he said. “And how did you fare?”

  “I am passed, sir!” Midshipman Britton crowed. “There were a few real posers, but all in all, it wasn’t too terrifying.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Midshipman Leverett said with a laugh as he pulled the precious certificate from an inside pocket of his coat. “I am passed as well, sir, and that with not one relation on the board, or the slightest smidgeon of ‘interest’, hah hah!”

  Lewrie turned to Midshipman Hillhouse, whose stony expression gave him a quick answer as to how he had fared. “And?” he asked the man.

  “I … I was told to try again at a later date, sir,” Hillhouse slowly and carefully replied, too disappointed and crushed in his hopes to give his tongue freedom.

  “Ah, I see,” Lewrie said, hiding his own disappointment that he might at last be shot of the fellow. “My condolences, young sir. A real cobbing, was it?”

  “No, sir, not all that bad, not like a time before, when the questions came so quick that I barely had time to get through one before they posed a second,” Hillhouse replied, rasping as if his voice would break. “I knew the answers, but I couldn’t get them out, I stammered and lost track, and … they must have thought me daft, or feeble-witted, or a complete, lubberly fool!”

  “Again, you have my condolences, Mister Hillhouse,” Lewrie said, feeling sorry for the fellow for real. “Well, I shall let you all go below and ‘splice your mainbrace’.”

  They all doffed hats and departed for the cockpit far below, and Lewrie suspected that the younger Mids would have a rough time of it, what with Britton and Leverett celebrating, and everyone walking on tip-toe round Hillhouse, who would most-like be deep in his cups, and ready to rage at the younger ones.

  Lewrie doubted the sense of accomplishment would last long, though. While surviving the ordeal of the Examining Board and being rated Passed Midshipman was a significant milestone in a young gentleman’s naval career, it did not guarantee future advancement. The Navy teemed with Passed Midshipmen in their thirties and fourties, men with no patronage or “interest” to speed them upwards to the coveted promotion to Lieutenant, Passed Mids who served lacklustre roles in ships on the blockades or foreign stations which offered no opportunities to win fame, or notice sufficient to make Admiralty deem them worthy of promotion. And, it was a cruel fact that Midshipmen didn’t get half-pay after their current ship paid off.

  Lewrie reckoned that Britton and Leverett would wake up with groggy heads in the morning and feel as frustrated as Hillhouse that there was yet another steep hill to climb!

  Lewrie headed back to his warm cabins, wondering if he should enquire of the Port Admiral about the availabilty of a spare Midshipman, in addition to spare topmen. If Lord Gardner still ruled Portsmouth, he could help on both matters. Why, with any luck at all, and an abundance of warmth in his flinty heart, Lord Gardner might even whistle him up a new mast!

  * * *

  Two older Ordinary Seamen were available ashore, fresh from the Naval Hospital, men who had been topmen before falling sick and being left behind when their ship sailed for the Brest blockade. A pair of Landsmen weary of un-ending “pully-hauley” on the gangways volunteered to go aloft and begin to learn topmens’ duties, and among the many ship’s boys aboard, Lt. Westcott found some in their “tweens” who were eager, as well, so that was one of Lewrie’s worries put to rest.

  A day later, though, and there came an announcement from the Marine sentry at the cabin door. “Midshipman Britton t’see th’ Cap’um, SAH!”

  “Enter!” Lewrie called back, and in breezed Britton, wearing a smile as wide as his ears.

  “Sir, I am appointed Third Lieutenant into a frigate!” Britton burst out. “She’s being re-commissioned, at Deptford. I received my promotion, and posting, in this morning’s mail!”

  “A Commission Sea Officer, well, well!” Lewrie congratulated, rising from his desk to shake Britton’s hand. “That was quick I must say. I am sorry to lose your services, Mister Britton. I s’pose you wish to leave us, instanter … coach up to London, see a good tailor, and get aboard her before Admiralty changes its mind?”

  “Something like that, sir, aye,” Britton said with a hearty laugh, full of good cheer at his marvellous stroke of luck.

  “Clear your accounts with the Purser, and my clerk will have your records ready for you by … when, Mister Faulkes?” Lewrie asked his clerk, who was scribbling away at a side table.

  “By one P.M., sir,” Faulkes replied, looking only the slightest pained at the additional task, “ehm … Two Bells of the Day Watch, mean t’say.”

  Faulkes secretly didn’t care for doing his work in the great-cabins, nice though they were, and under constant scrutiny by Lewrie and the rest. He had a wee drinking problem, kept in check most of the time. When Lewrie and his retinue had first come aboard Sapphire there was a snug cabin right off the quarterdeck on the larboard side which would have been his private hidey-hole, the clerk’s office, but Lewrie had decided that it would make a grand chart space convenient for the officers of the watch and the Sailing Master, who had a small sea cabin on the opposite side.

  “When you come for your final papers and pay chits, we will send you off in my cutter, Mister Britton,” Lewrie promised.

  “Thank you for the honour, sir, and may I say … my time in Sapphire under your command has been the grandest experience of all my time in the Navy, and I can only hope that my new ship gets into but half the adventures that we have.”

  “Well, thankee for that, sir,” Lewrie
replied, taken aback a bit, “that was well, and kindly, said. A glass of something before you go crow to your messmates?”

  “I would admire one, sir!” Britton said, beaming and fit to bust with pride of his advancement.

  Now I’ll have t’go see Lord Gardner, Lewrie told himself as Pettus fetched out claret and a pair of glasses.

  * * *

  “Ah, Captain Niles, good t’see you again,” Lewrie said as he was allowed to enter the anteroom of the Port Admiral’s offices where Niles stood as guardian to the gate, and kept his own office, and the Admiral’s affairs, running smoothly. Captain Niles was one of those grand fellows, seemingly all affable and charming, who could make a refusal, or an admonition, almost sound pleasant.

  “Ehm … aha! Captain Lewrie, aye,” Niles said, rising to greet him, “I got your note requesting a moment of Lord Gardner’s time. I fear, though, that he’s so much on his plate at the moment that he cannot see you today, and indeed, for some time. So sorry.”

  And here I thought he’d remember me, Lewrie thought, sensing that Niles could not place a name with a face for a moment.

  “Well, it’s not a pressing matter,” Lewrie allowed, “perhaps you could give me a leading wind.”

  “It does not involve finding you a new mast, does it, sir?” Niles asked with a brow up in jest; he did remember Lewrie at last.

  “No, it’s more a matter of personnel, Captain Niles … a lack of a Midshipman,” Lewrie told him, explaining how two of his Mids had passed the recent Examining Board, and one had been ordered away. “Were I in London, I’d be ankle-deep in parents lookin’ for a post for their boys, but, here in Portsmouth, I don’t know a soul, and I wondered if you, or the Admiral, might have some likely lad in mind.”

  “Oh, I say!” Capt. Niles said, suddenly getting a crafty look. “Will you take tea, sir? Sit you down, sit you down.”

  He rang for a steward to fetch a fresh pot, rubbing his hands together as if to warm them. Or, to take advantage.

  Over his long career, Lewrie had been the recipient of very little “Interest”, patronage, or “petti-coat influence”, and what he had gotten had come from much older officers who’d soon retired and dropped out of the Royal Navy’s behind-the-scenes sponsorship of favourites, cater-cousins, sons, and the “give-and-take” manoeuvring.

  The one good thing about the informal system was that a poor recommendation reflected badly upon the patron, so that senior men usually were very careful anent whom they chose to foster. Capt. Niles, and Lord Gardner, would not stick him with a “pig in a poke”.

  “No relations who might have a second or third son waiting in the wings, sir?” Niles teasingly asked as the steward returned with a laden tray.

  “None, sorry t’say, sir,” Lewrie told him, “and, I’ve been so much at sea since Ninety-Three that I fear my circle of friends and acquaintances ashore is quite limited.”

  “Hmm, I do believe that the Admiral has just placed a young fellow aboard a Third Rate, one of his distant relations’ boys, and sounded relieved that he’d done so, and was now free of finding posts for a time,” Capt. Niles related as he spooned sugar into his tea, poured fresh cream with a heavy hand, and slowly stirred, as if in deep thought. “On the other hand, though…”

  “Aye, sir?” Lewrie asked, wishing that he would come to the point. “Ah, good tea, pipin’ hot, too. Perfect for such a day.”

  “I was thinking that my wife’s family, the Holbrookes, have a likely prospect,” Niles said off-handedly, “her eldest brother’s boy, George, has just turned thirteen, their youngest of three sons, I’ve met him a few times, and he seems as smart as paint, and has done well at his studies. Rides and shoots well, a wickedly fine cricketer, and has a happy, outgoing demeanour. I suppose I could send for him to coach down so you could take your measure of him.”

  “Just so long as he’s not a swaggerin’ brute with servants and fellow students,” Lewrie said after a long sip of his tea.

  “He struck me as sunny and delightful,” Niles said quickly.

  “No need for me to vet him, Captain Niles,” Lewrie said with a shrug and a chuckle. “I will take your word on him. Aye, send for him, and tell him to kit himself out and be ready to report aboard Sapphire at his earliest convenience. It ain’t as if we’ll be sailin’ on the next tide, so long as Mister Posey is still lookin’ for a new lower mast.”

  “Quite decent of you to oblige me, Captain Lewrie, quite decent indeed!” Niles said, suddenly beaming with joy, “and I’m certain he’ll not disappoint. You do me an honour, sir!”

  And if you’re still here in future, you will owe me a favour next time, Lewrie thought, quite satisfied with the morning’s work.

  * * *

  “Ah, welcome back aboard, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, doffing his hat as Lewrie gained the deck in-board of the entry-port. “We have just gotten good news from Mister Posey. He’s determined that there is a foremast from a Third Rate that will suit us admirably, and he vows to have the sheer hulk alongside two days from now, sir.”

  “Why, that’s capital!” Lewrie cheered. “And thank God for it! By the by, we’ve a new Mid to come aboard to replace Britton … some kin of Captain Niles, a Mister George Holbrooke.”

  “Better and better, sir, and I’ve shifted a man from both the foremast and mizen mast crews to fill out the mainmast crew, so we’ll have as many as needed to man it.”

  “You do work wonders, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie praised him. “All fresh provisions have come aboard, everything stowed away?”

  “Aye, sir,” Westcott told him.

  “We’ll put the ship Out of Discipline after we’ve stood up the new mast, then,” Lewrie decided, “but we will allow tomorrow to be a ‘Make and Mend’ day. Finally give the people a bit of ease.”

  “Very good, sir,”

  “Sir, sir! Captain, sir!” Midshipman Leverett called up from the waist in great agitation. He was waving a parchment document over his head. “Permission to speak, sir?”

  “Aye, come up, Mister Leverett,” Lewrie bade, sure that one more problem had just cropped up.

  “I have just received my promotion, sir,” Leverett said after he had clomped to the quarterdeck, and doffed his hat. “There is an opening as Fifth Lieutenant aboard a Third Rate that just came up … she’s lying here in Portsmouth this instant, and I am to report to her at once!”

  As he had with Midshipman Britton, Lewrie put a cheerful face on it, congratulating him and telling him how much his services would be missed, and have a glass with me aft, before you finish your packing, get your papers from Faulkes, etc. and etc.

  “Mail’s come, sir,” Pettus informed him before he poured them both a claret to celebrate, in Leverett’s case his “stirrup cup” to see him off to his new ship and his new career.

  Lewrie picked through the slim pile of his personal mail on his desk, noting the weight and distance travelled, and toting up the cost in his head, wondering if the government would ever collect the postage due from the sendee, and not the recipient.

  “What the Devil?” Lewrie muttered as he found the official one atop the pile. As Leverett expressed much the same sentiments as had Midshipman Britton a day or two before, about how grand an experience and how high the adventures he’d had aboard Sapphire, Lewrie tore it open and read the first few lines. “Mine arse on a band-box!”

  “Ehm … sir?” Leverett stopped in mid-spiel.

  “Sorry, Mister Leverett, thankee for the kind sentiments,” he finessed, setting the letter aside for a moment. “I expect that you’ll make a good show of it aboard your new ship. You’re more than ready to advance, and, again, my heartiest congratulations. Just keep fond memories of your time here.”

  “The fondest, sir,” Leverett said, raising his glass.

  “Well, remember the old Navy adage, ‘growl you may but go you must’, and I’m certain you’ve packing to do.”

  “Aye, sir. I’ll be on my way.” Leverett told him, draining his wine an
d bowing from the waist as he made his departure.

  “Damn, damn, damn!” Lewrie fumed once Leverett was on deck and out of earshot.

  “Trouble, sir?” Pettus asked as he reclaimed the glasses.

  “The Goddamned Admiralty’s summoned me t’hear what I have t’say before they decide to de-commission the ship and turn her over to the bloody Transport Board!” Lewrie raged, looking for a piece of furniture to kick. Chalky, who had been footballing one of Lewrie’s personal letters cross the waxed desktop, froze in fear, then dashed off for refuge under the settee. “I have t’go up to London, before dawn tomorrow. Christ, arrange a coach, pack … you’ll accompany me, of course.”

  “Happy to, sir,” Pettus said.

  “Mine arse on a band-box! Just when we finally get a new mast, too!” Lewrie growled.

  Fourteen pounds a month, and a bloody lunar month at that, he furiously thought; it ain’t anywhere near enough!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On such short notice, a private equipage was impossible to hire, so Lewrie and Pettus booked passage on the early morning post coaches, plumping for inside seats, given the weather. To put his steward on top with a precarious grip on a madly swaying, rocking coach would have been the death of him, either being frozen solid, or tossed off to smash his brains out.

  It had been some time since Lewrie had travelled in one of the so-called “flying coaches” or “diligences”, and the trip was as bad as he remembered. Only a few of the nine people crammed inside were Navy, and none were in a mood to be talkative at “first sparrow fart”. A quick request of “Shall we caulk or yarn?” favoured that they caulk, try to nap in uncomfortable, cold silence. The rest of the coach’s passengers were civilians, a very fetching young daughter and matron warily guarding the girl’s virtue; several contractors or jobbers associated with HM Dockyards, some who snored loudly or snorted, gargled and snuffled with winter woes, after attempts at flirtation with said virtuous young daughter. The last pair were older women whose accents and choice of canting slang words made Lewrie think that they were either pickpockets, whores, or fishmongers from the Billingsgate market.