A Hard, Cruel Shore

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Ah! Men! You are so helpless,” Maddalena cried, expasperated, and rose from the settee to come to the stove inset with her cat in her arms. With one hand she shoved more kindling under the grill and lifted the lid of the pot to see if the water was boiling properly, opened the receptacle drawer to pinch at the ground beans, nodded in acceptance, and pronounced the task properly done. “And, if you will pare some sugar off the cone in the caddy, we will be almost ready.”

  Gahh! Lewrie thought.

  Once the water was boiling nicely, she took over, setting the cat down, getting down a serving pot, pouring the grounds into a wire filter, and slowly pouring the water over them. “Mister Mountjoy let me have his latest copy of one of his London magazines, the Tatler? It is on the dining table. You might like to read it and catch up on what is happening in your country. I will fetch the coffee. Take the sugar and put it in the bowl on the table, would you?”

  There was no litter of newspapers, snippets cut out, or false articles on the table, this time; perhaps rainy days brought the work of Secret Branch to a full stop, and left Maddalena with nothing to do. Lewrie sat down and began to read the magazine, flipping pages idly through Royal Household court circulars, the results of the Eton-Harrow cricket match, who had won recognition from the Royal Academy’s art exposition, and accounts of the many balls, and who was who and who wasn’t, and some hints of gloriously titillating scandals.

  “It is very amusing,” Maddalena said, coming to the table with her modest coffee service. “London sounds like a grand city, even if you English seem to enjoy your scandals.”

  “Oh, it is, and we do!” Lewrie agreed, perking up as he spooned sugar into his cup. “Ever wish to see it?”

  “Oh, no, meu amor,” Maddalena said with a little laugh. “From what I read of it, it sounds too cold and wet for someone like me, and from what I hear from the many English I meet in the streets, in the markets, who do not know I understand English, it does not sound too welcoming to people from other countries. I am happy here, being a Lisboêta. What does this mean here, about the cricket? What is a century, and what does it mean to be ‘all out’? This is a game or a sport? It makes no sense to me.”

  They spent a good part of the morning poring over the Tatler, with Lewrie explaining the terms and customs which would have been an enigma to anyone not brought up English. Stripped down to his shirt, he drew a diagram of a pitch, the wicket, and how one pitched, and how one batted to protect one’s wicket, and how many points could be made from a good swat far out into the un-groomed outfields by running back and forth from one end to the other, acting out parts of it.

  Rain continued to lash the city, driving in beneath the canvas awning, the wind setting it fluttering and ballooning, some squalls so thick that the view of the river was blocked out.

  “Ah, no more coffee,” she said at last, pouring the last few dribbles into their cups. “Whatever shall we do with such a gloomy day?”

  “Open a bottle of espumante, if there’s one left?” Lewrie suggested.

  “Yes, let’s do,” Maddalena agreed, “and then I think that such a day is best spent snug in bed,” she said with a coy, promising grin.

  “That’s my girl!” Lewrie quickly agreed. “Where’s your cork-pull?”

  * * *

  The rain let up late that afternoon, and the winds moderated, allowing them to rise, dress, and go out for supper, yet another very toothsome treat over which they lingered, long after the last plates had been whisked away, a mood which Lewrie searched his memory for the bon mot, the French word he’d heard … and it came to him.

  Tristesse.

  She had declared that she would not leave her beloved Lisbon and follow him to Oporto, though shifting his base of operations to there seemed to be right out. She had shrugged off, laughed off, his tongue-in-cheek mention of seeing London, someday, too, perhaps fearful of more than cold and rain and wet, but of being a foreigner in an un-welcoming country.

  They had spent the better part of the day in bed, making love passionately, and often, snuggled up close between bouts, cooing and sighing, but with very little meaningful conversation, as if she had a sense that their relationship, pleasing thought it was, was coming to its eventual end. Lewrie damned himself for ever mentioning a move to Oporto! They had a touch too much to drink at the eatery, and had a final coffee with brandy, and then it was time to escort Maddalena back to her lodgings.

  Too late in the evening for him to go abovestairs with her for one more moment of passion, they had to say their goodbyes in the dim lobby, she with her key already in hand. They held each other in a long embrace, shared a long, lingering kiss, then she leaned back to gaze him in the eyes for another long moment without speaking, as if she was fixing him in her memory, Lewrie could conjure.

  “Ir com Deus, Alan,” she whispered, at last. “Go with God and be safe.”

  “See you when I get back,” he promised, playing up game despite an icy sense of foreboding that he wouldn’t.

  “I will always love you, meu querido,” she said, touching his lips with a finger, and then she was gone, up the stairs with her gown and cloak swishing along the flagstoned steps.

  And she didn’t look back.

  Well, damme, he gloomily thought; I think I’ve just been sent packing. She thinks we’re done, there’s no talkin’ her out of it. If I know anything about women, I know that for sure.

  He stepped out from the lodging’s lobby into the mist and took a moment to look up at her balcony, but the drapes were drawn over all the windows, and not a crack of light showed. He stood there for a long minute or so, then shrugged himself deeper into his boat cloak and turned to walk away downhill. At the corner, he did stop and look back to see a faint streak of amber light between the curtain panels of her main room, the glow of a single candle, but she was not looking out.

  Goddamn it, he thought; This bein’ rejected is gettin’ old … First Lydia Stangbourne, and now Maddalena! Where’d I go wrong, what’d I do t’cause that?

  There was no point in lingering like a heart-sick swain; he’d not play Romeo below Juliet’s window. He turned and trudged down to the Baixa’s level streets, to the Praça do Comércio to hunt up a boatman that could row him out to Sapphire.

  People might have said that he took the salute of the yawning side-party a bit more gruffly than usual, that he did not take a final hopping step inboard from the lip of the entry-port. One of his Marine sentries might have noticed that he did not say “Good evening” to him as he raised his musket in salute, but entered his cabins without a word.

  There was one overhead lanthorn lit in the day-cabin, and one mobile candlestand going to see him to the bed-space. Jessop had retired, but Pettus was half-awake, slumped over the dining table, and he roused himself when the Bosuns’ calls shrilled, and the Marine stamped boots outside the door.

  “Ah, good evening, sir,” Pettus said, stifling a yawn of his own. “Can I get you anything before you retire?” he asked as he collected Lewrie’s hat, boat cloak, and sword belt.

  “A large whisky if we have any left,” Lewrie told him, tearing his neck-stock loose, shrugging out of his coat and waist-coat. “I will see myself to bed, Pettus. You go turn in.”

  “Aye, sir,” Pettus replied, gathering up the cast-offs first, then heading to the wine cabinet to pour a glass of whisky.

  Lewrie sat on a chest to pull off his boots and stockings, got his shirt off, and undid his breeches. Chalky came yawning and making some welcome mews, stretching then leaping atop the hanging bed-cot to wait for his master to join him, tail erect and curling.

  Pettus brought the whisky, then bowed himself out of the bed-space, dowsing the overhead lanthorn and wishing Lewrie a good night on his way out to the quarterdeck, and his hammock below on the upper gun deck, leaving Lewrie alone for the night.

  Lewrie sat on the chest, again to drink his whisky, welcoming the burn of aged American corn brew, right down to “heel-taps”, then blew out the candl
e and fumbled his way into his bed-cot. The night was just warm enough, yet damp and dank, to slip under the sheet and push the coverlet down. Chalky got tangled in that for a bit, uttered a carping sound of displeasure, then came up to get his head rubbed, butting and pawing for attention before settling down in the crook of Lewrie’s left arm.

  “That’s alright, then,” Lewrie whispered in the dark, “at least you still love me, don’t ye, puss?”

  It didn’t seem as if anyone else did.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “Your breakfast is ready, sir,” Yeovill announced after he had laid everything from the galley on the sideboard in the dining coach.

  “Be right there,” Lewrie told him over his shoulder as he wiped the last shaving soap from his cheeks, and splashed fresh water over his whole face.

  The last steady shave, Lewrie thought; The last liberal use of water. A pint a day, from now on. In a heavy sea, the sort expected off the North coast of Spain most days, even a heavy and solid ship like Sapphire could heave, hobby-horse, and roll, making shaving nigh suicidal, an exercise in balance and contortion worthy of a circus acrobat.

  “Omelet with onion, peppers, and cheese, sir,” Yeovill said as he lifted the lid of the brass food barge, “spicy pepper sausages, potato hash, and tomato slices. Fresh shore toast, butter churned no later than last afternoon, and a Lisbon version of lemon marmalade.”

  “Excellent, Yeovill!” Lewrie said, impatient for the loaded plate to be set before him. “You indeed do me proud.”

  “Purser’s Clerk and I fetched back three of those porco preto cured hams, sir,” Yeovill went on as he slid the plate in front of his starving Captain, “though I could only find chickens, no rabbits or quail, for the forecastle manger, and piglets are as rare on the market as unicorns, sorry.”

  “Oh, I imagine I’ll cope,” Lewrie told him. “Truth be told, a steady diet of rabbit and quail has lost its lustre. Ah, perfection!” he pronounced his first bite of his omelet.

  “I was told, sir,” Pettus said, pouring him a cup of coffee, “that the King of France got himself caught when he tried to escape from Paris, before they ‘shortened’ him on the guillotine. He stopped for supper on the road to Calais, ’tis said, dressed common, and when the waiter asked what he’d like, he said ‘omelet; and bread’, but then they asked how many eggs in his omelet, and he said … never knowing the first thing about cooking…’oh, a dozen?’ and that’s when they sent for the soldiers.”

  “‘Let ’em eat cake’, indeed,” Lewrie chuckled, his mouth full. “A very rich and eggy cake, hah!”

  He would never admit that, much like yesterday when he did not know how many beans made a pot of coffee, or how to grind them, cookery … cooking for himself … was a mystery as deep as Egyptian hieroglyphics. The less said of that, the better, and so long as he had Yeovill’s skilled services, he would never have to learn.

  Yeovill set a bowl of cut-up sausages and potato hash at the far end of the table for a yowling, demanding Chalky, another, larger, bowl near the cabin door for Bisquit, who was only a bit less impatient, and bowed his way out, saying that he would be back for the food barge later.

  Lewrie looked round whilst chewing a bite of one of those spicy sausages, and wondered just how much food was in that brass barge. It had always struck him that Pettus, Jessop, his clerk Mr. Faulkes, and Yeovill always looked so sleek and well-fed, better-off than they might had they subsisted on issued rations alone. Once he went out on deck, he imagined a quick, bolting feed off the more than ample “leftovers”! And surely, Yeovill would have to taste whatever he prepared, several tastes, as he cooked, and lay aside a plate for himself before coming aft. He might even share with Mr. Tanner, the Ship’s Cook, who could barely manage “boiled to death” everything.

  “Lovely morning, sir,” Pettus said as he topped up the coffee. “Bright and clear as anything.”

  “Windy, still, but not a ‘dead muzzler’, aye,” Lewrie agreed. “We’ll sail by Eight Bells. Make sure everything’s secure.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pettus replied.

  “Did those new casks of dry sand come aboard?” Lewrie asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Pettus told him, “stowed away below in the spare cabin off the wardroom, but for the one in the starboard quarter gallery. Chalky will have fresh litter for at least two more months.”

  The cat raised his head from his bowl at the mention of his name, licked his chops, sat back to groom with his front paws, then paced down to Lewrie’s end of the table, sniffing at other possible things to eat.

  “Go on, Chalky, shoo,” Lewrie grumbled, “ye haven’t eaten a quarter of your food. I know you and your tricks.”

  So did Bisquit, who took Chalky’s abandonment of his breakfast as an opportunity to hop up into the end chair and gobble up what the cat had left in his bowl, licking the last bits of egg and hash from it, sending the bowl crashing to the deck. Chalky flinched, crouched, saw what he had lost, and dashed back to defend his food, but much too late. He hissed and spat, bottled up sideways, to no avail. With a particularly mournful yowl he slunk back to Lewrie, sat down on his haunches, and uttered a pitiful wee mew.

  “Oh, here then,” Lewrie said with a put-upon sigh as he handed Chalky the tail-end of a sausage.

  “Don’t know who’s spoiled worse, sir, ’im ’r th’ dog,” Jessop said, tittering.

  “Ah, that was delicious,” Lewrie commented after a last bite of toast, heavily buttered and smeared with the marmalade. He dabbed at his mouth, took one last swig of coffee. “I’ll be out on deck.”

  * * *

  “Good morning, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, doffing his hat with one hand, and the other holding his post-breakfast cigarro.

  “Good morning, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie returned, “good morning, all,” he added to Lieutenants Harcourt and Elmes, and the Sailing Master Mr. Yelland. “Breakfasted well, have you? And, ready for another go at the French? Good, good. I’d admire that you have all hands piped to Stations five minutes before Eight Bells, and a signal bent on for all ships to Weigh hoisted now.” He pulled his pocket watch out and studied its face; it was a quarter-hour shy of eight A.M.

  “The ship is ready for sea in all respects, sir,” Lt. Westcott assured him, attempting to blow lazy smoke rings before the appointed time, when he would have to toss it overboard. “Damme, I only seem to be good at that indoors,” he said, watching his efforts waft alee rather quickly.

  “Signal is hoisted, sir,” Midshipman Carey reported, “and all ships have hoisted a matching reply.”

  “Very good, Mister Carey,” Lewrie acknowledged. “We’ll pay off Southerly, Mister Yelland?” Lewrie asked the Sailing Master.

  “Aye, sir,” Yelland agreed, taking a moment to study the commissioning pendant aloft, and the feel of the morning breeze on his cheeks. “Bags of room to pay off to larboard and come about, though we’ll be hard on the wind to hug the Northern shore and get out of the river mouth on one tack. Once fully under way, nothing to larb’d.”

  “Ehm … time, sir,” Westcott prompted, his own watch out.

  “Carry on, sir,” Lewrie said. “Pipe hands to Stations.”

  Westcott bellowed that order forward to the Bosun and his Mate, and a moment later, the “Spithead Nightingales”, as their silver calls were termed, shrilled, and HMS Sapphire thundered as hundreds of shod, or bare, sailors’ feet drummed up from below, some hands ascending the masts ready to man the yards, free harbour gaskets, and make sail whilst others stood by the clews, jib or yard halliards and braces to draw the loosed canvas down, hoist the jibs and stays’ls, or raise the tops’l or t’gallant yards up off their rests. Down below on the main capstan, even more sailors stood ready to breast to the bars and walk it round to bring in the messenger which would be nipped to the anchor cable by ships’ boys.

  Lewrie looked forward, watch still in his hand, to observe the boys at the ship’s bell in the forecastle belfry eying the last grains of sand run out from their glasses,
and …

  Ting-ting … ting-ting … ting-ting … ting-ting. Eight A.M. Eight Bells of the Morning Watch was struck, and began the Forenoon.

  “Strike the hoist!” Lewrie bellowed aft, and down came that flag signal, which meant Execute, and all five ships of the squadron drummed again, to the rapid clanking of pawls in their capstans as the slack in their cables were brought in-board to be fed down and be draped on the cable tiers right forward, soaking wet and reeking of fish and mud.

  The rapid clanking of the pawls slowed as Sapphire was hauled up closer to where the best bower had splashed to the river bottom a few days before, the anchor cable’s angle becoming almost parallel to the middle or main top-mast stays’l. Men dug in their feet to the oak decks, squared their shoulders, and pushed harder, breasted to the bars.

  “Short stays!” came the cry from the forecastle as the angle of the cable steepened. The flukes of the bower had not had time to set deep, to take firm root in the bed of the Tagus, yet the clanking of the pawls got even slower, no longer a drum-roll but an irregular metallic clunk more like the beats on a symphony’s kettle drum.

  “Up and down, sir!” Midshipman Ward shouted aft as the anchor cable went almost vertical.

  “Dig in for the heavy heave!” Lt. Westcott roared through his brass speaking-trumpet, and men at the capstan roared and grunted as they made the effort for one more … clank … clank … clank, then a sudden rapid rattle.

  “Anchor’s free!” Ward yelled, waving his hat in triumph as if he’d done it all by himself, and the head of the anchor stock boiled to the surface in a welter of muddy, discoloured water. “And awash!”

  “Make sail, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie snapped, feeling his ship sidle and begin to swing free to starboard. “Jibs, stays’ls, fore and main tops’ls, and spanker!”

  “Trice up, lay out, and make sail!” Westcott bellowed as the ship swung wider, her bows which had been facing the river current sweeping the jib-boom and bowsprit towards the South bank as narrow-cut triangular foretopmast stays’l and the inner and outer flying jib rose up far forward, and the stays’ls between the foremast and main, and the main t’gallant stays’l ’twixt the main and mizen blossomed first. The spanker cracked open to the wind over the poop deck with a whoosh, and pulley blocks squealed as the tops’l yards inched up from their rests and the freed squares’ls were drawn down to spread open to cup wind. Falling off the wind and bringing the ship under control would require wearing about, pivotting round to take the wind on her starboard side in as short a distance as could be managed, and the yards braced up taut.