The King's Commission

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Lieutenant Lewrie, come aboard to join,” Alan said, once he was safely on his feet on the upper deck. There was very little gangway overlooking the waist, just high enough above the upper deck to clear the guns.

  “Ah’m Fukes, the bosun, sir,” a male gorilla in King’s Coat told him, knuckling his rather prominent brow ridge from which sprouted a solid thicket of white eyebrows over a face only a mother could love. “This’ere’s Mister Caldwell, the sailin’ master. Lef’ten’t Walsham o’ the Marines … an’ you’ll be the new first lef’ten’t, sir?”

  “Yes, I suppose I am. I’d admire if you could lend my man Cony a hand with my dunnage. Is the captain aboard?”

  “Aye, sir, ’e’s aft in ’is cabins. Ah’ll ’ave ya took there directly, sir,” Fukes went on, turning to pause and spit a large dollop of tobacco juice into a spit kid. “’Ere, Mister Rossyngton, show the first officer aft.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” a rather well turned out midshipman answered. “This way, if you will, sir.”

  Some ship! Alan thought with a sudden qualm of nerves. Fukes and the other senior warrants he had seen on the gangway had been much of a kind; overaged, craggy and white-haired, way senior to him in sea experience. Caldwell, the sailing master, was a gotch-bellied little minnikin in his fifties with square spectacles at the tip of his nose.

  Walsham, the Marine officer, was only a second lieutenant, a boy who appeared no older than the run-of-the-mill midshipman, while his sergeant looked old enough to have helped shoot Admiral Byng in the last war. And the doddering old colt’s-tooth who sported a carpenter’s apron and goggled a drooling smile at him in passing had to be seventy years old if he was a day!

  “Mister Pebble, the ship’s carpenter, sir. Mister Pebble, the first officer, Lieutenant Lewrie,” Rossyngton introduced smoothly.

  “Ah de do, sir, ah de do!” the oldster gammered through a nearly toothless mouth, what little hair he had left on his bare head waving like strands of cotton in the slight wind. “A’ firs’ un died, ye know, o’ the quinsy, warn’t it, Mister Rossyngton?”

  “His heart, Mister Pebble,” Rossyngton prompted

  “Ah, ’twuz Curtiss died o’ quinsy. Shame, Mister Lewrie, young man like Tuckwell a’dyin’, an’ ’im not fifty,” Pebble maundered wetly.

  “Do they do a lot of dying aboard Shrike?” Alan asked as Rossyngton led him below to the cabins under the quarterdeck.

  Rossyngton hid his smirk well, not sure of what sort his new first lieutenant was. “They keep you awake at night, expiring with loud thuds, sir.”

  “Ah,” Alan managed to say, fighting manfully to keep a straight and sober face as was proper to a ship’s officer. Rossyngton looked to be the product of a good family, a manly get of about seventeen or so years, and someone with whom Lewrie would have felt at home in shared outlook; and by the devilish glint in Rossyngton’s blue eyes, he would have been a mirthful companion, were circumstances different.

  The Marine sentry at the cabin doors announced him loudly with a smart crash of his musket butt, and a voice bade Lewrie enter.

  Well, he ain’t Noah, there’s a blessing, Alan thought as he beheld his new master and commander.

  Lieutenant Lilycrop had to be the oldest junior officer that Alan had ever laid eyes on, and he had seen some beauties in his time. He was near sixty, with a face as withered as an illused work glove, a pug-nosed, apple-cheeked Father Christmas whose chest and belly had merged into a massive appliance round as iron shot. He wore his own hair instead of a wig, and that hair was curly and cotton-white, but clubbed back into a seaman’s queue that even plaited reached down to his middle back. Lost in the mass of wrinkles about his eyes, two bright orbs of brown could now and then be glimpsed.

  “Lieutenant Lewrie, sir. Come aboard to join, sir,” he said, producing his ornate commission document which warned “ … nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the contrary at your peril,” his orders from the flag to come aboard, and his pay and certificates.

  “Well, sit you down, young sir,” Lilycrop growled in a voice gone stentorian and hoarse from a lifetime of barking orders. “Mind the kitty.”

  Alan halted his descent into the chair and looked down to see a black cat stretched out in the seat, tail lazily curling and uncurling like a short commissioning pendant. Not knowing what to do, and never being terribly fond of cats anyway, he gently shoved it out of the chair so it could hop down on its own with a small meow of disappointment.

  “That’s Henrietta, oh she’s a shy ’un, she is, but she’ll take to you soon enough,” Lilycrop said, beaming at the black cat, dropping into baby-talk as he addressed her directly. “Henrietta takes time to make up her mind about people, yes she does, don’t you, sweetlin’. Now Samson, here”—Lilycrop changed tone to introduce Alan to a black-and-white-and-grey parti-colored ram-cat which had jumped up onto his desk to be stroked and picked up—“Now Samson, he’s a standoff-ish young lout, won’t have truck with none but me, d’y’see? There’s a good boy.”

  Goddamme, somebody in the flagship must have it in for me in the worst way, Alan sighed to himself. I’ve seen saner people eat bugs in Bedlam. Was there some back I didn’t piss down right? Some grudge getting paid back on me? Did they mix me up with somebody with two heads? God rot ’em, I thought I’d go the least senior officer into a real ship, not this … Ark!

  “Let’s see what he’s made of, this young’un of ours, Samson.”

  While Lilycrop bent over to peruse his records, Alan took the time to look about the cabin, and it was spartan in the extreme. Paint the color of old cheese coated the walls and interior partitions, the result of mixing what was left over from various lots. The deck was covered by sailcloth painted in black-and-white squares, and plain sailcloth made up the curtains over the stern windows. But there was no embroidered coverlet over the hanging bed-box, no padded cushions on the transom settee. The desk, the dining table, the chairs, were all harshly simple and dull, as utilitarian as a wash-hand stand. There was no wine cabinet present, and Alan suffered another qualm as he considered that his new captain was one of those evangelizing tee-totalers.

  The sword that hung on the pegs on the wall next to a shabby grogram watch coat was a heavy, older straight sword more suitable for an infantry officer in a Highland regiment. Evidently, Lieutenant Lilycrop did not have two farthings to rub together other than Naval pay, and that none too good for a lieutenant in command of a small ship below the Rate. Come to think on it, mine’s low enough at two shillings six pence a day. Alan grimaced. What does he get, four or five at best?

  Now that his eyes had adjusted to the gloom of the cabins, he could see that there were more cats present; a lot more. Cats of every color and constitution, some old and grizzled from fights and amours, some spry and young, and at least four kittens being nursed by their mother on the captain’s berth. And there was a barely perceptible—odor.

  “Ah, you’ve done a lot in a little over two years’ service,” Lilycrop finally commented, laying down the documents. “But not much more practical experience than a half-cooked midshipman.”

  “Aye, sir. Sorry if I do not please, but I shall endeavor to do so as we progress together,” Alan said, on guard at once but making keen noises.

  “A fledglin’ just outa the nest. Nay, more a chick fresh from the shell,” Lilycrop maundered. “My last first officer … oh, now there was a tany-handed young cock … ’twas sorry I was to lose him. But, we do what we can with what we’re given, an’ if the flag says you’re to be first lieutenant into Shrike, then growl I may, but agree I must.”

  Damme, I ain’t that bad, Alan thought sourly. And if he don’t like the cut of my jib, can’t he toss me back for someone else to catch?

  “Aye, sir,” he replied, noncommittal.

  “Well, sir.” Lilycrop left his sulks and got suddenly and alarmingly business-like. “Shrike is Dutch-built, took by my last ship off St. Eustatius a year ago. She’s eighty foot on the range of the deck
, ninety-eight foot from taffrail to bow-sprit, an’ you’ll note she’s beamy, like most Dutchies—twenty-seven foot abeam. Barely ten foot deep in the hold, of two hundred and ten tons burthen. She wasn’t a fast sailer ’til I had her jib-boom an’ sprit steeved lower, an’ larger fores’ls cut. We added the horse an’ the short trys’l mizzen to the main-mast to make her more weatherly, so she’s a snow, now, tho’ still rated as a brig-rigged sloop. Started out a tradin’ brig, made of good Hamburg oak. She don’t work much in heavy seas, don’t need much pumpin’ out, an’ bein’ just a quim-hair under ten-foot draught, an’ her quick-work flatter’n any English shipwright’d loft her up, she can go places another ship’d dread to go. You’ll find her a fiddler’s bitch close-hauled, but she’ll weather and head reach on any fuckin’ frigate that ever swum, an’ off the wind long’s you keep her quartered, an’ not ‘both sheets aft,’ she’ll run to loo’rd like a starvin’ whore. But I warn ye now, take your eyes off her to play with yourself just a second, an’ she’ll scare hell out of you if you let her have her head. Flat down wind, we’ve had her surf up her own bow-wave in a half-gale, an’ that with the main course brailed up, and if you let her get away, she’ll broach on you faster’n you can say ‘damn my eyes, ain’t my fault.’”

  “I see, sir.” Alan marveled at the change that had come over Lieutenant Lilycrop as he got on professional matters.

  “We’ve two little four-pounders on the fo’c’sle, all she’ll take for end weight, and only twelve six-pounders for the main battery, and two of those shifted aft into my quarters to get her stern trimmed down so the fuckin’ rudder’ll bite, so she’s not so crank. So she’ll tack right smart now. She looks en flute, ’cause there were two more guns aft once, but they wuz bronze trash I’d have no truck with, so I had ’em put ashore. Two gunports right forward on the weather deck’re empty, too, to lift her bows proper. Damned Yankees, tryin’ to make a sixteen-gunned privateer out o’ her. Silly fools. Yankee Doodles. Ya know, the Jonathons, the Rebels,” Lilycrop explained as he used the nickname with which Alan was not familiar.

  “Aha,” Alan nodded.

  “Pierced for sweeps along the gangways above the gun deck, too. You’ll find ’em damned handy for workin’ outa harbor, or off a lee, but with so little quick-work you’d best not try ’em when it’s too windy or she’ll get away from you under bare poles. Ever use sweeps?”

  “No, sir,” Alan had to admit.

  “Well, shit,” Lilycrop grumbled.

  “Sorry, sir, you were saying?”

  “Like most ships commissioned from prizes on foreign stations, Shrike has her share of no-hopers.” Lilycrop frowned. “Most of her warrants are a bit spavined, but with lots of practical experience. My crew was as scrofulous a lot as I’ve ever seen, even after my former captain let me have ten prime hands from old Bonaventure, the usual surly and slack-jawed louts you’d expect, with more’n average her number of Island Blacks, and half of those probably runaway slaves in the first place. But we’ve pulled together, and I’ll touch ’em up sharp when needed. I’m not a Tartar when it comes to plyin’ the cat, but I by God’ll flay a man raw when he needs it, not like some of these Goddamn psalm-singin’ hedge-priests in disguise you see clutterin’ up quarterdecks these days. I don’t splice the mainbrace nor cosset the people ’less I see a choir of angels to larboard announcing the Apocalypse. You’re not a hedge-priest are you now, Lewrie?”

  “Hell no, sir.” Alan grinned. “Ow!”

  Henrietta had made up her mind that his leg, encased in brand new silk stocking, was a scratching post.

  “Ah, she’s takin’ to you, good girl,” Lilycrop said softly, laying his head to one side in admiration of his cat. “Let her have a little lap to make friends with you. Go on, pick her up. She’ll purr like a snare drum. Now, you ain’t a Tartar, either, are you?”

  “No, sir,” Alan said, gingerly lifting the cat from his side to sit in his lap, where Henrietta began to lay down her head and rub to mark him, scattering a handful of black fur on his snowy-white breeches. “Firm but fair was the motto I was taught, sir.”

  “Good for you, then, laddie,” Lilycrop nodded agreeably. “Now, as to the people. Caldwell is a sour little shit-sack, but a good master, a bit of a hymn-singer and in another life he’d turn evangel on us, so don’t plan on getting much joy out of him in the wardroom. Walsham, well, he’s a tailor’s dummy, God help him, but what can you expect from Marines. His sergeant is good, though, but deaf as a country magistrate. Master gunner Mister Cox is a sharp’un, and Fukes is a good bosun, but we’re thin in mates. Mister Lewyss the surgeon is competent but a horrid drinker, bein’ Welsh, and if I hear that damned harp and his quavery fuckin’ voice lollopin’ out those mournful dirges in the mess past eight bells o’ the second dog, I’ll kick your young arse so you can kick his. Mister Henry Biggs the purser is the biggest weasel I’ve ever come across, and that’s sayin’ somethin’ after fifty year at sea, man and boy. You’ll watch him like a hawk, and if you discover how he prospers, you’ll be the first. Midshipmen’re just about what you’d expect, one stupid as cow-pats and t’other too clever for his own good.”

  “That would be Rossyngton, the clever one, sir?” Alan said as Henrietta draped herself over his chest like a warm blanket and began to vibrate and snore, her paws kneading his shirt front with sharp little claws.

  “You’re smart as paint, Lewrie. T’other, Mister Edgar, is not too long off the dung wagon, and I s’pect if it was rainin’ claret he’d have a colander to catch it in, and he’d drop that. Clumsy young bastard. Stepped on Pitt’s tail t’other day.”

  “Who, sir?”

  “The ginger tom lives forrard.”

  “We’ve met, sir,” Alan stated.

  “Worst disposition in a cat I’ve ever seen,” Lilycrop confessed. “Know why I named him Pitt, hey?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Because I absolutely despise the bastard!” Lilycrop boomed with a short bark of laughter at his own wit. “Rapacious, sir, most rapacious mouser I’ve ever seen. Got the soul of a master-at-arms, though. Come to think of it, those are good traits in a Prime Minister, too.”

  “With so many cats aboard, I should think Shrike would not be plagued with rodents like other ships, sir.”

  “Their tribe stand no chance of prosperin’,” Lilycrop boasted.

  “Then what do the midshipmen eat, sir?” Alan asked.

  “Ha ha, you’re a wag, sir!” Lilycrop boomed again. “I can tell we’ll get on, if there’s a brain hidden behind all that dandy-prattery. Well, I’d expect you’d like to get settled into your cabin and get all squared away. You’ll find my Order Book and all that bum fodder to look over, and then I expect you’ll go over the ship and make your acquaintances, see what we have to work with, God help us.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Got any questions, see me on the sly,” Lilycrop commanded. “Can’t let the people or the warrants think you’re slack-witted or not experienced enough. Would you like a kitten?”

  “Um, not right now, sir.”

  “You’re not one of those people who can’t abide the little darlin’s, are you, Lewrie?” Lilycrop looked at him sternly.

  “Oh, no, sir,” Alan assured him quickly. “It’s just that none of my other ships ran to pets, and I do want to find my feet first.”

  “Well, keep it in mind, we’ve four new’uns ready for weanin’ in a week or so. That’ll be all, Lewrie.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Alan replied, standing up and trying to disentangle Henrietta from her death-grip on his shirt. She finally scaled his back, scratching him on the nape on her way down to the chair where she re-ensconced herself and began to wash.

  Lilycrop turned to stare at a large, shallow wooden box by the quarter-gallery and bawled for his steward. “Gooch!”

  “Aye, sir?” a wizened little mouse of a man asked, popping out of the captain’s pantry by the chart-room.

  “Cat shit, Gooch!”

&nbs
p; “Aye aye, sir, right away, sir.”

  I’ve always believed it, Alan told himself as he pored over the captain’s Order Book of set instructions in his small cabin. Not one captain on the face of this earth is dealing with a healthy mind. They’re all daft as bats. This Lilycrop makes Treghues look sane as a banking house. What did I do to deserve this? Who did I fuck, who did I not fuck?

  The officer’s wardroom was not in the extreme stern in Shrike, but aft of the main-mast and ahead of stores rooms. As a single-deck ship, she had to cram all her holds and stores onto one deck, along with all her personnel accommodations. There was a solid deck under the fo’c’sle, broken aft of the galley into a capacious hold to allow her to stay at sea for up to three months. Seamen were berthed above the stores kegs and barrels on a temporary mess-deck flooring, swung in hammocks, with the last two rows furthest aft reserved for the Marine complement.

  Aft of the Marines, there was room for the officers and senior warrants, with the main after hatch leading down just before the deal partitions that screened it off from the Marines. The captain was kept in his rather spartan splendor in what was called a hanging cabin under the highly steeved quarterdeck, which had a break much like a three-foot-high poop deck near the taffrail to give him standing headroom.

  This cut the wardroom off from all sunlight, even though it was above the waterline, but the only openings to the outside were gunports that were kept tightly sealed unless the ship cleared for action.

  Alan’s cabin was right aft on the larboard side, hard up against the after bread room, spirit store and fish room, which added to the miasma of cat droppings and the usual human odors.

  If he thought that promotion to lieutenant would get him any more splendor of his own, he was sadly mistaken. The cabin was six feet wide, which left room for a wash-hand stand and his sea chest, about six feet six inches long to accommodate a fixed berth raised up high enough to give him some storage underneath. Near the door at the foot of the bed there was a tiny portable writing desk, a three-tiered bookshelf already filled with the accumulated reading of an entire commission, and a stool to sit on while he wrote letters or conducted ship’s business. Across from his cabin the surgeon, Dr. Lewyss, was housed. The next two cabins were for the sailing master to larboard, and the purser to starboard. Forward of those, the cabins got smaller to make walking space around the fixed dining table and the hatchway to the orlop stores. Walsham the Marine officer, the captain’s clerk, Fukes the bosun, Cox the gunner and Mr. Pebble, the enfeebled carpenter, had those cabins. The spare cabin that completed the starboard tier was wardroom stores and the captain’s servant and the wardroom servant swung their hammocks in there above the personal food and drink for the officers and warrants.