King, Ship, and Sword l-16

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Oh, really, sir?" Pridemore said, brightening. "If that is so, sir, might I suggest that you leave all that to me, for I have Captain Speaks's address, already, and made arrangements for most of his goods to be sent on to his home in Yorkshire months ago."

  Just knew it'd be a long, long way off! Lewrie told himself.

  "In point of fact, sir," Pridemore went on, "two of them would be more than welcome whilst we're laid up in-ordinary this winter. If I… lease them from Captain Speaks for my comfort, and the comfort of my fellow ship-keepers, it goes without saying," the Purser quickly added, "and, so long as we purchase our own coal, the dockyard people can have no objection, d'ye see, sir?"

  "That leaves me two t'haul off," Lewrie glumly replied.

  "Well, not really, sir," Mr. Pridemore schemed on, "not if Captain Speaks authorises me to sell them for him. So many warships laid up in-ordinary… so many shivering ship-keepers right here in Sheerness, or a quick sail up to the Chatham Ordinary? I'm certain their usefulness, and their rarity, shall allow me to turn a good profit, to the benefit of Captain Speaks, and myself, of course. All that is needful is for you to sign a chit consigning Captain Speaks's property to me, and all's aboveboard, so to speak."

  "Really? That'd do it?" Lewrie marvelled, though there was the dread that Pridemore was a Purser, a skillful man of Business and Trade after all, and undertook nothing without a scheme to "get cheap, then sell dear." Pursers were not called "Nip Cheeses" for nothing!

  "Do it admirably, sir," Pridemore assured him. "And, whilst we are at it, I believe the Russian gentlemen gifted you with nigh half a bargeload of dainties and luxury goods? Should you wish to dispose of some of them, and save yourself the carting fee to the London market, where you are certain to be 'scalped,' I assure you, Captain, for I am a veteran, and a victim, of sharp practices in the city."

  "Not a big market for Roosky vodka, Mister Pridemore," Lewrie said, now sure that he might be being "scalped" on his own quarterdeck, "nor for caviar and pate in Sheerness, I'd think, though. And, there is some of it I'd like to haul along home."

  "But of course, sir!" Pridemore said with a little laugh, "for so would I. The bulk of it, though, I could purchase from you."

  "With the bill of sale, though…," Lewrie said, reminded by the word bulk, as in "breaking bulk cargo"; unlawful for a warship to do aboard a ship made prize, and the penalty for landing captured goods. "There are the King's Custom Duties to be paid. Do you undertake to pay them, once the goods are transferred to your possession, and note such in your bill of sale… "

  Did I just pinch his testicles? Lewrie had to wonder, to see a brief wince twitch Pridemore's face.

  "But, of course, sir, it shall be as you say," Pridemore agreed.

  "Let's go below and sort it all out, then," Lewrie suggested, "and have my clerk, Georges, draw up the paperwork, with copies to all before I depart."

  Whew! Lewrie thought; once bitten, twice shy. Maybe with age wisdom does come. The last thing I need is another brush with the law over smuggled goods!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Admiralty in London was very crowded with so many ships being decommissioned at once, so much so that it had been necessary to make an appointment for a set date and time to begin the process of turning in all his ledgers, forms, logs, punishment books, and pay vouchers. Thankfully, a fortnight shy of Christmas, Lewrie met with the Second Secretary to Admiralty, William Marsden, not his nemesis, Sir Evan Nepean, and the whole thing was a fairly business-like and pleasant affair, not the ordeal Lewrie had expected.

  Well, there was a half-hour stint in the infamous Waiting Room on the ground level, but the tea cart was set up in the courtyard and doing a grand business, with its tea lads whipping round with hot pots, mugs, and sticky buns, right-active. Lewrie had even found a pew bench seat right off after but a single glare at a Midshipman, who'd gotten the hint and sprung from his place to accommodate a senior officer.

  Is he the same snot-drizzler I saw, the last time I was here? Lewrie asked himself, for the Midshipman bore a strong resemblance to the mouth-breather with whom he'd shared a bench in February. Damned if he ain't! Lewrie marvelled with a faint grimace of distaste to see him snort back a two-inch worm of mucus, then gulp. Has he been here every day since? Lewrie wondered, shaking his head at the no-hope's persistence at seeking a sea-berth, even as two-thirds of the Navy was being laid up. Don't he know there's a war… off? Lewrie japed.

  To make more room for Lewrie a Lieutenant shifted over a bit, a very tall and painfully thin young fellow with dark hair and eyes, and dressed in a shabby and worn uniform coat, with a very cheap brass-hilt smallsword on his hip. Must bash his brains out on ev'ry overhead beam, Lewrie thought; maybe one too many already? he further decided as the gawky "spindle-shanks" stared off into space, lips ajar, and damned near mumbled to himself with a gloomy, vacant expression on his phyz.

  "Good morning," Lewrie said, to be polite-and to see if the fellow was truly addled. Will this'un drool? he thought.

  "Er ah, hem… good morning to you, sir," the Lieutenant said with a grave formality, then returned to his dark study.

  "Captain Lewrie? Is Captain Lewrie present?" a minor clerk enquired from the foot of the grand staircase.

  "Here," Lewrie answered, springing from the pew bench, giving the officer not another thought as he followed the young clerk abovestairs with his bound-together stack of books and papers.

  A pleasant ten-minute chat with Mr. Marsden, then Lewrie was passed on to a succession of underlings, from one cramped office to another, even right down to the damp basements where clerks would work on stools and makeshift plank passageways when the Thames flooded in Spring; to file his navigational observations, to hand over ledgers and charts, the final muster book to make official those crewmembers Discharged, Dead, or so injured that they were merely Discharged, and for what reason. Finally, long past his usual dinner hour, Lewrie saw the Councillor of the Cheque, where his final accounting was toted up, the last full-rate pay of a Post-Captain of a Fifth Rate was signed and handed over in full (an assortment of ten-, five-, and one-pound notes on the Bank of England, with only a few shillings and pence in real coin) and his whereabouts, should Admiralty have need of him, noted, thence placing him on half-pay for the near future-minus all the deductions for the aforesaid Chatham Chest and crippled pensioners, robbing him of the eight shillings per day of an active commission, reducing him to six shillings per day of half-pay, but really amounting only to a low three shillings!

  By then, with the money in his pockets, and his stack of books and such much reduced, and sure that he had seen almost all thirty of the employees who ran the entire Fleet, Lewrie made his adieus and trotted down the stairs to get his hat and cloak from the hall porter, looking over the Waiting Room in hopes he might espy at least one old shipmate before departing, someone who'd shared privations, dangers, and high cockalorums, if only to stave off the dread that there would be exceedingly dull times ahead, on his own, without such companionable "sheet anchors" linked to the bulk of his adult life.

  One'd think so, Lewrie thought as he took his time buckling on his sword belt, settling the heavy and enveloping boat-cloak upon his shoulders; an hundred ships o'the line, an hundred frigates, sloops o'war, and brig-sloops… less'n a thousand active Post-Captains, Commanders, not ten thousand Lieutenants… ye'd think I'd know one of 'em in here!

  Well, there were some he'd rather not encounter, this side of the gates of Hell; Francis Forrester, who'd made Post years before he had, the idle, well-connected bastard; that idle "grand tourist" Commander William Fillebrowne; that Captain Blaylock of the rosaceaed phyz back in the West Indies… Come to think on't, there were rather more than a few fellow Commission Sea Officers listed in Steel's Original and Correct List of the Royal Navy who'd be more than happy to play-act the "Merry Andrew," glad-hand him, then spit in his tea on the sly, or worse!

  There was the drooling, drizzling Midshipman; there was that gloomy, tall, and
skeletal dark-haired Lieutenant, now taken to wringing his hands, and there were an hundred strangers. Fie on it!

  Lewrie clapped his cocked hat on his head and left, going out to the courtyard, feeling as he imagined an aging foxhound would when left in the run and pen whilst the younger, spryer dogs set out for a hunt… to be idly, lubberly, civilian-useless!

  "An' there's a proper sea-dog for ye, young ginn'l'men. Merry Christmas t'ye, Cap'um," the old tiler bade him, doffing his own hat and making a clutch of Midshipmen round the tea cart turn to gawk and grin in polite confusion. "Merry Christmas, an' a Happy New Year!"

  Christ, will he never retire? Lewrie wondered; or just drop the Hell dead? He's been doorman here since I paid off the Shrike brig in '83.

  "And a Merry Christmas t'you," Lewrie answered back, with a doff of his own hat to the old fart, then in responding salute to the Mids as he trudged past for the curtain wall and the street beyond, looking for a hired carriage to bear him to the Strand, his last-minute holiday shopping, and an excellent, but late, dinner at a chop-house in Savoy Street, one introduced to him by his barrister during his legal troubles. Bad memories or not, their victuals were marvellous!

  Well, after his dinner, before shopping, he would have to drop by Coutts' Bank to deposit his accumulated earnings, then call on his solicitor, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy, to settle his shore debts with notes-of-hand. Then, the day after…?

  There would be no more reason to put off going home… home to Anglesgreen and the dubious welcome of his wife and dour, disapproving in-laws, all of whom held him in as much regard as a sack of dead barn rats! Lewrie would have thought "a sack of sheep-shit," but… sheep-shit was worth something, as fertiliser!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was a long, slow, and muddy road from London through Guildford and on "sutherly" towards Portsmouth, before taking the turning to the Petersfield road. It was cold enough for the ruts to freeze in the nights, then turn to brittle slush by mid-day; to lean out of a coach window was a good way to have one's face slimed by the shower of wet slop thrown up by the coach's front wheels.

  The sky was completely overcast, the clouds low, and the winds held a hint of snow in the offing. Indeed, it had snowed sometime in the past two days, for the trees-the poor, bare trees-along the way cupped it in the fork of their branches, and the piles of leaves on the ground were half-smothered in white, as were the fallow pastures and fields last plowed into furrows in Spring. All the crops were harvested, now, the last good from them raked and reaped and gleaned, with only a hayrick here and there, topped with scrap tarpaulin to keep off the wet.

  Most of the feed livestock, Lewrie knew, would have been slaughtered by now, too-the beef, mutton, and pork salted, smoked, sugar-cured, or submerged in the large stone crocks filled with preserving lard. It was only the young and breeding beasts that remained in the pastures by the road, in the styes or pens within sight from the rumbling, jouncing coach, and the dray waggon that followed.

  "Fair lotta sheep, hereabout, ain't they, sor?" Liam Desmond enquired with a quirky uplift of one corner of his mouth.

  "Thousands 'pon thousands of 'em," Lewrie told him. "The comin' thing in the North Downs, since before the American Revolution. We've about two hundred, last time I got an accounting."

  "Nothin' like good roast lamb, sor, sure there ain't," Desmond said with a chuckle. Liam Desmond no longer was garbed in a sailor's "short clothing" but wore dark brown "ditto," his coat and trousers of the same coloured broadcloth. He sported a buff-coloured waist-coat, a white linen shirt, even a white neck-stock, and, with triple-caped overcoat and a grey farmer's hat, could almost be mistaken for a man of the squirearchy… one who rented his acres, not owned them, at least.

  "You'll founder on lamb and mutton by Easter," Lewrie said with a wry laugh, for by previous experience, in the country, he'd seen that particular dish on his table rather more than thrice a week. In spite of the risk to his complexion, Lewrie let down the window glass and took a quick peek "astern" to see how Patrick Furfy was doing with the dray waggon. Furfy and the waggoner, swathed to their eyebrows with upturned overcoat collars, wool scarves, and tugged-down hats, seemed to be having a grand natter, and he caught the tail-end of a joke that Furfy was telling, and his deep, hearty roar of laughter at its successful completion. Patrick Furfy loved a good joke or yarn but had a hard time relating them onwards, leaving out details that he had to jab in in the middle, and overall had but a limited stash of jokes he could reliably tell.

  "… loight th' candle, help me foind me bliddy equipage, an' we'll coach outta this bitch's quim, har har!"

  "That'd be Number Twenty-One, sor," Desmond said with a grin, "and I thought he'd nivver git it right." He tugged uncomfortably at his neck-stock and the enveloping folds of his overcoat, not used to such perhaps in his whole life in Ireland, then the Navy.

  "Where the Hell did that come from?" Lewrie gravelled as their coach came even with a field that Lewrie recalled as a thinned-out wood lot, bounded by a low hand-laid stone wall. Now, the wood lot was taken over by several new buildings, a brick-works, and a wide gate open in the wall. About an eighth of a mile later, past a stretch of woods, and there was a tannery, thankfully down-stream from Anglesgreen. "My eyes, the town's gone… industrious! All that's the local squire's land, or it was… Sir Romney Emberton's. He'd not abide that. Did he pass over, and his son Harry set them up?"

  "They good people, sor, the Embletons?" Desmond asked, peering out the windows himself.

  "Sir Romney is," Lewrie commented, not sure whether he liked the changes round Anglesgreen; it was a bucolic, boresome place, full of predictable and sometimes tiresome folk, but he'd hoped to find it as reassuring as an old shoe… just long enough to get tired of it before Napoleon Bonaparte, and Admiralty, snatched him back to active sea service. "Harry delights in killin' horses at fox-huntin', and at steeplechasin', they're no matter t'him. Last I was home, he was the Leftenant-Colonel of the local Yeoman Cavalry. Ye can't miss him… He's the chin of an otter, talks louder'n an angry Bosun, and laughs like a daft donkey."

  "Faith, sor, but one'd think ye had a down on him!" his Cox'n wryly commented.

  "Of long standing, hah!" Lewrie told him with a barking laugh. He took the risk to his hat and hair and stuck his head out the coach window once more, looking back at the brick-works and tannery, grimacing with displeasure to see the steam and stinks rising from them like a pall of spent gunpowder from a two-decker's broadside, hazing off to a flat-topped cloud that slowly drifted eastward.

  God help us, does the wind change, he thought, just as a glob of muddy slush plopped against his cheek from the front wheel, eliciting a snarl that had more to do with the new-come industries. He swabbed the muck off with his wool scarf and sat back as he noted several new brick cottages on the left of the road that hadn't been there before, where once there had been a common-shared pasture before the Enclosure Acts that had taken away poor cottagers' grazing and vegetable plot rights, and turned so many from hand-to-mouth self-sufficient to common day labourers on others' farms, or driven them to the cities, where the new manufacturies might employ them. At least the dozen or so cottages were on decent plots of land, picket-fenced, with wee truck gardens and decorative flower beds. They were substantial-looking, well-painted, with flower boxes at each window sill, and in the Spring might appear quite pleasant, he decided.

  To the right, at last, and there was mossy old St. George's parish church, as stout and impressive as a feudal manor or Norman conqueror's keep, with its low stone walls marking the bounds, now topped by new iron fencing. The expansive graveyard was further bound with iron fencing, too, though the oldest headstones were still lime-green with moss, and tilted any-which-way, as if braced "a-cock-bill" in eternal mourning.

  St. George's had marked the eastern boundary of the village the last time Lewrie had been home-Christ, my last time here was back in '97? Lewrie realised with a start-but it seemed that that had changed, too, for, hard by the church's
fenced boundary there was a lane running north, then a row of two- and three-storey brick and slate-roofed, bow-windowed shops that hadn't been there before, either.

  "Milliner's… a tailor's… a tea shop?" Lewrie muttered half under his breath. "And what's this?" There had been four row-houses just east of the Olde Ploughman public house, but someone had re-done the fronts, closing off half the entrances, and turned two of them to double doors, all to allow entry to a dry goods! "A dry goods?"

  Before, anyone wishing to do serious shopping would have had to coach, ride, or hike to Petersfield, the closest substantial town, or go all-in and stay over at Southampton, Portsmouth, or Guildford, but now…! Why, in the dry goods store's windows Lewrie could espy ready-made clothing, china sets, and-

  "This th' public house ye told us of, sor?" Desmond asked as the coach drew level with the Olde Ploughman. It had been touched up with whitewash recently, sported a new, swaying signboard over the entrance, and new shutters.

  "Aye, Desmond," Lewrie told him. "The side yard's a grand place in warm weather, tables outside and… coachee! Draw up here, I say!" Lewrie cried, thumping his walking-stick on the coach roof. "As long as we're here, we'll try their ale, the coachee and waggoner, too."

  At that welcome news, Liam Desmond sprang from the front bench seat and opened the door, jumping down to lower the folding metal steps for Lewrie, who was out not two seconds behind him, and walking round the head of the coach's team of four to take it all in, bare-headed.

  "Ale, Pat!" Desmond cried. "The coachee and yer friend, too!"

  "Ale, arrah!" Furfy chortled.

  The Olde Ploughman fronted on the large village green that ran along the stream that bisected Anglesgreen, spanned just a bit west of the public house by a stout stone-arch bridge. Across the stream sat a second street, fairly new from the 1780s, once mostly earthen, mud and now and then gravelled. Now the street was cobbled, several row-houses had been turned into even more shops, and there were even more streets south of them, lined with even more of those handsome cottages, situated on spacious acre lots, with room enough for coach-houses and stables, chicken coops and runs, truck gardens, and walled-off lawns. Lewrie gawped in awe, slowly turning to look upstream towards the Red Swan Inn (where the squirearchy and landed gentry did their swilling, and Lewrie was most unwelcome) and found that the village had grown in that direction, too, though the smaller green of the Red Swan was yet untouched, and the groves of giant oaks still stood.