After another sip, he stepped out into the foyer, looking over the sideboard and mirror, the framed portraits, the Venetian bombé tables he’d brought back from the Adriatic, and . . . into the parlour and dining room in the other wing of the house, and all those ghostly pale sheet-covered furnishings. There was a bit of a moon that night, and before Desmond and his lad began to close the shutters over all those windows, he got the shivery feeling that he was looking at a coven of spooks.
“I will never see this house again,” he whispered, with a new shiver trilling up his spine. Back in service and out to sea within a month, he’d not return for years, and when he did, it would surely be Burgess’s and Theadora’s house, in freehold. He would be invited over to dine or dance, at holidays, but by then it would look totally different, done to Theadora’s taste; the nursery might even be occupied by Chiswick children, there’d be new servants, a lot more of them, too.
Ask my father t’close it down and move everything over to his place, in storage, Lewrie decided, making a mental inventory of furnishings he could use aboard his new ship.
That sense of finality was not dread; he felt those shivers for an ending, not like a premonition like the old adage of sensing that “rabbit running over one’s grave.” He knew what he was doing aboard a ship—even if he didn’t know much ashore. Let the French try to do him in! He’d give them measure for measure, and more, to boot.
“Sorry, Caroline,” he muttered, finishing his drink, and sure he would soon have another. “I’d’ve liked t’keep everything just as ye liked it, but . . . I can’t. I can’t live with all your ghosts, either.”
Never see this place again? he asked himself; bloody good!
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It was a toss-up as to who peered out from the coach’s windows more eagerly as it began the long descent from Portdown Hill to Portsmouth proper—Hugh, Sewallis, or their father. The lads squealed and oohed at the sight of the harbour so crammed with warships at anchor, so many water hoys and supply barges working to succour them, and the lug-sailed or oared boats dashing back and forth like so many roaches scuttling from a sudden flood of light.
And once they were on level ground before the George Inn, the one Lewrie preferred most, the streets leading into HM Dockyards were even busier with dray waggons and seamen, with parties from the Impress Service chivvying along their latest catches to the tenders to ferry them out to the hulked receiving ships, with files of Marines tramping a long at the Quick-Step, with officers strolling together in twos and threes for whispered conversations, or sharing cock-a-whoop japes.
“Stay close or get trampled, now,” Lewrie chid his boys, leaving it to his father, Sir Hugo—who had coached down with them for the nonce and who would see Sewallis back to London and the diligence coach to his school, once the necessities were done—to deal with the driver of the dray waggon, which bore all his personal goods and furnishings and Hugh’s sea-chest, and to supervise Desmond and Furfy’s unloading.
Lewrie closed his eyes and sniffed deeply, feeling a swell of satisfaction as he realised how different a seaport smelled, and how much he had missed it. Other than the horse dung, of course.
There was the fishy smell of tidal flats and the kelp and hard marine life that clung to wood and stone piers at low tide, the scent of salt, of cable-lengths of hemp or manila, fresh from weaving at the ropewalks; hot tar or pitch, turpentine and rosin, and the sweetness of new-sawn wood and sawdust. New-baked ship’s biscuit, small beer by the keg, the heady aroma of a leaking rum cask from a passing waggon.
And there were the sounds; mewing, crying gulls, the clatters of sail, signal or flag halliards on masts, staffs, or poles. Far-off rustles of loosed canvas from one of the nearer ships as its rusty or newly impressed crew went through an exercise in Harbour Drill. Roars and shouts, barked orders, fiddle music and laughter, and the rumbles of a great many men of a myriad of skills all congregating to launch a great enterprise, and the bulk of them knowing what they were about.
I think I’m home, Lewrie told himself, opening his eyes to take it all in; a damned deprivin’ one, once we’re out at sea, but . . . home just the same.
“Yes well, let’s see about our lodgings first, then we’ll see my goods aboard Reliant,” Lewrie said, abandoning his reverie. “I’ve written ahead, so the George may be able t’take us all.”
“All of us, father? To go out to your new ship?” Sewallis asked him, looking more eager than was his usual wont.
“Aye, you can be there when I read myself in,” he agreed.
And an hour later, with two hired boats to bear all his goods and the six of them, they went alongside HMS Reliant. She was still reduced “to a gant-line” with none of her upper masts set up, and her gun-deck empty of artillery, riding high in the waters not too far off Southsea Castle, in the deeper water ’twixt Spit Sand and Horse Sand.
“Boat ahoy!” one of her Midshipmen challenged; pro forma, that, for there was no doubt that the first boat carried a Post-Captain, and the second his possessions.
“Aye aye!” their boatman shouted back, showing four fingers to declare that a Post-Captain was indeed aboard.
“Might ye have need of a bosun’s chair, father?” Lewrie teased.
“Bedamned if I will!” Sir Hugo snapped back.
“Last in, first out,” Lewrie said, laying a restraining hand on Sewallis’s shoulder as he stood to grope for the main channel platform, the dead-eyed main-mast stays, and the man-ropes of the boarding-battens. “Sir Hugo next, then Hugh, then you, Sewallis.”
He tucked his sword behind his left leg, stood on the gunn’l of their boat, and stepped onto the main channel, then the battens, making a quick way up to the starboard entry-port. He was greeted with a side-party of Marines, a Bosun and his Mate piping a long call, and two officers and a clutch of Midshipmen.
Once safely in-board, Lewrie doffed his hat to the flag at the taffrails, the officers, and the crew hastily assembled along both sail-tending gangways above the bare gun-deck, and in the waist.
“Captain Alan Lewrie, come aboard to command,” he told his two Commission Officers. “Mine arse on a band-box!” he gasped a second later, though, quite ruining the solemnity of the occasion. “Mister Spend-love? Last I saw of you ’twas Ninety-Seven, when we paid off Jester! Congratulations on your Lieutenancy, sir.”
“Thank you, sir!” Lt. Clarence Spendlove proudly replied.
“Geoffrey Westcott, sir,” the older officer said. “It appears I’m to be your First Officer . . . unless Mister Merriman turns up and proves senior to me. Your servant, Captain Lewrie, sir.”
“Mister Westcott, how d’ye do, sir,” Lewrie said with another doff of his hat to match Westcott’s. “Well, shall we get on with it?” He turned to see that Sir Hugo had scaled the ship’s side right handily, and both Hugh and Sewallis were behind him, too.
“One of ours, sir?” Lt. Westcott enquired as the both of them walked to the hammock nettings at the forward end of the quarterdeck, and amidships.
“No, my son Hugh’s down for Captain Thomas Charlton and Pegasus, a two-decker,” Lewrie told him. “His first ship. I’ve never very much cared for kin on the same ship.” Lewrie was too busy extracting his precious commissioning document from the safety of his coat to see Westcott’s approving nod. He had eyes more for his sons and Sir Hugo, who stood off to one side, as he unscrolled his paper.
“Ship’s comp’ny . . . off hats and hark to the quarterdeck!” Lt. Westcott ordered in a voice that would carry in a full gale.
“By the Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain and Ireland, and all His Majesty’s Plantations and et cetera . . . to Captain Alan Lewrie, hereby appointed to His Majesty’s Ship, Reliant . . . by virtue of the Power and Authority to us given, we do hereby constitute and appoint you Captain of His Majesty’s Ship, Reliant . . . willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the Charge and Command of Captain in her according
ly. Strictly charging all the Officers and Company belonging to said Ship subordinate to you to behave themselves jointly and severally in their respective Employments with all due Respect and Obedience unto you, their said Captain, and you likewise to observe and execute such Orders and Directions you shall receive from time to time from your superior officers for His Majesty’s Service.
“Hereof nor you nor any one of you fail as you will answer the contrary at your peril. And for so doing this shall be your Warrant. Given under our hands and the Seal of Office of Admiralty, this Twenty-Fifth day of April, Eighteen-Oh-Three, in the Fourty-Third year of His Majesty’s Reign,” he concluded in a matching “quarterdeck” voice.
The ritual done, Lewrie rolled up the document and looked down at his hands in the waist, on the gangways. “Men! It seems that that Corsican tyrant . . . that ogre Napoleon Bonaparte hasn’t learned his lesson yet. Like a wolf pretendin’ t’be a setter, he’d like t’enter the house . . . pretend he can grin and wag his tail, and all the while just waitin’ to eat up the whole house, and all of Europe, including our island. Your homes, your people, from Land’s End to John O’ Groats. Only problem is, nobody ever told Napoleon ye can’t play-act a trusty setter if ye keep piddlin’ on the carpet and shittin’ in the parlour!
“We’re called once again t’teach him proper manners,” he told them as the laughter that his Billingsgate, not usually heard from a gentleman-captain, died away. “And if he can’t learn t’live peaceful among the world’s nations . . . then it’s our job . . . the Royal Navy . . . this fine frigate . . . and every one of you, volunteer or pressed man, experienced tar or raw landsman . . . true blue hearts of oak . . . to put him down like a rabid stray, like a ravenin’ wolf in the sheep fold that Napoleon is, and stop his business, all French business, for good and all!
“Before Reliant raises anchor and sets sail on the King’s Business,” he promised them in a slightly softer voice, “I, and your officers and mates, will make sure that ev’ry Man Jack of you know all you need t’know to work this ship, to sail her into any corner of the wide world over . . . as shipmates, as men who can boast that they’re the best in the entire world . . . that they’re British tars. Reliants!”
That raised a cheer, even from the dubious first draught of men from the Impress tenders and the receiving ships.
“That’s all for now, Mister Westcott.”
“Aye, sir. Ship’s comp’ny . . . on hats, and dismiss. Carry on!” Westcott ordered.
“Ah, those two are ours, sir,” Lewrie said, pointing to Desmond and Furfy, who were just gaining the deck with the first light loads of Lewrie’s dunnage and the wicker cage for the cats, who were peering wide-eyed, braced on their haunches with their noses to the wicker to sniff out their new home.
“The cats, sir?” Lt. Westcott dared jape. “Or the sailors?”
“You’ll find my Cox’n, Desmond, and Ordinary Seaman Furfy more use to you, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie drawled back in like humour. “My cats keep me from turnin’ a floggin’ Tartar.”
“Very good, sir,” Lt. Westcott said with a grin. “I’ll see to hoisting your goods aboard.”
Now the ceremony of reading himself in was over, the Midshipmen yet aboard Reliant were circling round Hugh very much like a pack of the aforementioned wolves, ready to put “John New-Come” in his place at the bottom of their pecking order.
“Gentlemen,” Lewrie said, going to rescue him. “Allow me to name to you my son, Hugh, who will be going aboard HMS Pegasus tomorrow. And you are, young sirs?”
“Uhm . . . Vincent Houghton, sir,” the oldest and most senior of them quickly said. He looked to be “upwards of twenty,” as the Navy required of a fellow who had done at least six years at sea and was able to stand before his first oral examinations for his Lieutenancy. “May I name to you, sir, Mister Entwhistle,” a stocky lad about eighteen or so; “Mister Warburton” (that worthy was a slim fellow with dark red hair and a very fair complexion, about fifteen or sixteen, a lad with a “cheeky” expression), “and Mister Grainger, sir.” The last was the youngest, about fifteen Lewrie judged, a tad shorter than the rest, and a bit chubbier. “We’re two short so far, sir,” Houghton said.
“All of you have sea experience?” Lewrie asked, and was happy to learn that Houghton and Entwhistle had at least six years at sea in various ships, whilst Warburton had had one three-year appointment, and Grainger the same.
“Damme,” Lewrie chuckled, “someone at Admiralty’s erred badly, t’place so many tarry young gentleman in the same ship, ’stead of tossin’ us a pack of cods-heads. I’ll be countin’ on you to make sure we put to sea with a crew that knows the ropes.”
“Count on us, sir!” Midshipman Houghton vowed, quickly seconded by the rest.
“Purser aboard?” Lewrie asked further. “The Marine officer?”
“Mister Cadbury, sir?” Houghton said. “He and his clerk and his Jack-in-the-Breadroom are ashore, sir. Leftenant Simcock went ashore with him, t’see to wardroom stores.”
“Very well, catch up with ’em later,” Lewrie decided. “Which of you have a good copperplate hand?” Two shot up their hands.
“Capital!” Lewrie cried. “I’ll put you, Mister Entwhistle, and you, Mister Grainger, to copyin’ out my Order Book for six Midshipmen and all officers.”
Blank-faced looks from the two volunteers, faint sneers from the others, even a snicker from Warburton.
“Carry on,” Lewrie told them.
“Uhm, could we look about the ship, father?” Sewallis asked.
“Mister Warburton,” Lewrie said, stopping him in his tracks. “Would you mind showing my sons about the ship? All the cautions?”
“Of course, sir!”
“I’ll be aft,” Lewrie said, turning to go, but stopping at the foot of the larboard ladderway to the gun-deck to watch his sons get the first bit of their tour; Sewallis a head taller in his usual dark and sobre suit, his hat in his hands, to bare his darker hair, and Hugh, uniformed and kitted out in London before they had coached down, his new-styled narrow-brimmed and thimble-shaped hat still on his head, though with his mother’s blonder hair tumbling in its usual unruly way over his shirt collar and his ears.
Would she have been proud of his choice? Lewrie wondered; much as Caroline disliked it . . . would she have cursed me for lettin’ him go to sea? Pushed him to it?
“Damned demandin’, what ye read,” Sir Hugo commented as he came to join him. “All my promotions and such started out with ‘To our Trusty and well beloved’—fill in the name—‘Greetings’ ”!
“Well, ye paid enough for ’em, I should’t wonder why the King wouldn’t!” Lewrie teased.
Now there was a proper captain aboard, whose privacy and goods must be guarded, there was a Marine private in full kit outside the door to the great-cabins, right aft. He stamped, presented his musket in salute, and roared “Sah!”
“Good Christ!” Sir Hugo barked, once laying eyes on the place. It was bare, the black-and-white chequer canvas deck cover was faded and worn; the deal-and-canvas partitions and all the inner faces of the planking above the line of empty gun-ports and the usual dark red paint below the wainscot line—everything was done in a pale blue, picked out with gilt-painted mouldings, replete with wee painted cherubs. “The last captain ship his wife with him . . . or did he run a bawdy house?”
“Re-paint . . . soonest,” Lewrie vowed.
“And turn yer cats loose,” Sir Hugo added, pointing with his walking-stick at a particularly large rat, with a brace of his smaller brothers, busy gnawing at what might have once been a tufted dark blue pad atop the transom settee. “Yer brothel’s got rats, hee hee!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Once sending Sir Hugo, Hugh, and Sewallis ashore for a while, as Desmond and Furfy supervised a work-party in setting up his cabins to his liking, Lewrie made it a point to meet the Purser, Mr. Cadbury, and his clerk, the Bosun Mr. Sprague, and his Mate, Wheeler; their Master Gunner, who turned out t
o be the Prussian Johan Rahl, who had served with him long ago; the Gunner’s Mate, Mr. Acres; and the Yeoman of the Powder, Kemp; Sailmaker, Mr. Yearsley and his Mate, Duncan, and all of the people who formed the Standing Officers who lived aboard while she was laid up in-ordinary, as well as those few other petty officers who had already come aboard.
Then he spent some time with his Lieutenants, discussing the ship’s history, her material condition, her lacks, and how many hands were aboard; how many were rated Able, Ordinary, or Landsmen, and how many remained to be recruited . . . by fair means or foul.
“I’ve spoken with a printer, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, “though I have not yet placed an order. Didn’t know who to advert as our Captain, you see,” he said with a grin. “How boastful to be.”
Lt. Geoffrey Westcott was about Lewrie’s height of five feet nine inches, a bit slimmer in build, and carried himself with a quick urgency. His hair was dark and cut quite short, almost as short as a fellow ashore who preferred a wig and had his scalp shorn to keep the risk of bugs down. He had a high-cheeked and slightly narrow hatchet face, which on a villain might have looked menacing. Westcott, though, seemed possessed of a merry, if slightly worldly-wise, disposition. He smiled rather a lot, sometimes only the briefest flash of a smile, with a lifting of his rather short upper lip to reveal his teeth.
“We’ve a partial proof, sir,” Lt. Spendlove contributed, showing Lewrie a poster-sized sheet of paper, which featured VOLUNTEERS at the top, the King’s royal crest and G.R. III, and a paragraph of type that called for Englishmen good and true, etc. Below that came BOLD ROYAL TARS OF OLD ENGLAND, but the rest was yet blank.
“You’ve chosen a ‘rondy,’ Mister Westcott?” Lewrie enquired.
“I have, sir. A centrally located public house, adjacent to the docks,” Lt. Westcott assured him. “Though I fear there are many more ships’ rendezvous in competition with us, along with the Impress Service’s, which will recruit for any ship. I put a deposit down, but . . .”
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