“Good-bye, Hugh. Make us proud.”
Then Hugh was down the slippery, green-coated stairs and into his boat. She shoved off, the lugsail raised as soon as the last of her dock lines was free. Lewrie stood with his hat aloft for another long minute, and Hugh gaily waved back at him with his, ’til the boat was fully under way, already shrunk to a toy. Another minute or so and it was almost lost in the early morning boat traffic.
And that was the end of a major part of Lewrie’s life, his care for his children, his role of a father. Now what he had was a ship.
And a war.
BOOK V
Let the die be cast.
Begin the war and try your mettle.
Yet my case is already won—
With so many brave around me.
GAIUS PETRONIUS,
THE ROAD TO CROTON, 268–271
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Never seen the like, sir!” Lt. Westcott marvelled again as a fresh boatload of real, actual willing volunteers came aboard direct from the rendezvous tavern. “We’ve almost all our necessary hands rated Able, lack but a dozen Ordinary Seamen, and so awash in Landsmen and boys that the Surgeon, Mister Mainwaring, is rejecting people for piles and lack of teeth!”
“I told you I was notorious, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie drawled as he enjoyed a morning cup of coffee on the quarterdeck. “A bit of fame . . . good or bad, deserved or otherwise . . . goes a long way. My sort, well . . . I’ve dined out on it for years!”
Wonder of wonders, people in Portsmouth had flocked to his recruiting “rondy.” Free Black sailors from the West Indies who knew him as “Saint Alan the Liberator” (a sobriquet he detested) because he had stolen a dozen plantation slaves on Jamaica and made them free to crew HMS Proteus back in ’97. There were Irish and West Country men who’d heard that he had a lucky geas upon him, good cess. The lure of prize-money and adventure had brought some eager young lads, that and the fact that frigates had more elbow-room per hand than other ships.
Will Cony had come through with his offer of local lads from Angles-green, two hay waggons of them, for a total of twenty-one. They would be Landsmen, of course, totally ignorant and unable to hand, reef, or steer, but they could learn, and they could man the guns, haul the lines, and fight. “God A’mighty, lads, but for tuppence, I’d gladly sail with ya all!” Will had declared when he’d come out to the ship with them, and assured Lewrie that he’d sternly told them what they’d be in for, so every Man Jack of ’em was there willingly, despite what shipboard life would be like.
The Third Lieutenant, George Merriman, had shown up, and he had proved to be no threat to Westcott’s seniority; Merriman had passed his examinations bare months before the Peace of Amiens, and had lingered on half-pay as a Passed Midshipman ’til the government had decided to go back to war. His name fit him aptly, for he was a cheerful sort.
Their last two Midshipmen had reported aboard, both very young and with only a year or two at sea between them. The twelve-year-old was named Munsell, the thirteen-year-old Midshipman was the Honourable Phillip Rossyngton.
“Rossyngton,” Lewrie had exclaimed at the time. “I served with a Midshipman Rossyngton in the old Shrike brig, the tail-end of the American Revolution. Any kin?”
“My father, sir!” Rossyngton had proudly said. “Soon as we knew who commanded Reliant, he said to extend to you his fondest regards. He said I would be in good hands . . . though at risk of cat scratches.”
“And are you as big a tongue-in-cheek scamp as he was?” Lewrie had teased.
“But of course, sir . . . I’m a Midshipman, and allowed it!” the lad had rejoined with a laugh.
That had made him feel even more ancient; the last time he had seen Rossyngton, who’d been about seventeen or eighteen, and the lad was his second or third son?
After that, even more people from his past showed up. Reliant’s ship’s cook, the typical one-legged, lamed gammer who had been a part of the Standing Officers whilst laid up in-ordinary, a Jack Nasty-Face whose idea of “done” was either burnt black or boiled to the bones, had finally become too feeble to serve, and pled for Discharge and a pension. To replace him, up had popped Gideon Cooke, one of the Beauman plantation slaves Lewrie had freed on Jamaica; he’d cooked for scores of slaves, and when liberated, had taken Cooke, with an E, as his new name, and the crew of the Proteus frigate had sworn they’d never eat so well in any ship.
Then there was Pettus, his former cabin steward in his previous ship, HMS Thermopylae. He’d practically fallen into Lt. Westcott’s arms outside the recruiting “rondy,” so eager was he to sign aboard, explaining that he’d been Lewrie’s “man” before.
“What’ve ye been up to since, Pettus?” Lewrie had just had to ask. “Did you ever get back together with that girl of yours, Nan?”
“Thankee for recalling, sir,” Pettus had told him. “I traipsed about, doing this and that, ’til I landed a place as barman at the Black Spread Eagle. As for Nancy, though . . . time I finally discovered her whereabouts, and her employment, well . . . there was another man had her heart,” Pettus had said, heaving a world-weary shrug. “She’d married and already had a babe, and . . . ye know, sir,” he resignedly had related. Perking up, though, he asked, “Still have your cats, sir? Toulon and Chalky? Along with Desmond and Furfy? It’d be good to see them again, sir . . . if you’ll have me as your steward, that is, but I’ll gladly sign aboard for anything,” he’d vowed.
“I do, and they’ll all be glad t’see you again, too, Pettus,” Lewrie had assured him, and put him to work straightaway.
Pettus had proved very useful, too, in discovering a cook for the great-cabins, and a lad who’d serve as the cabin servant. He knew a man who fancied himself a chef who’d lost his position when the chop-house he worked in burned to the ground a few weeks back, and was yet in need of a new place. Pettus was quick to vouch for Joseph Yeovill and his culinary skills; he even came with his own pots, pans, knives, and utensils, and a middling chest of spices and sauces!
And, from the intake of youngsters who would serve as servants and powder monkeys, Pettus had chosen a likely orphan with a quick wit and a very sketchy year or so of schooling, a twelve-year-old lad by name of Jessop, who, ’til he’d signed ship’s articles, looked to be a half-starved street waif, puppy-grateful to be issued clean clothing, have three meals a day, and a pittance of pay, to boot.
Lastly, Lt. Westcott had presented Lewrie with a likely fellow to be his clerk. James Faulkes had been an apprentice clerk to one of Portsmouth’s counting houses and had just completed his terms of indenture. Though he seemed to suffer Pettus’s malady, for he’d not only been let go from his position when the previous owner died, but Faulkes had recently been disappointed in love, and, like many a heart-sick young cully, believed that the lass, whoever she was, would take pity on him and accept his suit did he run away to sea. No matter, for his handwriting was copperplate and precise, his sums always added up, and he seemed very organised.
Of course Reliant had to resort to the Impress Service, drawn mostly from the Quota Men, a group that most officers, most tars, looked on askance. They were the derelicts, the drunks, the chronically under-employed and desperately poor; the turfed-out farm labourers who had nothing once the crops were in for the winter; the foolish and unwary civilians who had been swept up “will-he-nill-he” from the streets, public houses, and brothels by Press Gangs eager to make their numbers whether the men they collared were sailors or not; and the petty criminals from the gaols. With them came the risk that they’d been got at by radical, Levelling troublemakers and their French Jacobin ideas, as well as the theft and pilfering that came with them. Some of them surely would be insubordinate, obstreperous “sea-lawyers,” constant discipline problems, the leaders and enforcers of the sly-boot cliques that would try to dominate their decent mess-mates, prey on the others’ rations, tobacco, and rum issue, their better slop-clothing and shoes, with violence or the threat of it.
Gi
ven his druthers, Lewrie would have gladly arranged a swap with the Army—his worst men for cash—and spent the proceeds on Joining Bounties or bribes to the Regulating Captain of the Impress or one of his more venal subordinates, but . . . needs must in war time.
And, as Reliant filled with men and boys, she filled herself to the gills with supplies. A constant stream of barges, hulks, and hoys came alongside beginning at Eight Bells and the start of the Forenoon Watch at 8 A.M. and might not cease ’til the middle of the First Dog at 5 P.M. Clean new water casks first, then thousands of gallons of water from the hoys were pumped below to fill them. Bales of slop-clothing to garb the hands; blue chequered shirts, red neckerchiefs, and white slop-trousers, cotton and wool stockings and waist-length dark blue jackets with brass buttons; bags of shoes and steel buckles; square wood trenchers or cheap china plates and bowls; bales of blankets and bed sheets, piles of thin batt-stuffed mattresses and pillows, and the canvas hammocks in which they’d be placed.
Kegs of salt-beef and salt-pork came aboard from the Victualling Board warehouses, all carefully inspected by the Purser, Mr. Cadbury, to ensure that none were spoiled, rotten, or previously condemned and the brand marks effaced. There was no guarantee, though, that the kegs actually contained eight-pound chunks of preserved meat, and not more bone and gristle than meat . . . or, folded scraps of old sailcloth masquerading as rations, dropped in to bring the keg up to the proper weight!
Cheeses, oatmeal, small beer (safer to drink than water after a couple of months in cask!), wine both red and white, better known among sailors as “Black Strap” and “Miss Taylor,” respectively; vinegar and tobacco, dried raisins, currants, and plums for duffs and puddings, in the rare instances, came aboard as well. And bread! Each man aboard got a pound of it a day (though issued at fourteen ounces to the pound, else the Purser would not profit!) in the form of pre-baked biscuit, a tooth-breaker unless soaked when it was fresh, and a crumbling, dusty slab of cracker riddled by weevils after six months at sea. Salt and pepper, meat sauces, sugar, honey, and ever-desired mustard to liven the taste of the rations, and the flour for the duffs were solely in the cook’s possession, though mustard pots could be purchased by each eight-man mess . . . for a fee to the Purser.
Two complete sets of sails, plus spares and acres of sailcloth for repairs, patching, or whole refashioning came to the frigate, along with tar, pitch, resin and turpentine, miles of cable and rope, from thigh-thick cables for the anchors to small-stuff twine, and enough spare yards and upper masts to totally replace any shot away in battle or lost to weather; all the sail-maker’s or the bosun’s vital stores, and hundreds of board-feet of lumber for at-sea repairs.
The upper masts had to be set up to Lewrie’s and Lt. Westcott’s standards, the miles of standing and running rigging roved, and blocks of varying purchase placed at the most efficient locations. Belaying pins in pin-rails and fife-rails had to be sent for from shore once the rigging was set up. Lewrie found that Lt. Westcott agreed with his notion that their ship would be more weatherly if the jib-boom and bow sprit were steeved at a shallower angle than the usual up-thrust boar-toothed manner, and the jibs and upper foretopmast stays’ls were made larger and deeper.
Then came the artillery. HMS Reliant rated twenty-eight 18-pounder great-guns, eight quarterdeck 9-pounders, two 12-pounders for chase guns, and eight 32-pounder carronades, all with the wood truck-carriages or pivotting wood recoil slides; the carriages came aboard first, the cannon second. Then came the kegs and kegs of black powder to fill the belowdecks magazine, all the gun tools to load, worm out, swab, or shift the united carriages and barrels, and a bale or two of empty cartridge bags for the Master Gunner, his Mate, and the Yeoman of the Powder to fill and stow away.
And cutlasses and boarding pikes and muskets with all their accoutrements, and clumsy and inaccurate Sea Pattern pistols to be put in the locked arms chests ’til needed for drill or combat . . . it was a never-ending series of barges, of hoisting aboard with the main-mast course yard as a crane, and human muscle power, to hoist it all from the boats over the bulwarks and gangways and down onto the deck, or into the holds just above the bilges, or onto the orlop.
And each and every bit of Admiralty’s largesse, seemingly down to each pot of mustard or each shoe buckle, had to be signed for and carefully inventoried, by both Purser and Captain, the usage and depletion of which over the course of the ship’s typical three-year commission was to be carefully, meticulously accounted for, as well, or the ones responsible would be at their financial peril.
Ten days it took to prepare HMS Reliant for sea, for journeys to any of the far corners of the world, for battle against the foe . . . and Alan Lewrie found that he revelled in it!
It was not so much that he sprang from his bed-cot each morning at the end of the Middle Watch at 4 A.M. with joy, no. It was more like being so engrossed in details, in projects, in planning and supervising the labours of stowing and arming that he had no time to brood on his children’s fates, the coming loss of his rented farm and his house, or the lingering remnants of grief over Caroline’s loss. He found that he could actually go an entire day without thinking of all that, so busy with making decisions that it was only in those rare hours he spent on shore purchasing things he would need three months, six months, at sea, or the evenings when he dined alone and did not invite his officers and midshipmen in a few at a time to get a better grasp of them and their personalities, that he had time, in a proper captain’s solitude, for musing.
Over twenty-three years in King’s Coat, he realised one evening as he sprawled on his familiar old settee, his stockinged feet rested on his low, old Hindoo brass tray-table before it, with a cat nodding on either thigh and a glass of claret in his hand; and now, this is all I am? My father’s house for a home, do I ever set foot ashore again? The Navy a substitute family? Just damn my eyes . . . mine arse on a band-box! All these young sprogs come aboard . . . Middies and children of Mids from long ago? Good Christ! He supposed it was natural, and inevitable, did he live long enough. There were only so many warships and only so many officers to command them. Large as the Royal Navy had grown since 1793 and the start of the war with France, it was still a small, esoteric and arcane world of its own, and he had risen to become a somewhat senior member of that salty, tar-stained clique. He had to stumble across former shipmates sometime. Whether they were worth the time to know again, well . . . that was another matter.
“You ready t’go t’sea again, lads?” Lewrie whispered to Chalky and Toulon. They opened their eyes to stare at him, Chalky yawning as he stretched every muscle, front legs out straight. “By God, I think that I am! No more shore shite. Let’s get orders and be about it.”
Chalky took that comment as an invitation to stand, arch up, and clamber up his chest, ready to play.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The next two weeks at anchor were spent at Harbour Drill, the basic training of lubbers and Johnny New-Comes in the mystifying maze of sheets, halliards, lines, and cables, of braces, jears, and lifts, clews and brails. The proper way to tie a host of knots at sea; to go aloft and lay out on a yard; to set sail, to reef in or gasket, to strike or hoist up top-masts without being injured, maimed, or killed! Older, experienced hands got the rust scaled off their skills, as well, and were urged to take “newlies” under their tutelage. Men who had never touched a firearm or held anything more dangerous than the hoe, axe, or scythe in their civilian lives learned how to wield the cutlass and boarding pike, and were made familiar with pistol and musket ’til the loading, charging, and firing process could be done with some skill and speed; dry-firing first, then live-firing at a painted target on a scrap sail held aloft by two oars in an anchored rowboat at fifty yards’ range off the ship’s beam—with no one aboard it, of course, during the firing, and well clear of other ships or work-boats beyond it. The ship’s people practiced with the swivel guns, as well.
Then came practice on the great-guns, the quarterdeck 9-pounders and
carronades, the 12-pounder chase guns, and the heavy main artillery pieces down each beam, with half the hands hauling quickly on the run-in tackles to simulate recoil, to teach the “newlies” how quickly and brutally arms and legs could be broken, feet torn off or crushed, did they not look lively and keep clear of the truck-carriages and their tackles, blocks, and ring bolts. Lewrie could not risk actually loading and firing round-shot in crowded Portsmouth Harbour, but he could spend powder in full-measure charges to get his people used to the noise and the heart-fluttering, lung-flattening power of their discharge, along with the drill that would, hopefully, result in three broadsides every two minutes.
Then, when orders came, they came in a rush. Barely after his morning shave and sponge-off, Lewrie was summoned to the deck, noting the arms of the semaphore towers in town working like demented Dervishes.
“Hardinge, sir,” a Midshipman said, doffing his hat to present himself. “From the Modeste, sixty-four? Captain Stephen Blanding? He wishes you, and your First Officer, to attend him on board as soon as possible, sir.”
“Indeed, Mister Hardinge?” Lewrie replied, deciding to put on a scowl of displeasure, hands in the small of his back. “Why the haste . . . and not a written request?” he pretended to grump.
“Haste, indeed, Captain Lewrie, sir,” the young fellow assured him, chin up and proud to be his captain’s emissary on a vital mission. “I am given to believe a squadron will be formed for a specific duty. And Captain Blanding wishes me to inform you that this morning, word came from Admiralty that the King has given orders to begin issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal. If that satisfies you as to the urgency of the matter, sir.”
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