Most especially, he was to seek out specific persons, listed by name and description, who had served in the Hermione frigate in these waters, those who'd mutinied against a Captain Pigot, murdered him in his bed, murdered officers, mates, and midshipmen, then sailed her off to a port on the Spanish Main and sold her as "prize" to support themselves… even were they aboard American merchantmen or warships?
Were any found, they were to be taken aboard, bound in chains on the orlop or in the bilges, thence to be taken "… with all despatch" to either English Harbour, Antigua, or Kingston, Jamaica for court-martial and later hanging… whichever was closer.
"Troll for pregnant, female sturgeons, too?" he whispered.
God, give me reasonable orders! he gravelled to himself; fetch home the Golden Fleece, sweep out the Aegean Stables… something like that. Somethin do-able, for pity's sake!
He lifted Toulon from his lap and deposited him on the desktop before him, the cat grumbling and arching as he turned to go aft for a whiff of fresh air. The transom sash-windows were open a touch, letting in brisk cool air, after weeks of tight-shut "fug."
Close-up, he now took note of how the panes were splattered with dried salt, and half-misted on the outside with a dull grey film of sea salt crystals… given his mood, he could almost mistake it for smears of congealed pork fat. He rubbed his hands together, disliking how the
air felt so coolly humid and… greasy! Of how humid-oily-clammy his skin felt under his clothes.
"This cruise will turn t'shit," he muttered softly.
It would be more "war on the cheap," more sleaziness, one more hefty dollop of semi-covert underhandedness, where, he foully suspected, his every step must be circumspect… else he'd finally find the one' "slick" one that tumbled career, repute, and income to Perdition'
"Aspinall?"
"Aye, sir?"
"A glass of claret, if ya will."
" 'Fore Noon Sights, sir?" Aspinall dared to query, surprised "Aye."
CHAPTER TEN
The difference that a couple of weeks made was amazing, running before the Nor'east Trades, sometimes with the winds large on the starboard quarter, sometimes right up the stern, and "both sheets aft." In what seemed a twinkling, the horizon expanded, the scudding gloom overhead lifted, parted, and turned cerulean blue, swept by mares' tails in faint, cloudy tracings. The seas no longer churned like washtub suds, but rolled in majestically long periods, spattered with choppy smaller waves that broke and parted against the hull with the sounds of elated sighs, no longer hammering or threatening.
And the sunrises, and sunsets!
Magnificent orange suns, presaged by a faint streak of grey on the horizon, burst like bombshells, painting the eastern skies amber, shading to dusty rose-red or the palest yellow for a brief minute or so, and one could feel the day coming, racing across the ocean faster than any frigate could ever swim, or wing-churning sparrow fly, as the warmth spread outward, westward, as if the doors to a lush garden had been flung open, and hands and officers and mates standing Quarters to greet any nasty surprises at dawn could smile with relief for Proteus to be alone once more, and with a small measure of delight at Nature's glories.
And the sunsets, at the end of a long day of work or gun drill, late enough now to fall in the Second Dog Watch after the crew's mess, brought off-watch hands on deck to peer forward, westward, to savour a sight that most, in their coal-smoked, foggy, and rainy towns, hamlets, or villages had rarely seen. Great, towering cumuli, shading off to pearly-grey or charcoal, were speared by sword-blades of golden light, the sun golden-red, surrounded by roses ahead; and a soft, blue-grey gloom astern, in which first stars could be made out, swept closer by the minute to overtake their ship as it surged over the sea with a sibilant hissing, the tops'ls painted gilt, or a gleaming parchment hue.
Shoes had been dispensed with, suffocating blue wool jackets so welcome in March were stowed away except for Sunday Divisions. Shirt sleeves were now rolled above the elbow, loose slop trousers gathered above the knees, collars spread wide and placket buttons undone for a breath of cooling air, or a greater exposure to the healing rays of a benign sun. Shirts were rarely worn at all, for many doffed them despite the Surgeon Mr. Shirley's warnings about sunburn and the cost of butter-based salves that would be deducted from their pay if they appeared lobster-red at Sick Call.
Officers and senior warrants, now… some dignity was demanded, though Lewrie did allow them to dispense with cocked hats and uniform coats. Proper breeches, clean shirts, and neck-stocks were de rigeur. And stockings and shoes. It was only during the Second Dog that they could undo their stocks, roll up their sleeves, and savour the cooling winds 'til full sundown, before heading aft and below to the gun-room for their own suppers, at the change of watch.
Pipes would glow on the darkening deck, as the smokers had the last taste before heading below, off-watch, or taking station for the eight-til-midnight. Fiddles, fifes, penny-whistles, and the soft hums of Desmond's uillean pipes would sound every sunset, unless it rained, and crewmen would dance hornpipes or slip-jigs, sometimes for competition between eight-man messes, sometimes between larboard or starboard watches, to see who was the best. Country-dance tunes would jerk and tootle more urgent paces, more exuberant turns on the decking, and the men might pair off by twos to practice for future shore leaves in the islands, or perhaps to whimsically recall better times before they'd taken the King's Shilling and gone to sea.
Bedding was dry now; clothing did not have to be wrung out to be donned. Every third day or so, there would come a mildish squall, with lashings of warm, welcome rain, creating a scurry for all hands to rig canvas sluices to catch it in empty casks, to trap enough for a cask to be scrubbed clean of the slick, brownish growth that eventually would infest them, turning reputedly fresh water pale brown and semi-opaque. Stubs of soap would appear, along with salt-stiff, sweat-stiff shirts and trousers to be spread on the deck, scrubbed furiously while the rain lasted (sometimes only minutes), then thrashed or slapped or wrung out, then hung up to dry after the rain had passed. A bit more than a few might strip naked and pound the smuts from the slop clothing they wore at that moment, or merely stand wide-armed, mouths open and turned up like hatchling birds waiting to be fed, to be showered cooler and cleaner. All in all, HMS Proteus was a happy ship. They had been paid, just before departing Sheerness, the usual six months of arrears made good, and the wonders of the West Indies were still to come, if they were allowed ashore to sample the foods, the ale-houses and taverns… and the women. Their days were filled from sunrise to sunset with the usual labours, such as re-roving the rigging, tautening the standing stays every other day, one side at a time after wearing from larboard to starboard tack off the wind, when the lee side would have a little more slack to work with; taking down the storm-canvas and stowing them below, after the sailmaker and his crew had patched, darned, and sewn frayed seams; hoisting aloft and bending on the lighter, everyday set of sails. And, of course, there were the unending drills during the Forenoon Watch; running-in, mock-loading, running-out, and firing the great-guns, carronades, and swivels, with a weekly live shoot at a jettisoned keg or chicken coop; cutlass drill and boarding pike drill to keep their skills sharp and give them some additional exercise; a turn at live musketry at over-side targets, even practice with horrid Sea Pattern pistols that were only considered accurate when jammed in a foeman's belly and triggered off; striking top-masts to the deck in quick order, then hoisting them back aloft, preparing for the day when a raging West Indies hurricane might overtake their ship, and the topmasts would have to be lowered for survival-or the day when enemy fire might dismast them, and victory or defeat might hinge upon how quickly spare top-masts and spars could be deployed.
And, when all that was done, there was grog, a turn at a water-butt, the galley funnel spuming a partly homesick aroma of wood smoke and
boiling meat: the smells of soups or pease puddings as the sun declined, as a country cottage or town work
er's humble lodgings smelled at sundown, when the day's pay had been collected, an ale or two had been drunk at one's favourite local pub among fellow workers and neighbourhood friends, at the end of the loose-hipped, mellow stroll on the high street or side lane that led to family, wife… and home.
Weary, aye… mostly satisfied with their lot for the moment, some a trifle "groggy" as usual, each dusk they still had the spirit to open their voices in rough tune, revive the sentimental, lachrymose airs that sailors liked best of all… and sing the sun down.
" Toulon, don't leave yer mark on the hammock nettings! Sailors have t'sleep on those things!" Lewrie admonished his ram-cat, perched on the canvas-covered bulwark of tightly rolled hammocks, overlooking the ship's waist. He gave him a neck-tousling pet, then strolled up to the windward side, plucking at his shirt. One more sign that they were in the tropics; the day's heat that had been welcome at first, was now nigh punishing, more glaring, and the prismatic flashes of sunlight off the sea were now more like a field of too-bright snow that gave everyone a perpetual squint.
Lewrie turned to face inward, once he had taken hold of a mizen stay and given it a tug to test its tautness, taking note of Dowe, one of the quartermaster's mates serving his "trick" at the wheel. He was an American, the son of a long-dead Loyalist who had fled to Nova Scotia at the Revolution's end. Dowe lowered his gaze from the draw of the sails and eased his own squint, raising his brows for a moment, which made Lewrie smile. With a face at ease, Dowe showed white, untanned streaks round his eyes and on his forehead that squinting kept as pale as a lady's thighs… "them raccoon eyes, sir," Dowe had termed them, Lewrie recalled, making him chuckle, too. He thought he had seen one when HMS Desperate had put into Charleston back in '81, and he was sure he had eaten a raccoon when besieged and half-starved at Yorktown with Lord Cornwallis's doomed army. Either way, Lewrie thought the description apt.
"Sail ho!" the main-mast lookout screeched from the cross-trees.
"Where away?" Lt. Wyman yelled back, his hands cupped about his mouth, though that was little help for his thinnish voice.
"One point off th' larboard bows! Hull down! A schooner!"
"Well, about time, too!" Lewrie muttered, pleased.
They had proved that the ocean was a huge, empty place on their voyage, for even though they had steered Proteus Sou'westerly nigh to the latitude of Dominica, and across the most-used track for any merchant ships, this would only be the second ship they had encountered. Most merchant masters bore on South from Cape St. Vincent to Dominica's latitude, then ran it due West-they only had to solve their slight variation in latitude, daily, and calculate longitude by adding up the 24-hour sums from their knot-logs, by Dead Reckoning. And if all else failed them, the cloud-swept peaks of Dominica were the tallest marks in the Caribbean, damned hard to miss for even the most lubberly, cack-handed navigator-like the master of the only other ship that they had "spoken," a reeking Portugee "blackbirder" laden with a cargo of three-hundred-odd slaves fresh from Dahomey, and so creaky and slow it appeared that at least a quarter of those forlorn souls would die before arrival; the damned fool had actually asked Lewrie where, exactly, they were!
Here though, within two days' sail of English Harbour, Antigua, the presence of local shipping could be expected. English Harbour was a Royal Navy station, a safe place for overseas trade, as well. This schooner, Lewrie surmised, was most-like a local. Schooners were popular craft in the West Indies, fore-and-aft rigged to go like a witch to windward, and "point" at least ten-to-twelve degrees closer to the winds, a desirable trait did one desire to beat back eastward against the unvarying Nor'east Trades. Some adventurous types sailed schooners from as far north as Maine, in the Americas. And schooners made hellish good privateers, too, due to their speed and agility!
"Mister Elwes, aloft with a glass, sir. Tell us what you see," Lieutenant Wyman snapped.
"Aye aye, sir!" the eager young midshipman piped back, dashing to the rack by the binnacle cabinet to seize a telescope, then scampering up the weather mizen shrouds as spryly as a monkey.
"Should we clear for action, sir?" Wyman asked.
"Not quite yet, Mister Wyman," Lewrie demurred. "Hull-down, on such a clear day, means she's ten miles off or more. Plenty of time to 'smoak' her. Unless she runs, of course."
"Hoy, the deck!" Midshipman Elwes cried down. "Schooner rigged, and flying no flag! Sailing abeam the wind, to the Nor'Nor'west!"
"I do, however, desire that we harden up to the wind, sir, and cut the angle on her. Make our course… West by North. Shake out those first reefs in the t'gallants, and stand by, should we need the royals," Lewrie said, after a peek at the compass.
Lewrie took a telescope of his own and ambled back to the windward rail, braced himself on the mizen stays, and eyed their stranger. The merest sliver of her uppermost hull sometimes loomed up above the horizon as a distant swell lifted her; in another moment, she would be swallowed, leaving only the upper part of her sails visible.
Damme, is she foreshortening? he asked himself with a frown. "Deck, there!" Mr. Elwes called. "Chase is hauling her wind… turning West-Nor'west! Chase is hoisting gaff stays'ls!"
Foreshortening, aye; showing Proteus her sternquarters. Mr. Elwes might be presumptive in calling her a Chase, but that turn gave Lewrie a premonitory thrill.
"Has she shown any colours yet, Mister Elwes?" Lewrie queried. "None, sir!"
Lewrie rubbed his unshaven chin, ideas percolating. Even were she British, or neutral and innocent as anything, fear of the French privateers might make a ship run from a strange vessel, one that looked lean and fast like a ship of war, but…
Did the schooner continue West-Nor'west, she could just shave by the northern coast of Antigua, and would be on a perfect course to duck into "neutral" waters in the Danish Virgins, near St. Croix, though by sunset Proteus could surely run her down, with her longer waterline and her much larger sail area.
Or the schooner might try to come about, rounding Antigua, and head Sutherly for St. Kitts. In Antigua 's lee, schooners were two-a-penny, and by full dark she might hope to escape in the gloom, letting another similar schooner be the goat.
Proteus slowly swung onto her new course, her decks heeled over more to leeward as the press of wind on her reset sails made her start to race and surge. She was after a "Chase"; and like a staghound on a firm spoor, like a tiger pacing an Indian millet field after an addled goat, she strode out confidently, surely. Off-watch crewmen were drawn to the deck by the commotion, all but licking their chops in anticipation of a prize.
"This isn't a cockfight, lads!" Lewrie had to shout. "There's gun-drill to perform. Keep yer eyes in-board, and your minds on your evolutions… 'fore the Bosun and Master Gunner pass among you, with their… reminders?"
Even so, Lewrie knew, the hands would whisper among themselves, try peeking over the gangways or out the windward gun-ports; men aloft would find a way to send the latest observations down to their mateys, no matter what the Bosun, the Master Gunner, the Master At Arms and his Ships' Corporals threatened-it was simply too much of a novelty!
"Deck, there!" Midshipman Elwes cried. "Chase is hull-up, sirs! She now shows a flag! French colours!"
A hundred horny paws slapped together and rubbed with a sound like dry grit; a hundred voices muttered "good prize!" together, and a palpable frisson of delight and greed swept the decks, making mates, sailors, and officers alike beam with joy, and ships' boys jig-dance.
Lewrie clapped his hands behind his back, and pondered. If he hoisted the French Tricolour, as well, there was a chance that he might reel this schooner in like a fish, relieved to meet a fellow Frenchman so far from home. A privateer? Lewrie silently mused, more than glad t'see a National ship? Enough to haul her wind and fetch-to, waitin' on us?
There was the possibility that a Frog privateer would know the few confirmed French ships of war sailing out of Guadeloupe by sight.
"Mister Wyman," Lewrie said, with a sly grin, "do you hoist a
French flag on the foremast… and run up a 'who are you?' where she can see it. Does she answer with a private signal, she's confirmed, and ours."
"Oh!" Lt. Wyman gawped for a, second. "My goodness gracious, I see, sir! Aye, sir! We know the Frog's 'qui va la' signal."
Moments later it was done, and they waited to see what signal would be hoisted in return. Despite his best intentions (like most of those, Lewrie could rarely keep 'em!) a smug grin creased his face, a "slyboots" look of cocky satisfaction.
"Deck, there!" Midshipman Elwes cried. "French colour's down… she's hoisted British!"
"Hah! Liar!" Lieutenant Wyman commented, all but hooting to his fellow officers, who had also come up to share the excitement.
Well, damme, Lewrie thought, deflated in an instant; Didn't think o' that! Could she really be?
He cupped his hands and bellowed aloft, "Mister Elwes, has she changed course? Reduced sail? Hoisted any signal at all?"
"No, sir! Still running! Same course, and no private signal!"
"Damn!" Lewrie griped softly. "Mister Wyman, get that Frog rag and signal down, then. Hoist our own colours, and this month's recognition signal. And ready a forecastle gun to fire to leeward."
"Aye, sir."
The Red Ensign went up the foremast, a string of code flags was bent on and hoisted, followed a minute or two later by a single cannon shot. The schooner was closer now, not over four miles off as Proteus swiftly strode up to her with a bone in her teeth.
"Deck, there! Chase now bears Nor'west by West! I think I see stuns'ls! No reply to signals!"
"Dammit, make our heading Nor'west by North, Mister Wyman, and hoist royals," Lewrie snapped, now irritated. "And once that's done, we'll beat to Quarters, and ready the larboard battery!"
"Aye aye, sir!"
Proteus heeled a bit more, her wake and bustle growing louder and more insistent. Three-quarters of an hour, and the schooner grew larger as they closed the range to three miles, no matter how swiftly the schooner scudded along in flight. She had lowered British colours long before, seeing that the ruse was fruitless. Hands stood swaying behind the great-guns, already loaded with the smoothest and roundest solid iron balls, charged with powder, and the newfangled flintlock strikers primed.
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