He swivelled about to face them, quite enjoying the smirk upon Adair's phyz, and Catterall's strangled expression. With a droll grin, and an energetic clap of his hands, he announced:
"Once gun-drill, the rum issue, and noon mess is done, sirs," he said, "I think we should strike topmasts, then re-rig them, should the winds abate. Just to see how quickly the evolution can be performed, 'rusty' as we seem t'be, hmm? Then… with the wind abeam, and sailing mostly on an even keel, I will also have the hands work off excess energy by going aloft, waisters, idlers, and all, along with the topmen. Larboard division 'gainst starboard division." Aye, sir.
"Up and over, from the windward foremast shrouds to the fighting top, then down to the lee gangway, up the lee main shrouds and down to the larboard gangway, then up and over the mizen-mast. Encouraged, and led by their officers, o' course. Mister Langlie and I shall observe, and time it." Lewrie continued with a smirk of his own, "Much like the Irish whore instructed… 'up, down… up, down… up, down, repeat if necessary'! Winning division gets extra grog on completion of their Dog Watch."
The fortuitous winds abated, at last, shifting back to Sou'east, forcing the trade to steer wider to the Sou'west, but they had logged nearly six hundred nautical miles, mostly at Due South, more than a quarter of the total passage, placing the convoy and its escorts more Easterly to Africa, and even sailing six points off the wind they would only skirt the edge of the Doldrums, not get becalmed in it.
For a much shorter time, the Trades and the Equatorial Current that flowed the same direction in concert with each other would impede them, then… though the Sou'east Trade might still rule, an Eastward-Rowing current that girded the southern rim of the Doldrums, parent to the one they now fought, would kiss them on their starboard, lee, bows to counter the leeway lost to the winds. A few slogging degrees more of latitude, and the winds would shift to out of the West, in concert with that current, and they'd all be be there!
And, so it was, one mid-afternoon in March, that HMS Stag, far ahead of the convoy, hoisted a string of signal flags in the private code that Capt. Treghues had invented that read:
"Land-Four Points-Larboard Bow."
" Table Mountain, that'd be, most-like, sir," the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, carefully opined. "Visible from seaward on a clear day as far as fifteen leagues… or, so my book of pilotage tells us."
Almost over! Lewrie quietly exulted; This part, at least.
"We'll not enter harbour tonight, sir, beg pardon," Winwood said. "I'd expect we'll stand off-and-on 'til morning, so we may be able to spot the rocks and such. A poor set of anchorages, even so, sir, this Table Bay or Simon's Bay. Bad holding ground, the both of them, both subject to sudden and contrary afternoon clear-weather gales, it says."
" Cape Town, or Simon's Town," Lewrie said with a shrug of resignation. "With any luck, we'll not be in either, very long, sir. In point of fact, 'twill require a great deal of luck should we come to anchor, at all!"
"The, ah… results of our sailors' deeds at Saint Helena, I should think, Captain?" Winwood, ever the sombre Christian, whispered.
"Exactly so, Mister Winwood," Lewrie agreed. "There's odds we might just sail right on by, do Captain Treghues and Captain Cowles, as Commodore of the Indiamen, concur."
"Might be just as well, sir," Winwood commented, though with a slightly disappointed sigh. "I've never really been ashore, here."
"The 'tavern of the seas,' Mister Winwood," Lewrie told him with a chuckle. "An infamous sink of sin, no matter the stiffness of the Protestant Dutch."
"Even so, though, sir…" Winwood said most wistfully.
"I wonder if they have corn-whisky?" Lewrie wondered aloud.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was a rather abstemious little gathering for supper in the great-cabins: the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, who never drank much at all, seated to his right; Lt. Devereux, in charge of Proteus's Marine detachment, to his left, and (for a sea-soldier) never known as one who over-indulged in tipple; and his three midshipmen, Mr. Gamble the older, Mr. Grace, and wee Mr. Larkin, at the table's foot, as the Vice. All of whom were so daunted by Mr. Winwood, who was the midshipmen's tutor in matters navigational and mathematical, and by dread of making a fool of themselves by taking too much "aboard." Mr. Win-wood's grave, mournful scowl when his sense of primness was offended could make the "middies" scurry like cockroaches. Lt. Blase Devereux was a languidly elegant sort, whose gentlemanly mannerisms they wished to emulate, anyway, and the captain was, well… the captain, not a man to disappoint, if they wished to stay in his "good books."
Once Capt. Treghues had signalled that the trade would, indeed, stand "off-and-on" the coast 'til dawn, they had sailed legs North and South abeam the wind, with the Indiamen back to their usual custom of reducing sail to bare steerageway, which had let the avid fishermen in the crew dip a line, ending in the catch of a middling-sized tunny, which had been shared between the gunroom and the captain's table.
They had had reconstituted "portable soup," a sea-pie made from shredded salt-beef and salt-pork, diced potatoes fried with bacon, and the tunny for the last course, great slabs of it, dredged in flour and crumbled biscuit, spices, and lemon, then fried in oil. There had been a decent claret with the sea-pie, and an experimental white wine bought off a homebound Indiaman. One of the first things the Dutch settlers at the Cape had planted was vineyards, though with mixed results, so far. The white had gone well with the fish, though not as smooth or sweet as a German hock, but miles better than the Navy-issued "Miss Taylor," the thin, vinegary, and acidy wine that could double for paint thinner, and Lewrie was intrigued enough to think of buying more, once at anchor.
There had also been the promise of an apple stack-cake to come, a dessert that his wife Caroline had brought from her native Cape Fear in North Carolina, shrivelled and wrinkly older Kentish apples that had not gone over, or been wormed, pulped and boiled with dollops of molasses and sugar, then spread thick between several layers of pancakes. Once the tablecloth would be removed, there would have been a tray of "bought" sweet biscuits, nuts, and port. Midshipman Larkin to propose the King's Toast, Mr. Winwood to make one to the Navy, and, as it was a Saturday evening, it would have fallen to Lewrie to propose a traditional Navy toast, "To Our Wives And Sweethearts, May They Never Meet!," which Lewrie found excrutiatingly apt.
But, just as Aspinall was lifting the cloth cover from the cake, the Marine sentry slammed his musket butt on the deck outside, with a strident, rather urgent, cry of "Second Off 'cah… SAH!"
"Enter, Mister Catterall," Lewrie bade, cocking a brow over Lt. Catterall's exquisite timing, imagining that the Second Lieutenant, who had the appetite of all three midshipmen together, had thought to wangle himself a hefty slice of cake, or at least a free cup of coffee.
"Signal rockets from the convoy, sir!" Lt. Catterall announced, though, his usually saturnine demeanour much agitated. "Fusees and an alert gun from Horatius, as well!"
"Pipe 'All Hands,' Mister Catterall, and Beat to Quarters, at once," Lewrie snapped, rising and tossing his napkin into his plate. "Sorry 'bout the cake, gentlemen, but it appears there may be Frogs in the offing. Your posts… shoo, scat, younkers!"
As they quickly rose and tumbled out without ceremony, Lewrie went aft for his baldric and hanger-sword, looking about for Aspinall and his Cox'n, Andrews.
"Andrews, do you fetch up my pair of pistols, soon as you can. Aspinall… save the cake, if that's possible. Then, see yourself and the cats to the orlop, with the Carpenter's crew."
In a twinkling, sailors would rush to man the 12-pounders mounted right-aft in Lewrie's cabins, knock down the deal partitions, and bundle fragile furniture, sure to be turned into deadly flying splinters in battle, below. One last snatch off a rack in the chart-space for his cocked hat, and he was off himself, out onto the main deck and up the windward ladderway to the quarterdeck, amid the mad, but well-drilled, bustle of sailors clearing their ship for action. Off-watch men rushed up with t
he long sausages of their hammocks and bedding, perhaps not rolled as tightly as they would each morning to pass through the ring-measure, to stow them in the iron stanchions and nettings, to turn them into a feeble defence against grapeshot, splinters, and musket fire.
"Where away?" Lewrie demanded, grabbing a spare night-glass by the binnacle cabinet. The Marine drummer was beating the long roll, bosuns' calls were peeping, hundreds of feet, shod or bare, thundered on oak decks, and Proteus nigh-shuddered to the sounds of loose items, sea-chests and stools being rushed to the orlop or holds, mess-tables being hoisted to the overheads on the gun-deck, of gun-tools removed from their overhead racks.
"Starboard side of the convoy, sir," Lt. Langlie breathlessly reported in the dark. He and the other officers and warrants had come in a rush from their own suppers. "Lieutenant Catterall reported that he'd seen a rocket and fusee from Stag, then heard the night signal gun 'board Horatius, before he summoned you. Ah, there's another!"
One Indiaman, then a second astern of her at the forward end of the starboard-most of two columns, both were now burning blue warning fusees high aloft, and launching amber rockets from their swivel-guns.
Lewrie lifted the night-glass to his right eye, straining ahead and to starboard. The convoy was at present bound South, about twenty miles off the shore, a dark coast lit only by a single, feeble bonfire atop either the Lion's Rump or Green Point, near the entrance to Table Bay, high enough above the sea to still be somewhat visible. They had nearly sailed that sea-mark below the horizon, and within the hour had need to come about and plod North, but for this.
Lewrie picked out ships by their large taffrail lanthorns: HMS Horatius far ahead, and now sporting a blue fusee at her main-top, and four Indiamen astern of her, the "threatened" pair that sailed on the starboard flank also lit up with the bright, blue pinpoint lights on their mastheads. They were turning away to larboard, pairs of stern lanthorns pinching together, and the vaguest hints of canvas growing like spectral spooks in the faint starlight, and what was thrown by a mere sliver of moon. Farther out lay Captain Philpott's HMS Stag, a black smear of hull, a pair of taffrail lights, and her upper sails visible by the burning fusee at her mainmast tip.
Damn this bloody thing! Lewrie furiously thought, cursing the night telescope, for its series of lenses was one short to allow more light into the tube, making everything appear backwards, and upside down. With the glass, Stag was headed North; without, she was headed South… foreshortening as she turned up into the West wind to face… something. HMS Horatius was also turning Sou'-Sou'west, as close as she could lie to those winds unless she tacked and came about.
"Can't make out a bloody thing," Lewrie griped aloud, lowering the telescope and rubbing his offending eye. "There's something up to the West of them, but damned if I can spot it. Any word from Grafton?"
"None, sir," Langlie was forced to say. "Same flares as us."
"Well, of course," Lewrie said with a frustrated sigh. Captain Treghues possessed the customary Navy signals book, as well as the one of his own devising, but both of them were based on the precondition of daylight! Nighttime signals could alert the merchantmen and warships to threat, but could not convey any tactical orders as to which action they might take, together. It was up to each captain's judgement as to how he might respond from his own, scattered, position at one of the convoy's four corners. Here, on the larboard, and landward, flank of the dark ships, it was up to Lewrie alone how best to act.
"Now, the near-hand column's hauling their wind, sir," Langlie pointed out. With his naked eyes, Lewrie took note of the two nearest Indiamen's lights; their hulls were beginning to occlude the starboard lanthorns, the blue masthead fusees swinging almost atop their glowing larboard taffrail lights.
"We're going t'get trampled, are we not careful," Lewrie griped. "Shake out the reefs in courses and tops'ls, Mister Langlie, and get a way on, so we pass ahead of those tubs."
"Aye aye, sir! Topmen! Topmen aloft, trice up and lay out!"
"Great-guns manned, loaded, and ready, sir!" Lt. Catterall said from the foot of the quarterdeck ladder. "The ship is in all respects prepared for action."
The gun-deck forward and below Lewrie's post amidships by those freshly hammock-stiffened quarterdeck nettings was dimly lit for night action. A well-spaced row of battle lanthorns marched down each beam, thickly-glassed and made of heavy metal, so gun crews could have just enough illumination to see to their duties, robust enough to resist a spill of the candle flames inside them, and create a fatal fire or an explosion of a serge powder cartridge after it had been removed from its wood or leather carrying sleeve. Beside them, tiny red "fireflies" glowed between the glossy, black-painted artillery; smouldering ends of slow-match coils wrapped round the tops of the swab-water tubs by each piece, the last-resort means of igniting the priming quills full of the finest mealed gunpowder, should the flint in more modern flintlock strikers break or fail. Far up forward, there were another pair of small lights by the forecastle belfry, normally used by the sleepy ship's boys, whose duty it was to keep track of the half-hour and hour glasses, turn them, and ring the bells of the watch.
"Charge both batteries, Mister Catterall," Lewrie ordered. "We don't wish to be taken by surprise. Open the ports and run the guns into battery, both sides… just in case."
"Aye aye, sir!"
A quick look astern satisfied him that the convoy was turning alee, all of them, earlier than scheduled. A quarter-hour longer, and they would have been alerted by Grafton to "Ready About," and, at the proper night signal-a fusee at the end of each foremast royal yard-would have hauled their wind and worn off the wind, as much as one might be expected from civilian shipmasters. Now, they were wearing individually, the most threatened bearing down on the larboard ships, startling them to haul off and fall alee like stampeding sheep, order lost, and if this turned out to be nothing, they'd be half the following day rounding them back up!
"Both the near-hand merchantmen seem to be bearing astern of us, sir," Lt. Langlie announced, with the faintest bit of relief apparent in his voice. "Should we be going about as well, Captain?"
"I've a mind to let 'em fall far enough astern, then tack, and see what aid we may give Stag and Horatius," Lewrie decided, looking forward and to starboard, again, noting where Capt. Graves's lumbering two-decker had gotten to in the meantime. "A moment, Mister Langlie."
The threat seemed to be from seaward, but… on such an ebony night, nothing could be taken for granted. The French squadrons that haunted the Cape passage and the Indian Ocean were rumoured to be at least two large 36-gun or 38-gun frigates, operating separately, but paired with one, possibly two, corvettes apiece, three-masted, full-rigged, equivalent to Sloops of War in the Royal Navy, armed with a battery ranging from 14 to 20 guns, and sometimes sailing in concert with well-armed, over-manned privateers, as well. Such a pack could prowl like wolves-sea wolves!
And, like wolves, Lewrie realised with his "wary bone" wakening, could attack from all quarters, not just the one, dashing in to nip or intimidate, 'til their quarry was encircled and doomed.
"Mister Winwood?" Lewrie called over his shoulder.
"Aye, sir. Here," the Sailing Master reported, coming to join him from his usual post before the binnacle cabinet and double helm.
"We've a goodly way on? Sufficient for a quick, clean wear?"
"So I would adjudge it, sir, aye," Winwood ponderously answered.
"And, no reefs, rocks, or shoals to loo'rd?"
"Not for at least sixteen or seventeen miles, no, sir," Winwood was forced to avow, after a wince and a tooth-sucking noise, obviously much more comfortable with such a statement after a long perusal over his charts, a set of fresh star sights, taking the height of the moon by back-staff, and auguring the entrails of the odd passing gull.
"Very well, sir, we'll come about," Lewrie announced. "Mister Catterall? Check tackle, and be ready for a wear. Mister Langlie, I wish hands to stations, ready to come about to larboard,
then steer a course Nor'easterly." "Aye aye, sir! Bosun! Pipe 'Stations For Wearing Ship'!" Lewrie paced to the leeward bulwarks to study the ocean where they meant to go as the fresh bustle broke out round his ears. With the heavy night-glass to his eye once more, he saw grey-black sea and a few white-flecked rollers, that now and again caught the faint glim of the waning moon, a complete pall of utter blackness that showed the veriest upper tier of far-off African cliffs, thin on the horizon. A complete sweep from Due South to Due North showed nothing else.
"Up mains'l and spanker, clear away the after bowlines! Brace in the after-yards! Up helm!" Langlie was bawling through his speaking-trumpet, and Proteus began to swing, to heel over as she slowed, bowsprit and jib-boom sweeping alee across the black face of the night.
The winds dead aft, now. "Clear away head bowlines, lay the headyards square! Shift over the head sheets!" Lewrie walked over to the starboard side with his telescope, looking into the stern quarter, and abeam as Proteus continued to swing, the wind now striking her on her larboard quarters. "Man the main tack and sheet! Clear away rigging! Spanker outhaul! Clear away the brails!"
There seemed to be nothing dangerous to landward. Lewrie eased his straining eye by lowering the night-glass for a second, as sudden gunfire rolled down on them from windward!
He spun about to catch the ruddy after-flash from gun muzzles, the briefly-lit spurts of whitish-grey smoke from some ship's pieces, and the pyrotechnic, spiralling yellowish embers from cartridge cloth. Distant as that gunfire was, his ears could discern the deep boomings of 24-pounders of Horatius's lower-deck artillery, the crisper barks of what he took to be HMS Stag's 12-pounders, and some light, terrier-like "yaps" from even lighter guns!
"Missing all the fun!" he heard Midshipman Grace whisper in the relative silence, once those distant guns fell silent.
A King`s Trade l-13 Page 22