BOOK V
"Quocirca vivite fortes,
fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus."
"Live, then, as brave men,
and with brave hearts confront
the strokes of Fate."
Horace, Satires II, 11, 135-136
CHAPTER THIRTY
Slanting West-by-North on larboard tack, HMS Proteus was making a goodly way, swanning from the starboard quarter of the convoy to the larboard quarter, and beyond, and it was joyous. Had she been steered directly Nor'west, with the steady Sou'east Trades right up her skirts, the warm African day might have felt stifling, for she would have been sailing about the same speed as the Trades, and the apparent wind would have been negligible. Now, though, the rush of the Sou'east Trades almost could be heard in the miles of rigging, and loose clothing could be fluttered by it, bare heads and long hair disturbed by it, and perspiration evaporated before one could even imagine one was sweltering, like the crews and passengers aboard the Indiamen that plodded, despite the strength of the Trades, in two columns off Proteus's starboard bows.
Marine M. Cocky, the sea-soldiers' champion rat-killing mongoose, scuttled down the windward gangway in a sinuous, arcing series of bounces between brace-tenders' bare feet, pausing now and then to take a play-nip at a particularly tasty-looking toe, before scampering onto the quarterdeck. Toulon and Chalky, who had been sunning atop the hammock nettings with their forelegs tucked in and their eyes half-slit in drowsiness, got to their feet, put their backs up, and began to hiss at him. The mongoose stopped, rose up on his hind legs, and wiggled his nose at them, one paw on the nettings and one poised like a pointer on a scent. For ha'pence, he'd scramble up and pester them, grinning.
"Mister Larkin!" Lewrie drawled in a loud voice. "No 'private Marines' on the quarterdeck except in battle, remember?"
"I'll see to him, sor… sir," their youngest Mid replied, as he came forward to doff his hat quickly, then scoop up the offending mongoose, clatter down the larboard ladderway to the waist, and shout for Sgt. Skipwith to come get his errant beastie. Again. Once it was safe to do so, Toulon and Chalky settled down on their haunches to judder their little jaws and utter "I'm-Going-To-Kill-It" mews.
"Such brave callings," Lewrie muttered with a smile as he clung to the larboard mizen stays to enjoy the refreshing breeze, his uniform coat discarded, along with his formal cocked hat, and waist-coat undone and flapping either side of his shirt.
"Thus!" Lt. Langlie cried as Proteus settled on a course a full point more Westerly, now they were clear of the larboardmost column of ships, and could begin to range outwards to scent for trouble skulking over the horizon in the West or Nor'west. Lewrie planned to stand out nearly six miles, before wearing and slanting back to the convoy. He paced down the slightly-slanting deck to amidships, by the binnacle and compass cabinet, and the double helm.
"Damn my eyes, Mister Langlie," Lewrie exulted, "but it feels so good t'be back at sea, does it not?"
"Indeed it does, sir," his First Officer happily agreed; and on the faces of the two Quartermasters manning the helm, brief smiles alit to say that it felt good to them, too, after so many weeks of drudgery in Table Bay, and too few chances for ease.
Making the Quartermasters smile, too, was the last full day of shore liberty that Lewrie had granted the crew after the Commodore's conference aboard the Earl Cheshire, before Capt. Leatherwood had put up the "Blue Peter" pendant, now two days past. Everyone had gotten a last chance for some deep drinking in Dutch Boer taverns, a last shot of "putting the leg over" some willing, or commercial, wench, and buying remembrances of Cape Town. That had resulted in rather a lot of small, jewel-like birds in woven cages, one grey parrot with a "salty" vocabulary, an odd, fox-faced little creature called a bushbaby that was already proving himself to be a very noisy pest, and a "gen-yoo-ine" African mongoose, adverted to its new owners as quicker, fiercer, and a lot cleverer than any Indian mongrel the Marines had. There would be a new contender for champion, in a few weeks, it seemed. At least Lt. Catterall and Bosun Pendarves had prevented the boarding of an entire troop of baby monkeys! The ship was crowded enough with new livestock for later consumption, up forward in the ship's manger; a whole new set of piglets, chickens, goats, and two small, scruffy, locally-obtained cattle, no bigger than some shaggy Scottish breeds. Two days North of Cape Town, they were out of the Variables and fully into the Sou'east Trades, skirting the edge of the great counter-clockwise swirl of the South Atlantic Current, which fed like a river into the Agulhas Current to whisk the convoy along. It was just about two thousand miles to St. Helena, but the Northward passage would be much quicker than the passage it had taken to get to the Cape of Good Hope; and every hour took them farther from threat of French raiders. Hopefully. Leatherwood had ordered Proteus out to sea with him, fully twelve hours before the convoy was to up-anchor on the next tide, for a good look-see over the waters near Cape Town, searching for a single scrap of suspicious sail on the horizons, and had found none, yet… like Capt. Leather-wood, Lewrie was now so infected by his nervousness that he felt as if he would not have an untroubled night's sleep 'til they anchored in James's Valley Harbour, either.
Where Proteus went from there, well… on a monthly rotation of home-bound and out-bound trades, there would be a convoy of Indiamen waiting at St. Helena; that convoy's escort force would split up, as his own had on the outward journey-the bulk of it sailing back to England to re-enforce the small escort that had fetched the homebound convoy that far. If there was a greater French threat on the Atlantic side of the Cape of Good Hope, there was a very good possibility that Proteus would be conscripted by the outbound convoy Commodore as part of his escort force. Just because Treghues had sailed away on his own did not mean that Lewrie and his frigate could consider themselves as "Independent," free to toddle back to Great Britain. There was no formal squadron or fleet assigned to convoy duties; warships got assigned that task "catch-as-catch-can," and Lewrie and Proteus had been caught! In truth, once repaired, should Lewrie cross hawses with Treghues, he'd still be under his orders, 'til officially reassigned by a Flag-Officer senior to Treghues.
And, should Proteus be forced to bolster an out-bound convoy, it was very likely that such a meeting would occur off the Southern coast of Africa, and Proteus would be forced to soldier on under that tetchy man's eye for years, much as Capt. Leatherwood and HMS Jamaica had been stuck on grueling convoy work, 'til the bottom threatened to fall off his ship!
For now, though, free of the land (where Lewrie just naturally found himself in trouble, more often than not) and with a single and specific task to perform, he could be happy enough. Twenty years he'd spent wearing "King's Coat," at sea and holding an "active" commission much longer than most of his contemporaries, and he'd always felt this way, this sense of relief and of new beginnings, these first few days after sailing, when the shoreline sank away, and there was nothing but the immensity of the oceans, and limitless horizons.
Boredom could come later, as it always did, but, for now, Lewrie was… happy. And would be happier still, if they attained harbour at St. Helena without incident!
"Is that gunfire?" the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, mused aloud, pausing in his perambulations along the starboard bulwarks. He lifted his nose as if he could smell the source of gunpowder. "My word…!"
All eyes swung to the convoy, the only ships in sight.
"Mister Larkin," Lewrie bade the Midshipman of the Watch. "Do you lay a glass on Jamaica , and tell us what you make out."
"Aye, sir!" Larkin responded, clambering up the starboard ratlines of the mizen stays with a telescope. "Signal, sir! 'Gun-Drill,' sir! She's workin' her great-guns, and so're th' Indiamen!"
"Ah!" Mr. Winwood said with a whoosh of a sigh.
"Why, those poor skinflints!" Lewrie chortled. "Forcin' 'John Company' captains t'blow away money! Tsk, tsk."
"Cut into their profits something sinful, that, sir," the First Officer snickered, along with the rest o
f the quarterdeck staff. "Do they keep at it much longer, there will be angry letters sent to Admiralty about it."
"Upset the passengers something sinful, too, sir," Mr. Winwood stated. "Imagine being shaken from their indolent torpors, the middle of their morning naps."
"Mister Langlie!" Lewrie called out. " Jamaica 's signal applies to us, as well. Let us hold live firing, from this instant to Seven Bells of the Forenoon. Our own guns, and crews, need the rust blown off."
"Aye aye, sir! Bosun, pipe 'All Hands'! Beat to Quarters!"
What a perfectly fine morning! Lewrie gladly thought as silver bosuns' calls piped, as a Marine drummer began a long roll, and hands came scampering up from below to man the guns, cast off, and begin to serve their pieces, as sea-chests and mess-tables were slung below to the orlop, deal and canvas partitions came slamming down, and hundreds of feet pounded on decks and ladderways.
The wind was fresh, the South Atlantic was a sparkling blue under an azure sky framed by high-piled white clouds, and soon, the guns would be bellowing.
The reek, the roar, the hull-shaking explosions, and the squeal of recoiling carriages, the gushes of spent powder, all of it pleased Capt. Alan Lewrie. The live firing would make him happy, too. Even more so…
At least Admiralty lets me have powder and shot for free! he could gloat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Oh, it had been a grand day at sea! Even after gun-drill, the rum issue, and the crew's noonday mess, Lewrie had ordered an hour and a half of small arms practice with boarding pikes and cutlasses to whet the rust off those skills, too, after so much harbour sloth. By the end of the First Dog Watch, as the sun was sinking into the West in a spectacular red, amber, and pink glory, Proteus's people were spent-wearily, but garrulously happily so, if the lack of horn-pipe dancing, but the cheerful songs and music, were anything to go by. Even if the horizon to the East and Sou'east gloomed up darker than the usual sunset greys, down-sun. The farther one sailed North along the coast of Africa, once past the arid regions that bordered the Dutch settlements, the more often rain squalls were commonplace. A passage close to shore took a vessel through a zone termed "The Rains," after all.
Mr. Winwood stood on the quarterdeck at the change of watch at six of the evening, hands clasped behind his back, and sniffing at the air again, much as he had at mid-morning when seeking the source for gunpowder, and frowning sternly.
"A squally night, Captain," Winwood slowly pronounced, at last. "A rising wind, and heavy rain, this evening. Rains which might continue through mid-morning, tomorrow, I do avow, sir. Can you not get a whiff of it on the wind?"
"It is muggier, and cooler," Lewrie agreed, noticing a hint of fresh water in his own nostrils as the Trades gusted slightly. As it grew dark, Proteus had ceased her wearing from one flank of the trade to the next, and had fallen in three miles astern of the convoy, with the two columns of ships equidistant from each bow, and steering Nor'west with the wind right astern; yet even with her sailing no faster than those winds could blow, now and then a stronger gust caught up with them to presage a stormy night. Just as well, Lewrie decided, that it was the convoy's practice to reduce so much sail at dusk, this particular dusk especially, for it could be a rough night.
"Deck, there!" a foremast lookout shrilled. "Flagship's lightin' 'er lanthorns! Convoy's lightin' 'eir lanthorns!"
"Thankee, aloft!" Lt. Adair shouted back through his brass speaking-trumpet.
"Mister Adair," Lewrie said, "light our own taffrail lanthorns, foc'sle lanthorns, and binnacle cabinet. Be sure all masthead fusees and signal rockets are near to hand, as well."
"Very well, sir. Permission to call masthead lookouts down to the deck, Captain?" Adair responded.
"Not 'til we've reefed down for the night," Lewrie told him as he paced aft to take a peek into the binnacle cabinet, to see that the proper course was being steered. "Pipe 'All Hands On Deck' to reduce sail." Even as he ordered that, another much cooler gust came sweeping up from astern and to the starboard quarter. "Additionally, sir, I'll have 'quick-savers' rigged on the fore course, and all three tops'ls, and… should any lurking Frog upset things, make certain that 'quick-savers' are borne aloft to the tops for rigging on the main course, and the t'gallants. Just in case," he said with a shrug.
"Aye aye, sir."
Quick-savers "crow-footed" over the faces of the squares'ls to keep them from blowing out into tatters in a hard blow were a last-ditch re-enforcement of ropes to gird the sails' canvas.
With "growl ye may, but go ye must" groans, Proteus's achy crew went aloft to perform their duties, knowing that soon, once this last hard chore was over, they'd be piped below to their suppers; a little after that, "Down Hammocks" would be piped, and half of them could turn in for a few hours of sleep.
"Aye, t'will be a wet and windy night," Mr. Winwood prophecied.
By the time sail was taken in for the night, and the precaution of the "quick-savers" had been rigged or stored aloft for future use, it was already raining, and the evening had gotten darker. Squalls of rain swept like curtains over the convoy from the East-Sou'east to the West-Nor'west, even blotting out HMS Jamaica and the lead ships of the short columns for brief moments. The seas were rapidly making up, and Proteus began to ride them in a more lively manner, performing a long, slow pitching motion, along with a leeward roll. The nearest ship to them, the Festival off their starboard bows, was pitching as well, and heeling her larboard shoulder to the seas; they could witness her taffrail lights swing down left from horizontal in slow arcs, and see her forecastle belfry lamp rise up above the taffrail lanthorns for a bit, then sink ponderously below them and out of sight as the old merchantman made heavy work of the night. Beyond her, other pairs of taffrail lights wanly glimmered, as the other six India-men struggled to remain on course to the Nor'west, and in line-astern of each other, trusting to "follow the leader" like sheep following the bellwether, and hoping that the lead ships knew what they were about.
Another half-hour and it would be the end of the Second Dog, and the watch would change once more, this time for a full four hours, which would let Lewrie go aft and below to his own supper. For now, he stood in tarred tarpaulins on the quarterdeck, stifling inside the supposedly impermeable hooded canvas coat, with wetness trickling down the back of his neck, and his old slop trousers soaked from mid-thigh down to his boots. He would dine alone this night, saving himself a few shillings by not entertaining officers, warrants, or midshipmen. Meagre though a typical solitary supper usually was-reconstituted "portable" soup, the last of his fresh shore greens for a salad, toasted stale rolls of what had been fresh bread, and a rice-and-biltong stew-he found it hard to wait that long. He wanted to be dry, to open a bottle of that spaetlese German hock he'd found at the last minute in Cape Town, then soak those stale rolls into the soup and slurp up something warm, for the rain was a chill soaker, when it was whipping 'cross the decks!
And it did not help that the last savoury smoke from the galley funnel got swirled as far aft as the quarterdeck, bringing lip-smacking aromas of boiled pork to him, along with the sound of fiddle, fife, or Liam Desmond's uillean lap-pipes, and the rough good humour of sailors hunched over mess-tables, half "groggy" from the last rum issue.
"What in the name o' God is that?" Lewrie yelped, like to leap out of his boots as an unholy, piercing wail arose from below.
"Ah, that'd be our bushbaby, sir," Lt. Langlie told him with a wince of his own as the high-pitched caterwauling continued. "I wish we'd known what a racket it could make, before allowing it aboard. A member of the Lemur family, I'm now told. And able to hoot, cry, and screech half like a howler monkey, half like a human infant. Eerie!"
"Eerie, and irritating," Lewrie growled, already miserable, and that damned thing wasn't helping. "It keeps that up, it'll end up in a pie, 'fore the next Dog Watch. Eerie, aye, and… ominous."
T'Hellwith this, Lewrie thought; suff'rin' like this is what lieutenants are for! "Mister Langlie, you have the deck
'til the end of the Dog. I'll be below." "Aye, sir. I have the deck," Langlie crisply responded. He clattered down the larboard ladderyway to the main deck just as the bushbaby's cries set off the parrot, which began to squawk, and then scream its few English words, which consisted mostly of curses or blasphemies, which squawking frightened the other caged birds atwitter, which tumult made the goats, lambs, cattle, and piglets bleat, bawl, or squeal. And, it really couldn't be, not with Proteus up to windward of Festival, but Lewrie could almost swear that he heard a lion's roar and some baby elephant trumpets in answer!
Ain't a warship, it's a bloody Ark! he fumed as he got near his sopping-wet Marine sentry by the doors to his great-cabins. To punctuate his escape from foul weather, there was a first flash of lightning, and a not-so-far-off roll of thunder. The storm was getting worse, and Lewrie resigned himself to a quick meal, then a whole sleepless evening on deck, sodden to the skin.
"D'ye hear, there!" came a thin cry from one of the on-deck lookouts on the quarterdeck that he had just quit. "Dark ship on th' starb'd quarter, mile'r two off! Off'cer o' th' Watch, they's…!"
"Deck, there!" the lookout atop the main mast cross-trees added with the same urgency. "Three-masted ship, four points orf th' starboard quarter! Looks t'be a frigate!"
"Beat to Quarters, Mister Langlie!" Lewrie bellowed after he had slammed to a stop, and whirled about to swarm back to his quarterdeck. "Now!" he added, as he got to the top of the ladderway by the uselessly-empty hammock nettings. "Night signals, quick as you can, to warn the convoy. Someone lay aloft and light the fusee on the main truck!"
He jogged over to the starboard bulwarks, stoicism and a serene demeanour bedamned, to add his own eyes to the frantic search as harsh voices and bosun's calls shrilled. A curtain of heavier rain blotted out the sea for a long and frustrating minute, then… there In the split-second flash of another lightning bolt, several lookouts yelped discovery, just as the Marine drummer began a long roll, and the ship began to drum as well to the stamping of running feet, inspiring that bushbaby to even louder cries.
A King`s Trade l-13 Page 35