The King's Coat

by Dewey Lambdin

  * * *

  More hands came aboard, calf-headed innocents who had been gotten at recruiting rendezvous at various taverns, where an officer and several reliable hands had bragged about Ariadne and all the prize money she would take. More came aboard from the Impress Service, willing and eager volunteers for the security of the Navy, even merchant sailors seeking better food and less work in the overmanned fighting ships; though the pay was less, they would not be cheated by a bad master.

  Many more came from the tenders as volunteers, or from debtors’ prison, fleeing small debts and giving tops’l payment with the Joining Bounty, men snagged by the courts for various crimes, but which were crimes against property, not crimes of violence. Lewrie soon lost all sympathy for them, since no one had any to spare for him. If I’m here then it’s their tough luck to be here, too. Should have run faster.

  They came aboard in ragpicker’s finery cast off from the great houses, perhaps even stolen from their masters. They came from shops and stores and weavers’ lofts still trying to play the upright apprentice or freeman. They came in country togs from the estates where the owners no longer needed field hands, or from the villages that had been wiped out by enclosure of public lands. They came with the prison stink and the farm stink on them, or dredged up from the cities’ gutters. Up to the first lieutenant to sign or make their marks, then out of their clothes to shiver under the wash deck pumps, and the decks ran with the accumulated grit they carried aboard on their skins. Deloused, perhaps for the first time in months, and then, chicken-white and pimply, down to the gun deck with their slop clothing, where they got sorted out into “hands.” They would, the bulk of them, serve guns in battle, haul on braces to angle the sails, tail on the jears to raise the yards, tail on the halyards to make sail, and be the human engines to shift cargo, so that Ariadne would live. The younger ones would be cabin servants and stewards, or be trained as topmen who went aloft to fight canvas.

  As Ariadne approached something like her full complement, Bales decided the time had come for sail drill and gunnery exercises. Alan knew a little, which was reams more than most of the new hands knew, so he found himself leading men about the deck like tame bears, so they would know where to stand when ordered, what rope or sheet to seize when needed, what part of the deck they would scrub.

  Lewrie saw what Captain Bales had meant when he had told him they could make sailors out of any material they laid their hands on; slowly the crew began to fathom what was required of them. Slowly, he began to do the same, going aloft when top and t’gallant masts were struck and re-hoisted, sails were shaken out and drawn down, then reefed over and over again until the exercise was no longer a complete shambles.

  With the ship back in full discipline, and with her company hard at work, the officers were out in force once more, and though Ariadne had fourteen of her required sixteen midshipmen, he felt that he was the only name anyone knew when it came to extra duties, or something especially filthy to do.

  Now he sat at the mess table in the cockpit. He had a navigation problem due to Mister Ellison in the next Forenoon, but his mind refused to function. He had been up since four in the morning, and it was now six in the evening. Supper was on its way from the galley, and he slumped over a hot mug of flip, wondering if he would be able to stay awake long enough to eat.

  “Let’s play a game after supper,” Bascombe suggested. “Let’s build a galley.”

  “Let’s not, unless you’re the figurehead, Bascombe,” Alan said wearily.

  “Heard of that one, have you?” Alan had fallen for most of the usual pranks. He had been sent up on deck to listen to the dogfish bark; that cost Bascombe a sore shoulder. He had been sent to fetch a Marine private named Cheeks, and had dashed about the ship “passing the word for Private Cheeks” until Ream had told him it was a butt-fucker’s insult, and got even the Marines mad. He had not gone to fetch gooseberries from the foretop, or some of the other dumb japes midshipmen played on each other. He had heard of “building a galley” and had asked Lieutenant Kenyon about it; it involved one boy being the contractor and the rest being the boat, linking arms in an oval to make the sides, their feet together to be a keel. The one named the figurehead leaned forward until the contractor demanded that he wanted a gilt figurehead, at which point the mark was given a dash of shit in the face with a brush, and everyone else ran for their lives.

  “Gun drill tomorrow,” Shirke said, sipping his drink. “Surely we should be doing more of that.”

  “Don’t we work enough already?” Alan groaned.

  “’Cause we’ve got people listed for the guns that don’t know a cap square from a cascabel, and what do we do if we run into a French line-of-battle ship going down-Channel?” Bascombe asked.

  “A cap square,” Alan laughed. “Is that something you wear?”

  “I’d like to see you wear one,” Bascombe snapped. “Speaking of Country Harrys who can’t even steer a damned cutter.”

  “Hark that from our best bargee,” Alan shot back. “The great sailor, Tom Turdman. Learned his trade at Dung Wharf!”

  “I’ll thrash you for that,” Bascombe shouted, leaping across the mess table. Lewrie sprang to meet him and the brawl was on. With the others cheering (and the senior warrants of their mess absent), it was a wrestling match just to work off tension and excess energy, only half-serious.

  “Here, you spilled my brandy, you lout!”

  “Ow, fight fair, you bastard!”

  “Kick ’im in the nutmegs, Lewrie!” Shirke cheered. “I’ll take a shilling on Harvey.”

  “Done!” Ashburn said, putting aside his book.

  Until Lewrie noticed that he had hold of a silk shirt as he grappled with Bascombe. Bascombe was from a poor family; his kit was of middling quality, and it most definitely did not run to silk shirts.

  “Wait a minute! Where the hell did you get silk, Bascombe?”

  “Chapman gave it to me,” Bascombe lied, knowing the fight was about to become serious. In their mess, things were borrowed back and forth to make a presentable showing on deck in front of the officers, but they were mostly asked for, not taken.

  “Chapman doesn’t have one, and he doesn’t look that stupid!” Lewrie said. “Have you been in my things?”

  “Me? Why should I dig in your rag box?”

  “Because you’re a ragpicker, Bascombe. Now take it off and put it back where you got it.”

  “I’ll not, it’s mine—”

  “Hell, it’s yours, you parish waif, now have it off!”

  Bascombe took a serious swing at Lewrie and caught him on the side of the head. Alan shot a fist straight into his face and bloodied Bascombe’s lips and nose, dropping the other boy to the deck.

  “Damn you!” Bascombe wiped blood from his face on the shirt sleeve, got to his feet and ripped his waistcoat off, then the shirt, balled it up and threw it at Lewrie. “Here’s your damned shirt, I hope you choke on it.”

  “You’ll hand it back to me clean, or I’ll make it a gift. If the blood won’t come out, then you’ll have exactly one silk shirt—”

  “’Ere now, ’ere now,” said Finnegan, one of the master’s mates, as he came into the compartment. “Christ, wot a pack of yowlin’ ram-cats; Mister Bascombe, I see summun tapped yer claret. N’ nice Mister Lewrie alookin’ like Goodyer’s Pig—‘never well but when in mischief.’ Wot is it, then, summat seryuss enough fer the captain, er does it stop ’ere?”

  “Just a little wrestling match for a glass of flip, Mister Finnegan,” Ashburn said. “Got out of hand.”

  “Flip, ya say? I’ll take a measure. Now let’s git this cockpit stright fer eatin’,” Finnegan ordered, knowing exactly what had happened, but relieved that he did not have to report it, which would reflect on his ability to supervise the midshipmen.

  Alan tossed Bascombe the shirt with a sly smile and watched as Bascombe dashed out of the compartment to fetch some seawater to stanch his nose and lips.

  “You really know
how to make friends, Lewrie,” Ashburn said in a low voice after they had sat down away from the others.

  “He took that shirt from my chest, didn’t he? He’ll not have my blessings to take what he wants, when he wants.”

  “But you don’t have to rub his nose in it,” Ashburn replied. “There’s no harm in him, he just had to look good to attend the Captain’s gig this afternoon. I’d have loaned him one but all mine were dirty.”

  “He could have asked.”

  “He doesn’t know you well enough to ask. Besides, your usual answer to sharing is ‘no,’” Ashburn said. “My family could buy up yours a dozen times over, most like, but that don’t make me as purse-proud as you! You haven’t gone shares on anything in the mess yet.”

  “It’s still stealing,” Alan insisted, blushing red.

  “Not stealing … borrowing.”

  “Aye, if the hands ‘borrow,’ they get flogged for it, but if we do, it’s Christian charity,” Alan said sarcastically.

  “For your information, Harvey’s the son of a country parson. I doubt he’s got two shillings to rub together and no hope of more. His father probably makes less than thirty pounds per annum.”

  “Shit,” Alan said. “I didn’t know. But what’s mine is mine. I have to protect it. I don’t have enough to keep a gentleman in the first place and my family won’t part with another pence for me, not if it was for a coffin. Let’s say the splendor of my kit was a very firm goodbye.”

  “Just be civilized, Lewrie. You’ll get by with us a lot better. Now Bascombe’s going to get his own back on you and I don’t know what he’ll do, but it won’t be hurtful … much. Don’t take it to heart. We don’t need a Scottish feud down here.”

  “Damn you, Ashburn,” Alan muttered. “You always find a way to make me feel like such a low bastard…”

  “That’s because you are. Mind now, I like you, Lewrie, I really do. You’re a ruthless, uncivilized young swine, and I doubt you’ll ever be buried a bishop, but you’re an interesting person anyway. You’ll go far in the Navy. Like me.”

  Supper was decent, since they were still close to shore and had the opportunity to send for fresh meat and vegetables. And when Ashburn raised the suggestion that they go shares on some cabin stores, Alan did offer to help out, so they would have some drinkable wine and some livestock of their own in the forecastle manger to delay the day when they would have to live totally on issue salt-meats.

  Before Lights Out at 9:00 P.M. Lewrie took some bum fodder in his hand and made a postprandial journey to the heads up by the beakhead under the jib-boom. At sea the heads would be scoured continually by the sea, but in harbor no waves reached high enough to relieve the odors, or remove their source. At least at sea, there would be no Marine sentry standing over him to prevent desertions over the bow, as one now patrolled in port.

  He returned to the cold orlop deck that was buried in darkness, for after Lights Out, no glims could burn except where permitted by the ship’s corporals. He found his hammock by touch, slipped out of his clothes and rolled in, drawing the blanket over him gratefully.

  “Oh my God,” he muttered, feeling the cold and sticky semifluid substance against his legs and buttocks. “They’ve shat in my hammock!” He raised a hand to his nose, expecting the worst, and detected a sweet odor tinged with sulfur. “My hammock is full of molasses.” From the darkness came a furtive snigger.

  “Bascombe, I swear to God I’ll murder you,” he shouted into the dark, bringing snorts of laughter from the others, and shouts from the senior warrants to shut up and let them sleep.

  Chapter 3

  Their last morning had dawned grey and miserable with a fine, misty rain that swelled the running rigging until it would have difficulty passing through the blocks and sheaves. But the wind had come around to the northwest, and Ariadne was in all respects ready for the sea. The ship was still about twenty-five men short of full complement but that could not be helped in wartime. Captain Bales evidently did not have private funds for recruiting at taverns, or for paying the crimps to deliver warm bodies with all their working parts in order who would wake and discover they were in the Fleet. He must have heaved a great sigh of relief that he was in shape to sail at all, for if a captain could not gather enough men to crew his ship out of harbor, he could lose his commission (and his full pay) and some other captain would be given a chance, while the failure went on the beach at half-pay, there to remain for the rest of his natural life. Those men he had gathered had been pummeled into some semblance of a crew, through fire drills, sail drills, gunnery exercises and the like.

  Alan had been disappointed that he had not been given a chance for a final run ashore. If the awful day had indeed arrived when he cut his last ties to the land, he at least wanted to remember it with a stupendous farewell, but it was not to be. The boats had been hoisted inboard and stored upside down on the boat-tier beams that spanned the center waist of the upper gun deck, so there was no excuse to be used for a last quart of ale, a last dinner or a last rattle.

  “Anchor’s hove short, sir,” Lieutenant Church, their feisty little third lieutenant, called from the bows. “Up and down.”

  “Get the ship underway, Mister Swift,” Captain Bales said, looking like a hung-over mastiff in the dawn light.

  “Hands aloft and loose tops’ls. Stand by to hoist fores’ls.”

  Lewrie joined a mob of topmen as they sprang for the shrouds and swarmed up the ratlines for the mizzen top. He was no longer dead with fear about going aloft; merely scared stiff.

  Off came the harbor gaskets. Hands tailed on the jears, hoisting the yards to their full erect positions on the masts. Others tailed on the sheets to draw down the sails as they were freed, while more men stood by the braces to angle the sails to the wind as they began to draw air and fill with pressure.

  There was a difference aloft. The masts were vibrating even more, the freed canvas was flapping and booming as the wind found it like a continual peal of thunder, rattling the yards and jerking them into an unpredictable motion that was like to shake hands out of the masts like autumn leaves. Then, as the topsails began to draw, the yards tilted as the ship paid off heavily to the wind, swinging through great arcs that brought cries of alarm from the newest hands, and made Lewrie moan in sheer terror as he tried to find his balance as footropes and secure holds began to slide from beneath him. The footrope he was on on the mizzen topsailyard was down at a forty-five-degree angle, and new men were skittering it until it almost tucked under the yard in their panic. Senior topmen cursed them into stillness before they all tumbled to the deck.

  But the topsail was set, and no one was calling for the royals yet, so Lewrie could look forward and upward to the other masts to see hands working calmly, could look down to the huge capstan head on the upper gun deck, where a hundred men at the least trundled about in a small circle on the bars, and the clank of pawls filled the air, while on the forecastle, the strongest hands in the crew were walking away with the halyards for the stays’ls and jibs, while others of their kind drew on the sheets to bring control of the jibs, laid out almost level to the deck as they strained their great muscles to gain every inch of rope aft to the belaying pins.

  Ariadne was no longer sailing sideways from the wind after paying off from her head-to-wind anchorage, but beginning to make steerage way for the harbor mouth; she had changed from a helpless pile of oak and pine and iron to a ship. Admittedly, her crew’s efforts must have raised some cruel amusement from more fortunate captains and officers, but she was under control, and unless taken suddenly aback from a capricious shift of wind, would make her way out of Portsmouth and past the Isle of Wight into the Channel without mishap. For a new crew made up of mostly landsmen, it was the best to be expected.

  “Aloft there on the mizzen, set the spanker.”

  Back to the mast at the crosstrees, then straight down the mast to the spanker gaff. Experienced topmen walked out the footropes to free the big driver, which was furled on
the gaff and would hang loose-footed to the boom that swept over the taffrail. Lewrie had to join them and lie on his belly over the gaff. By this time, his immaculate white waistcoat, working rig trousers and jacket cuffs were turning a pale tan from the linseed oil of the spars and streaked with the tar of standing rigging, even beginning to smell like rancid cooking fat and pick up grey stains from the galley slush skimmed off boiling meat that was used to coat the running rigging. It was almost impossible for a midshipman to stay clean and presentable on a ship, and he knew he’d have the hide off his hammockman if the stains would not come out.

  Finally, they were called down to the deck, with Ariadne fully underway and clumping along like a wooden clog down the Channel coast. Lewrie mopped his face with a handkerchief and made his way to the starboard gangway to watch England drift by. It did not look as if any more would be demanded of him for a while, and he now had time to take note of his hunger pangs, and the soreness of his muscles from being so tense aloft. His hands were aching from the climb down a backstay, and were red from unused exertion, but beginning to toughen up. He could rub them together and feel the difference in them from a month before. He looked about him and took note that the ship was now organized—the monumental clutter and confusion of braces, halyards, sheets, clew lines and jears were coiled or flaked into order.

  The anchors were catted down up forward, the stinking anchor lines were stored away below in the cable tiers to drip their harbor filth into the bilges, wafting a dead-fish tidal smell down the deck. Except for the watch, the hands had been dismissed below. Those with touchy stomachs were being dragged to the leeward rails to “cast their accounts” into the Channel, and those that could not wait were being ordered to clean up their spew. He thought about going below out of the brisk wind and misty, cold rain, but the idea of hundreds of men who at that moment resembled “Death’s head on a mopstick” down on the lower gun deck, and were being ill in platoons, dissuaded him. He was dizzy from the motion of the ship, a lift and twist to larboard, a plunge that brought spray sluicing up over the forward bulkhead, and a jerky roll upright that did not bring the deck level.