Troubled Waters

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Like Lucifer said in Dante's poem, Mister Urquhart," Lewrie quickly riposted. " 'Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven'? I assume by your age, and the condition of your sea-chest, that you are to be her First?"

  "Aye, sir . . . my first such commission," Lt. Urquhart proudly stated.

  "Oo's fer 'is Savitch barkee, then, sirs?" the boatman at the tiller asked as his sole assistant handed the launch's lug-sail as the boat swung up to approach the frigate's starboard entry-port.

  "Both of us," Lewrie told him with a taut grin of mischief.

  "Boat ahoy!" came a shout from the quarterdeck.

  "Savitch!" the assistant in the bow shouted back, showing four fingers as well to indicate that a Post-Captain was coming aboard.

  "Oh, my soul!" Lt. Urquhart whispered. His eyes blared in alarm as he swivelled about on his thwart to look at Lewrie.

  "Told'you Lewrie was a scoundrel, Mister Urquhart," he grinned.

  Chapter Two

  After that shocking chance meeting, Lt. Edward (or Ed'ard) Urquhart had had a rather trying day. His proper reporting aboard was not so bad, nor was his reception in Capt. Lewrie's great-cabins, where he had been offered a glass of cool tea with lemon and sugar, been told he would be one of the rare "Johnny New-Comes" aboard Savage, after most of the officers and crew of Lewrie's old ship, HMS Proteus, had volunteered to turn over into this new frigate . . . a great honour to Lewrie, to elicit such loyalty. But for those of warrant or petty officer rank who pretty much stayed with one ship, commission after commission, such as the Bosun and his Mate, Cooper, Sailmaker, Master Gunner, and lived aboard even when a warship was laid up in-ordinary, HMS Savage was now manned by officers and hands who had "rubbed together" for three years, and would squint with chary eyes at an interloper, 'til they had had a chance to take his measure.

  Capt. Lewrie had informed him that he detested tyrannical, "flogging" officers, and had found that his "people" had never been of the insubordinate sort; that the necessity for corporal punishment was rare aboard, and that he'd found "firm but fair" treatment from solidly experienced officers, not Tartars, worked better than anything else.

  Lt. Urquhart had heard scads about Capt. Alan Lewrie from his fellow officers, not just from the newspapers and such. He was not as famed as the gallant Pellew, or Collingwood, not quite the nationally cheered Nelson, but he had a reputation as a fighter, so Urquhart had come aboard feeling rather fortunate to have a chance to serve under a man who had a fairly well-known name in the clannish family of fellow Royal Navy officers. Capt. Lewrie was also possessed of a repute that was, well . . . colourful, to put it charitably.

  Lt. Urquhart beheld a man in his mid- to late thirties who owned a charming and easy smile; a captain who "wore his own hair" 'stead of a wig, whose hair was mid-brown, where the sun had not lightened the shade to light brown, and the merriest blue eyes surrounded by laugh lines and the crow's-feet of perpetual sea-squinting—though they did, when Lewrie turned more serious about professional matters, seem to go frostier and greyer. Lewrie was three inches shorter than Lt. Urquhart's own six feet even, a fellow who might weigh eleven or twelve stone, with a fit build, without the beginnings of a senior Post-Captain's pot belly, bred of higher pay, prize-money, or private means natural to the typical squirearchy background of most captains his age; born of the ability to purchase more wine, brandy, and rich viands, consumed alone in a ship-captain's traditional aloofness from others aboard; from the richness of suppers shared with fellow captains and foreign dignitaries when "showing the flag," with junior officers and Midshipmen on a weekly rotation when at sea, where one was forced to show off open-handed hospitality, even a touch of splendour, from one's own purse.

  Or, as Edward Urquhart had always suspected, from sheer boredom to fill the lonely, aloof hours spent so often alone at-table in one's great-cabins. Or the gluttony that followed years of plain commons!

  Capt. Lewrie had done most of the talking, asking the usual questions about Urquhart's previous service, and Urquhart had responded as firmly as he could without veering off into too many inessential digressions. After that disastrous first meeting ashore, he had a false impression to correct, an urgent need to please and to reassure his new captain that he would be a worthy addition; and, the hope that he fit in.

  It did not help Lt. Urquhart's efforts that Lewrie's two cats, a stout black-and-white one named Toulon (and where had that odd name come from? he wondered) and a mostly white younger one named Chalky (much more obvious, that'un), had come trotting to the desk in the day-cabin from the transom settee where they had been sunning themselves, and had discovered that they simply adored the new First Officer, the scent of his fresh-blacked Hessian boots, the leather scabbard of his sword, the tails of his uniform coat, then the suitability of his lap! From whence they had explored his coat lapels, shirt collar, and neck-stock, and had even gone so far as to nuzzle and paw at his hair!

  Lt. Urquhart, it was sad to say, was a huntin' dog man, and had no use for cats, except for killing stable rats.

  * * * *

  "We're fresh from the graving clocks, and expect the barges and water hoys alongside this morning, Mister Urquhart," Capt. Lewrie had concluded, rising to his feet to most charitably walk Urquhart to the exit door, which had required Urquhart to rise as well, giving him a chance to peel the two wee beasts off— gently, rather than following his instinct to seize them by their scruffs and hurl them from one end of the great-cabins to the other. "I expect you'll be hard-pressed to see all loaded by sunset. We've a well-drilled and experienced crew, so the work should go orderly, and your fellow officers, whom I expect you'll soon meet, know what they're about, so it shouldn't be all that demanding, really. Welcome aboard, and I'm looking forward to having you as First Officer, sir."

  * * * *

  Well, it hadn't gone that smoothly. Urquhart suspected that he was on trial by every leery Man-Jack, Midshipman, and officer. Everybody had seemed to suffer from sudden ignorance of ropes, blocks, and such, requiring him to see to everything. The "test," if testing it was, had felt more tongue-in-cheek than mutely insubordinate, and Lt. Urquhart had swallowed his spleen and patiently endured it . . . mostly.

  By the end of the day, at Eight Bells of the Day Watch and the start of the usually idle First Dog, the holds had been filled. Water butts stowed and firmly wedged in, then filled with fresh water pumped from the ungainly hoys; great casks of salt-meats treated much in the same manner. Chests and bags of fresh-baked biscuit, a vast array of Bosun's stores and spare timbers, miles of spare cordage and replacement blocks all had gone below, settling HMS Savage a few inches lower in the harbour waters. The day after, and kegs of gunpowder, flannel cartridge bagging, gun-carriages, and the frigate's artillery would come aboard.

  Last into the ship, late in the day, had come a load of fresh loaves, a bellowing bullock whose hooves had barely touched the deck before he was slaughtered for supper, and a cage of live chickens for the officers' mess. Lt. Urquhart had mopped his brow, nodded to his new fellows, and had gone below to his deal-and-canvas partitioned cabin (rather grand in size after the ones he had bunked in whilst a junior officer!) and had finally had a chance to unpack and sponge himself down before dressing for a proper meal in the wardroom. One where he must begin to enforce his own stamp upon the others. "Firm but fair," sober and nearly humourless, relentless in the pursuit of duty no matter his private nature. He had it all planned out.

  Unfortunately, his curiosity got the better of him, for there was too much to learn about his new captain from the ones who'd been with him so long.

  Chapter Three

  Mr. Maurice Durant, the ship's Surgeon, a rather laconic French émigré finally promoted from Surgeon's Mate (it helped to be a Protestant Huguenot), had made a guarded comment about Capt. Lewrie's pending legal troubles anent some dozen "stolen" slaves, seven of whom still survived among Savage's crew, which resulted in an equally cautious discussion of the how and the when of the matter. And, whet
her their captain might remain captain for very much longer, or might be relieved to face trial in London, and where would they be, then?

  Lt. Urquhart was struck by how fond the others seemed to feel about Capt. Lewrie, despite the notoriety attached to him, the tracts and pamphlets put out by the Abolitionists, and the lurid accounts in the newspapers. The seeming depth of their feelings went beyond the usual dread of serving under a new captain of unknown abilities, temperament, or aggressiveness that might not be equal to Lewrie's when it came to seeking action, glory, or prize-money. Quite expectedly, they would fear dull, humdrum service or anything that took the gloss off the reputation they had made in HMS Proteus.

  Some of it, Urquhart suspected, was the comfort of "old shoes," and "better the devil you know . . .," along with their rightful pride.

  Together so long, Savage's wardroom did not exactly follow the traditional narrow strictures on table conversation, either. Captains and senior officers usually were never discussed, except in the most careful, praiseful way. Their foibles and idiosyncracies, "warts and all," were definitely off-limits, but. . . Savage's officers knew their captain extremely well by then, and seemed to take a perverse pride in his . . . weaker moments.

  A glass more than he'd planned to imbibe had fuzzled Urquhart's wits just enough to mangle his attempt to quash such improper nattering. It came out as "Well, I dare say that Captain Lewrie has made himself a fair name in the Fleet." Said with a sober face, at least, and with the merest hint that they treaded on taboo territory as his brow furrowed. "Such is not, usually, a thing junior officers should bandy about. I will allow, however, that I am not cognisant of every deed which has created such a sterling reputation. I was right proud to receive orders into Savage as First Officer, and . . . when I learned that Captain Lewrie commands her, I did, indeed, say to myself, 'Aha, I've heard of him,' and thought myself quite fortunate . . . as I gather that you gentlemen feel, about serving under him. Though I cannot say that I knew much beyond the fact that I had heard the Captain's name mentioned at one time or t'other. What-all have you and the Captain done in your old ship, then? What are the high-water marks you might recall?"

  It was off to the races after that.

  * * * *

  Alan Lewrie had always been reckoned an extremely lucky fellow, Urquhart was rather eagerly informed by Lt. Adair, the Second Officer, a dark and curly-haired Scot; by the Third Officer, Mr. D'arcy Gamble, who had been an "upwards of twenty" and capable Midshipman aboard HMS Proteus 'til their last battle in the South Atlantic off the coast of Africa; by the elegant Marine officer, Lt. Blase Devereux; by Mr. Durant the Surgeon; and by the Purser, the prim little Mr. Coote. Even Sailing Master Mr. Winwood, a most taciturn and sober-sided fellow of the new "Strenuous Christian" bent, lauded cautious praise for Capt. Lewrie . . . though with some reservations anent his "extra-curricular" activities.

  Lucky, aye, reckoned so by fellow officers, and especially so by the people who shipped "before the mast," from the lower deck, for hadn't Lewrie been blessed with a geas in the Bay of Biscay when he'd captained HMS Jester way back in '94? Why, 'twas rumoured that seals—hundreds of miles from any beach!—had come alongside and spoken to Commander Alan Lewrie at the end of a sea burial of a Midshipman of Cornwall who might've, might've mind, been born a selkie, one of those ancient cursed souls who had angered the mythic, half-forgotten Celtic sea-god, Lir, and were doomed to live lives in the sea as seals, crying for a life on land, then shedding their skins and becoming human just long enough to suffer longings for a life in the sea, 'til the end of time. Silly, pagan, and heretical, but Cornish and Irish tars walked in awe of Lewrie as one of Lir's blessed, to this very day. And how hellish-odd it was that they'd heard other officers eerily recall the barking of seals whenever HMS Jester needed an omen of danger ahead!

  Lucky in battle, and in prize-money, too, Lewrie was. How had he gotten Jester in the first place? He'd been First Lieutenant into HMS Cockerel, but had ended up seconded ashore—or in charge of a captured French mortar boat, some had heard tell—during the siege of Toulon in '93, and had been captured by the bastard Frog Napoleon Bonaparte himself when the mortar vessel blew up, but saved by Spanish cavalry. Blown sky-high, but lived! There's luck for you.

  Days before the evacuation of the First Coalition forces, he'd been put in charge of a leaky, half-armed French frigate, barely manned and crammed with French Royalist refugees. Chased down by a squadron of two corvettes and a frigate, Lewrie'd not only held his own, but hammered one corvette to ruin, then swung cross the bows of the next, boarded her with a scratch assault force of British soldiers and refugee Frenchmen, and took her for his own!

  His patron at the time, Vice-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, had made Lewrie a Commander once back at Gibraltar, and re-named her HMS Jester 'stead of Sans Culottes or something revolutionary.

  "No, wasn't Sans Culottes," Lt. Gamble chortled. "The way that I heard it was, there were some japes 'bout how ridiculous some of the French warships' names were, and Captain Lewrie said that it would not do to have an HMS 'Bare-Arsed' in the Fleet, and Admiral Hood thought him too much a wag, and called hex Jester as his own little joke."

  Despite the impropriety of such talk, Lt. Urquhart found that he was quite intrigued—perhaps half a bottle of claret over, but intrigued—and even essayed an appreciative little chuckle, which only encouraged them, for this was miles beyond the usual carefully written official after-action accounts sent to Admiralty and printed in the Marine Chronicle and the Gazette.

  Lewrie and Jester had been a terror to the French during the First Italian Campaign, when Napoleon had routed and annihilated the Genoese, Piedmontese, and Savoian armies, and had defeated the might of Austria, too. Raids along the coasts, shelling the few roads that could support supply waggons, capturing coastal shipping, which bore the bulk of French supplies; routing and reaping French vessels sent to support their army on Corsica against British invasion.

  "Though I did hear that he did something that angered Nelson, who was in overall command," Lt. Adair said with a puzzled shrug of incomplete knowledge. "Made him kick furniture and swear, one time, or more."

  "Went ashore and shot some Frenchman he was pursuing, someone told me," Lt. Gamble offered. "Got caught up in the battle that ran the whole Austrian army twenty miles in a perfect panic, 'fore noon, but got back to the coast and was picked up by one of our boats that wasn't even looking for him. Speak of Captain Lewrie's good fortune!"

  "Why, that fellow he shot was the very same Guillaume Choundas we dealt with in the Caribbean," Adair added. "Shot his arm clean off with that Ferguson breech-loading rifle, from two hundred yards away, or better. Choundas was in charge of all the privateers working out of the isle of Guadeloupe, and 'twas his frigate we battered to kindling right in the harbour of Bas-Terre before she could get a way on. And that Captain Choundas, the ugly bastard, well. . .'tween the American Revolution and the French'un, Choundas and the Captain crossed hawses somewhere in the Far East, too. We put paid to that ogre . . . even if the Americans did end up capturing him."

  "But 'twas the Captain's doing, Mister Adair," Mr. Winwood stuck in, "that we cooperated so closely . . . yet so carefully . . . with the new American Navy during their brief little not-quite-a-war with the French back in '98. Bless me, but we led the Yankee Doodles out of English Harbour, right to that French arms convoy bound for Saint Domingue, and Choundas's clutch of warships and privateers, too."

  "Don't forget Saint Vincent," Lt. Devereux said, after he'd topped up his port and passed it leftwards down the table. "Jester, I'd heard, was on her way home with despatches, in need of a refit at the time, when she stumbled into Admiral Jervis's fleet. Think of it, Mister Urquhart. . . Nelson in HMS Captain, with the Culloden, daunting a whole wing of the Spanish fleet, up against two-decker, three-decker ships of the line, and the Santissima Trinidad, the world's only four-decker, before they could assail the rear of our fleet. And, right by their side was Captain Lewrie, and HMS Jester
! A Sixth Rate, by Heaven, which had no business engaging anything bigger than her, especially not a ship of the line, blazing away with her nine-pounders and drawing the fire of the world's biggest warship!"

  "Captain'd tell ye different," Mr. Winwood countered, coming as close as he might to an outright laugh. "I mentioned it once whilst we dined, and he swore that Jester was just sailing along alee of Nelson, minding her own business, and acting as a signals-repeating ship, but Nelson suddenly wheeled out of line and nigh would have rammed Jester amidships, had she not hauled her own wind and come about as well. As the Captain told it, it was 'ram you, or damn you' . . . that Jester and he were pushed, and courage had nothing to do with it. He did fire on the Santissima Trinidad, since it seemed the thing to do, but that

  she was far out of range of Jester''s guns, and far out of range of her own, and why the Dons would waste an entire four-deck broadside on his wee ship, he still has no idea. Took 'em a month to re-load and run out."

  "But Admiral Jervis thought it brave," Lt. Adair said. "That's why the Captain wears the gold medal for the Battle of Cape Saint Vincent. Told he was daft as bats, in point of fact, and not to do that sort of thing again, but he did put his name forward for the medal."

  "After that. . . before it, I can't quite recall," Lt. Gamble said with a frown of concentration, "Jester was in the Adriatic with a small squadron. A few months before 'Old Jarvy' had to fall back on Gibraltar and abandon the Mediterranean. Oh! That was definitely during Napoleon's Italian Campaign, and the French badly needed Adriatic oak to build new warships, or repair the ones they still had, and the Captain went through their merchantmen like a hot knife through butter. Fought a vicious pack of local pirates . . . Serbian or something . . . to save a bunch of English men and women. Got lured ashore by them, and almost lost his life before his First Lieutenant got leery, and sent a Marine party ashore. The pirates had taken a Venetian ship, just full of Catholics and 'White Muslims,' whom they hated worse than anything, and were simply butchering, for fun, 'fore the Captain got there. That is where Captain Lewrie met Mistress Theoni Connor, widow of a man in the Ionian Islands' currant trade, and, ahem . . . well, saved her, and her little boy's, life. The pirates put her up for auction, and the Captain bought time by bidding her price up, I heard."