The King l-4

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Imagine the consternation he would feel, to expect her lost, and there she is, big as life, sir," Lewrie chortled. "He'd have to sail into harbor to speak her. Close enough for us to hull him with artillery. He might sail right into a trap. Oil or varnish to darken her upper works and she'd resemble La Malouine well enough."

  "He'd never fall for it," Twigg carped.

  "One never knows, sir," Ayscough sniffed. "He might. He just might. And, if Telesto and the second vessel Lewrie suggested that we hire were to be lurking off-shore, somewhere to the north… yes, to the north would be best, I believe… a shore party could send a signal to alert us as to the best moment to fall upon the harbor."

  "I most strenuously object to this… dribbling of our assets into… into"-Twigg spluttered-"penny-packets! As Crown representative, Captain Ayscough… damme, sir, any delay in getting to Calcutta, and there will be no second ship dispatched from there to succor Colonel Willoughby's troops. And there will be the transport, in harbor and defenseless. Her loss would destroy any hope of pursuing Choundas, should he not fall for your ruse in disguising her. And strand our troops on this island a thousand miles from nowhere."

  "She could be escorted north by one of the patrol vessels here in the harbor already, sir," Ayscough allowed, turning to peer out the open window once more. "There's a ketch-rigged ship out there that's suit. See her yonder? And if not her, perhaps the brig lying farther out. That might be best, after all. In addition to whatever vessel we may send out from Calcutta before Telesto is ready to rejoin our endeavor."

  "Little better than fishing smacks and packets," Twigg scoffed.

  "Some fresh paint, the proper flag flying, and at a distance who may deny they are not well-manned warships?" Ayscough shot back. He was in a fine and confident fettle now, and would not be gainsayed. "Were I a pirate, I'd not wish to fight one of them. One hard battle yardarm to yardarm would cause so much damage the raiding season would be over right there.

  That's the risk a privateersman takes. I doubt if this Frog Choundas wants to fight a real battle against a flotilla, after all. Overpowering one weak merchantman at a time is more his style."

  "Even more reason for him to turn tail and run for God knows where as soon as he spots strange ships in his harbor," Twigg gloomed.

  "They might look like early captures," Lewrie suggested. "If they were in harbor, sirs. Even more reason to enter and moor, to see what the booty amounts to so far."

  "And should Choundas arrive early, enter harbor," Twigg carped, "and not be utterly destroyed, then Telesto hits that empty bag you spoke of, with him days' gone and free to plunder still!"

  "Come, Mister Twigg, you cannot have things both ways," Captain Ayscough smirked. "Either he will arrive early, as Lewrie suspects, or he shall keep to his previous schedule, as you bejieve. Either way, sufficient force shall confront him."

  Twigg opened his mouth to make further objections, but Ayscough raised a restraining hand and cut him off.

  "You, sir, have fulfilled your brief. You were charged with an investigation into the disappearance of so many of our merchantmen, of identifying which native pirates were responsible. And that you have done. You were further charged with the task of unmasking the French behind their activities. And that, too, you have accomplished. You have found their base of operations, when to expect their arrival to launch more depredations against English shipping and have raised a naval and military force to destroy them."

  "Yes, but…"

  "But now, sir," Ayscough hammered on, "the said destruction is a naval and military matter, the proper use of those forces allocated to you. And that use, Mister Twigg, is my bailiwick at sea, and it is Sir Hugo's on the land. From here on out, sir, allow other batsmen to have their innings. Now, you may hold our coats."

  And about bloody well time, too, Alan thought! Damn all civilian meddlers. Especially the ones that dreamt this horror up in the first place.

  "Are you familiar with the vessels in harbor, Sir Hugo?" The captain asked.

  "Hmm, I fear it's my son who understands things nautical, Captain Ayscough," Sir Hugo replied, chuckling. "The brig, I believe, though, is a Macao packet. I've heard tell the… what-you-called-it… a ketch?… is the local supply ship from Calcutta or Madras. I've met their owners."

  "I shall wish to speak to them about hiring or selling us their ships, should they prove suitable," Ayscough said decisively. "I believe that we have sufficient funds aboard Telesto at present to do so, and pay a guinea joining-bounty for every hand that signs into service. Do we not. Mister Twigg?"

  "Aye, sir, we do," Twigg nodded, all fight blown out of him.

  Sir Hugo took Alan's arm and steered him out to the verandah as the details were thrashed out. It was a little cooler, but not much, out of the overcrowded rooms. They could hear Twigg, still insisting they sail for Calcutta as soon as the weather moderated.

  "Thank you for that back there, Alan."

  "Oh, you're welcome, sir."

  "I'd have done just about anything to get my troops out of this malaria-ridden sink!" Sir Hugo said with some heat. "Do you always up and speak your mind like that? Can't promise you an ambitious naval career if you keep that up. But for now, I'm grateful. And for what you said. About 'your dear father.' "

  "Well, about that, sir…" Lewrie cringed. "It was the only way to get your support, you see. Get you to listen to what I had to say and back my play. I expected you wanted to get your arse out of Bencoolen, before you went under to some sickness, so what you want, and what I thought needed doing, could work together."

  "Damn you, you little shit!" Sir Hugo stiffened. "Get mine own arse out of here? Do you think what I said about my men was so much moonshine?"

  "I've never known you to care very much about anyone. I don't know what to believe," Lewrie replied evenly.

  "By God, Alan, you may think me the biggest sinner you'll ever meet, but you'll not lay that on me!" his father growled. "Before I wasted seed enough to quicken your miserable life, I was a soldier! May not have been a great one. May not have been a glad one most of the time, but I was good enough. Think what you will of me, but by God above, this battalion is mine. I fought with it, marched with it, killed with it and bled with it. We've cracked lice together, eaten the same rotten food, swilled the same filthy water, and they look to me to do what's right by 'em! And I will, no matter what you think. You may sneer at 'em. Sneering's a thing I remember you're quite good at. So they're not a fashionable English regiment! Think they're not good soldiers just because they're Hindoos? Think it's a come-down for me… all I can command is a tag-rag-and-bobtail pack of bare-arsed Bengalis? Well, let me tell you, even when they were at their worst, they're the best troops I've ever seen, Goddamn your blood! And now they've been fleshed out and equipped proper, I could take them through the Brigade of Guards like suet through a goose. Something else I'm prepared to do, and they know it… I'm their colonel-I'm ready to die with 'em, if it comes to that. Aye, you sneer all you bloody well want. Maybe you were born a bastard after all!"

  Sir Hugo reset his waist-coat, the hang of his smallsword, and thumped down the steps to the muddy yard, leaving Lewrie at a loss for words, red-faced with sudden shame.

  "Sir?" Alan called out, stepping down into the mud and drizzle. "Father?"

  Sir Hugo halted and turned around, squelching mud on his boots.

  "Yes?" he snapped.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't know," Alan admitted. "I didn't even know there was anything you really cared about. Except for money and quim."

  "Well, they still rate pretty high on my list of favorites," Sir Hugo confessed. "Doing what I'm best at, horrible as it can be, is on that list, too, you know."

  "I most heartily apologize, Father."

  "Apology accepted. Son. To be expected, I suppose. You know very little about me. Part of that's my fault. Come to my quarters."

  "You haven't brought your band with you, have you?" Alan smiled.

  "No, and the girls are in
someone else's bibikhana now. Still, I never travel without a decent wine cellar. There's some claret you might appreciate." Sir Hugo laughed.

  "I'd admire that, thankee… Father."

  "You know," Sir Hugo commented as they trudged across the muddy maidan of die military cantonment, "I don't half trust your man Twigg."

  "I've yet to know what to make of him, yes."

  "What bothered me most was what you said about scouting out the islands we're to capture. He sounded more eager to get his precious goods back to Calcutta. First ship in would reap a fortune. Fortune to fund your expedition out here, yes. And fortune enough to line the pockets of a palatikal with what's left over."

  "He knew!" Alan spat out. "That's what surprised me. Right after we sank La Malouine, he knew. By that morning at the latest. And yet he kept it to himself, told no one, didn't suggest we look in on the Spratlys. If that taifun hadn't forced us down here to Bencoolen for shelter, I expect we'd be halfway up the Malacca Straits by now, your battalion be damned, and he'd sit on his news until we'd crossed the Hooghly Bar. Probably wanted something to impress Warren Hastings with."

  "Ah, well he'd better be quick about it, then. Hastings is under a cloud. There's talk from home of him sailing for England to face impeachment charges with 'John Company.' Might have someone new in the Bengal Presidency soon."

  "Someone who doesn't know a bloody thing about our mission?"

  "That could make things very interesting." Sir Hugo frowned. "Damme, here come the bloody rains again! I assume a sailor can run? Run or get soaked."

  'This sailor can," Alan said, matching the older man's stride easily.

  "One thing to expect," Sir Hugo puffed.

  "What?"

  "Twigg probably cares for you now… as much as cold, boiled mutton," Sir Hugo replied between breaths. "Look for a spell of the dirty."

  Chapter 4

  It didn't seem like a spell of the dirty, even if Twigg had a hand in influencing the captain's decision.

  Ayscough had explained it to him. Lieutenant Choate, as first officer and his most reliable man, would be the one first in line to take the job, normally, but he would be needed to take command of whichever suitable vessel they hired in Calcutta while Telesto was refitting.

  To fill his vacancy, he had to draw upon his next-most experienced and skilled officer, Lieutenant Percival, to remain aboard Telesto to advance to first officer in Choate's absence. Lieutenant McTaggart had to remain aboard Telesto, at least to Calcutta, and go as first officer for Choate in his new captaincy.

  Captain Ayscough could advance the midshipmen-in-disguise now serving as master's mates to Mr. Brainard into acting lieutenants, but they would be slender reeds upon which to depend to command the escort north with Lady Charlotte.

  "As I said in my journal about this matter, Mister Lewrie," the captain had told him, "that leaves only you, but you have shewn yourself to be more than reliable, competent and daring, but not too daring. I also made note that you only of the remaining commission officers, had, no matter your lack of seniority, commanded a King's ship even briefly. The chore is fairly simple, if you do not exceed your brief and go off chasing pirates too rashly. If they don't kill you, then I shall."

  Lewrie got command of Culverin.

  She had started life in 1778 as a bomb-ketch, laid down in Calcutta once the last war had spread from the Colonies to a world-wide conflagration against the Spanish, the Dutch and the French. To be a bomb-ketch, she had to be solid and heavy enough to absorb the kick of two twelve-inch mortars firing at high angle, so she was made of teak, as overbuilt as a 1st Rate line-of-battle ship, though her sides did not need to be as thick. She would never have been required to stand in the line of battle, anyway. She was further stiffened with riders that were scarfed from her frames as cross-members, to the keelson up to the deck beams, making her interior a maze totally unsuitable for large cargoes, with much of her centerline length taken up below deck as magazine and shot racks for her former weapons.

  The huge mortars were gone, though the wells where they had sat remained, one forward of her main-mast, and one forward of her shorter mizzenmast. Culverin had been sold out of naval service once the war in the Far East had ended in 1783. Bombs were too easily replaced if war broke out again, the Admiralty decried the expense of maintaining many of them in-ordinary and their usefulness was limited to those occasions where high-angle explosive shells needed to be hurled into harbors and fortifications along a hostile coast.

  She would have seemed like the perfect answer to an enterprising captain for coastal trading. About ninety feet on the range of the deck, roughly the length of a trading brig, about twenty-six feet in beam, and shoal-drafted to let her get within firing range of coastal forts. Her rig was only two masts instead of three, making for less crew, and ketches sported large gaff-rigged fore-and-aft sails on the rear of her masts, making sailing, tacking and wearing ship even simpler.

  All of which-her ease and cheapness of operation, rigidity and stout construction, and shallow draft-had convinced young Captain Dover to buy her and put her to work on the Bencoolen-Calcutta run, contracted to service the needs of that fearsome settlement, with the occasional jaunt to Macao running opium lurking somewhere in the back of his mind as well.

  The only trouble was that she was not particularly weath-erly; even with fore-and-aft sails she could not go close-hauled against the wind. She could point closer to the wind, yes, but her shallow draft made her slip to leeward too much, unlike a deeper-bellied ship with more grip below the waterline. And then, there were those riders in her innards, that limited the amount of cargo she could carry. They could not be removed without dismantling Culverin completely, bolted as they were from the outside of her hull, right through planking, her beams and frames, keelson and futtocks. But at four thousand pounds sterling, she had seemed a bargain, so he had bought her, and had been losing money on the deal ever since, scrimp as he might to make her pay.

  Which was why Captain Dover had leaped at that chance not simply to hire her out, but sell her outright, even if Twigg had only offered three thousand pounds. Neither was the enterprising Captain Dover quite so enterprising or ambitious as to remain aboard as part of the venture, so he took passage for Calcutta aboard Telesto, along with his first mate and four of his small crew that hadn't decided to cut his gizzard out yet.

  Most of the remaining crew were just as happy to see the last of Captain Dover, though he left their pay in arrears, so when Ayscough harangued them to sign on at civilian pay rates, with a golden guinea for a joining-bounty, and the promise of untold loot, they had agreed to stay with her.

  He would have no surgeon or purser, no sailing master-none of those excess warrants who made an officer's life easier. Lewrie suspected he'd have to swot up on how to lance boils, issue biscuit and rum, do his own navigation and almost serve as his own bosun. He did get Mr. Hogue, promoted to acting lieutenant, to serve as his first mate, which helped immensely. And Ayscough gave up Hodge and Witty as senior hands, Owen, the quarter-gunner, Hoolahan and some of the lower deck carronade gunners, Murray, the forecastle captain, to serve as bosun, and Cony to come along as cabin-servant/ cox'n/seaman. All in all, he had, including himself, only sixty-five people aboard, thirty of them her original crew. Not exactly inspiring circumstances, but she was a command, and she was all his. And once Ayscough had delivered new paint and bosun's stores to put to rights the neglect she'd suffered, he had to admit that Culverin looked almost saucy.

  Fresh red paint inboard, bright blue upper bulwarks and the rest of her hull freshly varnished, and some yellow paint to touch up her transom, beak-head, entry port, quarter-galleries and railings.

  And fresh black paint, grease and varnish for her guns. She had once been outfitted with ten six-pounders, in addition to those two monstrous mortars, but they were gone now. They had been replaced with ten twenty-four-pounder carronades, another sign of her recent civilian nature. The carronades were lighter to mount, only to
ok two men per gun to fight them (which required fewer paid hands) and their recoil was lighter. Most merchantmen were switching over to carronades for those reasons, and Captain Dover had swapped the original battery for them in Madras.

  Finally, four days after her purchase and refitting, with her new crew sorted out into a semblance of naval discipline, her holds, former magazines and shot-racks crammed with edibles and her mortar wells so crowded with livestock that she resembled the original Ark, they got under way.

  Chapter 5

  This ain't all claret and cruising," he sighed to himself on the sixteenth day of passage. Trying to take Culverin north was a thankless chore. With fore-and-aft sails hauled in close, square-sails furled, and flying all her stays'ls and jibs, she would point within 55 degrees of the apparent wind, a whole point of sail higher than a square-rigger. But she made so much leeway! For every two feet gained forward, it seemed she slipped 1 foot sideways.

  So for a course of roughly nor'west, she had to make a long board on the starboard tack to make progress, then come about and do a short board on the port tack headed almost due east to correct her drift. If not, they'd have ended up somewhere in the Gulf of Siam!

  And, for a vessel with such a wide beam compared to her hull length, she obstinately refused to put her shoulder to the sea on either tack, never heeling over more than 15 degrees or so like a proper ship with more-rounded chines.

  "You say something, sir?" Hogue asked, turning his head.

  "I said, it's not all claret and cruising, Mister Hogue," Lewrie repeated, louder this time.

  "Well, sir, it is to me," Hogue smiled, still be-dazzled by his sudden advancement to part-sailing master, part-lieutenant. "For myself this couldn't be a better day. We're roaring along like a whale!"