King, Ship, and Sword

CHAPTER FIVE

De-commissioning a warship demanded stacks of paperwork worthy of the weight of an 18-pounder gun; reams of it from the Victualling Board as they took possession of all consumable stores, butts, kegs, and tuns of salt-beef or salt-pork, of hard ship's biscuit, weevilly or otherwise, spoiled or fresh. Salt-meat marked "Condemned" as too rancid to be eaten would, Lewrie was mortal-certain, be dumped into new kegs, to be foisted on some unwitting captain in the future. Their motto at the Victualling Board was "Waste not, want not."

Spare upper masts and yards were sent ashore to the warehouses first, then sails and cordage, and all bosuns' stores and lumber. The frigate was stripped down to her fighting tops and main, lower trunks of her masts, "to a gant-line." The magazine was carefully emptied of kegs of gunpowder, pre-made flannel cartridge bags already filled, and bales of empty bags, all meticulously indented for and counted.

Next went the artillery, the 18-pounder main guns, the lighter 12-pounder bow chasers, the 32-pounder carronades, and the quarterdeck 9-pounders, along with their truck-carriages, gun-tools, flintlock strikers, and all breeching ropes and handling tackle blocks. Heavy barges from Gun Wharf spent two days rowing back and forth to bear all the guns away, leaving Thermopylae high in the water, and her weather decks, the foc's'le, the quarterdeck, and Lewrie's great-cabins yawningly bare and empty.

By the end of the first week of December, there was no more need of crew, for there was nothing left to remove with muscle power, and no reason to keep her manned. Clerks and paymasters from the Port Admiral came out to muster the hands to issue them their pay chits. That required another chestful of paperwork, for every sailor owed the Navy something, right from the moment he'd been pressed or had taken the Joining Bounty. Deductions had been carefully kept by the Purser, Mr. Herbert Pridemore, and his Jack-in-the-Breadroom clerk of every quid of tobacco issued, each wool jacket, blanket, each pair of shoes and stockings, each broken plate or mug, each worn-out shirt or pair of trousers. The Surgeon, Mr. Harward, offered his own list of treatments beyond the usual; a dubious Mercury Cure for venereal disease was fifteen shillings, to be deducted when the rare chance for pay to be issued occurred. Surgeon Mr. Harward and the Purser had their own accounts to square, for though they might hold Admiralty Warrant, they could be considered as independent contractors, to be reimbursed for goods, medicines, or services expended; were they not allowed a profit, it would be almost impossible to lure anyone to the posts!

As Thermopylae's captain, Lewrie was held to the most acute accounting, with reams of forms to be filled out and Admiralty satisfied that each item marked as Lost or Broken, each cable of rope rigging used up, each sail blown out or torn in heavy weather, each back-stay shifted since the moment he'd read himself in-all tallied with what he'd received and what remained to be landed ashore at the instant of his frigate's decommissioning, at the instant of his surrender of command, with penalties deducted from his own pay owing if he had been remiss.

The weather was cold, there was a faint swirl of snow falling, so the mustering-out was held below on the gun-deck. Each man came forward as his name was called; there was much hemming and ahumming 'twixt the Purser, the Surgeon, and the shore clerks, before a chit was filled out and a final sum announced, carefully noting whether a sailor had dependents to whom he'd authorised a deduction already for their support whilst he was away at sea.

"They'll be cheated, of course, poor devils," a senior clerk from the Port Admiral's offices muttered to Lewrie as they watched the proceedings from the door to the officers' gun-room.

"The Chatham Chest, deductions for Widows' Men… the jobbers," Lewrie sombrely agreed.

"Most of them will never see the Councillor of the Cheque, but will sell off their chits for half their value to the first jobber they meet," the senior clerk said with a sniff of disdain for the practice.

Selling them off was cheaper and more convenient than travelling to London for the whole sum owing; a wad of paper fiat money and a hefty handful of real, now-rare solid coin was simply too tempting to a tar who hadn't seen money-real money!-since his ship had set sail years before, even if was but a pittance of what a man earned.

"Aye, and they'll drink up half o' that the first ev'nin'," Lewrie added. "Find a whore and a tavern… and end up 'crimped' on a merchantman. Only trade most of'em know, really… the sea."

"Aye, poor fellows," the senior clerk said with a grave, sad nod and another sniff. "Though," he added with a wry grin, "if the war begins again, they'll be much easier to find, and press back into the Fleet, hmm?"

"Uhm, Captain Lewrie, sir," a fubsy official from the dockside warehouses interrupted. "Your pardon, gentlemen, do I intrude upon a conversation, but… I do not see these iron stoves listed as naval property, and I must have a proper accounting of everything aboard."

"They aren't Navy issue, sir," Lewrie informed him. "Captain Speaks, whom I relieved when he fell ill, had purchased them for the crew's comfort for service in the North Sea winters."

"Most charitable and considerate of him, I vow, sir, but… I cannot accept them into Admiralty possession, these two… "

"There are four, actually," Lewrie further informed him. "One in the gun-room here, and one in my cabins as well. Mostly to keep his pet parrot from freezin' t' death, I imagine."

"Four, sir? Four? My word, he was profligate!" the fubsy old fellow vowed, scratching his scalp under his wig with a pencil stub. "And the coal, well! Why, there must be at least two hundredweight bagged up, to boot. What am I to do with it all, sir?"

"Leave 'em for the Standing Officers," Lewrie hopefully suggested, "t'see 'em through the winter?"

Once Thermopylae was officially de-commissioned, Mr. Pridemore the Purser; Mr. Dimmock, the Bosun; Lumsden, the Ship's Carpenter; the Master Gunner, Mr. Tunstall; and the Ship's Cook, Sauder, would watch over her in the Sheerness Ordinary, along with a small crew of other ship-keepers to manage her maintenance, paid by the dockyard at their full pay-rate for as long as their frigate sat at anchor, for as long as Admiralty deemed her valuable enough to keep in reserve. Wives and children would accompany them, of course. Unless those worthies asked for transfer to a new construction, wangled an exchange with another ship-keeper in a Navy port more desirable to them, or outright retired from service, they had full employment 'til Thermopylae rotted away or was stricken and sent to the breakers. Indeed, they'd been assigned to Thermopylae even as she had been constructed on the stocks, and were "hers" for the ship's entire life.

"Quite impossible, Captain Lewrie," the dockyard official pooh-poohed, "for, without a regular issue of coal with which to stoke them… absent the kindling and firewood issued for the galley… they're useless, and His Majesty's Dockyards are not responsible for the cost."

"Stow 'em on the orlop, then, and let the next captain sort it out," Lewrie replied, sensing that there was bad news coming.

"Franklin-pattern iron stoves are not carried on our books as naval property, sir, and must be removed ashore," the official pressed. "If, as you say, the former captain purchased them at his own expense, then they remain his property, and should quite properly be sent on to him, wherever he may be."

Oh, good God! Lewrie thought, wondering how much that'd cost, for he had no idea whether Captain Speaks had survived his pneumonia, or where he resided if he had. Lands' End, John O' Groats? Lewrie speculated, worrying what the carting fee would be for four heavy metal stoves all that way. His own carting charges would be steep enough, to bear away all his furniture, wine and spirits remaining, his tableware, chests, and boxes… and, there were all the luxury goods, the dainties that those Russian counts, Rybakov and Levotchkin, had left aboard when he'd landed them close to St. Petersburg. They'd bought as if preparing for a six-month voyage to China on an Indiaman, not a two-week dash up the Baltic, and Devil take the cost, to boot. There were two-gallon stone crocks, five-gallon wooden barricoes, and costly cased bottles of vintage wines and champagnes, crocks of caviar, bags of coffee beans, cocoa beans, and assorted caddied tea leaves by the ten-pound lot,… along with lashings of vodka and gin, of course; so much that he might clear a nice profit in selling most of it off once he got to London. Why, the brandies, the rarely seen, expensive liqueurs could fetch a-

"Shall we say, for now, sir, that the stoves are of a piece with your personal stores, and will be removed when yours are landed, sir?" the rotund older fellow decided for them with an oily little smile.

"Just damn my eyes," Lewrie muttered, but had to nod an assent. Were the stoves still aboard a week from now, after his own departure, there'd be Hell to pay, and a full two years' worth of angry letters flying back and forth 'til someone claimed them.

"Most satisfactory, sir!" The dockyard official beamed.

"I'll be in my cabins," Lewrie announced. "I leave it to you, sirs, to continue the mustering-out. Pray inform me when you're done, and I'll say a few last words. The boats will be alongside by…?"

"By Two Bells of the Day Watch, sir," the Port Admiral's senior clerk assured him.

"A final 'Clear Decks and Up-Spirits,'" Lewrie decided. "Later than usual, but… later, gentlemen," Lewrie decided, meaning a last issue of rum, full measure for all with no "sippers or gulpers," given to his crew to "splice the main-brace" just one last time.