King, Ship, and Sword

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Six days out from Cape Franзois, and the weather relented. The squadron cleared the Florida Straits and entered the Gulf of Mexico at last, with the Dry Tortugas a bit over the horizon on their starboard beams. Drill on the great-guns and small-arms practice resumed on all ships, All sails that could be bared to the winds bloomed aloft again, including stuns'ls; with them came laundry, damp and mildewed changes of slop-clothing, and bedding. While it had rained so hard, canvas sluices had thriftily been rigged, and some of the deluge had been funnelled into spare butts that the Cooper and his Mate had assembled from hoops and staves stored on the orlop, the first depleted casks and butts of the voyage hoisted out, scrubbed, and rinsed, then re-filled with fresh water and stored below once more. There was so much spare water, for once, that every hand could wash his slops "shore-fashion" instead of soaping the worst smuts, then towing them astern in net bags, hoping the churning ship's wake would get them mostly clean. That method engrained salt crystals in the cloth, and when worn, resulted in ugly salt-water boils which the Ship's Surgeon and his Mates spent time lancing and daubing with ointment… the cost of such services deducted from the sailors' pay, the same as a "mercury cure" for the venereal Pox.

Modeste signalled for live-fire exercises on the great-guns at least once a day, demanding three rounds from each gun every two minutes, and God help the ship, and the captain, and the signals party of any ship that did not meet his standards! Captain Blanding would not veer from his urgent chase to the West-Nor'west long enough to set out old kegs for targets, then double back to fire at them in passing in-line-ahead. The rate of fire was paramount, not the proper elevating or aiming, to his mind; after all, would he not bring the French right up to close-broadsides, where proper aim did not matter?

"Fair enough, Mister Rahl," Lewrie congratulated the grizzled older Prussian. Their Master Gunner had suggested that they shift the guns as far forward in the ports as they could, fire a round from one of the forecastle chase guns, then let the individual gun-captains aim at the shot-splash as they sailed past it, and it seemed that most of the crews of the all-important 18-pounders were catching on quickly. "One more from the starboard chase gun, and we'll see how close they come with a full broadside before we cease for the morning."

"Sehr gut, Kapitдn! Sofort!" Mr. Rahl barked, standing at the base of the starboard companionway to the waist, so stiffly at attention that he resembled one of Kaiser Friedrich the Great's grenadiers. "Ja, very gut, sir, at once!" he amended before turning to speak to Lt. Spendlove and Lt. Merriman, relaying Lewrie's orders.

"Quite the odd duck, sir," Lt. Westcott commented. "Once a soldier, forever a soldier. Crash-bang, about turn, hep hep!"

"Damned good gunner, though," Lewrie replied. "Though I don't know what he'd do if he ever ran out of wax for his mustachios. Go mad, I expect." He pulled out his pocket-watch to check the time; it lacked a quarter-hour to Seven Bells of the Forenoon, and the morning rum ration. "Last broadside, then Secure from Quarters. Can't delay the grog!"

"Aye, sir," Westcott said with a grin. "And may I say that I envy you your chair, sir?" he added tongue in cheek. "I must admit I own to a certain wish to sit through part of a watch, whether the Navy approves or not."

"Sprawl, rather, Mister Westcott," Lewrie corrected him. "Even snooze! I already stand accused o' bein' an idle, improper bastard, and freely confess to the charges. In my last days in the West Indies, I was even known to sprawl and tootle on my penny-whistle." The Carpenter, Mr. Mallard, and his Mate, Swift, had cobbled together a canvas-and-wood collapsible sling-chair to his directions, and it was now almost a permanent fixture on the windward side of the quarterdeck, the weather permitting. "We both know that half the captains in the Fleet are eccentric, so…," he said with a shrug and a pleased grin.

"Starb'd batt'ry… by broadside… fire!" Lt. Spendlove was shouting.

"Stop ears!" Lewrie warned. The gun-captains properly waited for the scend of the sea, the up-roll, before jerking their lanyards to trip the flintlock strikers. Then the guns exploded.

"Oh, well shot!" Westcott enthused to see the tall feathers of spray rise all round the chase gun's first fading shell-splash, close enough to satisfy even Captain Blanding's standards. "Mister Merriman, Mister Spendlove! Sponge out and secure from Quarters!"

"Signal, sir… our number, and it's 'Well Done,' " Midshipman Warburton reported from the taffrail flag lockers. "And, 'Secure'… then 'Rum,' sir. Spelled out."

"How oddly terse of him!" Lewrie said with a laugh. "Must have too much on his mind."

"God help us, sir, when he does have so much on his mind, he'll signal it to one and all!" Westcott snickered. "'Flag Flux.'"

Lewrie had come to appreciate Lt. Westcott; not only was he an experienced and tarry-handed officer, he was a likeable one. Firm but fair was his manner in bringing Reliant to nigh-perfect competence, to present the frigate on a serving-plate to her captain as a going concern. Any crew appreciated a Commission Sea Officer who seemingly had eyes in the back of his head, his finger on the pulse of everything yet was not a Tartar or a soured tyrant. Westcott did almost all duties with long-practised ease and a quirky grin on his face, a brow cocked in perpetual amusement over the failings of humankind, and rarely had to rage or shout, except to call from the quarterdeck to someone halfway to the foe's'le to pass an order. Where other officers might yell and fume, a stern look from Westcott was sufficient to let his men know he was wroth with their performance. And Westcott rarely had to bring a defaulter to Lewrie for corporal punishment; he was not a flogger, but for the most extreme faults.

And his personality off-duty was slyly, wryly witty and worldly, causing Lewrie to imagine that they were kindred spirits, "two peas in a pod" rascals, with the same sort of tongue-in-cheek humour. Ballard, now dead and gone at Copenhagen, he'd mistakenly thought was a friend, but that had been a dutiful sham; Ralph Knolles in HMS Jester had been earnest, likeable, and immensely competent, but had never attempted to cross the line from subordinate to friend. Anthony Langlie had come as close to being a companionable confidant as any of his officers in the Proteus frigate. Then had come "Ed'rd" Urquhart in Savage; intensely sobre and determined, so new to the frigate and dumped into her long-serving officers, mates, and crew which had "turned over" from Proteus, entire, and they'd barely spent a year together before Lewrie had lost her to another, before his trial. Geoffrey Westcott was as close as Lewrie had come in his entire career at sea to finding someone he could un-bend with… or he thought he could. Lewrie liked him! It was risky to do, lest a friendship could be taken advantage of, detrimental to good order and discipline and the enforced separateness required of a captain; like favouring one of his offspring over another, it could lead to bad feelings in the wardroom.

"Permission t'pipe 'Clear Decks and Up Spirits,' sir?" Westcott asked as Seven Bells chimed from the forecastle belfry.

"Carry on, sir."

The guns were swabbed out, tompions replaced, muzzles washed, and the barrels and carriages bowsed below the port sills, the ports secured, and all gun-tools returned below. The Marine drummer began to beat, and the fifers launched into "The Bowld Soldier Boy," one of Lt. Sim-cock's particular favourites. The Purser, his clerk, and assistant, the Master-At-Arms Mr. Appleby, and the Ship's Corporals, Scammell and Keetch, escorted by Marine Sergeant Trickett and Corporals Mogridge and Brownlie, brought up the red-and-gilt painted rum keg, raising a chorus of Huzzahs and Hurrays from the waiting sailors.

I like that tune! Lewrie told himself; my father and I sang it once in Hyde Park… drunk as lords, most-like. Or well on the way to it. Where did I pack my penny-whistle?

He strolled about the quarterdeck as the ship's people queued up for their tots. Hands in the small of his back, he studied the sails and rigging for a way to wrench a bit more speed from her, where the winds stood off her starboard quarters, by craning up at the commissioning pendant. Looking ahead, then astern to the other ships, lined up with a mile between them. Hum-tootling the tune under his breath, and

… while up the street, each girl ye meet

will cry! Oh, isn't he a dar-uhl-lin'

my bowld soldier boy!

Mouthing the words, almost silently.

This won't do, Lewrie thought, suddenly losing his good mood. "Mister Warburton!" he called, heading aft. "A signal to Modeste… 'Submit,' then 'Form Line-Abreast.' After that, send 'Extend Hunt to Nor'west.' Take this down… 'Believe Chase Will Hug North Coast.'"

"Aye, sir," Midshipman Warburton said, scribbling it down with a pencil stub on a scrap of paper, then turning to his signalmen and the flag lockers.

Some of that only took one or two flags in the Popham Code, but the rest took a long time to spell out, letter by letter. It was nigh to Noon Sights before Modeste replied, and that was a laconic set of flags for "Acknowledged." After that, nothing.

And it was mid-afternoon, after Lewrie's mid-day meal, before Modeste sent up hoists, first a General for all ships, prefaced by one gun to get their attention.

"'Alter Course West-Nor'west, Half North,' sir," Midshipman Mr. Entwhistle spelled out.

At least he'll compromise, halfway between, Lewrie thought.

"Then, uhm…," Entwhistle continued, thumbing through his book to interpret the rest. "'Form Line-Abreast… Order of Sailing… Northernmost Number Three.'"

"Pylades" Lewrie said aloud.

"Number Two, that's us, sir… Number Four, then One. Distance Between Ships… Ten Miles Day… Five Miles Night," Entwhistle read off haltingly. "The Preparative is up, sir."

"Very well. Mister Westcott? All Hands! Ready to haul up to windward and form line-abreast," Lewrie ordered.

At the drop of the Preparative, Modeste surged on West-Nor'west while Cockerel wheeled off to her starboard side, and Reliant and Pylades swung onto a beam reach, bound Due North, headed for the horizon. Though it was hard on Captain Blanding to change his mind or take heed of a suggestion, Lewrie was learning, he wasn't entirely pig-headed.

Modeste could scan the seas out to twelve miles to larboard and ahead, and have Cockerel ten miles North of her, looking ahead another twelve miles, as would Reliant ten miles North of her; lastly, Pylades could see twelve miles ahead and to the North, making a scouting line that could search a swath of ocean fifty-four miles across during the daylight hours.

"Signal from Cockerel, sir… a repeat from Modeste. For all ships, all private numbers Midshipman Warburton puzzled out once they were ten miles North of Cockerel, and steady on West-Nor'west, Half North. "'Make All Sail Conformable With The Weather,' sir!"

"But of course he did!" Lewrie hooted. "I trust the ship is in your good hands, Mister Merriman?"

"Well, aye, sir!" the Third Officer answered, not knowing quite what to say to such a statement; or was it a question of his ability?

"Good," Lewrie said, plumping down into his sling-chair. "Wake me at the start of the First Dog. Here, laddies!" he beckoned, patting his chest to attract his cats, Toulon and Chalky, who had been sunning themselves atop the tarpaulin cover of the hammock nettings. Both got to their paws, stretched, yawned, then hopped down to swarm up his legs to his chest for a spell of "wubbies."

As soon as the cats tired of that, Lewrie actually pulled down his hat over his eyes, crossed his arms, sprawled out his legs, and gave the impression that he really had fallen into a nod.

Lt. Westcott came back to the quarterdeck after an hour or so of paper-shuffling and stopped dead at the top of the starboard companion-way ladder from the waist, cocking a brow at Lt. Merriman before going to join him.

"The captain seems in rare takings, sir," Merriman whispered to the First Officer, with a boyishly shy grin. "Higher spirits than he's been."

"Is he really napping?" Westcott wondered aloud. Sure enough, Lewrie's head was over to one side, his mouth slightly open, and there came a nasally sleep sound. "Good," Lt. Westcott decided. "It's been a year since the French… He's mourned enough. Dare I speak of it, mind."

"He's a ship to command, I expect that helps," Merriman opined. "And the chance for action… and revenge?"

"Back where he belongs, in familiar waters, to boot," Westcott added. "He might even be… happy. Better for us, to serve a happy captain, 'stead of a gloomer. Is that a word? Who cares?"