CHAPTER SEVEN

Whether HMS Reliant had received sailing orders or not, all the business of provisioning and victualling for sea was continual. Spare spars and replacement sails, huge bolts of cloth from which to fashion or repair the existing ones; livestock for fresh meat issue in harbour, and for the first week or so on passage… Captain Alan Lewrie was in sanguine takings that only a day or two more to take aboard last-minute items, and he could take his frigate to sea just as soon as the winter winds swung round to a favourable quarter. Then…

“Currant jam, of course, sir?” his cook, Yeovill, suggested as he went down a long list of “necessities” to be purchased for Lewrie’s comfort from a chandlery.

“I’ve developed a taste for raspberry,” Lewrie mused aloud with a grin. “Those tarts and popovers o’ yours? Dried currants and raisins for duffs, aye, but…”

“Midshipman Houghton… SAH!” the Marine sentry shouted, with a crash of his musket butt and his boots on the deck planking, beyond.

“Enter,” Lewrie bade.

“Good morning, sir!” Midshipman Houghton said, right cheerily, as he stood before Lewrie’s desk in the day-cabin, hat under his arm, and all but rocking on the balls of his feet. “I fear I must depart the ship, sir. My Lieutenancy’s come through.”

“Good God!” Lewrie gawped. “Well, congratulatons, of course.”

When Lewrie had fitted Reliant out for sea in May of 1803, when the war with imperial, Napoleonic France had broken out again, Midshipman Houghton had been his senior and most experienced at twenty-one, and had already faced one board of harsh Post-Captains’ grilling for promotion. Houghton was very competent, in a stolidly quiet way, but not the sharpest nail in the keg; he’d always struck Lewrie as rather dull. Whilst Reliant had been at Sheerness the previous Spring, he’d finally become a Passed Midshipman, but no immediate commission. The secret nature of their work with catamaran torpedoes that Summer might have been the factor.

“Where are ye bound, and how soon, Mister Houghton?”

“I’m to be Fifth Officer aboard the Victorious, a Third Rate, sir, just in with a Spanish prize sloop, and her First was promoted to Commander, so there’s an opening, and, well… my uncle’s one of the civilians on the Board of Admiralty, so…”

I’d known that, I’d’ve cultivated the fart a lot hotter! Lewrie told himself.

“Immediate, is it? Well, if you must,” Lewrie said, rising to shake Houghton’s hand and offer him a parting “stirrup cup” of brandy, though pondering how he’d fill Houghton’s experienced but dull shoes. Could he advance one of the Master’s Mates? Eldridge and Nightingale were in their mid-to-late twenties, and were good at their trade, but… might he be able to cultivate a little “interest” from stuffy old Admiral Lord Gardner, Port Admiral of Portsmouth, or from Admiral the Honourable Cornwallis, head of Channel Fleet, of which Reliant was yet a part ’til sailing?

“Sorry to place you a fellow short, sir, but…” Houghton said.

“Oh, tosh!” Lewrie quickly assured him. “That’s the Navy’s way. Never can be sure of anything, one year to the next. And, when a man gets a shot at promotion, he’d be a fool t’turn it down outta sentiment. We’ll send you off in my gig, with my boat crew, to make a good show for your new captain. A brandy with you, Lieutenant Houghton?”

“Ehm… thank you most kindly for the offer, sir, but, I’d not wish to report myself aboard my new ship with spirits on my breath, if you see my point, sir?” Houghton hedged.

“Coffee, then, t’warm yer long row,” Lewrie decided. “Pettus, a coffee for Lieutnenant Houghton, and a top-up for me,” he bade his cabin steward.

“Accepted most gladly, sir,” Houghton brightened. “And might I say that the last two years aboard Reliant have not only been most instructive, but… delightfully exciting, Captain Lewrie, sir. I shall consider serving under you one of the…”

“Hoy, ‘ware…!” came a shout from on deck, followed by a loud series of thuds and bangs, as if a large sack of potatoes had slipped from someone’s grasp and was tumbling down a steep ladderway.

“Oh, ow! Gottverdamt! ” came a painful howl, and then a curse or two. “ Sheisse, meine arm, meine beins! Sheisse!”

“Mister Rahl!” Lewrie said. There were very few “Dutchies” in Reliant ’s company, and the raspy voice of the Master Gunner, Mister Johan Rahl, was easily recognised by one and all.

“Passing word for Mister Mainwaring!” a muffled shout demanded from the gun-deck, forward and below.

“Let’s go,” Lewrie urged, dashing for the forward door.

Master Gunner Johan Rahl had fallen down the main companionway hatch, and lay sprawled on his back, grimacing and growling bear-like to keep from howling in pain, and un-manning himself before his shipmates. Even as Lewrie knelt beside him, the Ship’s Surgeon, Richard Mainwaring, arrived with his kit-bag, closely followed by several loblolly boys from the forward sickbay, with a carrying board.

“What happened, Mister Rahl?” Mainwaring asked.

“I trip unt fall… down der fockin’ verdamnt ladder, arrhh! ” Rahl shot back, his long and stiff-waxed grey mustachios wriggling. “ Heilige sheisse, but it hurts!”

“A tot o’ neat rum for Mister Rahl, smartly there!” Lewrie ordered. “Stand back and give the Surgeon room t’work, lads.”

I’d take a tumble for a tot,” Patrick Furfy whispered to his mate, Liam Desmond, Lewrie’s Cox’n.

“Oh, hesh yerself,” Desmond hissed back. “Is it bad, sor?”

Lewrie shrugged his answer, looking into Mainwaring’s face as he glanced up from his work.

“It seems you’ve broken your left arm, Mister Rahl,” Mainwaring said at long last. “It seems a clean break, and it’s good odds that it will heal, but your legs… hmm. The right one feels like a clean break, as well, but the left…”

“You cut it off, sir?” Rahl asked, almost incredulous. “I vill not be der ein-legged cook, nein!”

“We must get you to the sickbay, up forward,” Mainwaring said. “That’ll be easier on you than being strapped down and bumped down to the orlop cockpit. More light and air, up forward, too. Get Mister Rahl onto the carrying board, you lads. Easy, now! Don’t jostle him too much.”

“Der doctor heff to take meine leg, Captain Lewrie, do not make me a cook,” Rahl insisted, rasping, gasping, and spitting his words as the loblolly boys gently shifted the carrying board under him, causing him sheer agony.

“I swear I won’t, Mister Rahl,” Lewrie told him, shaking his hand for a moment. “Served with ye before, and I never saw a sign ye could even toast bread.”

Ja, d’ose were gut times, sir,” Rahl replied. “ Sheisse, you are trying to kill me, you bastards?”

“Slowly and gently, there!” Mainwaring snapped, before his hands started the carrying board down the length of the gun-deck, between the mess-tables, stools, and sea-chests, and the horde of curious onlookers.

“Desmond, Mister Houghton’ll need a boat so he can report aboard his new ship,” Lewrie told his Cox’n. “Best turn-out, and see him to the Victorious in my gig.”

“Arrah, you’re a Commission Officer now, Mister Houghton?” Liam Desmond exclaimed.

“He is,” Lewrie assured him, and the rest of the nearby people.

“Huzzah fer Mister Houghton!” a sailor cried, raising a cheer from the rest.

“When you’re ready to debark, Mister Houghton, pray do inform me, and we’ll see you off, proper,” Lewrie promised.

“Thank you, sir. Well, I should go pack my traps,” Houghton said.

“Can I have your second-best silk shirt?” Midshipman Warburton, one of Reliant ’s cheekiest, asked tongue-in-cheek, razzing him.

“Uhm, pass word for the Gunner’s Mate, there,” Lewrie said. “I will be in my cabins.”


* * *

“Acres, you’re now Master Gunner,” Lewrie told that worthy when he reported to him.

“Thankee, sir. Though ’tis not the way I’d o’ liked t’get it,” the burly Gunner’s Mate replied, fidgetting with the wide brim of his hat that he held before him. “Poor old Rahl. Th’ Surgeon think it’s bad for ’im, sir?”

“No word, yet, Mister Acres,” Lewrie said, shrugging his lack of information. “His left leg looked damned bad, though. Old Rahl, well… Lord, he was ‘old’ Rahl when we served together, years ago.”

“An’ stiff’z th’ guards at Saint James’s Palace, sir,” Acres said, chuckling. “Or one o’ those Prussian grenadiers, where he came from, in the Kaiser’s artillery.”

“Does Kemp look likely to take your place?” Lewrie enquired. The current Yeoman of the Powder was fairly young in his position, up from a gun-captain of short service before Reliant commissioned.

“Well, sir, I’d prefer Thorn, the senior Quarter-Gunner. He’s older and more experienced,” Acres said. “Shift Kemp t’be a Quarter-Gunner, and bring a good gun-captain on as Powder Yeoman.”

“Your choice, then,” Lewrie allowed, “and we’ll see how they work out. Congratulations, Mister Acres.”

“Thankee, sir, and I’ll see ye right when it comes to gunnery.”


* * *

Half an hour later, and it was the Sailing Master, Mr. Caldwell, who stood before Lewrie’s desk, to settle who might be promoted into Midshipman Houghton’s position.

“Are either of your Master’s Mates promotable, or should I send ashore to the Port Admiral, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie began. “Sit, and have some coffee, do, sir.”

“Thank you, sir,” Caldwell said in his usually cautious manner, even giving the collapsible leather-covered chair a good looking-over before entrusting himself to it. “I expect either of them would leap at the chance to be made a Midshipman, but… ah, thank you, Pettus. Very good coffee, I must say,” he said to the cabin steward after one taste. “Nightingale’s a tarry ‘tarpaulin man’, a bit rough about the edges, but he’s been in the Navy eight years, off and on, and he can hand, reef, and steer, and can lay a course as good as any. Ehm… there is the problem that he’s not what you’d call… gentlemanly. He came out of the fisheries, and that life’s coarser and rougher than where most Mids come from.”

“You think he might not fit in?” Lewrie asked, frowning. With Houghton all but gone, he had Mr. Entwhistle, now twenty, the “Honourable” Mr. Entwhistle, as the oldest and most experienced, a lad to the manor born. There was Mr. Warburton, now eighteen, Grainger, who was now seventeen or so, then Munsell and Rossyngton, both about fifteen. All, like most Mids, were from the landed gentry, the “squirearchy”. He could not see any of them turning top-lofty to a much older, rougher John New-come, but…

“There’s that, sir,” Caldwell said with a nod. “Now, Eldridge. He’s younger and quicker, and just as experienced as Nightingale, and I have noted that he might be a bit more aspiring, though he’s never mentioned becoming a Midshipman. Eldridge comes from Bristol, son of a ship chandler, so I expect he was raised better off than most before he volunteered, back in ’98. Better-mannered?” Mr. Caldwell added with a shrug. “Eldridge’s family could send him the funds he’d need for new kit, whilst Nightingale might have to go deep in debt to cover the expense.”

“And, which’d be more jealous of the other, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie posed to the Sailing Master, with one brow up. “It don’t signify to me as to which is more polished, and if it does in the Mids’ cockpit, then there’ll be some boys at the mast-head, but… I’d not cause you and your department too much aggravation. If promoting one and passing over the other won’t serve, then I might as well send for a ‘younker’ from the Port Admiral, and take whichever Tom-Fool they have on the shelf, some ten-year-old ninny-pate.”

“Uhm… perhaps it’d be best did I ask them, sir,” Caldwell suggested, shifting his bulk in the chair, and crossing one leg over the other. “Sound them out on their ambitions?”

“We don’t have long, Mister Caldwell,” Lewrie pointed out. “A sudden shift of wind, and we’ll have to be off, instanter.”

Crash-bang! from the Marine sentry beyond the door.

“First Orf’cer, Mister Westcott… SAH!” Stamp-Bang!

“Enter,” Lewrie shouted back.

“Good morning, sir, Mister Caldwell,” Lt. Geoffrey Westcott said once he’d entered the great-cabins. “I’ve spoken to the Surgeon, sir, about Rahl, and it don’t look promising.” There had been but one brief flash of his teeth in greeting before Westcott’s dark-tanned and hatchet face went glummer. “Mister Mainwaring had to take off Rahl’s left leg, above the knee. He’s made it through the surgery, and he’s resting quietly, but… he needs to be gotten ashore to the naval hospital as soon as he’s able to be moved.”

“Christ, that bad?” Lewrie grimaced. “I saw how the bone was snapped, and stickin’ through his skin, but…”

“Evidently, sir, his arm and right leg were clean breaks, and didn’t jut out, but the left was not only broken, but his knee joint was so badly wrenched that it couldn’t be saved. Like a mangled turkey leg.”

“Damn,” Lewrie said with a long sigh, drumming his fingers on his desk. “Pardon my manners, Mister Westcott. Take a pew and have a coffee t’warm ye. Faulkes?” he called to his clerk and writer. “Do up a Discharge form for Mister Rahl, and a petition for him to be sent to the Pensioners’ Home at Greenwich Hospital. See the Purser to get his pay and debts cleared, would you?”

“Of course, sir. Poor old fellow,” James Faulkes sadly agreed.

“He pleaded that I’d not make him a cook,” Lewrie mused. “Now, at the least he’ll have a good retirement, in sight of Deptford Dockyard and traffic on the river.”

“With no kin that I ever heard tell of, sir, I suppose that’d be the best he could expect,” Lt. Westcott agreed. “And the best we can do for the old fellow.”

“There’ll be dozens of old gunners to trade yarns with, aye,” Caldwell chimed in. “He’ll not be slung onto the beach to starve and beg on the streets. And get his rum issue ’til Eternity.”

“Word has it were losing Mister Houghton, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked after Pettus had gotten him his coffee, with sugar and sweeter goat’s milk, the way he liked it. “Good for him.”

“Aye, we were just debating who’d take his place, Nightingale or Eldridge, or should I request some Admiral’s favourite idiot, hah!” Lewrie informed him with a sour bark of humour.

“Well, there’s your son over in Aeneas, sir,” Westcott said. “Your friend Captain Rodgers would surely oblige you.”

“Uhmm, perhaps not,” Lewrie said, making a gruesome face. “I’ve seen that before, and I never cared for it, no matter it’s so common in the Fleet. Cater-cousins, sons and nephews? Hell, the Cockerel frigate was the worst. Half the ship’s company was named Braxton! One could not dote, sooner or later, and make the rest of the Mids grit their teeth. Sewallis is best off where he is, among familiar faces, and on his own bottom, without me lookin’ over his shoulder.”

I’d scare what little he’s learned clear outta his head, did I haul him aboard! Lewrie told himself; Fragile as I still think he is, that’d be the ruin of him. And, he’d not thank me, and end up resentin’ it!

Lewrie busied himself with creaming and sweetening a fresh cup of coffee, to cover his dread that what really motivated him was fear that he would witness Sewallis should he fail!

“Suggestions, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked. “Nightingale, Eldridge, or a sprat?”

“Well, sir… I’d go with Eldridge,” the First Lieutenant said. “I’ve stood so many watches with both that one can’t help but natter, here and there. Nightingale’s ambition is to become Sailing Master, someday, he’s told me. Mister Eldridge joined as a Landsman, but he’s shot up like a rocket… Ordinary, then Able, Quartermaster’s Mate to Quartermaster, and now a Master’s Mate. And, he’s still young enough to hope for a Sea Officer’s commission. Nightingale’s married, with a child, and promoting him would most-like sling him into debtor’s prison. Midshipman’s pay’s not much improvement on what he earns, now… the cost of uniforms and such’d do him right in, sir.”

“And, he’d not be the one t’pick his nose at table, or use the wrong fork?” Lewrie joshed.

“God, they all do that, sir!” Westcott laughed out loud. “Mids have the manners of so many pigs.”

“Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie asked. “Sound right to you?”

“Aye, sir,” the Sailing Master slowly intoned, nodding solemnly. “I’ll advance Quartermaster Hook to Eldridge’s place, if I may…”

“Good man, he was aboard Thermopylae with me,” Lewrie said.

“Then move Malin up as a Quartermaster, and ask about for one who wishes to strike for Quartermaster’s Mate, sir,” Caldwell agreed.

Crash-bang! “Midshipman Munsell, SAH!” Slam-crash!

“Enter,” Lewrie bade. “Busy as a tavern door today, ain’t it?”

“Beg pardon, sir, but Mister Houghton is ready to depart, and the Surgeon sends his duty, and a request for a boat to bear Mister Rahl ashore to hospital, as well,” young Munsell reported.

“My hat and sword, Pettus,” Lewrie asked. “Let’s give both of ’em a proper send-off. If you gentlemen will join me?”


* * *

“All Hands” was piped to summon the ship’s company on deck to see Houghton off, with three cheers raised. A bit of a dullard that Houghton was, he was recognised by all as a competent officer-to-be, and a “firm but fair” disciplinarian who’d treated everyone the same.

The Marines turned out with the side-party to render honours, the bosuns’ pipes blew, and Houghton’s fellow Mids and the officers shook hands with him and wished him well.

“Make us proud o’ bein’ a Reliant, Lieutenant,” Lewrie urged.

“Thank you for everything, again, sir, and I shall!” Houghton vowed before doffing his hat at the entry-port, and beginning to make a careful way down the boarding-battens to the waiting gig, where the boat crew were turned out in Sunday Divisions best.

A few moments later, though, and it was a much sombrer send-off for Gunner Johan Rahl. Strapped to a carrying board, and swaddled in blankets, he came up from the forward companionway hatch, rolling his head with his eyes half-glazed from doses of laudanum to smother his pain. The ship’s people parted to let the loblolly boys through, and many reached out to give him goodbye pats and reassurances, though he was all but oblivious. “Take care, mate!” and “Bye, ye old son of a gun!” and “Get well an’ back on yer pins soon!” were called out.

“Greenwich ’Ospital’z good’z Fiddler’s Green, Mister Rahl. Ale an’ rum, they flow like warter, an’ niver a reckonin’!” one hopeful older hand assured him. “Music an’ fetchin’ girls visitin’ round th’ clock, they say, ye lucky ol’ devil!”

It wasn’t the entry-port for Rahl, though. Bosun Sprague had rigged a lift for the four handles of the carrying board, The main-mast course yardarm was fitted for hoisting out, with hands standing by at braces and clews to raise him up and out-board of the starboard gangway bulwarks, then down into a waiting cutter. Rahl’s battered old sea-chest, has hammock, rolled up into a fat sausage with all of his bedding and spare clothing, and a pale grey sea-bag sat amidships to be lowered down, too… meagre as it was, that represented everything that Rahl had amassed in decades of spartan Navy life.

“I’ve his Discharge papers, and pay chits, sir,” Mainwaring told Lewrie, who had come down from the gangway to shake Rahl’s hand one last time. “I’ll see him ashore, myself, if that’s alright?”

“Perfectly fine, Mister Mainwaring,” Lewrie agreed. “Will he… make it through?” he asked the Surgeon in a softer voice.

“Touch and go, sir, touch and go,” Mainwaring said with a sigh. “He’s old, but he’s a tough old bird. Assuming he gets good care and sepsis does not set in, he stands a decent chance of surviving, but at his age, what life would be like, well…” he wondered, shrugging.

“Hoist away, handsomely,” Bosun Sprague ordered, and the course yard began to tip upwards, bearing Rahl aloft.

“Don’t let your fellow pensioners talk you into cookin’ for ’em, Mister Rahl!” Lewrie shouted to the departing burden. “Three cheers, lads. See your shipmate off with a cheer!”

Bosun’s Mate Wheeler began a long call on his pipe; the Marine boy-drummer rattled the Long Roll, and a fiddler and fifer began a gay tune, “The Bowld Soldier Boy”, the air that was played aboard Reliant when the rum keg was fetched on deck, that usually brought joy.

“Sway out, easy!” Bosun Sprague directed, and Rahl’s sling-load slowly swung out-board, above the starboard gangway bulwarks. “Aft a bit… ’vast hauling!” as Rahl hung above the open entry-port.

Just before Sprague ordered the yardarm to dip, the last that Rahl’s shipmates saw of him was his right hand feebly raised above his blankets, giving them all a goodbye wave and a “thumbs-up”.

“Bit more… a bit more,” Midshipman Entwhistle called, standing in the open entry-port, looking down into the waiting cutter. “A foot of slack, there.”

“We have him!” Midshipman Warburton, in charge of the cutter, reported. “Carrying board’s secure, and the lines are free.”

The cheers and the happy tune faded away as the Surgeon left the ship to descend to the cutter, and his patient, with only the customary honours.

“Ship’s comp’ny, on hats, and dismiss,” Lt. Westcott ordered, and the men fell silent, drifting off in threes and fours, or idling on deck despite the cold in eight-man messes, gun-crews, or mast-tender groups. Mostly looking very glum.

“Rather a lot of change, of a sudden, sir,” Westcott muttered as he and Lewrie mounted to the quarterdeck together. “Perhaps too much for them, in one morning.”

“Promotion, departure, people discharged,” Lewrie mused aloud. “Happens all the time in the Navy. At least six of the people gettin’ promoted, and more pay. I should think there’ll be some celebrations, by supper this evening.”

“Might I suggest talking to them before supper, sir,” Westcott said, leaning close. “And ‘splice the main-brace’ to give them cause to celebrate? The people brood on it, and they might take this morning as a bad omen, right before the start of a winter sailing.”

“A bad omen, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked, frowning heavily. “D’ye really think so?”

“They already know we’ve sailing orders, sir,” Westcott went on, standing close with his hands in the small of his back. “And it’s sure to be a stormy passage. That’s gloom-making enough, but now…”

“It ain’t like the ship’s rats’re leapin’ overboard,” Lewrie said back, with a disparaging laugh, but then thought better of that.

They could take it as a bad omen, he realised; and damme if I ain’t feelin’ a bit fey, myself! Now where’s a good-luck seal that I can whistle up?

“Hmmm… you may be right, Mister Westcott,” he told the First Lieutenant. “Aye, we will ‘splice the main-brace’ at the second rum issue, and see that the people get fresh roast meat, and a figgy-dowdy for supper… damned near a Christmas feast. I’ll speak to the cook, and see to the arrangements.”

“So they can congratulate the newly promoted, and see the upset as an opportunity, aye, sir!” Westcott said, baring his teeth in one of his nigh-savage characteristic grins.

“Just so long as the officers don’t mind making some minor contributions to said feast, hey, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie japed. “Can’t be expected t’foot the bill all by myself. Hmm?”

Westcott looked close to a shiver; whether it was the wintery wind that caused it, or the loss of nearly a pound from his purse in pursuit of his aim. “ Touche, sir.”

Touche, Hell, Mister Westcott, I barely grazed ye!” Lewrie said with a satisfied smirk.

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