The King`s Commission

Chapter 5

Feeling nervous as a kit-fox who has just heard the hunter's horn, Alan Lewrie climbed through the entry port into Barfleur on the morning appointed for his ordeal. The waters in English Harbor had been swarming with boats trying to ply oars as midshipmen from all the vessels currently present had assembled to the summoning flag pendants, bearing their hopeful occupants.

He clutched his canvas-wrapped documents to his breast after he had saluted the side-party and the quarterdeck, feeling an urge to read through them once more to assure his twanging nerves that they were still all there, and that they still sang his praises as nicely as they had when he had first received them.

Treghues had penned a fulsome letter from his new command in Capricieuse. His aptly named capriciousness of mood had indeed turned full circle, and now Midshipman Lewrie had been one of his best junior warrants right from the start, more mature and quicker of mind than any young man he had ever met, etc.

Railsford had penned a neat little recommendation, not so laudatory as to stir disbelief; taut and nautical like the man himself. And, Alan still marveled, Kenyon had added recommendations of his own, with no mention of nagging worries that Lewrie might be a little wet behind the ears. Beyond the bare recitation of the deeds in which Alan had taken part and distinguished himself by his conduct and bravery, or his developing knowledge of sea lore, there was little real praise, but it did leave the impression that he was at least somewhat worthy of examination.

Lukewarm Kenyon's approval might be, but at least he did not disapprove, and Alan thought that Railsford had something to do with that. He might have had to press Kenyon for a favorable letter, but what could Kenyon do, Alan asked himself in a moment of smugness, refuse to recommend his new captain's favorite? Show displeasure with such a well thought of young fellow with so much promise?

There was also the possibility that Kenyon was hedging his bets, laying groundwork of his own so that when Alan failed the board and came back aboard with his tail between his legs, he could tell Railsford that he had told him so. And if Alan failed, would he lose enough of Railsford's approval that Kenyon could then begin to lay a stink upon him, carp at failures and bring him down until he caught him out and then proceeded to break him?

"There must be an hundred of us, I swear to God," a gangly midshipman commented at Alan's elbow. "And more coming all the time. Every fool with white collar tabs must think he has a chance, this board."

The speaker was in his twenties, and while all the others that Alan had seen were turned out in their best kit, this one was wearing a somewhat shabby coat, and his waist-coat and breeches were dingy. Was he poor as a traveling tinker, or did he just not care? Alan wondered.

"Let us hope most of them are abominably stupid," Alan said to be pleasant, still praying, as most of them did, that he would pass.

"This is my third board," the older midshipman confided with a breezy air. "But I'll pass this time. Think you I look salty enough?"

"Aye, salty's the word for you," Alan said with a raised eyebrow.

"They'll have a host of little angels in there today, all alike as two peas in a pod, scrubbed up so their own mothers wouldn't know 'em," the older lad reasoned. "But when they see a real tarry-handed younker, they'll just assume they've a prime candidate on their hands and go easy on me."

Alan wished the fellow would go away. He was trembling with anxiety, and all the guidance, set questions and trick posers he had been coached in had flown out of his head. He was sure if he did not have space to think for a while before they started examining people, his brains would leave him utterly. But he had to respond.

"I should think they would dig down for the most arcane stuff if you show too knowledgeable as soon as you enter the room," Alan said.

"God, don't say that," the young man snapped, losing a little of his swagger. "Besides, I know my stuff, you see if I don't."

"Then the best of luck to you." Alan bowed, wanting to be alone. The quarterdeck was swarming with midshipmen, all furrowing their brows as they re-read their texts once more, casting their hopeful faces skyward, reciting silently the hard questions they had drilled on as though at heartfelt prayer.

"Right, you lot," an officer shouted above the low din. "Now, who'll be first below?"

Not a soul moved, shocked by the suggestion of being the first sacrificial lamb to the slaughter.

"What a pack of cod's-heads," the officer grunted with a sour expression. "You lads to starboard, then. Lead off. You, the ginger-haired one, you're the bell-wether, whether you like it or not. They've had their breakfasts already, so they might be pleasant."

That started a parade toward the ladders into the captain's quarters on the upper gun deck, where clerks met them and took down their names and ships. All the furnishings from the outer cabins had been cleared, so they were forced to stand. Alan was about twentieth on the list; he had reasoned that the closer the examining board got to their mid-day meal, the less time they would want to spend asking damn-fool questions of damn-fool midshipmen, and might throw him two or three posers and then make up their minds quickly, allowing him a better chance to show well without being grilled like a steak.

Like a patient waiting for the surgeon to attend him, he took a place against an interior partition and forced himself to think of something pleasant. It was already too crowded and warm in the cabins, and there was almost no elbow room to dig into his snowy-white breeches for a pocket handkerchief to mop the slight sheen of sweat from his face.

"Git off my fuckin' shoes, damn yer blood."

"Who's on the board, then?"

"Captain of the Fleet, Napier off Resolution, Captain Cornwallis of Canada..."

"Oh, fuck me, he's a Tartar!"

"Box-hauling? What the hell do I know about box-hauling?"

Hands flurried to open texts at that strangled wail of despair.

Alan had considered bringing his own books with him, but after two days of cramming in every spare moment, he realized that he would either know the answers or he would not, and anything he read at the last second would melt away before he could recall it. So he did not have the diversion of reading to pass the time as the others did.

The first young aspirant, the ginger-haired boy of about seventeen who had been first below, went into the examining room, and everyone hushed and leaned closer to see if they could hear the proceedings through the deal partitions. Close as he was, Alan could only hear a dull rumble now and then. The boy was out in five minutes, shaking like a whipped puppy and soaked in sweat.

"It's box-hauling," he stammered, tearing at his stock as though he was strangling. "Fourteen steps of gun-drill, d… d… dis-masting in a whole gale… Lord, I don't know what else! They love lee shores!"

The next hopeful was in there for ten minutes, and he came out fanning himself with his hat, but wearing a smug expression, as though he had been informed that he had been passed. To their eager questions as to what had been required of him, he had another terrifying list of stumpers, which made all of them dive back into their texts, and Alan suddenly didn't feel so very confident any longer. He could cheerfully have killed one of the others for a book to review.

The board also upset his hopes; they went through a dozen young men in the first hour-and-a-quarter, and not two of them looked at all sanguine about their prospects when they emerged. Most were told they had failed, and to try again in another six months or so.

The older midshipman in the shabby coat went in, and he was out in three minutes, his eyes moist with humiliation at the quick drubbing he had received. Please God! Alan thought as a litany, Please!

"Midshipman Lewrie?" the clerk called from the open door at last. "Midshipman Alan Lewrie."

"Here," Alan heard himself manage to say through a suddenly dry throat.

"Then get in… here," the clerk simpered at his own jest.

Alan tugged down his waist-coat and shot his cuffs, played with his neck-stock and then strode to the open door as if he were walking on pillows in some fever-dream. He stepped through the door and past the partitions, and the door was closed behind him. He beheld a long dining table set athwartships, behind which were seated at least a dozen post-captains in their gold-laced coats, and every one of them looked grumpy as ill-fed badgers. There was a single chair before the table as though it was a court-martial, and Alan almost stumbled over it as he took a stance before it.

"Well?" one of the captains snapped.

"Midshipman Alan Lewrie, sir, of the Desperate frigate," he managed to say, clutching his packet of letters to his side and almost crushing his cocked hat into a furball under the other aim.

"Desperate, hey?" one of the others said, beaming almost pleasantly. "Saw your fight with Capricieuse. Damned fine stuff. Your Captain Treghues has a lot of bottom, what?"

"Aye, sir."

"Well, don't stand there like death's head on a mop-stick, give me your packet."

Alan handed over his letters and bona fides, and the flag-captain in the center of the board looked over them, reading aloud salient points to the other members.

"Joined January of '80, Ariadne, 3rd Rate of sixty-four guns. Only the two years of service?"

"Aye, sir."

"Mentioned honorably. Took charge of the lower gun deck after both officers were killed, credited with getting the guns back in action and thus saving the ship. My, my, we have been busy, have we not?" The flag-captain chuckled. "I remember you, I believe. You were the lad escaped Yorktown with some soldiers. Turned a brace of river barges into sailing craft. Fought your way out too, as I remember."

This ain't so bad after all! Alan thought with relief. Was there some "interest" on his behalf of which he was unaware working in his favor-was it from Admiral Hood, or his flag-captain here? "Aye, sir, we did. But as for the boats," he informed them, "I had two fine petty-officers who did most of the creative work. Mister Feather and Mister Queener. Both dead now, unfortunately."

He congratulated himself as he saw the tacit approval of his comments on the captains' faces; it never hurt to share out the credit and sound a little modest, while still implying you were a genius anyway.

So they went through his records from Parrot, his staff work for Rear Adm. Sir Onsley Matthews, with Alan dropping the blandest sort of hint that he and that worthy, who was now in London controlling these captains, were still in affectionate correspondence. Then his service in Desperate and all her heroic exploits in which he had taken part, including being a prize-master; the raid on the Danish Virgin Islands, Battle of The Chesapeake, Yorktown, his promotion to master's mate, the fight with Capricieuse and his service as acting lieutenant. By the time they reached the present, he was damned near swaggering. It was going splendidly, and he could see by one board member's large watch that they had spent over ten minutes just being pleasant and approving.

I could walk out of here without one question, if they have that herd out there to examine today, he speculated. And most of those sluggards haven't done a tenth of my service.

"Sit or stand, Mister Lewrie?"

"Sir?"

"Do you prefer to sit or stand for the examination?"

"Um, I'll stand, sir," he replied, all the cock-swagger knocked out of him, knowing he would not get off scot-free.

"Think better on your feet, hey?" Captain Cornwallis chuckled. "Mister Lewrie, you're first officer into a seventy-four-gunned 3rd Rate at present laid up in-ordinary. Your captain orders you to prepare her to be put back into commission. What steps are necessary, and what orders would you give?"

That's one of the questions Treghues sent me, to the letter, Alan realized, striving to dredge up the proper answer, or even get his brain to function. But he took a deep breath to steady his nerves, and launched into the long, involved reply. He was only half-way through it, though, when he was interrupted by one of the captains.

"Good on that. Now, this same seventy-four is on a lee shore under plain sail, wind out of the west and you are on the larboard tack as close-hauled as may be. Shoals under your lee, eight cables off, almost embayed by a peninsula to the north'rd, extending nor'west. Do you have that in mind so far?"

"Aye, sir."

"The wind veers ahead suddenly by six points, and freshens to half a gale. What action would you take, sir?"

"Excuse me, sir," Alan asked, stalling for thinking time. "How far off is that peninsula you mentioned?"

"Makes no difference," one grumbled impatiently. "Half a league?" Another shrugged, and the rest seemed it as good a predicament as any.

"I would endeavor to tack immediately, sirs," Alan began. "I would shift the head sheets and the spanker with the duty watch, at the same time summoning all-hands, as I would be laid aback and in irons. Get her head about, even if the square-sails would be flung aback. I would lose all headway until I could free the braces and shiver the yards, but I would be on a safer tack."

Do you want more? he wondered, as they sat there staring at him. He no longer felt any confidence at all.

"Ah, hmm, your cooks were preparing dinner during this emergency, and the galley fire has been scattered by your sudden evolution," Captain Cornwallis demanded. "What do you do to combat this fire below decks, and how many hands may you spare, as you are still attempting to tack your ship and square away your yards?"

Jesus, are these buggers serious? he quailed. Barely had he gotten a fire party together, rigged out a foredeck wash-deck pump as a fire engine, than another captain added the complication of jammed brace-blocks aloft on the main yards, and a sprung main top-mast that threatened to come crashing down from the wind pressure on those laid aback tops'ls. Alan decided to send two men aloft and cut the upper weather brace so the yard could swing a'cock-bill to save the mast.

One hypothesis came at him after another, mercilessly swift and demanding, and his answers showed no signs of mollifying anyone. They all frowned and leaned forward, savoring his roasting, much like Grand Inquisitors from Spain watching a particularly enjoyable auto-da-fй and wanting to hear the bleats of the torched victim better.

His shirt was clinging to him, his breeches felt clammy, as if he had just been dunked over the side into the sea, and his face streamed so much perspiration it was all he could do not to reach up and try to mop himself dry, before it all ran down into his eyes and made him blink and squint. He had the distinct impression that he had begun to babble like a two-year-old, instead of sounding like a young man with the prospects to be made a lieutenant!

Am I making any sense anymore? he wondered. Jesus, just a little good fortune here, please!

"Hmm, alright, Mister Lewrie," the flag-captain said finally, which brought a pent-up sigh of relief to Alan's lips before he could control himself. "You'd probably have lost that top-mast eventually, but the ship might have been spared being wrecked on a lee shore. As for that fire, you forgot about it, but I'm sure someone would have come and told you if it got out of control. Gentlemen?"

"Fair enough," Captain Comwallis said, shrugging affably.

"Agreed, then?" The flag-captain peered down the table for a consensus. "Passed for lieutenancy, then. That'll be all."

"God!" Alan blurted in total stupefaction.

"Well, if you'd rather not be…" a post-captain laughed.

"Oh, nossir, thank you, sirs. I mean, yes sirs!"

"Hush. Take your records and go before we change our minds!"

"Aye aye, sir," Alan agreed, stumbling over the chair again on his way out. He stepped into the breathless hush of the cabin full of nervous aspirants who still had to endure their own ordeals.

"My God, you were in there near twenty minutes!" one gawped.

"What did they ask?" another demanded.

"It was…" Alan began, and then began to cackle in hysterical relief. "I can't bloody remember! Dismasting, and a fire… I think."

"Fire," someone said, opening his Falconer's to see if there was an approved fire-drill.

"On a lee shore, mind you." Alan grinned, unable to stop shaking with laughter and relief such as a felon must feel pardoned at the foot of the gibbet. "Bloody daft on 'em, they are!"

"Well, did you pass?"

"Passed!" Alan beamed at them, drawing a deep breath. "Yes!"

"Bloody Christ, not one in five," came a sorrowful moan.

"Best of luck to you all," Alan said, meaning every word of it. He pulled out his watch and consulted it, trying to calm down. "Ah, what good timing. I shall be back aboard just in time for dinner."

"Bastard," someone whispered loud enough to hear, but Lewrie was too used to hearing it spoken of him to care, and too proud and pleased, for the world was suddenly a much sunnier place.

"That's passed bastard!" he chirped on his way to the upper deck. "And I'll thank you to remember it!"