Troubled Waters

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HMS Savage bowled along Sutherly with the prevailing winds from the West on her starboard beam, slightly hobby-horsing over long swells in the Bay of Biscay. It was now nigh High Summer, so the fierce gales that could drive ships ashore to their ruin on the rocky, and hostile, western coast of France lay in the future- God willing-when the seasons turned to a brisk Autumn, then to a bitter and boisterous Winter, and one storm following the last for months on end… all determined to batter and dis-mast and wreck the weary ships of the British blockading squadrons, which kept remorseless watch over enemy seaports for a sally by their foe, or to interdict all trade that might comfort, arm, or feed the French.

For now, though, it was paint-brushed, high wisps of clouds upon beautiful cerulean skies, the sort one might wish for when "summering" in some exotic locale, and the seas tossed less than three to four feet, in long, marching wave-sets flicked with only the faintest foamy surges at their crests, and the colour of the Bay of Biscay ranging from steel blue to blue-silver.

"Deck, there!" the main-mast lookout cried from high above in the top-mast cross-trees. "Sails, ho! Ten… twelve sail! Three points off th' larboard bows! T'gallants an' tops'ls, in line-ahead!"

"Our line-of-battle ships, one'd think, sir?" Lt. Urquhart said as he turned to face his captain on the quarterdeck.

"Either that, or the French are out, and better managed than we expect, sir," Lewrie replied with a snicker. Picking up a brass speaking trumpet, he called aloft, "What course do they steer?"

After a moment, the lookout howled back down, "In line-ahead, due North!"

"Thankee!" Lewrie bellowed back, then returned the trumpet to a slot in the compass binnacle cabinet. "Ours, most-like. Were they the French, they'd be scuttlin' seaward, as far from our liners as ever they could, Mister Urquhart That, or bound Sou'west t' clear Cape Ferrol to join the Dons again, or pick up the Nor'east Trades off Portugal, and stir up some mischief in the West Indies."

"Are they really capable of that, sir?" Lt. Urquhart said with a derisive sneer. "So far this war, they've not shown that much skill at sea. Comes from sitting idle in the ports we blockade, with very little time on the open seas."

"True, there's only so much trainin' conscript sailors may do in port, sir, but someday some Frog Admiral will get lucky, and put to sea in halfway decent shape. Slip by us, get a fortnight, a month or more, of real working-up, and they just might give us a bloody nose," Lewrie mused aloud. To Lt. Urquhart's cocked eyebrow and dubious expression, he added, "Not that much a bloody nose, but… more a nasty surprise. I've met some Frogs who knew how to put up a good fight, and they made my bung 'sport claret' a time or two, before we settled 'em."

"Never under-estimate, you're saying, sir?" Urquhart asked.

"Exactly so, Mister Urquhart," Lewrie agreed. "Now we're nigh t'comin' up on our squadron, sir. Have a turn about the ship to search out anything that'd make Savage look like a dowdy, unkempt whore under the flag's eyes, and put it right before we come up alongside."

"Aye aye, sir," Urquhart responded, tapping the brim of his hat with two extended fingers, a salute more casual than doffing it.

"And I'll go change," Lewrie said on, which made Lt. Urquhart fight a small grin, for Capt. Lewrie, RN, had come up from below in his dowdy and faded old coat, no neck-stock or waist-coat or sword belt. And that coat! Three years before, when first returned to the West Indies, Lewrie had had the bright idea to have a tailor run up some coats in cotton, not wool, so to better survive the heat… never expecting that dark blue-dyed cotton would not hold its colour. A sweaty supper aboard another officer's ship, and he'd come back aboard his own with Royal Navy blue sweat rings and giant stains upon his shirt, waist-coat, and snowy breeches. A few wearings more, a day-long shower or two, and those two coats had ended up the same pale blue as this day's sky, with the gilt-lace trim of buttonholes, pocket seams, and collars turned the oddest, sick-making, gangrenous green shade; the colour of deathly pus (fortified by the verdigris green that all gilt lace turned after long exposure

to salt water and sea airs) and so repulsive that one expected them to reek like a corpse's armpit.

Lewrie stubbornly kept them, for they were cooler than the usual wool uniform coats, and at this stage could look no worse when washed, which one could not do with wool. They could be stuffed into a mesh bag and drug astern, with the bed linens, and by then, had bled all the dye they were ever going to, hence no threat to his other apparel.

Oh yes! Lt. Edward Urquhart was finding his new captain to be a most unusual bird!

"Deck, there!" the lookout called again. " Courses now in sight! Private signal from a three-deckerl"

"Mister… Grisdale," Lewrie said to one of the Midshipmen on the quarterdeck, "hoist the flag, and send up our number, quickly now." ¹ Get his damned name right? Lewrie wondered: Too bloody many new-comes aboard.

He had already had a fair bit of fame (or notoriety) before the last battle against the French L'Uranie frigate, and after the papers got through with it, one might have thought he'd become Admiral Nelson… or his new replacement arm. Letters had come aboard Savage as she was just being manned from hopeful Midshipmen without a post at present, or from hopeful parents looking for advancement, or a first place, for their second or third sons. Not knowing any of them from Adam, though, and with very little aid from other captains in Portsmouth, Lewrie had pretty much been reduced to writing their names on stiff card stock and tossing them, blindfolded, into his upturned hat, for all the chance to pick through the aspirants he'd had.

Savage, a 36-gunned frigate of the Fifth Rate, of nearly 950 tons burthen, and with a larger crew of 240 men, required one Midshipman for each fifty hands; or so Admiralty said. That had meant five new-comes, with the well-seasoned Mr. Grace to make up the necessary six. Three, including Grace, might… might, mind!… have the wits and abilities that God had merely promised geese!

There was this Grisdale… if that, indeed, was his name, for Lewrie was still sorting them out… who'd come passably recommended, whose father was a Rear-Admiral of the Blue. When watched closely, he could keep his mind to his duties… so far, it seemed. But if not, Mr. Grisdale could be a lazy sprog. So much akin to Lewrie at that age that one could almost take a liking to him!

There was a Midshipman Locke, whose father was in the Commons, and one of those "steam engine" men who'd made a fortune off the war. He, at least, was sixteen, and had had some experience at sea. Stern, and a bit of a martinet with the ship's people, but not a complete tyrant, and Lewrie and Lt. Urquhart could chide that flaw from him.

There was a Mr. Mayhall, son of another rich and influential man, landed in the huge way, and aristocratic in both speech and airs. Oddly, the crew seemed to take to him, for though he was only fifteen, he "knew the ropes" already, and projected the aura of a lad who would be a proper Sea Officer someday, should he survive the process.

Then there was Midshipman, the Honourable, Carrington, and so far he was proving the truth of the old naval adage that titled families sent the family fool to sea. He was sixteen, and supposedly "salted" by a three-year stint aboard a two-decker-but Good Lord!-was as dense as round-shot, and nearly as inert! And, when prodded into motion, was as dangerous as an 18-pounder ball rolling cross the deck. Daddy was in Lords, though, one of Wilberforce's fondest followers, detested the slave trade, and was very influential.

And, lastly, there was Midshipman Dry, a King's Letter Boy from that miserable excuse for a naval academy at Dartmouth; he had entered at twelve, son of a widower second mate off a merchant vessel who needed a berth for the lad. Dry had grown up aboard merchant ships and boats, so he'd been utterly bored to tears by more than a year of "training" at the academy, knots, ropes, rigging, and such, with only the reading, French, and navigation interesting. A year more of harbour scut-work for a port admiral (another admirer of Lewrie's, thank God!) who also sat in Commons, and here he was at fourteen, so much like poor little Midshipman Larkin, HMS Proteus's bastard Irish by-blow in shabby cast-off uniforms, all elbows and knees, but impish and cheerful despite a humble beginning. Hmm, perhaps too impish?

"Our number's received, sir!" Grisdale announced. "New hoist… from Chatham , the flag. 'Come Under My Lee,' sir!"

"Very well, Mister Grisdale," Lewrie replied. "Pass word for the Cox'n to muster my boat crew, and get her spanking ready."

"Aye aye, sir!"

And, which Midshipmen would be on watch when Savage came alongside HMS Chatham in an hour or so? Lewrie had to fret. He'd prefer to have Mr. Grace in charge of his launch, but such favouritism would not do, and would dispirit the others. He checked his pocket-watch, which Clotworthy Chute had recovered from that "Three-handed Jenny" back in London. Hour and a hall, say, and the watch would still be Grisdale and Midshipman… Oh God, the only other choice was Carrington!

"When Desmond arrives, Mister Grisdale, he is to see the boat, and its crew, turned out in their best," Lewrie added, before leaving the quarterdeck for his great-cabins.

With his fingers crossed!

"Ease helm, Mister Carrington!" Lewrie's Cox'n, Liam Desmond, harshly whispered as the neatly painted launch neared the main-chains of the towering HMS Chatham, which was still under way, and generating a substantial flurry of parted waters down its massive sides. "Don't wanta git et by 'er wake, now, so… Jesus an' Mary!, ease…!"

The launch rose up on the out-thrust curl of the three-decker's wake. "In oars larb'd!" Desmond barked as the launch, at too acute an angle, crossed the curl, tilted to larboard, rather precipitously in point of fact, and met the suck of the hull's turning, being drawn alongside. "Bow man, hook on!" Desmond snapped, and the sailor kneeling right in the eyes of the launch's bow swung his long gaff at dead-eyes and blocks atop the chain platform, barely snagging its hook round a stout standing-rigging cable. A second later, the launch went Bonk! against Chatham's side, sucked in like iron filings to a magnet, and the bow man cried something much akin to "Holy shite!" followed by "Eeh!" as he tumbled off the bows to larboard, waist-deep in the ocean, and getting dragged at a rate of knots, a panicky death-grip upon the gaff's pole, and the snagged hook his only salvation.

The launch Bonked! again against Chatham, and both Jones Nelson and Patrick Furfy leaped to seize the fellow, one by the collar of his waist-length coat, the other by the waistband of his slop-trousers, before the launch, with only one bank of oars free to pull, began to fall astern for another try.

Cruel laughter could be heard from the quarterdeck, high above.

" 'Ang on, Grisham, 'ang on, now!" Furfy urged.

"Yer pullin' me trousers arf, ye daft…!"

"Shin up de pole, Grisham!" Jones Nelson said with a grunt.

"Draggin' th' 'ole bloody launch, ye…?" Grisham howled.

"Boat grapnel," Desmond snapped, digging under the after-most thwart by the counter. "Might ye please shift yer legs, Mister Carrington? Now, sir?" Desmond tumbled forward with the grapnel and a line, bounding from shoulder to shoulder, took Grisham's place in the bows, let out a dozen feet of line, swirled the grapnel over his head, and heaved, snagging another dead-eye. Furfy and Nelson shifted grips off Grisham to the rope, and pulled the boat back up near the main chains, making fast to a small wood-armed bollard atop the bow. Free of holding the weight of the launch, and with a second assist from Furfy upon the seat of his pants (a mighty heave and toss, that!), Grisharn scrambled onto the chain platform, freed his gaff from the shrouds, and pulled the launch to him, instead of the other way round.

"Oh, well done, Mister Carrington!" Lewrie snarled as he rose to totter amidships of the launch's larboard side. "You and the Bosun must have a little discussion of your seamanship once we've returned aboard, hmm? In fact, I shall insist upon it."

"Aye, sir," the dejected and red-faced Midshipman replied, for a "discussion" with the Bosun would mean a dozen mighty whacks across his upturned bottom with a stiffened rope starter, his body bent over a cannon… Midshipman, the Honourable, Royce Carrington would "kiss the gunner's daughter" for his ineptness, and his embarrassment to his ship, and his captain's dignity.

Waiting for the proper moment of the launch's lurches, and the ponderous slow roll of the flagship, Lewrie made a leap of his own for the boarding battens and man-ropes abaft the chains, scored his perch on the first try, and slowly scaled the long ascent to HMS Chatham's upper decks, past the closed lower gun-deck entry-port to the proper one, high above. After a deep, restoring breath, and a jerk upon the man-ropes, Lewrie sprang inboard, trying to look spry and unabashed.

"Welcome aboard, sir," Chatham 's First Lieutenant said, hiding his smirk damned well, as did the other officers gathered on the gangway; but it was only the stone-faced sailors of the side-party and the Marines presenting arms in full kit who didn't look highly amused.

"Lewrie… HMS Savage, come to join the squadron, sir," Lewrie gruffly replied, doffing his hat to the national flag and the Admiral's broad pendant, then the deck officers. "I've despatches and mail with me, some of which I assume will be welcome. If you'll drop a line…"

"Indeed, Captain Lewrie," the First Officer brightened, snapping fingers to summon one of the flagship's eighteen Midshipmen to see to it. "My pardons, Captain Lewrie, but… though we have not met, your name is familiar to me."

"L 'Uranie," another officer prompted from the side of his mouth.

"But, of course, sir! A gallant action!" the First Officer said with a grin; though it did appear as if he might have made another connexion, had his junior not steered him away.

"Quite an arrival, sir! Most unconventional!" came a loud, and "plummy," upper-class voice, and a stout older man in the full dress uniform of a Rear-Admiral came plodding up, all smiles. With him was an older Post-Captain, most-like Chatham's, and a young Flag-Lieutenant. "Lewrie, are you? Saw your appointment into Savage listed in the Marine Chronicle. Good God, sir!

That one of those Cuffies of yours?" he said, pointing overside at Jones Nelson. "I can see why you, ah… obtained him. Strong as an ox, is he? Decorative addition to your boat crew, as well, I should think. Weren't you to stand trial, or be sued, or something? Last news from the London papers were simply full of it, haw haw!"

'Oh, that Lewrie!' was the expression on many nearby faces.

"King's Bench found the Jamaica trial colourable, milord, and put off the proceedings 'til all evidence is reviewed," Lewrie had to say with a straight face, though fuming at such abrupt treatment from a senior officer. He should have been used to such, after his years serving under an host of insulting fools, and a fair number of people who might have had good cause to abuse him now and again, but by God it still irked!

Eat his shite, an' think it plum duff, aye! he grimly thought.

"The particulars are most-like featured in the latest papers I brought from England, milord," Lewrie said with a seemingly uncaring, and unaffected, shrug and smile. "Perhaps by Hilary, or Easter, Term."

"Walk with me, Captain Lewrie," the Rear-Admiral said, turning more business-like. "A glass of something?"

"Nothing for me, milord."

Lewrie's orders from Admiral Lord Bridport, commander of Channel Fleet, had told him to report himself and his frigate to Rear-Admiral Arthur Iredell, Baron Boxham, so he knew with whom he was strolling; even if that august worthy had yet to name himself, which was insulting enough, but to be walked up and down the quarterdeck instead of being welcomed into the great-cabins under the poop deck was even worse!

"We shall soon be coming about, so I will not keep you long," Lord Boxham explained. "Yonder to our lee lies France, at present not six leagues off, sir. My brief, for this particular squadron, is from fourty-six degrees latitude, or the north tip of the lie d'Oleron, all the way down to the latitude of Arcachon, to blockade a coastline that runs roughly one hundred and twenty sea-miles, and 'tis rare that all the liners of this squadron are together in one place, as you find us today.

"Not quite as bad an area to cover as the squadron buried deep in the sack near Bayonne, where Spain and France meet, should a storm roll in from the West, as they usually do, hereabouts," Lord Boxham said with a visible wince. "Navigation is also tricky, I warn you now. From Rochefort Suth'rd to Biarritz and the Spanish border, this coast is very shoal, the land quite flat, with few notable headlands by which to estimate position. Should fog arise, one may cast ashore before one knows what has happened."

"Aye, sir," Lewrie said as they reached the aft end of the deck by the poop cabins, and turned to pace back towards the hammock netting overlooking Chatham % waist; that reply was usually safest. "Though I have the latest London chartmakers' works, perhaps your Flag-Captain is in possession of more current soundings, and such, which I might obtain or copy, milord?" he went on, trying to sound energetic and thoughtful.

"Your senior in the Inshore Squadron will have better, no doubt, Captain Lewrie," Lord Boxham said, rather dismissively, as if he resented having his lecture interrupted. "Savage, so I note, is of the Fifth Rate, which means that she has a draught of seventeen or eighteen feet, Lewrie? Good. That will serve nicely.

"Now as I was saying," the Rear-Admiral went on, and yes, he had felt interrupted, and was irked by such from a mere frigate captain. "There is another squadron keeping an eye on Rochefort, the small ports of the Vendee region, Saint Nazaire, and the mouth of the Loire up North, whilst my duties principally encompass the river Gironde, and what the French possess in the way of warships built or building, fitting out, or readying for sea from the port of Bordeaux, up-river."

"I see, milord," Lewrie replied with his best stern phyz on.

"Once on-station, a perusal of the charts will shew you, Lewrie, that the Gironde, below the last of the aits, is actually a very wide ria, thirty miles or so long, and over six miles wide as it approaches its mouth. Rather a lot of places for French warships to find a safe mooring."

"And, for French merchantmen as well, I should expect, milord."

"You demm'd frigate captains!" Rear-Admiral Iredell, Lord Boxham, barked in disgust. "All prize-money and loot, with not a thought for anything else!"

"Your pardons, milord," Lewrie countered, "but starvin' our foes o' food and naval stores, both, keeps 'em tied up alongside the piers, and eases our duties, I should think."

" 'Thout the proper battle that stops their demm'd business for good an' all?" Lord Boxham said with an outraged snort. "God forbid! Well, you'll be in good company, Captain Lewrie. All I may spare for the close blockade are light frigates, some over-aged sloops of war, some newer brig-sloops, and eight-gun cutters under mere Lieutenants… all of whom dream of money\" he gravelled, in a huff.

"Very well, sir," Lewrie flatly replied.

"You're to seek out and report to Commodore Ayscough, in HMS Chesterfield…," Lord Boxham said.

"The one with the bagpipers, milord?" Lewrie could not help but blurt out, for then-Captain Ayscough had been his superior in the Far East 'tween the wars, in Telesto.

"Yess, him!" Lord Boxham barked, as if rowed beyond all temperance to be interrupted a third time, or that the sound of bagpipes set him howling mad.

"Delightful, milord!" Lewrie happily said, sure of a better welcome.

"Deserve each other, more-like," the Admiral spat. "Well, off with you, Captain Lewrie. Now your mail and despatches are aboard, I shall not keep you. Ayscough should lie to the Sou'east of the river mouth today."

"Thank you for receiving me, milord. Adieu," Lewrie said with a doff of his hat, and a sketchy bow in conge.

"Try not to drown yourself, sir!"

"Can't afford to, milord," Lewrie rejoined. "I've not yet been to France!"

Rias? Lewrie fumed on his way back down the battens to his boat; rias and aits? A ria 's a narrow estuary, and the Gironde's as broad as the Straits of Dover. And what's wrong with river islands, not aits/ Good old Ayscough a Commodore, though! Even if he still has his damned bagpipers!

Lewrie sat himself down on a thwart near the launch's tiller to contemplate whether Commodore Ayscough would go so far with his fondness for all things Scottish as to dine him aboard on a haggis, cock-a-leekie soup, and turnips! And, on a happier note, Lewrie also considered whether he should send Midshipman Carrington aloft to spend the night perched on the cross-trees, or hang him from the main-mast truck with a line round his balls!