The King's Marauder (11 page)

“Mumphrey also told me there’s a fairly big spare cabin on the starboard side of the wardroom, right aft, sir,” Pettus chattered on, “where a Captain would go, if this ship carried a Commodore, who gets these cabins.”

“God forbid!” Lewrie hooted. “I haven’t even gotten comfortable in here, yet! Hmm … I fear Faulkes will have t’be disappointed. If the Master’s sea cabin is so close to the helm, that day office would make a grand chart room, with my slant-top desk and chart racks where Mister Yelland, the watch officers, and I can roll ’em out flat and do our plots. Faulkes already has his own desk over yonder,” Lewrie said, nodding his head towards the larboard corner of the day-cabin, close to the door to his quarter gallery.

“Ehm … Mister Westcott left the former Captain’s ledgers and books for you, sir,” Pettus went on. “I put them on your desk.”

“No rest for the lazy,” Lewrie said with a sigh. “You’d best brew me up a pot of coffee, Pettus. They’ll be boresome-dry going.”

He
had
to read all of them, closely; there was too much risk of being docked in his pay, else. HMS
Sapphire
’s voluminous inventories of items put aboard by the various Boards of Admiralty, her guns, her shot and powder, boats, sails and spare sailcloth, galley implements and pots, lanthorns, small arms, sand glasses, rations, her miles of ropes and cables for both standing and running rigging, had been signed for by her former captain, and every niggling replacement item had had to be documented. Normally, Lewrie would consult with the previous commanding officer to balance the books and account for losses or wear, but that was now impossible. The ship was his, as were all the thousands of “things” listed in her ledgers that he would one day have to account for, to the least jot and tittle, and be charged for if things went adrift.

No wonder some captains prefer t’go down with their ships,
he thought in wry humour;
They couldn’t afford
t’replace
’em even if they were as rich as the Walpoles!

Add to that careful perusing, there were the muster books and the assignments given to each hand for every evolution, the stacks of loose papers showing expenses and requisitions from the Sheerness Dockyards which had not yet been entered into the proper ledgers, and Captain Insley’s Order Book and punishment book. He would be at it long past suppertime. What Lewrie really wished to do was prowl the ship from bilges to the weather decks, bow to stern, but that would have to be put off to another day.

Lewrie determined that he would dine Westcott in for a working supper, and would keep his clerk, Faulkes, past his suppertime, too. Westcott had been aboard a week longer than he, and would know by now enough to get him past the paperwork. As for Faulkes, well …

So much for him bein’ an idler with “All Night In”!
Lewrie told himself with a wee snicker as he opened the first book in the pile.

*   *   *

The fifty private Marines of
Sapphire
’s complement traditionally were berthed forward of the officers’ wardroom on the upper gun deck; mutiny was not an un-heard-of occurrence. Lewrie’s Cox’n, Liam Desmond, led the bulk of the Captain’s retinue to a spare mess-table just forward of the Marines, now they were done with setting up the great-cabins, in search of their own berth spaces. They set their sea-chests round the table to sit on, and hung up their sea-bags along the thick and stout hull between a pair of gun-ports. Bisquit accompanied them out of curiosity to see where his friends were going.

“Diff’rnt than
Reliant,
” Patrick Furfy commented, looking round at the rows of 12-pounders, and the seeming hundreds of sailors idling at the other mess tables. “They ain’t room t’swing a cat.”

“Could be worse, Pat,” Desmond said, chuckling. “We could be on the lower gun deck, with nary a breath o’ fresh air.”

“’At’s Crawley’s table,” an older sailor told them.

“Who’s he?” James Yeovill, the Captain’s cook, asked.

“’E’s th’ Cox’n,” the older fellow said with a sour look, “an’ ’is boat crew berth there.”

“I’m Liam Desmond, Cap’m
Lewrie’s
Cox’n,” Desmond told him. “Me mate and stroke-oar, Pat Furfy, there … Cap’m’s cook, Yeovill, and them there’s Pettus an’ Jessop. Th’ Cap’m’s men.”

“Been with him f’r ages an’ amen,” Furfy vowed.

“It’s still Crawley’s mess table, I tells ye,” the older hand growled.

“What, all f’r him alone, sure?” a younger man scoffed aloud. “Crawley an’ Cap’m Insley’s people’re ashore t’tend him in th’ hospital, an’ most o’ them’ll come back aboard’z plain Landsmen an’ Ord’nary Seamen … if they come back at all. Michael Deavers, I am, an’ I
was
in Cap’m Insley’s boat crew, but…” he said with an iffy shrug.

“Then I reckon ye still will be,” Desmond told him.

“Maybe Cap’m Insley’ll keep his cook and servants on after he’s faced a court,” Deavers went on, “but, th’ rest of ’em belongs t’th’ Navy, no matter the come-down.”

“With him long, ye say,” another sailor nearby asked, taking a cold pipe from his mouth. “What sorta officer is Cap’m Lewrie?”

“He’s a scraper, arrah,” Furfy boasted, warming to the subject. “We been in more fights than we’ve had hot suppers.”

“Much of a hope f’r that in
this
ship!” another sailor griped. “All we’ve done is convoy work inta th’ Baltic an’ back f’r months on end, an’ nary a shot’ve we fired.”

“Cap’m Lewrie’ll find us some action,” Yeovill spoke up, “he always does, sooner or later.”

“’E come aboard all tarted up, wif star an’ sash, an’ medals,” the older hand sneered. “Born to it, wos ’e? Silver spoon in ’is mouth an’ all?”

“
Won
’em!” Furfy barked. “We were with him at Camperdown and Copenhagen, an’ he was at Cape Saint Vincent afore that. He got his knighthood f’r defeatin’ a French squadron off Louisiana back in ’03, so he earned it, fair an’ square.”

“Tartar, is he?” a younger sailor asked. “A hard flogger?”

“Firm but fair,” Desmond assured him. “The Cap’m ain’t much of a flogger, but ya give him good cause an’ he’ll have ya at th’ gratings.”

“
Proteus, Savage, Thermopylae,
and
Reliant,
” Furfy added with a grin, “none o’ th’ Cap’m’s ships did much floggin’ at all.”

The younger sailor looked relieved, then began to smile when Bisquit, sensing a kind soul, trotted to him and began to nuzzle his hands for petting.

“‘At’s Bisquit, he is,” Jessop said.

“Cap’m’s dog?” the sour older hand asked.

“The
ship’s
dog aboard
Reliant,
” Pettus told him. “Our Mids rescued him from the flagship at Nassau.
Mersey
’s Mids brought him aboard, but
her
Captain and officers had purebred hunting dogs, and threatened t’drown Bisquit in a sack if they snuck him back aboard again. When
Reliant
paid off, no one else could take him, so Cap’m Lewrie took him on. But, he’s still pretty-much the ship’s dog.”

“He’s a fine’un, no error,” the younger sailor crooned, “ain’t ya, boy? Aye, ya are! Want a piece o’ hardtack?”

“Th’ onliest beast who’d appreciate it, hah!” Furfy laughed. “Bisquit’s th’ only one who
likes
somethin’ that hard t’chew!”

“An’ yer beef bones, wif a shred o’ meat on ’em,” Jessop said. “Ye’ll not have t’heave ’em out th’ gun-ports wif Bisquit aboard.”

“Well, now we’re situated, I suppose we should get back aft, Jessop,” Pettus announced.

“Aye, and I need to go forward and meet the Ship’s Cook, and set my goods up in the galley,” Yeovill said, getting to his feet, cautiously. The overhead did not quite allow standing head room.

“Oh, ye’ll just
love
ol’ Tanner!” the older sailor said with another sneer. “Th’ one-legged bastard’s been tryin’
t’poison
us since we been in commission! I swear ’e pisses in th’ cauldrons just f’r spite! ’E’s a damned sour man, ’e is.”

“And you ain’t?” Deavers teased.

“Damn yer eyes, Deavers,” the older fellow snapped. “Ye wish a change o’ mess, yer welcome to it.”

“Aye, I think I do,” Deavers decided of a sudden. “I see ya have but five for an eight-man mess, Cox’n Desmond, and if ya say I’m t’stay on in th’ Cap’m’s boat crew, I might as well shift my traps to yours, an’ tell the First Officer of it. How about you, Harper?” he asked the younger sailor.

“Be fine with me, Michael,” Harper agreed.

“Then, when Crawley an’ his lot come back aboard, if they do,
you
can have ’em, Thompson,” Deavers said to the older hand. “You’ll all get along’z thick as thieves, hah hah.”

“Better mess-mates ’an th’ likes o’
you!
” Thompson shot back.

Bisquit left off gnawing on his chunk of ship’s bisquit as his old friends departed, looking anxious ’til Deavers and Harper shifted their chests and sea-bags to Desmond’s table, then settled back down on his belly to crack the bone-hard treat. And, by the time he’d eaten the last crumb, the dog found that he had won two new friends who would ruffle his fur, let him lay his head on their thighs, and tease him.

CHAPTER TEN

“I’m beginnin’ t’think that a two-decker fifty’s not the
worst
ship to have, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said about a week later, after he had prowled his new command from the cable tiers to the fighting tops. “I’m especially impressed with the iron water tanks, and those iron knees.”

“Well, we still have to pump from the tanks to fill the scuttle-butts so the hands can use the dippers when they need a sip or two,” Lt. Westcott said as they emerged from the upper gun deck to the weather deck and fresh air. After a time, all ships developed a permanent stink that could not be eradicated, no matter how often the bilges were pumped out, the interiors scrubbed with vinegar, or smoked with burning faggots of tobacco leaf. Salt-meat ration kegs reeked, after years in cask, fat slush skimmed from the cauldrons when those meats were boiled had its own odour, and was liberally slathered on running rigging to keep it supple. Add to that the ordure from the animals in the forecastle manger, damp wool and soured bedding, the hundreds of sailors who went un-washed for days on end, and their pea-soup farts, and un-warned civilian visitors could end up stunned and gagging.

“Those knees, sir,” Westcott went on. “With so many warships ordered round ’92 and ’93, and so many merchant ships being built, to replace losses, the Chatham yards had them forged by way of an experiment, and the class designer, Mister Hounslow, thought them a grand idea. They make her much stiffer, less prone to work her timbers in a heavy seaway. In point of fact, I heard that there is new talk of building ships with complete iron frames, with the hull planking to be bolted on, later. I asked the other watch officers and the Bosun how she held up in the North Sea and the Baltic and they were very happy with her … in that regard, at least.”

“What
didn’t
they like, then?” Lewrie asked.

“She’ll go, sir … ponderously,” Westcott said with a laugh. “She’ll set her shoulder and sail stiff, but I doubt if we’ll ever see her make much more than nine or ten knots, and that in a whole gale with the stuns’ls rigged, and all to the royals.”

“Well, maybe we can
plod
at the French,” Lewrie joshed.

“When we do come to grips, at least we have the artillery for a smashing good blow,” Westcott pointed out, “though, her former Captain only excerised with the great guns once a week, and was a pinch-penny when it came to expending shot and powder at live-firing, sir. We’re changing that, and once we get to sea, I’d like live-firing once each week.”

“You and I, both, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie heartily agreed with that plan. From his earliest days, he had been in love with the roar and stink of the guns, from the puniest 2-pounder swivel guns to the 18-pounders of his last commands. He had ordered gun drill held three times in the week he’d been aboard, and could not wait to be out of harbour where he could see his lower-deck 24-pounders, upper-deck 12-pounders, and all those 24-pounder carronades be lit off.

“Boat ahoy!” Midshipman Harvey called out from the quarterdeck, attracting Lewrie’s and Westcott’s attention.

“Mail and messages for
Sapphire
!” a thin wail came back.

“Keep some fingers crossed, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said as he eagerly scampered up the ladderway to the quarterdeck. “If it ain’t your tailor’s bills, or your landlady’s love letters, we might have
orders!
”

Once upon the quarterdeck, Lewrie spotted an eight-oared cutter beetling cross the Great Nore’s light chops bound for his ship’s starboard side. The oarsmen and Cox’n were sailors in Navy rig, and a Midshipman sat in the stern sheets with a large white canvas sack slung cross his chest. It looked very promising and it was all that Lewrie could do to disguise a nigh-boyish sense of anticipation.

It seemed to take ages for the cutter to bump alongside the ship and for the Midshipman to make his way up the battens to the entry-port and to the quarterdeck.

“Good morning, all,” the newcomer gaily announced himself to the Midshipmen of the watch, as if he did not see a Post-Captain on deck.

“Something for me?” Lewrie snapped, stepping forward.

“Your pardons, sir,” the Mid said with a gulp. “Orders and mail for
Sapphire,
sir. If you would be so good as to sign for them, sir?”

Lewrie quickly scribbled his name on a chit with the new Mid’s stub of a pencil, then took possession of the canvas sack. From that first hail and reply, idle hands and off-watch men had perked up their ears and drifted aft nearer the quarterdeck in curiosity and longing to hear from wives, girlfriends, and family.

Lewrie would have liked to dig into the sack that instant and snatch out his own correspondence, but that would be appearing too eager. He nodded to the cutter’s Mid and turned to go aft into his cabins to sort things out, calling aloud for word to be passed for his clerk, Faulkes. Once ensconsed in privacy, though, he opened the sack and dumped the contents on his desk. “Aha!” he cheered to see a thick packet addressed, to him from Admiralty, thickly sealed with blue wax and bound in ribbon. “And pray God, not the Baltic!” he added softly.