Текст книги "The King's Marauder"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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BOOK ONE
Britons, you stay too long;
Quickly aboard bestow you,
And with a merry gale
Swell your stretch’d sail
With vows as strong
As the winds that blow you.
“TO THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE”
MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563–1631)
CHAPTER EIGHT
She’s a ship, an active commission, and earns me full pay again, Lewrie had to remind himself as his hired boat approached HMS Sapphire, moored at least two miles from shore in the Great Nore at Sheerness.
She was 154 feet on the range of the deck and 130 feet along her waterline, just a few feet longer than his last Fifth Rate frigate, but she was so damned tall with that upper deck stacked atop the lower one!
The hired boat was bound on a course to pass before Sapphire’s bows, veer to the right in a large circle, and come alongside her starboard entry-port, but Lewrie looked aft to the tillerman and expressed a wish to cross under her stern, instead, so he could give her a good look-over before boarding.
“She’s a clean’un, she is, sir,” a younger boatman who handled the sheets of the boat’s lugs’l commented. “Shiny’z a new penny.”
“Aye, she is,” Lewrie grudgingly had to agree.
Sapphire’s hull was painted black, sometime recently, at that, for the gloss had not yet faded. Her two rows of gun-ports showed a pair of buff-coloured paint bands, what was coming to be known as the “Nelson Chequer”, and her waterline at full load sported a thin red boot stripe just above the inch or two of her coppering that was exposed. White-painted cap-rails topped her bulwarks and trimmed her beakhead rails.
Sapphire’s figurehead was the usual crowned lion carved for any ship not named for some hero from the classics; a male lion done in tan paint, with a bushy mane streaked with brown and black highlights, red-tongued and white-fanged, with only its crown gilded. The lion’s front paws held a bright blue faceted ball against its upper chest, a gemstone that some shore artist had flicked with streaks of silver and white in an attempt to make it appear to shine. It looked fierce enough, but for its odd blue eyes!
Several of the ship’s boats were floating astern in a gaggle, bridled together and bound to a tow rope, to soak their planking lest the wood dried out and allowed leaks. There was a wee 18-foot cutter or gig, a 25-foot cutter, a 29-foot launch, and a 32-foot pinnace, all painted white with bright blue gunn’ls.
The hired boat had to circle wide to clear those ship’s boats, giving Lewrie a long look at her stern, which was not as ornate as he had expected. There were white dolphins and griffins along the upper scroll board in bas-relief against black, above what would be his stern gallery, which gallery sported close-set white railings and spiralled column posts. Below the gallery were the several windows of the wardroom right-aft on the upper gun deck, then a bright blue horizontal band below that, on which was mounted the ship’s name in raised block letters, painted white and gilt.
Somebody has a deep purse, Lewrie thought; or had.
Post-Captains with enough “tin” could afford to have gilt paint applied, figureheads custom made, and improve the lavishness of their ship’s carving work. It appeared that Sapphire’s recently departed Captain had been one of those men.
“Boat ahoy!” someone shouted from the quarterdeck.
“Aye aye!” the tillerman shouted back, holding up four fingers to denote that his passenger was a Post-Captain.
The lugs’l halliard and jib sheet were loosed and the sails handed, as the hired boat drifted up to the main channels and chains at the foot of the boarding battens and man-ropes. Lewrie stood and tucked his everyday hanger behind his left leg so he would not get tangled up with it as the younger boatman hooked onto the channels with a long hooked gaff, bringing the boat to a stop.
Lewrie teetered atop the hired boat’s gunn’ls, grasped one of the man-ropes, stepped up with his right foot to the main channel, and swung up with his left foot to the first step of the battens, noting with gratitude that the steps had been painted then strewn liberally with gritty sand before the paint had dried, improving his traction.
At rest, Sapphire’s lower-deck gun-ports were about five feet above her waterline, and they were all opened for ventilation, with some of them filled with curious faces as he passed the pair closest to the battens. Once above those, the ship’s tumblehome increased, making his ascent less steep.
All the exercise is payin’ off, he thought as his head rose level with the lip of the entry-port; he hadn’t even begun to suck wind! And there were the half-spatterdashed boots of Marines, in view, the buckled shoes of sailors peeking out from the bottoms of long, loose “pusser’s slops” trousers, and the trill of bosun’s calls in welcome.
Lewrie placed his first foot on the lip of the entry-port and made a final jerk upon the man-ropes to come aboard with a characteristic hop and stamp. Sure that he was in-board with no risk of going arse-over-tit backwards, he doffed his hat to the flag, quarterdeck, and his waiting officers.
“Welcome aboard, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, doffing his own hat along with the others.
“Thankee, Mister Westcott … gentlemen,” Lewrie replied with a grin trying to break out on his face, despite the traditional formality of taking command. “If you do not mind, I will read myself in, first, before we make our first acquaintance.”
He went to the forward quarterdeck rail and iron hammock rack stanchions, ’twixt the two square companionways let into the deck to allow rigging to pass through, pulled his commission document from inside his waistcoat, where it would stay dry despite foul weather, and not be lost overboard in the climb up the battens, folded it open, and began to read loud enough for all to hear.
“By the Commissioners for executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain and Ireland and all of his Majesty’s Plantations, et cetera … to Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, hereby appointed Captain of His Majesty’s Ship, the Sapphire…”
He paused to look up and forward into the waist and the sail-tending gangways to either beam down the upper deck.
Jesus Christ, but there’s a slew of ’em! he thought, awed by the hundreds of people in the crew, nigh twice as many as he had had aboard Reliant! Sailors, boys, and Marines, all gawking at him!
“By virtue of the Power and Authority to us given, we do hereby constitute and appoint you Captain of His Majesty’s Ship, Sapphire, willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the Charge and Command of Captain in her accordingly. Strictly charging all the Officers and Company belonging to the said Ship subordinate to you to behave themselves jointly and severally in their Respective Employments with all due Respect and Obedience unto you their said Captain, and you likewise…” he continued, right through to the date of his commission, and the year of the King’s reign.
He folded that precious document up, again, and stuck it in a side pocket of his uniform coat, then leaned his palms on the railing.
“Just about ten years ago to the month, here at the Nore, I was made Post into my first command, the Proteus frigate,” he told his new crew, now that they were all officially his, “and I have been fortunate to command several frigates over the years. Sapphire is my first two-decker. She is new to me, as you are, as well … just as I am new to you. It may take me twice as long to get to know you all by face and name than I did the men of my last ship, the Reliant frigate, so I ask for your indulgence on that head.
“Sapphire may not be as swift and dashing as a frigate, but we … you and me together.…” he continued, “will still find ways to toe up against our King’s enemies and bash them to kindling and send Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Dutchmen, and all who side with Bonaparte, to the eternal fires of Hell! I am not one to tolerate boredom for long, and have always found a way to hear my guns roar in earnest, as I trust you all wish, as well. So, let’s be at it, and ready our ship for great deeds to come!”
He turned and nodded to Lt. Westcott, who stepped forward to bellow dismissal of the hands, then walked over to his waiting officers and Mids. “If you’ll do the honours, Mister Westcott?” he asked.
There was the ship’s Second Lieutenant, Arnold Harcourt, a man in his mid-thirties with dark hair and eyes, and a lean and weathered face. The Third Lieutenant, Edward Elmes, was younger, leaner, and blond. Sapphire’s Sailing Master was a rough-hewn Cornishman, George Yelland, with a great hooked beak of a nose. There were two Marine officers, First Lieutenant John Keane, a ruddy-faced fellow in his late twenties with ginger hair, and Second Lieutenant Richard Roe, a slip of a lad not quite nineteen with brown hair and blue eyes, who looked to be as new to the sea as a fresh-baked loaf, a right “Merry Andrew” with a possible impish streak, a counterbalance to Keane’s severe nature.
There were a whole ten Midshipmen, led by a burly fellow in his late twenties named Hillhouse, whom the First Secretary had thought to make Acting-Lieutenant before Lewrie had offered up Westcott. He did look salty enough. Behind him were Britton and Leverett, two more men with poor connexions most-like, for they were in their mid-twenties and still had not gained their Lieutenancies. Below them were the usual sort of Mids in their late teens, Kibworth, Carey, Spears, Harvey, and Griffin, then two lads in their early teens, Ward and Fywell.
Sapphire’s Purser and his clerk, the “Jack In The Bread Room”, Mister Joseph Cadrick, and Irby, Lewrie decided to keep a chary eye on, for though butter would not melt in their mouths on the first introductions, Lewrie sensed a “fly” streak.
The Surgeon was a thin and scholarly-looking man named Andrew Snelling who looked as if a stiff breeze would carry his skeletal frame away. The Surgeon’s Mates, Phelps and Twomey, in their middle twenties, cheerfully admitted that they were medical students who were too poor at present to attend physicians’ colleges, but were happy to serve alongside Snelling, who seemed to know everything medicinal, or surgical, they assured him.
The Bosun and his two mates, Matthew Terrell, and Nobbs and Plunkett, seemed solid and competent fellows, from Terrell’s early fourties to the mid-thirties, with years of experience at sea, as did the Master Gunner, Dick Boling; his Mate, Haddock; and the Yeoman of the Powder, Weaver.
Lewrie would get round to the Cook, Carpenter, Cooper and Armourer, Sailmaker, and their Mates later. His goods were coming aboard.
Pettus and Jessop, Desmond and Furfy, Yeovill and his Captain’s clerk, James Faulkes, had gained the deck during the introductions, and were beginning to direct his chests and crates, his furniture and personal stores up from the hired boats and aft into the great cabins. A pair of slatted crates were slung up and over the bulwarks, one containing Lewrie’s cat, Chalky, mewing and growling in fear, and the other containing Bisquit, Reliant’s old ship’s dog.
“Well, hallo, Bisquit!” Lt. Westcott cried in delight to see him as the crate was lowered to the quarterdeck. “Still with us, are you? There’s a good boy, yes!”
“I’d thought t’leave him on my father’s farm,” Lewrie explained, “but, when the waggons were loaded, he kept hoppin’ on and wouldn’t be left behind. When they trotted off, he ran after ’em all the way down to the village, and the lads took pity on him. He just wouldn’t let himself be abandoned by everyone he knew. No, you wouldn’t, would ye, Bisquit,” Lewrie cooed, kneeling down by his crate. “You are a headstrong little beast, yes, you are. God help ye, you’re a sea-goin’ Navy dog.”
Lewrie was rewarded with excited yips, whines, and a bark of two, and lots of tail wags to implore to be freed from his crate that instant. Lewrie un-did the latch and let him out, then stood up as Bisquit dashed to say hello to Westcott, run round the quarterdeck to sniff, then dashed up a ladderway to the vast expanse of the poop for more exploring. Lewrie stood up and caught Pettus’s eye.
“I’d much admire did you hunt up the Carpenter, Pettus, and see to the construction of a sand-box for Chalky, and the proper width of my hangin’ bed-cot,” Lewrie bade him. “We’ll have a shelter for Bisquit fashioned under one of the poop deck ladderways, later.”
“Yes, sir. See to it, directly,” Pettus promised. “We’ll have your office and day cabin set up in a few minutes more, and the dining coach and bed space ready by the end of the Forenoon.”
“Excellent!” Lewrie congratulated him, then turned to Westcott. “What do you make of her so far, Mister Westcott?”
“The ship is fully found and in very good material condition, sir,” Westcott told him. “She’s short of at least ten Able Seamen and about a dozen men rated Ordinary, but her officers and mates have run many of her Landsmen through catch-up instruction over the last nine months she’s been in commission … her former Captain’s idea, that … so a good many of them can hand, reef, and steer. They know their way round a bit better than most ship’s companies.”
“Well, that’s a partial relief, at least,” Lewrie commented. “How many Quota Men, and gaol scrapings? Many troublemakers?”
“The other Lieutenants and Mids have filled me in on the hands they’re leery of, sir,” Lt. Westcott continued. “You’ll find their names in her former Captain’s punishment book … often.”
“A happy ship, is she, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked.
“On that head, sir…?” Westcott said in a low voice, casting his eyes up and aft towards the poop deck. “Perhaps we might go see what Bisquit’s up to?”
They went up the starboard ladderway to the poop deck for more privacy, and strolled to the flag lockers where they could sit and converse with no one else listening in.
“I feel like I’m sittin’ on the roof of a mansion!” Lewrie had to exclaim first, “or, halfway up the main mast shrouds.”
“The poop is rather high above the water, aye, sir,” Westcott agreed with a brief chuckle. “A happy ship? I don’t believe I could say that, sir. I’ve only been aboard a week, so I haven’t gotten the people’s feelings completely sorted out, but I can say that she’s of two minds. Maybe three … those who miss Captain Insley and thought him a proper officer … those who sided with Lieutenant Gable, her First … and the bulk of her hands who don’t give a damn either way.”
“Christ, sounds like Bligh and Christian aboard the Bounty,” Lewrie said, leaning back against the taffrails.
“Captain Insley was a very formal and strict officer,” Westcott imparted in a mutter, no matter the lack of people within earshot. “A no-nonsense disciplinarian, to boot, and I gather that he was a man who held most people in a very top-lofty low regard. Cold, aloof, and with a quick and cutting wit sharp enough to smart.”
“Rubbed a lot o’ people the wrong way, I take it?” Lewrie said.
“Especially the former First Officer, Lieutenant Gable,” Westcott said, nodding. “Years ago, Insley was a junior Lieutenant aboard the old Bellona, and Gable was one of her new-come Mids, just starting to learn the ropes … Insley demeaned everything he and the ‘younkers’ did, had them all kissing the gunner’s daughter for every failure or shortcoming, with Gable his favourite target. Admiralty wasn’t to know…” Westcott said with a shrug and a grimace. “Healthy and long-serving officers of good experience, names on a list, and slots to be filled? That’s all the questions to be answered.”
Like me and … Lewrie thought, well, a lot of people!
“So, when Insley saw Gable, all he saw was the ignorant, cunny-thumbed Midshipman he once was,” Lewrie decided, “and all Gable saw was his old tormenter? Bound t’be an explosion, sooner or later.”
“Lieutenant Gable, I gather, saw himself as the protector of Sapphire’s people from Insley’s ruthless discipline and punishments,” Westcott added, “and as Insley’s former victim. He spoke freely of it in the wardroom. Robin Hood? A knight-errant seeking the Holy Grail? On a godly mission, to him, no doubt. Lieutenant Harcourt sneered at his … quest, and told me that Gable was a molly-coddling ‘Popularity Dick’ who let the hands get away with murder. Lieutenant Elmes did allow that Insley was a tad too strict, but that’s as far as he’d go to express any opinion. Caught in the middle.
“You’ll see what I mean when you look through Captain Insley’s Order Book,” Westcott told Lewrie. “I brought a copy of yours from Reliant, but I haven’t put it into use, yet.”
“We’ll go over my old one and make alterations to account for a much larger ship and crew,” Lewrie said. “Aye, I will look the old one over, and see if any of Insley’s standing instructions are of any use to us. Did Insley have any other admirers?”
“Harcourt; the senior Mid, Mister Hillhouse; the senior Marine officer, Keane; and the ship’s Master At Arms, of course,” Westcott told him, “two or three of the older Mids, too, Britton and Leverett. Most of the other Mids seem sorry that Gable’s gone.”
“We’ll have t’keep a close watch on them, and bring ’em round to ‘firm but fair,’” Lewrie determined, “and, keep a close eye on the hands, as well. As soon as a somewhat more lenient rule is established, they’ll be sure t’test us, the ‘sea-lawyers’, gaol sweepin’s, and the sky-larkers.”
“Sure as Fate, sir,” Westcott agreed with a grin, “but, we’ll handle them, the same way we whipped Reliant’s people into shape.”
“I count on you gettin’ that done, Geoffrey,” Lewrie assured him. “That’s why I was so eager t’have you as my First, again.”
“Won’t let you down, sir,” Westcott promised.
Bisquit, bored with trotting round the poop deck and marking his territory with a squirt or two, came to lay his head on Westcott’s knee and nuzzle for attention.
“There’s a rabbit pelt in his crate,” Lewrie said as he rose to his feet, “and some other of his toys. I think I’ll go below and see what my cabins are like. You two … amuse yourselves for a bit.”
“I think I shall, sir!” Westcott agreed, getting to his feet, as well. “The dignity of my office be-damned.”
CHAPTER NINE
“God, I could play tennis in here!” Lewrie muttered under his breath as he entered his great-cabins, which were divided into a dining coach to larboard, a very large bed-space to starboard, then the day cabin aft of those which spanned from beam to beam and ended at the quarter-galleries, the transom settees, and the door to his outdoor stern gallery beyond. The partitions which delineated the compartments were thin wood, not canvas stretched over light deal frames, painted a pale beige with white mouldings, and double doors led from the day-cabin to the bed-space and dining coach on the forward walls. He had to share his quarters with four of the quarterdeck 6-pounder guns, but otherwise he had bags of room for his wine-cabinet, desk and chair, his round brass Hindoo tray table on its low platform, and his settee and chairs set up on the starboard side.
“There’s so much space, sir, we’ve put your wash-hand stand in the bed-space, along with your chests,” Pettus told him as he fidgetted with the angle of the collapsible chairs round the tray table.
“Mus’ be plannin’ on shippin’ ’is woman aboard,” Lewrie heard from the bed-space, where the Ship’s Carpenter and his Mate were hanging up his suspended bed-cot.
“Nah, ’e just likes t’sprawl-like,” he heard Jessop comment. “But ’e’s a terror wif ’em ashore, an’ th’ First Off’cer, too. Been a widower some years, now, th’ Cap’m ’as.”
“A glass of something, sir?” Pettus said, over-loudly to warn them that Lewrie was in ear-shot.
“Aye, Pettus, I would,” Lewrie replied, equally loudly, and winking at his cabin-steward. Nervous coughs came from the bed-space. The Carpenter and his Mate gathered up their tools and slunk out into the day-cabin, where Lewrie introduced himself, learning that their names were Acfield and Stover, and thanking them for their trouble.
He got a glass of rhenish and went out on his wide and deep stern gallery to savour some fresh air. Pettus had already opened the upper halves of the transom sash windows for ventilation, and to make sure that Chalky would not get out of the cabins that way, but the cat was hellish-quick to dash out the door with him, then leap to the top railing of the gallery’s barrier, and Lewrie just as quickly grabbed him by the scruff of his neck before he tumbled overside.
“Bad place for you, Chalky … bad!” Lewrie chid him. “It’s not wide enough for you.” He sat the cat down on the deck.
I’ve already lost one cat, and damned if I’ll lose another! he thought, determining that his stern walk might be an attractive perk but one that he might not be able to enjoy all that much without keeping a wary eye out for Chalky and his antics. Before the cat could jump back up there, he herded it inside and shut the door and went to the settee.
“Take your flummery, sir?” Pettus asked.
“Aye, Pettus, let’s get me back into everyday rig,” Lewrie agreed, shedding his best-dress uniform coat which bore his two medals and the star of his knighthood, then the sash which lay over his waist-coat. “I’ve done all my ‘impressing’ I’m going t’do, today. We’re going t’have t’watch that damned door to the stern gallery, ’less the damned cat gets out, hops onto the railing, and goes overboard.”
“We’ll see to it, sir,” Pettus promised. “Ehm … I had a wee chat with Mumphrey, Mister Westcott’s man? Seems there was a bit of a scramble when Mister Westcott came aboard last week. The Second Officer, Mister Harcourt, had already moved himself into the First Lieutenant’s cabin, and Midshipman Hillhouse had shifted his traps to the wardroom. When Mister Westcott turned up, both of them had quite a come-down.”
“Indeed?” Lewrie coolly sniffed.
“Mumphrey says there’s a cabin off the wardroom just for your secretary, and there’s a day office for him, too, to larboard of the helm, so I expect Mister Faulkes will feel right regal for a change. On the starboard side of the helm, there’s a sea cabin for the Sailing Master, just forward of your bed-space. I hope the fellow doesn’t snore too loudly.”
“If he does, we’ll scrounge up some spare blankets to hang on the forrud bulkhead,” Lewrie chuckled, “or if the hands at the helm take to singin’ in the middle of the night.”
The double wheel and the compass binnacle cabinet were just a few feet beyond the doors to his great-cabins, sandwiched between the day office and sea cabin, and sheltered under the poop deck; a very handy arrangement.
“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.”
