Текст книги "The King's Marauder"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The winds swung more Northerly for a day or two, allowing their column to make their way West-Sou’west, almost on a beam wind, which was grand for the soldiers cooped up in the transports to accustom them to a ship’s motions, giving them their “sea legs”. It was good for maintaining the proper order of sailing, too, as they stood out beyond the Lizard and into the open Atlantic. Both Comus and Sapphire wreathed themselves in spent powder smoke for at least one hour each Forenoon to bring their gun crews back up to scratch, Lewrie’s hands most especially. For a warship in commission the better part of a year, her gunners were very rusty, and initially slow to run out and fire, or reload, nowhere near Lewrie’s, and Westcott’s, exacting standards. Westcott confided that the other officers had commented that former Captain Insley had been more than frugal with the expenditure of shot and powder, perhaps in worry that Admiralty might send him a harsh note for wasting too much of the stuff.
In the beginning, it seemed that the roars and explosions from the muzzles was so alien and terrifying a din that the guns crews were addled by it, stunned into confusion, and the proper steps of drill blasted from their heads, standing round stupefied, or fumbling like complete new-comes at their first exposure, without a clue as to how to perform the simplest task, afraid of their great charges.
It took a whole week before the 12-pounders on the upper gun deck and the 24-pounders on the lower gun deck could run in, load, run out, and fire somewhat co-ordinated broadsides. Aiming was what worried Lewrie after that. If he ordered the launch or pinnace away to tow an empty cask—on a very long tow-line!—it was good odds that his gunners would sink the boat! The best he could do was to fire off a 6-pounder and order a broadside fired at the feather of spray where the roundshot struck the sea, at once, and hope for the best. And that proved to be a very ragged second-best, with roundshot soaring off half a mile beyond, and raising splash pillars along half the length of the convoy.
Lieutenant-Colonel Fry had much better luck with his musketry, dumping empty kegs overside and having his Fusiliers volley at them in ripples of platoon fire. Of course, his soldiers were not expected to hit anything much beyond seventy-five yards!
Lewrie would have kept them at it more often, but for the wind and weather. Further out in the Atlantic, as they strove to attain at least the 15th Longitude, the winds came more and more Westerly, and at least twice a day all ships had to wear about from one tack to the other, then make long boards for at least six hours, making progress Westward on larboard tack, steering Nor’west, then wear about to sail on starboard tack to the Sou’-Sou’west to make progress Sutherly.
Some days were just too boisterous to call the hands to Quarters and cast off the bowsings and lashings, as the winds piped up and veered or backed, and the seas got up, and the decks were soaked with rain. At least it was warm rain. On those days, Sapphire’s crew was exercised on muskets and pistols, on cutlasses, boarding axes, and pikes. The ship’s Marines, much better shots, would fire a volley to create a rough point of aim in the sea close alongside, and the sailors would shoot at it before the myriad of shot-splashes would subside.
Discipline was another matter. There were some violations that had to be met with the “cat”. When holding Mast—almost every other day, it seemed—Lewrie tried to deal with the petty stuff by awarding the defaulters with deprivations; no tobacco for a week, no rum for a week, or putting men on only bread and water. Most sailors depended on those little things to make their lives the slightest bit tolerable, and being denied their grog or “chaws” usually raised groans of real pain from the condemned. Fighting, insubordination, showing dis-respect to petty officers and Mids, though, had to be punished to drive the point home and make the hands fearful of violating the stern discipline necessary aboard a King’s Ship.
He would start with the awarding of one dozen lashes, with the defaulter bound to an upright hatch cover, shirtless, with a wide leather sash round his middle to protect the man from errant strokes that might hit the kidneys or the buttocks. The Ship’s Surgeon, Snelling, would examine the man to determine if he was fit to suffer punishment. The crew would be assembled to bear witness and take heed from their shipmate’s pain. The Marines would form up to one side in the waist in full-dress kit and under arms. The Sailmaker would have fashioned a red baize draw-string bag, in which a fresh-made cat-o’-nine-tails was hidden. Lewrie would read the crime committed, cite the applicable section of the Articles of War, then ordain the punishment, and tell the Bosun and his Mates to “let the cat out of the bag” to administer that required dozen.
As the days went by, though, Lewrie could note that the names of the hands who’d been lashed did not appear again, except for the hardened few, who would commit the same petty crimes and suffer the ritual once more, with two dozen lashes for a second appearance.
* * *
“Thief! Thief! Git ’im!”
Lewrie was reclined in his collapsible deck chair on the poop, reading a novel and regally above it all, when that tumult began. He put the book aside and descended to the quarterdeck.
“What’s acting, Mister Harcourt?” he asked the watch officer.
“No idea, sir,” Harcourt said in his usual laconic, stand-offish manner. “I expect we shall see, shortly.”
Too bad officers can’t be flogged, Lewrie fumed to himself; I’m gettin’ tired o’ him. He’s skirtin’ damn’ close to the line o’ mute insubordination!
“Aha, sir,” Harcourt said, jutting his chin to the main hatchway as Baggett, the Master At Arms, and his Ship’s Corporals, Packer and Wray, came up from the upper gun deck to the weather deck, wrestling a burly, struggling hand with them. Just behind, a horde of men boiled onto the deck, threatening to beat the man.
“Thief, sir!” Baggett exclaimed as he spotted Lewrie at the front edge of the quarterdeck. “Landsman Clegg!”
Lewrie went down a ladderway to the waist to confront the man.
“Who did he steal from, and what did he steal?” he asked.
“From me, sir … Deavers,” the newest hand in Lewrie’s boat crew spoke up, red in the face with anger. “He took my snuff box!”
“Saw him do it, sir!” Crawley, the demoted Cox’n, accused.
“Saw him with it, sor!” Patrick Furfy chimed in.
“Let me see it,” Lewrie demanded, and Baggett fetched it out from a coat pocket. Lewrie was surprised to see a rather fine silver snuff box, ornately engraved, and with a wreathed plain oval on the top which bore the ornate initials JED. “Yours, Deavers?”
“My mother bought it for my father, James Edward Deavers, there on the top, sir,” Deavers explained, still fuming and looking daggers at Clegg. “He was a corn merchant, at Staines, ’til he went smash. It’s all I have of my parents.”
“It’s his for sure, sor,” Liam Desmond spoke up. “He messes with us, sor, and he’s showed us it, once, Deavers did.”
“Furfy, you say you saw Clegg with the snuff box?” Lewrie asked.
“Clegg, sor, he come aft near our mess, an’ knocked Deavers’s sea-bag off th’ peg,” Furfy began to relate.
“Saw him fumble it, and reach inside, sir,” Crawley interrupted.
“Only when spoken to, Crawley,” Baggett warned.
“No, no, it’s allowed, this once, Baggett,” Lewrie said.
“Aye, sir!” Baggett replied. “All piss and gaitors” stiff.
“You saw him take it,” Lewrie demanded of Crawley.
“He hung the sea-bag back up, like it was an accident, sir, but I saw a glint of metal in his hand when he did,” Crawley told him.
“And you then saw him with it, Furfy?” Lewrie pressed.
“Crawley gimme a jerk o’ th’ head, sor, sorta cutty-eyed, so I went forrud t’follow him, an’ I seen th’ snuff box a’bulgin’ in Clegg’s pocket. I cry out, ‘Hoy, what’s ’at ye got in yer pocket ’at ye took from Deavers’s sea-bag’, an’ then cried ‘thief’, sor,” Furfy stated. “’At woke up some o’ t’other lads up forrud, an’ we all took hold o’ him ’til th’ Master At Arms could take him, sor.”
A theft belowdecks was easily done, with half the crew on deek and on watch, and the other half catching up on their sleep. It was Clegg’s mis-fortune that the slop trousers issued by the Purser had no pockets, unlike officers’, and were sewn on to customise them at a later date during a “Make And Mend” day; they were usually flat to the original cloth, leaving little room inside in which to cram much. Even the small, rectangular bulk of a snuff box would stand out like a 12-pounder roundshot.
“And, what d’ye have t’say for yourself, Clegg?” Lewrie turned to the suspect.
“I staggered an’ knocked somebody’s sea-bag down, sir,” Clegg tried to explain, with a pleasant expression, somewhere between confident and wheedling. “But, I hung it back up an’ went on forrud, an’ nary a thing did I take from it, sir!”
“Then how did Deavers’s snuff box turn up in your trouser pocket?” Lewrie sternly asked.
“Never woz in me pocket, sir!” Clegg declared. “First I know, they’s all shoutin’ ‘thief’, jumpin’ me an’ pinnin’ me down, feelin’ me all over, an’ plantin’ it on me! Y’ask me, sir, I say that Furfy took it, thort better of it, an’ blamed me for it!”
“Crawley, where were you and Furfy when you saw the theft?” Lewrie asked.
“I was sittin’ at my mess table, sir, ’bout three messes forward o’ Deavers’s, larboard side,” Crawley told him, “and Furfy was just comin’ down the main ladderway, aft, nowhere near his own mess.”
“Yer lyin’, Crawley, you an’ t’other Capum’s pet, th’ both o’ ya,” Clegg snapped. “I never done it!”
“Seems pretty-much open and shut, to me,” Lewrie decided with a slow nod. “Clegg, I could hold a formal Mast later today, and we could repeat the testimonies, but … after hearing the evidence and the charge against you, I pronounce you guilty of violating Article the Thirtieth, of Robbery.”
God, I can recite by heart by now! Lewrie marvelled.
“‘All Robbery committed by any person in the Fleet shall be punished with Death, or otherwise, as a Court-Martial, upon Consideration of Circumstances, shall find meet,’” he recited.
Lewrie stressed “Death”, which made Clegg’s brutal face turn white.
“Since we can’t form a proper Court with only two Post-Captains, I can’t hang you, Clegg,” Lewrie told him. “I could give you an hundred lashes, but as I noted in the Punishment Book when first I came aboard, you’ve had more than your fair share, already. You are a Quota Man. From gaol, released upon your oath to serve your King. Am I right?”
“Aye, sir,” Clegg said, much subdued, and fearful of what was coming.
“Mister Terrell?” Lewrie called over his shoulder for the Bosun, sure that the ado would have drawn that worthy nearby.
“Aye, sir?” Terrell piped up in a gruff voice, with a touch of “hopeful” that his strong arm would soon be needed to administer the cat; perhaps the punishment would involve all his Mates, too, with each delivering a dozen by rotation.
“Pipe ‘All Hands On Deck’ to witness punishment,” Lewrie bade. “Mister Hillhouse?”
“Aye, sir?” the eldest Midshipman answered up.
“Fetch yourself a cutlass!” Lewrie barked.
“Aye aye, sir!”
Lewrie returned to the forward break of the quarterdeck, clapped his hands in the small of his back, and put his stern face on as the off-watch hands came up from below. Marine First Lieutenant John Keane turned up, as did Westcott and the Third Officer, Edward Elmes.
“Mister Keane, I’d admire did you have your drummer take place atop the main hatch cover,” Lewrie requested. “We are about to punish a defaulter for theft. Mister Westcott? Form the off-watch men in a gantlet, about four planks apart, facing in, right round the waist, and up atop the forecastle if you have to, to give everyone a clear shot, and room t’swing a fist.”
“Aye, sir, directly,” Westcott said, sounding eager.
“All hands, off hats and hark the Captain!” Lt. Harcourt called out. “Off hats and face aft!”
In an equally loud voice, Lewrie explained the crime, the brief court, and his sentence of guilty. Then, “Sapphires! Landsman Clegg is a thief, caught red-handed. There is nothing more repugnant to a ship’s company than a thief. Some of you have served other ships before, and know what it is to be shipmates. Some of you new to the Navy and this ship have learned what it is to count on your shipmates, in good times, in storms and perils. But, a thief is only thinking of himself, not his mates, nor his ship. So, instead of Landsman Clegg being triced up to get five dozen lashes, I am going to leave it to you. We will form a gantlet, and he will walk through it, with a cutlass at his chest to make sure he goes slow. You may only use your fists, no loggerheads, rope-ends, or belaying pins. Are you ready, Mister Hillhouse?”
“Ready, sir!” Midshipman Hillhouse reported with a gladsome growl of anticipation.
I suspected he’d really relish it! Lewrie thought.
“Twice around!” Lewrie shouted. “Begin!”
Sailors never had much in the way of possessions beyond issued necessities, and usually had no money with which to purchase better things. The simplest items, a pair of good shoe buckles, a fancier clasp knife and sheath, a locket with a picture of a parent or loved one, a ring from someone dear to them, was even dearer to them than solid coin. They would not tolerate a thief.
The drummer began a long roll, and the Master At Arms shoved Clegg forward, while Midshipman Hillhouse paced backwards at a very slow walk, with the point of his cutlass an inch or so from Clegg’s chest. Up the starboard side their felon went, pummelled and smashed from both sides of the gantlet with hard fists, and shouted curses, cringing and stumbling. There was a brief respite when Clegg was forced up the starboard ladderway to the forecastle, but as soon as his feet were on that deck, the beating began again, cross the deck, down the larboard ladderway, and down the larboard side to the break of the quarterdeck, and round once more. By the time Clegg fell to the deck face-down, he was a bloody, bruised bulk of raw meat.
“See to him, Mister Snelling,” Lewrie called to the Surgeon, who had stood to one corner, appalled, throughout the punishment. “Dismiss the off-watch hands, Mister Harcourt.”
“Aye, sir,” the Second Officer replied, sounding more natural, almost whimsical, for once.
Lewrie went back to the poop deck and fetched his book, then came back down and went into his cabins.
“Cool tea, Pettus,” he ordered, going to sprawl on the starboard-side settee to continue reading.
“Aye, sir, right away,” Pettus said. “Ehm … that was quite a lesson, if I may say so, sir.”
“You may, and I hope it was,” Lewrie agreed, propping a foot on the brass tray-table.
“By the time Clegg’s back to full duties,” Pettus went on, “I’d expect he’ll be saying ‘pretty please’ and ‘thank you’ before he dares reach for the mustard pot in his mess.”
“If they’ll have him, at all, Pettus,” Lewrie said, grinning briefly, and quite satisfied with his decision.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The convoy attained the 15th Longitude a few days later, then hauled their wind to steer Due South, with the transports managing to perform a passable semblance of Alter Course In Succession, by then. The prevalent Westerlies in the Bay of Biscay came upon them on their starboard beams, shifting only a point or so from day to day, blowing in varying strength. A beam reach was an easy point of sail, which HMS Sapphire seemed to enjoy, with her decks canted over only a few degrees, gently rolling to the scend of the sea.
It was time for more live-fire exercises, this time with a target. The gun crews were able to run in, load, run out, and discharge their guns right smartly, by then, with even the hands on the lower gun deck managing to get off three rounds every two minutes with the massively heavy 24-pounders.
Two cables of tow-line were spliced together, and an empty water cask was sacrificed, and painted white. Crawley, the former captain’s Cox’n, chose his men, and manned the pinnace under sail, going out a full cable’s distance from the ship’s larboard beam, the full 240 yards, to stream the target cask astern.
“Fingers crossed, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie hopefully said.
“And one’s tongue on the proper side of one’s mouth, too, sir,” Westcott said with a laugh.
“Haven’t heard o’ that’un,” Lewrie confessed.
“Oh, I hear it’s all the go at Woolwich, these days, sir,” Westcott japed, referring to the Royal Arsenal and artillery school.
“Carry on, then, Mister Westcott, and remind ’em t’aim damned careful,” Lewrie ordered.
Muffled cries below carefully put the gunners through the many steps of gun drill; Cast Off Your Guns, Level Your Guns, Take Out Your Tompions, Run In Your Guns, Load With Cartridge, Shoot Your Guns, then Run Out Your Guns, Prime, and Point Your Guns.
“By broadside … on the up-roll … fire!”
HMS Sapphire shuddered, shoved a foot or so to starboard as the larboard battery went off as one, with stentorian roars and a great pall of powder smoke that only slowly drifted alee, masking the target.
“All over the place, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth, posted aloft in the main-mast cross-trees, shouted down.
“Overhaul your run-out tackle, and swab out your guns!” officers on both gun decks cried.
Guns were charged with fresh powder bags, shotted, then run out once more. Sapphire grumbled and roared again as the many carriages’ truck wheels squealed, as un-told tons of artillery lumbered up to the port sills. Lewrie thought that their time was acceptable; his pocket watch had a second hand and his gun crews were close to his demanded three rounds every two minutes.
“Point your guns!” was the order, and gun-captains bent over to peer down the lengths of the cannon, fiddling with the wooden blocks, the quoins, under the breech-ends, or called for their tackle men to heave with crow levers to lift the rear ends of the guns to shift tiny increments to right or left, lifting the carriages a few inches.
“By broadside … fire!”
Sapphire’s larboard side erupted in another titanic roar, and wreathed herself in yellowish-grey powder smoke, with hot red-amber jets of discharge jabbing out, mixed with swirling clouds of sparks.
“Closer, from right to left, sir!” Kibworth shouted. “Short, or far over!”
“Overhaul your run-out tackle, and swab out your guns!”
A third broadside followed within the required two minutes, then a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth. Despite the mildness of the day, the gun crews began to work up a sweat as they fed their cannon, ran them back out, heaved upon the levers to shift traverse, heaved again to lift the breeches so the quoins could be inched in or out to elevate their barrels, then stood clear, making sure that the recoil tackles and run-out tackles would not foul—and that their feet were safe—before the next broadside roared out.
Fifteen minutes elapsed from the first broadside, and the hands were beginning to slow, much as they would in battle, for human muscle could only do so much arduous labour for only so long. They were not machines. If they were in real combat, lasting an hour or longer, the broadsides would be discharged closer to one a minute, and those would be ragged, stuttering up and down the ship’s side as if “Fire At Will” had been ordered.
“Smothered, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth shrilled in a joyous whoop. “The target’s smothered in shot splashes!”
As the smoke drifted clear and thinned, Lewrie raised his telescope to behold a long, disturbed patch of white water round the white-painted target cask, a patch which stretched at least one hundred yards from right to left, and perhaps only fifty or sixty yards in depth. Had they been firing at an enemy ship, there would have been misses to the right or left of the foe, ahead of her bows or astern of her transom, but the bulk of the heavy shot would have taken her “’twixt wind and water”, smashing into her sides.
“I think we’re finally gettin’ somewhere, Mister Westcott,” he said, with a sly grin beginning to form upon his face. “You lads,” he addressed their youngest Mids, Ward and Fywell. “Scamper down and tell the officers on the gun decks to mind their traverses.”
“Aye, sir!” and they were off, as quickly as monkeys.
Two more broadsides were fired, with even more excited shouts from Midshipman Kibworth. Word had been passed to the gun crews of the “smother”, and despite their weariness, the pace of serving their guns had picked up a bit. Finally …
“Target’s destroyed, sir!” Kibworth screeched. “It’s gone!”
Lewrie abandoned the middle of the quarterdeck and dashed to the lee side, whipping up his telescope. “Yes, by God! Yes!”
That patch of disturbed sea, churned foamy white by the impacts of all those roundshot, was about the same size in depth, but shorter from right to left, very much shorter, which would have smashed into an enemy warship from bow to stern, with very few misses ahead or astern. A fine mist from feathers and pillars of spray was falling.
“Secure!” Lewrie bellowed. “Cease fire!”
That welcome order was passed down from the quarterdeck to the upper gun deck, then the lower gun deck, and the ship fell silent, at long last; an eerie, ear-ringing silence in which the normal sounds of a ship on-passage, the faint groans of the hull, the piping of the wind, and the clatter of blocks, sheets, and halliards suddenly sounded alien.
“Pass the word, you lads,” Lewrie said to the Mids, Fywell and Ward. “My compliments to all, and that that was damned fine shooting!”
“Quite suitable aiming,” Lt. Westcott commented as he and Lewrie pulled their wax ear-plugs out. “At much longer ranges, though, we wouldn’t be all that accurate.”
“At much longer range, Geoffrey, neither would the French, or the Dons,” Lewrie replied, with a twinkle in his eyes. “How much gunnery practice d’ye imagine they get? Much like their seamanship, it is all ‘river discipline’ in harbour, and hope they can pick it all up on their way to somewhere. I think we’d stand a good chance, better than them, at any rate, do we run a’foul of them.”
“One hopes, though, that our enemies show enough courage to try us at ‘close pistol-shot’,” Westcott jibed.
“Hmm … only a Frog seventy-four would dare,” Lewrie mused. “And, what are the chances of one o’ them turnin’ up?”
Sapphire slowly returned to normal routine. The gun-ports were shut, flintlock strikers removed and returned to storage, crow levers, swabs, and rammers stowed, the guns swabbed down to remove powder smut, the tompions re-inserted, and the guns run up to the port sills to be bowsed and lashed secure. Sailors gathered round the water butts on both gun decks to slake their great thirsts, then lowered their mess tables from the overheads, fetched their stools from the orlop, and took their rests.
Pettus came up from deep below, as well, with Chalky in his usual wicker cage, and Bisquit on a leash. Once in the waist, he let the dog go, and Bisquit, who was always frightened by the great dins of the guns, whined, whimpered, and dashed about to try and take assurance from one and all. When the ladderway was clear, he trotted to the quarterdeck, tail held low and tucked, to yelp, whine, and make a Yeow sound at Lewrie and Westcott, pressing hard up against their legs to get pets, flopping to the deck planks to get his belly rubbed, and for Lewrie’s hand to find that sweet spot that made one of his hind legs twitch. After a few minutes, Lewrie stood back up and Bisquit got to his feet, too, to place his paws on Lewrie’s waist-coat for a thorough head and neck rub, his tail whisking quickly, again, and erect once more.
“Mister Elmes, you have the watch?” Lewrie asked.
“Aye, sir,” Elmes replied,
“I’ll go aft, then,” Lewrie said. “And once again, my compliments on damned good practice with the great guns.”
“Aye, sir, and thank you, sir,” Elmes said, greatly pleased.
* * *
“Tea, sir?” Pettus asked as Lewrie cast off his hat, coat, and sword belt. Lewrie cocked an ear to hear Six Bells of the Forenoon Watch being struck up forward at the forecastle belfry; eleven of the morning, and half an hour before the first rum issue of the day for the ship’s crew.
“I b’lieve I’ll have a goodly glass o’ that white wine, instead,” Lewrie decided, “the one that’s been coolin’ in the water tub.”
I think I’ve earned it, this morning, he told himself as he sat down at his desk in the day-cabin and got out a sheet of paper to begin a letter to his eldest son, Sewallis, who was still aboard HMS Aeneas under his old friend, Benjamin Rodgers, on the Biscay blockade.
“Interesting thing, sir,” Pettus prattled on as he pulled the cork from a bottle of a tasty, if smuggled, sauvignon blanc. “As we were coming up from the orlop.”
“What’s that, Pettus?” Lewrie asked, opening an ink bottle and dipping the tip of his steel-nibbed pen.
“The ship’s people, sir,” Pettus said. “They were in glad takings … happy, and pleased with themselves … of a job well done?”
“Aye?” Lewrie prompted, waiting for more.
“Joshing and grinning, laughing out loud?” Pettus said further as he held up a wineglass to the light from a swaying lanthorn to check for smuts. “One could almost say that they’re in much the same spirits as the people in your previous ships, sir.”
“Well, that’d be gratifyin’,” Lewrie said. “We’ve had too much division over Insley, or Gable’s, followers.”
“Fact, sir,” Pettus said, pouring a glass and stowing the wine bottle back in the cooling tub. “’Twixt your putting that Clegg to the gantlet, and their gunnery this morning, I do get the feeling that our Sapphires are won over, sir. More … shipmate-y?”
“Good God, is that a word?” Lewrie joshed as Pettus fetched him his wine.
“If it isn’t, it should be, sir,” Pettus slyly replied.
Lewrie took a first sip, finding the wine savoury. He would have begun his letter, but Chalky was over his fright, and found that he could keep his master from drinking and writing both, as he leapt into Lewrie’s lap to sniff at the glass and demand pets … now!
