Текст книги "Hostile Shores"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Thank God you’re back aboard, sir,” Lt. Geoffrey Westcott said in some urgency once Lewrie had taken the welcoming salute, a quarter-hour past the beginning of the Forenoon at 8 A.M.
“Has a real French squadron turned up, then, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked, with a brow up in puzzlement that a Commission Officer would be up and stirring, and in full uniform, when it was usually the Mids who stood Harbour Watch. He could not help stifling a yawn, for his night ashore with Priscilla Frost had proven to be a strenuous one.
“No sir, nothing like that,” Westcott told him in a confidential mutter.
“Good, for at this moment, a hot kiss or a cold breakfast would most-like put me in my grave … and I’ve had both,” Lewrie said with a wry and semi-boastful chuckle.
“It is Commodore Grierson, sir,” Westcott went on, drawing from Lewrie a groan of disgust. “Athenian has been flying our number and ‘Captain Repair On Board’ since half past Seven. I sent a Mid over to explain that you spent the night ashore, and despatched the rest of them to hunt you down, but—”
“Didn’t know I was spendin’ the night ashore, ’til after the supper,” Lewrie explained, giving Grierson’s flagship a bleak glance. “And, ’tis best that you didn’t know my, uhm … lodgings. The last thing the lady in question needs would be some younker bangin’ on her doors and raisin’ her neighbours’ int’rest in the early hours.
“Nothin’ for it, then,” Lewrie decided, hitching his shoulders. “Desmond? Back to the boat. I’m summoned to the flag. Carry on, Mister Westcott.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Westcott said, doffing his hat.
His Cox’n, Liam Desmond; stroke-oar Patrick Furfy; and the hands of his boat crew had barely secured the cutter below the entry-port, and had just gained the deck, before they had to turn right round and descend again without a “wet” at the scuttle-butts, or a chance to go below for a lazy “caulk” with the off-watch hands in their hammocks.
What the Devil does Grierson want o’ me this early in the morning? Lewrie wondered as he settled himself aft in the boat once more; Whatever it is, I except I won’t enjoy it!
* * *
Commodore Grierson stodd behind his expensive desk in the day-cabin as Lewrie entered, ducking under the overhead beams as he made his way aft to stand before the desk.
“You slept out of your ship, Captain Lewrie?” Grierson began in a frosty tone, as if doing so was a violation of some regulation.
“Aye, I did, sir,” Lewrie replied. “To my recall, ’tis only Channel Fleet that requires Captains to sleep aboard, pending an appearance of a French fleet in the middle of the night. At least, that was the case when I was attached to Channel Fleet. Were you thinking of establishing such a rule, might I ask, sir?”
“No, I was not,” Grierson snapped, furrowing his brows to even deeper wrinkles, as if Lewrie’s attempt at “early morning cheery” was putting him off course. “At least your doing so results in your showing up in more suitable uniform, what?”
“Soon changed, as soon as I’m back aboard my ship, sir,” Lewrie easily confessed, looking toward an empty chair before the desk as if to prompt Grierson to proper hospitality. Commodore Grierson took no notice of his hint; his eyes were fixed on Lewrie’s chest, on the two medals he still wore (the one round his neck admittedly askew!) and on the star and sash of the Order of The Bath.
Damn my eyes, is he jealous? Lewrie was forced to wonder.
“And you enjoyed the supper and ball immensely, I should not wonder,” Grierson went on, raising his glare to Lewrie’s face, again.
“Oh, quite, sir!” Lewrie said with a laugh. “How do the papers in London put it … ‘a good time was had by all’?”
“Hhmmph!” Grierson sneered. “I found the Society of Antigua and the nearby islands crude and dreary, but that of Nassau!… How have you stood such a pack of ‘Country-Puts’ and tradesmen but a cut above privateers?”
“I haven’t really spent that much time in port t’deal with ’em, sir,” Lewrie told him. He doubted if Grierson’s complaint was a stab at finding some mutual understanding; the man was just grousing to be grousing!
“They are insulting beyond belief,” Grierson went on with his plaint, pacing behind his desk and peering down his nose at the odd corners of his cabins. “One woman even had the nerve to take me to task for the manner of my arrival, sir!”
That’d be Priscilla, most-like, Lewrie happily thought.
“Quite fetching a mort, but for that,” Grierson growled. “The nerve of the bitch! I saw you with her, Lewrie. Did you put her up to it? That Mistress Frost baggage?”
“I most certainly did not, sir,” Lewrie vowed.
Aye, I did, did you like it? he thought, his face stony; And is that why ye summoned me, ye petty bastard?
“She did tell me, though, sir,” Lewrie explained, “that there were many locals who were frightened out of their wits ’til they learned the true identity of your ships. Recall, I did warn you that your idea of a jest might turn round and bite you.”
Did he expect ’em t’be so relieved they’d cheer him and chair him through the streets? Lewrie asked himself; What an ass!
“As I was rowed past your frigate, Captain Lewrie, I noted that she is rather heavily weeded,” Commodore Grierson snapped, changing the subject as he whipped round to glare at Lewrie once more. “I saw more green slime than I did coppering or white lead, and I expect you also have so many barnacles that you could not find her coppering. How long has it been since your ship was docked and cleaned, sir?”
“Well, since she was taken out of Ordinary in April of 1803, I don’t believe we’ve had time for such, sir,” Lewrie informed him. “We spent much of that year in the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico, then back to England as escort to a sugar trade, half of 1804 in the Channel, then right back here via Bermuda, since January.”
“Then you are more than due,” Commodore Grierson said with a satisfied nod of his head, though he didn’t even try to plaster on a gladsome smile. “Since I now have three frigates and two more brig-sloops on station, your frigate is redundant to my needs. And, as you say, it is doubtful that the French Admiral, Villeneuve, has designs upon the Bahamas. Those, plus the vessels already assigned here will more than suffice. As slow as your ship is reduced, she would be a hindrance to me.”
And … and what? Lewrie wondered, waiting for the other shoe to drop as Grierson took his time to walk back to his desk, sit down behind it, and leaf through some correspondence.
“I will send you orders, releasing you from my squadron, sir,” Grierson at last said when he folded the correspondence away, folding his hands atop the desk.
“What about the continuing problem with French and Spanish privateers, though, sir? My independent orders from Admir—”
“As Senior Officer on-station, and senior to you, sir, by nineteen months on the Post-Captains’ List, I deem such enemy activities temporarily ‘Scotched’, and feel that, with my re-enforcements in frigates and brig-sloops, will be more than capable of dealing with any new outbreaks,” Grierson cut him off, and simpered at Lewrie.
That won’t last ye six months, Lewrie sourly thought; not when the trade route’s so busy, and privateerin’s so profitable!
“If you say so, sir,” Lewrie said, instead.
“And I do,” Grierson gaily rejoined, quite perkily. “As for you and your frigate, Captain Lewrie … I will allow you to detach yourself from my command and … and sail for England for a proper time in dry dock. Does that prospect not please you, sir?”
“Well, aye, it does, sir, but…,” Lewrie flummoxed. The prospect was pleasing, and he had to admit that Reliant was in serious need of a hull cleaning, The loss of his temporary status as a Commodore even of such a small squadron really meant little, either. It was the way he was being shooed off that rankled!
“Good, then,” Grierson said, smiling at last, though not with the sort of smile one could trust. “That’s settled. I will have your orders aboard by the start of the First Dog Watch this very day … before I despatch the wee vessels of your former squadron to other duties down-islands. I expect you and their commanding officers will wish a last shore supper together, before you all depart.”
Vindictive bastard! Lewrie fumed inside.
“I expect that we shall, sir,” Lewrie said, keeping his disgust well-hidden, and thinking that their last shore supper would be a bitch session which Grierson should studiously avoid.
Damn him for takin’ it out on them! he thought.
“Will that be all, sir?” Lewrie asked.
“Uhmm, yes,” Grierson said, all a’twinkle by then, rising from his chair to see Lewrie to the doors. “You may return to your ship.” Grierson leaned a bit close then away. “Where you may sponge the lady’s scent from your clothing.”
I wondered why his cabins smelled like rose water! Lewrie realised; Well, they say ye can never smell yourself! Priscilla did dab it on a tad thick.
“Beg pardon, sir?” Lewrie countered, stiffening his back. Would the fellow prove himself that crude?
“A good ride, was she? Mistress Frost?” Grierson leered.
“I deem it most un-gentlemanly of you to ask that question, sir,” Lewrie stiffly intoned, glowering at the Commodore. “As for the lady’s qualities … that’s something I very much doubt you’ll ever know.”
Grierson’s reaction was a hearty laugh, and another easy and arrogant “we’ll see about that” cock-sure leer. “Goodbye, Captain Lewrie. Bon voyage, and bonne chance!”
Grierson did not go so far as to see him to the deck, so Lewrie had to make his way alone, his ears and the nape of his neck burning, determined to call upon the bouncy Priscilla one more time, if only to tell her what Grierson had in mind, and how low a mind he possessed!
CHAPTER NINE
A day or two later, and HMS Reliant was ready to up-anchor and depart. Last-minute rations had been fetched aboard, along with some sheep, pigs, and a bullock for supper on the eve of sailing, and for fresh meat for the first few days on-passage. The officers’ wardroom and Lewrie’s cabins had been re-stocked with the many needful things that would be unavailable or in short supply on their long voyage to England. For Lewrie, Mister Cadbury the Purser had purchased several one-gallon stone crocks of aged American corn whisky, and an hundred-weight weight of jerked, smoked, or cured meats and hard sausages for his cats and, begrudgingly, for Bisquit, the ship’s dog. He might be a playful pest, might still foul the decks, and took to howling whenever Lewrie tried to practice on his penny-whistle, but Lewrie had grown somewhat fond of the beast.
“Pettus, wos ’em things in th’ quarter-gallery?” young Jessop, the cabin servant, asked the cabin steward as Captain Lewrie finished his pre-sailing breakfast in the forward dining coach, dressed in casual and comfortable old sea clothes, with the finery packed away.
“What things in the quarter-gallery?” Pettus patiently asked as he stowed away spare shirts and trousers, just come back from the shore laundry where they had been washed and rinsed in fresh water, not salt. “You have to be specific.”
“’Em stockin’-lookin’ things in ’eir, them wif th’ ribbons on ’em,” Jessop pressed.
“Those are ‘protections’, Jessop,” Pettus coolly informed him.
“P’rtections f’um wot?” Jessop further asked, puzzled.
“They are cundums,” Pettus told the lad in a mutter, not wishing to disturb their captain, who was in a sour-enough mood already. “Things gentlemen wear when they, ah … take pleasure with ladies so they don’t get them pregnant, or catch the Pox. They are made from sheep gut.”
“Wos th’ ribbons for, ’en?”
“To tie them on round one’s … ‘nut-megs’ … so they won’t slip off in the middle of things,” Pettus said, whispering by then.
“’At’s a lotta work f’r a fook!” Jessop exclaimed, wide-eyed. “Ye kin see right through ’em, anyways. Izzat why the Cap’um needs s’many of ’em?” Jessop scoffed.
“One for each … bout,” Pettus explained, cryptically grinning.
“Mean t’say ’e topped a mort half a dozen times last night?” Jessop gawped aloud. “Or, six diff’r’nt doxies?”
“Hush, now!” Pettus cautioned.
Jessop looked forward to watch Lewrie butter a last slab of toast, smother it with sweet local key-lime marmalade, and take a bite. He goggled in outright awe!
Lewrie heard Jessop’s later utterances, and looked aft at the lad, smiling and tipping him a cheerful wink.
Not all that bad for a man o’ fourty-two, Lewrie congratulated himself quite smugly; and that don’t count the fellatio, which I doubt Priscilla’s “lawful blanket” is too prudish, or ignorant, t’know about.
She, like all ladies of worth, kept her fingernails short, but his back felt as if Toulon and Chalky had galloped over him with their claws out.
Poor Mister Frost! Lewrie thought; He’ll never know what he’s missin’!
Priscilla might not have strictly been a proper and virginal bride when she’d wed the old “colt’s tooth”, but might have been able to play-act a satisfactory sham of inexperience on the wedding night.
Not that her husband knew all that much about pleasuring her, or any woman. Priscilla had told him with sad amusement their first night that the old fellow came to bed in an ankle-length flannel gown, and had hiked it up only far enough to climb atop her, a business as quickly, roughly done to his release, before he would roll off and go to the wash-hand stand to sponge off, then fall deeply asleep. He did not find it seemly for her to remove her night gown, so it was possible he had never seen her bounty, which could have given him so much more delight, had he the slightest clue! But, Priscilla was his third wife, the first two dying of Child-bed Fever after producing enough males to assure that one would inherit, all now grown with families of their own. Priscilla was less a help-meet, more a house keeper, a hostess at his supper parties, the handy vessel for his rare needs, and a bit of adornment on his arm when invited out, but little else.
Hmm, sounds like most marriages! Lewrie had cynically thought.
Priscilla adored baring her body, being outlandishly nude and posing most fetchingly a’sprawl and inciting. Her “lawful blanket” might never worship at her firm and perky breasts, the insides of her thighs, or at “the wee man in the boat”, but by God Lewrie had been more than glad to attend “services” there! And the rewards of such ardent adoration had been nigh to Paradise itself!
What a waste of a good woman, Lewrie told himself as he mused over his last cup of coffee; Wouldn’t trust her outta sight, but—
The Marine sentry at his door stamped boots, banged his musket on the deck, and cried, “First Officer, SAH!”
“Enter,” Lewrie replied, dabbing his mouth with a napkin.
Lt. Westcott entered, his hat under his arm. “The ship is in all respects ready for sea, sir. We stand ready to pipe ‘Stations To Weigh’, whenever you wish.”
“Very well, Mister Westcott, I will come to the quarterdeck,” Lewrie said, rising and snagging his hat off the sideboard, where it was temporarily safe from his cats, who were still busy at their bowls at the other end of the table. “I am sorry I had to call you back to the ship by midnight.”
“Well, sir,” Westcott confided with a faint grin, “all that was needed to be said had been said. Some tears and lamentations, but I doubt such sentiment will last all that long once we’re gone. Dare I enquire of your last night ashore, sir?”
“We’re much in the same boat, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said. “I would say that I regret parting from the lady’s company, but, sooner or later, there’d be her husband t’deal with. At least you have the good sense to get involved with a free lass. Can’t imagine where my mind went!”
Most of a night on the side portico of her house, in the dark, rowin’ just the two of us over t’Hog Island with a basket and a blanket … thumpin’ about in a closed coach out to East End Point, Lewrie reminisced as they strolled out onto the weather deck and up the starboard ladderway to the quarterdeck; and last night, for hours and hours? That’s where my mind, and good sense, went! It’s just as well we’re sailin’ far away, ’fore her husband gets an inklin’ and calls me out. Killin’ him in a duel—for her honour, hah!—would be just too much.
“Good morning, Mister Caldwell,” Lewrie said to the Sailing Master, who was already on deck by the compass binnacle cabinet with all his navigational tools laid out. “Where away the wind?”
“Fresh out of the East-Nor’east, sir, and fair for a beam reach out the channel,” Caldwell told him with a satisfied grin. “You will wish to depart up the Nor’west Providence Channel, once we’ve made our offing, sir?”
“Aye,” Lewrie replied, looking up at the commissioning pendant to judge the direction of the wind for himself. “Out into the Florida Straits, reach the Gulf Stream, and shave close enough to the Grand Bahama Bank to keep well off the American coast. With any luck, we’ll pick up an East-Sou’easterly breeze that will allow us to avoid the Hatteras Banks, and get well out into the Atlantic.” He knocked wood on the binnacle cabinet. “Good morning, gentlemen.”
Lieutenants Spendlove and Merriman greeted him with cheery good mornings in return, and a doff of their hats.
“Just as we break the anchor free, I’ll have the spanker, the tops’ls, and inner, outer, and flying jibs hoisted,” Lewrie decided. “Once we’ve made our offing into deep water, and hauled off Nor’west, we’ll see to the courses and t’gallants.”
“Aye, sir,”
“And … when the anchor’s free, we’ll strike the harbour jack and my broad pendant,” Lewrie further instructed. “I’m sure that that will please our Commodore to no end, hey?”
Sour smiles were shared by all.
“Hands to the capstan, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie bade. “Let’s have a tune t’spur ’em on.”
“Bosun!” Westcott cried to the waist. “Hands to the capstan! Strike up ‘Portsmouth Lass’!”
Bisquit the dog dashed round the waist ’til he discovered that he was both ignored and underfoot, and slunk his way up to the quarterdeck to squat behind the cross-deck hammock nettings, looking about for a friendly face and a reassuring pat. He came to sit by Lewrie after a minute or two.
“Short stays!” Midshipman Munsell shouted from the bows.
“Stamp and go for the heavy haul!” Lt. Westcott bellowed.
“Up and down!”
“Bosun Sprague! Pipe the topmen aloft!” Westcott ordered. “Lay aloft, trice out, and man the tops’ls!”
Blocks squealed as the lift lines dragged the tops’l yards up from their rests. Lighter blocks joined the chorus after the harbour gaskets were freed and hands on deck drew down the canvas to the wind.
“Anchor’s free!” Munsell cried.
“Hoist away all jibs! Hoist away the spanker!”
HMS Reliant began to shuffle uncertainly, heeling a tiny bit to leeward as the canvas aloft began to catch wind, paying off free ’til the fore-and-aft sails were sheeted home. She then started to inch forward, stirring her great weight.
“Steerage way?” Lewrie asked the helmsmen.
“A bit, sir!” Quartermaster Baldock tentatively replied as he shifted the spokes of the forward-most of the twin wheels.
“A point up to windward, to get some drive from the jibs,” Lewrie ordered, pacing over to peer into the compass bowl, then look aloft at the commissioning pendant and how it was streaming.
Damme, that’s the end o’ that! he sadly thought as he watched his broad pendant come fluttering down the slackened halliard, that red bit of bunting with the white ball in the centre.
“Way, sir,” Baldock reported. “The rudder’s got a bite, now.”
“Steer for mid-channel, then, with nothing t’leeward,” Lewrie told him.
“Mid-channel aye, sir, an’ nothing t’leeward!” Baldock echoed.
“Hands to the braces!” Westcott was ordering, now that the topsails were fully spread, half-cupping the breeze. “Haul in the lee braces!”
Reliant was under way, free of the ground, with just enough of a drive to create the faintest bow wave under her forefoot and her cutwater, and Lewrie let out a sigh of relief. Before he would go to the windward rail, where a ship’s captain ought to be, he remained in the centre of the quarterdeck, looking shoreward. There were people there, on the piers and along Bay Street, waving goodbye. Some of them were women who waved handkerchiefs. Did some pipe their eyes in sadness?
Just after leaving Athenian and his last meeting with Grierson, Lewrie had announced to the crew that they would be sailing for home … where their pay chits would be honoured in full, and the shares in their ship’s prize-money would be doled out, he had reminded them, to make some of the dis-contented think twice about desertion. He had hoisted the “Easy” pendant and put the ship “Out Of Discipline” for a day and a night to let the whores and temporary “wives” come aboard, and even after full order was restored, he had granted shore liberty to each watch in turn so his sailors could stretch their legs ashore and lounge at their ease in the many taverns, rut in the brothels, and attend the “Dignity Balls” that the Free Blacks would stage. The Mulatto girls, the Quadroons and Octoroons, might be above being shopped by the pimps in the bum-boats like common doxies, but the fancily-dressed “Dignity Ladies”, for a discreet price, would make young sailormen feel as if they had discovered Fiddler’s Green, the sailors’ Paradise, where ale and spirits flowed freely, the music never ended, the girls were obliging and eager, and the publicans never called for the reckoning.
“Departing salute to the Governor-General, sir?” Lt. Westcott prompted.
“Aye, Mister Westcott, carry on,” Lewrie agreed, pacing over to the windward bulwarks where he belonged, and, as the gun salute boomed out in its slow measure, and the leeward side became wreathed in smoke, Lewrie doffed his hat to the women ashore, one memorable woman in particular whom he, in retrospect, had best never see again!
Once the last gun had been fired, Marine Lieutenant Simcock came to the top of the starboard ladderway. “Beg pardons, sir, but, given our departure for England, I wonder if ‘Spanish Ladies’ might be welcome.”
“A fine idea, Mister Simcock!” Lewrie heartily agreed. “Carry on and put a good pace to it, as you did before.”
“‘Fa-are-well, and a-dieu, to you fine Spanish la-adies, fa-are-well, and adieu, to you la-dies of Spain! Fo-or we’ve received orders to sail for Old England, but we hope very shortly to see you again! We’ll rant and we’ll roll, like true British sailor-men, we’ll rant and we’ll roll, all across the salt seas, ’til we strike Soundings in the Channel of Old England, then straight up the Channel to Portsmouth we’ll go!’”
Reliant’s sailors were bound for home. It was a beautiful morning of fresh-washed blue skies and white clouds, and the waters in the channel out to sea were clear enough to see schools of fish darting from the frigate’s shadow, the waters shading off to the most brilliant blue-green, bright jade green, and aquamarine. Now that the running rigging was belayed on fife and pin-rails, the excess flaked or flemished down, and the sails drawing well without tending, the crew could find time to sing, belting out the words with the joy of departing.
Older mast-captains and the younger and spryer captains of the tops had gathered in a group atop a hatch grating beneath the cross-deck timbers of the boat-tier beams in the waist, forming an impromptu chorus, swinging their arms as if their hands already held home-brewed ale mugs in their favourite old taverns.
“‘No-ow I’ve been a topman, and I’ve been a gunner’s mate, I can dance, I can sing, a-and walk the jib-boom! I can han-dle a cutlass, and cut a fine figure, whenever I’m given en-nough standing room!
“‘We’ll rant and we’ll roar, like true British sailormen, we’ll rant and we’ll roar, both aloft and be-low! ’Til we sight Lizard, on the coast of Old England, then straight up the Chan-nel to Portsmouth we’ll go!’” that chorus roared, and the ship’s boys, the cabin servants who served as nippers and powder-monkeys, pranced and practiced their horn-pipes round the covered hatchway, and the very youngest raced round and shrieked with delight, with Bisquit in pursuit, or being the chased, it was hard to tell which.
“Let them rant, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked as he joined Lewrie by the windward bulwarks.
“Aye, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie replied, a happy grin on his face, and his right hand beating the time on the cap-rails as he sang along now and then. “It’ll take half an hour more before we haul off Nor’west. They’ll play out long before then.”
He looked aft towards the larboard quarter to see Arawak Cay and the eastern tip of Long Cay well clear; off the starboard quarter stood the long spit of Hog Island. And framed between the taffrail lanthorns lay the harbour channel and the town of Nassau, glowing in an infinite variety of pastel paint on the walls, already shrinking away, the green hills of early Spring turning brown and dusty in the glare of late Summer.
“Mind, though,” Lewrie said, “does the wind give you an opportunity, I’ll have the fore course, main course, and t’gallants filled.”
“I don’t suppose it matters at this point, sir, what our duty will be once we leave the dockyards,” Westcott said with a shrug. “I only hope whatever we’re set to is as successful as our last.”
“Even if it ended badly,” Lewrie said, sighing and leaving the bulwarks to walk a few paces forward to look down into the waist at his singing and capering crewmen. “Damme, I’m going to miss Darling, Bury, and Lovett. We made a hellish-good team!”
“But, with any luck, sir, we’ll find another,” Westcott said with a hopeful tone.
“We’ll see,” Lewrie said, nodding. “We’ll see.”
