Текст книги "Hostile Shores"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A light and misty October rain was falling, gathering on upper yards, and the rigging, and occasionally massing into larger drops of water that plopped on Reliant’s freshly holystoned decks, on the canvas covers of the stowed hammock racks, and Captain Alan Lewrie’s hat and epauletted shoulders as he and the First Lieutenant, Mr. Westcott, and the Bosun, Mr. Sprague, made a slow inspection of both the standing and the running rigging, and the set of the top-masts and yards.
Bisquit the dog paced slowly at their heels, on the lookout for attention, or the offer of a nibble of sausage or jerky. When one of the larger drops plopped on his head, he would shy away, then look up to spot whoever it was that was pestering him.
“The cats have more sense, ye know,” Lewrie told the dog. “They stay snug and dry below.”
“Enjoying their long naps,” Lt. Westcott commented with a grin as if he could relish an hour or two of idle snoozing. No one aboard had had much rest since Lewrie returned from London. To prove his sentiment, Westcott fought to stifle a jaw-cracking yawn.
“It appears we’re back in business, Mister Sprague,” Lewrie allowed once they had reached the bow hawses for a long look at the bowsprit and jib-boom rigging.
“Spick and span clean from keel to truck, again, too, sir,” the Bosun pointed out. He was a man who ever strove for order, neatness, and cleanliness, the hallmark of his exacting trade. “She don’t smell like a mud-flat any longer.”
Despite the orders which Lewrie had waved under everyone’s noses, there simply had been no space for them in a graving dock, so the frigate had been hauled over and her bottom cleaned, re-felted, white leaded, and re-coppered in places by a civilian contractor’s yard, on a sandy and muddy hard between the tides, and the reek of the beach, and white lead paint had been a long time departing her.
There had been planking in her “quick-work” badly in need of replacing, too. Some were riddled with teredo worms, and some gnawed thin from the inside, by rats that had the run of the orlop and bilges.
Once back on her bottom and upright, the contractor had suggested that their rat problem could be solved, at least temporarily, by the introduction of a pack of terriers, as many stray cats as could be had round the yard, and let them have the run of the ship for a few days … for which he would be paid, of course, a trifling fee.
“Saw more than one merchant ship and a sloop o’ war get sunk by her own vermin, sir,” the flinty shipwright had told them. “Starving rats’d eat anything, and usually gnaw through the hull planks down low where you can’t tell ’til the water’s pouring into the bilges.”
The ship’s boys had had a field day, following the terriers on their hunts, and collecting keg after keg of dead rats. They had hot been above doing slaughter of their own with hammers and middle mauls.
That vermin-free state would not last; it never would, of course. Ships stores, ration kegs, bales of clothing, and even gunpowder had to be brought back aboard from temporary storage at the warehouses at the naval dockyard, and even more stores sufficient for six months at sea, would bring pests with them, even was the ship anchored out and not right alongside a pier where rats would have easier access.
“How are the new hands fitting in?” Lewrie asked the Bosun.
“Them, God help us, sir?” Sprague said with a weary laugh of dismissal. “Two of the four Landsmen might as well be goony birds and the other two strike me as shifty … county Quota Men. The three rated as Ordinary are passable, but we only could scrape up two Able Seamen, One’s alright, but I’m keeping my eye on Shales, and so is the foremast captain. I expect he’s a ‘sea-lawyer’, sir.”
“No help for it,” Lewrie said with a sigh. The ship’s people had had to lodge ashore temporarily, and despite all the cautions that he, his officers, and petty officers had urged, despite all their watchfulness, eleven hands had deserted. Lewrie damned Lord Gardner’s office for issuing pay chits before the ship was fully back in commission and discipline. It made no sense to him that those eleven men would take “leg bail”, obtain a civilian’s “long clothing”, and run, sacrificing their claims to the substantial amount of prize-money that Reliant was due. And all of them had been aboard since May of 1803!
“For that matter, sir,” Westcott quipped, “how do you think our new Mid, Mister Shannon, is fitting in?”
“Oh, Lord,” Lewrie said, pulling a long face which made all of them chuckle. “No helpin’ that, either. He’s a young’un, no error.”
Midshipman Entwhistle had stood his oral exams before a board of Post-Captains while Reliant was on her beam-ends in the mud, and had been rated as Passed. Out of the blue, not a week later, he had been given orders into an 18-gun brig-sloop just fitting out and he, a newly “wetted down” Lieutenant and Commission Sea Officer, was gone, replaced with a twelve-year-old chub. There had been a tit-for-tat made; the Commissioner of the dockyards, Captain Sir Charles Saxton, Bart., had a distant nephew in need of his first posting, and Lewrie had a foul bottom, and no matter his urgent orders for the South Atlantic, things would go more swimmingly should Lewrie welcome the lad aboard.
Lewrie had to give Captain Saxton his due, though; the naval dockyard had stored all his goods without pilferage, and it all had been returned in fine shape, and no condemned casks of salt-meats had been substituted for their own. Reliant had gotten all the items that Lewrie had requested, even a more than ample supply of paint for sprucing up the ship! And that in a time when captains would be treated so parsimoniously that more than one had written Admiralty to ask which side of his ship he should re-paint!
Midshipman Richard Saxby Shannon, though all puppy-dog earnest and eager, was also all cunny-thumbs, so far, and was as gullible as the day was long, wide open to all of the traditional jokes that Mids played on each other, and even a new one that Lewrie had not heard of before—they had told him that after six months at sea, even had he yet to experience a girl, he would find himself in desperate need for release, in the form of manual stimulation, or “Boxing the Jesuit” in the dark. They had sent him to the Captain to be issued his Masturbation Papers so he would have official permission!
When Shannon had made his request in Lewrie’s day-cabin, with his hat under his arm and his “serious” face on, Lewrie had laughed himself sick, unable to reply, and, wheezing, had just shooed the lad out, and he could not stop laughing for another ten minutes!
“He’ll probably not even touch his crotch to change his under-drawers,” Lt. Westcott sniggered, smiling wickedly.
“Yes, well,” Lewrie said, after another brief laugh, “I think we’re ready for sea, as soon as the wind shifts favourably. I will be below. Carry on, Mister Westcott … Mister Sprague.”
* * *
“A cup of good, hot coffee, sir?” Pettus offered after he had hung Lewrie’s hat and undress coat up on pegs to dry, out of reach of the cats.
“Most welcome, thankee, Pettus,” Lewrie responded as he plucked an older, third-best uniform coat from the back of his desk chair and donned it. He sat down at his desk and went over the muster book once more to see if he fully agreed with the changes made in the assignments of hands to their various stations during the ship’s working. Men in each larboard and starboard watch had specific duties to perform when on passage, when hoisting the anchors or coming to anchor, when making sail or reducing them, when top-masts must be struck or hoisted up into place, when boats must be hoisted up and lowered overside or recovered, by day or night. Equally, each man was assigned specific stations and duties when the ship went to Quarters and it was all written down in a series of lists so that every niggling chore was covered and every slot filled by a warm body.
“Turning a bit nippy, this time of year, sir,” Pettus commented as he brought the coffee, “and a chilly damp. It will be good we are bound South.”
“Aye, with winter comin’ on, I’d expect even the heat near the Equator’d be welcome,” Lewrie agreed, stirring his mug after adding a large dollop of goat’s milk and two spoonfuls of fine white sugar.
“Midshipman Shannon, SAH!” the Marine sentry at the door bawled.
Lewrie looked up over the rim of his mug to see Jessop making a tube of his right hand and pantomiming a jerk-off to Pettus.
“We’ll have no dis-respect for any Mid, Jessop,” Lewrie said, striving for sternness. “Stop that. Enter!”
“Aye, sir,” Jessop answered, still looking a bit too gleeful for Lewrie’s liking.
Midshipman Shannon entered and marched to the front of Lewrie’s desk at what the lad obviously thought was a properly rapid military pace. “Mister Eldridge’s duty, sir, and I am to tell you that there is a boat approaching,” he rattled off, chin up, stiff as a soldier at “Guards Mount,” and staring over Lewrie’s shoulder at the middle distance.
“Very well, Mister Shannon, and thankee,” Lewrie replied. “Any idea of its passenger, or passengers?”
“Ehm … Mister Eldridge did speculate that it might bear an Admiralty messenger, sir,” Shannon answered, looking as if a question had thrown him off-script and nigh clueless in how to respond.
“Fine, we’ll soon see. You may go, Mister Shannon,” Lewrie bade.
“Aye aye, sir!” Shannon barked, just as loud as the sentry, and all but stamping his boots.
“Just a thought, Mister Shannon,” Lewrie said before the lad could stumble through an attempt at an about-face. “In the Navy, there is no need to emulate the Household Foot Guards, or our own Marines, for that matter. All that shouting and stamping about just frightens my cats.”
“Ehm … I was told…,” Shannon gulped, turning red.
“I would not believe all that I was told by your fellow Mids,” Lewrie cautioned, “recent pranks included, hmm?”
“Very good, sir,” Shannon replied, taking on normal posture. With a brief, shy, and much-relieved smile, he saw himself out.
“Lord, what a younker, sir,” Pettus said once he was gone.
“Believe it or not, Pettus, I’ve seen worse,” Lewrie laughed.
A few minutes later, after Lewrie had placed cheque marks beside the names of some hands whom he thought too weak, or too dense, to do the tasks assigned them, he could hear the calls of the “Spithead Nightingales” as someone was piped aboard the ship. In expectation of a visitor, he set aside the lists and waited for his Marine sentry to do his duty, which came a moment later. “Messenger t’see th’ Cap’um, SAH!”
“Enter,” Lewrie bade.
An older Midshipman from the Port Admiral’s office entered, with a canvas despatch bag hung over one shoulder. “Orders from the Port Admiral, Captain Lewrie, sir. And, Captain Niles also thought that your latest mail should be delivered aboard, as well,” the Mid said.
“Most welcome, and thank you,” Lewrie said with a happy smile as he accepted the packet of letters, and his orders. “Do I need to sign for them?” he asked, waving the slim envelope.
“No, sir,” the Midshipman said with a grin, and bowed himself out. As soon as he was gone, Lewrie broke the wax seal and opened the brief order. He already had orders from Admiralty to sail as part of Commodore Popham’s expedition, “with all despatch” and “making the best of his way”, and was just waiting for a favourable slant of wind for departure so he could fulfil Admiralty’s parlance for cracking on all sail to the royals and blowing out half his heavy-weather canvas for maximum speed. What could Lord Gardner have to say about it?
“Oh Christ,” Lewrie groaned. “Play escort?”
There were, several hired-in merchant vessels also waiting for a change in wind direction which carried a part of Popham’s expeditionary force, a troop transport, and a pair of horse transports bound for Madeira, the assembly point in the neutral Portuguese Azores Islands, and carrying two troops of the 34th Light Dragoons.
So much for “with all despatch”, Lewrie desponded; If they can make eight knots in a ragin’ gale, I’m a Turk in a turban!
He cast a longing look at the thick packet of personal mail, but got to his feet and went aft to the windows in the transom. As Lord Gardner had written, those transports were anchored near Southsea Castle … but then, so were many other vessels. Through the misty haze and sullen rain he could make out one ship which flew a large, plain blue broad pendant, the sign of the naval officer appointed by the Transport Board to be the Agent Afloat.
Bugger it, Lewrie thought; I’m goin’ t’get wet … wetter.
He asked Pettus for his grogram cloak and worst hat, turned the personal mail over to his clerk, Faulkes, for distribution, and sent Jessop out on deck to pass word for his boat crew to assemble.
“I’ll be back later, before Seven Bells, I hope,” Lewrie said to Pettus. “Have Yeovill keep my dinner warm. I have to see a man about a horse.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Though he was irked at Lord Gardner’s meddling, and the necessity of rowing over in the rain to meet with the masters of the vessels he was to escort, Lewrie was a tad curious. He had dealt with civilian convoys in the past, but had never seen troop ships or the specialised “cavalry” ships.
Before 1794, the Navy Board had done the hiring of ships to bear soldiers, artillery, ammunition, and supplies overseas. In 1794, a six-man Transport Board had been established to handle the task. The Navy Board had been, and most-likely still was, rife with corruption, so it was good odds that the new Transport Board would be no more honest, but somehow the job had to be done on those so-far rare occasions when the small British Army went overseas, mostly to the East or West Indies, or to garrisons in Canada, Gibraltar, and the Mediterranean.
“Arrah, now there’s a homey smell,” Cox’n Liam Desmond said in appreciation after a deep sniff of the wind. “Horses, barns filled with hay an’ straw … all that’s needin’ is a warm peat fire on such a day as this. Ahh!”
“That, an’ a pint of stout right under yer nose whilst yer warmin’ at that fire, Liam,” Patrick Furfy, the stroke-oar, said with a wistful sigh of missed pleasures.
“Make for the one flying the blue pendant,” Lewrie bade them.
There were three ships in all, according to Lord Gardner’s set of orders: the Ascot, the Marigold, and the Sweet Susan. The one with the blue pendant turned out to be the Ascot, the only one named in any connexion with horses or horse races, and she was the troop transport.
Lewrie was welcomed aboard her, not piped, by an Navy officer, a much older Lieutenant with a slight limp who named himself as Thatcher.
“You are the Agent Afloat?” Lewrie asked.
“I am, sir,” Thatcher glumly told him, “and the only naval officer aboard any of the ships. You are to be our escort, the one named in Lord Gardner’s orders? Happy to meet, you, Captain Lewrie. This may take a while, so why don’t you call your boat crew up so they can take shelter from the rain, and we can go aft. Look out!”
“What?” Lewrie gawped, just before Thatcher snatched him by the arm, clear of a charge by an angry ram.
“What the bloody Hell’s that?” Lewrie snapped.
“The mascot of the Thirty-fourth Light Dragoons, sir,” Thatcher spat in a weary tone. “Cornet Allison? Come fetch your bloody … beast!”
A lad of sixteen or so, resplendent in the silver-trimmed, blue-cuffed short red coat, dark blue breeches, and high, knee-flapped boots of a cavalry regiment, and with a leather-visored helmet bristling fore and aft with black fur plumes, came to stumble after the ram, take him by the collar and one large curved horn, to lead him away.
“Sorry, Leftenant Thatcher, sir,” Cornet Allison added and shifted his grip on the ram so he could raise his right hand and press it palm outward to the visor of his helmet in salute to Lewrie. “I was sure he was tethered, but—”
“Make sure he’s tethered,” Lt. Thatcher insisted. “Else, we’ll find what fresh mutton tastes like.”
“Yes, sir,” Cornet Allison assured him, then pulled a face. “I so wish that we’d voted for a mastiff, or a greyhound, but the Colonel insisted, and so … Come on, you,” he said to the ram, trotting it to the far side of the deck.
“It has no name, d’ye see, Captain Lewrie,” Lt. Thatcher said. “The Colonel of the Thirty-fourth, Colonel Laird, also insists that it is always referred to as the Regimental Ram. Though most of the troopers call it ‘that vicious bastard’. ‘Cantankerous’ is a mild word to describe its temperament, and there’s not a soldier aboard that hasn’t been rammed when he wasn’t expecting it. Will you join me for a coffee, sir?”
“Gladly,” Lewrie heartily agreed.
Aft and in the shelter of the ship’s master’s great-cabins, now divvied up into small cabins with deal-and-canvas partitions, there was a long mess table down the middle. Ascot’s master, a gruff older man by name of Settles, stuck his head out of what was left of his formerly spacious quarters just long enough to grunt a gloomy greeting to Lewrie, then shut his door on the lot of them.
The “lot” who shared the approximation of a wardroom aboard a proper warship were the Ascot’s First and Second Mates, and officers of the 34th. Lt. Thatcher did the introductions. A Captain Veasey was the senior officer of the regiment, and another Army officer, Captain Chadfield.
“Rarin’ t’go and have at the Dutchies, I say!” Captain Veasey hoorawed as Lewrie shed his hat and cloak and took a seat at the table. “All this idlin’ in the holds are bad for our mounts, and rough on our troopers, too, d’ye see. It’s taken two years t’make proper mounts and it’d be a cryin’ shame do we lose some on the voyage. Your trained cavalry horse is worth half a dozen regular prads, even blooded hunters. Horridly dear investment.”
Captain Veasey was more than happy to prose on, relating that there were two troops of cavalry aboard Ascot, one of the four squadrons that made up the regiment, with eighty troopers and horses for each troop, plus Lieutenants, Cornets, non-commissioned Sergeants and Corporals, farriers, blacksmiths, and trumpeters. Naturally, there were more horses aboard Marigold and Sweet Susan, for no officer of the British Army could go to war without his string of extra mounts; even the junior-most Cornets’ parents had bought them at least three. Each transport carried around ninety horses, altogether.
Belowdecks on Ascot, Lt. Thatcher stuck in when Veasey ran out of air, there were fewer than 160 troopers, for someone had to feed and tend to the horses and muck out the narrow stalls daily. Detachments of ten troopers under Lieutenants and a Sergeant had been sent to the other ships … damned if the merchant sailors would do it!
“A large risk of fire, though, sir,” Thatcher cautioned. “The horses are grain-fed, but the bales of hay, and the straw put down in the stalls … brr!”
Lewrie got a brief tour of the troopers’ quarters belowdecks, a series of cabins where bored and irritable soldiers tried to find ways to amuse themselves. They were issued hammocks to sleep sailor-style, but had to store them in the stanchions and nettings during the day, leaving them little comfort before dark. Many napped under and atop the rough wood mess tables, or on the hard decks.
“They’ll tear the partitions down for more room, you wait and see, Captain Lewrie,” Lt. Thatcher gloomed once they were back on deck and in much fresher air; un-washed bodies, wet wool, farts, and other un-identifiable reeks had almost made Lewrie gag. Without access to their horses, the troopers would face weeks at sea with nothing to do except dis-mounted weapons drill and “square-bashing” foot drill, and perhaps some five firing at floating targets with their short Paget carbines. Rather neat weapons, Lewrie thought, with their ramrods permanently attached on a chain and swivel so they could not be lost when one tried to re-load on horseback … if such was even possible.
Ascot was about 250 tons’ burthen, the other two about 200 tons, all of them coppered below the waterline, so all were hired on for nineteen shillings per ton; un-coppered ships were paid from fifteen to seventeen shillings per ton, and contracted for six months’ service, though that could be extended. If that became necessary, Lt. Thatcher could issue Transport Board chits to extend the contracts, on his own authority, and risk.
“A rum business, this, Captain Lewrie,” Lt. Thatcher sourly said as he pointed up at his blue pendant. “The Board names me Agent Afloat, and gives me the semblance of a Commodore, but I’m little more than a baulk of ‘live lumber’, a mere passenger! I can gather them in, order them when to sail, and to where, but beyond that, I have no say in how any of the ships are run, or handled, and civilian merchant masters are a tetchy lot, and damn the Navy, they’ll do things their way and ignore any suggestions from me! God forbid I try to give them orders!
“You’d not have a sickly officer, would you, Captain Lewrie?” Lt. Thatcher asked, only partly in jest. “But for this bad leg of mine I’d still be aboard a warship. I was Third Officer into a frigate when a gun burst and put a hunk of iron into me. Three months in Haslar Hospital, then a year on half-pay, well … wasn’t even in action, but at drill!”
“All my Lieutenants are very healthy, sorry, Mister Thatcher,” Lewrie had to tell him, with genuine sympathy.
“Ah, well then,” Thatcher said with a sigh. “Do you still wish to see one of the horse transports?”
“Aye, I do, if it’s no imposition,” Lewrie said.
* * *
True to his promise, Lewrie was back aboard Reliant before Noon, just as “Clear Decks And Up Spirits” was being piped and the rum keg was being carried to the forecastle. The welcome ritual was halted for a moment to salute Lewrie back aboard. He lifted his sodden hat from his streaming-wet hair, and made a quick way down the ladderway to the waist, and the door to his great-cabins, shooing off the ship’s dog, Bisquit, whose fur was just as wet, and shaking showers of rain from his hair every now and then.
“Good luck with those,” Lewrie told Pettus as his cabin-steward took his hat and cloak. “You could get a bowl o’ wash water from ’em, do ye let ’em drip long enough. So long as ye don’t mind blue water.”
“I expect they have bled as much dye as they ever will, sir,” Pettus speculated as he hung them up on pegs. “Might you relish a cup of hot tea, sir? I’ve some on the warming stand.”
“Aye, with milk, sugar, and a dollop o’ rum,” Lewrie decided. “A large dollop.”
“Coming right up, sir,” Pettus said, pausing to fetch Lewrie a dry towel for his hair and face.
His cats, Toulon and Chalky, had been napping at either end of the starboard-side settee, but came dashing with their tails vertical to greet him. They found his boots intriguing, and sniffed about them, posing their mouths open to savour the aromas like little lions.
“I hate t’ask it of ye, Pettus, but I seem t’ve trod in horse droppings. Got the most of it off, but…,” Lewrie said with a hapless shrug.
“I’ll see to them, sir. Jessop? The Captain’s boots need a cleaning,” Pettus promised, then shared a secret smile with Lewrie as he passed that onus to the cabin boy.
After changing to an older pair of buckled shoes, Lewrie sat at his desk and scribbled out a set of orders for Lt. Thatcher and the masters of the transports, outlining the signal flags he would be hoisting during the day, and the blue-fire rockets he would launch at night when it was necessary to alert them, or keep them in close order. He tried to keep it simple, given his last chaotic experience of escorting a huge “sugar trade” convoy from the West Indies in 1804. Even if Admiralty was paying them to sail together and trust their escort, merchant masters were indeed an un-cooperative and tetchy lot.
It was hard going, for Toulon and Chalky always found delight in interfering with people that ignored them when at a chore. First it was his oldest cat, Toulon, who would hop into his lap then atop the desk, there to sniff, swat at the steel-nib pen, and squat on the paper. Just after he was shooed off, it was Chalky’s turn to leap up and flop onto one side, then wriggle with his paws in the air for his belly to be tickled.
“Oh, for God’s sake, why’d I ever think that cats make good companions,” Lewrie growled. “There. Satisfied?” he asked as he rubbed Chalky’s belly for a second or two. No, he was not, for he flipped on his side once more and began to snatch at the pen with both paws. Then it was time for Toulon to return and flop and wave for “wubbies”. The requested tea showed up, and that required inspection and more sniffs.
“First Off’cer, SAH!” the Marine sentry announced.
“Enter!” Lewrie bawled back, beyond frustrated, by then.
Lt. Geoffrey Westcott came in and approached the desk, a touch warily, taking a cue from Lewrie’s tone.
“Rescue me, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie demanded. “Take a cat. I can only deal with one at a time.”
“Here, Chalky,” Westcott said, grinning. “Come nip a finger.”
He sat down in a chair before the desk and lifted the younger cat into his lap, which made Chalky flatten his ears, leap down, and run off to the dining coach to sit and furiously groom, insulted beyond all measure.
“How are our brethren in the Army, sir?” Westcott asked.
“Eager t’win their spurs, and gallop through the entire Dutch army,” Lewrie said sarcastically. “Cavalry, by God! I met some of the officers, and I swear they’re as dense as roundshot. Yoicks, tally-ho. The Thirty-fourth was raised round Shaftesbury—”
“I’ve friends from Shaftesbury,” Westcott said with a knowing nod, and a brief, feral grin, “though none of them are dull enough for cavalry.”
“Their Colonel, Laird, raised and paid for them himself,” Lewrie went on, “designed their uniforms, armed them with old-style straight Heavy Dragoon swords and Paget carbines, like Viscount Percy did his regiment. But, I doubt there’s a professional soldier among ’em, from the horse-coper to the top. Must’ve made some of his money back from sellin’ officers’ commissions.”
“Well, all we have to do is get them there, and after that, it will be up to whichever General appointed,” Westcott said.
“I was in the middle of tryin’ t’write orders to the transports’ masters, but for the cats,” Lewrie told his First Officer. “We will up-anchor in the morning, at the start of the Forenoon, and fall down to Saint Helen’s Patch. If there’s a good wind, we’ll stand on, but if there’s not, we’ll come to anchor and wait for one. Warn the others to arrange their last-minute necessities from shore, and make sure the Purser knows.”
“Mister Cadbury believes he has everything in hand, but for one or two bullocks for fresh meat, the first few days at sea, sir,” Westcott replied with a shrug. “And the wardroom’s needs are met.”
“Before I have Faulkes make fair copies, I wonder if you would aid me in draughting the orders … see if there’s anything I might miss,” Lewrie asked, shoving the papers towards Westcott, and brushing Toulon to one side of the desk with his arm. Toulon flopped on top of his arm to weigh him down and began to rumble.
“Happy to oblige, sir,” Westcott agreed.
“Tea, with some rum, sir?” Pettus offered.
“Sounds delightful, thank you, Pettus,” Westcott perked up.
“And a second cup for me,” Lewrie added.
“Hmm,” Westcott mused after going over the first two sheets of paper. “I do wonder, sir, if we have to signal changes of course, subject to the weather. It’s not as if they’ll just plod along astern of us and follow our every move.…”
* * *
The orders were thrashed out by half-past Noon, and Westcott departed. Faulkes got to copying, and Lewrie’s mid-day meal arrived, a hearty chicken and rice soup, a middling-sized grilled beef steak with hashed potatoes and some of the black-eyed peas purchased in Savannah in the Spring, brought to spicy life with Yeovill’s stash of sauces, accompanied by brown bread and butter, and a decent claret.
The cats got their own shredded beef, spare rice, and hashed potatoes gravied with dollops of chicken soup in their bowls at the foot of the table, after making a great, adoring fuss over Yeovill when he entered and served out their shares. They came to nuzzle and rub on Lewrie once Pettus cleared his plate, then made for the settee for a long afternoon nap.
Faulkes brought the copies for Lewrie to look over, then folded them and sealed them for one of the Midshipmen to deliver. Whichever one it was, he would be getting wet, for the rain continued, heavier and steadier, and looked as if it would continue all through the afternoon and night.
Lewrie poured himself a fresh cup of tea, minus rum, from the sideboard, and went back to his desk. At last, he could look over his personal mail and respond to some of it. There were some bills from a London shop or two, for which he wrote out notes-of-hand to be redeemed at his solicitor’s, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy. There was one from Peter Rushton, an old school friend from his brief stint at Harrow before being expelled for arson … not only expelled but banned from the grounds forevermore, upon risk of arrest! That’un would be newsy and chatty!
And, there was one from Lydia.
“Oh, Lord,” Lewrie muttered half to himself, feeling wistful and anxious at the same time, turning the sealed letter round in his hands before breaking the wax seal to unfold and read it.
Once Reliant had been turned over to the civilian yard, he had gotten a week in London, lodging at the Madeira Club again, coaching to the West End to call upon her. They had courted!
Paying suit to Lydia had involved a nightly round of going out, to dine at the fashionable clubs like White’s, Boodle’s, Almack’s, and the Cocoa-Tree, seeing the latest plays in the Covent Garden theatres, and, on a sudden whim, going to Plumb’s Comedic Revue in Drury Lane to see the show of that false Sir Pulteney Plumb (only overseas did he claim that title) and his French wife who had been a chorus girl with the Comédie-Française in Paris. It was their quick-change costuming and theatrical talents that had spirited Lewrie and his late wife, Caroline, from Paris to Calais in a variety of wigs, clothes, makeup, and guises, escaping the clutches of Bonaparte’s police agents who’d been set to assassinate them. It had not been the Plumbs’ fault that Caroline had been shot and slain with a bullet meant for him, and he found that their show, with the clowns and scantily-dressed dancing girls as entr’actes, was quite enjoyable and highly amusing.
