A King's Trade (16 page)

A
nyone looking for me, Mister Langlie?” Lewrie asked, once all the honours had been rendered to welcome him back aboard. He tried to make it sound like a casual enquiry, not a furtive fret.

“We've heard nothing from shore of any note, sir,” Lt. Langlie crisply reported as Lewrie's shoregoing traps were borne below by his steward, Aspinall. “Beg pardon, sir, but…in your absence, I felt that a few days ‘Out of Discipline' mightn't go amiss, and allowed the hands ‘board-ship liberty. Once the water butts had been scrubbed and scoured, and the hoys fetched us fresh.”

“Good thinking,” Lewrie commented, his mind elsewhere, kneeling on the quarterdeck to stroke his affection-starved cats, which had come scampering to the starboard gangway at the very first tweetles of the bosun's calls. “No one knifed, poxed, or run?”

“Poxed, I could not say, sir,” Langlie replied with a chuckle. “A few fist-fights and drunken rows over the doxies, of course, but no runners. Erm …I also sent ashore to the yards for spare spars and Bosun's stores, replenished our salt-meat and biscuit, and indented for live animals, so…
Proteus
is stocked with the full six months' worth of supplies, Captain,” he reported, with a touch of pride.

“Very good, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie congratulated, looking up at him, then rising to his feet, now that Toulon and Chalky had had their immediate fill of “wubbies.” “I apologise that London required me to be away longer than I expected. In my absence, you've done well…as you always do. Of
course, I expected no less, after our years of being thrown together,” he tossed off with a grin.

That's enough praise,
Lewrie thought;
don't
trowel
it on! Else, it'll go to his head.

“Once I've gone below and changed into working rig, bring me the indentures and all to sign,” Lewrie said. “Any more mail come aboard?”

“Some, sir. Yours is on your desk,” Langlie told him, as they began to stroll towards the ladder to the gun-deck. “When in the City, sir, did you discover where our future orders might take us. sir?”

“Nothing definite, no,” Lewrie cryptically informed him. “Damn, lads! Give me space in which to walk, will you?” he said to his cats, which thought it their “duty” to
closely
escort him down the ladderway, weaving back and forth from one riser to the next. “Pray God they do not come immediately. No time for shopping, and my personal stores are in need of re-stocking, too. Quite unlike the wardroom's…hmm?”

“We're all quite…happy, sir,” Langlie rejoined, laughing. “I vow the Purser's actually done us proud…for a change.”

Lewrie quickly changed into dark blue slop-trousers, a worn old waist-coat, and his plainest, and heaviest, uniform coat, for the great-cabins were chilly, and the two cast-iron stoves did little to heat the space. Evidently, Aspinall hadn't slept in his quarters temporarily, or lavished Lewrie's limited supply of coal on himself whilst he was away—good, honest lad!

Bills, which Lewrie read over, then addressed to his solicitor in London, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy; official documents opened first, of course, but they were nothing demanding—most were fleet-wide announcements of changes in admirals', captains', and lieutenants' lists, some new soundings taken of far-flung coasts or harbours, of more interest to Mr. Winwood, the Sailing Master, than to Lewrie, right off.

Hardly any personal correspondence, though, Lewrie broodingly noted as he sat slumped at his desk in the day-cabin. A mocking note from his father, Sir Hugo, was the most recent, japing him on staying at his Madeira Club; something brief from Lord Peter Rushton, wishing him joy of his return to England—nigh indecypherable, of course, in his own hand. Peter
might've
included cheerful words of how he would do what he could in his cause in the House of Lords, since Lewrie
did
manage to make out a reference to having spoken with Mr. Twigg, but it was hard going without a magnifying glass and a Sanskrit or Arabic dictionary.

Slam!
went the Marine sentry's musket butt on the deck without the great-cabins' main-deck doors. “First Off'cah, SAH!” he bellowed, all full of piss, vinegar, and temporary officialdom.

“Enter,” Lewrie called out. Lt. Langlie ducked under the deck beams and door frame to come in, bearing a thick-ish bundle of paperwork, just as Aspinall bustled in a second or so behind him with his coffee-pot.

Two cups, and half an hour, later, and there was another twitter of calls from the gangway, the thud of a boat coming alongside, below the entry-port, in the midst of their reading and scribbling. Not one minute later, and Mr. D'arcy Gamble, their smartest and eldest Midshipman, was announced by the sentry, and entered the cabins.

“Captain, sir,” Gamble reported with his hat under his arm. “A messenger from shore is come aboard with orders,” he said, eyes bright with excitement for new adventures and new horizons.

“Have him in, then, Mister Gamble,” Lewrie instructed.

“Aye aye, sir!”

A smartly-dressed and languidly-elegant older Midshipman entered next, all but yawning in boredom with his work-a-day duty, all but sniffing in disdain at such casually, comfortably garbed officers, so unlike himself.

“Captain Lewrie, sir?” he asked, as if he had to be convinced before he would turn over his precious documents to just any “hobble-de-hoy.”

“Last time I looked, that would be me,” Lewrie said from behind his desk, still seated, taking an instant dislike for the fellow, even if he
did
see a bit of himself, back when he'd been stuck ashore in the service of the Port Captain of English Harbour, Antigua. In younger days, when he'd appalled himself by actually wishing for another shipboard assignment despite his early loathing for a naval career, he had been just that supercilious, himself, to disguise his delight to be
on
a warship, even temporarily. “Orders, have you?”

“I do, sir,” the young man replied, reaching into a tarred and waterproofed canvas haversack slung from one shoulder, and producing a ribbon-and-wax-sealed letter. “Just come from Admiralty, sir,” Mr. Midshipman “Top-Lofty” formally intoned, as if uttering the magic word “Admiralty” made him a grander fellow.

Didn't beat
‘
em aboard by
much,
did I?
Lewrie mused to himself as he stretched out a hand to accept them;
Twigg must be working like a Trojan t'get me out of harm's reach.

“We done, Mister Langlie?” Lewrie asked his First Officer, who sat across
from him, legs crossed, in one of Lewrie's leather-covered collapsing chairs, looking eager as a hound when the gun-cabinet was opened.

“Done to a turn, sir,” Langlie replied, gathering up the last of his “bumf” into a neat pile; one copy for the ship, one copy for the yards.

“Then perhaps Mister…whatever your name is …”

“Catlett, sir. Midshipman Cat…”

“…would be so good as to bear all these back ashore for us, hey, Mister Langlie? Kill two birds with one stone, seeing as how he is on his
way,
hmm?” Lewrie dismissively suggested, quite enjoying his brief bit of spite. “Anything
else,
Mister Catlett?”

“Uhm, nossir,” the crestfallen Midshipman replied.

“Well, there you are, then!” Lewrie said with a bright grin as he indicated that Langlie should hand Catlett the paperwork. “Do stay dry as you can, on the row ashore! Wouldn't want ‘em smudged!”

“Very good, sir,” Catlett intoned, sketched a brief bow, then departed, escorted by an equally disappointed Mr. Gamble, who had been hoping for at least a hint as to their new duties, and destination.

“A ‘no-sailor' tailor's dummy,” Lt. Langlie softly commented in dismissal of their visitor.
“He'll
never see the outer channel marks. I'll go, sir, and allow you …” he offered, starting to rise.

“Stay, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie objected, waving him back down. “This concerns you as much as it does me,” he said, breaking the seal and unfolding the large sheet of paper. He laid it on the desk-top, smoothed the crisp folds flat, and hunched over it under the slightly swaying lanthorn for the best light.

Uhmum,
Lewrie thought;
“required and directed” and all that… “making the best of your way,” uhmum, “with all despatch,”
he read to himself, frowning over the urgency implied by those stock Admiralty phrases.
What in Blades has Twigg talked
‘
em into?
he wondered.

“Oh, buggery,” Lewrie uttered at last. “Mine arse on a band-box! He's
not
gone barking mad, yet? Holy shit on a …” he griped.

“Sir?” Lt. Langlie hesitantly asked, his brow furrowed.

“Convoy duty, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie told him, looking up and sitting back into his chair. “We're to make all haste up-Channel for the Goodwin Sands, meet up with a ‘Trade' of East Indiamen, and escort ‘em at least as far as the Cape of Good Hope. Saint Helena, Recife in Portuguese Brazil, to Cape Town.”

“Africa, sir!” Lt. Langlie enthused. “I've never been there.”

“Haven't missed much, then,” Lewrie told him.

Africa! Bloody
Africa? Lewrie furiously thought;
Is this some sort of galling
jape on my predicament? Want me t'turn my Black tars
loose,
there? Recruit even
more,
do they, damn their eyes? And damn Twigg, too. It
must've
been him who suggested it, the sly… !

“Uhm, far be it from me to presume further, sir, but…
who
is not yet daft, did you say?” Langlie curiously asked.

“Captain Sir Tobias Treghues,” Lewrie bleakly said, “Knight and Baronet. One of my old captains in the American war, when I was still a Midshipman aboard HMS
Desperate.
Prim as a dowager, ‘til a Frenchie swotted him in the head with the hard end of a rammer, and turned mad as a March Hare…on his off days…so, God knows what he's like now. Depending on the temperature, the latitude or longitude, what he's eat for breakfast…”

“Grim, d'ye expect, then, Captain, sir?” Langlie asked.

“Far be it from me to slur senior officers, Mister Langlie …” Lewrie gravelled, though recalling that yes, yes he always
had,
“but, are his wits flown him for a week or two, he can turn into a
spherical
bastard… a bastard no matter
which
way ye look at him. Next week, you're in his good books, and couldn't do wrong if you rammed him, on purpose! The Navy must be hellish needful, if
he
still holds active commission. I'd have thought Captain Treghues had been dismissed, or ‘yellow squadroned,' years ago, when he inherited his title and all.”

Lewrie took note of Lt. Langlie's “bland” expression; was that worthy trying to keep a straight face, or was he wondering whether his own captain was consistently “up to snuff”?

“Why, next you know, Mister Langlie, Admiralty might even be so desperate they'd offer
me
command!” Lewrie japed. “The damned fools.”

His First Officer responded as junior officers should: grinning and issuing a silent chuckle over a senior's self-deprecating wit.

“Where stands the wind, then?” Lewrie snapped.

“An hour ago, ‘twas a ‘dead muzzler' from the South, sir, but I did feel a pinch of veer to it,” Langlie answered. “By dawn, it could be more Sou'easterly.”

“Damme, by dawn, there might be enough Easting for Treghues and his ‘trade' to set sail,” Lewrie gloomily speculated, conjuring up a sea-chart in the mind's eye. “We
could
make an offing, but it'd take days to beat up-Channel t'meet ‘em. Off western Kent, at the very best if they can manage the narrow channel from out behind the Goodwin Sands. Lots of short-tacking close ashore for us,
bags
of sea-room for them, and I just
know
he won't keep his anchors, waiting for us to show up! Damn. Just damn my eyes!

“Best pass the word to take in kedge anchors, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie ordered. “We'll swing to our bowers ‘til it looks as if we may fall down to Saint Helen's Patch, safely, then…”

“Aye aye, sir, directly,” Langlie replied, getting to his feet, and tucking his discarded hat under his left arm.

“Pass word for Mister Winwood, as well, sir,” Lewrie said as he strode to the chart-space up forward against the main-deck bulkheads. He stopped short, though, looking into Aspinall's tiny day-pantry and wondering just how much he had in the way of personal stores, and estimating how short-commons he'd be by the time they reached St. Helena Island, much less Cape Town! “And I'd admire did you pass the word for Mister Coote, to boot. I run out of wine, Mister Langlie, and I might turn as mean as Treghues can, hah?” he added, feigning surliness. “Tea and water, and I'll
not
be responsible for my actions. Aarr!” Lewrie concluded, in one of his patented “piratical” snarls.