A King's Trade (31 page)

Of course, he left out the juicy part wherein Treghues had taken him personally to task for associating with a nigh-naked circus person and actress… a Lilith, a Jezebel, a corrupting Delilah! What was he, a Captain of Less than Three Years' Seniority even so, a Commission Sea Officer of their King,
and
supposedly a married man,
and
the father of three
innocent babes,
doing in company with such a jade, and cavorting so
publicly
before common seamen, to boot, to the detriment of sailors' morals, the dignity of officers, and respect for English gentlemen, and
et cetera
and
et cetera?

“So, Captain Treghues may deem it seemly for us to sail further than we expected, sir?” Langlie asked, twigging to the meat of the affair at once. “Damme,
sir! We knew we stood a good chance of going as far as the Cape of Good Hope, but…”

“Now, it appears we're down for Bombay, or all the way to Canton in China, aye,” Lewrie sourly mused, idly fluffing his fingers through Toulon's belly fur.

“But, sir… such a long voyage, with no additional break in our passage, and without even shipboard liberty, much less shore liberty, is the very thing that dispirited the crews of the homebound warships,” Lt. Langlie protested. “They'd not have run riot here, had they been given a chance to carouse at Cape Town.”

“I'll grant you the point, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie said with a sigh as he shifted in his chair. “Now, assuming Captain Treghues allows us even a
whiff
of land at the Cape, and it's all wooding and watering, and no liberty at all, at least Mister Coote, the Purser, and officers will be let ashore. Do we, indeed, sail ‘cross the Indian Ocean, we'd best hunt the settlements over for some handy phrase books in Chinese and Hindoo. That, or kidnap likely Lascar or Asian translators.”

“Ehm… don't you own some Hindoo, sir?” Langlie asked. “And, I believe I heard that you had been to Canton, ‘tween the wars?”

“My Hindoo is barely good enough to order drinks and supper,” Lewrie sourly admitted. “And as far as Chinee goes, I doubt I knew a half-dozen people who had a handle on it. Was ‘Ding-Dong-Dell' a real Chinese phrase, it'd mean twelve diff'rent things, depending on which syllable, or syllables, got sung higher than the rest. We may be in need of a translator, a social guide. And, damned if the Navy's going to re-pay us for his hire.”

“Well, we're still a few hands short, sir,” Langlie suggested, almost tongue-in-cheek. “Perhaps we could hire them on as Landsmen, to perform two tasks. In that case, the Navy
would
pay us for them, much like our, ehmm …” The First Officer bit off the rest, blushing.

Like our Black sailors, hah?
Lewrie thought, silently completing Langlie's slip of the tongue for him;
And wouldn't that make this ship an “all-nations,” as varied as a dram shop? Kidnap a few, and the rest come easier.

“Well, we'll see, once we attain the Cape,” Lewrie said, “which will depend on Captain Treghues's mood at that moment. Before we sail tomorrow, though, Mister Langlie…you'd best alert the Purser, Bosun, and your fellow officers, warrants, and midshipmen that we may be in for a lean spell. Any needs or comforts they presently lack they had best make good, here.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“I will hold Captain's Mast, tomorrow's Forenoon, once we're at sea,” Lewrie further announced. “My respects to Mister Pendarves, the Bosun,
and he's to make up a round dozen cat-o'-nine-tails and the red baize bags for ‘em.”

“Aye, sir,” Langlie numbly agreed, though with one brow cocked in surprise at such an order, for Lewrie had never, in his association with him, been much of a flogging Tartar, nor
Proteus
been known as a “whippin' ship.”

“Captain Treghues, our putative ‘Commodore,' has ordered me to administer punishment for our malefactors,” Lewrie said.
“Condign
punishment for all involved, he wrote.”

“Can he do that, sir?” Langlie uneasily asked. “Just
order…
?”

“Not strictly, under the Articles of War, no, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie replied with a chuckle, and a wink. “The drunkness happened on
shore,
as did the brawling and such, on
liberty,
and not aboard ship, where they
would
fall under the strictures of line-of-duty discipline. What individual captains may make of civil infractions, not Admiralty infractions, is up to them, and any interference from outside the hull…even from a senior officer commanding…would be looked upon as a violation of captains' traditional, and jealously protected, prerogatives.

“Make up the ‘cats,' anyway,” Lewrie further said, looking all “sly-boots” at his perpetually put-upon First Officer. “The sight of ‘em will put the fear o' God in our people. Let ‘em stew on what they
might
receive, what I might
do,
a day or two, and they just may have a fresh think on what grand larks they
think
they had, this time. Which might make ‘em think twice, the next time I let ‘em off the leash.”

“Oh, I see, sir, you…oww! you little…!” Langlie exclaimed, first in mirth, then in pain, looking down in his lap at Chalky.

The cat had delighted in having his belly and chest rubbed and gently tickled, but evidently had desired more energetic amusements, and had nipped unwary fingers to initiate a wee romp. Chalky stuck up his head over the edge of the table, ears half-flat, and a mischievious cast to his eyes as he scrambled to his feet, tail whicking impishly.

“Chalky …” Lewrie chid him in a gently-scolding tone, gaining his attention. “We do
not
bite Commission Officers. No, we don't…not even Midshipmen. No matter how distracted and vulnerable they be, hmm? Bleeding overly much, Mister Langlie?”

“Skin not even broken, sir,” Langlie chuckled.

“Give me your list of incorrigibles, then, Mister Langlie. Was there anything else you wished to discuss? Anything
pleasant
to tell me, to lighten my gloom?”

“Well, we're still
afloat,
sir.” Langlie said with a wider grin. “That about covers it.”

“On your way, then, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie bade him, watching as he finished his coffee and rose from the table, depositing Chalky on it, who immediately bounded to hurl himself on Toulon, who might be more up for play. Louder, with a meaningful glance upwards at the open skylight windows in his coach-top, where sailors of the afterguard and the quarterdeck Harbour Watch could always be trusted to eavesdrop for a clue to future developments, Lewrie concluded his remarks to Langlie with “And don't forget to tell the Bosun to make up those damn'
whips!”

L
ong though the voyage had been so far, it was roughly two thousand miles, as the square-rigger tacks, from St. Helena to the Cape of Good Hope, and the first day on-passage had only logged 110. The trade steered somewhere between Sou'west by South, did the Trade Winds allow, and Sou'west, if they did not. Three-masted, square-rigged ships could only get within six points up to the wind, even when sailing “full and by,” close-hauled.

The middle of the second day, however, brought dark cloud-heads that swathed the horizon from the East-Nor'east all the way down to the Sou'east, and with them, a backing, rising, and much brisker breeze, a “soldier's wind” that gave the convoy and its escorts a welcome “lift.”

To sail Sou'west in search of the perpetual Easterlies for their ride to the Cape would have added more nautical miles to their passage, and would force them down into the vast, swirling heart of the Southern Atlantic, where the great currents that circled counter-clockwise-about between South America and Africa became weak, confused, or nonexistent, where the counterclockwise winds that could sweep a vessel South along Portuguese Brazil and the Southernmost Spanish colonies, or batter them on the nose in their guise of the Sou'east Trades, faded away, becoming an area larger than North America where ships could chase zephyrs weeks on end…the Doldrums. The usual course from St. Helena to the Cape was one large Zee-shaped detour.

As the winds came most unexpectedly Easterly, though, with rains and high seas for accompaniment notwithstanding, those “soldier's winds” were looked
upon as a blessing, a raree that perhaps would never be encountered again in an entire life at sea, and one to take advantage of!

The trade turned their bows Due South, cutting off the Sou'west “Zee” almost before it began; they reefed down, or completely took in, their royals and t'gallants, but left their tops'ls, courses, stays'ls, spankers, and jibs full-bellied with wind to
sprint
Southward, even the most hide-bound, passenger-coddling Indiamen masters, and reeled off an average of seven or eight knots for nearly two whole days, and a fair portion of a third, before the skies cleared, the seas moderated, and the wind shifted back into the Sou'east. So rare was it that even after full dark, they pressed on, rocking, scending, and heaving over a white-spumed ocean under full sail, for not a cap-full of that precious wind could be let go to waste; even
Festival,
that cranky old jade, got a way on and looked almost lively as she bowled along at the rear of the convoy, with as much of her gaudy-but-faded, parti-coloured, and patched canvas bellied out taut and straining!

It pleased everyone, even Capt. Sir Tobias Treghues, Bart., for brisk winds and high seas precluded any more of that scandalous traffick ‘tween ships, most especially to
Festival,
which he had referred to as “that demned hoor-ship!” It ended the bare-steerageway crawl of the nights, which was always pleasing to one who deemed himself a seasoned salt and “tarpaulin man.” And, Lewrie happily considered, the weather had reduced the necessity for Treghues to speak face-to-face with those fractious, nigh-rebellious captains of the other ships in his squadron to virtually nil! Which Lewrie also deemed a blessing of another kind from
his
point of view, and he was mortal-certain that Capts. Graves and Philpott felt much the same!

For, “condign” punishment for those who had misbehaved had been interpreted more leniently than Treghues might have wished, or exacted aboard HMS
Grafton's
malefactors.

For the most part, Lewrie had awarded more subtly grievous punishments: five days' biscuit and water for rations, denied their hearty morning burgoo, sugar and butter, their duffs, cheeses, pease puddings, or “portable soups,” with the eight-man messes temporarily shifted, so that all twenty-two offenders ate together and could not beg or borrow even a morsel from their usual messmates who might not have run
amok.

What had drawn the most groans, though, had been his decree that for an equal five days, none of the those twenty-two sailors would have leave to smoke or chew tobacco, or purchase or borrow from the Purser or their shipmates,
and,
horror of horrors!, for five days those men would get no
rum
issue, either! No “sippers” or “gulpers” presently due for past favours, and none to be snuck
off innocent mates for a present or future duty or favour pledged during their time in Hell!

Those “cats” he'd had Mr. Pendarves make up had mostly been put away in the Bosun's locker, and only three had actually been “let out of the bag” to use on Landsman Humphries, and Ordinary Seamen Grainger and Sugden, who had been witnessed striking petty officers, Masters-At-Arms, or Ship's Corporals from other ships at the tavern brawl, as the roving shore parties broke the melee up, or for being so drunk they had tried to fight their own petty officers as they were brought aboard. A dozen lashes apiece, bound to the upright hatch-gratings, the minimum, since those were their first offences. Enough, Lewrie hoped, to drive the message home so they would not be disputatious with their seniors the next time, but not enough to make it seem vindictive, and ruin the men's morale or loyalty to what had been, ‘til then, a fairly “happy ship.” Who they fought ashore on their next rare dry-land liberty he could really care less!

Under
Grafton's
lee to shout across a verbal report, Lewrie had taken sly advantage of Treghues's lust for strictness, by declaring his intent to
work
the Devil out of his hands, as well, with which, at that moment, Capt. Treghues could form no dissenting opinion.
That
resulted in holding the gun-drills that Treghues had earlier peevishly curtailed.

The light 6-pounder chase-guns fore and aft, the carronades, and the long 12-pounder great-guns were manned, run-in and loaded, run-out to the port sills, levered about to aim, elevated by use of the quoins below the breeches, then “fired” in dry drills, first, then actually lit off for real later, once the “rust” had been scaled off his hands, for with so much fairly peaceful passage-making of late, and more time spent in various harbours, there'd been little reason or opportunity to keep his gunners from turning slack. He and his officers began at the very basics, as if introducing new-comes to their duties, stressing safety, caution with their dangerous charges, and attention to duties.