A King's Trade (32 page)

Lewrie, who had fallen in lifelong lust for artillery as a most angry-to-be-there Midshipman in his early days, the winter of 1780 on his first ship, finding in the power of the guns the one, perhaps the
only
joy a displaced dandy (as good as “press-ganged” by his own father for his own damned lust for soon-to-be-inherited funds!) relished in an ordeal that had seemed at the time as miserable a drudgery as a long prison sentence! He had, therefore, high standards, higher even than those of the experienced officers who had taught him Navy gunnery.

Lewrie was disturbingly surprised by just how “rusty” his men had gotten, but promised himself that by the time they reached the Cape he would have them back up to “scratch,” even re-acquainting them with the rarely used light
swivel-guns and 2-pounder brass boat-guns to be mounted in the bows of the gig, cutter, and launch.

“Oh, they'll come up to par soon enough,” Lt. Adair, their Scot Third Officer, cheerfully opined, swiping a hand through goat-curly and dark brown hair as he raised his hat to air out his scalp in the rain and the warmly-moist, green-smelling winds that blew from the far-off shores of Africa.

“Par, d'ye say?” Lt. Catterall, the Second Officer, scoffed. “Whatever the Devil's that, some Gaelic word? Par
-broiled
makes some sense.
Par
-tici
-pate,
party? But half a real word, Mister Adair?”

“It is a
golf
term, Mister Catterall,” Adair impishly replied.

“And what the Devil's
golf?”
Catterall hooted in his bearishly burly way. “Once more ye've lost me, sir.”

” ‘Tis a game we play at home, Mister Catterall, and great fun, actually,” Lt. Adair explained. “A game which requires great patience and skill…well, perhaps it might be lost on
Englishmen,
sir,” he said with a twinkle. Then Adair proceeded to describe “golf”to him—tediously and minutely.

“Mean t'say,” Lt. Catterall querulously asked,
minutes
later, “you take yer ‘mashie' with a ‘whuppy shaft' and whack a ‘sma' leather-bound rock…that never did harm to anybody… ‘cross yer ‘braes,' rain, fog, cold, or snow no matter… ‘til it lands in a rabbit hole, then do it all over again? Why, I never heard the like! Is there a prize in it? Does the
rabbit
keep the rock, or do ye haul the rabbit out of its hole, take it home, and jug it for yer reward? Sounds daft t'me, but, I s'pose ‘tis amusing to
Scots…
who have so
few
amusements.”

“Par means ‘average' for getting there, Mister Catterall,” Lt. Adair said, biting off an exasperated sigh, as he usually had to do in dealing with “Sassenach” heathen Englismen in general, or the sardonic Lt. Catterall in particular. “The number of whacks necessary.”

“Then less than yer ‘par' is doing
worse?”
Catterall chuckled.

“Better,
Mister Catterall,” Adair insisted, with a slight edge to his voice; he
knew
Catterall's cynical humours,
knew
he was being twitted, but never could help himself. “The fewest strokes win a…”

“Well, that's arsey-varsey, then,” Catterall snickered.
“Over
average is worse,
under
average is best, and someone actually keeps a score of it!”

“Then ‘par' will never do, gentlemen,” Lewrie commented, after listening with amusement to their typical bantering from his post by the windward bulwarks. “I'll not be satisfied with
average
gunnery, not after our experiences in the Caribbean. I'll settle for two shots per gun, every three minutes, but I'd rather we get off
three
in that time. In the early minutes of engagement, at any
rate, when the hands are not fatigued…and well-aimed ‘twixt wind and water. Remember what that American captain from Georgia said….”

” ‘The captain ain't happy, ain't
nobody
happy,' sir!” Lt. Adair piped up with a laugh. To which, in
lieu
of a hearty “Amen!” or “Here, here!” for a second, Catterall added one of Lewrie's patented, piratical “Arrs!,” which he'd become quite good at imitating.

“I fear I must stand more aloof to you, gentlemen,” Lewrie said as he tucked his hands into the small of his back and peered back up to weather. “No more dining
some
of you in,” he pointedly commented over his shoulder.
“Some
seem to have come to know me, and my ways, simply
too
well, alas. And Mister Catterall and the Surgeon were to dine with me this very night…on fresh beef, too, what a pity.”

He swivelled about to face them, quite enjoying the smirk upon Adair's phyz, and Catterall's strangled expression. With a droll grin, and an energetic clap of his hands, he announced:

“Once gun-drill, the rum issue, and noon mess is done, sirs,” he said, “I think we should strike topmasts, then re-rig them, should the winds abate. Just to see how quickly the evolution can be performed, ‘rusty' as we seem t'be, hmm?
Then
… with the wind abeam, and sailing mostly on an even keel, I will also have the hands work off excess energy by going aloft, waisters, idlers, and all, along with the topmen. Larboard division ‘gainst starboard division.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Up and over, from the windward foremast shrouds to the fighting top, then down to the lee gangway, up the lee main shrouds and down to the larboard gangway, then up and over the mizen-mast. Encouraged, and
led
by their officers, o' course. Mister Langlie and I shall observe, and time it.” Lewrie continued with a smirk of his own, “Much like the Irish whore instructed…'up, down…up, down…up, down, repeat if necessary'! Winning division gets extra grog on completion of their Dog Watch.”

The fortuitous winds abated, at last, shifting back to Sou'east, forcing the trade to steer wider to the Sou'west, but they
had
logged nearly six hundred nautical miles, mostly at Due South, more than a quarter of the total passage, placing the convoy and its escorts more Easterly to Africa, and even sailing six points off the wind they would only skirt the edge of the Doldrums, not get becalmed in it.

For a much shorter time, the Trades and the Equatorial Current that flowed the same direction in concert with each other would impede them, then… though the Sou'east Trade might still rule, an eastward-flowing current that
girded the southern rim of the Doldrums, parent to the one they now fought, would kiss them on their starboard, lee, bows to counter the leeway lost to the winds. A few slogging degrees more of latitude, and the winds would shift to out of the West, in concert with
that
current, and they'd all be be there!

And, so it was, one mid-afternoon in March, that HMS
Stag,
far ahead of the convoy, hoisted a string of signal flags in the private code that Capt. Treghues had invented that read:

“Land—Four Points—Larboard Bow.”

“Table Mountain, that'd be, most-like, sir,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, carefully opined. “Visible from seaward on a clear day as far as fifteen leagues…or, so my book of pilotage tells us.”

Almost over!
Lewrie quietly exulted;
This part, at least.

“We'll not enter harbour tonight, sir, beg pardon,” Winwood said. “I'd expect we'll stand off-and-on ‘til morning, so we may be able to spot the rocks and such. A poor set of anchorages, even so, sir, this Table Bay or Simon's Bay. Bad holding ground, the both of them, both subject to sudden and contrary afternoon clear-weather gales, it says.”

“Cape Town, or Simon's Town,” Lewrie said with a shrug of resignation. “With any luck, we'll not be in either, very long, sir. In point of fact, ‘twill require a great
deal
of luck should we come to anchor, at all!”

“The, ah… results of our sailors' deeds at Saint Helena, I should think, Captain?” Winwood, ever the sombre Christian, whispered.

“Exactly so, Mister Winwood,” Lewrie agreed. “There's odds we might just sail right on by, do Captain Treghues and Captain Cowles, as Commodore of the Indiamen, concur.”

“Might be just as well, sir,” Winwood commented, though with a slightly disappointed sigh. “I've never really been ashore, here.”

“The ‘tavern of the seas,' Mister Winwood,” Lewrie told him with a chuckle. “An infamous sink of sin, no matter the stiffness of the Protestant Dutch.”

“Even so, though, sir …” Winwood said most wistfully.

“I wonder if they have corn-whisky?” Lewrie wondered aloud.

I
t was a rather abstemious little gathering for supper in the great-cabins: the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, who never drank much at all, seated to his right; Lt. Devereux, in charge of
Proteus
's Marine detachment, to his left, and (for a sea-soldier) never known as one who over-indulged in tipple; and his three midshipmen, Mr. Gamble the older, Mr. Grace, and wee Mr. Larkin, at the table's foot, as the Vice. All of whom were so daunted by Mr. Winwood, who was the midshipmen's tutor in matters navigational and mathematical, and by dread of making a fool of themselves by taking too much “aboard.” Mr. Winwood's grave, mournful scowl when his sense of primness was offended could make the “middies” scurry like cockroaches. Lt. Blase Devereux was a languidly elegant sort, whose gentlemanly mannerisms they wished to emulate, anyway, and the captain was, well…the captain, not a man to disappoint, if they wished to stay in his “good books.”

Once Capt. Treghues had signalled that the trade would, indeed, stand “off-and-on” the coast ‘til dawn, they had sailed legs North and South abeam the wind, with the Indiamen back to their usual custom of reducing sail to bare steerageway, which had let the avid fishermen in the crew dip a line, ending in the catch of a middling-sized tunny, which had been shared between the gunroom and the captain's table.

They had had reconstituted “portable soup,” a sea-pie made from shredded salt-beef and salt-pork, diced potatoes fried with bacon, and the tunny for the last course, great slabs of it, dredged in flour and crumbled biscuit, spices, and
lemon, then fried in oil. There had been a decent claret with the sea-pie, and an experimental white wine bought off a homebound Indiaman. One of the first things the Dutch settlers at the Cape had planted was vineyards, though with mixed results, so far. The white had gone well with the fish, though not as smooth or sweet as a German hock, but
miles
better than the Navy-issued “Miss Taylor,” the thin, vinegary, and acidy wine that could double for paint thinner, and Lewrie was intrigued enough to think of buying more, once at anchor.

There had also been the promise of an apple stack-cake to come, a dessert that his wife Caroline had brought from her native Cape Fear in North Carolina, shrivelled and wrinkly older Kentish apples that had not gone over, or been wormed, pulped and boiled with dollops of molasses and sugar, then spread thick between several layers of pancakes. Once the tablecloth would be removed, there would have been a tray of “bought” sweet biscuits, nuts, and port. Midshipman Larkin to propose the King's Toast, Mr. Winwood to make one to the Navy, and, as it was a Saturday evening, it would have fallen to Lewrie to propose a traditional Navy toast, “To Our Wives And Sweethearts, May They Never Meet!,” which Lewrie found excrutiatingly apt.

But, just as Aspinall was lifting the cloth cover from the cake, the Marine sentry slammed his musket butt on the deck outside, with a strident, rather urgent, cry of “Second Off ‘cah…SAH!”

“Enter, Mister Catterall,” Lewrie bade, cocking a brow over Lt. Catterall's exquisite timing, imagining that the Second Lieutenant, who had the appetite of all three midshipmen together, had thought to wangle himself a hefty slice of cake, or at least a free cup of coffee.

“Signal rockets from the convoy, sir!” Lt. Catterall announced, though, his usually saturnine demeanour much agitated. “Fusees and an alert gun from
Horatius,
as well!”

“Pipe ‘All Hands,' Mister Catterall, and Beat to Quarters, at once,” Lewrie snapped, rising and tossing his napkin into his plate. “Sorry ‘bout the cake, gentlemen, but it appears there may be Frogs in the offing. Your posts… shoo, scat, younkers!”

As they quickly rose and tumbled out without ceremony, Lewrie went aft for his baldric and hanger-sword, looking about for Aspinall and his Cox'n, Andrews.

“Andrews, do you fetch up my pair of pistols, soon as you can. Aspinall… save the cake, if that's possible. Then, see yourself and the cats to the orlop, with the Carpenter's crew.”

In a twinkling, sailors would rush to man the 12-pounders mounted right-aft in Lewrie's cabins, knock down the deal partitions, and bundle fragile furniture,
sure to be turned into deadly flying splinters in battle, below. One last snatch off a rack in the chart-space for his cocked hat, and he was off himself, out onto the main deck and up the windward ladderway to the quarterdeck, amid the mad, but well-drilled, bustle of sailors clearing their ship for action. Off-watch men rushed up with the long sausages of their hammocks and bedding, perhaps not rolled as tightly as they would each morning to pass through the ring-measure, to stow them in the iron stanchions and nettings, to turn them into a feeble defence against grapeshot, splinters, and musket fire.