A King's Trade (46 page)

Now, Lewrie had only twenty-four 12-pounders he could trust, the two
“dinged” ones stored on the lowermost hold with the ballast, with the two midships gun-ports yawning empty.

“We could shift two carronades to fill in,” Lewrie mused aloud. “But, then we'd also have to shift stores aft, again, to compensate, so our new rudder has its proper ‘bite.'”

“Well, sir,” the burly Lt. Catterall suggested, “the new rudder is actually broader than our old'un, fore-and-aft, and that with only one fir sacrificial strip on the trailing edge, ‘stead of two or three as the old'un did. Might not be completely necessary to push her stern down to the old seventeen-and-a-half-feet draught we had before, sir.”

“Seventeen'd do it, then, Mister Catterall?” Lewrie asked. “Or slightly less? Hmm.”

Lewrie paced a bit more, all the way aft to the taffrails for a peek over the stern, with Lt. Catterall following a few feet “astern” of him whilst he did some mental calculations.

Four “long twelves” in my cabins, now,
he thought,
Shift two of
‘
em to the midships ports, that'd lighten her astern by better than four tons, right there. Ah, but ships are
meant
t'be stern-heavy. Makes
‘
em quicker on the helm, does the rudder have a deeper bite. Though, with a broader rudder, like a Dutch coaster … ?

He turned and peered forward along the freshly-washed and “holystoned” length of the quarterdeck, now restored to almost a paper-white neatness. There were two 6-pounders on each beam, and two carronades, the short, stubby “Smashers,” not very long-ranged pieces, but capable of throwing a heavy 24-pounder solid shot, or be loaded like a fowling gun with grapeshot, langridge, sacks of musket balls, scrap crockery, or any sort of hard objects to maim and kill when up close alongside a foe. They weren't meant to take the powerful powder charges needed in a “long” artillery piece, so they, and their slide-carriages, weighed less than conventional artillery.

“Any carronades in stores, Mister Catterall?” Lewrie asked the Second Officer. “And twenty-four-pounder shot?”

“Oh,
aye,
sir!” Lt. Catterall said, brightening. “The Indiaman,
Lord Clive,
mounted twenty-four-pounder long guns
and
carronades. Vice Admiral Curtis's people salvaged her guns, but little else, after she went aground.”

“I want two of ‘em, Mister Catterall!” Lewrie declared. “We'll shift two twelve-pounders from my cabins to amidships, the after-most pair, and replace ‘em with a pair of ‘Smashers.' They'll
almost
make up the weight and balance diff'rence. Get ‘em for us, sir, no matter what it takes…beg, borrow, or steal!”

“Aye aye, sir!” Catterall cheered. “Er…how, sir? If they won't give ‘em up, that is,” he asked, more soberly a second later.

“You know where they are?” Lewrie pressed. “You've seen ‘em?”

“Aye, sir, ‘board the stores ship, but…”

“Just go
ask
for ‘em, Mister Catterall!” Lewrie exclaimed with a sly grin. “With my chit in hand, o' course. Take our largest boats and sufficient crews. By now, our people should know all about shiftin' heavy loads, as should you. In the meantime, I'll go aboard the flagship and request ‘em, formally. With the list of expenditures to date t'repair our ship. We've not made much demand ‘pon naval stores, yet, and, ‘a penny saved is a penny earned,' as the old Rebel Benjamin Franklin used t'say. Salvaged guns goin' t'waste, free and clear of Prize-Court folderol, well… ! Muster your boat crews, sir, but spare me my gig's hands and Cox'n. I'll have you a note for the stores ship in two shakes of a sheep's tail! Get me those guns, and as much round-shot as you can manage, another fifty or sixty, do they have ‘em. Cartridge flannel, gun tools…. Hell, take the Master Gunner with you and let him ‘shop' to his heart's content. Slide-carriages, new breeching ropes, he'll know what's needful. Go, get ready!”

You steal or borrow, old son,
Lewrie told himself as he trotted below to his desk for pen and paper; I'll
do the begging!

“My word, sir,” the Flag-Captain said, rolling his eyes over a neatly-penned list of out-of-pocket expenses to put
Proteus
right. “As much as that, what?”

“The local Dutch, as they say, sir, ‘saw me coming,' and made the most of our predicament,” Lewrie uneasily explained, shifting one leg over the other as he sat before the senior officer's desk, thankful that the flagship's transom windows didn't face the stores ship, so that worthy couldn't see his boats scuttling ‘cross Table Bay with the first of the requested goods. “Not so much in materials, mind, but in labour, and hires, sir. The waggons and ox teams and su…”

“And you contracted all this without consulting me as to which part of it Sir Roger might
authorise,
sir?”

“I fully intend to present my sums to Admiralty, in London, as soon as we return to England, sir,” Lewrie purred back with a blandly reassuring smile.
“Proteus
sailed under orders from Captain
Treghues,
sir, and is not, strictly, the responsibility of the Cape Station, so, I did not wish to impose my monetary needs upon Sir Roger, d'ye see.”

“Ah, well,” the Flag-Captain mused. “Hmm. Not under
our
flag, as it were. A
transient
in need of repair, aha! Aye, it'd be proper to submit your expenditures to the Navy Board, ‘stead of us.”

“Which'll be my problem, sir, since so much of the costs came from my own purse,” Lewrie told him, shifting uneasily once more; the very idea of how
much his personal funds had been depleted was enough to break a sweat; a local bank now held a
hefty
note-of-hand that they would draw from his account at Coutts' Bank in London, a hefty sum he
prayed
Admiralty would reimburse… someday
this
century.

“Well, I must own to a sense of relief, Captain Lewrie, that we are not bound to offer recompense to you…or foot the bill, entire, to the local chandlers and such, ha ha!”

“Never even crossed my mind, sir,” Lewrie assured him, tossing in another disarming “shit-eating” grin.

“So,
Proteus
is now ready for sea, in all respects?”

“Well, sir, there is the problem of my two damaged guns,” Lewrie casually allowed, crossing his legs the other way round. “I have been informed the stores ship has no twelve-pounders available, so I
could
sail two pieces short, but… I am also told that she holds several twenty-four-pounder carronades salvaged most swiftly from the wrecked
Lord Clive,
and I had a thought to mount two of them in lieu of great-guns, temporarily. To be turned over to Gun Wharf, soon as we're back home. Other than that lack, we are, indeed, ready for sea, and for an engagement with any lurking French raider or privateer, sir. Unless a greater need exists here on the Cape Station for ‘em, that is.”

He crossed the fingers of his left hand, down below the edge of the desk where the Flag-Captain couldn't see them.

“I'd be very much obliged, eternally
grateful,
really, to have your permission to indent for two of them, sir, along with sufficient round-shot for a
brief
engagement, should that occur.”

“Hmmm …” the Flag-Captain said, thoughtfully rubbing his chin.

“With the rest of Captain Treghues's ships now halfway to India or China,
Proteus
must either become part of the Cape Squadron, or be assigned to bolster the escort of one of the other ‘John Company' convoys, I'd suppose, so…” Lewrie suggested. “Perhaps the one waiting to depart in harbour now, sir?”

“Aye, Captain Leatherwood
would
find you useful, Lewrie,” the Flag-Captain informed him with a smile of his own. “Some trouble with the previous escorting frigate reefing down too late in a squall just off Ceylon. A squall, and a heavy roll that put her on her beam ends, and rolled her masts right out of her. She put back to Calcutta, or the nearest port with a yard, under jury masts, and Captain Wheeler had to request the assistance of a warship from the Bombay Marine, which saw his convoy as far as the Southern tip of Madagascar. Not allowed to operate West of Good Hope, the Bombay Marine, and, not much of a sea-force, either. A few British officers of doubtful abilities, and the
crews made up of God knows
what
sort of natives. Low-caste Hindoos at the best…”

“Who can cross the ‘great black water' without breaking their caste, aye, sir,” Lewrie happily supplied.

“Been in Indian waters yourself, sir?” the Flag-Captain asked. “‘Tween the wars, sir, aye.”

“Under the circumstances, then, I do believe that Leatherwood will find you more than welcome, Captain Lewrie,” the Flag-Captain said with a beamish smile, as if that settled the matter. “Bad run of luck, all round, has Captain Leatherwood. Three of his charges took bad water aboard when they victualled, and there's been sickness among passengers and crew.”

“Cholera,
sir?” Lewrie asked with a shudder of dread. Cholera was to blame for most of the untimely deaths among Britons who sailed East to make their fortunes.

“No, thank the Lord,” the Flag-Captain told him with a shudder of his own, and a rap of his knuckles for luck on his desktop. “A bit of ‘gippy-tummy,'
mal de mer,
and ‘the runs,' but no deaths. It'll be a day or two more, before they scrap their water casks and load fresh ones, then fill them with safe Cape Town water.”

“My brother-in-law's a passenger aboard the
Lord Stormont,
sir,” Lewrie said. “He said nothing of it when we met, and looked healthy as a horse.”

“Don't believe she was one of the affected ships.”

“Uhm…about those carronades, sir,” Lewrie reminded him one more time. “Might I have your permission to indent for them, if this Captain Wheeler is in immediate need of a frigate, sir?”

“Don't see why not, Captain Lewrie,” the Flag-Captain allowed with an easy chuckle. “It's not as if short-ranged carronades will be doing us much good here. ‘Tis proper
fortress
guns we need. Thirty-two-pounders and fourty-twos, but will Admiralty, or even the
Army's
Artillery Board at Woolwich, respond to our needs? Can't hold this harbour without, should the French stir themselves, but …” He dug into his desk for paper and pen, a steel-nib much like Lewrie's, and opened his brass inkwell to begin scribbling a formal indenture.

Thank bloody Christ!
was Lewrie's thought; That
was easy!

“There ye are, Lewrie,” the Flag-Captain said, handing over the note to the stores ship. “Put them to good use, if needs be.”

“Hopefully, sir, we'll
yawn
our way to Channel Soundings, but I am indeed grateful to you, no matter,” Lewrie declared as he got to his feet. For a quick
exit, before the Flag-Captain could change his mind! “I'll be going, then, sir, and thank you once again for all you have done for us.”

“A good voyage, Captain Lewrie,” that worthy replied as he rose as well, and offered his hand in parting. “Fair winds, calm seas … all that, what?”

His gig came alongside the starboard entry-port just about the same time that the first carronade's slide-carriage was being hoisted aloft from the ship's cutter in a sling hung off the main course yardarm. All the gun-ports gaped open, the port lids raised to show their red interior paint, and Lewrie was delighted to see that the two aftermost in his great-cabins already were yawning empty, and the red tompions stuck in the muzzles of the 12-pounders which had occupied those ports were now brooding in the amidships gun-ports.

“Got ‘em, sir!” Lt. Catterall hooted from the cutter, where he was overseeing the hoisting. “Fifty rounds of shot apiece, to boot!”

“Next trip, Mister Catterall, I'll have the formal permission for you to give to the stores ship's captain!” Lewrie shouted back.

“Right-ho, sir!”

A scamper up the boarding battens and man-ropes to the gangway and the ceremony of welcoming a captain back aboard, and Lewrie could beam with pleasure to see that both slide-carriages for his new carronades squatted in the waist, ready to be hauled aft.

“The ‘Smashers' will take two more trips, sir,” Lt. Langlie told him, after he had paced to the centre of the hammock netting overlooking the waist. “A further trip for the shot, with the launch to bear all that Mister Carling requested, and it's done, Captain.”

“Very good, Mister Langlie. Excellent!” Lewrie declared.

“This note came aboard for you, in your absence, sir,” Langlie told him, offering a folded-over sheet of paper.

“Ah, hmm,” Lewrie said, breaking the seal, which did not bear any stamp or signet mark. “Ah! My brother-in-law, Burgess, is ashore, and asks me to dine with him.”

He dug out his pocket watch and checked the time, frowning as he realised that the hour appointed was fast approaching for dinner at a shore establishment, the very place, in point of fact, where he'd fed those generous Indiaman passengers and captains. There was no time to send a reply; he would just have to show up.

“My compliments, Mister Langlie, but I'm off ashore, at once,” he told the First Officer. “Here…give Mister Catterall this note from the flag, so the
stores ship captain won't think we bilked him out of anything. Call away my boat crew…no, Cox'n Andrews, but a fresh set of oarsmen, and I'm away.”

“Aye, sir.”

Burgess surely has gotten sour letters about me from Caroline,
Lewrie fretfully thought, no matter the casually-pleased face he put on it as he waited for his gig to be readied.
Is
he
t'give me a good cobbing ‘bout my “sinful” ways, I wonder?