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"Strike topmasts, Mister Lewrie," he had snapped.
"Sir?"
"Strike topmasts, I said!"
For the rest of the morning watch, and through the entire forenoon, Cockerel had been exercised. They had stripped her down to the fighting tops and gantlines in a credible half-hour, then hoisted the topmasts, spars, sails and shrouds aloft once more. They had Beat-To-Quarters, heaved empty kegs over the side, and made passes at them with the great-guns booming. They'd gone through cutlass and musketry drill, officers and hands alike. Then it had been signalling practice, towing the ship with the boats, lowering the larboard bower into a cutter and pretending to anchor to it; they'd passed towing cables to the flagship then cast them free and winched them back aboard with the capstans. An hour had been spent making and reducing sail, reefing down for heavy weather, or setting "all to the royals," with stuns'ls on the fore and main course yards. Then they'd practiced fetching-to, wearing, tacking and weaving through the line of slow-plodding line-of-battle ships like a water-walker skittering 'round leaves in a fish pond. There had been fire drills, man-overboard drills, more going to Quarters and shooting at crates thrown over the side.
"Very good, Mister Lewrie, you may set your regular watch-bill."
"Aye, aye, sir. Mister Scott, you have the watch. Bosun, pipe the change of watch. Larboard division on deck, starboard division to be relieved."
"Aye, aye, sir!" Bosun Fairclough shouted back from the waist. He hauled out his silver bosun's pipe and began a shrill on the "Spithead Nightingale."
"Well done, Mister Fairclough!" Sir Thomas called down to him, after his pipe was done, and he'd bellowed his orders in a voice that could carry to windward in a full gale. "Still have it, I see."
"Aye, Sir Thomas, an' grand it be t'see ya once again, sir!"
"You were shipmates, Sir Thomas?" Lewrie asked, trying to find a polite way of mopping his streaming face with a handkerchief, after a long, trying morning of funk sweat.
"Robust, when 'Terrible Toby' had his first warrant, and I was fourth officer, sir," Sir Thomas chuckled. "I went shares to purchase his pipe. Damn' good man, is 'Terrible Toby.'"
"And still is, Sir Thomas," Lewrie assured him.
"I am gratified to hear it, sir. What time do you make it?"
"Uhm… half-past noon, sir," Lewrie replied, after producing his watch from a fob pocket in his breeches.
"My apologies for delaying the hands' dinner, then. And 'Clear Decks and Up Spirits.' Is your Captain Braxton one to 'Splice the Mainbrace,' Mister Lewrie?"
"No, Sir Thomas, he is not. So far, this passage, at least."
Alan imparted that with a straight face, biting his cheek.
"Pity. I should not wish to call for anything your captain may not allow. But… they did well, I thought. Did they not, sir?"
"Very well, Captain Byard," Lewrie agreed.
"Then it is my wish that you, this once at least, indulge me."
"Aye, aye, sir. Mister Fairclough… Mister Husie? Captain Sir Thomas Byard commands we 'Splice the Mainbrace'!"
That raised perhaps the first cheer ever heard aboard Cockerel. The daily rum issue would be full measure, with no deductions for men on punitive deprivement, no "sippers" or "gulpers" owed amongst them.
"Three cheer fr th' flag-cap'um, lads!" Fairclough demanded of them, and it was lustily answered: "Hip hip… hooray!"
Toady, Lewrie thought cynically. Still… maybe he thinks Sir Thomas'll pluck him out of this damn ship. Hmm, might suit! Toby!
"You smile, Mister Lewrie?"
"Sorry, sir," Alan sobered at once. "It's just… hard to feature Mister Fairclough having a diminutive of his Christian name."
"Called him 'Terrible,' 'cause he was a holy terror. Eyes in the back of his head, bad as a master-at-arms, was Toby. Taut hand. Firm but fair, though, once he'd seasoned," Sir Thomas reminisced with joy. "I seem to recall… one of our frigate captains told me of you, sir. I believe you have the good fortune to own an acquaintance with Keith Ashburn, of Tempest?'
"Keith, sir?" Lewrie grinned completely, his first of the day. "Aye, Sir Thomas, I do. Pray, sir, do you meet with him in future, I would be much obliged should you be able to give to him my warmest and most heart-felt regards. And my congratulations he's made 'post.'"
"And his to you, sir, had it not slipped my mind until this instant," Sir Thomas nodded. "I believe, further, that he told me you had a sobriquet of your own, sir. 'Ram-cat' Lewrie, you're known as? How come you by that, sir?"
"Uhm… my choice of pet aboard ship, sir," Alan fumbled, feeling that was the safest explanation.
"Ah, I see. Lady Byard's fond of 'em. God knows why. Eat the dormice… heartbreak in the nursery, then! Give me a good hound any day," Sir Thomas grumped. "Odd. Mister Lewrie, other man fresh meat on the hoof, forrud in the manger, I can't recall any animals aboard. You do not, this commission, bring a pet with you?"
"Captain Braxton does not allow pets, Captain Byard."
"Devil you say," Sir Thomas snapped. " Windsor Castle 's loaded with 'em. I've a pup of my own, from the last litter. Just the one, o' course, but… pets do wonders to improve the morale of the hands."
"I quite agree, Sir Thomas," Alan answered quickly.
"I also note…" the flag-captain said, pulling at his nose once more, "your crew labours in dead silence. E'en now… yonder. Now they're queued up for their grog, they're quiet as mice. Why?"
"Captain's orders, sir. He prefers it that way."
"Good practice, perhaps… no bawling aloft and back. A twitch of a halliard is good as a bellow. 'Specially in a raw-blowing gale, a tug on a brace is as good as a wink. Yet… any skylarking allowed, sir? 'Make and Mend'? 'Rope-Yarn' Sundays? Hornpipes in the Dogs?"
"Uhm… the captain is not completely satisfied with them yet, Sir Thomas," Lewrie squirmed, trying to find a safe answer, yet a way to impart some clue-and wishing, not for the first time, that a junior officer could just blurt out raw truth to a senior. "One may not presume to speak for one's commanding officer, sir, towards his motives, but… we're a new crew, with most of them landsmen and lubbers. And it may be that Captain Braxton is more used to a well-drilled 'John Company' crew. They have not yet met his standards, Captain
Byard."
"Raw men, that obtains in every ship in the Fleet, Mister Lewrie," Sir Thomas scoffed. "I cannot guess your captain's standards, either, but… were I a younger man, entrusted with such a smart frigate, I'd be over the moon that my crew had shaken down so nicely in such brief practice."
That did not require an answer, until Sir Thomas pressed him to give an opinion; all Alan could do was nod enthusiastically.
"Well, hard as I pressed, I can find no fault in Cockerel, sir. She's weathered my scrutiny smart as paint. All of you did." "Thankee kindly for your good opinion, Sir Thomas." "Keep it up, though," Byard warned in a softer, more intimate voice. "I don't need tell you my admiral's… wroth with you."
"Me, sir?" Oh, damme!
"With Cockerel, I should have said," Byard expanded. "A convoy… a deuced rich Frog convoy, and all that prize-money, lost? And a French national ship allowed a laugh at the Royal Navy's expense. More to the point, sir, at Admiral Cosby's expense, d'ye see."
"I should imagine so, Sir Thomas," Alan nodded somberly.
"Deaf, dumb and blind, swarming about like a fart in a
trance, and cunny-thumbed seamanship… dear Lord, sir!" Sir
Thomas winced, as if recalling his vice-admiral's tirade of the
day before. It cheered Lewrie to imagine that tirade, though; surely Captain Braxton had spent the past six hours in a living Hell, and had gotten at least the afterglow of all that rancour heaped upon his head, soon as he'd gained Cosby's great-cabins.
"Had this ship not performed so well this morning, well, then… heads would have rolled, sir, indeed they would have."
Good God, I saved the bastard from dismissal, Alan wondered? Or did I save myself? No heads to roll, no brutal shaking up, then? What a bleak idea. More of the bloody same! With official sanction!
"Order your officer of the watch to close Windsor Castle, Mister Lewrie," Sir Thomas instructed. "Put us under her lee once more, and I shall take my leave of you."
"Aye, aye, sir. Mister Scott! Stations for wearing ship. Close the flagship, in her lee."
"Very good, sir," Scott rejoined, then began bawling orders.
"That will give me a few minutes to speak with 'Terrible Toby.' Before I do, though…" Sir Thomas concluded with a searching glance.
"Aye, Sir Thomas?"
"Is there anything pertinent I might be remiss in asking, sir? Any matter you'd care to impart concerning Cockerel?'
Oh, Christ, Lewrie sagged in bewilderment; I can't! One simply can't; it's not on. That's insubordination, disloyalty. He seems as if he sees what's going on, but…! It's not a direct order to tell him, it's only a request. God, make it order!
"I… there is nothing which strikes me at present, Sir Thomas," he was forced to intone, though keeping his eyes level and unblinking as he locked gazes with the flag-captain. And hoping the misery and the lack of enthusiasm in his voice might make the first shoe drop.
"I see," Byard harumphed softly. Neither disappointed nor disapproving, but with no hint of approbation for loyalty, either.
Leaving Lieutenant Lewrie to wonder just exactly what the Hell "I see" really meant.
IV
Quae classe dehinc effusa procorum bella!
Ah, what wars shalt thou see when the
suitors pour forth from the Fleet!
– Valerius Flaccus Argonautica, Book 1,551-552
Chapter 1It was surprisingly cool in the Mediterranean. So cool that charcoal braziers and a goodly supply of fuel had to be taken aboard once Cockerel had victualled at Gibraltar. Though the fires had to be extinguished at 9:00 p.m. each evening, along with all glims or lanthorns, their meek efforts did transform the wardroom to a fair measure of comfort, after a four-hour watch in a raw, chill wind.
Fluky, too, the Mediterranean was, compared to other oceans Lewrie had experienced. First of all, there were no tides to reckon with, which could be a blessing. Otherwise, though, he thought it a perverse bitch of a sea; there were perils enough in the irregular and unpredictable changes of currents that could put them miles out of any reliable "fix" of their position. And the winds were wickedly fickle, backing or veering as confusingly as the Bahamas in high summer. The frigate might beam-reach east with the wind steady to larboard in the forenoon watch, yet be taken aback by a capricious shift, and end the day beating close-hauled on starboard tack to make the same easting.
The beaches they saw when close inshore on patrol were pebbly, rock strewn, with only a thin rime of sand beach, and many anchorages were treacherous, rocky-bottom holding grounds-or the worst sort of semi-liquid mud that swallowed anchors, but gave no secure purchase to the flukes.
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