A King's Trade Read online

  Aye, though, he felt like groaning aloud; make one little mistake, try t’do just one good turn, an’ see where it gets you! And, it was in the cause of keepin’ this ship manned an’ efficient, too! Ye’d think that’d earn a man a pat on the back, or someth… !

  “Ah, hmm,” the Sailing Master announced, after a long, furrowed-brow study, and a peer at his sea-charts once he’d attained the quarterdeck without Lewrie noticing. “A blue-grey ooze, sirs, a clayey muck, at that, I am bound. Stap me if I do not believe we’re within twenty leagues of Cape Clear, on Ireland. Sixty or so sea-miles Sou’west of Cape Clear, to be more exact, ah ha.”

  “The Sou’wester gale blew us further North than we had thought,” Lt. Langlie gayly opined, nodding his head sagaciously. “If we wish to round the Lizard, not put into the Bristol Channel…”

  “Captain, sir,” Mr. Winwood ponderously stated, drawing himself fully erect, “in my humble opinion, we should shape a course abeam the Westerlies, ‘til we may take a second sounding, towards evening.”

  “Due South,” Lewrie replied, nodding himself. “So there’s not a risk of grounding either on the Scillies or the Lizard. Who knows? By dawn, and a clearer sky, your tables will give us the time of sunrise t’ go by. With any luck at all, the weather will clear enough for the sun’s height at Noon Sights!”

  “Just so, Captain,” Winwood agreed, with a slight bow.

  “Then we won’t have to embarrass ourselves by speaking the very first ship we see,” Lewrie japed, “and hoisting ‘Hold Church Service,’ ‘Location,’ and ‘Interrogative’ flags.”

  “Sir?” Mr. Midshipman Gamble dared ask, at last, with a look of a young man ready to be amused by his captain’s wit, willing to be the goat who supplied the rhetorical question if the others wouldn’t, but not exactly sure where his superior’s jest was going.

  “Stands for ‘Oh God, Where Am I?,’ Mister Gamble,” Lewrie quipped with a wry chuckle. “Very well, Mister Langlie. Secure the sounding gear, get our frozen sailors in-board, and Aspinall?” he bade the lad, who still hovered nearby in his heavy wool-frieze boat, with his white apron dangling below its hem. “A cup o’ hot coffee for all who assisted the Sailing Master. Hands to the braces, and make her course Due South, Mister Langlie. Wear her about.”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  Lewrie paced aft to the taffrails to get out of the way while the cross-cocked jibs and foresails were eased over to starboard, and the helm was put over, the hard-angled set of the principal sails was eased from trying to go “full and by” too close to the winds, to loose-cupping what wind there was, as Proteus’s bows swung leeward, the wind came more abeam, then from astern. At the precise proper moment, and with the efficiency of a well-drilled crew with enough experience for two ships, by now, the yards were hauled about, the courses, tops’ls, and t’gallants began to draw, and HMS Proteus began to cleave her way through steel-grey seas, her clean quickwork slipping through the icy waters and gaining speed rapidly.

  He left the taffrails and paced up the starboard side of the quarterdeck, which was now the windward side, and a captain’s rightful station alone, ‘til he was by the mizen shrouds, hooked an arm through them, and oversaw without interfering in such a wonderous display of seamanship from all officers and hands, ‘til the last brace, halliard, or jear was coiled, flaked down, and belayed on the pin-rails, and Mr. Langlie released all but the sailors in the Forenoon Watch from their stations. A quick cast of the knot-log proved that even on this light wind, Proteus was loping along at a decent seven knots, easily riding the quartering seas, slow-rocking more than hobby-horsing, and heeled no more than ten degrees according to the new-fangled clinometer, with the winds nearly full abeam.

  The next mid-day might prove them level with the Lizard; half a day’s sailing after that might, if the winds remained out of the West or Sou’west, move them far enough below England’s westernmost headland to turn East, and scud up the Channel to Portsmouth, there to deliver despatches from Halifax to the Port Admiral.

  There to be stripped of his sword of honour and bound in irons, then hauled off to an ignominious Fate?

  Liam Desmond on his uillean lap-pipes, the ship’s fiddler, and a Marine fifer began to play a semi-lively old hymn. Unfortunately for Lewrie’s already-fretful nerves, he recognised the title as “I Want a Principle.” Damned if he didn’t, though he might have left it a tad late!

  He pursed his lips, frowned heavily, and headed below and aft. Aspinall was still tending to those in need of his coffee-pot; Lewrie tossed off his own boat cloak, hat, and undid his coat, then sat down at his desk and dug his personal log out of the centre drawer, dipped one of his precious steel-nibbed (captured) French pens in the ink, and noted the time and date of Soundings, of shaping a new course; catching up on what the half-a-gale had carried away, what sails had split, and had to be replaced, which Mr. Rayne, their Sailmaker, thought he could repair, and what the cost in materials would be when the time came to pay Proteus off in a home dockyard, the war with France ended….

  “… that saved a wretch like me!

  I once was lost, but now am found,

  ‘twas blind, but now, I see!”

  Mister Winwood has a sense of humour? Lewrie was forced to gawp. Two years or more, and the Sailing Master couldn’t seem to catch even the broadest jape…now this waggish witticism? For the suggestion for a thanksgiving hymn surely had been his. Lewrie knew the words as a poem written by a former Liverpool slave-ship captain, John Newton, who had been shipwrecked and enslaved himself on the African coast; the tune, though, sounded suspiciously close to “Nottingham Ale,” not a ditty he’d think popular with the fervently religious.*

  Apt, though, he decided; now we know where we are. He could understand British tars singing so lustily, this close to home, but his “Free Black volunteers,” too?

  The root of his troubles, those “volunteers,” a round dozen of them, who’d really been encouraged to meet his ship’s boats one night in Portland Bight on Jamaica’s south coast, and escape a lifetime of slavery, chains, whips, and cruel misery, to join the Royal Navy under new aliases as “free men.” Seemed like a great idea, then, when his ship had been so short of hands after so many of his British tars had died of Yellow Jack, but now, though…

  “… many dangers, toils, and snares,

  I have al-ready come!

  ‘Tis Grace hath bro’t me safe, thus far,

  and Grace will lead me home!”

  “Something should,” Lewrie muttered; “lead ‘em home, very far from me,” he added under his breath. Listening to the harmonies of his Black sailors, no matter how loyally and stoutly they had served, he could not help but add a fretful “Damn ‘em!”

  *“Amazing Grace,” also known in hymn books as “New Britain,” was not set to the tune we know, “Virginia Harmony,” until 1831.

  CHAPTER TWO

  In retrospect, perhaps—and one could safely assume that retrospection was an activity at which Alan Lewrie had come to excel over the course of a few months (and just might have been acclaimed as the champion retro-spector of the age…were prizes given for such, of course)—he really should have twigged to the fact that something was “rotten in Denmark” when he received that extremely odd, dare we say outré, invitation from Capt. Nicely, back in the summer when he was still based out of Kingston, Jamaica, to wit: Capt. Nicely requested that he be dined-in aboard Proteus by Capt. Lewrie, not the other way round.

  Well, Nicely was a kindly sort, though a bit of a bull in the china shop, an aggressive, “but me not buts” sort, so Lewrie had thought little odd about it, at the time. Capt. Nicely had played “Dutch Uncle” to him since their first meeting at Port-au-Prince in 1797 and had supported his activities, dismissing the vituperative charges that the dyspeptic Capt. Blaylock had tried to lay against Lewrie for not breaking off his bombardment of the rebel-slave army besieging the port of Mole St. Nicholas and giving Blaylock his mooring to try his hand at it. Nicely’s dislike f
or Blaylock might have had a hand in it, for they’d heartily despised each other as hotly as the Devil hates Holy Water since their Midshipmen days.

  Ever the encouraging and supportive sort was Nicely, even when he’d as good as “press-ganged” Lewrie into a knight-errant’s crusade against those French Creole pirates who’d stolen one of Lewrie’s prizes from the anchorage at Dominica, even when he’d usurped Proteus right out from under him to be Nicely’s “squadron of one” to chase them into Spanish Louisiana, then sending Lewrie up the Mississippi in civilian guise to hunt them on their home ground, shivering and farting with dread, and…

  But, no…Lewrie had blithely shrugged it off as just one more quirk of a neck-or-nothing man. After all, he’d survived it, barely, and the expedition had fetched them all £200,000 to share, gained all participants—the leaders most especially—plaudits in London papers, and the gratitude of their superiors for a job well done. As for Capt. Nicely, it had gotten him out of the dry and thankless post of Staff Captain, ashore in Admiralty House on Kingston Harbour’s Palisades, and gotten him back afloat in command of a mighty 44-gun frigate. And, let Nicely hoist a broad pendant as commander of a wee squadron—even if said broad pendant still bore a white ball to show Nicely was not yet a Commodore, due a Flag-Captain to run her.

  Better yet, HMS Proteus had received orders assigning her, and her suddenly moderately-wealthy captain, to be part of that squadron of two frigates, a sloop of war, and two armed brigs, which would soon sail off on a new expedition to prowl the coasts of French Guiana and the Dutch isles off the shoulder of South America and the Spanish Main.

  And, as captain of the only other frigate in the squadron, was not Lewrie second-in-command to Nicely, no matter that he had not yet attained the right to wear a second epaulet on his shoulders, and was still a Post-Captain of Less than Three Years’ Seniority?

  Given Capt. Nicely’s knacky wits, and his bellicosity when it came to trouncing the King’s enemies, it had promised to be a fruitful cruise…so long as Nicely didn’t order Lewrie to sneak ashore as a Spanish grandee or mule-skinner and play spy one more time, that is.

  Little wonder, then, that Lewrie had cocked his head over that invitation, had muttered something akin to “Hmmpf, well o’ course,” and had tossed it into the scrap drawer, and didn’t give the matter a second thought, except for what he should serve for a working dinner, and for how many. And, given how badly Capt. Nicely had fared aboard Proteus with Toulon and Chalky whilst Lewrie was away in New Orleans, what he should do with his cats.

  It did strike Lewrie as odd that Capt. Nicely came aboard alone, with nary a one of the squadron’s other captains in tow, not even his own First Officer, which had prompted two thoughts in Lewrie’s head: first, Oh, good… more leftovers for tonight’s supper, followed by Oh, shit, he’s got some harum-scarum plan in his head, again! A plan which might, indeed, require Lewrie to swot up on his Spanish, Dutch, or French, and quickly master plausible skills at donkey-tending!

  Capt. Nicely had proved to be popular with the crew, his recent exploits earning every Man Jack a pretty penny, so it was with happy smiles and waving hats that Proteus’s hands had turned out to welcome Nicely aboard, beyond the formality of the side-party, the shrilling bosuns’ calls, and the stamping of Marines in full kit.

  “Hallo, lads!” Capt. Nicely had joyfully cried, waving his own hat back at them. “Spent your prize-money, yet, you rogues, ha ha? Or, did you owe your Purser too much for tobacco, what?”

  That had gotten him a laugh, and a jeer or two at their “Nip-Cheese,” Mr. Coote, as all Pursers were termed.

  “Seeing as how ‘tis just before Seven Bells of the Forenoon,” Nicely had further said, “and Proteus is well-anchored, with none but the harbour watch to stand, with your captain’s permission…?” he had looked over at Lewrie, cocking a brow ‘til Lewrie nodded his agreement, “I propose that you ‘Splice the Main Brace’!” Nicely had cried down to the waist, giving leave for every man and boy to have a full rum issue, with no sips or gulps owed among them to lower the brimming measure.

  “And, do you come this way, sir,” Lewrie had offered, gesturing aft, “we’ll ‘splice’ our own. I’ve a case of fine French claret.”

  “Delighted!” Nicely had cried; though his eyes had been shifty.

  Once below, with Aspinall and Andrews, Lewrie’s long-time Black Cox’n, to take charge of hats, swords, and such, Capt. Nicely shied a bit, peering about intently, though managing to hide most of his nervousness deuced well.

  “It, ahh…you’ve re-painted lately, have ye, Lewrie?”

  “Nossir, not in some time, why?” Lewrie said as he did honours with the first ready-opened and breathing bottle with his own hands.

  “It smells…fresher than I recall,” Nicely tentatively allowed, accepting a semi-conical, low-stemmed, and footed glass from him.

  “Oh, the cats, d’ye mean, sir,” Lewrie replied with a well-hid simper. “Don’t know quite what got into ‘em, when you were aboard. A tribe that don’t brook ‘change’ all that well, I’ve discovered. A new person where their master usually is…pining for me, as well, sir? My apologies, again, for what harm they did your things.”

  Far aft in the bed-space, Lewrie could espy two pairs of ears, two sets of hard-slit and wary eyes, perhaps even two noses, one with pink nostrils, the other grey, lurking over the top of his extra pillow and the folded-up coverlet, in his wide-enough-for-two hanging bed. Where, he fervently hoped at that moment, they would be content to stay…muttering only the faintest spiteful “Mrrrs,” scheming nothing.

  “Delightful creatures,” Nicely intoned without even attempting to sound convincing.

  “And didn’t they take to you, just, sir!” Lewrie couldn’t help saying as he led Nicely to the dining-coach and a seat at the table.

  “Ummm…yayss,” Nicely rejoined, “and aren’t you so fortunate?”

  High summer in Jamaica, even with wind scoops erected at every hatchway, the awnings rigged tautly over the quarterdeck against direct sunlight, and all the transom or coach-top windows of the great-cabins opened, mitigated against a heavy repast. They’d begun with a thin but spicy chicken broth, which was followed by freshly-caught red snapper with lemon and clarified butter sauce, and boiled carrots. Green salad with shredded bacon and oil-and-vinegar cleansed the palate for a main course of de-boned pork chops served with fried potato wedges and middling dollops of mushy peas, which repast required the opening of some hock with the fish, soup, and salad, and a second bottle of claret with the chops.

  Not a single word was said about their coming mission far to the South’rd, of French and Spanish foes sheltered at Aruba or Curaçao, at Caracas or Cartagena, nor what dangers lurked in the port of Cayenne, or the marshy inlets of French Giuana, and Lewrie had begun to squirm a bit, waiting for a particularly ugly, but “inspired,” shoe to drop.

  It was expected, of course, that naval officers never discussed Politics, Religion, Women, or “Work” in the mess, so…perhaps after?

  It was only once the tablecloth had been whisked away, the sweet biscuits and mixed nuts, and the port bottle, had been set out, that a nigh-broody Capt. Nicely had appeared to wince, or steel himself for a secret discussion, requesting that Aspinall make himself scarce.

  Secret doings? Lewrie had wondered; Or… look out, here comes another of his brain storms, with me up t’my neck in the quag, again.

  “So…what is it to be, sir?” Lewrie had prompted, scooting up closer to the table, expecting to hear Capt. Nicely whisper revelations about secret sailing times, sealed orders for rendezvous out at sea, so the French, who still had informers on Jamaica despite efforts to root them out, would hear nothing of the squadron’s destination, or its formation, ‘til it was much too late.

  That, or another miserable spell of dirty-work for Lewrie.

  “These…walnuts?” Nicely had grumpily asked, instead, with his face screwed up like a hanged spaniel as he nibbled on one.

 
; “Uh…no, sir,” Lewrie said, topping off his glass of port and passing it down-table. “American pecans,” he informed Nicely, saying it the way he’d heard it from Capt. Randolph of the USS Oglethorpe from whom he’d obtained them. “Pee-cans…Georgia pee-cans.”

  “Hmmpf,” Nicely had muttered, clearing his palate with the port, and pouring himself another rather quickly, too, tossing that one back uncharacteristically quickly. He poured himself a third, but let that one sit ‘twixt his hoary hands, and gave it a long glare before looking at his host.

  “Uhm… bad news, I fear, Lewrie,” Nicely had begun, at last. “A matter’s arisen which, ah…may preclude your participation in my squadron’s mission, d’ye see.”

  “Some other duty, then, sir?” Lewrie had asked, feeling, in the following order: disappointment to miss a straightforward adventure; some relief that he’d not be handy, did Nicely get a wild hair up his nose, and need some derring-do done; who the Devil had requested him for something else, and how much worse might that be?

  “Not, ah… quite,” Nicely had struggled on, obviously loath to bear bad news, but…”I shall be… we shall be, sorry to lose your inestimable services on the West Indies Station.”

  “I’m t’go somewhere else, sir?” Suspicious, indeed, that.

  “Far and fast, I fear,” Nicely had gloomed. He wriggled as if the crutch of his breeches had suddenly pinched a testicle. “There’s the matter of all those damned Samboes of yours, Lewrie. Your Cuffy sailors. More to the point, where and when you got ‘em, d’ye see.”