A Hard, Cruel Shore Read online

  “Hang it!”Sir Hugo barked, stepping abruptly after he had taken only a few steps towards the landing and the staircase. “You were at Vimeiro, and Corunna! My old army friends would be eager to hear your accounts. Fresh-washed?”

  “Reasonably,” Lewrie told him.

  “Come sup with me and the others, then,” his father said with a laugh. “Bring your star and sash? No? No matter. We’ll feed and shelter your man. Let’s go. I’m already late enough as it is.”

  Lewrie hardly had time to inform Pettus where he was going at such short notice, how the house would look after him, that he would be very late returning and not to worry about him ’til morning, and don his hat and boat cloak on his way to the door.

  Lewrie was sure that Pettus would be in good hands, and enjoy his stay, for, as he prepared to go out to another hackney that someone had whistled up, he saw two very comely housemaids headed up the stairs to the bedchambers with sheets, blankets, and pillows to make up a room for him. Very comely, young and promising!

  If the randy old goat can’t top ’em, by now, Lewrie drolly thought; at least my father can still look at ’em and whinny!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Up, are you?” Sir Hugo asked as Lewrie entered the smaller breakfast room the next morning. “Bathed, shaved, and wearing full kit, well well.” He said that with a sarcastic tone, as if taking glee. “Risen, and ready to shine, hah!”

  “Up, aye … bleary, too,” Lewrie had to admit as he sat himself down, whipped a napkin under his chin, and peered round for a coffee pot. “I wasn’t countin’ on such a long night of it.”

  “It ain’t just ‘younkers’ like you who stay up late,” his sire told him with a knowing, worldly-wise leer. To add insult to injury, he threw in a “tee hee” of amusement, delayed enough to irk. “But, you had so much to impart, you held their interest that long, so the late hour was your fault. Did quite well, though … went down well,” he added with faint praise.

  Retired Generals and Colonels, officers still on Army List who had no field commands, and might as well be on the equivalent of Navy half-pay, had been interested in Lewrie’s views and observations of what had transpired in Portugal and Spain, and there had been many questions put to him about Sir Arthur Wellesley, the battles of Roliça and Vimeiro, that worthy’s arrangements for supplying his troops in the field, the disastrous Convention of Cintra which had doomed the careers of General Sir Hew Dalrymple and General Sir Harry Burrard, the mis-calculations and poor intelligence that had ruined the Mid-winter thrust into Spain by General Sir John Moore and General Sir David Baird, then the disastrous retreats to Vigo and Corunna which had saved what was left of their soldiers.

  Well, that was all to be expected from older gentlemen who might never see battle, again, and who’d most-like game it all over on tabletops, then write scathing letters to The Times. What Lewrie had not expected was how boisterous, drunken, loud, and at times so bawdy Sir Hugo and his old friends could be, and sit up so late into the wee hours, when most men their age would long have been abed.

  He was paying the price this morning; a thick head, a tinge of wine and brandy still fuzzing his senses, and suffering the lack of a good night’s rest. Lewrie had had no more than four hours of sleep, and had been roused from a deep stupor, feeling as if he had been drug up by the scruff of his neck from a vat of treacle.

  “Coffee, sir?” a servant enquired at last, and Lewrie almost leapt for the silver pot to pour a cup for himself. He stirred in the offered white sugar and thick, fresh cream, took a sip, and thought himself in Heaven, letting out a long, blissful “Aahh!”

  “Defending your ship at Admiralty today, are you?” Sir Hugo asked.

  “Just lettin’ ’em know I’m in town and ready to do so,” Lewrie told him between restorative sips of his coffee.

  “Good, ’cause ye look like Death’s Head on a Mop-stick,” Sir Hugo cackled, “no matter your sash and star.” To which compassionate comment, Lewrie could only cast him a slit-eyed glower.

  “With any luck, I can retire early tonight and be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for ’em tomorrow,” Lewrie told him, rubbing his hands together in anticipation as another servant presented him with the serving dish of cheesy scrambled eggs. A dish of bacon strips followed that, then another of piping-hot potato hash. Finger-thick slabs of toast were set before him, there was the jam bowl, the fresh butter, and once his plate was laden, Lewrie dug in, famished beyond all measure.

  “Bushy-tailed?” Sir Hugo sneered. “Another Colonial colloquialism, is it? Well, that’s what happens to good English when one spends so much time overseas, I suppose.”

  “You still sling Hindi about,” Lewrie rejoined, a fork-load poised halfway to his mouth. “By the way, where’s your man from your old ‘John Company’ regiment, Trilochan Singh? I haven’t seen him about the house.”

  “Ah well, Singh,” Sir Hugo said, looking rueful. “After old Zachariah Twigg passed over, his man, Ajit Roy, was left enough for a goodly pension, and passage back to India, if he wished it. Twigg’s whole native staff, his cook and major-domo, too. They met at the funeral, Singh spoke with them, and wished to see his kinfolk before he died, so I pensioned him and bought his passage, too. Hated to lose the old one-eyed badmash, but, he was gettin’ on in years, and English weather didn’t agree with him … never did, really.”

  That must’ve been a wrench, Lewrie thought, feeling a touch of sympathy for his sire despite their edgy relationship; the end of a link to excitin’, younger times.

  Well, his father still had arrays of Hindoo tulwars, jezail muskets, and other diverse exotic weapons scattered round his house, along with tiger pelts and mounted heads of hunting kills from the Far East, even a poised-to-strike cobra that had threatened Sir Hugo one morning in his gusulkhana, seated on his “thunder box” with his breeches round his ankles, but … gathered things were not the same as old compatriots.

  “Sorry ’bout that,” Lewrie felt need to say. “So, what are you doin’ today?” He noted that his father was not fully dressed in either last night’s dress uniform, or civilian suitings, and wore a richly embroidered and lined dressing robe.

  “First, I intend to take a good, long nap, after you’re gone,” Sir Hugo told him with what could only be called an evil grin, “then I may coach over to Lackington’s new bookstore in Finsbury Square.”

  “Finsbury?” Lewrie scoffed. “Isn’t it a dirt field full of trash and dead animals?”

  “Was when ye left,” Sir Hugo said with a purr. “Now, it’s almost as fashionable as the West End, totally re-done, and the store is the largest bookstore in London, perhaps in England, which means in the world, haw haw! Oh, London’s just explodin’ in all directions lately. Ye go away for a spell, they change things all round!”

  “Well, if I have some time on my hands, I might have a look at the place, then,” Lewrie said. “I could use some new reading material.”

  “Ye’ll find all the caricatures along Piccadilly,” Sir Hugo said, “the ones with the simple words?”

  And that’s why I love you so much, you old bastard! Lewrie told himself; At least he sets a damned good table.

  * * *

  Admiralty in Whitehall was much the same as he had left it two years before; the courtyard inside the curtain wall was a bustle of arriving and departing officers and officials. The tea and sticky-bun carts still did a thriving business, and the arms of the semaphore tower still whirled with orders down the chains of towers to Falmouth and Tor Bay, Plymouth, Portsmouth, the Nore, and Great Yarmouth. And the Greenwich Pensioners hired as the tilers to tend the doors were just as surly, short, and disparaging.

  Inside, the infamous Waiting Room was just as arsehole-to-elbow crowded with hopefuls, and the hopeless, sprinkled here and there with people who had a reason to be there, fresh from paying off their latest active commission, or there to receive a new one, like raisins strewn through a cheap duff.

  Lewrie checked his hat and boat cloak with a cl
erk, found someone who could dash abovestairs to announce his presence and deliver his letter to the First Secretary, Mr. Pole, then readied himself for a long, possibly pointless wait ’til getting word as to when he could present his ship’s status to anyone who’d listen. He looked about the large room for a seat, or a newspaper or magazine with which to while away his time, but that turned out to be fruitless. Turned out in his best, with the sash and star of his knighthood prominently displayed, one would think that some quick-witted soul in search of a new ship might spring to his feet and toady to him, but … no.

  And here I thought I was famous, or something, he thought with a wry grin, slowly pacing the room to appear as if he didn’t care and had no need for a sit-down. The better part of an hour of that soon palled; his feet told him he needed to get off them, soon!

  At last, another Post-Captain, grown weary and impatient with his own delayed appointment with those abovestairs, rose, groaning, and growled that he would “up-anchor, and take a leading wind out to a mid-day mess,” and Lewrie dashed, with as much dignity as he could to seize the hard, wooden chair, much like the parlour game, beating out a Commander and a Lieutenant, who shied off in deference to his senior rank. Wonder of wonders, there was a copy of The Gazette, too!

  It was getting on for one P.M. by the time Lewrie finished the paper, even reading all the advertisments for hernia trusses and undergarments for ladies with as much deep concentration as he would give to reports of the impending Apocalypse. Despite his ample breakfast, he was getting peckish, shoving aside a fantasy of a chop-house quite nearby where he’d dined well in past, relishing their meat pies, pork chops, ales, and sweet duffs … even their mushy pease pudding!

  “Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, if you please?” a clerk announced at the bottom of the staircase. “Is Captain Lewrie still present?”

  “Here,” Lewrie replied, making a nonchalant show of getting to his feet, as if it was no matter to him if he got a ship or not, or kept the one he had.

  “The First Secretary wishes you to return tomorrow, sir,” the clerk, the one Lewrie had long-ago deemed the “happy-making clerk” told him, handing him a folded-over sheet of paper. “Would ten of the morning be suitable, sir? Good. He and the Chief Surveyor of the Navy, Sir Henry Peake, wish you to bring along all pertinent papers pertaining to your ship’s condition, sir.”

  “Most happy to oblige them both, and ten tomorrow it’ll be,” Lewrie replied, plastering a gladsome and confident grin on his phyz. “And, good day to you, sir.”

  The note was only written confirmation of what the clerk had just told him, so he shoved it into a coat pocket, and retrieved his hat and cloak from the coat room, then went out into the courtyard and took a deep sniff. He could smell neither snow nor rain in the offing, though the day was still very cold and grey, with low-flying clouds, mingled with the pall of ever-present coal smoke. Lewrie felt himself in need of some warm liquid refreshment, and went to the tea cart to queue up to buy a cup.

  Looking about whilst waiting in line, he shook his head in awe that, in all the times he’d called at Admiralty, it was the rare day when anyone he knew even slightly was there at the same time, just as it was today. He had scanned the faces in the Waiting Room, perking up at every arrival in the faint hope that he’d spot an old shipmate, to no good result. The courtyard was much the same; not a single familiar face.

  He did take note of a civilian hesitantly entering the courtyard, a man in his fifties dressed in the black garb of a churchman, in “dominee ditto”; black-coat and waist-coat, black breeches, stockings, and buckled shoes, a flat-brimmed black hat on his head, broken only by his white shirt and neck-stock,

  Lookin’ for a Chaplain’s post, is he? Lewrie took note, though he wondered why the fellow ushered a younger lad along at his side; Well, he’s a faint hope! On paper at least, ships of the Royal Navy were supposed to carry Chaplains, but it was a poor, “mar-text” sort who would give up the hope of a shore living, even as a poor Curate in a rural parish, to go to sea and its misery. Lewrie knew of senior officers far more religiously observant than he who carried one with them, mostly aboard warships of the Third Rate and above. Admiral “Dismal Jemmy” Gambier sprang to mind, the old croaker, who would demand every officer he met with the question “Are you saved, sir?”

  The churchman looked round as if lost, or uncertain that he was in the right place. Lewrie made the mistake of holding his gaze too long, and the fellow approached him as if invited, making Lewrie put his stern “quarterdeck” face on.

  “I say, sir, you are a Captain?” the churchman began.

  “Aye,” Lewrie gruffly replied. “Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet. And you are, sir?” he added with an arch tone to his voice, hoping that his rare use of his title might scare the man off.

  “Your pardons, sir, allow me to name myself … Reverend James Chenery, Rector of Saint Anselm’s, in Piccadilly,” the man said with a sweep and doff of his hat. “My son, here, Charles, is eager to go to sea as a Midshipman, but, knowing no one nautical, we have no clue as to how such might be accomplished. My parish has only a sprinkling of army officers, you see.”

  “Hmm, well, the normal practise would be to have kin in the Navy who might have an open Midshipman’s berth,” Lewrie informed him, still wary and stand-offish, “or know someone who commands a ship.”

  He glanced at the son, who appeared to be around fifteen or so, a well-formed lad with straight limbs, hair so dark it appeared almost black, and surprisingly dark blue eyes. He looked likely.

  “Barring that, sir,” Rev. Chenery continued with several nods, “I heard a rumour that perhaps some small fee might be entailed?”

  “Absolutely not, sir!” Lewrie rejoined with a bark. “Whoever told you that knows nothing. That’d be criminal.”

  Though I still wonder what my father paid my first Captain to take me on, Lewrie recalled.

  “I see, sir,” Rev. Chenery replied, looking relieved.

  Lewrie also wondered why Rev. Chenery looked so “out at the heels”, for as he recalled, the man’s West End parish was a rich one, and should come with a substantial living, and a grand manse. There was something—thready—about the fellow, as if he was one of those who took a vow of sobre poverty seriously, and it was the rare Church of England man who really did. Yet, when he was told that a fee was not necessary, he looked as if he quit fingering his coin-purse. As dowdily as he was garbed, Lewrie could almost mistake him for a Methodist, or a Dissenter!

  “So, one applies in person, inside Admiralty, or does one send them a letter, then, sir?” Chenery further enquired.

  “That would be fruitless, I’m afraid,” Lewrie told him. “Such applications would be quite ignored. Young sir,” he said, turning his attention to the son. “You are determined to make a career of the Navy? How old are you, and what do you know of navigation, and ships in general?”

  “I am fifteen, sir, and I have earned high marks at my school in mathematics, trigonometry, and we did some practise at celestial navigation,” young Charles Chenery answered, very matter-of-factly, with none of the shyness or reticence expected of a young lad. “As for ships and the sea, I only know what I have read, or found in my books, sir, though some of us at school have done some boating on the Thames, the upper reaches, really … rowing, sailing. And, father has tutored me well.”

  “Swim, do you?” Lewrie demanded.

  “Quite well, sir, yes,” the lad replied.

  “I would not have allowed him to go boating, else, sir,” Rev. Chenery stuck in. “Alas, Charlie doesn’t seem eager to follow the family tradition.”

  “My uncle and my older brother are in Holy Orders, as are my sisters’ husbands, do you see, Captain Lewrie, sir,” Charles Chenery said with the faintest moue of distaste for such a life for himself. “I, though, would prefer to take a more … active part in life, sir,” he announced with a shrug and a tentative smile.

  There’s an imp in him, Lewrie determined; just achin’ t’kick
over the traces.

  “Well, young Master Chenery, Nelson’s father was a churchman, and he turned out well,” Lewrie said, which raised grins on both of them. “As a matter of fact, two of my own Mids passed their Examining Boards recently, and have been posted away into other ships as Lieutenants, and I am still one short…”

  “Hallelujah, sir!” Rev. Chenery crowed, looking skyward for a moment. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, and answers the prayers of the faithful! How serendipitous, all of us being here at the very right time. Ehm … may I understand that you are offering Charlie a place, Captain Lewrie, sir?”

  Hell’s Bells, why not? Lewrie thought.

  “I do believe that I am, Mister Chenery,” Lewrie told them, smiling for the first time since their meeting. “My ship, Sapphire, is currently anchored at Portsmouth, undergoing some repairs. Mind now, Mister Chenery,” he said to the lad, “she ain’t a frigate, with all the dash, and the promise of prize-money, but she does well,” explaining that she was a two-decker 50-gun Fourth Rate.

  “If you would be so good as to inform us all what he will need at sea, Captain Lewrie,” the Reverend asked, almost wheedling for the list of necessities.

  “Hmm, have you eat yet?” Lewrie asked them. “No? Good. There is a rather good chop-house near here, and I’m famished. Let us go there and I can fill you in whilst we dine. You have pen and paper?”

  The Reverend did; pencil and a few sheets of foolscap.

  * * *

  The chop-house was a slight cut above the usual two-penny ordinary, closer to a reasonable six pence for everything per diner, and that included a hard-boiled egg, lashings of bread and butter, roast beef, pease pudding, an albeit small roast potato that day, beef broth, a currant duff, and ale.

  “Now, t’start with, you’ll need uniforms,” Lewrie began, “and any decent London tailor worth his salt’ll know the current patterns. Round jacket, brass buttons … don’t go for gilt, it’s a gyp … and white waist-coats, white breeches, white cotton stockings, and good buckled shoes, brass’ll do, no need for silver or ‘pinchbeck’, for there’s no need for a grand show.”