A King's Commander (6 page)

And, it was fine to dine alone, too, for once, after so many civilian, and perilous, suppers with wife, ward, and children underfoot, sure to tip something over at any moment. Calming, it was, too, to—for a few hours, at least—have some privacy from the never-ceasing demands to be social with his officers. In a few days or weeks, he'd begin a round-robin of dining them in, a few at once, to be sociable. Once the rigidly demanded isolation of command got too great.

There was a rather fine, smooth and dry Bordeaux, which Aspinall had let breathe for an hour (and how the Portsmouth wine merchant got his hands on such a wondrous French wine, he'd ask no questions!).

Fresh greens in a small salad to cleanse his palate for fresh Cheddar, extra-fine sweet biscuits, and a smooth and heady Oporto. Gingersnaps, the biscuits were, another of Caroline's touches, all lovingly packed. Along
with calf's-foot jelly; though Alan had no clue as to why—he despised the stuff.

Toulon got his share, on the deck by Lewrie's chair. Cracklin's, pork, a sliver of cheese which he adored. A quarter of a gingersnap with a thin smear of fresh butter; good for his coat and teeth. For as long as butter remained wholesome, that is.

• • •

A loll on the transom settee, with all lanthorns in the day-cabin extinguished. A sated Toulon stretched across his lap, being brushed softly, tail slowly curling in bliss. After nine p.m. now, on a sleeping ship, on an empty and dark ocean. All glims out, and the ship's corporal, an officious able seaman named Wilhoit, making his rounds with the midshipman of the watch, to see that all was in order and quiet, that no flame burned below-decks from lanthorn or candle.

Lewrie's gritty eyes fluttered, as he yawned aloud. So much tension, the last few weeks, so much last-minute folderol, the last few days and hours before sailing. Regaining his freedom.

And once back in the Mediterranean . . . once back with Hood, who had surely taken Corsica by siege, by now. First step, though, would be at Gibraltar, with dispatches for General O'Hara, the ancient “Cock of the Rock.”

Where Phoebe Aretino was awaiting his return.

“Christ.” Lewrie sighed to the companionable dark.

Best to end that, fast, he thought sadly. Face to face, that'd be best, I s'pose. Letter's so bloody cowardly an' cold. Well, I had my joy of her. Give her, what . . . a hundred pounds or so, to tide her over till she finds herself a new patron? Sounds about right. And . . . here on out, I've far too much on my plate, to spare time on diversion.

Even a petite and pretty diversion. He shrugged.

“Bedtime, Toulon,” he announced in a yawny whisper.

He undressed in the dark of the sleeping coach, just abaft the chart space on the starboard side, a canvas and folding partition chamber. He pulled off his own boots, dropped his breeches, and tossed them over the top of a sea chest for Aspinall to stow away in the morning. His “man” had laid out a clean pair of slop trousers, which Alan preferred for undress wear at sea. Cheap, durable, and easy to part with once they'd mildewed, tanned, gotten stained with tar and slush . . . or simply wore out.

Fresh, virginal bed coverlet, painted and embroidered by Caroline's talented hands; fresh linen sheets, and pillow slips over puffy, never-used bolsters filled with home-farm goose down. The mattress in the bed box was from Anglesgreen, too; goose down packed top and bottom over a lamb's-wool batt center, sewed into a striped ticken cover.

The narrow hanging bed cot was slung at about waist level over the black-and-white painted checker of the canvas deck covering; slung fore-and-aft instead of the more-usual athwart-ship. An elegant form of hammock, really, braced by a rectangle of oak, with double layers of heavy storm canvas inside. Six feet long, it was, and a few inches more than three feet wide.

A bachelor's box, Alan snickered to himself as he rolled into it and set it swinging, as Toulon sat on the deck crying
“Maiwee?”
in a plaintive voice, as if he had to ask permission each and every evening, judging the best moment for his leap.

The little pest required a full ten minutes to satisfy, shoving his head under Lewrie's more-than-willing hands to be rubbed, purring and vibrating, nose-patting with soft paws, ear-snuffling as he kneaded the bolsters. He finally took his ease 'twixt torso and arm to the larboard side, paws braced against the canvas, with his back hard up against Alan's chest.

Damme no, not a bachelor's box. Lewrie grinned in the darkness, yawning so hard he thought he'd dislocate his jaw this time. 'Tis a
husband's
box. Narrow, and straight-laid.

His husband's box swayed to the easy roll and slow pitch of the ship as she snored her way across the deeps, loping for the open seas. And rocking her captain, his cat, and all the sleeping off-watch tars who put their trust in her, to a pacific rest.

T
he
winds did indeed come more and more westerly, as
Jester
came abeam of Plymouth on her slog down-Channel, veering bow-wards toward a close reach, then close-hauled, her second day of passage, forcing her to alter course nor'west, for she could not maintain a luff nearer than six points to the wind.

The old problem of leaving England; being driven shoreward by a brisk westerly, right up toward the Lizard
or Torbay, or having to tack and beat sou'west toward the hostile coast of France, which was a rock-strewn horror in peacetime, and aswarm with warships now, from the French bases at Brest and St. Malo.

By ten of the second morning,
Jester
was near enough to Torbay to peek inside, with a long-glass from the top of the mainmast. No sign of Admiral Howe's fleet, though; the westernmost war anchorage was empty, which meant he was still at sea, somewhere out in the Atlantic. And so, one must suppose, were the French.

With a heavy sigh, Lewrie had been forced to come about south, and make that long board down toward France on the starboard tack; a day wasted, he thought, marching in place up and down, with no progress westward, if he wished to give the Lizard
a wide berth.

But, near the start of the First Dog Watch at four p.m., the winds had begun to back southerly again, point at a time, and gain in strength. Near mid-Channel, Lewrie had summoned “All Hands” by five p.m., and brought her back to larboard tack, to make up lost ground. They continued backing, until, by the end of the First Dog at six,
Jester
was thrashing due west, close-hauled and flying over the wave tops like a tern.

Courses unreefed, tops'ls and royals full and straining, and the ship laid so hard-over on her starboard shoulder—where she'd heel so far and no farther—furrowing a wide bridal train of foam astern. She slashed the seas, the roar and wash of her passing, the irregular watery thudding of easily broken waves, and the hull's shudders at each foamy, curling lumping was a sailor's delight! A live, luff-flattening, coat-fluttering wind invaded every open mouth, filled every ear with tumult. It took four hands at the helm: Quartermaster Spenser, his Mate Tucker, and two able seamen trainees. Spoke by wary spoke, to weather or alee, with cries of “Meet her easy now . . .” Grunts of dissatisfaction when she faltered an iota from fast, if they misjudged the infinitesimal variations in wind direction, the press of a curling roller against the windward bow, the slightest swing of the lighted compass needle in the binnacle cabinet. And sighs of ecstasy, the “'At's th' way, lads!
'At's
me darlin'!” when
Jester
rode up and over a roller met with a well-timed spoke to windward, luff maintained, the near-invisible commissioning pendant streaming and crackling at its tip, the lee edges of the main course and main tops'l still barrel-curved, without even a flickering roll of a single cupful of that invigorating wind lost.

And everyone on the quarterdeck rocking and riding on horse-men's legs, springing at the knee easy, like posting a gaited mount, smiles of pleasure, and wonder, on their faces. Duty-watch sailors, lookouts along the windward side, hooting and “whooing,” ship's boys giggling those high-pitched, heart-in-your-throat, and heart-swelling shuddery laughs, as if they'd found a “pony” of guineas in their packet on Boxing Day. Off-watch sailors still on deck to savor this fleeting joy. Landsmen and young, first time at sea Marines staggering and reeling, whooping when a wave crest flung cold showers of spray above the bulwarks. Fiddle, fife, and tuning box from the foc's'le, near the galley and Copper Alley, speeding through a Dublin jig, the cook and his mate beating time on small pots.

“By
damn,
this is sailing!” Lewrie said aloud with pleasure, his voice lost in all the bustling noises. And Hyde and Spendlove, with the two boys first class in tow and tutelage, learning how to read the marks of a knot log in the dark, crying out, “Eleven knots, sir! Eleven, and a bit!”

There was bad weather in the Bay of Biscay, Lewrie was certain, some blow responsible for this that they'd soon meet, once they made a cautious offing into the Atlantic. It might be tarpaulin weather by noon of the next day. This could not last; night winds always waned a little after sundown—but at least they remained steady.

“Dead calm by morning, Mister Buchanon?”

“'Tis my experience, sir,” Buchanon opined reluctantly, “that a brisk sundown indeed makes for one o' two things—storm canvas an' three reefs by midnight, or . . . a spell o' calm an' drizzle by dawnin'. 'Twas another red sunset, ya did note, so . . .” He shrugged.

“And which would you put your guinea on, sir?” Lewrie smiled.

“I'd say this'll blow out in an hour'r two, sir,” Buchanon said with a rueful wince, forced to have an opinion. After a
long
minute spent gnawing a corner of his lips, and much sniffing and probing at the skies with his nose. “Best we enjoy it, while we can. And f' the mornin', well . . . a swing o' th' wind back toward west-sou'west. An' maybe drizzle, Captain. Smelt a
hint
o' fresh water on th' wind, I did. Rain, f'r certain, e'en with a red sunset, but . . .”

Buchanon lay his hands on the quarterdeck rails at the netting, feeling the shudderings, letting them transmit up his arms like some dowser witching for water.

“No counterwaves from a roiled sea?” Lewrie inquired to press him, or coach him. “No gales in the offing?”

“Nossir, didn't feel any.”

“And no smell of storm rack, either,” Lewrie went on, having done his own inhaling to sample the future. “No fresh-fish reek.”

“Exactly, sir!” Buchanon answered, daring to essay his first tentative smile of agreement. “Grew up in the fisheries outa Blackpool, I did, sir, an' 'twas promisin' days we spent mendin' nets an' such, when th' granthers came back in early, not likin' th' smells, nor th' way th' waves felt on th' bottom o' their boats. An' they were almost always right.”

“So,” Lewrie said, going to the chart at the traverse board. “May we count on being headed, a bit, we stay on larboard tack, all tomorrow. Wind loses its strength, but stays
somewhere
round 
sou'west, and we end up standing on west-nor'west for a day more. We miss the
Lizard,
gettin' this breeze when we were 'bout mid-Channel. And . . .”

A ruler laid from an educated guess of southing at sundown— west-nor'west—a thumbnail's crease along its edge, beyond Soundings, out into the wide trackless Atlantic.

“Well south of Land's End, and the Scillies,” Alan concluded. “Enough sea room to weather them. If.”

“Under th' horizon, sir.” Buchanon nodded solemnly.

“Damme, Mister Buchanon, but I think we should stand on, 'bout a hundred leagues, at least,” Lewrie told him, returning the ruler to the cabinet drawers. “Too soon a tack south 'cross Biscay, we'll run into something perverse down there, around the latitude of Nantes or so. A nor'wester that'd force us down toward the Spanish coast near Ferrol, and I don't wish to be embayed, and have to beat about and waste two days to weather Finisterre. We'll take all the westing this slant'll give us, before we alter course.”

“If it holds Cap'um,” Buchanon cautioned automatically, “aye, if it holds.”

“What the hell's that?” Lewrie snapped, of a sudden, disturbed by a tuneful noise. “You, there! Yes, you, sirs! Stop that noise!”

The first-class boys, gentlemen volunteers, were by the mizzen stays, up on the bulwarks and clinging to the inner face of the ropes, starry-eyed little new-comes, rapt in their first exhilarating beat to windward. Richard Josephs, he was only eight, a slight, cherub-faced minnikin. George Rydell was only a year older, a dark-haired pudding. They both turned to peer at him, eyes wide as frightened kittens, and aghast that they'd done something wrong.

“Which of you was
whistling
on deck, sirs?” Lewrie demanded of them, hands behind his back and scowling a hellish-black glare.

“Mmm . . . me, sir?” Little Josephs piped back shyly.

“Bosun's mate!” Lewrie howled. “Pass the word for the bosun's mate! And get down from there, the both of you. Mister Josephs, no one,
ever,
whistles 'board-ship, young sir. Never! It brings storm and winds. Dares the sea to get up!”

“I'm
sorry,
sir,” Josephs quailed, folding up on himself like a 
bloom at sundown, and already weeping. “I didn't
know,
and . . .”

“Damn fool,” Mister Buchanon spat. “Pray God, sir . . .”

Half his life in uniform, half his life at sea so far, and Alan, and Buchanon, knew why men should never tempt Neptune with cockiness.

“Aye, sir?” Cony said, knuckling his brow as he arrived on the quarterdeck.

“Josephs was whistling on deck, Mister Cony,” Lewrie explained.

“Aye, sir,” Cony rumbled deep in his chest, all his affability gone in an instant. “Half dozen, sir?”

“Aye, and then explain to both of 'em, so they never make such a cod's-head's mistake on my ship again, Mister Cony,” Lewrie ordered. “Mister Hyde, you will see to it that Josephs is restricted to biscuit, cheese, and water, all day tomorrow, to drive this lesson home.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Hyde answered, smug with lore, and distaste for the error. There would be a raisin duff tomorrow at dinner, and that meant a larger portion for both himself and Spendlove.

“You, and Spendlove both,” Lewrie snapped, “you're senior below in your mess. Kindly instruct these calf-heads more closely in ship lore, and the fleet's do's and don't's. Their future behavior, well . . . on your bottoms be it.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Midshipman Hyde flushed, and gulped. Josephs's whiny mewlings rose above the wind-rush; that, and the sound of rope “starter” strokes, a half dozen, applied to his bottom, bent over the bosun's mate's knee instead of over a gun, to “kiss the gunner's daughter.”

Josephs almost yelped like a whipped puppy at the last but one, forcing Cony to stop and shake him by the arm by which he restrained him. “Quiet, lad,” he told him, almost gently. “Nothin' personal . . . but
real
seamen don't cry out. Else it'll be six more, see? Take the last'un like a man.” And Josephs did, though in utter misery, as if everything in life had just betrayed and abandoned him, which prompted Rydell to purse his lips and inhale.

“Don't!” Lewrie warned. “Find a new way to express yourself!”

“Oh!” Rydell all but swooned, half knocked off his feet by a further warning nudge from Mr. Hyde. “Oh God, sir . . . !”

“Half dozen d'livered, sir,” Cony announced.

“Thankee, Mister Cony. I
trust
that'll be all,” Alan told him sternly; though he could not quite resist a tug at the corner of his mouth, the constriction of one eyelid in a surreptitious wink. Which gesture was answered in kind, as Cony doffed his cocked hat.

From time immemorial, boys had been beaten to make them mind, or learn. Boys at sea, more than most, to drive their lessons home. It was a harsh world at sea, and it was better to be harsh right off, than watch the chubs get themselves maimed or killed, or hazard the ship, through inattention, ignorance, or skylarking. Spare the rod and spoil the child, the Good Book said, after all. And within one hour of reporting aboard his first ship, so long ago, Lewrie'd learned that simple Navy truth. Some days, his entire first year at sea, even as a half-ripe lad of seventeen, they'd been signal days when his own fundament hadn't felt a captain's, or a lieutenant's, wrath.

“You two do come wif me, now,” Cony snarled, putting back on his fearsome bosun's face. “Th' more ya cry, th' less ya'll piss . . . n'r bleed, later. An' mind close t'wot I'm goin' t'tell ya . . .”

A faint, half-felt drumming against the larboard bows as the sloop of war faltered, as she met a wave instead of cocking her bows gently up and over. A hiss of spray and a cream of foam breaking on the catheads and the forrud gangway. And a disappointed sigh from Mister Spenser on the wheel. There was a grouse-wing beat aloft, a soft, suspiring whisper, as the luffs of fore and main square sails shivered a lazy furling down to the leeches. Headed!

“Damn 'at boy,” Buchanon spat as he witnessed the wind's death.

“Damn' quick response from old Aeolus.” Lewrie frowned, trying to be philosophical about it. Nothing
good
lasted forever, after all!

The tiller ropes about the wheel-drum creaked as Spenser and a trainee were forced to ease her off the wind as it faded, as the ship sloughed and sagged to a closer, almost weary companionship to waves and sea. The apparent direction of the wind had veered ahead almost half-a-point, for ships working close to weather made half their own apparent wind, backing the true wind slightly more abaft at speed.