H. M. S. Cockerel (11 page)

“Yes, yes,” Braxton cut him off.

John Company captain, were you, Lewrie thought. Gad, 'tis no wonder
Cockerel
's
so well appointed. Those buggers make £5,000 for the round voyage! And that's the
legal
sort. Little speculation in opium and such . . . sky's the bloody limit!

“P'raps we'll get on together, then,” Braxton continued, still frowning, though. “Navy Board must've taken my experience, and yours, into account, for once. Damn fools.”

“As if they intended
Cockerel
to . . . serve in the Far East, sir?” Lewrie stated, striving to cover his sudden qualms.

Oh, bloody Jesus, is that why they . . . ? Off to all those damn plagues an' shit,
again?

“I
doubt
they've that much sense,” Braxton snorted with derision as he came back to his desk, flung Lewrie's orders atop it, and took a seat. “Indian Ocean, China Seas, full t'the brim with Frogs and their proxies. Half the princes, Chink
or
Hindi, eager to revolt. But . . . ! Considerin' the Admiralty's poor parcel of collective wit, sir . . . well, I more expect we're off to Nova Scotia. Beyond orders to outfit and man, I've no word yet where we're bound.”

“I see, sir,” Lewrie replied evenly, though with a great deal of relief.

“Says you've had independent commands.”

“Aye, sir.”

“I trust you didn't develop any bad habits, Mister Lewrie. Such as getting so used to doing things your own way, you can't cope with an order.” Braxton all but sneered.

“Not at all, sir.”

“That was the last fellow's problem, why he didn't last under me. I will not have my orders questioned, ever, I'll tell you straightaway, Lewrie. I've captained a King's Ship, captained Indiamen, before you were ‘breeched,' I expect. I will be obeyed. Hear me?”

“Of course, sir,” Alan agreed by rote, though mystified.

“I run a taut ship, sir,” Braxton informed him. “Officers and men, no matter. I'll brook no dumb insolence, no insubordination. I give a command, an order, I expect 'em to be carried out to my satisfaction, instantly. Can't abide being second-guessed. No schoolboys' debatin' society, no sir, not for me. Not from you, not from anyone. As first lieutenant, you're my voice, my eyes. My whip, if it comes to it. Is that clear, sir?”

“Well, absolutely, sir,” Lewrie said with half a grin. “Those all go, pretty much without saying, in the Fleet.”

“Good,” Braxton nodded, relaxing a bit. “Good, then.”

“Might I inquire how long
Cockerel
has been in commission, sir?” Lewrie asked, eager to get on more mundane matters.

“Six weeks,” Braxton shot back, sounding as if he was boasting, yet scowling as if it were one of Hercules's Twelve Labours. “And, no thanks to that incompetent
fool,
Mylett. Your predecessor, d'ye see? Slack, idle, cunny-thumbed as a raw landsman . . . how he ever gained his commission, I cannot fathom. Could have been done in four, sir.
Four
weeks, I tell you! Were it not for his dumb insolence, his belabouring of
ev'ry
matter. His idiocy. There's a war on, but Lieutenant Mylett'd not be stirred to energetic action. And obstreperous with me, to my ev'ry instruction! Like it was peacetime, hah!”

“I must say, though, she's . . .”

“Another thing I'll tell you straightaway, Mister Lewrie,” the captain grumbled, like far off broadsides. “It is my wish, nay . . . my abiding order, that
Cockerel
distinguish herself in
ev'ry
instance. Sailhandling, gunnery, stationkeeping . . . in action, should it come our lot.
Cockerel
shall be the most efficient command in the Fleet, or I'll crush those who fail her, like cockroaches! And the ones who fail me, d'ye see, sir?”

“Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie all but gulped at Braxton's almost fanatical devotion. Damme, he thought; don't think I'm going to enjoy this.

“She will be the triggest vessel, the cleanest, the best!” her captain announced with righteous heat. “Her crew the keenest, officers the most unerring and watchful. Or I'll know the reason why.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“She's full of raw landsmen, idlers and waisters. Pressed and turned-over hands. Her professionals've spent too long in-ordinary, too long swinging 'round the best bower-rode at peacetime slackness. Frankly, Mister Lewrie, there're people aboard, commission and warrant, who need hard stirring. They've set too long, like treacle. Mister Scott, that burly popinjay . . . frankly, sir, there're men aboard need a
fire
lit under their fundaments. Too few upon whom I may completely rely. I trust you will be one of those, sir. Indeed I do.” Braxton leaned over his desk intently.

“I'm certain you may, sir.”

“We shall see, won't we?” Braxton smiled of a sudden, relaxing and turning cheery. “For the nonce, get yourself settled in, make the rounds, get to know the senior people. You'll find my Order Book in your cabin . . . unless Mylett added
theft
to his long list of crimes. You will find my ways demanding, sir. But they are my ways, and they work. As for our needs concerning hands and such, I strongly adjure you to get on good terms with our second officer. He stood in as acting first lieutenant the last week. I'd hoped . . . well. If
Cockerel
is near-complete in her recommissioning, you have his efforts to thank for it. Once we discovered what a total disaster Mylett was. You'll find his insights more than useful.”

“I see, sir,” Lewrie temporised. Too damn' right, he'd toe the line and walk small about his new captain. But defer to a junior officer? Not bloody likely. “Will that be all for now, sir?”

“Hmm, aye, I s'pose so.”

“Then I will take my leave, sir,” Lewrie announced, getting to his feet, and almost cracking his unwary skull open on the deck beam directly over his chair. “Bit out of practice,” Alan shrugged, turning crimsonly abashed. “Civilian overheads, hey, sir?”

“Hmmmm.” Braxton gave him a second, more searching appraisal. And frowned as if he didn't much care for what he saw.

Alan gained the quarterdeck, relishing the cool, brisk dampness of the winds upon his overheated face. He knew that captains in the Royal Navy came in a myriad of forms; and most of those . . . eccentric. But Braxton was a new form in his experience, and he was most relieved to have escaped unscathed. So far.

What a cod's-head's error, he sighed to himself—conking myself addlepated on a deck beam! Like a raw, whipjack midshipman!

Which thoughts made him wonder just how rusty (and treacly!) he really was after four years on half-pay. And what had ever possessed him to thirst for a sea commission. It was Lewrie's curse to be burdened with a
touch
more self-awareness and introspection than the run-of-the-mill Sea Officer. He knew his faults; they were legion. Predominant among them was a fear that he would be found wanting someday, that his swaggering reputation far exceeded the competence upon which such a tarry odour should be based. That he was a thinly disguised sham.

He glanced about the quarterdeck, the wheel, the guns and their tackles. He gazed aloft up the mizzenmast, naming things to himself, recalling the pestiferously quirky terms
real
seamen used. Braces, lifts, jears, clews, harbour gaskets, lubber's hole in the mizzen top, ratlines strung on the side-stays, and . . . and what the bloody hell were
those?

Tensioning shrouds strung spider-taut from larboard to starboard stays below the mizzen top, they were . . . oh, Jesus! Uppers were called
catharpins . . .
lowers?
Swifters!
Right, swifters. There's a back-stay outrigger . . . travellin' backstay? No, breast-backstay outrigger,
there
is the travellin' backstay . . . there, the standing.

Christ, what a dunce you are, you poxy clown! It'll come to me. It'll come, soon as I'm pitched in—I
think.
It had better.

He determined that, in the shank of his first evening aboard, he would, on the sly, swot up on his tarry, dog-eared copy of Falconer's
Marine Dictionary.
Along with the peculiarities of Captain Braxton's idiosyncratic Order Book.

“Excuse me, sir. You are our new first?” another intruded upon Alan's glum musings of disaster.

“Aye,” he replied, happy for any distraction at that moment.

“Allow me to name myself, sir . . . Dimmock, sir. Nathan Dimmock,” the other fellow informed him, doffing his hat in salute. “The sailing master. Your servant, sir.”

“Lewrie. Alan Lewrie, sir,” he responded with a like courtesy.

Dimmock was a sturdy fellow, bluff and square, just a bit shorter than Lewrie; soberly dressed in a plain blue frock coat, red waistcoat and blue breeches. Before he clapped his hat back on, Alan saw that he wore his hair quite short, barely over his ears on the sides, with a tiny queue in back.

“Well, Mister Dimmock, how do
you
find
Cockerel,
sir?” Lewrie asked him.

“An excellent
ship,
sir,” Dimmock replied. “A most excellently
crafted
vessel, sir.”

“Been aboard long, have you?”

“Five weeks, sir, my mates and I.”

“So your department is prepared for sea, in all respects?”

“There are some charts I lack, Mister Lewrie, sir, but other than those,
we
are ready, aye.”

“But not the entire ship, I take it?” Lewrie pressed, mystified by the stresses Dimmock put on his words. Dimmock all but grimaced, inclined his head toward the open skylights in the coach top, then began to mutter his answer. Lewrie got the hint. He put his hands in the small of his back, and paced slowly away forrud to the nettings overlooking the waist, for more privacy.

“If I may speak plain, sir?” Dimmock grimaced again, as if he were fearful that his words would come back to haunt him, even so.

“As long as you do not speak insolence, sir,” Alan chid him in a grim tone. As first lieutenant, he must quash the first sign of any carping or backbiting against his captain, no matter what he thought personally.

“She's a queer ship, sir,” Dimmock fretted, with a shake of his roundish head.

“A Jonah?” Lewrie stiffened. He'd heard of hard-luck vessels, with souls perverse as Harpies, where no sailor'd ever prospered.

“Oh, no, sir . . . no sign of
that!
”
Dimmock was quick to assure him. “I speak more of a certain . . . tension, more like. Listen, sir. Pause a moment and give her ear.”

Lewrie peeked about, cocking his head to heed any odd sounds, half-expecting some eldritch screech or moan beyond the normal creak of timbers, iron and stays, of masts working with the soft, whispery groans of the damned. But, beyond the sough of the morning wind and the far-off piping mutters of taut rigging, he heard nought.

“Dead silence, sir,” Dimmock hissed softly. “No shouting or chaffering. We're still in-Discipline, e'en so, but . . . a crew must make
some
sound, sir. But no. They're below, silent as a pack of whipped curs. And more'n a few already wearin' the bosun's ‘chequer.' Hands on watch, hands below, they're ordered to maintain the ‘Still.' A dead-silent ship's beyond my experience, sir. And a dead-silent ship's dev'lish queer.”

“Not a mutiny plot, surely!” Lewrie scoffed, though he found
Cockerel
's
silence almost belly-chillin' eerie himself. “Six weeks in commission? Hardly, Mister Dimmock!”

“
I'll
not be the one dare to call it mutinous, Mister Lewrie,” Dimmock gloomed, shrugging deeper into his coat collar. “Though, do we drive 'em taut as we've done so far . . . tauter'n any ship I've ever been aboard, well. There is the possibility,
someday,
d'ye see, sir?”

“Captain Braxton informed me he's a taut-hand,” Lewrie allowed.

“Oh,
aye,
sir,” Dimmock sneered.

“Ahum!” Lewrie grunted in warning. “I think we're stretching the bounds of proper discussion too far, Mister Dimmock. Hate him or love him, he is our captain. And he must be obeyed. Clearly. Most of all by his commission officers and warrants.”

“And your impression of him, sir?”

“Mister Dimmock, what
I
think don't signify. Now, unless we've professional matters to discuss?” Lewrie shot back sternly.

“Well, then, sir,” Dimmock coloured, huffing up as if stifling a belch. “You will excuse me. There's to be a flogging at five bells o' the forenoon, so I must go. You'll wish to get settled in. Speak to our illustrious second lieutenant, too. I'm mortal certain you've been bid do so? Mister Braxton?”