H. M. S. Cockerel (12 page)

“
Captain
Braxton,” Lewrie growled between clenched teeth. He had never heard the like from a professional officer. Not even from himself, and Lewrie could backbite and carp with the best of 'em.

“No, sir. Lt.
Clement
Braxton, I meant,” Dimmock said, grinning sardonically. “Not Capt.
Howard
Braxton.”

“Nephew?” Lewrie frowned deeper.

“His son, sir,” Dimmock said with all signs of great pleasure. “Damme, it really does become confusing. We've a Mister Midshipman Anthony Braxton. Now, I do believe he
is
a nephew. And then, there's Midshipman Dulwer. He's cousin to them all, somehow.
And
the captain's clerk, Mister Boutwell. Oh, it's quite the grand family outing, this frigate of ours, Mister Lewrie, sir!”

“Bloody
Hell!
”
Lewrie exclaimed cautiously, dropping the stern demeanour required of first lieutenants. “Any more under foot, Mister Dimmock? Mean t'say . . . how far
may
one carry nepotism? How many of the hands turned over with him? Any of the warrants?”

“Ah, now that's the queerest bit, sir,” Dimmock sighed. “Captain Braxton's Indiaman? A war declared, soon as he drops the hook, guinea a man Joining Bounty, and all? And nary a hand, nary a mate from his past ships followed him to the Fleet, sir.”

“Christ,” Lewrie all but groaned. That was
hellish
queer, that a captain could not entice a single tar to serve under him. Even the hardest captains had
some
loyal to 'em! Even the fools did!

“Forgive me for speaking plain for the nonce, Mister Lewrie, sir,” Dimmock gloomed. “And that's the last you'll hear from me, by way of insubordination. My word on't, sir. But I thought you had to know. There's good men aboard, afore the mast and in the ward-room. There's many as
could
be good men, given half a chance, and a dose o' ‘firm-but-fair' whilst they're learning. But the captain is not the onliest aboard who's . . . ‘taut-handed.' Runs in the family, so to speak. They're a hard lot, sir. Ask Lieutenant Mylett.”

“Wish I could, sir,” Lewrie shivered, though not with cold. “I was told . . . no matter. Mister Dimmock, well met, sir. You understand, I have to make my own way in this. Come to mine own conclusions, not . . . well, not take the word of the first senior warrant I meet. I mean no offence, sir.”

“None taken, sir,” Dimmock muttered back, glancing about to see if they had been witnessed talking together too long, in too covert a confidence. “I'll leave you to get squared away. At supper, though, tonight . . . I've a brace of French calvados. Apple brandy. Better'n any country applejack you ever swigged. My treat, to ‘wet' you into the mess?”

“I should be delighted, Mister Dimmock, thankee.”

“And, sir . . . ?”

“Aye?”

“We
all
tread wary, and watch our tongues,” Dimmock whispered, though he performed a hat-doffing salute and slight bow, with a smile on his phiz, as if he were imparting nothing peculiar. “It isn't the hands alone who find the ‘Still' the safest way.”

“I will keep that in mind, Mister Dimmock. Later, sir.” Lewrie nodded his head in dismissal, clapped his hands in the small of his back, and paced. He looked below into the waist, where a bosun's mate was braiding a cat-o'-nine-tails, and a sailmaker's assistant was sewing up a small red-baize bag. They looked up at him, as if trying to read his soul, then looked away hurriedly when caught under his gaze. The harbour and anchor watch-standers on deck stood their posts rigid as carved wooden soldiers, stiff-backed and mute.

Those men in working parties, swaying up tuns and kegs on the midships hull skids, heaving away on stay tackles, performed their labours with mere, unisoned grunts, instead of a pulley-hauley chanty or fiddle tune.

Three midshipmen were scaling the rigging of the mainmast, up by the crosstrees, ready to go further aloft. They looked down at him, pausing in their vigourous exercise. Two, fearful; one with the air of a leery customer in a poor tradesman's shop, who'd seen better goods elsewhere. Lewrie matched gazes with him, unblinking, until the lad's face suffused, and he returned to his instructive “play.”

Wull,
stap
me! Alan thought; what the Devil've I
got meself into
this
time!

He turned to the nearest gangway ladder, to descend to the waist and make his way below through the nearest hatchway to the wardroom.

Perversely, he began to whistle a gay country air Caroline had played an hundred times, if she'd played it once, on her flute. One he had taught her.

It was familiar to all hands, making a few smile timidly.

The lyrics were hellish vulgar.

C H A P T E R 2

W
hack!
The bosun's mate ran the braids of the cat-o'-nine-tails through his fingers to unravel them, drew back, took a deep breath, and delivered his next stroke. “'Leven!” he grunted.

Landsman Preston shivered as with ague, vibrating to the lash of the cat, against the square-cut hatch grating to which he was tethered at wrists and ankles. The skin of his back crawled of its own, goose-pimpling as if to writhe away from the pain. There were red-hot weals diagonaled on his bare back, some broken open and beginning to seep a torrent of crimson tears which puddled in the small of his spine, down by the band of his slop trousers—down by the leathern apron worn by men receiving punishment to protect their kidneys. Landsman Preston was gagged, too, with a leathern strop; something to bite on.

Preston flinched, hunching his flayed shoulders, as he heard Thorne, the burly bosun's mate, suck in his breath as he prepared to stroke again. In the awe-full silence he could be heard to groan.

Whack!
Soggier, wetter, meatier, this time.

“Twelve!” Thorne barked, turning away to face the captain above, amidships of the quarterdeck nettings. “Doz'n d'livered, sir!” And Captain Braxton nodded grim approval as he looked down into the waist, with his officers a solid blue wall of agreement behind him, and the Marine contingent, in their best red “lobster-back” coats, with their muskets at the Present at his feet, facing the ship's “people” forrud.

“Another bosun,” Braxton snapped with a larboard leer to his lip.

Bosun's Mate Porter came forward, a younger, slimmer man, not as burly as Thorne. He took the cat-o'-nine-tails, knuckled a salute to the captain, and turned to lay on. Porter was a cack-handed man, so the dozen he'd administer would be crosswise to Thorne's.

Porter shook the cat, shook his wrist to flex out any kinks. Shook the cat so blood already drawn wouldn't bind the strands with sticky sera. He took a deep breath, poised on the balls of his feet. Then, displeased with his placement, he took a half-step to his right, and faced a little away from the grating, to open his swinging room.

“B'oony henn!” Landsman Preston could be heard to say impatiently through his leather gag. “Gi' on 'i eet!”

Seamen drawn up by watch divisions shuffled their feet, swayed, and tittered uneasily. Landsman Preston was a game cock, at least!

“Silence on deck!” Braxton shouted. “Silence, the lot of you!” He turned a cold glare upon his first lieutenant, who should have been the first to cry for order. “Carry on!”

Porter shook his wrist once more, drew back, and swung.

“One!” he called in a shuddery voice. “One d'livered, sir!”

Then Two, then Three, in quick succession. Preston barely moved.

“
Put
yer back into it, Bosun!” Braxton snarled. “Don't
dust
him! 'Tis punishment he deserves, and punishment he shall have.”

“Aye aye, sir. Sorry, sir.” Bosun's Mate Porter reddened.

Whack!
Much harder this time, Porter almost going arse-over-tit with the effort he put into it. Preston leaped like a touched deer.

“Four! Four d'livered, sir!”

“Ahhh,” Landsman Preston moaned, leaning his head against the curved hatch grating which was bowsed upright to the larboard gangway. Perhaps he would not turn out game, after all.

Lewrie sneaked a glance at his Braxtons, father and son, captain and second lieutenant. Braxton the younger had brought Preston up on charges. He'd been owed “gulpers” from Ordinary Seaman Gold's daily rum ration, and Gold'd thought his gulp was more than a tad healthy, so they had snarled at each other. Some elbowing and shoving, a word or two more spoken in anger over the mind-numbing rum, which was the only escape from their misery, their precious elixir. Now both were to be lashed—four dozen apiece.

Had Lewrie his druthers, he'd have given Gold an extra dollop to make it up, then deprived them
both
for a week, with a harsh talking to. Four dozen, he thought excessive, too. Their first fight or trouble, no knives drawn, not even fists swung, really. And Midshipman Spendlove had been there cat-quick, to bark them apart, thrusting his skinny body of authority between them. But Lieutenant Braxton had been certain they'd laid hands on him, ignoring his orders, no matter how accidentally, and had demanded swift and condign punishment. And, as in every instance, Captain Braxton had been more than quick to agree.

Since
Cockerel
had sailed in mid-April as one of the escorting frigates with Vice-Admiral Philip Cosby's small squadron of two ninety-eight-gun 1st Rates, three seventy-four-gun 3rd Rates, and two other frigates, there'd been men at the gratings almost daily—sometimes in twos and threes—and the call for “Hands Muster Aft to Witness Punishment” was now as routine to them as “Clear Decks and Up-Spirits.”

Lashes for fighting, as a new crew shook down. For Drunken on Watch, Asleep on Watch, Insubordination, Dumb Insolence . . . which meant they didn't understand a command, or hadn't sprung into action immediately. With more than half the crew complete novices at sea . . . well! Ignorance had become, it seemed, a punishable offence.

On the slow passage escorting the trade from England, past French Biscay ports, where lurked privateers and swift frigates, they had beaten
Cockerel
's
crew into a shambling semblance of discipline, had flogged or terrified raw lubbers into
some
sort of seamen. Sail drill, boat drill, gunnery drill . . . Lewrie had run every evolution of proper seamanship until they were a well-trained pack of sailors. Not a crew, though, he thought; that took a confident, shared spirit. And misery and pain were the only commonalities
Cockerel
's
“people” had to share amongst themselves, so far. Oh, they could perform any task in the book, lately even to Captain Braxton's grudging satisfaction. But there was something vital missing. As if they were well-drilled puppets in a traveling Punch and Judy, a pack of wind-up German clockwork toys. But they weren't a crew.

Whack!

“Dozen!” Bosun Porter announced, sounding relieved a dirty task was complete. “Dozen d'livered, sir!”

“Very well. Cut 'im down.”

“Jeezis!” Preston all but wept as his lashings parted. He almost sank to his knees, wobbly as a sickbed patient. But he waved off those who would assist him, and hobbled away toward the surgeon's mate and his waiting loblolly boys, who would escort him below to salve his hurts with sea water and tar.

He hadn't wept, though it was a close-run thing, and he hadn't cried out. He was still a man grown, and his mates from the fore-mast of the larboard division could be heard whispering and muttering congratulations as he passed between their tightly ordered ranks.

“Eyes to your front!” Lewrie was forced to bark, feeling greasy as he did so. “Silence on deck.”

He cut another glance at the captain, but that worthy was busy. Lieutenant Braxton met his gaze, however, and lifted one eyebrow.

“Ord'nary Seaman Gold!” the captain doomed.

The master-at-arms and ship's corporals led the next man to the gratings, which were being sluiced down with buckets of sea water.

“Ord'nary Seaman Gold, you've been found guilty of violating the Articles of War. Article the Twenty-Third—of quarreling, fighting, or using reproachful speeches toward another person of the Fleet. And of Article the Twenty-Second—of striking, or laying hands upon, person or persons superior to you. For each violation, you will receive two dozen lashes,” Braxton thundered. “Bosun Fairclough, seize 'im up!”

A new red-baize bag was brought forward. A pristine new cat was let out of the bag. Each man got his own, no matter how many were to be flogged. Thence to be tossed overboard, supposedly with his sins, once punishment was done.
Cockerel,
ominously, had had to send ashore in Lisbon for a fresh supply of red-baize cloth once the merchant convoy had made port.

Lewrie looked away from the shivering victim, to Mr. Midshipman Spendlove, Gold's alleged target of violence. Tears streamed the boy's face as he stood before the hands of his watch division. And the hands—more swaying, shuffling of feet, more discreet, reproving coughs, and mournful glances left and right at shipmates. A shy, horny hand came snaking from the press of men to touch Spendlove on the shoulder for a moment, to buck up his courage; some older seaman reassuring the distraught lad so he'd show game as Gold, and not shame him.

Whack!

“One,” Bosun Fairclough grunted in a rummy, croaking basso. “One d'livered, sir.”

“Ship's comp'ny . . . on hats, and
dismiss!
”
Lewrie gladly ordered. Gold was made of softer stuff than Preston. He could not contain the pain, and had whimpered toward the end, sobbing aloud.

“Mister Lewrie!” Midshipmen Braxton and Dulwer called for him, scampering aft to the starboard ladder to the quarterdeck. “Mister Lewrie, sir!”

“Aye?” he gloomed, looking down at their eager, intent glares of righteousness.

“Man for report, sir!” Midshipman Anthony Braxton all but chortled. “We saw it. Able Seaman Lisney, foremast. He laid hands on Mr. Midshipman Spendlove, sir.”

“Reached out and
thumped
him, sir,” Midshipman Dulwer stuck in. “From behind, he did, sir. I saw it, too!”

They were as alike, God help us, Lewrie thought, as two vicious little peas in a pod. Two snapping curs from the same ill-bred litter of pit bulls! Close-set eyes, precociously heavy and thick eyebrows, the same long, narrow, semi-stupid expressions, the same pouty mouths as their elders. The same little points in their middle top lips!

Lewrie stumped down the ladder to them, gathered them close to him by seizing hold of their coat collars, and frog-marched them to the starboard side, between twelve-pounders.

“Now you listen to me, you brutal little gets!” he hissed. “I saw what you refer to, and it was nothing more than simple humanity and compassion. And, were we to ask Mister Spendlove of it, he'd tell us the same. A game, is it, my beauties? Do you earn points on which of you sends more men to the gratings? Or do you keep score by the number of
lashes?
Daily, is it, weekly sums . . . what?”

“Now, Mister Lewrie, sir . . .” Midshipman Braxton dared to interrupt, with a stab at worldly, man-to-man airs.

“Damn your blood, sir!” Lewrie whispered harshly, right in the twenty-year-old fool's face. “How
dare
you take that tone with me! I'll have you kissing the gunner's daughter 'fore you're a minute older, and a full two dozen o' Mister Fairclough's
very
best, those! It is not a
game,
you simpletons. Ship's people aren't dumb animals you can abuse for your nose-picking, arse-scratching amusement!”

“Sir, Uncle . . .” Dulwer exclaimed in fear. Or tried to.

“
Captain
Braxton to you, you pustulent hop o' my thumb!” Alan thundered at the fifteen-year-old.

“Sir, the
captain
says we're to be alert for any infraction of discipline. That we're never to allow the hands to get away with one single thing, or they'll . . .” Dulwer persisted, filled with a dutiful but thick-witted indignation. Or as much as he dared.

“Oh, stern duty!” Lewrie sneered. “What a god, that. What cant. They're men, damn your eyes. There's infractions you
must
report, and quash at once. Then there's ignorance, mistakes . . . cock-a-whoop antics hands have always pulled. Always will. And you'd flog for all. And feel so smug and prim doing it, wouldn't you? Use
some
discretion. Learn
some
leniency, or God help you . . . now, or in future. Shit!”

They fluttered their lashes, eyeing their toes in truculent incomprehension.

“I'm
using
the King's English, sirs. Any of this get through those buffle-headed skulls of yours? Shit, no. Get out of my sight before I have both of you bent over a gun. And take your lying packet with you!”

The two midshipmen slunk away, the backs of their necks aflame; though putting their heads together for commiseration. Or for a plot.

“Gawd 'elp us, sir,” Cony sighed near Lewrie's elbow once they were out of earshot.

“I don't know why I bother, Cony,” Lewrie confessed. “They're so sure of their ground, so steeped in . . . Damme, in one ear and out t'other. They'll be back in full cry by the first dog watch, soon'z they get over their sulks.”

“They's vicious, sir, no error,” Cony agreed, cautiously. “I sometimes wisht I'da took yer offer, 'bout th' farm, sir.”

“Hmm?” Lewrie posed, cocking a brow as he turned to his man. “I've been puzzled by why you didn't, Cony. Or take that position at the Ploughman, with Maude and her father.”