H. M. S. Cockerel (29 page)

“Oui, mademoiselle, je suis marié,”
Lewrie replied, with a wink to her, though it cut a bit rough to declare such to a girl as desirable as she, no matter her age. Damme, but that makes me feel ancient, he cringed! “With three children,” he went on, feeling even more ancient. “I wed in '86. And Caroline sailed with me to the Bahamas. Where we had our eldest son.” Cruel it might be, but he delighted in encouraging her fantasies; and perhaps in opening Charles's eyes. “And the Royal Navy doesn't think any the less of me,” he lied, and that most arrantly, too.

Merci, m'sieur!
She mouthed at him in silence, with her back to her intended (whether he knew it or not yet), almost bouncing in her glee.

“Well, I must leave you now, Charles . . .
mademoiselle.
Pardon, Vicomtesse de Maubeuge . . . Baron de Crillart. My undying thanks for . . .”

They bowed their last departure, and Lewrie watched them with a wry eye as they began another long stroll home.

Cousin or not—and he still wasn't sure how close their consanguinity was—she'd be a fine catch, no error. He'd be a fine catch, too.

Lewrie whistled for a passing boat, and the coxswain lifted his arm and put his tiller over in reply.

It struck Lewrie that he'd thoroughly enjoyed his brief stint of domesticity, of being, even for a few precious hours, more intent upon civilian, familial concerns, instead of
Cockerel
's
sea of troubles.

He'd quite enjoyed being avuncular with the young girl, even if he had turned out to be a mischievous, meddlesome sort of uncle. “Better Charles than Louis, that's for certain,” Alan muttered to himself as his boat approached the landing steps. And he was sure Maman Hortense would agree with him. Louis . . . there was a lad needed shunning, fast! He might be closer to Sophie's age, might be half-seas-over about her, whilst Charles was blind as a bat, but . . . there was too much anger to him, too much sulkiness. Too much of the fanatical young fire-eater about him. Alan didn't think that portended a long life for the young chevalier, not in these times.

With another of his sudden chills, Alan recalled another time in another revolution when he'd encountered such dedicated hatred, and such fanaticism for a cause. Just after they'd escaped Yorktown and the surrender, down on Guinea Neck with Governour and Burgess Chiswick and their remaining handful of North Carolina Loyalist riflemen. That meaningless last skirmish before their escape cross the Chesapeake that'd slain so many people. And that despicable young lad who'd led the French to them, the one Governour'd gut-shot after, and left to die in writhing agony.

And after Yorktown, where'd I go, he asked himself? To Wilmington to help evacuate the Cape Fear Loyalists. Where I first met Caroline and the rest of the Chiswicks. Loyalists. And the Crillarts . . . Royalists.

“Same bloody thing,” he growled. “Nice people caught up in the worst of circumstances, and everyone out for their blood, same as . . . damme!”

He shivered at the appalling coincidences. And hoped that this time things might turn out different.

C H A P T E R 4

S
hip's
comp'ny, off hats, and . . . salute!” Lewrie ordained as Captain Braxton scaled
Cockerel
's
side, to appear in the entry port to take his due honours, and doff his own hat briefly. Lewrie hoped that he was in a good mood for a change. They'd swung idle to a best bower and kedge anchor for a whole dispiriting week with nothing to do, and the crew's behaviour, never of the best, had gotten surlier, no matter how much make-work they'd laid on.

“Mister Lewrie,” Braxton appeared to smile for an instant.

“Sir,” Lewrie replied with a hopeful nod, and thinking that his captain must have gotten a glass or two of something welcoming ashore, during his interview with Rear Admiral Charles Goodall, the appointed military governor of Toulon. He seemed positively mellowed, for once.

“Dismiss the hands, Mister Lewrie,” Braxton drawled, then bestowed upon his first lieutenant another mystifying smile.

“Aye aye, sir.”

Two in a week, that's damn near . . .
fright'nin'!
Alan thought.

“Then join me in my cabins, sir,” Braxton prosed on. And then smiled one
more
time before descending to the gun deck.

Three? Lewrie noted.
Three?
Dear Lord, what's he know that I don't? Alan shuddered.

“Just had a long chat with Goodall,” Braxton began to explain. He left Lewrie standing before his desk without offer of a seat, as he took his own ease in his chair. He did not offer Alan a drink, though he was sipping a coolish glass of Rhenish. “Quite a conundrum we have here, Mister Lewrie.”

“Sir?” Alan said warily.

“Half our line-of-battle ships off at sea, doin' God knows what Lord Hood wishes 'em to do,” Braxton speculated as he undid his stock. “We've stripped the larger vessels of hands and Marines, to flesh out the garrison and man the artillery before our reinforcements arrive. And
still
have need of men ashore. Beginning to get my drift, are you, Mister Lewrie?”

“I believe so, sir,” Alan said with a sick nod.

“Hirin' Maltese seamen, would you believe it?” Braxton cackled, somewhere between real mirth and sour surprise. “The Grand Master of Malta will sell us the services of 1,500 of the bastards, for a hefty fee, I'd wager. Then
we
have to pay 'em able seamen's wages, to boot!”

They'll starve to death on
that,
Lewrie thought.

“That way, Mister Lewrie, more experienced British tars . . .
and
their officers may be spared for land service.”

“Aha, sir.”

“Quite the protégé of Lord Hood, aren't you, now, sir?” Braxton all but simpered. “Yorktown and all that, I'm told? Some work ashore in the Far East before, with troops and guns? Oh, Admiral Goodall was all ears, perky as anything, when I told him your sterlin' qualities. ‘
Have
to have a stout fellow like him,' he told me, Lewrie! And so he will. I volunteered you. Told him you were eager as anything to get at the Frogs. I don't misrepresent you, do I, sir? You wouldn't get cold feet, would you, now? No, that wouldn't look good in your record. Nor to Lord Hood, either. Bein' called a coward, who'd . . .”

“I will pack my sea chest, sir,” Lewrie sighed.

“Thought you might,” Braxton relished.

“Will
Cockerel
be giving up any hands to assist me, sir?”

“I'll give you Mister Scott and Mister Midshipman Spendlove. Your man Cony off the foremast. And twenty more hands. Only half of 'em able seamen, mind. Can't spare much beyond them. Idlers and waisters off the gangways.”

“Any of the Marine complement, sir?”

“Can't spare a one, Mister Lewrie,” Braxton sighed, almost making himself sound sad. “With Maltese newcomes aboard, I'll have need of Marines more'n ever. That's where
Cockerel
's
bound, don't ye know, sir. Malta.” Braxton rose from his chair to shuffle round his desk. “Where I'll get myself a crew, at last, with all dross weeded out, with willing Dago riffraff to take their place. Men who'll work chearly for me, and toe my line to the very inch, Mister Lewrie! To the very inch!”

“It would seem so, sir,” Alan sulked. And you'll get your son as first, your nephew as acting-lieutenant. And then you can do as you damned well please! Or so you think.

“And, I'm shot of you at last, Mister Lewrie,” Braxton muttered. “Believe me when I tell you, once you're gone from us, I can find an hundred ways to make sure you
never
return. I don't care if you make ‘post' overnight, I don't care if you earn yourself a bloody knighthood ashore! I'm shot of you, and I'll sing your praises to Heaven itself, if that'll
keep
you gone. Enjoy your duties
ashore,
Mister Lewrie. Take joy of 'em. Whilst I'm at
sea,
beyond the reach of your obstructions! You are free to leave now,
Mister
Lewrie. Dismiss!”

“Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie huffed, though secretly happy to be free, no matter how outmaneuvered he felt at that moment, how stupid he'd been, to have not seen the chance of this coming. “Uhm, sir . . . about the men.”

“What about 'em?”

“You will pick the . . . uhm, our ‘volunteers,' sir?”

“Picked 'em already, sir,” Braxton grinned malevolently. “Weeks ago. Months ago, I made my list.
Ev
'
ry
bad apple we have is yours.”

What Captain Braxton termed “bad apples” turned out to be a fair pack of men: Bosun's Mate Porter for the senior hand, though Braxton thought him too young and soft-handed. Able Seamen Lisney and Gracey, Landsman Preston, Able Seaman Sadler, Ordinary Seamen Gittons and Gold . . . his least-favourite men, those who'd scowled too darkly after their floggings, or had shown too much independence of spirit. His least-favourite midshipman, Spendlove, most importantly not “family” . . . a gunner's mate who hadn't licked his boots, a quarter-gunner and four gun captains, along with enough landsmen to pulley-hauley, serve as rammers and loaders for captured French guns. And a few of the truly criminal and bootless, a few of the weaker, spindlier types who'd never had any business going aboard a ship of war, a few of the tom-noddies with which every military or naval establishment was cursed—those too dense to come in from out of a driving rain, but whose backs and sinews were stout.

“Don' know whether t'laugh'r cry, sir,” Cony muttered as a cutter bore them shoreward. He was well turned out in a dark blue, round shell jacket, blue-and-white chequered gingham shirt, reasonably clean white slop trousers and a stout pair of shoes, well blacked; as was his wide and flat-brimmed tarred sennet hat. A small sea chest and a loose kit bag rested by his toes.

“Amen to that, Cony,” Lewrie sighed, looking back at
Cockerel
as she receded in the distance of the Outer Road.

“Weep, that's certain,” Lt. Barnaby Scott gloomed beside him near the tillerman. “Christ, least she was a
ship!
”

“'Ell-ship, she were,” someone up forward whispered, and Lewrie turned, but could not discover whether it had been one of his Cockerels who'd spoken out, or one of the anonymous oarsmen.

As much as his own feelings on the matter of his expulsion were still unsettled, he could see the same mirrored on the faces of the men. Relief, a jeering, taunting joy, now they were free of their oppressors . . . or a darkly glum glower. Hell-ship or not, she'd been home, anchor to the familiar, and now these sailors were cast adrift, cut off from fellow sufferers with whom they'd come to enjoy sharing their suffering.

“Feel I've just been sent down from Harrow,” Lewrie smirked, trying to buoy his emotions, turning again to study his ship.

“Hmmph!” from Lieutenant Scott, hulking over him.
Hmmph!
to good public schools, to class and advantage, perhaps. Or to being “sent down” with Lewrie, through no fault of his own, and brooding on the injustice done him. Scott abhorred
Cockerel
and his Braxtons, one and all, yet . . . now he was just as adrift as one of the snuffling powder monkeys, torn from the comforts of the wardroom, the certainty of a limited world, and his rightful station in it. His duties and his honour, which were simple and understandable. Ashore, God knew what he'd be asked to do, how far out of his proper depth he'd be tossed. And from his black glower and his
Hmmph!
,
Lewrie knew he highly resented his loss. And the poor sort of company with which he'd been marooned.

Lewrie got his party ashore at the north quay of the basin, drew their attention back to him from their rubbernecking and gawping about at the massive ships, the immensity of all they'd captured.

There was a post-captain to receive them, with a harried midshipman who bore a sheaf of pages. And there was nothing more dangerous in the entire Royal Navy than a midshipman with temporary authority and a sheaf of orders he thought he understood.

“Mister Lewrie, Mister Scott, sirs,” the teen said crisply. “I've orders your party will berth in yon guardhouse, sirs. Hard by the gate to the dockyard, just cross there, sirs? Temporary, I believe, but . . . if you would be so good as to follow me, sirs?”

Off they went, with Lewrie, Scott and the bosun's mate whipping-in the stragglers like exasperated sheepdogs.

“Bloody 'ell, ye can't go adrift in a furlong, can ye, Newton?” Porter snapped. “
Keep
yer mind on it! An' who's the fool wot lef' 'is sea bag b'hind? Bloody . . . !”

The guardhouse had been a barracks for the dockyard sentries, and the hands oohed and ahhed as they quickly explored it, hooting with pleasure as they discovered its luxuries.

“'S got the real beds, it 'as!” Sadler boomed from the back. “No more 'ammocks!”

“Bloody hell, they's good mattresses, too, lads, lookit!”

“They's a well inna back, an' wash-'and stands. Pumpwater, an' coal grates. Us kin make 'ot!” a younger voice piped in wonder.

“There are officer's quarters above, sirs,” the midshipman said in a softer voice. “Rather nice, I'm told. Conveniently placed, so you may keep an eye on them after dark. These . . .”

He indicated a locked rack of muskets, St. Etienne Arsenal, .69 caliber, a case of bayonets, a wall hung with powder horns and cartridge boxes, crossbelts and infantry hangers.

“I'm afraid your men will have to use these, for lack of British arms, sirs,” he told them with a faint moue of disgust. “Anything else you need, sirs, simply go cross to the warehouses on the west side and indent for. The Frogs have mountains of supplies.”

“Temporary, you said? Any idea what we're to do, now we're here?” Lewrie asked.

“Not the faintest, sir, sorry. Once you've settled your people, you may inquire at the Governor's offices, uphill yonder, sir, in that house with the flagpole. Can't miss it. King's Colours and a Spanish flag flying. Military commandant is a Don, Rear Admiral Gravina. Will that be all for now, sir?”

“Aye, I suppose,” Lewrie sighed.

He did a quick inspection of their quarters. The guardhouse was fairly dirty, littered with discarded trash, castoff uniforms and such, the blankets piled in a stinking heap, and half the cooking equipment missing. There was dust, lint, some roachlike scuttling . . .

“Right, lads, muster in the guardroom!” he shouted, hauling his charges from their delighted play. Some of the younger hands were dotted with feathers from overly exuberant pillow fighting.

“First off, we're going to clean this pigsty from truck to keel,” he announced, to a faint chorus of groans. “Working parties. Mops and buckets, brooms and all. Get the French stink out of this place. It's to be our mess deck, and
you
know proper British seamen'll never abide filth. A total scrub-down, fore and aft, up the walls and down. Hose it out, if that's what it takes. Those blankets reek. Chuck 'em over. I expect our hosts pissed on 'em 'fore they left, just to be Froggish. You've your own, and we may draw an extra blanket for each man from the warehouses. Lisney, you know your way around a galley?”

“Aye, sir, some,” Lisney confessed, wincing at what he feared to hear, at what onerous duties he might be ordered to perform.

“Take two hands and set the galley right, see what's needful for cooking. I'll want to eat off the deck, I want it that clean. Any pots and such we may draw from the warehouses, later. And we'll decide who does the cooking later, too. Cony, there're officers' quarters above. See to setting them right. Take two hands to help you. Bosun Porter? A sentry at the door, now. Draw equipment from these racks. Count 'em first, then keep 'em under lock and key. And appoint two men masters-at-arms to help you. You men in the duck feathers. Just 'cause things don't belong to you is no reason to destroy them.”