The King's Marauder (13 page)

“Christ, I was
born
in 1763!” Lewrie said, snickering.

“Scylla and Charibdis … rock and a hard place,” Fry jested, “and Gibraltar being ‘the Rock’, haw! My soldiers will either be bored to tears here, or debauched there, but at least they’ll not have any opportunity to desert where they’re going. Assuming that we can get going
soon,
Captain Lewrie, hey?”

“The Agent Afloat assures me that your troops could go aboard the transports by the end of the week, sir,” Lewrie informed Colonel Fry. “The only thing that’s wanting is a second warship to assist my ship. We’ll be crossin’ the Bay of Biscay, trailin’ our colours down the coast of France, and
Sapphire
may have the guns to protect your men, but not the agility, or the speed. I wrote Admiralty as soon as I got my orders, but haven’t heard, yet. Are we forced to wait much longer after your troops are aboard, then there would have to be some re-victualling, delaying us further. Then, there’s the wind and the weather to contend with, of course.”

“Hmm, it may be best did we get onto the transports as soon as possible,” Fry decided after a long moment of thought. “The men can’t desert from ships anchored far out, and even at anchor, they’ll have a chance to get a
semblance
of their ‘sea legs’, hey? Goddamn Napoleon.”

“Hey?” Lewrie asked, puzzled by Fry’s curse.

“The regiment’s war-raised, right after the war began again in 1803,” Fry explained, “All eager volunteers and independent companies of Kent Yeomanry. So long as Bonaparte threatened us with that huge invasion fleet and army cross the Channel, my troops were up for anything, but, once that danger passed, we all thought that we’d go back to the reserves. The Fusiliers are only a single-battalion regiment, d’ye see. Now, if we were off to a field army in the Mediterranean, with General Fox, say, on Sicily, with a shot at battle, that’s one thing, but
garrison
duty, well! That makes us feel, soldiers and officers alike, that that’s all we’re good for, and that’s hurt morale.”

“My tars feel much the same, sir,” Lewrie commiserated, “with nothing but Baltic convoy duty ’til now. A friend of mine’s cavalry regiment, much like your regiment, feels the same, I expect.”

“Which’un?” Fry asked.

“Stangbourne’s Light Dragoons,” Lewrie told him.

“Why, I know of them!” Fry said, perking, up. “We were brigaded with them for a time. Viscount Stangbourne’s done a fine job raising, equipping, and training them … though I don’t know how he maintains them, the way he gambles.
Lovely
fiancé, if a bit
outré.
Circuses and the stage? His sister, too, though she struck me as very cool and distant. Hellish-attractive, though, in her own way.”

“Aye, she is,” Lewrie agreed, feeling a sudden icy stir in his innards at the mention of her name. “Let’s say that, by the morning of Friday, round eight, your troops and my boats, and the boats from the transports, will be at the docks, ready to begin embarking.”

“Capital, Captain Lewrie!” Fry rejoiced. “Simply capital!”

“Weather depending, again,” Lewrie cautioned after tossing his glass of whisky back to “heel-taps”, and preparing to depart. “A rain, no matter, but if there’s strong winds and a heavy chop in the Great Nore, we’ll have to delay. Can’t drown half your lot in home waters, hey?”

“As your Transport Board agent says, one hundred and fifty men and officers per transport,” Colonel Fry agreed, “plus the sixty dependents that won the draw.

“Horse Guards only allows sixty wives of a regiment bound for overseas duty,” Fry explained, “and their children, if any. The rest … after they draw straws tonight, there will be a lot of wailing in the barracks. What makes it worse is that we’re a war-raised single-battalion regiment, with no home barracks in one town, so the others will get scattered over half the county. Oh, well.”

“Horses?” Lewrie asked, gathering his hat from a side-table, worried that he would have to arrange barges for them at the last minute.

“We will all be on ‘Shank’s Ponys’, Captain Lewrie. Officers’ mounts will be left behind,” Fry told him rather gloomily. “There’s no place to stable or exercise them on Gibraltar, or ride much, either.”

Lewrie could recall horses at Gibraltar from his earlier stops there, though not very many; the property of very senior officers and their ladies. Gibraltar was a gigantic fortress with very little flat land, and very steep, wind-swept hills.

“Well, I shall be going,” Lewrie said, rising. “See you at the docks on Friday morning.”

*   *   *

Lewrie took a hired lugger back to
Sapphire,
enjoying a lively dash out into the Great Nore on a fine breeze. His boat came alongside, nuzzling behind a large dockyard barge that was loading crates and kegs up the cargo skids ahead of the starboard entry-port. He paid his fare to the boatman, then went up the battens to the upper deck to the usual welcoming side-party and bosuns’ calls.

“Anything new, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked the First Lieutenant. “No disasters?”

“There’s a letter from Admiralty that came aboard in your absence, sir,” Lt. Westcott told him. “It’s in your cabins. And, Mister Harcourt asked me if you would consider putting the ship out of discipline for a day or two before we sail.”

“Wasn’t she out of discipline after she came in from the Baltic just before the duel?” Lewrie asked, pulling a quizzical face.

“She was, sir,” Westcott told him.

“Well, with any luck at all, we’ll be sailing by Saturday or Sunday, so that’s out,” Lewrie decided. “The hands’ll be issued their quarterly pay just before, and I’ll not have ’em robbed by the jobbers, pimps, and whores. The crew will have to wait for shore liberty at Gibraltar, which’ll suit ’em much better than a carouse aboard. Carry on, sir,” Lewrie said, doffing his hat and heading for his cabins.

“Cool tea, sir?” Pettus asked after he’d taken Lewrie’s sword and hat.

“Aye,” Lewrie said, peeling off his best-dress uniform coat so it could be hung up on a peg out of Chalky’s reach. There was indeed a letter on his desk, sealed with blue ribbons and red wax. He sat, broke the seal, and laid it open. “Aha!”

The cat was in his lap at once, rubbing his head against the white waistcoat, upon which he could do little damage. Lewrie stroked him and patted his side into his chest as he read.

“Good Christ … Ralph Knolles!” he exclaimed.

“Who, sir?” Pettus asked as he brought a tall glass of cool tea with lemon juice and sugar.

“My First Officer in the
Jester
sloop,
ages
ago, Pettus,” Lewrie happily explained. “He’s made ‘Post’ and commands a twenty-four-gunned Sixth Rate, the
Comus.
She’s at Great Yarmouth, and will be coming to join us t’help escort the transports to Gibraltar! Just damn my eyes … Knolles, a Post-Captain, hah! A hellish-fine fellow!”

Even if an old twenty-four is a
tad
weak,
Lewrie thought;
Nine-pounders, some carronades … no match for a big French frigate … or a
pair
of ’em.

He had heard the French ventured out in pairs or in threes, these days; only their swift privateers hunted alone, after Trafalgar.

“We’re t’have company, Chalky,” Lewrie muttered to his cat, and jounced him as he rubbed his fur. “He’s a grand fellow, is Knolles, and he was fond o’ your old mate, Toulon.”

At least he pretended t’be,
Lewrie thought, grinning.

Chalky thought the jouncing and petting perhaps a tad too vigorous; he mewed and wiggled, then jumped down to dash off a few feet and began to groom himself back to proper order.

“Yeovill says to tell you that he’s a fresh-caught sole for the mid-day meal, sir,” Pettus informed him, “and for your supper tonight, he’s whipping up a cheesy pot pie with lumps of dungeness crab meat. Might there be any need to open a red wine for either, sir?”

“No, Pettus,” Lewrie said with a happy shake of his head. “The whites’ll do hellish-fine.”

“And, the Carpenter, Mister Acfield, hung your screen door so Chalky won’t get out on the stern gallery,” Pettus added, jerking his head aft.

Lewrie rose and went to inspect it. There was now a second door, hinged on the outside, laced with tautly-strung twine in a mesh, stout enough to resist Chalky’s claws and keep him in while allowing fresh air to enter the cabins. Lewrie opened it and stepped out onto his stern gallery, closed it, and latched the metal ring-and-arm hook to secure it. He thought it a quite knacky innovation.

Lewrie looked round the anchorage, so full of ships waiting for a slant of wind, or orders, before sailing.
Sapphire
had swung at her moorings so that the four dowdy transports which he would escort were all inshore of his ship, trotted out in a ragged line, and all flying the mercantile Red Ensign. He looked up to take note of the Blue Ensign that flew on
Sapphire
’s aft staff, and an idea came to him, one that made him begin to smile broadly.

It might cost me a few pounds, but
 … he thought;
I’m going t’have t’do some shopping, ashore.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Kent Fusiliers were embarked aboard their transports by Friday evening, allotted their small dog-box cabins which would contain at least eight soldiers (which they would tear down for fresh air and sleep on pallets on the deck or any-old-how before the week was out) and getting used to their scant messes for their meals.

Saturday would have been a suitable day for sailing, for there was a good wind out of the Nor’east, but for the lack of their other escort.
Comus
came into the Great Nore on Sunday, a bit before Noon, and dropped anchor about one cable off from
Sapphire
and the transport ships, after sending a cutter under sail to hunt for them.
Sapphire
made her number, then
Comus
’s number, then hoisted Captain Repair On Board. Lewrie waited impatiently by the starboard entry-port to greet the frigate’s captain. A gig shot out from
Comus,
being rowed at some speed. As it neared, Lewrie was almost on his tiptoes ’til at last,
there
he was!

Captain Ralph Knolles was newly-minted, for he wore a single fringed gilt epaulet on his right shoulder, the sign of a Post-Captain of less than three years’ seniority. Back when he’d first come aboard as HMS
Jester
’s First Lieutenant, Knolles had been twenty-five, fourteen years before. He was about thirty-nine now, but before he began the long scramble up
Sapphire
’s boarding battens, Knolles looked up with a grin on his face, spotted Lewrie, and waved broadly.

A minute later and he was on the quarterdeck, doffing his hat with proper gravity, and stifling that grin ’til Lewrie stepped up to offer his hand. “Damn my eyes, but it’s good t’see ye!” Lewrie said. “
Captain
Knolles, indeed!”

“Damned good to see you, too, sir,” Knolles replied, shaking his hand with enthusiasm. “It’s been far too long.”

Lewrie quickly introduced his own officers, then invited him to go aft to his great-cabins. “I hope you’re hungry, for my cook’s laid on some fine lamb chops
and
bacon-wrapped quail.”

“Sounds toothsome, sir, lead on,” Knolles gladly agreed.

Knolles’s face was more weathered and lined, but he was still lean and well-built; a captain’s table had not yet thickened him. His blond brows were bushier, and his unruly mane of blond hair was just as dense as it had been … and, after handing over his sword and hat to Pettus, he swiped it back into place with both hands, a gesture that had never changed.

“Aspinall?” Knolles asked about Lewrie’s old cabin-steward.

“He’s written several books, and is a partner in a publishing house in London,” Lewrie told him, also filling him in on Will Cony’s new career as a publican, and of Matthew Andrews’s death long ago.

“Pardons if it pains you, sir, but allow me to express my sympathy anent the loss of your wife,” Knolles hesitantly said. “She was a fine lady, and damn the French for murdering her.”

“Thankee, Knolles,” Lewrie soberly replied. “Damn them, indeed. Now, when did you make ‘Post’?” he added, deflecting the subject.

“Just last June, sir,” Knolles said, turning gladsome, again. “I was First Officer in a Third Rate just before the Peace of Amiens, rose to Commander in 1803 when the war began again, and … poof!”

“Well-earned, too,” Lewrie declared. “Ever marry, yourself … now you can afford to?” he teased as Pettus fetched them wine.

“Two years ago, sir,” Knolles said, brightening. “We came back from Halifax for a hull cleaning, I got home leave, and Dinah was visiting the family of my childhood friends. Again, just poof, quick as a wink, and we wed! May I ask if you re-married, sir?”

“No,” Lewrie said with a sad shake of his head. “With both my sons at sea, and my daughter living with my in-laws, there didn’t seem a need for a wife, or a step-mother to them. And besides, I doubt if I’d ever discover anyone else who’d measure up to Caroline.”

Lydia would have,
he bitterly thought;
If she’d had the courage.

“And your lovely French ward, sir? Mistress Sophie?” Knolles asked.

“Married to another of my First Officers, living in Kent, and the mother of at least two children, by now,” Lewrie told him. “She’s become thoroughly English. Ehm … I hope you don’t mind turning our dinner into a working meal, and talking ‘shop’, but the Fusiliers are already aboard their transports, and if this morning’s wind holds, we could be out to sea by the end of tomorrow’s Forenoon.”

“But of course, sir,” Knolles seconded. “As I recall, we did some of our best planning over supper!”

“Good man,” Lewrie praised. “My clerk’s done up a copy of my signals, both night and day, and my rough plan of action should some bloody French frigates turn up. I see that you sail under the Red Ensign, independent.
Sapphire
was under a Rear-Admiral of The Blue when I took her over, but … have you a Blue’un aboard?”

“Of course, sir,” Knolles said; every ship in the Royal Navy carried all variants of the Union Flag, along with the flags of every seafaring nation, for courtesy or for subterfuge.