with powder and potion, with bolus and pill,
than hangman with noose, or soldier with gun . .”
Desmond was rushing the last verse, but the first bum-boat was alongside the entry-port, and those who could among them were scrambling up the man-ropes and battens, calling for rope slings or bosun’s chairs to be rigged for the rest. The second and third boats stroked in close, in a shower of flung “dead soldiers” that peppered the harbour waters like a “short” broadside of roundshot; to bump into the first, the safety of the hired oars between bedamned, to use it as a landing stage over which they crawled or staggered, dragging the less sober from boat to boat.
“ … than miser with famine, or lawyer with quill,
to despatch us the quicker, more beerless malt liquor,
our bodies consume, and our faces grow pale.
But, mind you, it pleases, it cures all diseases,
a comforting bottle of Nottingham Ale! Ohhhh …”
Now the idle larboard watch had taken up the chorus! Bosuns’ calls across the water were shrieking urgently, and the two-decker’s timbers drummed with bare feet as her crew was called out.
Proteus’s people were gathered in, some sprawled insensible on the deck, once they were hauled up and in by the larboard watch. Men reeled, staggered, and went to their knees, still babbling song.
“Cast your accounts to Father Neptune overside, not on the deck, you drunken louts! Gawd, Halfacre, you’ll clean that up this minute if you have to use your tongue!” Bosun Pendarves roared.
Lewrie looked at his watch once more, sharing a glance with Midshipman Grace at the timing glasses. The sands in the half-hour and fiveminute glasses were almost run out.
“One minute, you noisy bastards!” Lewrie shouted. “Up you get, smartly now! A ‘mast’ and rum stoppage for the last man in-board!”
Even the paralytic were spurred by that threat; larboard hands were over the side in a twinkling to grab hold of the final “corpses” and fling them upward from hand-to-hand, not waiting for the slings. A moment later and not one Proteus was left in the bum-boats; nothing remained but vomit, broken bottles, snapped oars, and the glowers from the Free Black boatmen.
“Officers, muster your divisions. Take the roll to see if any have run,” Lewrie told his lieutenants. “Aspinall, are you here?”
“Aye, sir,” his manservant piped up, still wrapped in a blanket.
“Go fetch three shillings for each of the bum-boats from my desk, Aspinall,” Lewrie softly bade him. “To pay for any damage or loss.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Lewrie snapped his watch shut and pocketed it as the first bells ending the Evening Watch pealed. He paced the quarterdeck as the roll was called, silently fretting. Many a dead-drunk’s face was raised by a slightly soberer messmate to be recognised in the lanthorn’s light; many a name was answered with “Here, sort of, sir” by another’s voice.
“Bless me, sir,” Lieutenant Langlie reported several minutes “they’ve all returned. All accounted for, and not a man has run.”
There was a rather loud thud on the larboard gangway as Lewrie uncrossed his fingers in relief. Furfy, manfully striving to stand, had finally succumbed to rum and gravity, going face-first to the deck.
“Well, in their condition, Mister Langlie, I doubt they could!” Lewrie japed. “We’ll rig an extra canvas hose in the mornin’. Use it on their thick heads. Hose ’em out of their hammocks, if needed.”
“Ah, aye sir,” Langlie rejoined, stifling a jaded snicker.
“Right then, you lot!” Lewrie called from the hammock nettings overlooking his swaying crew. “Everyone had a good run ashore? Fine. But tomorrow’s another day. We’re sailing … just in time to outrun the bailiffs and the damage bills, you lucky dogs. We’ll also rise and scrub all decks, as per usual, so I trust you’ll use your whole four hours of peace and quiet for ‘caulking,’ not yarning. Or more of your off-key singing! Now, lay below … quietly. Remember to puke in the buckets,” he concluded, “not in yer hammocks.”
Those who could began to shamble to the companionway ladders, snickering and snorting now and again as they whispered and chortled over their shore doings, despite others shushing them, or the gripes from the Master-At-Arms and Ship’s Corporals, from Bosun Pendarves and his mates. Bodies were sluiced with water from the fire buckets, or the slow-match tubs between the guns. Those who woke were helped to their feet and half-dragged below; those who didn’t were attended by the Surgeon Mr. Shirley and his mates, Hodson and Durant, with “volunteers” grudgingly ’pressed into loblolly duty with carrying boards.
“Just leave ‘em on the deck, don’t even try to sling ’em in a hammock,” Mr. Shirley could be heard saying. “Near a bucket, mind.”
Five minutes later, nary a man from either watch other than the men in the skeletal Harbour and Anchor Watch were on deck. Lewrie got his shillings and paid off the disgruntled bum-boatmen, just as other boats neared the entry-port.
“Hoy, the boats!” Mister Adair called into the night.
“First officer of HMS Halifax!” came the reply from a cutter filled with armed Marines, hurriedly dressed, catch-as-catch-can.
“Side-party, sir?” Mister Adair asked, looking for aid.
“There’s not enough sober hands t’make a proper showing, no,” Lewrie told him, striding to the entry-port. “Help you, sir?”
“My captain has sent me to put down your disturbance, sir. Are you the officer of the watch?” the officer said, all top-lofty.
“I’m the bloody captain, and I’ll thank you to remember that!” Lewrie shouted back. “D’ye hear a disturbance, sir? Hark ye to the quiet, why don’t you?”
“Well … your pardons, Captain, uhm …?” the lieutenant stammered, after a short span of silence to listen.
“Lewrie … Alan Lewrie.”
“Uhm, ah,” the lieutenant from Halifax said, disconcerted to be in the unfortunate position between two Post-Captains. “You would be the one some call the ‘Ram-Cat’, sir? A pleasure to meet you, sir, I am sure. Permission to come aboard, and ascertain for myself—”
“Permission denied, sir,” Lewrie uncharitably growled. “We do not allow visiting ’tween ships after the First Dog. Hell’s Bells, we are sleeping here, sir! There was no mutiny, there was no riot, there was no disturbance. Just high feelings and good cheer, but it’s over, and everyone’s below.”
“But … but what am I to tell my captain, sir?”
“My sincerest respects to your captain, and tell him to get some sleep, sir. There’ll be a busy day tomorrow,” Lewrie concluded, and turned away to go aft to his own bed-cot, leaving the poor lieutenant stewing in his own juices.
Poor shit, his captain’ll have a strip off his hide, but that’s his own lookout, Lewrie smugly thought as he kicked off his shoes and breeches, then rolled back into his bedding. Aspinall snuffed a lone candle, and the great-cabins were plunged into darkness once more.
Toulon leaped onto the bed, padded about, and grunted for attention, as Lewrie cocked an ear for the night. All he could hear were the creakings and squeaks of oars in thole-pins as the Halifax’s boats were rowed away; the usual slow groans of timbers, the faint flutters as the night winds jangled the running rigging and a myriad of blocks.
If anyone aboard was making noise, it was the officers in the gun-room one deck below as they settled back in, japing and sniggering among themselves after the return of the liberty parties. From forrud, there wasn’t a peep out of the normal; just the discordant, chorusing snores, whines, and grunts from a now-sleeping crew.
The staff-captain had quite forgotten his interview with Lewrie; those threatened orders had not arrived ’til days later, and then they dealt with Proteus preparing to escort a small convoy of hired or converted troop ships over to Saint Domingue, to carry Cashman’s regiment and other re-enforcements for General Maitland’s command.
That delay had allowed Lewrie to award both watches with spells of shore
liberty, twice for each, which had gone a long way to create good cheer; time enough in port, too, for the ship’s people’s letters to be put aboard a mail-packet bound for home.
And time enough in port for another packet brig to come in and land mail for distribution throughout the fleet.
But nothing from Caroline—nothing for Lewrie, this time.
“At least they had some good drunks, hey?” Lewrie whispered to his ram-cat, as he ruffled his fur and stroked him to a purring sack of limp contentment. “’Fore we go over to that pest-hole. Bound to be more’n a few of ’em never survive the fevers that are comin’, hey sweetlin’? Their last joy.”
Maybe mine, too, Lewrie grimly thought.
Officers and gentlemen were not immune. Even so, he had comported himself rather primly, he thought; some grand suppers, more than one overfill of good wines, a rather good session with a surprisingly tasty island-brewed ale, a ball for the 15th West Indies regiment one night, a jaunt out toward Portland Bight to a country house, where he had mounted up and ridden himself half-exhausted—sight-seeing, of all things! And a fine, head-splitting drunk with Cashman one night, just the two of them, reminiscing over a stone crock of American corn whiskey that Cashman liked so much, and of which the staff-captain so strongly disapproved.
Oh, there had been some mild flirtations, here and there, but nothing had come of them. He knew that he still cut a slim and elegant figure, and could shine on a dance floor, as old Marine Captain Osmonde had advised so long ago. He’d seen the fans and lashes in full flutters of admiration, and that had cheered him immensely, to be welcome should he dare make the offer, but …
One-and-a-half stone of ram-cat slung against his stomach as he shifted to his left side, with one arm under his head and the scrunched pillows, as Toulon settled in for the night. Lewrie gave him one last, long stroking that set him purring again. Toulon raised his head and let out a long, stretching yawn. In the faint moonlight coming through the stern windows, the cat’s eyes glowed as brightly light green as a lensed fire on the Eddystone Lighthouse, in startling chatoyance, before they slitted in slumber.
“’Night, puss. Love you, too.”
Murrff was the shut-mouthed, grunted reply.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
So near, yet so far away.
From Kingston to Saint Domingue was only a little over two hundred miles as the albatross flies, but a real bugger to attain against the Nor‘east Trades, forcing Proteus to stand out far to the Sou’east once past the Palisades, tack and jog back as close to the eye of the wind as she could bear, which was Nor’Nor’west! Even a conservative estimation had not allowed enough sea-room in which to weather Morant Point, so there was nothing for it but to tack again to the Sou‘east and stand out at least sixty miles to make a goodly offing, before one more try Nor’Nor’west. That one, at least, had put them in the middle of the Jamaica Channel, and out of sight of land, steering as if for a landfall at Santiago de Cuba, or Guantanamo Bay!
And with the mountains of Spanish Cuba almost in sight from the mast-tops, they had tacked once more Sou’easterly, and had jogged along close-hauled, in showers of spray. Saint Domingue had come in sight at last—the heights of the Massif de la Hotte that rose 7,700 feet in the sky, on the jutting southern arm that encompassed Golfe de Gonave.
Another tack Nor’Nor’west, out to sea again, took them over 100 miles north of the northern peninsula, into the Windward Passage before they could at last turn Sou’east for the last time and “beat” into the Golfe de Gonave, north of the peanut-shaped isle of the same name, and attain Port-Au-Prince.
“Would’ve done better on our own, sir,” Lt. Langlie complained as HMS Proteus ghosted shoreward on a “tops’l” breeze, sails reduced to avoid disaster. Two hands swung the leads from the foremast chains up forrud to plumb the uncertain depths, and even stolid Mr. Winwood, the Sailing Master, harumpphed, hemmed, and fretted over Admiralty charts of the harbour and approaches, that were conspicuously littered with a myriad of reefs, wrecks, and rocks—and those charts sure to be out of date, if not complete fictions, taken from French charts long ago, which might have been lying fabrications to protect their secrets, and those taken from ancient Spanish charts, from when they had owned all of Hispaniola!
“I know, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie softly agreed, “and damn all hired merchant masters. And ships of the line … and their captains. Go to loo’rd like so many wood chips.”
Two merchant vessels had been their charge, filled with soldiers and their supplies, the casked meats and bagged biscuit, the ammunition and powder for their muskets and field pieces; ungainly barges slovenly handled and thinly manned, that wore about off the wind instead of tacking, ceding even more hard-won ground to windward at each maneuver at each “corner” of their voyage. It had been all that Proteus could do to stay with them half the time, since the merchantmen crawled along at a snail’s pace, and Proteus, like a thoroughbred racehorse, had been forced to fetch-to and wait on them at times; if not, she would have sailed them under the horizon within a four-hour watch.
And then there was HMS Halifax, the two-decker 74, in charge of their little convoy. She, too, had borne troops and supplies, rendered en flute with half her guns landed ashore to make room for them. With her weather decks and gangways crowded with ignorant soldiery, and her own slow handling in comparison with a frigate, their short sail had become a frustrating Hell. Not the least of which was her captain, who had spent nigh on a week of “getting his own back” against Lewrie and his impertinence!
He’d known he was for it when the convoy sailing orders had come aboard at the last minute; he should have known from the first, had he been aboard Proteus to witness Halifax’s guns being removed, and boats ferrying troops aboard her. But no, he had been ashore, sporting too much, imbibing a tad too much, then sleeping later than was his custom—rather the Navy’s custom, to which he thought he’d become inured, after all these years of enforced activity.
Aye, give me a chance and I’ll sleep ’til noon every time, he chid himself anew; but … damn the man!
Proteus led the way into Port-Au-Prince harbour, with the merchantmen strung out astern of her, and the two-decker last of all; just in case there were uncharted reefs or shallows in store, then let it be that saucy jackanapes Lewrie, and his toy frigate, to suffer first!
“Pretty place, though … in a way, sir,” Marine Lieutenant Devereux pointed out, after sharing a “fetch ’em close” with the other officers.
Lewrie raised his own telescope at that comment, as they slowly sailed down the passage denoted as the Canal de Saint Marc, towards the port at the very end of the long “sack” of the gulf.
To the left of Port-Au-Prince was a coastal plain, backed by a massive and steep mountain range that began at the port of St. Marc up north, and ran sou’east, then east, all the way to the Spanish part of Hispaniola. South of the town, the Massif de la Selle brooded over the gulf, over 8,700 feet high. Both ranges were densely wooded, and impossibly green and lush on the lower slopes, turning stonier, bluer, and cloud-wreathed near the peaks.
The town, though … it was quite pretty, Lewrie decided, after a long look. Or it had been, in the past. The streets were as wide as Parisian boulevards, lined with a few imposing and rather impressive civic buildings, and hundreds of pastel-painted residences in a riot of sky blues, pale mint greens, pinks, and yellows.
But beyond the town proper were entrenchments, batteries, redans, and small fortifications, all lazily fuming with cooking smoke or the smoke from armourers’, farriers’, or blacksmiths’ forges. The town, too, fumed, and Lewrie caught the sweet-sour aroma of burning garbage as the hazy pall overlying Port-Au-Prince was wafted to them on a fickle wind off the eastern mountains, that blunted and toyed with the Trades.
“Trust the Army t’muck pretty things up,” Lieutenant Catterall quipped, all but elbowing Devereux in jest. “Makes you glad you’re a Marine, I shouldn’t wonder … not one of those dirty-faced sold
iers yonder.”
“Ah, but you’ll note, Mister Catterall,” Devereux drolly gibed back, “how pristine the waters of this gulf were …’til we sent all those ships in there.”
Sure enough, the Golfe de Gonave, which had been so clear and so sparkling just a few miles astern, was now nigh the colour of mud and tobacco, from the plantation runoff of a certainty—but also dotted with refuse and floating excreta from the many ships’ “heads.”
“Very well, Mister Langlie … gentlemen,” Lewrie announced as he lowered his glass, “hands to stations for anchoring. Pick us a spot, Mister Winwood. Not too near shore, mind. Does malaria come from bad night airs, then these smell sickly enough, even from out here.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And we’ll depend on our own water-casks, long as we’re able,” Lewrie decided. “As Mister Shirley suggested. With so much ordure in the local streams, dumped by our own troops … no working parties to fetch water, either.”
“Aye, sir,” the glum Purser, Mr. Coote, sadly had to agree.
“All hands … all hands! Ready to bring ship to anchor!”
“Neatly done, sirs,” Lewrie could quite happily congratulate his officers and mates several minutes later. They had come into harbour in “mano-war” fashion, rounding up into the wind, firing their salute to the highest-ranking naval officer present, and taking in all sails at the same time, whilst dropping the best bower, rigging out the booms, and beginning to lower their boats even as the smoke cleared!
“Our number, sir … ‘Captain Repair On Board,’” Midshipman Elwes called out. “From Halifax, sir.”
“And why am I not surprised?” Lewrie muttered under his breath.
“Gig’s in de watuh, sah … crew’s mustered,” Andrews reported, sharing a weary grin of foreknowledge with his captain. “Dot mon got it in fo’ ya, Cap’um.”
“Has a tin ear … can’t appreciate good music,” Lewrie quipped.
Sea of Grey Page 17
