Sea of Grey

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Uhm … excuse me, sirs, but the captain is coming off shore,” Midshipman Elwes informed them, approaching them from his vantage point on the starboard bulwarks. Sure enough, the quick use of a glass showed one of the ship’s larger boats stroking away from the piers, where it had landed another funeral and burying detail.

  “Very well, Mister Elwes. Summon the side-party,” Catterall instructed.

  “Permission to mount ze quarterdeck?” Surgeon’s Mate Durant, more laconic and weary than ever, requested from the base of the starboard ladder from the waist.

  “Aye, come up, sir,” Catterall allowed. “How’s old Wyman?”

  “I regret to inform you, sir, zat the poor man ’as just now gone away from us,” Durant told him, wiping his hands on his apron, using a French phrase for departure from Life.

  “Well, damme,” Catterall muttered, face creasing in genuine sorrow; though taking an involuntary step away from Mr. Durant, as if to flee Death’s miasma … or the noisome reek of the Yellow Jack’s last agony, when the victim voided his bowels, after many days of inability, and spewed up dark, bloody vomito negro. The stench of Wyman’s dying clung to Durant’s apron, bare arms, and very hair, like a whiff off the River Styx.

  “That will make you Second Officer, Mister Catterall,” Winwood needlessly pointed out. “And young Mister Adair an acting lieutenant.”

  “Indeed,” Catterall said in a whisper, realising the enormity of their loss, and the onerous weight placed on his shoulders as a result.

  “God help us, then,” Winwood sniffed. “God help us all. ‘Tis a horrid toast, ‘to a bloody war or a sickly season’ … so we may attain our desired promotions.”

  “Uhm … yes,” Catterall said to that, turning away and feeling like a weary Atlas, sobered for once from all sarcasm.

  God, not another damn’ funeral, was Lewrie’s first thought, once he had gotten the dismal news of Lt. Wyman’s death. The first men who had died had been buried at sea, cleanly and neatly. The last five—no, six, Lewrie had to remind himself—were interred in the military cemetery outside Kingston. They lingered longer in the mind; the plots of mounded earth and simple wood crosses not quite so … forgettable, but more permanent, and seemingly, eternally dispiriting.

  In the last few days, administering the Last Rites had become a daily chore, supplanting all the other cares a captain should have for his ship, and the mellifluous prose of the Book of Common Prayer cloying and banal, the litany so familiar that he could almost recite from memory, as if declaiming passages from Caesar’s Gallic Wars at school.

  Lewrie looked over at Midshipman Grace, feeling pangs of sympathy as the lad stumbled about the gun-deck as if in a trance, red-faced but dry-eyed after their last trip ashore in the cutter … to bury his grandfather, the canny Nore fisherman they’d known simply as the Older Grace. Now Mr. Grace’s father, too, lay insensible beneath an awning stretched over the boat-tier beams up forrud by the foc‘sle belfry, by turns shivering and teeth-chattering under three blankets, or sweating buckets and thrashing for relief from malaria. Arthur “The Middle” Grace might recover, Mr. Shirley believed; it was malaria, not the Yellow Jack, and chichona bark extract was lengthening the calm periods ’twixt bouts, though he was still as weak as a wet dish-clout. Young Grace stumbled forward and knelt by his father’s pallet, taking his hand and clinging and patting it.

  “How’s he doing?” Lewrie asked Durant in a soft mutter.

  “It comes and goes, sir,” Durant said, heaving another of those Gallic shrugs of his. “Improving, I venture to say.”

  “Mister Shirley?”

  “He is resting, Capitaine. Ze strain ‘as been ’orrible. It is a wonder, so enervated he ‘as become, zat he ’as not succumbed himself. So far, it is ze old and weak, ze very young who fall ill and die.”

  “Any more cases?” Lewrie asked, crossing his fingers.

  “Two, Capitaine … Seaman Ordinaire Harper and Landsman Drew,” Durant mournfully went on. “Both, ’owever, display no sign of Yellow Jack. Only ze malaria. And zey are strong.”

  “But only one death today,” Lewrie insisted.

  “Ze poor Lieutenant Wyman, oui … but zere are two more ‘ands who ’ave the Yellow Jack, and near ze last stages of ze malady, sir. I cannot imagine zey will see tomorrow’s dawn.”

  “Damn, damn, damn!” Lewrie spat, weakly thumping a fist atop the cap-rail of the starboard gangway bulwarks. “I’m tired o’ this, Mister Durant. There must be something more we can do.”

  “We do all zat medicine knows, sir,” Durant objected. “Chichona extract at the first sign of sickness, salt water clysters and all the fresh water zey can drink, to ease ze constipation, and lack of … my English … pissing in zose wiz Yellow Jack. Better air on deck, shade and coolness? Mister Hodson smokes ze ship below wiz faggots of tobacco, we scour wiz vinegar and salt water, we root out ze rats and cockroaches, no one ‘as lice or fleas. But it is all so confusing zat we ’ave both malaria and Yellow Jack at once together, Capitaine. Is ze chichona bark good for zose wiz the Yellow Jack, or harmful? Is fruit juice helpful, or does it produce more bile, zat, I zink is a symptom of Yellow Jack, and contributes to the vomito negro? Ze liver and ze kidneys of men who die of Yellow Jack, when examined after death, are ruined. It explains ze lack of piss, ze constipation, but ze why, or ze how …?”

  “And we’ve pumped the bilges so often, you could eat down there. There’s no ordure, the pump-water comes out bright and clean,” Lewrie wondered aloud. “We’ve burned loose gunpowder, buckets of tar, not a damned preventative that’s supposed to work, works!”

  “Water casks emptied, scoured wiz vinegar and sea water as well,” Durant sadly agreed. “It was most odd, though, sir … ze water casks we filled once we reach Jamaica? When we open zem wiz Mister Coote an’ his mate, I find ze top of ze water thick wiz little nits. Set aside in a glass I cover wiz gauze, I find zat mosquitoes hatch out. I read of zis, regarding slave ships calling at Dahomey … zat zey found nits in fresh water taken from running streams, as well as still pools. Wiz ze gauze, I filter ze water, skim ze tops, before we stow clean casks bellow, zis time. And ashore, Capitaine, pardon ze expense, but we found a shop zat sells extract of citron, and candles made wiz citron.”

  “They smell good, aye … better than the mess-decks do now, at any rate,” Lewrie agreed, with a firm nod of his head. “How expensive?”

  “Cheaper zan ze assafoetida herbs, Capitaine,” Durant said right quickly, to justify what was surely an unauthorised outlay. “Besides, ze assafoetida is very ’ard to find, at present. Mais non, ze merchant assures me zat, if citron candles, or if a mix of hot tar and citron oil, is lit and let smoulder and fume, ze house where they burn does not suffer malaria or Yellow Jack.”

  “Damme, a cure?” Lewrie exclaimed with great relief.

  “For, uhm … women of ze house, it seem, Capitaine,” Durant said, with a weasely look. “Men, who are about business outside ze home, are just as vulnerable but, sir, zose inside are protected! Ze citron, I believe, exudes a sweet miasma, countering ze bad miasmas zat cause malaria and Yellow Jack! Regard, Capitaine,” Durant said, becoming agitated and cheerful, waving off Lewrie’s just-as-sudden scowling. “You go into ze forest, you find ze poisonous plant or weed. But every time, growing close by, is ze antidote! Nature will ’ave her balance, n’est-ce pas? Every grand-mère, your grannies, know of zis! Sickness follows contact wiz ze shore, but after a week or two at sea ze number of ze stricken diminishes … until ze next contact wiz shore. Citron candle and citron tar smoke-pots burning below, by the hatchways, perhaps hung all about ze upper deck after dark, blocks ze insinuation of tropical miasmas, sir!”

  “How much?” Lewrie asked again, arms crossed in leeriness.

  “Twenty pound, ten shillings, five pence, Capitaine. Five pound of my own, some from Mister Hodson—zough he does not believe, he will grasp at ze straw, n’est-ce pas? Some from Mister Shirley, because he is desperate, and ze rest, uhm … from sh
ip’s funds, sir.”

  “For … perfume,” Lewrie scoffed; for that was the only use he knew of for citron … other than colouring or zesting desserts.

  “Please, I beg you, let me try it, Capitaine. Ze merchant says it is well recommended on ze Spanish Main, by ze Portugese in Brazil!”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Mister Durant, he sold you a bill o’ goods!”

  “If nozzing else, M’sieur Capitaine, ze citron seems to drive ze pesky mosquito away,” Durant insisted, playing his final card.

  “Aye, then …” Lewrie finally relented. “If for nothing else but a good night’s sleep, without all that buzzin’ and swattin’. I’ll let you try it. S’pose we could write it off as an experiment.”

  “God bless you, Capitaine Lewrie! Merci, merci beaucoup! You will see … I ’ave made up ze hot tar and citron oil already …”

  “Thankee for asking first … sir,” Lewrie scowled, turning away to go below to his cabins. “Mind you, this turns out to be a cure for malaria and Yellow Jack, put me down for a large share of the profit.”

  “But of course, M’sieur Capitaine … guaranteed!” Durant said with a gush, grandly doffing his plain hat and sweeping it down to the deck as he bowed his gratitude before scrambling down the ladder for the main companionway hatch, and his medical stores below.

  The transom sash windows were open wide, the glazed panels in the coach-top overhead were propped open, and a canvas wind-scoop ventilator caught what little air stirred in the millpond-still harbour, but his great-cabins were still stifling. Lewrie stripped off his formal funeral finery and changed into a worn pair of white slop trousers, trading his fancy Hessian boots for a dowdy pair of calfskin slippers. He sat at his desk with a “top-silver” palmetto fan, clawing his neck-stock off and opening his shirt.

  Aspinall brought him a glass of sugared lemon water, silently padding about as if fearful of catching Lewrie’s eye. He’d been that deferential and insubstantial ever since the first deaths. Lewrie had a sip, and pondered which onerous task he’d undertake first. Sighing, he plopped his feet atop his desk and slouched down in his chair, feet aspraddle and crotch aired; it was too warm and humid to cross ankles.

  There was the matter of letters to write to the dead mens’ kin, but at the moment he felt too enervated, and too steeped in death, to tackle that chore. Besides, he had exhausted all the stock platitudes he knew for grief, and it wouldn’t feel quite right to pen an identical letter to all, like an Admiralty form for indentures or broken spars.

  With so many dead, dying, or bedridden for weeks as they healed, there was the Watch-And-Quarter Bill to be amended, but Lewrie thought that would best be done in concert with Lt. Langlie and the midshipmen, who worked more closely with the hands than he. Perhaps have them all in for a “working” breakfast? There was a cook to be discovered among the crew, since poor old lamed Curcy had been one of the first to pass over, and the food issued since had been positively vile. Foster, the Yeoman of The Powder, would move up to Gunner’s Mate to replace poor Mr. Bess, whom they’d buried the last morning; he’d find another man handy with canvas and needles to replace the Sailmaker’s Mate, young Hickey. If things went on as badly as they had so far, fully half of those thirty sick men presently laid out flat would die before the week was out, he realised, and the survivors wouldn’t be worth tuppenny shit for two or three weeks more. Only two Ordinary and two Able Seamen were lost so far, but a fair number of the sick were the spryest topmen, the young and experienced hands a ship could not do without. And their replacements were half a world away, due on the next hired supply ship and not expected to arrive before the end of hurricane season, ’round October or November when the bulk of the “liners” returned from Halifax.

  And always had first choice, damn them, their captains, and the seniority and favouritism that dictated the new mens’ dispersement!

  Not wishing to think about Watch-And-Quarter Bills, Lewrie had another sip of sweet lemon water and scowled, one eye asquint, at his desk … at his mail from England. After the first rushed reading, he wasn’t so sure that he wanted to revisit those, either!

  “Damme, pile it on, why don’t You?” he muttered to God or Fate. “And thankee that trouble usually comes in threes!”

  Plague, uselessness, and his personal life; each one a horror!

  The letters from his father Sir Hugo had been the easiest stood, and had contained more pertinent information. What little he’d gotten from Caroline had been pure vitriol!

  For it seemed that another of those damned, anonymous “My dear friend, you simply must know …” epistles had turned up on Caroline’s doorstep, and this time whoever the Devil wrote them had known all and had told all regarding his visit to Theoni Connor’s London town house, the day after Caroline had stormed off for Anglesgreen in high dudgeon; how Theoni had coached down to Sheerness and had cohabited as man and wife with him for an entire week before Proteus had sailed! The anonymous writer had even named the inn and the placement of their set of rooms, How early their candles were snuffed …!

  So much for ‘time heals all wounds,’ Lewrie glumly thought, once he’d read Caroline’s lone, accusatory missive; and you can chuck ‘least said and soonest mended’ and ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ over the side, too!

  And damn his father, but he wrote about as superciliously as he looked, with passages of sympathy interspersed with others bearing the tone of “I told you so!” or even sour amusement, as if writing one of his old cronies from the Hellfire Club or his first regiment about the peccadilloes of a total stranger, over which they could both crow!

  “Sophie continues rather wan,” Lewrie read, “though she has taken up of late with the company of Richard Oakes, one of Harry Embleton’s fellow roisterers—one with some sense, at bottom, at the very least—who is a Captain of Cavalry in the local Yeomanry militia, and shapes well as a soldier. Pity he’s a first son, not down for a set of colours like his brother Roger. He will, however, inherit substantial acreage, and may be thought a prize catch in these parts (dull as they may be). You are aware, though, that somewhere along the line, to Caroline’s great Furor, you evidently gave permission for Sophie and your own First Officer, Lt. Anthony Langlie (a worthy unknown to me) to correspond. The Arrival of a letter from Jamaica is become a momentous Event in your household.”

  “And when the Devil did I do that?” Lewrie muttered to himself, vowing that he and young Langlie were due a heart-to-heart meeting, soonest! A rather loud one, he expected.

  “Caroline, of course, dismissed the very idea at once, damning all Sailors as highly suspect, which vocal and insistent disapproval has, given Sophie’s contrary Nature, made her the more eager to correspond. Just recall how your earlier disapproval of Harry Embleton almost drove her to elope with him to Gretna Green!”

  And damn his father some more, but he’d found it so amusing that he simply had to relate how “ … once Services were done two Sundays past, inspired perhaps by Rev. Goodacre’s sermon on the forgiveness of Sins, your little Charlotte accosted all and sundry in the church yard with the pronouncement that ‘My daddy’s a sinner, and a filthy beast!’ in her usual loud and piercing voice, extolling the congregation for their prayers. Embarassing, of course, but quite droll, you must admit. ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ as it were, hey?”

  Droll, hell! Lewrie thought, squirming anew in long-distance embarassment; and Caroline not so quick to shush her, either!

  That was followed by a long plaint as to how he was being “cut” or snubbed by the local gentry, forced to spend more time on his farm—alone!—or being positively driven to flee up to London, where his new town house was shaping main-well, and plans for a gentlemens’ hôtel and lodging club were coming together quite nicely, thankee very much, and the London Season was lively and provided him much distracting Solace and diverting Amusement, in their time of Troubles!

  As to those Troubles, “ … but your brother-in-law Governour is hellish exercised, nigh to
choleric Frenzy, by your Faithlessness, and swears that he saw it coming years before, but could not dissuade you, or his Dear Sister, from your Folly. He now goes about swearing that, had he the Occasion to confront you visage contre visage as the French say, he would quite gleefully do you in for the Shame you have brought upon the Chiswick Name, the gentlemanly constricts of a Duel bedamned.”

  Lewrie had himself a skeptical snort over that threat; Governour was approaching twenty stone in weight, and getting out of bed lately was enough to turn his ‘visage’ choleric! Damn swords or pistols; if it came to that he’d challenge him to a foot race and see who keeled over first! Back during the Revolution, when Governour was as lean and sinewed as a young panther, it would have been a different proposition, but good living and prosperity had taken its toll.

  On that score, his father had further written “ … when last I took my mid-day meal at the Red Swan Inn, the churl actually dared to banter me, your carcass not being immediately available. I quickly informed Mr. Chiswick that, should he desire an early Death, I was more than willing to oblige him. Did he desire Pistols at twenty paces, I would await his Seconds, though it was no affair of mine, and that his use of my Presence as an excuse for his disgraceful and boastful Behaviour would not be tolerated even by a gentleman of only the slightest acquaintance with you. I further informed him that I found all his Ranting to be due to your Absence, and not a thing he would do in your Vicinity. Then, following that slur, did he wish Aggrievance, I told him that I would meet him that Instant on the side lawn with a small-sword. Alan, the weather has been most cooperative this spring, and you should see how Verdant the countryside is become. The side yard, your lawn, and my new-sodded ones, have come up something wondrous to behold, do you care to know.

  “He made a great Show of Apoplexy, but side-wise demurred, not refusing exactly, and stated that his Argument was with you, not your poor old Father. At which shilly-shally I brusquely informed him of the consequences of his rash Intemperance, assuring him that once you were returned to England, you would be more than willing to confront him in any manner he wished, and to temper his utterances with the sure certain, and fatal, Risk to his self in Mind … .”