“And you, sir?” Lewrie asked the third, who still could not meet his eyes except in brief, darting glances.
“Ships is ships, I reckon,” the man said with a defeated sound. “Aye, I’ll sign on, volunteer. Me name’s George Gamble, and I was an Ordinary Seaman …” he muttered in a Midlands “Mumbletonian” accent.
“Landsman, ya were,” Toby Jugg snorted in derision, “and cack-handed, at that, ya lubber!”
Gamble raised his head and hat brim high enough to glare daggers at his “shipmate” for a second. “Damn’ captain cheated me, he did! I’m rated Ordinary, and well ya know it. Just ’coz he already had all the seamen he needed, and too cheap t‘pay me due ratin’, was the reason.”
“Coulda signed aboard another ship,” Jugg quibbled as if Lewrie wasn’t there.
“Oh aye, an’ me broke as a convict, and all me pitiful advance gone t’pay off me crimpin’ landlord for his rat-hole lodgin’s—”
“Some other time,” Lewrie interrupted “We’ll try you as an Ordinary Seaman, Gamble. I’m Landsman-Poor, at the moment. Do you have any certificates from past captains to show your rating?”
“Uh, nossir. Lost ’em ’tween ships, or somone stole ‘em whilst I was sleepin’ ashore.”
“Sold ’em for drink, more like,” Jugg scoffed.
“Enough!” Lewrie snapped. “You’ll volunteer, Gamble?”
“Aye, sir … s’pose I’ll haveta,” the man replied, ducking his head again.
“Very well, then. Once we’ve a way on her, see the First Lieutenant, Mister Langlie, and he’ll enter your names in our ship’s books, then draw your issues from the purser,” Lewrie told them, pleased that all but one of them seemed docile. He suspected that Gamble might be a King’s Bad Bargain, and nothing better than a Landsman, after all; from the sound of his former shipmate, and the simpery grin on the young Willy Toffet’s face as they had their little tiff, he suspected that Gamble might end up making more enemies than friends among the crew, by shirking duty. But Bosun Pendarves and his mates, with their starters, could light a fire under his shifty, idle arse.
He returned to the quarterdeck as Proteus began to pay off from fetched-to to larboard tack, and began to gather way for a reach down the Leeward Passage to Pillsbury Sound. Lt. Langlie had reduced sail, since there was no more need for “dash” to catch a prize. The winds were cooperating, too; veered to Nor’east-by-North, and weakening as the morning warmed. There might be two or three hours more of gentle sailing before the tropic heat created stronger gusts, and fresh veers or backings. By then, they could be back off Ram Head and beyond, in deep water and miles from any shores or shoals.
“Deck, there!” a lookout called down as Proteus neared the mouth of Pillsbury Sound. “Smoke round the headland, four point off the weather bows! Small boats under sail, too, d’ye hear there?”
The smoke was as thin as a pipesmoker’s for a minute or so, then quickly became a belching gush of darker, thicker smoke on the far side of Ram Head, flame-driven upwards by a catching conflagration. Lewrie began to worry and fret about the safety of his boarding party. It had been too long for the French to have fired the ship to prevent seizure, but hours too late for Catterall to have done it, he thought.
“Two boats, sir, under lug-sails,” Langlie prompted, turning his attention closer in. “Ours, I do believe.”
“A point of lee helm and close them, then, Mister Langlie.”
“Aye, sir. Quartermaster, helm alee one point.”
Within half an hour, Lewrie could feel a true sense of relief, and one of accomplishment, too, for the boats were theirs, and in the ocular of his glass, he could make out faces and put names to them in quick inventory, realising that every man jack he’d disembarked would return safe and sound, and with no sign of blood or bandages to mark any wounded, either.
Lieutenant Catterall was standing up in the stern-sheets of his boat, whooping and hollering, waving exuberantly as Proteus and her prize brig fetched-to once more. Catterall pointed astern, threw out his chest proudly, and polished his fingernails on the white facings of his uniform coat, beaming fit to bust.
His boat swung round to the starboard, lee entry-port, where he was first up the man-ropes and boarding-battens to give his report, taking the salute due him from the side-party offhandedly, and almost swaggering as he doffed his hat.
“A Frog privateer, right enough, sir,” Catterall boasted, “the Incendiare, she was called. Quite apt, now she’s lit up like a pile of winter deadfall, haha! Crew of ninety, all told, before she struck the shoal, and mounted eight six-pounders.” He related the important facts of her demise; for captured privateers, the best most crews would receive from a Prize Court would be “head and gun money,” mere shillings paid out for each crewman and each piece of artillery. “No prisoners, sorry t‘say, Captain. She was well and truly stuck on the rocks ’til the Final Trump, and nigh awash aft, when we gained her. The Frogs had departed in their own boats for the island. But they were in such a rush they abandoned all her paperwork. Not her Letter of Marque, sorry, but her box of correspondence in her master’s cabin. There’s more than enough proof of her being a privateer. Why it took me so long before we lit her off, and headed back to sea, d’ye see, sir? Since I can make out French rather well …”
“Oh, aye!” Langlie muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes.
“Well, I do, Anthony,” Catterall objected, “though I don’t say it well as I read it. I decided that goin’ over her with a fine-tooth comb for documents’d be best. Glean some insight into what the Frogs are intending, where they operate, and such.”
“Exactly as I would have, Mister Catterall,” Lewrie praised him. “Good, quick thinking, that. Let’s get your party back aboard, first, get the boats a’tow aft, then we’ll discuss what gems you may have discovered. Enough of import to please Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and his staff-captain, one would hope?”
“Er, aye, sir!” Catterall replied, taken all aback for a moment to be the object of praise, instead of the odd grudging grunt of acceptance, and a muttered “carry on.”
“No hope of salvage, though?” Lewrie had to ask.
“Smashed all to pieces up forrud, sir, her keel snapped in two abaft her forecastle, and half her knee timbers and planking spraddled or gone, to amidships. Just hangin’ on the shoal, she was, sir. Sorry.”
“No need. She’s out of business, and her crew’s marooned ashore on a rarely visited island,” Lewrie said with a shrug. “They can sail over to Charlotte Amalie and be interned, but it’ll be months before an exchange can be arranged through the local French consul. The prize we took more than makes up for it. And … do you talk sweetly to Lieutenant Devereux, perhaps he’ll gift you with one of the items he captured off her. ’Tis something you’ll drool over, trust me.”
“Oh, ah … well, sir!” Catterall said, beaming at a good day’s work, and glancing about greedily for a sight of the Marine officer.
The boarding party was coming aboard then, sailors and Marines tramping the starboard gangway and the after ladder to the waist, with their arms removed from bandoliers and baldrics, ready to be put back in the arms chests. They were crowing over their own deeds, getting chaffered by those who’d stayed aboard as to who had had the best adventure, or had accomplished the greater deed.
“You new men,” Lieutenant Langlie ordered, “assist Mister Towpenny at leading the boats aft to their towing painters.”
Lewrie was standing by the rails and nettings overlooking the waist, just about to clap his hands together with satisfaction, when he glanced down. One of his recently “volunteered” hands, the one who went by George Gamble, looked up, aghast, his mouth dropping open and his tanned face paling in shock, darting a look at Mr. Towpenny, who stood on the inner edge of the starboard gangway over his head, still burdened with cutlass, pistol, and musket as part of the boarding party.
“Hennidge?” Mr. Towpenny exclaimed of a sudden, just as aghast. “Martin Hennidge?” he
added, this time scowling, the name spat out in loathing. His musket came up quickly.
Lewrie jerked his head back to look at Gamble, who started like a deer at a dog’s barking, quickly lashing out to seize a musket from a seaman who’d been idling with a messmate, the butt on the deck, and one forearm draped casually over the muzzle as a hiking stick. Gamble scampered forward, musket at port-arms, and using it as a bludgeon to either hand to clear his way!
“Mutineer, sir!” Mr. Towpenny cried, putting his musket to his shoulder as if to aim. “One of the Hermiones! Knew him years ago, I did … know him anywhere!”
“Proteuses, seize that man!” Lewrie barked.
“Keep back!” the fugitive sailor shrieked, spinning to face the crew and levelling his musket to point at them from his hip. “Leave me be, or by Christ I’ll shoot at least one o’ ye! Keep back, I say!”
He swung the muzzle back and forth, frantically, daunting the few hands who had obeyed Lewrie’s order. He climbed the larboard companionway ladder near the focs’le belfry to the gangway, near the larboard anchor cat-heads.
“Sir!” the seaman who had lost his musket called up. “Sir! ’At musket ain’t loaded! Mister Catterall wouldn’t let us back aboard wif one!”
Lewrie tipped the sailor a wink, drew his sword, and took off at a quick trot down the larboard gangway. “Give it up, Gamble, or whatever your name is!” He forced himself to look stern and menacing, sure that the joke would soon be on their “armed” mutineer.
Hennidge looked down to his piece, used one hand to make sure it was at full cock again, and raised it, aiming at Lewrie’s heart.
“Won’t be taken, I won’t! Back, ya tyrant, or I’ll kill you, if it’s the last thing ever I do!” Hennidge cried.
“Murder another officer, would you?” Lewrie snarled, sword extended and almost within reach of the muzzle. “There were ten slaughtered aboard Hermione … in their beds! Those not enough for you, Hennidge? Thrown overside, still alive but bleeding, even the wee midshipmen who pleaded for their lives. Have a hand in that, did you? Did you, you traitor?”
“An’ all of ’em torturin’ devils!” the man shot back, jabbing at Lewrie as if his musket had a bayonet to keep him back out of reach of his sword’s tip. “They all deserved what they got, and more! Officers, God above! You’re all monsters! Navy, merchant …!”
“The Spaniards didn’t treat ya right?” Lewrie taunted, parrying with his hanger, forcing the sailor backwards. “No shower o’ gold for handin’ ’em a British frigate? No commission in their navy, no reward for you? Drop that musket … now! It’s over. Nowhere to go …”
He grazed his sword blade down the musket barrel and forestock, threatening to slash the man’s left wrist and fingers if he kept proper hold of it, forcing him back against the bulwarks, with no place to escape, sure that this made a great raree-show. “Give up!” he roared in the man’s face.
Leap and lunge! Left hand round the muzzle to lever it up and away, right fist smashing his hanger’s hilt and curved hand-guard into Hennidge’s nose, making it explode in crimson, eyes crossed in pain!
Left knee into the crutch as he bulled forward, for good measure!
Give, before ya get! Lewrie snickered to himself.
As Hennidge dropped to his knees, Lewrie stepped back a pace and yanked hard to tear the useless musket away. Hennidge found breath to howl, right hand still clawing to keep his weapon by the fire-lock and one finger inside the brass trigger-guard, and … BLAM!
“Holy shit!” Lewrie screeched, flinging away the hot muzzle from his left hand. “You bastard!” he added, raising his sword and bringing the hard pommel down atop the man’s head for sheer spite, as the spent powder smoke wreathed round his head and shoulders.
From sheer terror, Lewrie coshed him on the head again!
Sailors and Marines were beside him in an eyeblink to take hold of the mutineer and drag him toward the companionway to the gun-deck.
Fat lot of help you shits were! Lewrie fumed, gasping fit to a swoon, and his bowels dangerously loose; Unloaded, hey? Mine arse on a band-box! Why, he could’ve … killed me! Aye, make a great show, now he’s out cold! Pitch in, and look organised … if not brave!
“I’ll have that sonofabitch in irons … double irons, at once, Mister Catterall!” Lewrie roared, once he’d got his breath back, picking on the first officer he spotted within easy reach. “Someone check my cabins for the list of descriptions of Hermione mutineers we were told to look out for. See Mister Padgett, my clerk, quickly now!”
“No need, sir,” Mr. Towpenny assured him from the gun-deck. “I knew him. You peel off his shirt, here, you’ll find two tattoos. He had one on his left upper arm, a Killick Anchor atop a heart. Seen it often enough when we were in Queen Charlotte t‘gether, sir. Over his right shoulder blade, there should be a Saint Paul’s Cross, in green ink … protection ’gainst drownin’, the tattoo man in Plymouth told him, sir. He’s Martin Hennidge, sure enough, I’ll swear a Bible Oath to it at a court, Cap’um. And admire t’see him hang for his sins.”
Padgett came forward with the list, quickly raked out of the desk drawers aft in his cabins, and the written description, including tattoos, fit Gamble/Hennidge to a Tee.
Lewrie sheathed his hanger and stepped down to the gun-deck as Hennidge was sluiced with a bucket of sea-water and awakened, spluttering and moaning, already fettered and shackled to a 12-pounder shot.
“Sling his sorry arse below on the orlop,” Lewrie ordered in a mellower mood. “Bread and water, only. Mister Langlie?”
“Here, sir.”
“Our prisoner, and his return to justice, is more important than continuing our cruise,” Lewrie instructed. “Once well Sou’east of the island yonder, shape course for Kingston.”
“Aye, sir,” Langlie replied, a foolish expression of awe, mixed with both relief and joy on his face. “Beg pardon, sir, but that deed was … just about the boldest, damnedest thing, ever I did see! You went for him without a blink, a thought for your safety … !”
Lewrie made the appropriate, and expected, deprecating gestures and clucking sounds, as if it was really nothing much, though all the while thinking: S’posed t’be safe as houses. Un-thinking is the word for it! Damme, there must be easier ways t’keep a good name! Got to get aft … ’fore I squit my breeches!
“Don’t quite know, myself, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie said with a shake of his head, as if puzzled, heading sternward along the gangway. “Thank God for Mister Towpenny, or we’d have had this man aboard for years, all unknowing. Thought his story was queer, but …” Lewrie shrugged again.
“I’d admire to shake your hand, sir!” Langlie earnestly cried.
“Well, if you must, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie answered, trying on a humble chuckle as he took hands with him, keeping a pleasant grin on his face, though he was, by gastric necessity, rather impatient.
“Three cheers for the Captain, lads!” Lt. Catterall yelled, not to be outdone. “Hip hip …!”
HMS Proteus trembled with the strength of their enthusiasm, the cheers almost feral in their intensity. And Lewrie caused a further outburst, when he drew out his pocket watch, noted the time, and said that after such a strenuous and rewarding morning’s work, once they’d shaped course for Jamaica, the rum cask would be got up and everyone would “Splice The Mainbrace,” with full and honest measure for all.
He did not stay on deck to share rum with them, though. He got the retrieved musket from a Marine private and stepped down to the gundeck to return it to Ordinary Seaman Fawcett, who had lost it.
“Not loaded, was it?” he hissed, almost in the lad’s ear, as he leaned close. “Not charged or primed, hey?”
“Oh Gawd, sir, I’m sorry!” Fawcett gulped, eyes abrim with tears and shaking like a leaf. “I thought ’twas, oh Jesus …!”
“You’re an idiot, Fawcett! The blitherin’ sort!”
“Yessir?” the sailor cringed in dread and sorrow.
“Oh, for God�
�s sake,” Lewrie relented, stepping back, his urgent needs denying him a good and proper rant. “Go get your rum, and we’ll say no more about it. But, by God you’ll never, ever fetched a loaded weapon back aboard, again … will you.”
He went up the ladder to the quarterdeck, stiff-legged and his buttocks pinched; struck a “captainly” pose for a second, hands behind his back, then ducked aft quickly. Bounding down the stern ladder to his cabins, he stripped off hat, coat, waistcoat, sword and belt, and dashed into his private quarter-gallery, slamming the door on Aspinall and a welcoming brandy. Even so, he barely made it. Fear, belated or not, worked its way on him better than an enema from Mr. Durant’s clysters; so loose, rank, and gaseous that he had to fan the air.
After a moment or two, though, he had to laugh out loud. “God, people get knighted for less, and …!” Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, wheezed, biting on a fist to keep from braying, for all the world to hear.
“Don’t know how fame and glory strike other people,” he giggled, “but by God, they have an effect on me! Hee hee!”
“Out in a bit, puss!” Mew! Toulon cried, pawing the door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Lewrie had Lieutenant Langlie and Lieutenant Catterall in for a working supper, with Mr. Durant to aid in the translations. They had captured a brace of hogs from the brig Sycamore’s manger, quickly run over to Proteus in the cutter, and done to a crackly turn by their new ship’s cook. Being a Yankee brig, she’d also carried several sacks of cornmeal which had gone into skillets to bake sweet, chewy muffins or pone bread for all hands, to replace hard ship’s biscuit for a day or two. Mushy peas with melted cheese sauce, and breaded and fried onion accompanied the tender pork roast, making a fine victory feast, with promise of a piping-hot apple dowdy to come. It was only after a round of port, with some biscuit and cheese, that the papers from the French privateer Incendiare were fetched out for study.
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