“Thank you, sir, and good day,” Lewrie replied, shaking the old fellow by the hand, then heading out.
She’s a ship, an active commission, and full pay, Lewrie forced himself to think; Plaster “gladsome” on yer phyz, ye gullible clown, and look pleased with her! Even if she does turn out t’be Tom Turdman’s barge at Dung Wharf!
He trotted down the stairs to the ground level and the crowd in the Waiting Room, looked towards Lt. Westcott, and smiled broader.
“Good news, sir?” Westcott asked, rising to come meet him.
“For both of us, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told him, putting the best face on it. “We have a ship! Sapphire, badly in need of both a Captain and a First Officer. I requested you, and we are both now employed!”
“That’s tremendous, sir! Just grand!” Westcott loudly declared; loud enough to set many sets of teeth on edge among the un-employed.
“The First Secretary wants t’see you for a few minutes,” Lewrie told him. “After your meeting, I’ll be in the courtyard, havin’ a tea. Mind,” Lewrie continued, in a softer voice as he walked with Westcott to the foot of the stairs, “she ain’t a frigate. She’s a fifty-gunner, lyin’ at the Nore.”
Westcott made a faint moue of disappointment, but cheered up a second later, drolly saying, “The First Officer in a Fourth Rate gets a shilling or two more a day than the First in a Fifth Rate, even so. How did she come to need a First and a Captain both, sir?”
“I’ll tell ye over dinner,” Lewrie promised. “That’ll be something for you and your new girl to celebrate tonight, hey?”
“The idea of my sailing away might prove … useful, aye, sir!” Westcott said with a laugh and a wink. “Melts many a girlish heart. And … other things.”
“I’ll have t’get a note to Pettus, Yeovill, Desmond, and Furfy, with a note of hand, for them t’pack up instanter,” Lewrie deliberated, thinking of all he still would need to purchase in London while awaiting their arrival. “It’ll take me the better part of ten days to a fortnight before I can read myself in.”
“As soon as I receive my commission documents, sir, I can coach down to the Nore and lay the ground for your arrival,” Westcott offered. “I don’t have all your encumbrances, and could set out Monday.”
“If you can tear yourself away from all your passionate leave-takin’s that early, I’d be deeply in your debt, Geoffrey,” Lewrie said in gratitude. “Aye, that’d work out best.”
“Once I’ve seen the First Secretary, is there any reason for us to linger in this ‘Pit of Despair’, sir?” Westcott japed.
“Christ, no!” Lewrie hooted. “I’ve a favourite eatery over in Savoy Street, off the Strand, a truly grand place. When you are done with Mister Marsden, we’ll whistle up a coach and celebrate!”
“Be right with you, then, sir,” Westcott heartily agreed. “See you in the courtyard, then we’ll hoist sail and get out of here!”
BOOK ONE
Britons, you stay too long;
Quickly aboard bestow you,
And with a merry gale
Swell your stretch’d sail
With vows as strong
As the winds that blow you.
“TO THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE”
MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563–1631)
CHAPTER EIGHT
She’s a ship, an active commission, and earns me full pay again, Lewrie had to remind himself as his hired boat approached HMS Sapphire, moored at least two miles from shore in the Great Nore at Sheerness.
She was 154 feet on the range of the deck and 130 feet along her waterline, just a few feet longer than his last Fifth Rate frigate, but she was so damned tall with that upper deck stacked atop the lower one!
The hired boat was bound on a course to pass before Sapphire’s bows, veer to the right in a large circle, and come alongside her starboard entry-port, but Lewrie looked aft to the tillerman and expressed a wish to cross under her stern, instead, so he could give her a good look-over before boarding.
“She’s a clean’un, she is, sir,” a younger boatman who handled the sheets of the boat’s lugs’l commented. “Shiny’z a new penny.”
“Aye, she is,” Lewrie grudgingly had to agree.
Sapphire’s hull was painted black, sometime recently, at that, for the gloss had not yet faded. Her two rows of gun-ports showed a pair of buff-coloured paint bands, what was coming to be known as the “Nelson Chequer”, and her waterline at full load sported a thin red boot stripe just above the inch or two of her coppering that was exposed. White-painted cap-rails topped her bulwarks and trimmed her beakhead rails.
Sapphire’s figurehead was the usual crowned lion carved for any ship not named for some hero from the classics; a male lion done in tan paint, with a bushy mane streaked with brown and black highlights, red-tongued and white-fanged, with only its crown gilded. The lion’s front paws held a bright blue faceted ball against its upper chest, a gemstone that some shore artist had flicked with streaks of silver and white in an attempt to make it appear to shine. It looked fierce enough, but for its odd blue eyes!
Several of the ship’s boats were floating astern in a gaggle, bridled together and bound to a tow rope, to soak their planking lest the wood dried out and allowed leaks. There was a wee 18-foot cutter or gig, a 25-foot cutter, a 29-foot launch, and a 32-foot pinnace, all painted white with bright blue gunn’ls.
The hired boat had to circle wide to clear those ship’s boats, giving Lewrie a long look at her stern, which was not as ornate as he had expected. There were white dolphins and griffins along the upper scroll board in bas-relief against black, above what would be his stern gallery, which gallery sported close-set white railings and spiralled column posts. Below the gallery were the several windows of the wardroom right-aft on the upper gun deck, then a bright blue horizontal band below that, on which was mounted the ship’s name in raised block letters, painted white and gilt.
Somebody has a deep purse, Lewrie thought; or had.
Post-Captains with enough “tin” could afford to have gilt paint applied, figureheads custom made, and improve the lavishness of their ship’s carving work. It appeared that Sapphire’s recently departed Captain had been one of those men.
“Boat ahoy!” someone shouted from the quarterdeck.
“Aye aye!” the tillerman shouted back, holding up four fingers to denote that his passenger was a Post-Captain.
The lugs’l halliard and jib sheet were loosed and the sails handed, as the hired boat drifted up to the main channels and chains at the foot of the boarding battens and man-ropes. Lewrie stood and tucked his everyday hanger behind his left leg so he would not get tangled up with it as the younger boatman hooked onto the channels with a long hooked gaff, bringing the boat to a stop.
Lewrie teetered atop the hired boat’s gunn’ls, grasped one of the man-ropes, stepped up with his right foot to the main channel, and swung up with his left foot to the first step of the battens, noting with gratitude that the steps had been painted then strewn liberally with gritty sand before the paint had dried, improving his traction.
At rest, Sapphire’s lower-deck gun-ports were about five feet above her waterline, and they were all opened for ventilation, with some of them filled with curious faces as he passed the pair closest to the battens. Once above those, the ship’s tumblehome increased, making his ascent less steep.
All the exercise is payin’ off, he thought as his head rose level with the lip of the entry-port; he hadn’t even begun to suck wind! And there were the half-spatterdashed boots of Marines, in view, the buckled shoes of sailors peeking out from the bottoms of long, loose “pusser’s slops” trousers, and the trill of bosun’s calls in welcome.
Lewrie placed his first foot on the lip of the entry-port and made a final jerk upon the man-ropes to come aboard with a characteristic hop and stamp. Sure that he was in-board with no risk of going arse-over-tit backwards, he doffed his hat to the flag, quarterdeck, and his waiting officers.
“Welcome aboard, sir
,” Lt. Westcott said, doffing his own hat along with the others.
“Thankee, Mister Westcott … gentlemen,” Lewrie replied with a grin trying to break out on his face, despite the traditional formality of taking command. “If you do not mind, I will read myself in, first, before we make our first acquaintance.”
He went to the forward quarterdeck rail and iron hammock rack stanchions, ’twixt the two square companionways let into the deck to allow rigging to pass through, pulled his commission document from inside his waistcoat, where it would stay dry despite foul weather, and not be lost overboard in the climb up the battens, folded it open, and began to read loud enough for all to hear.
“By the Commissioners for executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain and Ireland and all of his Majesty’s Plantations, et cetera … to Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, hereby appointed Captain of His Majesty’s Ship, the Sapphire…”
He paused to look up and forward into the waist and the sail-tending gangways to either beam down the upper deck.
Jesus Christ, but there’s a slew of ’em! he thought, awed by the hundreds of people in the crew, nigh twice as many as he had had aboard Reliant! Sailors, boys, and Marines, all gawking at him!
“By virtue of the Power and Authority to us given, we do hereby constitute and appoint you Captain of His Majesty’s Ship, Sapphire, willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the Charge and Command of Captain in her accordingly. Strictly charging all the Officers and Company belonging to the said Ship subordinate to you to behave themselves jointly and severally in their Respective Employments with all due Respect and Obedience unto you their said Captain, and you likewise…” he continued, right through to the date of his commission, and the year of the King’s reign.
He folded that precious document up, again, and stuck it in a side pocket of his uniform coat, then leaned his palms on the railing.
“Just about ten years ago to the month, here at the Nore, I was made Post into my first command, the Proteus frigate,” he told his new crew, now that they were all officially his, “and I have been fortunate to command several frigates over the years. Sapphire is my first two-decker. She is new to me, as you are, as well … just as I am new to you. It may take me twice as long to get to know you all by face and name than I did the men of my last ship, the Reliant frigate, so I ask for your indulgence on that head.
“Sapphire may not be as swift and dashing as a frigate, but we … you and me together.…” he continued, “will still find ways to toe up against our King’s enemies and bash them to kindling and send Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Dutchmen, and all who side with Bonaparte, to the eternal fires of Hell! I am not one to tolerate boredom for long, and have always found a way to hear my guns roar in earnest, as I trust you all wish, as well. So, let’s be at it, and ready our ship for great deeds to come!”
He turned and nodded to Lt. Westcott, who stepped forward to bellow dismissal of the hands, then walked over to his waiting officers and Mids. “If you’ll do the honours, Mister Westcott?” he asked.
There was the ship’s Second Lieutenant, Arnold Harcourt, a man in his mid-thirties with dark hair and eyes, and a lean and weathered face. The Third Lieutenant, Edward Elmes, was younger, leaner, and blond. Sapphire’s Sailing Master was a rough-hewn Cornishman, George Yelland, with a great hooked beak of a nose. There were two Marine officers, First Lieutenant John Keane, a ruddy-faced fellow in his late twenties with ginger hair, and Second Lieutenant Richard Roe, a slip of a lad not quite nineteen with brown hair and blue eyes, who looked to be as new to the sea as a fresh-baked loaf, a right “Merry Andrew” with a possible impish streak, a counterbalance to Keane’s severe nature.
There were a whole ten Midshipmen, led by a burly fellow in his late twenties named Hillhouse, whom the First Secretary had thought to make Acting-Lieutenant before Lewrie had offered up Westcott. He did look salty enough. Behind him were Britton and Leverett, two more men with poor connexions most-like, for they were in their mid-twenties and still had not gained their Lieutenancies. Below them were the usual sort of Mids in their late teens, Kibworth, Carey, Spears, Harvey, and Griffin, then two lads in their early teens, Ward and Fywell.
Sapphire’s Purser and his clerk, the “Jack In The Bread Room”, Mister Joseph Cadrick, and Irby, Lewrie decided to keep a chary eye on, for though butter would not melt in their mouths on the first introductions, Lewrie sensed a “fly” streak.
The Surgeon was a thin and scholarly-looking man named Andrew Snelling who looked as if a stiff breeze would carry his skeletal frame away. The Surgeon’s Mates, Phelps and Twomey, in their middle twenties, cheerfully admitted that they were medical students who were too poor at present to attend physicians’ colleges, but were happy to serve alongside Snelling, who seemed to know everything medicinal, or surgical, they assured him.
The Bosun and his two mates, Matthew Terrell, and Nobbs and Plunkett, seemed solid and competent fellows, from Terrell’s early fourties to the mid-thirties, with years of experience at sea, as did the Master Gunner, Dick Boling; his Mate, Haddock; and the Yeoman of the Powder, Weaver.
Lewrie would get round to the Cook, Carpenter, Cooper and Armourer, Sailmaker, and their Mates later. His goods were coming aboard.
Pettus and Jessop, Desmond and Furfy, Yeovill and his Captain’s clerk, James Faulkes, had gained the deck during the introductions, and were beginning to direct his chests and crates, his furniture and personal stores up from the hired boats and aft into the great cabins. A pair of slatted crates were slung up and over the bulwarks, one containing Lewrie’s cat, Chalky, mewing and growling in fear, and the other containing Bisquit, Reliant’s old ship’s dog.
“Well, hallo, Bisquit!” Lt. Westcott cried in delight to see him as the crate was lowered to the quarterdeck. “Still with us, are you? There’s a good boy, yes!”
“I’d thought t’leave him on my father’s farm,” Lewrie explained, “but, when the waggons were loaded, he kept hoppin’ on and wouldn’t be left behind. When they trotted off, he ran after ’em all the way down to the village, and the lads took pity on him. He just wouldn’t let himself be abandoned by everyone he knew. No, you wouldn’t, would ye, Bisquit,” Lewrie cooed, kneeling down by his crate. “You are a headstrong little beast, yes, you are. God help ye, you’re a sea-goin’ Navy dog.”
Lewrie was rewarded with excited yips, whines, and a bark of two, and lots of tail wags to implore to be freed from his crate that instant. Lewrie un-did the latch and let him out, then stood up as Bisquit dashed to say hello to Westcott, run round the quarterdeck to sniff, then dashed up a ladderway to the vast expanse of the poop for more exploring. Lewrie stood up and caught Pettus’s eye.
“I’d much admire did you hunt up the Carpenter, Pettus, and see to the construction of a sand-box for Chalky, and the proper width of my hangin’ bed-cot,” Lewrie bade him. “We’ll have a shelter for Bisquit fashioned under one of the poop deck ladderways, later.”
“Yes, sir. See to it, directly,” Pettus promised. “We’ll have your office and day cabin set up in a few minutes more, and the dining coach and bed space ready by the end of the Forenoon.”
“Excellent!” Lewrie congratulated him, then turned to Westcott. “What do you make of her so far, Mister Westcott?”
“The ship is fully found and in very good material condition, sir,” Westcott told him. “She’s short of at least ten Able Seamen and about a dozen men rated Ordinary, but her officers and mates have run many of her Landsmen through catch-up instruction over the last nine months she’s been in commission … her former Captain’s idea, that … so a good many of them can hand, reef, and steer. They know their way round a bit better than most ship’s companies.”
“Well, that’s a partial relief, at least,” Lewrie commented. “How many Quota Men, and gaol scrapings? Many troublemakers?”
“The other Lieutenants and Mids have filled me in on the hands they’re leery of, sir,” Lt. Westcott continued.
“You’ll find their names in her former Captain’s punishment book … often.”
“A happy ship, is she, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked.
“On that head, sir…?” Westcott said in a low voice, casting his eyes up and aft towards the poop deck. “Perhaps we might go see what Bisquit’s up to?”
They went up the starboard ladderway to the poop deck for more privacy, and strolled to the flag lockers where they could sit and converse with no one else listening in.
“I feel like I’m sittin’ on the roof of a mansion!” Lewrie had to exclaim first, “or, halfway up the main mast shrouds.”
“The poop is rather high above the water, aye, sir,” Westcott agreed with a brief chuckle. “A happy ship? I don’t believe I could say that, sir. I’ve only been aboard a week, so I haven’t gotten the people’s feelings completely sorted out, but I can say that she’s of two minds. Maybe three … those who miss Captain Insley and thought him a proper officer … those who sided with Lieutenant Gable, her First … and the bulk of her hands who don’t give a damn either way.”
“Christ, sounds like Bligh and Christian aboard the Bounty,” Lewrie said, leaning back against the taffrails.
“Captain Insley was a very formal and strict officer,” Westcott imparted in a mutter, no matter the lack of people within earshot. “A no-nonsense disciplinarian, to boot, and I gather that he was a man who held most people in a very top-lofty low regard. Cold, aloof, and with a quick and cutting wit sharp enough to smart.”
“Rubbed a lot o’ people the wrong way, I take it?” Lewrie said.
“Especially the former First Officer, Lieutenant Gable,” Westcott said, nodding. “Years ago, Insley was a junior Lieutenant aboard the old Bellona, and Gable was one of her new-come Mids, just starting to learn the ropes … Insley demeaned everything he and the ‘younkers’ did, had them all kissing the gunner’s daughter for every failure or shortcoming, with Gable his favourite target. Admiralty wasn’t to know…” Westcott said with a shrug and a grimace. “Healthy and long-serving officers of good experience, names on a list, and slots to be filled? That’s all the questions to be answered.”
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