“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.
“Should we encounter the enemy on our way, I’ll pretend to be a Commodore,” Lewrie said, beginning a sly smile, “I was one for a bit in the Bahamas, so I’d admire did you fly the Blue Ensign, as will the transports, just in case the Frogs try to take us on. With any luck, they’ll take us for a squadron of frigates and shy off.”
“Hah!” Knolles chortled. “As sly and sneaky as ever, sir!”
“Sly, me?” Lewrie countered. “Nobody ever called me clever … fortunate, or plain dumb luck’s been more like it.”
“Your reputed good cess, aye,” Knolles said. “That was uncanny, the time we stumbled into the Glorious First of June battle, lost that volunteer lad, Joseph or Josephs? And all those seals showed up when we buried him over the side. Selkies and ancient Celtic sea gods?”
“The morning we stumbled into our meeting with the Serbian pirates in the Adriatic in that thick sunrise fog, and there were seals there t’warn us?” Lewrie reminisced. “We should’ve trusted them for a warnin’ that the Serbs’d play both ends against the middle.”
Chalky decided that the new interloper in his great-cabins was harmless, for he padded over from the padded transom settee and joined them in the starboard-side seating area, leaping into Lewrie’s lap to glare at Knolles.
“Still the ‘Ram-Cat’ I see, sir,” Knolles said with a chuckle.
“Chalky’s a present from the American Navy in the West Indies, back in ’98,” Lewrie told him, stroking the cat which laid down upon his thigh as if guarding his master from the stranger. “Toulon passed over last year in the South Atlantic, just before we landed at Cape Town, under Popham.”
“Gad, you were part of that South American disaster?” Knolles said with a commiserating groan. “My sympathies, sir. I don’t know if our government knows how to give it up for a bad hand. Still, you had Toulon for a good, long time, and once I got my first command, I found that having a pet aboard eases the loneliness. I’ve an utterly useless terrier … he won’t even hunt rats, if you can believe it. But, he’s a comfort, is Tyge. Damned loud at times, though.”
Lewrie’s cook, Yeovill, had entered minutes before and had laid out the serving dishes in the dining-coach. He came out and announced that their dinner was ready.
Over their meal, Lewrie explained how he had come to command a two-decker, expressing distress that it seemed his frigate days were behind him, at least temporarily. He had no idea of Sapphire’s sailing qualities except for her officers’ reports, had yet to conduct any live-fire drills, and worried that his new ship might prove to be an ugly duckling that never grew beautiful, or loveable.
“Our voyage may take longer than normal,” Lewrie said over the quail course, as the red wine that had accompanied the lamb chops was replaced by a smuggled French pinot gris. “I’d desire do we get at least five hundred miles West’rd of the French coast before hauling off Sutherly, well clear of most privateers and prowling frigates. I may have yoked you to a pig in a poke, if this barge can only wallow at the foe, and your Comus only has nine-pounders.”
“She sails extremely well, sir,” Knolles assured him wit
h some pride, “fast and weatherly, and can go about like a witch. My people are very well-drilled, by now, and, taking a page from you, sir, I’ve made sure that my gunners can load and fire as steady as a metronome, and are hellish-accurate within a cable. I’ve two twenty-four-pounder carronades and six eighteen-pounders, as well, so I do believe that I can deal with your typical Frog privateer or corvette, perhaps even hold my own against a smaller frigate.”
“I’m much relieved t’hear it,” Lewrie told him. “Let’s say we place you at the head of the convoy, about two miles ahead and another two or three miles alee, on ‘sentry-go’. I’ll bring up the rear with Sapphire, and place the four transports in a single line-ahead column ahead of me.”
“Hmm,” Knolles mused, sampling the white wine as if he judged its taste instead of Lewrie’s idea. He nodded as if satisfied. “Do you wish us to look like a naval squadron, sir; perhaps it might be best did you place your two-decker in the middle of the column, with two transports ahead and t’other two astern of you, a very loose two cables or so between ships?”
“That might work, if the French are daunted by the sight of us, but…” Lewrie puzzled, his own glass held halfway to his mouth. He frowned, took a sip, then got a cocky look. “Look here, Knolles. If the French are in force, or persist despite how dangerous we appear, I wonder how confident they’d feel did we all haul our wind and go on a bow-and-quarter line right at ’em? If they thought they were facing five frigates and a two-decker?”
“Oh, I don’t know, sir,” Captain Knolles said, furrowing his brow. “If we did, once they got within a mile or so of us, they’d see through the ruse, and realise that the transports were harmless. In that case, we’d have to signal the transports to run, close-hauled to the Westerlies, and within range to be chased down and captured.”
“We’d still be there, t’protect ’em as they run,” Lewrie pointed out. “Do we encounter three or more Frogs sailin’ together, we would be up to our necks in the quag, anyway, but if it’s only two, or one big’un, we’d daunt ’em in the first place, or meet ’em on equal footing in the second.”
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