Havoc's Sword

by Dewey Lambdin

  “A glass with you, Captain Lewrie,” Peel proposed, summoning Aspinall to top them up. “To…an honourable world.”

  “Honourable world,” Lewrie intoned, touching glasses with him…but pausing before drinking. “To the salvation of our personal honour, instead, Mister Peel. Despite the bloody world.”

  And the sardonic Mr. Peel surprised him by sighing, “Amen.”

  “Uhm…those private identity signals, Mister Peel,” he asked after draining his glass and waving for a refill. “Ye wouldn’t happen t’have those in another pocket…would you?”

  “In point of fact, I do, Captain Lewrie, but…”

  “Another toast, then, Mister Peel,” Lewrie proposed. “To, ah…mischief. Mischief, and confusion to the French!”

  Chapter Nine

  Something dragged him up from the depths of an almost dreamless sleep—a commotion on deck? No, it was the faint groan of working timbers, and the motion of his sybaritic hanging bed-cot that was made almost wide enough for two, a most suspect luxury in the spartan world of the Navy. Proteus was still on larboard tack, her decks heeled to starboard as she rolled and ranted, and the bed-cot, hung fore-and-aft, swayed left-to-right, but with a snubbing little jerk, and a yawing, a twist every now and then. One opened eye revealed utter blackness in the closed windows of the overhead coach-top. Toulon, not liking what the cot was doing one little bit, fussed and fretted on the wood edge, ready to jump down. Lewrie flung back the single mildewed sheet that covered him and put a leg over, a foot on the deck, ready to roll to his left and leave it. There was a thud of a musket butt outside his forrud cabin door.

  “Awf’cer o’ th’ watch…Mister Adair, SAH!”

  “Come,” Lewrie called back, groping in the darkness for a pair of canvas trousers he’d left draped over a convenient chair back.

  “My pardons, Captain,” Lt. Adair said, entering the cabins with a weak horn-pane lanthorn in one hand, and his hat in the other, “but the wind is come more Easterly, and the seas are getting up, somewhat.”

  “Felt her working,” Lewrie grunted as he finished buttoning up the front flap of the trousers, and fumbled his toes into his shoes. “What’s the time, and where stands the wind, Mister Adair?”

  “Just gone Two Bells of the Middle Watch, sir,” Adair replied, “and the wind has backed a full point. We’ve hauled off with it, just this minute, sir.”

  “But she needs easing, aye,” Lewrie decided aloud, shrugging into a thigh-length tarred sailcloth coat—now that he had Adair’s light by which to find it. “Lead on, Mister Adair.”

  Once on deck near the quartermasters, who were straining on the helm, he could smell rough weather up to windward, a fresh-water miasma that put him in mind of a water well’s dank throat. A sliver of moon gave faint light, but there were a few wisps of semi-opaque scud near it, and just enough moonlight and starlight to reveal a solid blankness up in the Nor’east.

  “Well, damme,” Lewrie muttered as the wind gusted fitful for an ominous moment or two, and the “banshees” keened in the miles of stays, sheets, halliards, and braces, before falling off as if dying suddenly, allowing Proteus to roll more upright and groan like an old woman turning over in her arthritic sleep. “Ease her, hell, Mister Adair, we’ll rig for heavy weather. Pipe ‘all hands.’ We’ll strike top-masts, and take first reefs in both courses and tops’ls…hand the stays’ls and outer jibs, as well. First off, hands to the braces once on deck, and we’ll ease her another point off the wind to a close reach.”

  “Aye aye, sir! Mister Towpenny? Pipe ‘all hands’!”

  “Something the matter?” Mr. Peel enquired, popping up like some Jack-In-The-Box by Lewrie’s side, wrapped in a blanket over shirt and breeches.

  “Weather’s making up, Mister Peel,” Lewrie snapped, wishing the man wouldn’t do that, coming up on his blind side and scaring him like a graveyard ghost. “Have to prepare for it, and bear off Sou’east.”

  “I see. How much delay will there be, then, to our arrival at Antigua?” Peel asked, following Lewrie to the compass binnacle, where Lewrie took a long squint at the traverse board.

  “Three days?” Lewrie speculated, “A whole bloody week? No one could tell you that, Mister Peel. Depends on how rough it’s going to get, from where the wind blows, how hard…if our luck’s out, we’ll end up halfway to Barbados…or stagger down nigh to the Vice-Royalty of New Granada. Wish t’visit the Dons and buy some cigarillos, do ye, Mister Peel?”

  “Not particularly, Captain Lewrie, no,” Peel said, a shakiness to his voice despite his stab at jocularity, which sound made Lewrie turn to peer at him with a faint grin. Was this “blow” Peel’s first experience of heavy weather? He hadn’t spent that much time on ships in the Mediterranean during their last pairing, and might have had good winds and easy seas on his way there, even in the fickle Bay of Biscay. It had been heard of, though ’twas damned rare.

  “Ah, Mister Winwood,” Lewrie said, turning his attention to the Sailing Master as he lumbered up from the gun-room and the main deck to the quarterdeck, with one of his charts under one arm, as Proteus awoke with a thunder of horny bare feet on oak, amid the shrills of bosun’s calls. “I intend to remain on larboard tack, ’long as she’ll bear it. New course, oh…Sou’-Sou’east, to begin with. Any dangers we should know of on that course? ’Til we run aground on Saint Vincent that is?”

  “Let me consult this particular chart, Captain, sir,” Mr. Winwood ponderously, soberly said, carefully unrolling it and pegging it to the traverse board, and waving a ship’s boy forward with a better lanthorn so they could see it. “Ah…your initial estimate of landfall near Saint Vincent, should this slant of wind persist, sir, may be correct. And though the weather may plague us, I know of no shoals or reefs to the lee of the Windwards, sir.”

  Winwood was hopeless, Lewrie thought, following the man’s ruler and course-tracing finger on the chart. He seemingly had no sense of humour, on-duty or off.

  “A hurricane, do you think, Captain Lewrie?” Peel asked of him, clutching his wind-flagged blanket close round his chest and shoulders.

  “Hurricane winds usually veer more Northerly, first, as Mister Winwood may tell you, Mister Peel,” Lewrie told him.

  “The counter-clockwise rotation, demonstrably proven throughout years of observation, Mister Peel, is not present here,” Winwood said. “Though this is the season for them…” he trailed off, shrugging.

  Damme, is he actually pullin’ Peel’s leg? Lewrie wondered, grinning at the seeming jape; No, just bein’ his own cautious self.

  “Pardons, Captain, but the hands are all on deck, and standing by braces and sheets,” Mr. Adair reported.

  “Very well, Mister Adair, put the helm up a point, and ease the set of the sails,” Lewrie bade him, seeing Lts. Langlie and Catterall now on deck, in case something went amiss.

  “Uhm…” Lt. Adair quailed for a second at the enormity of the task which had just fallen on his slim, barely experienced shoulders, obviously hoping that Mr. Langlie the First Lieutenant would supplant him. “Aye aye, sir.”

  Lewrie paced “uphill” to the windward bulwarks to observe, with the fingers of his right hand crossed in the pocket of his storm coat, his left elbow braced over the cap-rail and his left leg straddling a taut, thick breeching rope of a larboard quarterdeck carronade. After a moment, he took his hand from his pocket, crooked a finger, and bade Lt. Langlie to join him.

  “Evening, sir,” Langlie said, doffing his hat, which let a gust of wind dance his romantic dark curls.

  “Has to learn sometime,” Lewrie commented, jutting his chin at Mr. Adair, now standing by the forrud quarterdeck rail and the nettings with a brass speaking-trumpet to his mouth and bawling orders. “Do you have any qualms, Mister Langlie?”

  “He’s a good, seasoned lad, sir,” Langlie replied, “and just as smart as paint. He’ll cope with it, I expect.”

  “And if he don’t, well here you are, Mister Langlie, ready for anything,” Lewrie ch
uckled, leaning close to Langlie’s ear so that his words didn’t reach his junior-most officer. “Soon as we’ve eased her, strike top-masts. This may blow out by dawn, but…better safe than sorry. I’d admire, did you oversee that, sir. And, I’d expect Mister Adair will be much relieved that you do. Take charge until we have her reefed down snug, then let him finish the Middle Watch alone.”

  “Aye, sir,” Langlie answered, grinning in secret with Lewrie.

  “Course now Sou’east by East, sir!” Adair shouted up to them a moment later. “Broad reaching. Ready to hand stays’ls and outer jibs!”

  “Carry on, Mister Adair!” Lewrie shouted back, forcing himself to slouch against the railings and direct his attention outboard, far up to weather in search of the coming storm. “Though, once we’ve done and he’s come off-watch, Mister Langlie, you will inform him that my order book requires that I be summoned much earlier than he did…gently, Mister Langlie, hmmm?” Lewrie suggested to Langlie, a sly grin on his face. “A too-confident officer of the watch is about as dangerous as one with none.”

  “I half suspect he’s realised his mistake, sir,” Langlie said in return. “And sometimes it isn’t overconfidence that keeps the watch officer mum, but the fear of looking foolish, or incapable…’til it is indeed much too late, sir. I’ll have him supervise the lowering of the foremast top-hamper. That’s a task that won’t make him feel as if we distrust his abilities, sir.”

  “An excellent idea, Mister Langlie, thankee. Do so.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Take reefs, next, so no one aloft is in too much danger, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie instructed, as the first few patters of raindrops hit his bare head and face. “Get her flatter on her bottom so the hands’re not flung halfway to the horizon.”

  A brisk and efficient half-hour’s labour later, and HMS Proteus was rigged for heavy weather, with furled and gasketed t’gallants and royals, yards, and the top-masts lowered to the decks, bound snug among the piles of spare spars on the boat-tier beams, with both fore and main courses taken in one reef, and all three tops’ls at two reefs, only the main topmast stays’l still flying ’twixt the main and the fore mast, and the two inner-most jibs on the bow still standing to balance her spanker and helm effort.

  By then, it was raining buckets. Whitecaps and white horses to windward rose, heaved, and curled stark close-aboard. But they weren’t breaking or flying spume off the wavetops yet. And the winds, though gusting and moaning now and again, were weaker than the gust front which had preceded the rain.

  Lewrie sat and steamed in his impermeable storm coat and worst, oldest hat. He’d had his canvas sling-chair fetched up and lashed to the larboard side, near the mizen-mast shrouds, where he could keep a wary eye on things. Something else for older, more senior officers to chide him for, should they ever see it, that chair. Real tarry-handed tarpaulin men lived and died on their feet when on deck, never stuck a hand in a pocket, never slouched or leaned on anything…never had a wee nap, either! Lewrie held to most concepts about how a sea-captain should behave, even the one about holding the power of life and death, of being the next-best thing to God when sailing independently…but, did God have an idle streak, well then!

  Savin’ m’self for important chores, he oft told himself, as he once more did that night; ’fore called t’rise to the occasion. Didn’t God Himself not ‘Make And Mend’, the first Sunday, after six days’ work at creatin’ the world? That hard a week, I’d’ve caulked away the seventh.

  The striking of Six Bells of the Middle Watch roused him from a soggy “nod” with a grunted “Mmmph.” Three in the morning, and an hour ’til all hands were summoned again to scrub decks. It was still black as a boot, and the seas were still lively, but the frigate was easier in her motion, no longer yawing as she scaled the waves, no longer in full cry of working timbers, nor jerk-snubbing twisting when meeting a wave as her bow dipped. She sat firmly on her starboard shoulder to the press of wind, and the faint wails aloft were the keens of passage, not torment.

  He rose and stretched, undid the buttons of his storm coat, and let out the trapped, sweaty air, letting the coat be swept abaft of his hips and chest. By God, but the forceful airs were almost nippy-cool, as refreshing as a rare shore bath in a brass or copper hip-tub! Off went his hat to allow the winds to have their way, to cool his scalp, to recomb his locks, and the fitful rain to rinse away a week’s worth of oils and dander.

  Fitful rain, hmmm, he took note. It no longer pummeled him or slanted in like stinging grapeshot; in point of fact, half the drops he felt were large dollops wind-stripped from sails and rigging aloft. He heard gurgles above the soughing roar of Proteus’s hull slicing a firm way over the waves. Scuppers to loo’rd were open, and rainwater sheeted cross the angled deck to go gargling out alee; canvas scoops led fresh, clean water into spare casks and smaller kegs, and a work-party under the Purser, Mr. Coote’s, direction, were trundling caught barrels on their lower rims to the edge of the companionway hatches, to be lashed or bowsed firmly in place ’til dawn, when they would be lowered down to the orlop, giving them a few more days of stores with which to keep the sea just that much longer in search of their foes.

  Lewrie went forward to the nearest chute, tore off his storm coat, and bent over it for an impromptu shower, wishing he had his bar of soap handy, thoroughly rinsing his hair, scrubbing his face and chest, restoring his alertness, wishing that he could shed all of his clothing, swing the scoop over a little, and lay and wallow on deck in the steady stream without sacrificing his dignity.

  The keg was full; to hell with it!

  “Lift the end, there. Direct it at me,” Lewrie ordered. There! Even clad in shirt and slop-trousers, he turned under the spurts, rinsing salt crystals, mildew, and old sweat from his clothes, first, then (perhaps) cleaning his skin beneath, second.

  “God, that’ll wake you up,” he exclaimed, for the water was as cool as the dying storm winds, while his hands stood about and gawped with broad smiles on their faces. “Everyone take the opportunity for a good scrub while it lasted, men?”

  “Oh, aye, sir!” a sailor agreed.

  “E’en got up enough lather t’shave with, sir,” another said, for salt water would never lather with soap, and the usual issue for bodily use was a meagre cup a day, but for the happenstance of a rain shower.

  “Drunk our fill, for oncet, we did, Cap’um,” a third chortled.

  “Who’s got the cup, then?” Lewrie cried. “Give it here.” And caught two full wooden piggins of sweet, fresh rainwater from the canvas scoop and downed them like a sweaty smith. “Ah, thankee. Rare treat, that. Carry on, men. And after we take Noon Sights, we’ll double the water ration, for one day at least. Now we’ve enough to go around.”

  Sated, indeed with his belly sloshing, which forced a belch from his lips, Lewrie picked up his storm coat, draped it over one arm, put his hat on, and paced back to the helm, and the waiting Mr. Adair, who had less than an hour left of the Middle Watch.

  “Mister Adair,” he said, peering at the compass bowl.

  “Captain, sir. The wind’s easing, and the sea’s not as boisterous. Course is still Sou’east by East, though I do believe she might abide our standing a touch closer to the wind, again, sir.”

  “Our run, by Dead Reckoning, Mister Adair?” Lewrie asked.

  “Uhm…half-hour casts of the log, sir,” Adair said, fumbling a soggy sheet of folded paper from the breast pocket of his coat. His marks had been made with a stub of metallic lead, and done in the dark or the faint binnacle glow, so his accounting was extremely difficult to read, but Adair found a way to decypher it.

  Ten knots, then eight…nine knots, even reefed and eased…Lewrie caught himself counting on his fingers to keep track; a spell of ten knots during gusts of the storm, three casts in a row, hmmm…

  “At least twenty miles alee of our former course, sir, and about thirty miles forrud over the ground, sorry,” Adair puzzled out at last.

  “Mister Winwood
leave his precious chart, did he, Mister Adair?”

  “Aye, sir, in the cabinet.”

  Lewrie fetched it out and knelt under the lit binnacle, straining his eyes to find the finely pencilled marks of their course, using a handy pair of dividers and a parallel ruler to estimate the deviation, and pace it out to leeward on Sou’east by East.

  “Well, damme, Mister Adair,” Lewrie said, rising. “Even if the wind shifts back to the Nor’east, we’ll spend another day beating back West-Nor’west to make it up, or miss Antigua completely. Put us into the lee of Guadeloupe, even if we could return to our old course this instant.”

  And what was so important about putting into English Harbour on Antigua? Lewrie wondered. Was it a mere courtesy call to let the local admiral know that they were in his waters, but not under his command, on secret business? Did Peel have someone to meet there, with intelligence which might await him that was that vital to their mission?

  He rather doubted it.

  Guadeloupe, though, was South of Antigua, and not by much, just about as much as they’d lost during the storm—if they stayed on a course a little to leeward of their old one, even if the Trades swung back where they belonged. Guadeloupe, the last French stronghold in the Antilles—and now Guillaume Choundas’s lair. Lewrie bent under the binnacle lamp to study the chart just one more time, tracing a nail to the East’rd…

  “Aye, Mister Adair, the wind has eased,” he said, rolling up the chart and stowing it away. “Try to brace her up a point to windward. A half-point, if that’s all she’ll tolerate, and hold it ’til the end of watch, and inform Mister Langlie when he replaces you.”

  He paced back up to his rightful place to windward, took hold of the bulwarks, and gripped, trying to divine what message the sea sent up his arms. They were too far out to feel the return waves from the lee shore of the distant islands, but in his mind’s eye, he could see HMS Proteus at tomorrow’s dawn, perhaps halfway up the coast above Basse-Terre, the main lee-side port on Guadeloupe.