A Hard, Cruel Shore

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Never met either of ’em,” Lewrie grumbled. “Does Harry’s boy resemble an otter like his father?”

  Old Sir Romney Embleton had been a distinguished-looking man, but Harry had not inherited a noble profile.

  “No future in either, I expect,” Hugh said, sounding surprisingly mature for his years. “Charlotte would need five hundred pounds to tempt the Oakes family, and, isn’t there bad blood ’twixt you and Sir Harry?”

  “Of long standing,” Lewrie said, laughing as he repeated that bit of family lore. Harry had sort of “set his cap” for Caroline, and had been wroth when a nobody half-pay Navy Lieutenant and friend of the Chiswick brothers had turned up as a house guest and had won her heart. Harry had made such a scene at one morning’s fox hunt that Caroline had lashed him cross the face with her reins and had made Harry’s nose “spout claret”! He’d not attended their wedding day, either, though Sir Romney had.

  “God, I wish I’d been alive to see that!” Hugh said, laughing along with him. “We’ll never drink at the Red Swan, none of us.”

  “The Olde Ploughman is good enough for the likes of us,” Lewrie agreed. “And their beer is better.”

  “I’m just beginning to realise that we live in a ‘rotten borough’,” Hugh said. “Not twenty men who hold the franchise, and most of them go to the Red Swan, where they’re beholden to the Embletons, and send Sir Harry to the Commons time after time.”

  “Aye, perhaps it’s best we aren’t there full time, else we’d not vote for Harry, or your Uncle Governour for Magistrate, and the whole borough’d be howlin’ for our blood.”

  “Ah, that was tasty,” Hugh said as he laid his spoon aside and drew his pocket watch out to determine the time. “I’m sorry, but I must get back to the quays. I’ve left my hands idle much too long.”

  “I’ll walk you back,” Lewrie said, summoning the waiter for the bill, and pronouncing queria a conta, por favor the right way.

  Good Christ, he’s taller than me! Lewrie realised as they walked towards the waterfront; He tops me by two inches, at least!

  Whilst Sewallis had gotten Lewrie’s mid-brown hair and his mother’s amber eyes, Hugh had gotten Caroline’s lighter near-blond hair and Lewrie’s grey-blue eyes. And, somewhere along the line, his youngest son had developed into a wide-shouldered, lean and muscular near-adult, one whom Lewrie could admire and be proud of. Sewallis, his eldest … well, the jury was still deliberating on that’un.

  “Damme, another bloody funeral procession,” Lewrie carped as their way was blocked by the emergence of an array of saintly statues borne on platforms, an ornate coffin, and a train of mourners, with a grim-faced priest leading the way, and robed acolytes carrying the censors and crosses. “They do a lot o’ dyin’ in Lisbon, I suppose.”

  “Captain Chalmers says that we should show respect,” Hugh said as he took off his hat and laid it on his breast.

  “Can’t hurt, I suppose,” Lewrie said, emulating his son. They both lowered their heads as the coffin passed by.

  Upon looking back up, however, Lewrie felt his bowels shrivel. They were almost directly across the street from Mountjoy’s offices, the innocent-sounding Falmouth Import & Export Company Ltd. And who should be right by the doors, crossing herself like a properly respectful Catholic lady, than Maddalena!

  This won’t end well, Lewrie told himself; Maybe Hugh won’t …

  “Ehm, father … doesn’t that woman there by the doors look the spitting image of that Miss … what’s her name that you introduced me to back at Gibraltar?” Hugh asked.

  “Uhm … possibly,” Lewrie waffled.

  “It is!” Hugh blurted. “Miss Margaret? No. Maria? Covee-something or other.”

  “Maddalena Covilhā,” Lewrie confessed. “Yes, it is her.”

  “My word!” Hugh exclaimed. “Dare I ask you … congratulate you, rather, on just how you managed to bring her here, sir?”

  “You’re not scandalised?” Lewrie marvelled.

  “Mother’s gone, the last seven years, father,” Hugh said with a worldly shrug, “and you’re a man of the world, not a tonsured monk in a dank cell. Expecting you, any widower, to shun that part of his life is foolishness.”

  Damme, he is my little acorn! Lewrie gratefully thought.

  “It’d be best did you not tell Sewallis or Charlotte of it,” Lewrie cautioned. “Or your Aunt and Uncle. Or your Captain. I’m sure he thinks me an un-redeemable sinner, already, and he’s quick with the dis-believing glance.”

  “Mum’s the word, father,” Hugh promised, grinning. “Oh, she’s spotted us. It’d only be polite to cross over and say hallo.”

  “S’pose it would be,” Lewrie hesitantly agreed, waving at her and crossing the street.

  In for the penny, in for the pound, he thought, plastering a a warm smile on his “phyz” to make re-introductions.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  During the shore supper that Lewrie hosted, Commander Teague had raised the subject of shore liberty for the squadron’s sailors, and Lewrie had said that he would consider it, once re-provisioning had been completed. The more he thought of it, though, shore liberty looked less appealing, even if his Sapphires had grown used to that freedom, and might turn sullen at its lack. He had ordered the Easy Pendant be hoisted to put all ships Out of Discipline, but only for one day. As enjoyable as he found Lisbon, and time to be with Maddalena, he felt an anxious urge to be back at sea.

  * * *

  “You leave tomorrow?” Maddalena exclaimed, drawing back from his embrace, looking a tad startled.

  “First light, weather permittin’,” Lewrie told her.

  “But, you just got here only a few days ago,” she complained, turning pout-ish.

  “I know, m’dear, but I have to,” Lewrie said, enjoying a view of her bare body as she propped herself up on an elbow. He’d waited ’til after their lovemaking before breaking the news, hoping that she might take it better. “Blame it on your employer. He told me that the French are makin’ hay in the days we aren’t on the coast, and we have t’cut our time in port short and get back up there, soonest.”

  “Making … hay?” Maddalena puzzled. “For their horses?”

  “It’s an expression,” Lewrie had to explain. “One makes hay in the sunshine, quick as one can, lest it rains before the crop’s in. As soon as we quit the coast, they scuttle out like roaches and make the most of the time we give ’em.”

  Maddalena Covilhā was a bright and intelligent young woman, multi-lingual and well read, but casual English speech idioms now and then tripped her up, despite her formal grasp of the language.

  “But, you will be back soon?” Maddalena cooed as she slinked back to cuddle close once more, most enticingly.

  “Well, I really can’t say,” Lewrie had to dis-abuse her notions once more. “We have t’stay on station as long as we can, and that’ll be weeks and weeks. With decent winds, it’s three days there and three back. Three or four days at Lisbon, that gives the Frogs almost a fortnight free of interference. And Mountjoy also told me that even when we are there, there’s only so much that five ships can do, and they’re still gettin’ their supplies, ready as clockwork.”

  “Oh, I wish that we were still back at Gibraltar,” Maddalena said with a long sigh. “You were never gone very long.”

  “Sorry ye came, girl?” Lewrie asked in a fond whisper.

  “No, meu amor, of course not,” she replied, her face hidden against his shoulder. Her denial, though, did not sound heartfelt, more rote than sincere. “I missed you so much after you sailed off to Corunna, never knowing if, or when, you would return … I … I had hoped for more time with you.”

  “Well, that’s my dearest wish, too, Maddalena,” Lewrie was quick to assure her, shifting about in the bed to look her in the eyes. “Else, I’d never have sent for you. But I did, didn’t I, hey? Didn’t hunt up some other young woman here, some Lisboêta. No, I sent for you. ’Cause I wanted to. Wanted you, no matter how short our time
together might be. I thought we’d have longer between voyages, but … it’s the war, and the Navy, and my duty.”

  “Oh, Alan,” she cooed, melting, and pressed close once more, kissing him deeply. Even if he could feel faint tears on her cheeks.

  * * *

  There had been time for a last bath at the bagnio, one last supper together, then it was time to part, and Lewrie made his solo way to the quays and a hired boat out to HMS Sapphire.

  To the war, to the Navy, and his Duty.

  And, once the squadron had a way on, falling down the Tagus to the open sea, Lewrie stood by the starboard bulwarks of the poop deck with his telescope extended to seek out Maddalena’s balcony. In the past at Gibraltar, he could rely upon the sight of her whenever his ship set sail, or returned to port, bidding him goodbye, or welcoming him back with a gaily-waving tea towel.

  He counted the tiers of buildings upwards from the flat land and the broad thoroughfare that ran along the Tagus’s banks, up past the town blocks of the Baixa district as his ship came level with it, seeking out the lodging house with the green awnings, finally found it, and … nothing. Nothing waving, no sign of her, the glint of dawn reflecting off the glazed double doors, and perhaps he could make out a hint of her warbler’s brass cage, and a flutter of red as it flitted … but no Maddalena.

  Damme, does she go t’work for Mountjoy this early? Or, is she out to breakfast? he asked himself, made a face, and let out a long, disappointed sigh. He lowered his telescope and slowly collapsed the tubes, feeling let down somehow.

  Woof, and there was Bisquit, sitting on his hindquarters by Lewrie’s side, giving him a playful nudge for attention on the back of his knee.

  “And a fine mornin’ t’you, Bisquit,” Lewrie said, reaching down to give the dog some petting. “At least I can count on you, hey? Oh, yes! Ye beat ‘working’ women all hollow, ye do.”

  * * *

  Off the Costa de Morte, the Sterling frigate and the Blaze sloop departed the squadron to return to their hunting grounds, but Lewrie kept Sapphire with Undaunted and Peregrine to have a look at the enemy-held harbours to the East, and the French ports of Bayonne and Arcachon, mostly out of sheer bloody-minded curiosity, and on the chance that, with their operating area closest to French naval ports, Capt. Chalmers and Commander Blamey might need backing if the enemy had decided to provide escorts to their precious convoys.

  Of course, the weather in that corner of the Southern-most Bay of Biscay was squally one day out of three, with lashings of early Summer rain. With iron water tanks or traditional casks full, and fresh from Lisbon’s abundant washing facilities, there was little need to rig the canvas sluices to funnel rainwater into storage, or for the ships to sprout laundry, yet. When the weather did pipe up, it was necessary to take in the royals and t’gallants, gasket them and lower the yards, and reef the tops’ls, sometimes even taking a reef in the main course, but so far the winds did not rise to a full gale which would have demanded striking top-masts.

  * * *

  It was on one of those rainy, somewhat blustery mornings that Lewrie left the comfort, and dryness, of his great-cabins and went out to the quarterdeck, swathed in a tarred canvas knee-length coat and one of his oldest hats. He paused under the relative shelter of the poop deck overhang, readying himself for a long, slow soaking.

  “Stayin’ dry, Private Quiller?” he asked the Marine sentry who guarded his entry door, who had sprung to rigid attention.

  “Ehm, aye, sir … mostly,” the sentry replied, darting a half-glance in Lewrie’s direction, and speaking from the corner of his mouth, sure that his officers, sergeants, or corporals would give him Hell if they caught him at it.

  Lewrie stepped out round the Quartermasters manning the helm, took a peek into the compass binnacle to note the course steered, and put his hands in the small of his back to pace forward to the cross-deck hammock stanchions so he could look down into the ship’s waist.

  “Bowline on a bight,” Midshipman Hillhouse was demanding of the youngest lads, Fywell, Chenery, and Holbrook below in the waist. “Passable … now, sheet bend, quick as you can. Sheet bend, not a marling-spike knot, Mister Chenery.” Beyond them, several of the ship’s boys were emulating the lessons with lengths of small-stuff instead of one-inch manila. Hillhouse looked up for a moment with an exasperated expression to deplore his newest students.

  Lewrie paced back to the helm, eyes aloft on the set of the sails, the commissioning pendant, and the weather, blinking away the rain. He stopped short as he beheld the odd sight of his First Officer and Sailing Master, both hard-handed “tarpaulin men”, sheltering like shopkeepers. Mr. Yelland was standing half-in the open door to his starboard-side sea-cabin with a mug of something in his hand and looking out as if regretting a loss of trade on such a day. On the larboard side, Lt. Westcott stood in the open door to the chart room, idly puffing away on one of his cigarros, and not looking sheepish to do so.

  “All’s well, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked with a teasing brow up as he neared him.

  “Simply fine, sir,” Westcott said with a tap of fingers on the front of his hat. “Just pencilling in dead-reckoning of our postion … and considering fumigating the chart room,” he added, wiggling his cigarro.

  “Pests?” Lewrie asked. Every now and then, ships had to be scoured with vinegar then smoked with burning faggots of tobacco to rid them of accumulated stinks and insects.

  “Mister Yelland, sir,” Westcott said in a whisper with a grin on his phyz. “He spends so much time in here I can smell his aroma on the paper charts. How his sea cabin reeks can only be imagined,” he said with a mock gagging. “I wish you could order him to bathe.”

  “It may be against his religion, or something,” Lewrie had to tell him. “One when you’re born, one when you’re wed, and one just before they put you in the ground?”

  With so many un-bathed men aboard, and their dirtied clothes, their wet wool, and the reeks rising from salt-meat casks on the orlop, ships couldn’t help but stink.

  “Pity, ’cause he’s so very off-putting at meals in the wardroom,” Westcott groused, blowing a large cloud of smoke back into the chart room. “But, at least all the flies and such gravitate to his end of the table.”

  Lewrie ducked out from under the overhang to look at the sky for a moment, then ducked back. “We’ll not see the sun today, and we dasn’t close the coast ’til we do, so … show me where we are, or where you think we are.”

  The rich and mellow aroma of Westcott’s cigarro really did alleviate the nigh-foetid odour of the chart room as they bent over the slant-top desk to follow the hourly-taken marks of course and speed recorded by the chip-log.

  “By this reckoning, I’d say we’re fourty miles Nor’west of Santander,” Westcott said, tapping the brass dividers at the last X along the pencilled track, “and making an average of five and a half to six knots. At this rate, assuming the winds stay steady, we can expect to be almost level with Bilbao round noon tomorrow. If the bloody skies clear and the sun comes out…?” Westcott said with a huge iff-ish shrug.

  “And if it don’t, we’ll have to alter course and close the coast,” Lewrie said, “before we run aground somewhere North of Bayonne, in France.”

  “Maybe we’ll find some trade there, for there’s none out this far from the coast,” Westcott said, tossing the dividers aside. “Is it true that we’re only getting Head and Gun Money for our Spanish frigate?”

  “’Fraid so,” Lewrie admitted. “Droits of the Crown, mine arse.”

  “At least it’s something in my bank account,” Westcott sighed. “Something for my ‘hope chest’, hah hah?”

  “But, Geoffrey … what is it you’re hopin’ for?” Lewrie asked.

  “A month entire in London’s most expensive brothel,” Westcott sniggered.

  “Then we’ll just have to snatch more prizes from the French,” Lewrie told him. “We’re doin’ main-well, so far, and if our army gets us Oporto, we can spend even more ti
me at it, without havin’ t’sail back to Lisbon.”

  “Pity, that,” Westcott said. “I rather like Lisbon, and I’ve established good relations with a couple of willing young things … as I gather you have, as well?” he leered.

  “Miss Covilhā has removed from Gibraltar, yes,” was as far as Lewrie would confess. “Even making a living on the side, translatin’ for Mountjoy and his lot.”

  “Ah, the things this war will make us do.” Westcott laughed, stuck his cigarro in one corner of his mouth, left the chart room with one more “cleansing” puff, and stepped aside so Lewrie could precede him to the quarterdeck.

  Whilst Lt. Westcott resumed his post as Officer of the Watch, Lewrie drifted over to the starboard side to speak with the Sailing Master and confer on the course and position.

  “About right, sir,” Yelland said, agreeing with Lt. Westcott’s guess-timate. “What I’d give, though, for a clear Noon Sight of the sun.”

  “Is that … cider in your mug, sir?” Lewrie had to ask.

  “Ginger beer, sir,” Mr. Yelland was happy to announce. “Found a keg in a wine shop at Lisbon, and God only knows how they got it. Didn’t know what to do with it, really, once the army marched off, and there weren’t many with a taste for it left. Got it for a song, I did. Always was partial to ginger beer, And it goes well with a dollop of rum.”

  “Spanish bowline … go!” Midshipman Hillhouse cried to his students up forward in the waist.

  “Meant to ask,” Lewrie hesitantly enquired, “how has Hillhouse taken to his charge over the newer Mids?”

  “Surprisingly well, sir,” Yelland told him. “Not at first, oh no, but he’s come round to being a hellish-good schoolmaster. I think it takes his mind off his failure at his last attempt at the examinations. Teaching others what he knows may have focussed his mind and loosened his tangled tongue, to boot. So, if he stands for the next exams, he just might pass this time.”