“Aye, sir,” Alan said. “I believe I do.”
“No more of your moonshines, no more boyish pranks and japes,” Railsford went on. “You’re in an important job now, and too many people depend on you. I know you fairly well, and I trust you with the well-being of this ship when you have charge of the deck, as you will, shorthanded as we are. The captain has put his utmost trust in you as well. That’s something new for you, being trusted, I know.”
“Aye, it is, sir,” Alan had to admit, feeling a surge of pride that people were beginning to put power in his hands and delegate authority to his judgment, something that would never have happened in his former life as a rake-hell back in London. “Very sobering.”
“Odd choice of words with the reek of the wine-table on your breath.” Railsford grinned suddenly. “Enough said for now, then. Get.”
Alan went below to the lower deck, then aft to the midshipmen’s mess and took hold of his chest to drag it into a vacant dog-box cabin, to Avery’s consternation. He had Freeling make up his narrow berth and hung up some spare clothes from the pegs. Like the tiny quarters aboard the schooner Parrot that had been meant for privateer prize masters, the dog-box was made up of thin deal partitions and a canvas door that enclosed a space just large enough for the bed, his chest, a tiny book rack, a mirror and wash stand, and the line of pegs that would be his wardrobe; but it was his, all his, and he could shut the door like a commissioned officer and turn off the sounds of the ship when he was off watch, could even have a lie-down instead of waiting for the evening pipe to call the hands to reclaim their hammocks. There was a small pewter lamp gimbaled on a swinging mount over the head-board of the bed, which he could burn later than others to read in bed, if he felt like it, until nine at night.
He doubted, though, if he would be using that berth much, not if he wished to shine at his new duties and not let Rails-ford down after the serious nature of the warning he had given him. He did not know if he really felt that devotion to Treghues that Railsford had asked for; Treghues was too alien to his sybaritic nature, too cold and puritanical, too swept up in morality (which was damned rare in these times), but the gunner, Mister Gwynn, had said once before that Treghues would take a great affection for someone for the oddest reasons and dote on them before turning on them again for reasons unknown. The wheel had come half circle, and he was no longer a Godless sinner in the captain’s eyes. He was now in favor, and he did not intend to let anything put a blot on that new reputation, not if he could help it.
He could, however, show true devotion to Railsford, and to Monk and the other senior warrants who had held a good opinion of him even in the worst days of Treghues’s displeasure. He could feel a warm stirring in his soul when he thought of Desperate tarred with a dirty brush, and that could sustain him. By devoting himself to earning his advancement he could fulfill everyone’s expectations, and backhandedly give Treghues his share in the process.
“It’s going to be hard work,” he whispered to himself in the privacy of his little cabin. “But I’ve learned enough to handle hard work. I can do this. But damme if I can see how I can have much fun in the next few months.”
Was it unspoken displeasure at Desperate? It was hard to figure out, but, with the passing of the equinox, the Leeward Islands Squadron had to go back to the West Indies, or winter on the American coast, so they sailed. Desperate, however, was left behind, to replace artillery at first, refit and restock provisions, and then be sent off with some lighter ships for Wilmington, North Carolina. Lord Cornwallis had taken most of the good troops in the south up to Yorktown, and they were lost forever. Charleston was still strongly garrisoned but had no men to spare for the minor ports. Wilmington would be evacuated, and Desperate would take part in the evacuation flotilla, the strongest ship in their little gathering. With Monk, Alan spent hours off watch, poring over the Cape Fear charts, for it was the very devil of a place to enter safely.
South of Onslow Bay and a former pirate’s lair known as Topsail Island, there was a long peninsula that hooked south like a saber blade, narrowing at the tip to a malarial spit of sand which held Fort Johnston to guard the entrance inlet to the Cape Fear River. There were dozens of low islands and seas of marsh and salt grass gathered around the mouth of the river, and only one safe, deep pass. The lower reaches of the river were pretty desolate, except around Brunswick, a town gradually losing out to Wilmington sixteen miles further upriver, and now almost taken back by the weeds and scrub pine. Wilmington was on the east, or seaward, bank of Cape Fear, hard to get to but a safe harbor in storms and a bustling trading center. For a time it had been Cornwallis’s headquarters before he had marched off to disaster in Virginia. Now the garrison that had been left behind, the troops and guns at Fort Johnston, were to be evacuated. Along with them would come the hundreds of Loyalists from the south-eastern portion of the colony, who had already fled the wrath of their cousins up-country.
Alan’s prophecy about using his cabin so seldom had come true on the way down from New York. If he was not on the orlop deck supervising the proper stowage of provisions and munitions, then he was standing night watches, fully in command of Desperate as her real officers slept. He kept log entries, saw that the glass was turned on the half hour and the bells were struck; that the course was steered as laid down and that the quartermasters on the wheel stayed awake. He toured below decks when he could to see that all lights were out and the hands were behaving, that the lookouts were attentive, that the night signal book was close at hand, and signal fusees ready for emergencies. He saw that the fire buckets were full, that the bosun of the watch and his hands were trimming the sails for best efficiency, that there was no navigational hazard in their path and no ship on a course for an imminent collision, that the knot log was cast to determine their speed at regular intervals and that in soundings along the coast the leadsmen regularly plumbed the ocean depths.
He also had to keep a weather eye out for privateers or some part of the French fleet, which had not been reported leaving the American coast yet and could still be somewhere nearby.
It was such a quantum leap in duties and responsibility that he almost (but not quite) swore off strong drink, and there was no rest, not for a moment on deck. At first he was too embarrassed to have to summon Railsford, Monk, or the captain at the slightest hint of doubt, and got cobbed for waiting too late. On the other hand, when he summoned them too often, he got cobbed for that, too, and developed a slightly haunted look after one week of his new duties.
There was some reward, even so; to stand on deck when everything was running smoothly, hands behind his back and rocking on the balls of his feet, feeling Desperate surge along with a tremble and hum of wind and sea on her rigging and hull, totally under his control. Four hundred and fifty tons of warship, worth more than twelve thousand pounds; aboard were twenty pieces of artillery, over one hundred fifty lives, and it was, for intervals, all his to command.
Another joy was to simply finish the middle watch, see the first hint of dawn, pipe up hands from below, sign the log, and turn things over to Railsford without incident. There might be a single grunt of satisfaction that he had done what was required without killing anyone, or sinking the ship in the process, or tearing the masts right out of her. Usually, there would be a quick conference aft as the hands knelt to scrub decks forward, and Railsford or Treghues would give him a critique on the night’s work—what he had done right and what he had done wrong. And so far, there had been enough right things to counterbalance the few wrong.
Another change was in the way he was remonstrated; no more being bent over a gun for a dozen strokes of a stiffened rope starter, no more tongue lashings. The cobbings were short, to the point and were couched as admonitions from a senior officer to a junior officer, done out of hearing from the hands so his authority with the crew would not suffer.
When he began, he thought he had been prepared for standing watch by his stint in the schooner Parrot, but he realized that that
period had been all play and schoolwork. Lieutenant Kenyon, Parrot’s master and commmander, had assigned Lewrie and the late Thad Purnell together to do the work of a single adult, with senior bosun’s mates or quartermasters to act as a safety net should they run into trouble, someone to prompt them into the right answer, keep them out of real difficulty, and keep their playfulness in check.
Desperate was not schoolwork, and there was no one to turn to as tutor in the night watches; he was the lone man with no one to backstop him. If he failed at this, he would never get another chance, so he took a round turn and two half hitches, as one said in naval parlance, and tried to begin to act like the sea-officer they expected him to be, and the sea-officer he aspired to be.
They sweated blood to make it in past Cape Fear (it was not named Fear for nought, after all) and into the river between the true coast and the long peninsula. If anything, it looked even more desolate than most stretches of the southern American coast, low barrier islands with only sea oats and dune grass, low forests of wind-sculpted pines on the banks, and the salt-grass marshes stretching off to either hand, with only swamp behind. Desperate could, by staying to the middle of the channel, just barely make it upriver, and that took real skill. With a tide running in, they could ride the flood, but would have no control over the helm. They had reefed tops’ls, jibs and spanker set, with a light wind off the great curve of Onslow Bay that gave them just enough forward momentum to give the rudder a bite, but not so much speed that they could run into trouble before dropping a kedge-anchor from the stern if they took the ground on the mud and sand shoals.
“Point ta starboard, quartermaster, put your helm ta loo’ard, handsomely, now,” Monk cautioned.
“Five fathom, five fathom to starboard!” the bosun’s mate in the foremast chains chanted.
“Sonofa . . .” Monk growled, wanting to stand on, but worried about shoaling. Off to larboard, there was an eddy that swirled as though the tidal flood was caressing something substantial, which he had just altered course to avoid.
“That’s a back eddy, Mister Monk,” Alan said, remembering how the current would spin about in the Cape Fear River from his earlier voyages in Parrot. “Lieutenant Kenyon said there was no harm in it, and we stood in quite close to it.”
“Aye, but what’d ya draw in yer schooner?” Monk asked, working on a quid of tobacco so vigorously it made Alan’s jaws ache to watch him.
“A foot over one fathom, sir. But the main channel was far off to the larboard, ran right up alongside Eagle Island.”
“Aye, if yer a coaster,” Monk said. “The Thoroughfare, they calls it, but it’s too shallow fer the likes o’ us.”
“And a half four.”
“Helm aweather half a point,” Monk said compromising.
“Six fathom, six fathom on this line,” the larboard man called.
“Aye,” Monk went on, puffing with relief to find deep water. “I s’pose ya know the main channel’s on the west side, ’least ’til ya get ta Old Town Creek an’ the Dram Tree?”
He pointed out a huge bearded cypress on the right bank farther upriver. “Bad shoal at Old Town Creek. Mosta the big ships don’t go no further than Campbell Island an’ the Dram Tree. Sailors take a dram afore hoistin’ sail fer a long voyage from the Cape Fear. What’s Campbell Island bear now?”
“Two points to larboard, sir.”
“Captain, my respects, an’ once past Campbell Island, I suggest we do anchor.”
“Very well, Mister Monk,” Treghues said lazily. “We’ll round up into the wind, let go the best bower and back the mizzen tops’l to let the wind and tide end her up bows down-river. Mister Coke?”
“Aye, sir?” the bosun said.
“I’ll not let her fall back too far from the bower, mind. Hang the kedge in the cutter and row her out to drop. Veer out half a cable aft and a half cable forrard. Take Mister Avery with one of your mates.”
“Aye, sir.”
Lewrie cast a glance at David Avery standing by the quarterdeck nettings overlooking the waist. Much like the change in attitude when Keith Ashburn had been made an acting lieutenant into Glatton, the squadron flagship when Alan’s first ship Ariadne was condemned, it seemed as if a friendship was being tested once more. In the past, it had been Keith Ashburn who had placed the distance between them to protect the authority of his new commission. Here, it was Avery who was distancing himself from Lewrie, finding it difficult to say “Alan” instead of “Mr. Lewrie” or “sir,” even in the mess. There did not seem to be any animosity, even though Avery had been in the Navy over four years and was still a midshipman, while Alan had risen like a comet to an acting mate in a little less than two. He was still friendly, but no longer close, and Alan regretted it. And there was little he could do about it without stepping out of role and playing favorites. Railsford had warned him of that one night when he had come on deck to catch a breeze. Best do it now, he had said, before new midshipmen come aboard, and you have no bad habits to break.
When they did receive new midshipmen, Alan and the new master’s mate who would be appointed into Desperate would have to rule the mess, supervise the newlies, and keep order without playing favorites. It was sad, all the same, just another slice of naval life Alan detested.
“Mister Railsford, round her up into the wind, if you would be so kind, and bring her to,” Treghues finally ordered. Desperate swung about in a tight turn, her helm hard over until her bows were pointed for the sea she had left. At a sharp arm gesture, the bower dropped into the water with a great splash and she began to pay off upriver, driven by tide and sea breeze on her backed mizzen tops’l, while everything else was handed or taken in by the topmen and fo’c’s’le-men. They spent half an hour rowing out the kedge-anchor from the stern, letting her go and winching the ship forward onto her bower; they lashed the heavy cable to the mooring bitts and hauled in on the kedge-cable until they had her firmly moored in the river fore and aft. The shallow coasters they had escorted in had to take what moorings they could, since Desperate, as leading ship up channel, had taken the best mooring for herself, and devil take the hindmost.
“Mister Railsford, now we’ve the cutter free, my compliments to you, and would you depute for me ashore with Major Craig concerning his plans for evacuation. There are orders from General Leslie in Charleston to convey, as well,” Treghues drawled.
“I should be delighted, sir.”
“Um, excuse me, sir,” Alan said.
“Aye, Mister Lewrie?” Treghues asked, turning to face him.
“If you would not mind, sir, I should like to go ashore with the first lieutenant,” Alan said.
“Not ten days into your new rating, and you think you have earned a right to caterwaul through the streets of this unfortunate town?” The captain frowned. “You disappoint me, Mister Lewrie. I had thought you had learned your lesson about debauchery.”
“Not debauchery, sir.” Alan gaped in a fair approximation of shock, or what he hoped would pass for it. “It is the Chiswick family, sir. You mind them, the officers that came off Jenkins Neck with me? Their family is here in Wilmington at last report, and I have tidings and money from their sons to help their passage. I promised Lieutenant Chiswick I would look them up, if possible, sir.”
“Hmm,” Treghues murmured, cradling his jaw to study him. “On your sacred honor, this is true, sir?”
“’Pon my sacred honor, sir,” Alan swore. “I gave them my word, sir.”
“Very well, then, but if you come back aboard the worse for wear, as you did in Charleston, I will not merely disrate you from master’s mate, I’ll put you forward as an ordinary seaman.”
“I understand, sir,” Alan said. And God, please don’t let me run across anything tempting this time! he pleaded silently.
They landed at the foot of Market and Third Street, just below St. James church and the white house that Cornwallis had used as his headquarters. The church was in terrible shape compared to the last time Alan had seen it, but
it was his destination, operating on the theory that Loyalists would be Church of England if they had any pretensions at all to gentility, and the parish vicar would know where the Chiswicks resided, if they were members.
He knocked on the door to the manse, and a wizened fellow came to open it, more a hedge-priest than anything else, dressed in black breeches and waistcoat gone rusty with age and abuse, and his linen and ample neck-stock a bit rusty as well, as though he had to wash and iron himself.
“Yes, what do you want, sir?” the man asked him, wiping his hands on a blue apron, and Alan wondered if the man was a curate or a publican doing double duty if the parish was not living enough.
“I am seeking information about a family named Chiswick, sir,” he said. “I thought perhaps they might be temporary members of your parish. Is the vicar in?”
“The rector is out, sir.” The man sniffed, eyeing the King’s uniform up and down as though it were a distasteful sight to him. “And I know no one by the name of Chiswick, not in our regular parish.”
“They came down from around Campbelltown,” Alan prompted. “New arrivals to Wilmington.”
“Oh.” The man frowned. “And their reason for leaving that country?”
“I believe they were burned out,” Alan said, getting a little put out with the man’s effrontery.
“Loyalists, then.” The man nodded, stiffening up and glowering.
“Here, this is Church of England still, is it not?”
“It is not, sir.” The man huffed up his small frame as though insulted. “More to the point, Episcopal, but not Church of England. Had we been else, Tarleton and his troopers would not have used our nave for a stable, sir!”
“Then who ministers to the Tories?” Alan demanded.
“We do, when called, sir. We are Christians, you know.”
“Couldn’t tell it by me. Who would know, then?”
“Try across the street at the Burgwin House, if you can come away with your soul from Major Craig’s torture cellars! Ask of your own kind! Good day to you, sir!” the little man said with satisfaction as he backed into the manse and closed the door.
The French Admiral Page 38
