“Tell me of it … once we sample this wine,” Lewrie urged.
“To victory!” Gilbao responded, allowing them to drink deeply. It was a heavenly white wine, light, flower-scented, and with hints of the slightest sweetness, much like a German Riesling.
“That is good,” Lewrie agreed, almost smacking his lips.
“The newspapers from Lisbon and Oporto arrived only three days ago,” Gilbao informed him, “both in Portuguese, and the mercantile papers printed in English for the many expatriates. I have a copy of the mercantile paper, if you would like to read it. Or, take it with you to your ship.”
“You are most gracious, Senhor Gilbao, thank you,” Lewrie told him with a smile and a seated bow as Gilbao finished his wine, then rose to cross to his desk to shuffle through a neat pile of correspondence to fetch the newspaper.
“I must warn you that not all the news is good, senhor,” Gilbao said as he returned and handed the paper to Lewrie. “The French and Spanish lost at least twenty ships, but … the gallant Admiral Nelson sadly perished.”
“Nelson? Dead?” Lewrie exclaimed, dropping his hand and the newspaper to his lap in shock.
“Shot down by a French Marine in the fighting tops and taken below to the surgeons, who could do nothing for him,” Gilbao said with a sombre tone, shaking his head in sorrow as he sat back down to pour them top-ups.
“The little minikin,” Lewrie muttered, shaking his own head. “He always did say, ‘Death or Glory’ … ‘Victory or Westminster Abbey’. At Cape Saint Vincent, he ordered me to join him in facing the entire Spanish van, just his sixty-four and my sloop of war. ‘Follow me, Lewrie,’ he yelled. ‘We’re bound for glory!’ I suppose he’s got his spot in Westminster Abbey, at last.”
“You knew him, senhor?” Gilbao marvelled. “You must tell me all of what you know of such a hero.”
“I did not know him well, sir,” Lewrie said in preface, cautioning Gilbao that he could not relate all that much—quite unlike the supper ball at Nassau—and heaving a small shrug. “We ran across each other several times, but he was always senior to me, and I doubt if I mattered to him. I was not in his intimate circle.”
And, I’ll not mention Emma Hamilton unless he asks, I won’t say a word about how vainglorious he was, or how pettish he could be, either, Lewrie chid himself.
* * *
Later that morning, wandering the small town’s streets to shop for his personal needs, and have a look-see, Lewrie felt a rare and odd out-of-sorts malaise take him, almost a light-headed separate-ness he could not blame on three glasses of Gilbao’s excellent light wine. He stopped in the shade of a row of trees, facing the waterfront to watch bum-boats and barges plying between the shore and the transports with loads of bagged grain and bales of hay, kegs of water, and beer.
There was an iron bench with wooden slats, and he sat himself down. The English-language Portuguese newspaper crinkled as he did so, and he pulled it from his coat side-pocket to re-read the account of the battle. It was a sketchy article, since no news writer had been on the scene, and was likely based on third- or fourth-party word of mouth. If a Royal Navy ship had put into Lisbon or Oporto, one which had participated in the battle and was in need of firewood and water, or light repairs, that might explain how twenty enemy ships had been reportedly taken, not some vague number like “dozens” or “many”. Not all had been kept, for the winds and seas had gotten up after the hard fight was over, and several prizes had been wrecked on the shore about Cádiz, and some re-taken by their own crews.
Even so, Nelson’s victory was a death-blow to French hopes for their long-expected invasion of the British Isles. Without their fleet to cover the crossing of the Channel by their thousands of small craft, or a fleet-in-being and at sea to draw off warships from Channel Fleet, to reduce English resistance, there was no way for Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to risk the loss of his massive army which he had planned to cram into those small boats. People in England could draw deep breaths and sleep soundly in their beds, after years of dread.
Bonaparte had sent Missiessy and Villeneuve to the West Indies and back to lure the Royal Navy away from the defence of the Channel, and the ruse had failed, thank God. Bonaparte had been too clever for his own good, and he had thrown a significant part of his navy away for nothing.
Thank God Boney’s a soldier, Lewrie thought with a snort of derision; They’re not the sharpest wits, and know nothing of the sea.
Nelson, though … dead and gone.
Nelson’s gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
News of the grand victory off Cape Trafalgar was heartily welcome aboard Reliant, though tempered by a sense of grief that Nelson had been slain. The victory was given three cheers aboard the transports, too, and perhaps some soldiers of the 34th might have felt some sadness over the Admiral’s loss, but while Nelson had been a national hero, he had not been an Army hero, so it did not affect them as sorely. Now, if they had heard that Jim Belcher, Tom Cribb, or Daniel Mendoza, their favourite champion boxers, had died, they would have mourned.
What really made the Army officers unhappy was Lewrie’s estimate that their passage South would be much longer than the first leg from Portsmouth. Once round the same latitude of Cape Verde, they would lose the steady Nor’east Trade winds, and would face winds from the Sou’east, requiring all ships to make many tacks, going “close-hauled to weather”, to make ground. They found it hard to fathom that beating to weather would take one hundred and eighty or two hundred and ten miles veering back and forth to make sixty or seventy miles South each day. Making their passage even longer were the currents; there was an Equatorial Current that would be favourable all the way round the Western coast of Africa ’til the Ivory Coast, but then they would meet both the South Equatorial Current, which would smack them square on their bows, and the counter currents which could swirl them into the Gulf of Guinea, and be foul against them whenever their course had to be seaward, or waft them shoreward and onto the shoals. The quickest course, he told them, would lie closest to shore, emulating the ancient explorers such as Vasco da Gama. Further out to sea lay the Doldrums, the Horse Latitudes, where there were confusing, swirling currents, and no wind for weeks at a time; so named for the complete loss of horses carried by earlier expeditions, when the food and water ran out.
* * *
“I wonder what the soldiers will do when we cross the Equator, sir,” Lt. Westcott mused as the peaks of Madeira shrank and shortened astern. Westcott looked in merry takings, quite chipper in point of fact. A brief half-day ashore at Funchal, and a visit to that highly recommended brothel, had done him wonders.
“Have a group, ceremonial vomit, I’d imagine,” Lewrie chirped back, rocking on the soles of his boots with his hands clapped in the small of his back, and relishing the fresh breezes and the easy motion of their frigate. “Why change routine just because they’ll be crossing the line?”
“I was just wondering how they would welcome King Neptune and his Court aboard, sir,” Westcott said with a laugh.
“I doubt they’d do anything,” Lewrie mused, tickled by an image of riot. “Who’d enforce the rites? The transports are manned at the rate of five sailors and one ship’s boy per every hundred tons, plus the master, two mates, and perhaps five or six more petty officers. If they tried to initiate the soldiers, I expect they’d end with their throats cut. Speaking of, Mister Westcott … you have made plain to our ‘shellbacks’ that they’d best make their revels harmless, with no insults against any superiors?”
“I have, sir,” Westcott replied with a stern nod.
“Having been ‘anointed’ once, myself, and a ‘shellback’ several times over, I intend to stand and watch and enjoy the ceremony. But, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie teased with a leer. “You have not yet said if you have ever crossed the Equator. Have you, sir?”
“Ehm … I fear that my naval career has taken me no further South than Trinidad, sir,” Westcott hesitantly confessed.
 
; “A ‘Pollywog’ are ye, sir?” Lewrie purred, leaning a tad closer to grin. “Oh, how jolly this will be!” Then, to Lt. Westcott’s consternation, Lewrie strolled off to the weather rails, his step jaunty, and humming a gay air. Now there was something to look forward to!
* * *
The first few days out of Funchal, they still had the Nor’east Trade winds, so the going was good as they sailed past the Spanish Canary Islands with the isles only fifty or sixty miles East of them.
The next few days were also passable as Lewrie led the convoy almost Due South across the Tropic of Cancer, the 20th Latitude, then down the wide strait between the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands and Cape Vert on the shoulder of Africa, where the Equatorial Counter Current, the swirling eddies off that, and the Sou’east Trades began to greet them.
Round the 10th North Latitude, though, the perverse Sou’east Trades forced them to stand Sou’-Sou’west, close-hauled towards eventual shoaling waters, which were badly or sketchily charted, and then all four ships would have to make a heart-breaking turn to the East-Nor’east and sail back towards Africa, losing ground ’til the shore could be seen from the cross-trees, and they would tack and bear off Sou’-Sou’west once more, and safely out to seaward. To make matters worse, it was growing hotter, even though they were well into early December, and the sun, so friendly round Madeira, began to feel brutal, and Surgeon Mr. Mainwaring had little in the way of balms to ease unwary sailors’ burns when they worked shirtless.
A little South of the 5th North Latitude, on a shoreward tack, they raised Cape Palmas, the Southwestern limit of the Western bulge of the African continent, and stood away Sou’-Sou’west once more.
At least the next time they had to tack shoreward, there would be hundreds of miles of sea-room before they fetched the coast again, deep into the Gulf of Guinea.
A day or two more and they would cross the Equator, where the Bosun, Mr. Sprague, and his mates and some of the other older, saltier hands would hold court. They were already cackling among themselves and rubbing their hoary palms in glee.
It was then that Pettus, over breakfast, pointed out to Lewrie that Toulon was not acting his normal self.
“Toulon? What’s wrong with him?” Lewrie asked. His older cat had been all laps and affection the last week. He looked to the foot of his dining table, where Toulon and Chalky sat by their food bowls.
“He doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite, sir. At first, I took no notice, but now?” Pettus said, pointing down-table.
Yeovill had whipped up the last of the eggs purchased at Funchal in an omelet, a third of it laced with dried sausage bits and shreds of bacon just for the cats. Chalky was nibbling away at his bowl, but Toulon was just hunkered down over his, paying no heed to the welcoming aromas, and just staring off into the middle distance, eyes half-slit as if he was napping. And, when Chalky had polished off his own bowl and nudged Toulon aside to wolf down his as well, Toulon paid no heed. He had never been the assertive cat, but allowing himself to be robbed?
Lewrie left his plate, and his chair, to go to the other end of the table and stroke Toulon. “What’s wrong, littl’un? What’s put you off your victuals? Are ye feelin’ ill?”
Toulon looked up at him, made a meek little Mrr, and licked at Lewrie’s hand. Lewrie pulled out the chair at that end of the table and sat down to gather Toulon into his arms, where the cat went willingly, starting to purr.
“My Lord, he’s light as a feather!” Lewrie exclaimed. “Ye can feel his ribs, and his backbone. Here, Toulon, have a wee bite or two. Come on, now.” Lewrie dug into the food bowl for a tiny morsel of sausage and put it under Toulon’s nose, but he would have none of it.
Jessop had come to the end of the table to watch.
“’E’s been pissin’ a lot, too, sir,” Jessop informed him, “an’ ’ardly ever in their sand box. Seems all ’e warnts t’do is sleep, an’ drink water. Won’t play like ’e usedta.”
“Whenever you’re on deck, sir, he’s most likely to be found in the starboard quarter gallery,” Pettus contributed, “napping atop the crates and chests, so he’s level, with the windows. I thought that he was just watching sea birds.”
Lewrie cradled Toulon, stroking his cheeks and chops with one finger, and Toulon tilted his head to look up and meet Lewrie eye-to-eye, slowly and solemnly blinking. He might be softly purring, but his tail tip did not move.
Lewrie sat him back on the table right over his food bowl, now all but empty after Chalky’s raid, got to his feet, and went for the door to the ship’s waist. Coatless and bareheaded, he mounted to the quarterdeck. Lt. Spendlove, the officer of the watch, began to move leeward to cede the weather rails to his captain, but Lewrie stopped him with a question. “Have you seen the Surgeon, Mister Spendlove?”
“At breakfast, sir,” Spendlove replied, knuckling the brim of his hat in salute. “I believe he is forrud, holding the morning sick call. Shall I pass word for him, sir?”
“No, I’ll go forrud,” Lewrie told him, and went back to the deck to make his way to the forecastle. Bisquit the ship’s dog darted out of his cobbled-together shelter under the starboard ladderway and came bouncing to join him, prancing for attention, Lewrie took time to give Bisquit some pets and “wubbies” before reaching the forecastle.
HMS Reliant was a modern ship. Her sick-bay was not below in the foetid miasmas of the orlop, but right forward, where the warmth from the galley fires could keep patients comfortable in cold weather, and still provide fresher air during their recovery. In battle, surgeries and the treatment of wounded men would still take place on the orlop, in the Midshipmen’s cockpit, but after as many wounded as could be accommodated under the forecastle would be moved there.
“Good morning, Mister Mainwaring,” Lewrie began.
“Ah, good morning, Captain,” Mr. Mainwaring cheerfully replied. He was a burly, dark-haired, and swarthy-complexioned man, with hands and fingers more suited to a blacksmith or butcher, but he had turned out to be a skilled and able surgeon for all that.
“How are things this morning?” Lewrie asked.
“Tolerable, sir,” Mainwaring told him, “I’ve one bad tooth that needs pulling, some saltwater boils to lance, and more men with sunburn. Collins, yonder, I’ve put on light duties for three days, after he pulled some muscles at pulley-hauley.”
“Fetchin’ up fresh water casks, was it, Collins?” Lewrie asked.
“Aye, sir, it was,” the young fellow shyly admitted, grinning.
“Enjoy it while you can, Collins,” Lewrie said, then turned to the Ship’s Surgeon. “When you’re done here, Mister Mainwaring, I’d admire did you attend me in my cabins.”
“Shouldn’t be more than an hour, sir, then I am at your complete disposal,” Mainwaring agreed, turning back to the bare buttocks of one sailor bent over a rough wood table, waiting for the jab of a lancet.
“Wonder if t’ Cap’um’s askin’ f’r t’ Mercury Cure,” one sailor whispered in jest once Lewrie was gone. “Mad as ’e is over quim, it’s a wonder ’e ain’t been Poxed yet. Has the lucky cess, ’e does.”
“Now, we’ll have none of that, Harper,” Mr. Mainwaring chid him. “There’s your boils to be seen to, next, hmm?”
“It’d be Mister Westcott, more in need than Cap’um Lewrie,” one of the others snickered.
“Now, now,” Mainwaring cautioned again, trying to appear stern; though his mouth did curl up in the corners in secret amusement.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Ship’s Surgeon, Mister Mainwaring, SAH!” the Marine sentry at Lewrie’s doors cried, stamping his boots and musket butt on the deck.
“Enter,” Lewrie called back. “All went well, sir?” he asked as Mainwaring stepped inside and approached the desk in the day-cabin.
“Quite well, sir,” the Surgeon replied. “What may I do for you, Captain Lewrie? Some malady that ails you?”
“It is a rather odd request, but I wonder if you might be able to use your general knowledge o
f anatomy to aid me.”
“Indeed, sir?” Mainwaring said, a bit perplexed.
“A glass of wine, sir?” Lewrie said, pointing to a chair before his desk in invitation.
“Ehm … I’ve been told by the others in our mess that your cool tea is quite refreshing, Captain,” Mainwaring said with a hopeful grin. “I would prefer to sample that, have you any brewed.”
“Always,” Lewrie said with his own grin. “Pettus, a glass of tea for the both of us.” Once the Surgeon was seated, Lewrie went on. “It is not my health that is in question, Mister Mainwaring. It’s my cat.”
Mainwaring pulled a dubious face, mugging in surprise. He had been a Navy Surgeon long enough to know that most ship’s captains were possessed of some eccentricities, and some of them daft as bats.
“Bless me, Captain … your cat, did you say?” Mainwaring said. “I fear that I know next to nothing of dogs or cats. I doubt if anyone does, really. What symptoms does it present?”
Lewrie laid out the moroseness, the sudden lack of appetite and the sudden weight loss, the incontinence, and thirst. Mainwaring sat and hmmed, nodding sagely here and there.
“And how old is it, sir?” Mainwaring at last enquired.
“Over eleven,” Lewrie told him. “I got him as a kitten in the Fall of ’94, just as we were evacuating Toulon during the First Coalition. That’s how he got his name. That, and him, were calamities.”
“Well, off-hand, I’d say that it is suffering renal failure,” Mainwaring supposed, “a malady which comes to man and beast in their dotage. The kidneys stop working, for one reason or another, and the sufferer wastes away, becoming enfeebled. There’s little that I may do for it, sir … little that even a skilled, university-trained physician may do for a man in such a situation.”
“I see,” Lewrie said, crestfallen. “He’s dyin’, d’ye mean. I’d hoped…”
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