Troubled Waters l-14

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Free to go? Really?" Lewrie breathlessly asked his attorney.

  "For now, yes, Captain Lewrie," MacDougall happily assured him. "Best we could expect, and thank God for Beauman behaving so de-witted! Doubt old Oglethorpe'll uphold the Jamaica trial, so… pardon me, my dear lady… a complete new trial will be necessary, and we both know that the Beaumans will press the matter hotly. Believe me when I tell you, though, Captain Lewrie, that I am more than ready for that, ha ha!"

  Christ, does it ever end? Lewrie glumly thought, all joy of the moment dashed; all this is but a temporary reprieve? Niggles aside, I did steal 'em, and they'll be the first t'confess that I did, so…

  Then the Rev. William Wilberforce was there, along with Hannah More, the Trenchers and their daughter Theodora, nigh-giddy with lady-like thrills over the court's decision; or, to have a handsome suitor such as Burgess Chiswick at her side, who had shot it out with hired assassins, and won, in support of the Noble Cause. Sir Malcolm and Lady Lucy Shockley were next up, Sir Malcolm sternly, but warmly, in approval, and even Lucy acting delighted.

  "Let us celebrate!" MacDougall cried, once they were outside, ready to descend the steps to the street, and their waiting coaches.

  "Hang, ye will!" Hugh Beauman swore from the window of his own departing coach, shaking a fist and walking-stick at them. "Get ye yet, I will, ye vile sonofabitch! Bastard!" Which cries only thickened the shower of horse turds, rotten vegetables, curses, and paving stones that followed him.

  "My treat, and gladly…," Lewrie began to say, quite enjoying the sight, and reaching for his wash-leather money bag, but… "My God! My money's gone! My pocket's been picked!" Frantically, Lewrie felt over his possessions, and found his watch and fob gone, too.

  "What? In a court of law?" His father Sir Hugo gawped, unsure whether it was funny or not.

  "Hallo, old son, and joy o' the day to ye!" Lord Peter Rushton cried as he and Clotworthy Chute came to congratulate him. "What? Yer pockets picked? Ain't that damned gall!"

  " 'Three-handed Jenny,' I'd wager," Clotworthy stated with a grim and knowing nod. "Never misses a sensational gathering. Pretty light-brown-haired wench, with big blue eyes? Recall a kiss or touch from a girl o' that description, Alan? I'll see to her. Grand at the 'liftin' lay,' Jenny is. Could filch a violin an' leave the music playin,' she can, but damme if she'll get away with it this time. Not from one o' my friends, she won't. Know where she lodges, haw haw!"

  "Damme if there wasn't a money bond I was t'post, too," Lewrie realised. "Mister MacDougall, what of that matter, if I haven't…?"

  "A note-of-hand 'pon your solicitor or banker will serve just as well,"

  MacDougall told him. "Damme! Right in the law court! I warned you law's a foul business, but I say!"

  "Celebratin', were ye?" Lord Peter queried. "Think nothing of money, Alan, for you'll not pay ha'pence. Allow me to treat… should you gentlemen allow me, and Clotworthy here, to spur good cheer along."

  "Know the very place!" MacDougall quickly agreed, making Lewrie sure that wherever they lit, it would be grander and more expensive an establishment than any he had had to pay for with MacDougall before! "Alan, might ye oblige me?" Sir Hugo asked.

  "Oh! Remiss o' me," Lewrie said, ready to slap his forehead. "Father, allow me to name to you Lord Peter Rushton and Mister Clotworthy Chute old friends of mine from Harrow. Expelled the same time as me, unfortunately. Lord Peter, Clotworthy… my father, Sir Hugo Saint George Willoughby."

  "Lord Peter… Mister Chute," Sir Hugo replied, shaking hands with them in turn. "Of the school governor's coach-house fire, I take it, haw haw? Harrow men, hey? "

  "Briefly" came from Lord Peter, from Clotworthy, from Lewrie and finally, an echo of "briefly" from Sir Hugo as well.

  "Never would've taken, anyway, Sir Hugo," Lord Peter haw-hawed right back. "Education's rather over-rated, don't ye know. Not quite necessary in Lords, I've noted."

  "Mister Chute, sir," Sir Hugo said with a wicked gleam in his eyes. "You are familiar with London 's underclass, I take it?"

  "Enough to warn those who come to the city and request my services yes Sir Hugo," Clotworthy replied with a greasy smile. "Guard 'em, their purses and… morals. All that," Chute simpered.

  "Excellent! We must speak, sir! Hugh Beauman, hmm?" Sir Hugo said with a wink, knowing a rogue or a pimp by sight.

  "Oh, deuced wicked, yes!" Chute quickly agreed, hopeful of huge profits from such an under-handed commission; which sort was right up his alley. "Where are we to celebrate, sirs? So that I may find you, once I retrieve Alan's possessions from 'Three-handed Jenny.'"

  "Why, it'll be just like old times, won't it, Alan, old son!" Peter Rushton crowed as they went down the steps to the waiting equipages. "Merriment mirth, and glee… with wine freely flowing!"

  That's what I should be feared of! Lewrie thought with a wince.

  BOOK III

  In Fame's temple there is always a niche

  to be found for rich dunces, importunate

  scoundrels, or successful butchers of the

  human race.

  JOHANN GEORG VON ZIMMERMAN,

  Swiss physician, writer (1728-1795)

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  HMS Savage bowled along Sutherly with the prevailing winds from the West on her starboard beam, slightly hobby-horsing over long swells in the Bay of Biscay. It was now nigh High Summer, so the fierce gales that could drive ships ashore to their ruin on the rocky, and hostile, western coast of France lay in the future- God willing-when the seasons turned to a brisk Autumn, then to a bitter and boisterous Winter, and one storm following the last for months on end… all determined to batter and dis-mast and wreck the weary ships of the British blockading squadrons, which kept remorseless watch over enemy seaports for a sally by their foe, or to interdict all trade that might comfort, arm, or feed the French.

  For now, though, it was paint-brushed, high wisps of clouds upon beautiful cerulean skies, the sort one might wish for when "summering" in some exotic locale, and the seas tossed less than three to four feet, in long, marching wave-sets flicked with only the faintest foamy surges at their crests, and the colour of the Bay of Biscay ranging from steel blue to blue-silver.

  "Deck, there!" the main-mast lookout cried from high above in the top-mast cross-trees. "Sails, ho! Ten… twelve sail! Three points off th' larboard bows! T'gallants an' tops'ls, in line-ahead!"

  "Our line-of-battle ships, one'd think, sir?" Lt. Urquhart said as he turned to face his captain on the quarterdeck.

  "Either that, or the French are out, and better managed than we expect, sir," Lewrie replied with a snicker. Picking up a brass speaking trumpet, he called aloft, "What course do they steer?"

  139

  After a moment, the lookout howled back down, "In line-ahead, due North!"

  "Thankee!" Lewrie bellowed back, then returned the trumpet to a slot in the compass binnacle cabinet. "Ours, most-like. Were they the French, they'd be scuttlin' seaward, as far from our liners as ever they could, Mister Urquhart That, or bound Sou'west t' clear Cape Ferrol to join the Dons again, or pick up the Nor'east Trades off Portugal, and stir up some mischief in the West Indies."

  "Are they really capable of that, sir?" Lt. Urquhart said with a derisive sneer. "So far this war, they've not shown that much skill at sea. Comes from sitting idle in the ports we blockade, with very little time on the open seas."

  "True, there's only so much trainin' conscript sailors may do in port, sir, but someday some Frog Admiral will get lucky, and put to sea in halfway decent shape. Slip by us, get a fortnight, a month or more, of real working-up, and they just might give us a bloody nose," Lewrie mused aloud. To Lt. Urquhart's cocked eyebrow and dubious expression, he added, "Not that much a bloody nose, but… more a nasty surprise. I've met some Frogs who knew how to put up a good fight, and they made my bung 'sport claret' a time or two, before we settled 'em."

  "Never under-estimate, you're saying, sir?" Urquhart asked.

  "Exac
tly so, Mister Urquhart," Lewrie agreed. "Now we're nigh t'comin' up on our squadron, sir. Have a turn about the ship to search out anything that'd make Savage look like a dowdy, unkempt whore under the flag's eyes, and put it right before we come up alongside."

  "Aye aye, sir," Urquhart responded, tapping the brim of his hat with two extended fingers, a salute more casual than doffing it.

  "And I'll go change," Lewrie said on, which made Lt. Urquhart fight a small grin, for Capt. Lewrie, RN, had come up from below in his dowdy and faded old coat, no neck-stock or waist-coat or sword belt. And that coat! Three years before, when first returned to the West Indies, Lewrie had had the bright idea to have a tailor run up some coats in cotton, not wool, so to better survive the heat… never expecting that dark blue-dyed cotton would not hold its colour. A sweaty supper aboard another officer's ship, and he'd come back aboard his own with Royal Navy blue sweat rings and giant stains upon his shirt, waist-coat, and snowy breeches. A few wearings more, a day-long shower or two, and those two coats had ended up the same pale blue as this day's sky, with the gilt-lace trim of buttonholes, pocket seams, and collars turned the oddest, sick-making, gangrenous green shade; the colour of deathly pus (fortified by the verdigris green that all gilt lace turned after long exposure

  to salt water and sea airs) and so repulsive that one expected them to reek like a corpse's armpit.

  Lewrie stubbornly kept them, for they were cooler than the usual wool uniform coats, and at this stage could look no worse when washed, which one could not do with wool. They could be stuffed into a mesh bag and drug astern, with the bed linens, and by then, had bled all the dye they were ever going to, hence no threat to his other apparel.

  Oh yes! Lt. Edward Urquhart was finding his new captain to be a most unusual bird!

  "Deck, there!" the lookout called again. " Courses now in sight! Private signal from a three-deckerl"

  "Mister… Grisdale," Lewrie said to one of the Midshipmen on the quarterdeck, "hoist the flag, and send up our number, quickly now." 1 Get his damned name right? Lewrie wondered: Too bloody many new-comes aboard.

  He had already had a fair bit of fame (or notoriety) before the last battle against the French L'Uranie frigate, and after the papers got through with it, one might have thought he'd become Admiral Nelson… or his new replacement arm. Letters had come aboard Savage as she was just being manned from hopeful Midshipmen without a post at present, or from hopeful parents looking for advancement, or a first place, for their second or third sons. Not knowing any of them from Adam, though, and with very little aid from other captains in Portsmouth, Lewrie had pretty much been reduced to writing their names on stiff card stock and tossing them, blindfolded, into his upturned hat, for all the chance to pick through the aspirants he'd had.

  Savage, a 36-gunned frigate of the Fifth Rate, of nearly 950 tons burthen, and with a larger crew of 240 men, required one Midshipman for each fifty hands; or so Admiralty said. That had meant five new-comes, with the well-seasoned Mr. Grace to make up the necessary six. Three, including Grace, might… might, mind!… have the wits and abilities that God had merely promised geese!

  There was this Grisdale… if that, indeed, was his name, for Lewrie was still sorting them out… who'd come passably recommended, whose father was a Rear-Admiral of the Blue. When watched closely, he could keep his mind to his duties… so far, it seemed. But if not, Mr. Grisdale could be a lazy sprog. So much akin to Lewrie at that age that one could almost take a liking to him!

  There was a Midshipman Locke, whose father was in the Commons, and one of those "steam engine" men who'd made a fortune off the war. He, at least, was sixteen, and had had some experience at sea. Stern, and a bit of a martinet with the ship's people, but not a complete tyrant, and Lewrie and Lt. Urquhart could chide that flaw from him.

  There was a Mr. Mayhall, son of another rich and influential man, landed in the huge way, and aristocratic in both speech and airs. Oddly, the crew seemed to take to him, for though he was only fifteen, he "knew the ropes" already, and projected the aura of a lad who would be a proper Sea Officer someday, should he survive the process.

  Then there was Midshipman, the Honourable, Carrington, and so far he was proving the truth of the old naval adage that titled families sent the family fool to sea. He was sixteen, and supposedly "salted" by a three-year stint aboard a two-decker-but Good Lord!-was as dense as round-shot, and nearly as inert! And, when prodded into motion, was as dangerous as an 18-pounder ball rolling cross the deck. Daddy was in Lords, though, one of Wilberforce's fondest followers, detested the slave trade, and was very influential.

  And, lastly, there was Midshipman Dry, a King's Letter Boy from that miserable excuse for a naval academy at Dartmouth; he had entered at twelve, son of a widower second mate off a merchant vessel who needed a berth for the lad. Dry had grown up aboard merchant ships and boats, so he'd been utterly bored to tears by more than a year of "training" at the academy, knots, ropes, rigging, and such, with only the reading, French, and navigation interesting. A year more of harbour scut-work for a port admiral (another admirer of Lewrie's, thank God!) who also sat in Commons, and here he was at fourteen, so much like poor little Midshipman Larkin, HMS Proteus's bastard Irish by-blow in shabby cast-off uniforms, all elbows and knees, but impish and cheerful despite a humble beginning. Hmm, perhaps too impish?

  "Our number's received, sir!" Grisdale announced. "New hoist… from Chatham , the flag. 'Come Under My Lee,' sir!"

  "Very well, Mister Grisdale," Lewrie replied. "Pass word for the Cox'n to muster my boat crew, and get her spanking ready."

  "Aye aye, sir!"

  And, which Midshipmen would be on watch when Savage came alongside HMS Chatham in an hour or so? Lewrie had to fret. He'd prefer to have Mr. Grace in charge of his launch, but such favouritism would not do, and would dispirit the others. He checked his pocket-watch, which Clotworthy Chute had recovered from that "Three-handed Jenny" back in London. Hour and a hall, say, and the watch would still be Grisdale and Midshipman… Oh God, the only other choice was Carrington!

  "When Desmond arrives, Mister Grisdale, he is to see the boat, and its crew, turned out in their best," Lewrie added, before leaving the quarterdeck for his great-cabins.

  With his fingers crossed!

  "Ease helm, Mister Carrington!" Lewrie's Cox'n, Liam Desmond, harshly whispered as the neatly painted launch neared the main-chains of the towering HMS Chatham, which was still under way, and generating a substantial flurry of parted waters down its massive sides. "Don't wanta git et by 'er wake, now, so… Jesus an' Mary!, ease…!"

  The launch rose up on the out-thrust curl of the three-decker's wake. "In oars larb'd!" Desmond barked as the launch, at too acute an angle, crossed the curl, tilted to larboard, rather precipitously in point of fact, and met the suck of the hull's turning, being drawn alongside. "Bow man, hook on!" Desmond snapped, and the sailor kneeling right in the eyes of the launch's bow swung his long gaff at dead-eyes and blocks atop the chain platform, barely snagging its hook round a stout standing-rigging cable. A second later, the launch went Bonk! against Chatham's side, sucked in like iron filings to a magnet, and the bow man cried something much akin to "Holy shite!" followed by "Eeh!" as he tumbled off the bows to larboard, waist-deep in the ocean, and getting dragged at a rate of knots, a panicky death-grip upon the gaff's pole, and the snagged hook his only salvation.

  The launch Bonked! again against Chatham, and both Jones Nelson and Patrick Furfy leaped to seize the fellow, one by the collar of his waist-length coat, the other by the waistband of his slop-trousers, before the launch, with only one bank of oars free to pull, began to fall astern for another try.

  Cruel laughter could be heard from the quarterdeck, high above.

  " 'Ang on, Grisham, 'ang on, now!" Furfy urged.

  "Yer pullin' me trousers arf, ye daft…!"

  "Shin up de pole, Grisham!" Jones Nelson said with a grunt.

  "Draggin' th' 'ole bloody launch, ye…?" Grisham howle
d.

  "Boat grapnel," Desmond snapped, digging under the after-most thwart by the counter. "Might ye please shift yer legs, Mister Carrington? Now, sir?" Desmond tumbled forward with the grapnel and a line, bounding from shoulder to shoulder, took Grisham's place in the bows, let out a dozen feet of line, swirled the grapnel over his head, and heaved, snagging another dead-eye. Furfy and Nelson shifted grips off Grisham to the rope, and pulled the boat back up near the main chains, making fast to a small wood-armed bollard atop the bow. Free of holding the weight of the launch, and with a second assist from Furfy upon the seat of his pants (a mighty heave and toss, that!), Grisharn scrambled onto the chain platform, freed his gaff from the shrouds, and pulled the launch to him, instead of the other way round.

  "Oh, well done, Mister Carrington!" Lewrie snarled as he rose to totter amidships of the launch's larboard side. "You and the Bosun must have a little discussion of your seamanship once we've returned aboard, hmm? In fact, I shall insist upon it."

  "Aye, sir," the dejected and red-faced Midshipman replied, for a "discussion" with the Bosun would mean a dozen mighty whacks across his upturned bottom with a stiffened rope starter, his body bent over a cannon… Midshipman, the Honourable, Royce Carrington would "kiss the gunner's daughter" for his ineptness, and his embarrassment to his ship, and his captain's dignity.

  Waiting for the proper moment of the launch's lurches, and the ponderous slow roll of the flagship, Lewrie made a leap of his own for the boarding battens and man-ropes abaft the chains, scored his perch on the first try, and slowly scaled the long ascent to HMS Chatham's upper decks, past the closed lower gun-deck entry-port to the proper one, high above. After a deep, restoring breath, and a jerk upon the man-ropes, Lewrie sprang inboard, trying to look spry and unabashed.