The King's Commission

by Dewey Lambdin

  The many cats may have cut down on the usual rat population, but the ship teemed with cockroaches; small ones, admittedly, since the cats would chase anything large enough to entertain them.

  The only blessing for the crew, who normally had only twenty-eight inches in which to sling a fourteen-inch-wide hammock, was that the ship was not at her full-rated complement of one hundred and ten people, but was six hands short in seamen, and four in servants, and that the Marine party, which would not normally be aboard so small a brig, was only sixteen privates, two corporals, a sergeant, and Walsham. Being rated a fourteen-gunned ship in official records could be a blessing.

  Alan lay propped up on his bunk, reading. The surgeon was stoking up his harp and singing some Welsh song of unrequited misery, accompanied by someone on a flute who was as mournful a specter as the doctor. Alan didn’t think he would enjoy wardroom life, if that was the best entertainment they had to offer. Besides, Lieutenant Railsford had warned him to stay aloof, hard as it would be on his congenial and garrulous nature. Eager as he was for companionship, and no matter how old the others were in the wardroom, he was senior to them, and could only damage his credibility and authority if he was to join in their simple pleasures. He was the captain’s voice in all things, the one who would brook no dis-satisfaction with a captain’s decisions or allow anyone to carp or cavil.

  No wonder old Lieutenant Swift in Ariadne was such a dry stick, Alan sighed, wondering if he was up to all the demands that would be made on his abilities, getting lost in the knowledge that he was pretty much in charge of all the various punishments books, logs, charts, pay vouchers, rating certificates, prize certificates (damned few of those, he noted grimly), quarter-bills, watch bills, and professional records of the entire crew.

  It really would have been much nicer to have been second officer in a slightly larger frigate than Desperate, even the fifth or sixth lieutenant in a ship of the line, where he could hide and enjoy the joyous spirit of a drunken officers’ mess without having his young arse on the line at all hours.

  The paper work was, as usual, putting his mind into full yawn, and he wasn’t through half of it. Once more he felt as if a terrible mistake had been made by a clumsy or inattentive clerk in the flagship, putting such a pompous little fraud as himself into such responsibility. No matter what Railsford had said, he felt like a total sham only waiting for the awful moment of truth when he would be exposed to the world.

  “Supper,” the servant called from beyond the door.

  He tossed the paper work to the foot of his bunk and shrugged into his coat to join the others. Cony was there helping out in serving, and the two midshipmen had come up from their small dungeon in the after orlop where they usually berthed with the surgeon’s mate, master’s mate and other junior warrants. Rossyngton looked presentable, but Alan had a chance to get a good look at Mr. Edgar, and he was a perfect example of pimply-faced perplexity, all elbows and huge feet, a uniform that appeared to be wearing him instead of the other way around, and that none too clean.

  He was introduced to Biggs, the only senior warrant he had not met on his first rounds of the ship, and saw why the captain considered him a weasel. The purser was a slovenly man of middle height who gave an impression of being much shorter and rounder, due to his furtive posture and constantly shifting eyes and hands.

  I wouldn’t sport a bottle for any one of these bastards if I saw them parching in Hell, he thought glumly.

  “As senior in the mess, may I propose a toast to our new arrival,” Caldwell the sailing master intoned somberly.

  “Senior, my eyes, damn yer blood,” Mister Lewyss snapped.

  “Don’t let your dog-Latin go to your head, Lewyss,” Caldwell cautioned. “I’m not much of a drinkin’ man, but ’tis the spirit of the occasion.”

  “Since I am seated at the head of the table, let’s have done with talk of who is senior, Mister Caldwell,” Alan quipped. “And I thank you for your sentiments, but I would prefer if you give me first opportunity to propose a toast instead … to Shrike.”

  “Aye, to Shrike,” they mumbled, a little abashed that Alan had too pointedly reminded them of just who was senior in the mess, young as he was.

  Supper wasn’t too bad, really. There was an Island pepperpot soup seasoned with every variety of pepper known to man and flavored with shredded bits of fish; roast kid and fresh bread instead of the usual hard biscuit, along with a wine that could only have been fermented from vinegar, cat droppings and bilge scrapings.

  “My word, that’s terrible,” Alan sputtered after his first sip. “Mister Biggs, do you think this wine failed to travel well, or was it dead before boarding?”

  “Nothing’ wrong with this wine, young sir,” Biggs stated as if he was addressing one of the midshipmen. “’Tis not claret, but suitable for Navy issue from ashore, same’s every other ship in harbor.”

  “The wine stinks, Mister Biggs,” Alan said with as much severity as he could summon. “And you shall address me as ‘sir,’ without the added modifier of ‘young.’ It tastes to me as if it had been diluted with water, scrubbing vinegar, and a dollop of poor French brandy to give it a disguising character. Do you concur with that, Mister Lewyss? You’re a medical man—see what your nose tells you.”

  “Ratafia for sure, sir,” Lewyss said after dipping his long nose into his glass, and pointedly making sure that he addressed the first lieutenant correctly. “As to the water, it is not the usual kegged water from the holds, but it is a thin wine, that cannot be disputed, sir.”

  “How many gallons of this do we have aboard, Mister Biggs?”

  “Um, of this particular lot, that is … ?” Biggs got shifty.

  “Yes, of this particular lot,” Alan went on.

  “Why, I believe there was thirty ten-gallon barricoes or so,” Biggs replied in a much more humble tone of voice, almost wringing his hands, with his eyes shifting from one side of his plate to the other, unable to match glances with the others at the table. “Got a good price on the lot, but not so much as to make me suspicious of the seller’s goods, sir.”

  “Tomorrow morning, following breakfast, you, the master’s mate and the bosun shall hoist all of those barricoes out and taste them to determine their suitability. Mister Fukes, may I trust your palate in judging good wine or bad?”

  “Oh, ah kin tell good wine, sir.” The gorilla beamed, spreading his mouth so wide it looked like a hawse hole.

  “Perhaps a medical opinion as well, sir,” Lewyss volunteered.

  “Thank you for your generous offer, Mister Lewyss, yes, you may consider yourself one of the judges. Now if it’s all bad, mind, I want it condemned and returned to the seller. I shall inform the captain of unsuitable stores … I assume the hands are issued this poor excuse for Black Strap as well, Mister Biggs? Well, that’ll never do. Turn it in and you’d best let Mister Lewyss and the bosun taste whatever you find in replacement. I trust this shall not upset your books too much.”

  It would be a bloody disaster! Biggs probably had not paid three shillings a gallon for the stuff, though the ship’s books would show a larger sum, of that Alan was sure after being Mister Cheatham’s pupil in Desperate long enough to learn how many “fiddles” an unscrupulous “pusser” could work. Biggs would make no money on this exchange.

  “Cony, would you be so good as to go into my personal stores?” Alan bade his servant. “I took the precaution of providing myself with a small five-gallon keg of captured Bordeaux, and in place of this lot, I would be happy to offer it to assuage our thirsts, this evening at least. It’s not a really fine vintage, but more palatable than this.”

  Biggs was the only one who did not cheer Alan’s munificence, but he did put away a fair share of it when it arrived for decanting. Among eleven of them, it went fast, but there was opportunity to send ashore on the morrow for replacement, so Alan didn’t think it a bad trade at all. He had stuck a baulk in Biggs’s spokes, put him on guard that he would be closely scrutinized from
then on, and in so doing to one of their number most despised (as most pursers were), had won a slight bit of grudging respect from the other members of his mess for such sagacity in one so young.

  After supper, though, after he had stifled Lewyss and his infernal harp, and Walsham’s bloody flute, there were still ship’s books to study. He was the only one to keep a lamp burning after the 8 P.M. lights out, listening to the others fart in their sleep, belch, groan and snore prodigiously, listening to the ship as she creaked now and then, and the sound of the harbor watch on the deck over his head, the chime of the bells as time progressed—and several slanging matches between cats who had decided on animosity during their nocturnal turns of the deck.

  There wasn’t much in the Punishment Book, the log of defaulters and how many strokes they had received for their sins, at least not in the last few months. Ships’ crews usually settled down after a while, even the worst collections of cut-throats, cut-purses and foot-pads, once they got used to a master and his ways. There were no entries for less than two dozen lashes, except in the case of boy-servants and the midshipmen, who got caned bent over a gun with a more gentle rope starter. But there were also several entries for three dozen, four dozen, mostly for fighting or drunkenness or sleeping on watch, and some rare insubordination. A captain could not impose more than two dozen lashes with the cat by Admiralty regulations, but Alan had also learned long before that no one at the Admiralty would even open one eye from a long snooze to hear of a captain assigning more; captains were much like God once at sea on their own, and their judgement was mostly trusted unless they were patently proven to be one of God’s own lunaticks.

  Likewise the log; it was boring in the extreme, capable of being read by flipping through the pages almost without looking, for the ship had seemed to cruise on her own without seeing a damned thing or taking part in any action since her commissioning. There was a convoy or two, some messages run north to the Bahamas or west to Jamaica, and suspicious sail seen but never followed up aggressively, and once they disappeared below the horizon, lost to mind.

  Not a penny of prize-money, Alan sighed, thinking of how much he had made (legally and illegally) in Desperate and even in Parrot. Lilycrop must be the most contented man with Naval pay in the whole world. How long’s he been in the Navy, anyway, fifty years did he say, man and boy? Joined at—eight, say, and probably thirty, thirty-five years a lieutenant? With the war almost lost in the Americas, this is the only command he’ll ever hope to have, most like. But then, why not be ambitious and make the most of it? If he stayed in the Navy all those years in hopes of advancement, why not parley this little brig into a twenty-gun sloop of war, commander’s rank, even a jump to post-rank? All it takes is one bloody, victorious action, God knows. Look at that idiot Treghues! Is he afraid of getting her rigging cut up and untidy? God help us, would it scare his precious cats? More like it, is he afraid of losing her?

  That must be it, he decided, congratulating himself on what a sly-boots he was to figure this out so early. At the end of this commission in two years, or the end of the war, which might come at any time, Lilycrop would go onto the beach with a small pension, carried on Admiralty records still as a half-pay lieutenant unless he did something to blot his copy book; a commission was for life unless one resigned it or was caught in some terrible error in judgement. A man close to even so little financial security would not err either in commission or omission; he would not jump either way, and end his days snug as houses.

  But if the war ends soon, there’s only so much time left for me to do something, Alan fretted to himself. Damme, it’s happening, I am taking me seriously. But I’m first lieutenant of a brig o’war, and if we come across a foe, I could goad him into action. Now that I am commissioned, why not make the most of it while there’s still a war on?

  Too weary to read any longer, he blew out his lantern, a new pewter one with muscovy glass panels he had purchased the day before, and stretched out to sleep until Cony came to call him at the end of the middle watch at 4 A.M. so he could supervise the morning cleaning.

  It took him a while to drop off, though. William Pitt had run across another ram-cat in his night-time perambulations and they had a protracted melee that went from the taffrail to the fo’c’sle and back, and damned if he didn’t think the harborwatch wasn’t betting on them and egging them on!

  “We shall be gettin’ underway tomorrow on the ebbin’ tide,” the captain had told him, and Alan had sweated blood trying to determine if Shrike was in all respects ready for sea. The duties of a first officer were galling in the extreme, taking nothing for granted, forcing the warrants to swear to his face that they had all they needed, and if not, then why didn’t they say something earlier? Which had prompted another flurry of activity to complete stores until he could go aft and inform Lilycrop (and Samson and Henrietta and Mopsy and Hodge and the so far un-named kittens et al) that yes, Shrike was indeed ready to go to sea.

  Then there had been another utter frenzy for Lieutenant Lewrie to see to everything that could be seen to. Were the braces, lifts, tops’l halyards, tacks, sheets coiled down and ready for running? Were there enough belays? Were the lower booms swung in and crutched? The log-line, hour-glasses and heaving lines had to be brought up. The yards had to be got up for the t’gallants and royals, and the stun’sl’s ready for deployment. Chafing gear had to be renewed on yard slings and quarters, on anything that could rub and chafe aloft. Had old Mister Pebble sounded the pump-wells, checked the scupper flaps, hawse bucklers, fitted the gunports with splash-boards, etc.? Were the boats secured and the yards squared, and all the safety equipment laid out for the hands? Were the guns securely bowsed down, with tompions in? Had the quartermaster put the helm hard-over a couple of times to see if the tiller-rope ran freely? Were the catting and fish-tackles rove, and the main capstan and jeer capstan over-hauled? If one little thing went awry, it was the first lieutenant’s fault; if everything went well, then it was the captain’s credit. Alan was trembling like an aspen in a high wind by the time he had finished his last-minute checks, and his hands were best off in his pockets where they would not betray his nervousness.

  “Ready for sea, Mister Lewrie?” Lilycrop asked lazily as he came on the quarterdeck. He had one of the kittens in his hands.

  “Aye aye, sir, ready for sea,” Alan stammered, already reduced to a shuddering wreck.

  “Shouldn’t be too bad at slack water, just afore the ebb,” Lieutenant Lilycrop surmised, sniffing the slight breeze. “Very well, then, you may proceed, sir.”

  “Me!?” Alan gaped, staring at him slack-jawed and trying to think of the proper commands.

  “Yes, you, sir.”

  “Bosun, pipe ‘all hands,’ stations for getting under way.”

  God, it was a mad-house on that single deck crowded already with guns and their assorted tackle, with all the running rigging in flaked heaps, the tops’l halyard men already snarling at the fo’c’sle captain and his crew for walking space, the hands around the capstans and the nippermen ready with the messenger.

  “Capstan’s ready!” some kind soul shouted back, or Alan would have never thought of it.

  “B … bring to, the messenger!” Three and a half turns of the lighter line were wound about the capstan and the nippermen seized the lighter messenger line to the thicker cable.

  Thank bloody Christ somebody knows what they’re doing, for it sure ain’t me! he thought as he saw men manning the bars, dropping them into the pigeon-holes, securing the drop-pins and breasting to the bars.

  “Fleet the messenger!” And two men on each capstan plied their middle-mallets to force the turns of the messenger up the drum of the capstan to make room for the turns to come as they heaved in. Bloody hell, makes me wish I’d paid more attention to these things before! thought Alan.

  “Heave around!” he shouted, trying to keep his voice from breaking. The pawls clanked slowly as the men walked about the drums of the capstans, chests pressing against th
e bars with their hands gripping the wood from below, thumbs turned outward to avoid injury.

  “At long stays!” came a wail from the fo’c’sle.

  “Heave chearly!” Alan encouraged them as the cable came in at a much steeper angle from the bottom.

  “Short stays!”

  “I’d not forget the dry nippers for the heavy heave,” Lilycrop said at his elbow suddenly as he held up the kitten to observe so much activity. “Ain’t it a show, littl’un?”

  “Do you wish to set sail at short stays, sir?” Alan asked.

  “I leave it to you, Mister Lewrie. Proceed.”

  God rot and damn the man! Alan thought, ready to weep. “Dry nippers, ready for the heavy heave! Surge ho!”

  “Up an’ down, sir!”

  “Heave and pawl!”

  Suddenly, the men at the capstan bars leaned forward and the pawls began to clank faster and faster. The anchor had broken free of the bottom and was on its way up, and the ship was under way under bare poles in the light wind in English Harbor. And just as suddenly, Alan Lewrie realized that it was an incredibly crowded English Harbor. There was an armed transport big as a bloody island astern, not one cable off, toward which they were slowly drifting, an anchored line of seventy-fours to starboard, and a line of warping posts to larboard, upon which some newly repaired 3rd Rate line-of-battle ship was making her way toward the outer roads, and Shrike was in the way of her towing boats.