"Excuse me, sir, but the French would find New Orleans not very useful to them, even if it were American, and neutral," Lewrie pointed out. "The city is over an hundred miles upriver from the mouth of the delta, so the best they could do would be to establish themselves at the Head of Passes and Fort Balise, where the Mississippi flows out to the Gulf through several easily blockaded passes. Fort Balise is a small, weak, and easily defeated water bastion, but once the exchange is done, it's an American fort. And I doubt our Yankee cousins would let them anchor there or supply them with goods from the city if we're now at war with France." "You've seen this Fort Balise?" Blanding asked, intrigued. "Aye, sir," Lewrie replied, trying as usual for the proper English "pooh-poohing" modesty but, again as usual, failing badly at it. "That, and the city of New Orleans, in fact. A job of work for some Foreign Office types, a few years ago, in mufti, as the Hindoos say. French Creole patriots who wanted Spain out and France back in, and turned pirate t'finance their scheme, d'ye see? That's not t'say the Creoles and the pirates and privateersmen still there might not wish t'help the Frogs, but I don't see it done directly from New Orleans. Covert supplyin' through the bayous to Barataria, Timbalier, or Terrebonne Bay, or further west out of Atchafalaya or the Cote Blanche Bays. But… those are all very shallow waters, sir, barely deep enough for local schooners or small brigs, not corvettes or frigates. And they are bad holding-ground in a blow, with no shelter from the barrier islands. I'd expect one stiff diplomatic note from you, sir, to the new American authorities would force 'em to kick the French out and sit on anyone who'd sell ' em supplies. If Panton, Leslie amp; Company still does business in New Orleans, we could send a boat to Fort Balise, and a letter upriver, and know which merchant houses are involved within a fortnight… then turn 'em in to the local American government."
"Internment, by God!" Lt. Gilbraith, Blanding's First Officer, perked up and spoke for the first time since "might you pass me that strawberry jam-pot, sir?" over an hour before. "Do we bottle them up and send that note, the French could not remain forever at anchor in the city or at this bloody fort where the river forks! The Americans could be convinced to enforce the three-day rule and tell the French squadron to sail or surrender their ships on parole 'til the end of the current hostilities. They come out to give us honourable battle or they strike their colours and hang out in New Orleans taverns 'til the Last Trump, and either way, we've eliminated them as a threat. Ha?"
"Germane and canny as usual, Jemmy," Captain Blanding told him, "but dash my eyes! We've orders to go looking for a fight, and I'll be very disappointed should it end that way. I want powder smoke and close broadsides… struck colours, prizes, and a slew of dead Frogs!"
To which fierce sentiment they all gave loud, hearty huzzahs.
"Pray God, then, gentlemen," Lewrie seconded. "We catch them up at sea, before they can take shelter in any French possession or get to the mouth of the Mississippi. I wager we all wish an ocean of Frog blood!"
And huzzahs for that, too!
"How soon might your ships be ready to sail?" Captain Blanding demanded, posing the question to each Captain and First Officer; two days more for Pylades, only one for Cockerel, this very afternoon for Modeste, Gilbraith was quick to announce, and a one-day delay from Lt. Westcott.
"We lack the last of wardroom provisions and live-stock, sir," Westcott said. "We could fall down to Saint Helen's Patch whilst we see to all that, if I may suggest, sir?" he said, turning to Lewrie for permission. "A long sail or row for the victuallers, Captain Blanding, but…," he concluded with a shrug and one of his brief tooth-baring grins. Lewrie took note, for the first time, that Westcott had a pug nose, almost Irish in its short sweep.
"Chicks!" Blanding boomed aloud. "Chicks and rabbits and game hens. They take much less room in the manger, and much less feed and water than pigs, turkeys, or beef on the hoof. Mature rapidly and are prolific at reproduction."
"A sack of fat rats t'be let loose in the flour, sirs?" Lewrie suggested, tongue-in-cheek. "Can't forget t'feed our Midshipmen!"
"I'd imagine we've rats enough for a dozen ships by now, sir!" Captain Blanding roared with laughter, slamming a meaty palm on the table top in appreciative mirth. "Saint Helen's Patch it will be, as quick as dammit, soon as you're all back aboard your ships. I trust your frigates will prove fast enough to keep up with me, sirs! She is French, Modeste, and very quick for a sixty-four, or so her former captain's records tell me. She's six more feet of waterline than the usual sixty-four from our yards. Second one of the same name we've taken off the Frogs," Blanding happily imparted with a wink. "Built at Toulon in Ninety-Seven and lost in the Med a year later. One'd think the French would see her name's bad luck-for them, at any rate-and drop it for good."
"Uhm… Harbour Drill, sir," Lewrie had to point out. "We've barely had a fortnight to train the landsmen and new-comes. I'd like at least another ten days of it before considerin' my lads ready for sea, and battle. To get the best speed from Reliant, from all of our ships, and safe and efficient handlin', well… " He trailed off as he took note of the disappointed looks round the table.
"'Growl we may, but go we must,' Lewrie," Captain Blanding said with a scowl. "Aye, we're all short of complete training, but… take a page from the French and deem our crews ready enough to get to sea, then work them to perfection on the voyage, what?
"To war, gentlemen!" Blanding bellowed in a throaty growl, with another slam of his palm on the table top for emphasis. "We will shift our anchorages down to Saint Helen's Patch, and pray for a fair wind, just as soon as you complete your lading. From there, we will prowl 'twixt Ushant and Scilly 'til the French come down to us, or… should we miss them there, we'll hare cross the Atlantic in pursuit, into the West Indies and Gulf of Mexico. Either way, I am bound to see all of them in Hell before we're done.
"Admiralty's chosen us, given us specific orders," Blanding said in a calmer tone, fussing a bit with his coat lapels. "Given us a grand opportunity, and a demanding task, to smite the Devil on his snout, right from the outset. And he is… Napoleon Bonaparte. If not Satan come to the world, then his dread minion, the Anti-Christ, as many people of my circle have come to suspect of late… "
We on a personal Crusade o' his? Lewrie asked himself, suddenly wary of such an apocalyptic outlook,… and the messianic zeal for such a quest Blanding might display, to their overall detriment, when they did cross hawses with the French squadron; How 'bout we fetch back the Holy Grail, too? Or the Golden Fleece!
"… his captains and sailors are the Devil's disciples, and I mean to see them returned below, as failed imps and demons!" Captain Blanding declared with a roar, which delighted everyone at-table, with Lewrie the only leery exception, though he did throw in a wee "Huzzah!" just to be sociable.
"You've Chaplains aboard, gentlemen?" Blanding enquired. "No? Ah well, no matter, for mine shall suffice for all, does wind and sea allow his calling aboard each ship for Divine Services on Sundays. And with God with us, who can be against us, hey?"
My God, I've been got at by a Leapin' Methodist! Lewrie quailed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The Crown's issuance of Letters of Marque and Reprisal had been announced on the sixteenth of May. By the nineteenth, their little squadron had briefly set sail and had come to new anchorages in St. Helen's Patch, near the Isle of Wight, to await a suitable slant of wind. Thankfully, the weather had proved perverse for several more days, giving Lewrie and his officers, warrants, and petty officers just a bit more time to train and exercise their raw crew, with sail-hoisting, reefing and handing, and recovering the anchors and stowing the thick cables of the most importance, and only three hours of the working days spent on the artillery or small arms.
At long last, on the morning of the twenty-third of May, 1803, the wind came round to the Nor'east and a flurry of signal flags fluttered up HMS Modestes halliards, so many and so quickly that Lewrie could imagine the boisterous and impatient Captain Blanding standing over his men and
patting a foot, drumming his fingers on his substantial midriff, and clucking at the delay, human failure, and Beelzebub's minions.
"All ship's numbers, and 'To Weigh' two-blocked, sir!" Midshipman Entwhistle cried, with a telescope pressed to one eye.
"Hands are at Stations to weigh, sir," Lt. Westcott reported.
"Very well," Lewrie replied. "Up-anchor and make sail when the Preparative is struck, Mister Westcott."
"Aye aye, sir," Lt. Westcott said, eyes glued to the wee bit of bunting aboard the flagship.
"I must own it feels rather good t'go to sea again," Lewrie idly commented, hands in the small of his back, head down, and pacing his quarterdeck. "For you, Mister Westcott?"
"Well, sir… considering the deprivation and discomfort we're in for, I may be of two minds," Westcott confessed with a brief grimace. "And I thank you for a last night ashore, in which I could savour the pleasures we leave behind, t'other day. Wine, women, song… a fine repast or two… women." He flashed one of those short, teeth-baring grins, which was as quickly gone.
"I trust she was handsome, sir?" Lewrie asked, lifting a brow in surprise to hear his First Officer admit he'd rantipoled. "One of them special?"
"They were, uhm… both equally fetching and special, sir," Lt. Westcott said with a sly smile.
Christ, am I in the presence of a master cocksman? Lewrie just had to wonder; two in one night… he's miles ahead o' me, even on my best old days!
"Are either of good family, then our sailing is your salvation, sir!" Lewrie barked in amusement.
"So to speak, indeed, sir," Westcott replied, chuckling.
"Preparative is down, sir!" Midshipman Entwhistle cried.
"Get us under way, sir," Lewrie ordered, turning sterner.
HMS Reliant's departure was not exactly "Man-O'-War Fashion" or even "Bristol Fashion"; it was sloppy and inelegant, no matter how much time had been spent at Harbour Drill. The lighter kedge anchor had come up easily from the ooze, the slimy thigh-thick cable trotted forward in an undulating snake, but the best bower proved stubborn, and the confusion at the main capstan to wind up the messenger could have been almost laughable if it had not been a serious matter. Yards creaked up from their rests as a'cock-bill as they'd be set for a sea burial, and sail-tending lines-and braces once half the sails were unfurled-were swaying loose and free 'til the Bosun and his Mate, and the petty officer mast-captains, bellowed, roared, and rushed among the raw newlies to urge them to tail on and haul.
It did not help that much larger squadrons of Third Rate line-of-battle ships, First and Second Rate three-decked flagships leading them out, had been waiting for that shift of wind to sail and take up blockading stations off the French coast, too, each of them thinking that their orders took precedence over the others, and especially took precedence over a lowly 64 and her three frigates.
Closest I've seen to Bedlam since the last time I toured the real'un with a water squirt and a pokin' stick! Lewrie told himself as Reliant at last got way enough on to be steered into Modestes wake and take station in a very rough in-line-ahead… with his head swivelled like a crazed compass needle to avoid so many imminent collisions; If this is the best we can do after a year idle, God help us!
Reliant ghosted along, the second in their short column, about a cable and a half astern of Modeste; close enough for everyone on the quarterdeck to witness Captain Blanding as he strode from one side of his poop deck to the other, too enraged to stay on his own quarterdeck, a brass speaking-trumpet in his hand to bellow at the columns of line-of-battle ships sailing along on either beam… some too close for comfort, and others slipping a bit loo'rd or slanted as if to drive right through his own column.
"God rot you, Cummings! I know you can edge up more windward than than that!" Blanding roared to larboard, then dashed to starboard and warned, "That you, Fairbairn? Haul your hellish wind a point or you'll be aboard me, do you hear, there? Haul off, I say, Andrew! Haul off! Oh, the Devil take it! Gilbraith? Load a gun, and we'll hull anyone who gets within a cable of us!"
Lewrie wrapped his arms across his chest and tried to maintain a stern, determined expression on his phyz, but began to shake with amusement, reduced to making snorting noises. "And how'd I miss makin' his acquaintance, all my years in the Navy?" he guffawed, turning to look at Westcott, who was also laughing as silently as he could. "We had best take a first reef in the main course, Mister Westcott. Do we run too close to his stern, he just might fire at us!"
Once clear of the Isle of Wight and into the Chops of the Channel, their little squadron was pressed to maintain course Sou'west as if bound for the Channel Islands. A long line of at least a dozen big two-deckers and their flagship passed down their starboard side about a mile alee, taking their own sweet time to wheel about to West-Sou'west, altering course one at a time when they reached the large, disturbed patch of sea where the lead ship had first turned.
After the last of the "liners" had made the turn, Modeste put up a signal for them to do the same; "Alter Course in Succession" and a second hoist indicating "Course Due West." A third signal went up another halliard, ordering a three-cable separation. Down came the Preparative, and Modeste came about, already making more sail. As Reliant reached Modeste's disturbed patch, the helm was put over, and she went about, with Lt. Westcott busy instructing the hands to brace about for taking the wind on her starboard quarters. When Lewrie judged that the flagship was almost three cables distant, he called for the reef to be shaken out of the main course, and all plain sail set.
There was still another long column of ten or eleven two-deckers astern of them, looking as if they would either slice between Cockerel and Pylades or run right over Parham's frigate, but… they were on their way.
"Dismiss the hands from Stations, Mister Westcott, and set the larboard watch," Lewrie ordered. "If everything is squared away, all 'tiddly,' that is."
"It is, sir, right down to the hawse bucklers," Lt. Westcott informed him with a squinty look of amusement still on his face.
"My word, now that was excitin'," Lewrie said, chuckling softly. "Clumsy… embarrassin'… cunny-thumbed lubberly, but excitin'."
"So sorry, sir," Westcott said, suddenly downcast.
"Not your fault, Mister Westcott," Lewrie assured him. "With a crew as raw as ours, and with so little time allowed for workin' 'em to competence, I'm just relieved we got out without killin' anybody in the process, or bein' trampled by a two-decker. Now we're out at sea, though, we can continue drillin' 'em proper, to pur mutual satisfaction of readiness."
"Thank you, sir," Westcott said with a nod of his head.
"Damn my eyes, it's a nice morning, ain't it?" Lewrie said as he looked up at the commissioning pendant streaming towards the bows, at the wind-ful sails and set of the yards' bracing; at the clouds and the patches of blue sky. "A merry May morning."
"Indeed, sir," Westcott agreed. "And the sea's moderate."
"We'll give the hands one hour in which to gawk and get used to her motion," Lewrie decided. "And some music'd suit. Desmond?" Capt. Lewrie called out. "Your lap-pipes and the other musicians, and give us some cheer!"
"Right away, sor!" his Cox'n shouted back.
Liam Desmond and his uilleann pipes, the young Marine drummer and two fifers, a couple of older hands who produced their fiddles, and one fellow with a shallow Irish drum, even the cook's assistant with a set of spoons beaten on his thigh, all joined together amidships in the waist atop a hatch grating. Farewell airs like "Portsmouth Lass" and "Over the Hills and Far Away"; spritelier tunes such as "The Parson Among the Peas" and "One Misty, Moisty Morning"; drinking songs like "I'll Fathom the Bowl" and "He That Would an Alehouse Keep"-an item mentioned in the recruiting flyers strewn about Portsmouth had promised "music and dancing nightly"-went down well with all hands, prompting some experienced tars to teach the "lubbers" how to dance a horn-pipe.
"'It was pleas-ant and delightful, on a midsummer's morn, when the green fields and the mea-dows were buried in
corn…,'" the sailors began to sing, bringing a touch of a smile on Lewrie's face for the first time.
"'… and the larks they sang melodious, and the larks they sang melodious, and the larks they sang melo-dious, at the dawning of the day,'" Lewrie joined in under his breath, though his right hand beat the measure in the air, feeling a swell of unwanted emotion, the sort best hidden aft and below in the great-cabins.
… said the sailor to his true love,
I'm bound far away.
I'm bound for the Indies,
where the loud cannons roar,
and I'm going to leave my Nancy…
He turned away to face out-board, to larboard, pacing down to the lee rails, squinting with suddenly damp eyes. He reached into his coat for a handkerchief.
… and if ever I return again,
and if ev-er I return again,
and if ev-er I return again,
I would ma-ake you my bride!
"Damned nonsense," he muttered, blowing his nose, yet… the last verse! oh-oh, no my love, farewell. Saying may I go along with you… saying may I go along with you… say-ing may I go along with you… oh-oh, no, my love… fare-well.'"
"A fresh cup of coffee, sir?" his cabin steward, Pettus, asked, arriving on the quarterdeck with Lewrie's old black-iron pot.
"Uhm? Aye, Pettus, that'd be welcome," Lewrie told him, taking one last embarrassed swipe at his face. He wandered back up the slight cant of the deck to his proper place at the windward bulwarks, his and his alone as captain. "Coffee, Mister Westcott?"
"Aye, sir, thank you," Westcott eagerly replied, accepting a cup from Pettus, but waving off goat milk or sugar, preferring it "noir."
"Is our wardroom musical, sir?" Lewrie asked as Desmond led the musicians into "The Jolly Thresher."
"One or two decent voices, sir, but no instrumental talents that I've been able to discover," Lt. Westcott told him. "I believe, however, that the Midshipmen's mess is where you'll find fiddlers and tootlers on recorders, flutes, and such… perhaps a guitar?"
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