A King's Trade

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Captain Treghues, our putative ‘Commodore,’ has ordered me to administer punishment for our malefactors,” Lewrie said. “Condign punishment for all involved, he wrote.”

  “Can he do that, sir?” Langlie uneasily asked. “Just order… ?”

  “Not strictly, under the Articles of War, no, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie replied with a chuckle, and a wink. “The drunkness happened on shore, as did the brawling and such, on liberty, and not aboard ship, where they would fall under the strictures of line-of-duty discipline. What individual captains may make of civil infractions, not Admiralty infractions, is up to them, and any interference from outside the hull…even from a senior officer commanding…would be looked upon as a violation of captains’ traditional, and jealously protected, prerogatives.

  “Make up the ‘cats,’ anyway,” Lewrie further said, looking all “sly-boots” at his perpetually put-upon First Officer. “The sight of ‘em will put the fear o’ God in our people. Let ‘em stew on what they might receive, what I might do, a day or two, and they just may have a fresh think on what grand larks they think they had, this time. Which might make ‘em think twice, the next time I let ‘em off the leash.”

  “Oh, I see, sir, you…oww! you little…!” Langlie exclaimed, first in mirth, then in pain, looking down in his lap at Chalky.

  The cat had delighted in having his belly and chest rubbed and gently tickled, but evidently had desired more energetic amusements, and had nipped unwary fingers to initiate a wee romp. Chalky stuck up his head over the edge of the table, ears half-flat, and a mischievious cast to his eyes as he scrambled to his feet, tail whicking impishly.

  “Chalky …” Lewrie chid him in a gently-scolding tone, gaining his attention. “We do not bite Commission Officers. No, we don’t…not even Midshipmen. No matter how distracted and vulnerable they be, hmm? Bleeding overly much, Mister Langlie?”

  “Skin not even broken, sir,” Langlie chuckled.

  “Give me your list of incorrigibles, then, Mister Langlie. Was there anything else you wished to discuss? Anything pleasant to tell me, to lighten my gloom?”

  “Well, we’re still afloat, sir.” Langlie said with a wider grin. “That about covers it.”

  “On your way, then, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie bade him, watching as he finished his coffee and rose from the table, depositing Chalky on it, who immediately bounded to hurl himself on Toulon, who might be more up for play. Louder, with a meaningful glance upwards at the open skylight windows in his coach-top, where sailors of the afterguard and the quarterdeck Harbour Watch could always be trusted to eavesdrop for a clue to future developments, Lewrie concluded his remarks to Langlie with “And don’t forget to tell the Bosun to make up those damn’ whips!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Long though the voyage had been so far, it was roughly two thousand miles, as the square-rigger tacks, from St. Helena to the Cape of Good Hope, and the first day on-passage had only logged 110. The trade steered somewhere between Sou’west by South, did the Trade Winds allow, and Sou’west, if they did not. Three-masted, square-rigged ships could only get within six points up to the wind, even when sailing “full and by,” close-hauled.

  The middle of the second day, however, brought dark cloud-heads that swathed the horizon from the East-Nor’east all the way down to the Sou’east, and with them, a backing, rising, and much brisker breeze, a “soldier’s wind” that gave the convoy and its escorts a welcome “lift.”

  To sail Sou’west in search of the perpetual Easterlies for their ride to the Cape would have added more nautical miles to their passage, and would force them down into the vast, swirling heart of the Southern Atlantic, where the great currents that circled counter-clockwise-about between South America and Africa became weak, confused, or nonexistent, where the counterclockwise winds that could sweep a vessel South along Portuguese Brazil and the Southernmost Spanish colonies, or batter them on the nose in their guise of the Sou’east Trades, faded away, becoming an area larger than North America where ships could chase zephyrs weeks on end…the Doldrums. The usual course from St. Helena to the Cape was one large Zee-shaped detour.

  As the winds came most unexpectedly Easterly, though, with rains and high seas for accompaniment notwithstanding, those “soldier’s winds” were looked upon as a blessing, a raree that perhaps would never be encountered again in an entire life at sea, and one to take advantage of!

  The trade turned their bows Due South, cutting off the Sou’west “Zee” almost before it began; they reefed down, or completely took in, their royals and t’gallants, but left their tops’ls, courses, stays’ls, spankers, and jibs full-bellied with wind to sprint Southward, even the most hide-bound, passenger-coddling Indiamen masters, and reeled off an average of seven or eight knots for nearly two whole days, and a fair portion of a third, before the skies cleared, the seas moderated, and the wind shifted back into the Sou’east. So rare was it that even after full dark, they pressed on, rocking, scending, and heaving over a white-spumed ocean under full sail, for not a cap-full of that precious wind could be let go to waste; even Festival, that cranky old jade, got a way on and looked almost lively as she bowled along at the rear of the convoy, with as much of her gaudy-but-faded, parti-coloured, and patched canvas bellied out taut and straining!

  It pleased everyone, even Capt. Sir Tobias Treghues, Bart., for brisk winds and high seas precluded any more of that scandalous traffick ‘tween ships, most especially to Festival, which he had referred to as “that demned hoor-ship!” It ended the bare-steerageway crawl of the nights, which was always pleasing to one who deemed himself a seasoned salt and “tarpaulin man.” And, Lewrie happily considered, the weather had reduced the necessity for Treghues to speak face-to-face with those fractious, nigh-rebellious captains of the other ships in his squadron to virtually nil! Which Lewrie also deemed a blessing of another kind from his point of view, and he was mortal-certain that Capts. Graves and Philpott felt much the same!

  For, “condign” punishment for those who had misbehaved had been interpreted more leniently than Treghues might have wished, or exacted aboard HMS Grafton’s malefactors.

  For the most part, Lewrie had awarded more subtly grievous punishments: five days’ biscuit and water for rations, denied their hearty morning burgoo, sugar and butter, their duffs, cheeses, pease puddings, or “portable soups,” with the eight-man messes temporarily shifted, so that all twenty-two offenders ate together and could not beg or borrow even a morsel from their usual messmates who might not have run amok.

  What had drawn the most groans, though, had been his decree that for an equal five days, none of the those twenty-two sailors would have leave to smoke or chew tobacco, or purchase or borrow from the Purser or their shipmates, and, horror of horrors!, for five days those men would get no rum issue, either! No “sippers” or “gulpers” presently due for past favours, and none to be snuck off innocent mates for a present or future duty or favour pledged during their time in Hell!

  Those “cats” he’d had Mr. Pendarves make up had mostly been put away in the Bosun’s locker, and only three had actually been “let out of the bag” to use on Landsman Humphries, and Ordinary Seamen Grainger and Sugden, who had been witnessed striking petty officers, Masters-At-Arms, or Ship’s Corporals from other ships at the tavern brawl, as the roving shore parties broke the melee up, or for being so drunk they had tried to fight their own petty officers as they were brought aboard. A dozen lashes apiece, bound to the upright hatch-gratings, the minimum, since those were their first offences. Enough, Lewrie hoped, to drive the message home so they would not be disputatious with their seniors the next time, but not enough to make it seem vindictive, and ruin the men’s morale or loyalty to what had been, ‘til then, a fairly “happy ship.” Who they fought ashore on their next rare dry-land liberty he could really care less!

  Under Grafton’s lee to shout across a verbal report, Lewrie had taken sly advantage of Treghues’s lust for strictness, by declaring his intent
to work the Devil out of his hands, as well, with which, at that moment, Capt. Treghues could form no dissenting opinion. That resulted in holding the gun-drills that Treghues had earlier peevishly curtailed.

  The light 6-pounder chase-guns fore and aft, the carronades, and the long 12-pounder great-guns were manned, run-in and loaded, run-out to the port sills, levered about to aim, elevated by use of the quoins below the breeches, then “fired” in dry drills, first, then actually lit off for real later, once the “rust” had been scaled off his hands, for with so much fairly peaceful passage-making of late, and more time spent in various harbours, there’d been little reason or opportunity to keep his gunners from turning slack. He and his officers began at the very basics, as if introducing new-comes to their duties, stressing safety, caution with their dangerous charges, and attention to duties.

  Lewrie, who had fallen in lifelong lust for artillery as a most angry-to-be-there Midshipman in his early days, the winter of 1780 on his first ship, finding in the power of the guns the one, perhaps the only joy a displaced dandy (as good as “press-ganged” by his own father for his own damned lust for soon-to-be-inherited funds!) relished in an ordeal that had seemed at the time as miserable a drudgery as a long prison sentence! He had, therefore, high standards, higher even than those of the experienced officers who had taught him Navy gunnery.

  Lewrie was disturbingly surprised by just how “rusty” his men had gotten, but promised himself that by the time they reached the Cape he would have them back up to “scratch,” even re-acquainting them with the rarely used light swivel-guns and 2-pounder brass boat-guns to be mounted in the bows of the gig, cutter, and launch.

  “Oh, they’ll come up to par soon enough,” Lt. Adair, their Scot Third Officer, cheerfully opined, swiping a hand through goat-curly and dark brown hair as he raised his hat to air out his scalp in the rain and the warmly-moist, green-smelling winds that blew from the far-off shores of Africa.

  “Par, d’ye say?” Lt. Catterall, the Second Officer, scoffed. “Whatever the Devil’s that, some Gaelic word? Par-broiled makes some sense. Par-tici-pate, party? But half a real word, Mister Adair?”

  “It is a golf term, Mister Catterall,” Adair impishly replied.

  “And what the Devil’s golf?” Catterall hooted in his bearishly burly way. “Once more ye’ve lost me, sir.”

  ” ‘Tis a game we play at home, Mister Catterall, and great fun, actually,” Lt. Adair explained. “A game which requires great patience and skill…well, perhaps it might be lost on Englishmen, sir,” he said with a twinkle. Then Adair proceeded to describe “golf”to him—tediously and minutely.

  “Mean t’say,” Lt. Catterall querulously asked, minutes later, “you take yer ‘mashie’ with a ‘whuppy shaft’ and whack a ‘sma’ leather-bound rock…that never did harm to anybody… ‘cross yer ‘braes,’ rain, fog, cold, or snow no matter… ‘til it lands in a rabbit hole, then do it all over again? Why, I never heard the like! Is there a prize in it? Does the rabbit keep the rock, or do ye haul the rabbit out of its hole, take it home, and jug it for yer reward? Sounds daft t’me, but, I s’pose ‘tis amusing to Scots… who have so few amusements.”

  “Par means ‘average’ for getting there, Mister Catterall,” Lt. Adair said, biting off an exasperated sigh, as he usually had to do in dealing with “Sassenach” heathen Englismen in general, or the sardonic Lt. Catterall in particular. “The number of whacks necessary.”

  “Then less than yer ‘par’ is doing worse?” Catterall chuckled.

  “Better, Mister Catterall,” Adair insisted, with a slight edge to his voice; he knew Catterall’s cynical humours, knew he was being twitted, but never could help himself. “The fewest strokes win a…”

  “Well, that’s arsey-varsey, then,” Catterall snickered. “Over average is worse, under average is best, and someone actually keeps a score of it!”

  “Then ‘par’ will never do, gentlemen,” Lewrie commented, after listening with amusement to their typical bantering from his post by the windward bulwarks. “I’ll not be satisfied with average gunnery, not after our experiences in the Caribbean. I’ll settle for two shots per gun, every three minutes, but I’d rather we get off three in that time. In the early minutes of engagement, at any rate, when the hands are not fatigued…and well-aimed ‘twixt wind and water. Remember what that American captain from Georgia said….”

  ” ‘The captain ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy,’ sir!” Lt. Adair piped up with a laugh. To which, in lieu of a hearty “Amen!” or “Here, here!” for a second, Catterall added one of Lewrie’s patented, piratical “Arrs!,” which he’d become quite good at imitating.

  “I fear I must stand more aloof to you, gentlemen,” Lewrie said as he tucked his hands into the small of his back and peered back up to weather. “No more dining some of you in,” he pointedly commented over his shoulder. “Some seem to have come to know me, and my ways, simply too well, alas. And Mister Catterall and the Surgeon were to dine with me this very night…on fresh beef, too, what a pity.”

  He swivelled about to face them, quite enjoying the smirk upon Adair’s phyz, and Catterall’s strangled expression. With a droll grin, and an energetic clap of his hands, he announced:

  “Once gun-drill, the rum issue, and noon mess is done, sirs,” he said, “I think we should strike topmasts, then re-rig them, should the winds abate. Just to see how quickly the evolution can be performed, ‘rusty’ as we seem t’be, hmm? Then … with the wind abeam, and sailing mostly on an even keel, I will also have the hands work off excess energy by going aloft, waisters, idlers, and all, along with the topmen. Larboard division ‘gainst starboard division.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Up and over, from the windward foremast shrouds to the fighting top, then down to the lee gangway, up the lee main shrouds and down to the larboard gangway, then up and over the mizen-mast. Encouraged, and led by their officers, o’ course. Mister Langlie and I shall observe, and time it.” Lewrie continued with a smirk of his own, “Much like the Irish whore instructed…’up, down…up, down…up, down, repeat if necessary’! Winning division gets extra grog on completion of their Dog Watch.”

  The fortuitous winds abated, at last, shifting back to Sou’east, forcing the trade to steer wider to the Sou’west, but they had logged nearly six hundred nautical miles, mostly at Due South, more than a quarter of the total passage, placing the convoy and its escorts more Easterly to Africa, and even sailing six points off the wind they would only skirt the edge of the Doldrums, not get becalmed in it.

  For a much shorter time, the Trades and the Equatorial Current that flowed the same direction in concert with each other would impede them, then… though the Sou’east Trade might still rule, an eastward-flowing current that girded the southern rim of the Doldrums, parent to the one they now fought, would kiss them on their starboard, lee, bows to counter the leeway lost to the winds. A few slogging degrees more of latitude, and the winds would shift to out of the West, in concert with that current, and they’d all be be there!

  And, so it was, one mid-afternoon in March, that HMS Stag, far ahead of the convoy, hoisted a string of signal flags in the private code that Capt. Treghues had invented that read:

  “Land—Four Points—Larboard Bow.”

  “Table Mountain, that’d be, most-like, sir,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, carefully opined. “Visible from seaward on a clear day as far as fifteen leagues…or, so my book of pilotage tells us.”

  Almost over! Lewrie quietly exulted; This part, at least.

  “We’ll not enter harbour tonight, sir, beg pardon,” Winwood said. “I’d expect we’ll stand off-and-on ‘til morning, so we may be able to spot the rocks and such. A poor set of anchorages, even so, sir, this Table Bay or Simon’s Bay. Bad holding ground, the both of them, both subject to sudden and contrary afternoon clear-weather gales, it says.”

  “Cape Town, or Simon’s Town,” Lewrie said with a shrug of resignation. “With any luck, we’ll no
t be in either, very long, sir. In point of fact, ‘twill require a great deal of luck should we come to anchor, at all!”

  “The, ah… results of our sailors’ deeds at Saint Helena, I should think, Captain?” Winwood, ever the sombre Christian, whispered.

  “Exactly so, Mister Winwood,” Lewrie agreed. “There’s odds we might just sail right on by, do Captain Treghues and Captain Cowles, as Commodore of the Indiamen, concur.”

  “Might be just as well, sir,” Winwood commented, though with a slightly disappointed sigh. “I’ve never really been ashore, here.”

  “The ‘tavern of the seas,’ Mister Winwood,” Lewrie told him with a chuckle. “An infamous sink of sin, no matter the stiffness of the Protestant Dutch.”

  “Even so, though, sir …” Winwood said most wistfully.

  “I wonder if they have corn-whisky?” Lewrie wondered aloud.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was a rather abstemious little gathering for supper in the great-cabins: the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, who never drank much at all, seated to his right; Lt. Devereux, in charge of Proteus’s Marine detachment, to his left, and (for a sea-soldier) never known as one who over-indulged in tipple; and his three midshipmen, Mr. Gamble the older, Mr. Grace, and wee Mr. Larkin, at the table’s foot, as the Vice. All of whom were so daunted by Mr. Winwood, who was the midshipmen’s tutor in matters navigational and mathematical, and by dread of making a fool of themselves by taking too much “aboard.” Mr. Winwood’s grave, mournful scowl when his sense of primness was offended could make the “middies” scurry like cockroaches. Lt. Blase Devereux was a languidly elegant sort, whose gentlemanly mannerisms they wished to emulate, anyway, and the captain was, well…the captain, not a man to disappoint, if they wished to stay in his “good books.”