The King's Coat

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Ten years in the Fleet and never a lash? My last captain would have had him dancing,” Shirke said.

  “Taut hand, was he?” Chapman asked, now that he remembered what came after chewing.

  “Best days were Thursday Forenoon,” Shirke told them. “Looked like the Egyptians building the pyramids … whack, whack, whack.”

  “I fear the cat is a poor way to keep order,” Brail said. “I should think grog or tobacco stoppage would be more effective.”

  “Nonsense,” Finnegan said, digging for gristle with a horny claw. “Wot’s better, d’ye think, hangin’ fer stealin’ half a crown, er takin’ a dozen lashes fer drunk on duty?”

  “Well…”

  “I’d take the floggin’. It’s done, it’s over, yer back hurts like hell, but yer still breathin’. Ashore, they hang fer everythin’.”

  “Flogging is a brutal way to discipline,” Brail maintained.

  “Bein’ on a King’s Ship ain’t brutal enough awready?”

  “Exactly my point,” Brail said. “The hands would do anything for tobacco or grog. Deprive them of it for a few days and they’ll learn their lessons.”

  “Aw, Able Seaman Breezy lays Ordinary Seaman Joke open from ’is gullet ta ’is weddin’ tackle, an’ you’d stop somebody’s grog?” Turner gaped at this dangerous notion. “Somebody says ‘no’ ta me when I tells ’im ta do somthin’, an’ you’d take his baccy from ’im?”

  “Nothing like the cat ta make ’em walk small about ya,” Finnegan said firmly.

  “I had a captain who had a hand who could not stop pissing on the deck. Learned it in his alley, I’ve no doubt,” Ashburn told them. “Grog, tobacco, nothing helped. Had him flogged, a dozen to start. Nothing worked. Finally tied him up in baby swaddles, itchy old canvas. Had to see the bosun whenever he had to pump his bilges and be unlocked. That cured him.”

  “Shamed ’im afore ’is mates, too,” Finnegan said. “Felt more like a man iffen ’e’d got two-dozen an’ they learned him the right way.”

  “Flogging is not always the best answer,” Ashburn said with a saintly expression. “Some intelligence must play a part.”

  In the middle of their discussion, they heard the call of the bosun’s pipes. Then came the drumming of the Marine to call them to Quarters, bringing a groan. “Damme, not another drill,” Lewrie said. “I know we were terrible this morning, but do we have to go through it all afternoon?”

  He raced up to the lower gun deck, where the crew had been having their meal. It was a mass of confusion as hands slung food into their buckets and bread barges, stowing everything away out of sight and slamming their chests shut. Tables had to be hoisted up to the deckheads out of the way so they could fetch down the rammers, crows and handspikes to serve the guns, grumbling at their lost meal.

  Ariadne turned slightly north of their westerly course as the gun captains came up from the hanging magazines with their tools of the trade. By then, chests and stools and eating utensils had been stacked on the centerline out of the way of the guns, and the tompions were being removed. Ship’s boys arrived with the first powder cartridges borne in flashproof leather or wood cases.

  “Another drill, sir?” Lewrie asked Lieutenant Harm.

  “No, you fool. We’ve sighted a strange sail.”

  “Oh, I see, sir…” This could be a real fight, a chance to do something grand … maybe even make some prize money. No, what am I saying? This is Ariadne. We’ll lose her or she’ll turn out to be one of our packets …

  Little Beckett came scuttling down from the upper deck and went to Lieutenant Roth. “The captain’s respects, Mister Roth, and would you be so good as to attend to the lowering of a cutter for an armed party to go aboard the chase once we have fetched her,” he singsonged.

  “My compliments to the captain, and I shall be on deck directly. Wish me luck, Horace,” he said to Harm. “If she’s a prize, I may be the one to take her into port. What an opportunity!”

  Roth fled the deck as though devils were chasing him.

  Horace Harm? Lewrie thought, stifling a grin with difficulty. No wonder he’s such a surly Irish beau-nasty.

  “Arrah now, fuck you, Jemmy Roth,” Harm muttered under his breath. His associate could parley the strange ship into an independent command, first crack at fresh cabin stores, and a good chance at a promotion into another ship, while Harm languished aboard Ariadne, moving up to fourth officer, but still stuck in her until old age.

  “Lewrie,” Harm said, spinning on him and following the old adage that when in doubt, shout at someone. “Check to see that sand is spread for traction. And look to the firebuckets. Can you stretch your little mind to handle all of that, Lewrie?”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie replied sweetly, which he knew galled the officer. Horace!

  By the time Lewrie had finished his inspection, had ordered more sand, told some crews to clear away their raffle and gone back to report, the guns had been loaded with quarter-weight powder cartridges, eight pounds of powder to propel a thirty-two-pound iron ball. An increase in powder charge would not impel the shot any farther or faster, since all the powder did not take flame at once. It was good enough for random shot at long range, about a mile. As they closed with the chase, they might reduce the charge for short range, especially if they double-shotted the guns. Then, a normal charge would likely burst the piece.

  “Should we not clear for action, Mister Harm?” Lewrie asked, seeing all the mess deck gear stowed on the centerline, and the partitions still standing for the midshipmen’s mess.

  “Should the captain require it, we shall,” Harm said. “And if he does not, then we shan’t. Now shut your trap and quit interfering with your betters, Lewrie, or I’ll see you bent over a gun before this day is out.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie chirped again, full of sham eagerness to serve, and wondering why he had expected a sensible and polite answer from such a man. It must be one of ours, he decided. There are recognition signals. We’ll most likely stand around down here until we’re bored silly and then be released.

  Once more, there was nothing to do for a long time as the day wore on and Ariadne bore down on the chase, plunging along with the wind on her starboard quarter and her shoulder to the sea. But it was still an hour before Beckett came below and told the crews to stand easy. They dragged out their stools and sat down. Lewrie took a seat on a chest. In his heart, he knew it was wrong not to strike all the assorted junk below into the holds, take down those partitions and get rid of the chests and stools, but what could a midshipman do about it? And even if he got Harm to send a message with a respectful suggestion on the matter, what shrift would a lieutenant’s advice receive from a post-captain intent on the whiff of prize money?

  Some of the older hands had tied their neckerchiefs about their ears, making them look decidedly piratical. When he asked a quartergunner, old Snow in fact, he was told that it would keep him from going deaf from the sound of the guns.

  By four in the afternoon, the order came down to open the gun ports, and blessed sunlight flooded in, along with sweet fresh air.

  The hands were called back to attention by their guns but they still ducked to peer out the ports at their possible prize.

  “Full-rigged, boys!” a rammer man whispered to a side-tackle mate. “Maybe a French blockade runner full o’ gold.”

  “Have ta be a rum ’un ta get took by us!” a handspike man said.

  “Silence, the lot of you,” Lieutenant Harm shouted. “Watch your fronts!”

  And it was another half hour by Lewrie’s watch before the strange ship was near enough to hail, about two cables off their starboard bows. A chase gun barked from the upper deck and a feather of spray leaped up right under the other ship’s bowsprit. A flag broke from the chase’s gaff—it was Dutch.

  Everyone sighed with a hiss of disappointment. They weren’t at war with Holland yet. They had wasted their whole afternoon.

  “Damme,” a hand cursed, rubbing his hands tog
ether with a dry rustle. “Thort she were a beamy one, woulda been a good prize.”

  There goes the start of my fortune, Alan thought, easing his aching back from long standing by the guns. He could have almost felt and heard those “yellowboys” clinking together … good golden guineas.

  Beckett appeared on the companionway. “Mister Harm, the captain wishes you to run out, sir.”

  “Right,” Harm crackled. “Run out yer guns.” And fourteen black muzzles trundled up to the port sills with a sound resembling a stampede of hogs. “Point yer guns, handspikes there, number six!”

  Harm had drawn his smallsword and stood with it cocked over his shoulder, and Alan wondered just exactly what good the officer thought a blade was going to do to a ship more than four hundred yards away.

  “But she’s neutral, is she not?” Alan asked.

  “Might be smuggling,” Harm said. “I’d have thought ya’d have brains enough to realize we’ll board her and check her papers anyway. Might pick up a few hands to flesh us out. Damn Dutchies always have a few English sailors aboard hiding out from the press-gang under a foreign flag.”

  The Dutch ship took a look at that menacing broadside pointing at her and took the path of sanity. Her flag slowly fluttered down the gaff.

  Alan hoped that she was indeed a smuggler, loaded with contraband goods destined for some American port, or had papers that would make her liable to seizure. If so they could take her into Antigua and sell her, cargo, hull and fittings. “Um, how much do you think she might be worth, if she is a smuggler, Mister Harm?”

  “Hull and rigging’ll fetch near ten thousand pounds,” Harm told him, a gleam coming to his own eye. “Now, if she’s carrying contraband, it’ll be military stores and such-like, and that may double her value.”

  Davit blocks squealed as the large cutter was lowered over the side directly in front of their midships guns, the main course yard being employed as a boat boom. Their prize had let fly all instead of bringing to into the wind, and her canvas fluttered like a line of shirts on wash day.

  “Dutchies can carry right rich cargoes,” Harm went on half to himself, almost pleasant for once in his greed. “Maybe fifty thous—”

  The late afternoon was torn apart with red-hot stabs of flame and the lung-flattening booming of heavy guns. The side of the Dutch ship lit up and was wreathed in a sudden cloud of smoke as she fired a broadside right into Ariadne, two full gun decks of twenty-four- and eighteen-pounders. The air seemed to tremble and moan with the weight of iron headed their way, and another flag was shooting up the naked gaff. But this time it was the white and gold of Bourbon Spain!

  “Bastard Dons,” Harm shouted. “Prime yer—”

  Once more Lieutenant Harm was interrupted as the lower gundeck exploded. Heavy balls slammed into the ship’s side at nearly 1,200 feet per second, and Lewrie could hear the shrieking of her massive oaken scantlings as they bulged and splintered.

  The cutter that was dangling before their gun ports was demolished, and a cloud of splinters raved through the open ports, striking down men. One ball struck a gun and upended it, hurling it free of sidetackles, breeching ropes and train tackles and sending it slewing to the larboard side. Another loaded gun was hit right on the muzzle, which set off its charge, and it burst asunder with a great roar! A little powder monkey standing terrified by the hatch to the orlop had his cartridge case explode in his arms, and was flung away like a broken doll, his clothes burned off and his arms missing!

  There were screams of pain and surprise as though a pack of women were being ravaged. There were howls of agony as oak and iron splinters ripped into flesh, and guns turned on their servers and crushed them like sausages.

  Lewrie had been blown off his feet by the explosion of the powder cartridge, and lay on the deck, still buffeted by the noise and the harsh thump of each cannonball striking deep into Ariadne’s hull. He saw and heard throaty gobbling and sobbing all about him as men clawed at their hurts and burns. In a split second, the ordered world of the lower gun deck had become a colored illustration from a very original sort of hell. He got to his feet, unsure what to do or where to go, but certain he wanted to go anywhere else, fast. A hand touched him on the shoulder and he jumped with a yelp of fear. He turned to see who it was.

  Lieutenant Harm had been struck in the face by a large splinter. Half his face, the side nearest Lewrie, had been shaved off to the bone. One eye was gone, and in its place was a splinter nearly a foot long and nearly as big around as Lewrie’s wrist. Harm’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times like a dying fish before he toppled forward like a marionette with the strings cut. He fell on top of Snow, the quartergunner, whose entrails were spread out in a stinking mess on the deck. Just beyond him, Lewrie could see a side-tackle man lying beneath the overturned gun, and still screaming at the ruin of his legs.

  “Oh,” Lewrie managed to say, gulping in fright. The fear that seized him made him dizzy, turned his limbs to jelly and took him far from the unbelievable sights and smells of the deck. He tried to take a step but felt like he was walking on pillows, and fell to his knees.

  That’s an eye, he decided, regarding the strange object below his face. He threw up his dinner on it. Overhead, but no business of his, he could hear the upper deck twelve-pounders banging away raggedly, and the roar of the trucks as they recoiled. It sounded as if Ariadne was being turned into a pile of wood chips.

  A second broadside from the Spanish ship slammed into them. More screams, more singing of flying debris, and a muffled explosion somewhere! He got back to his feet, clinging to a carline post.

  Lieutenant Roth came skidding down the hatchway with his hat missing, and the white facings of his uniform and breeches stained grey with powder smoke. “Harm! Lewrie, where’s—”

  And then someone jerked Lieutenant Roth’s string, or so it seemed, for he left his feet and flew across the width of the gun deck to slam into the larboard side where he left a bloody splash, cut in half by shot.

  Got to get out of here, he told himself, considering how dark and safe it would be in the holds below the waterline snuggled up by the rum kegs. He seemed to float to the hatch, but Cole, the gunner’s mate, stopped him by hugging his leg in terror.

  “Zur,” Cole pleaded on his knees, clutching tight. “Zur.”

  “Not now.” Alan was intent on salvation, but there was a Marine sentry at the hatch using his bayonet to disincline others who had already had the same thoughts, and he looked over at Lewrie as one more customer for his trade.

  Couldn’t make it with this bastard anyway, Alan decided, unable to move without dragging the mate along with him. “Goddamn you, you’re a mate … tell me what to do!”

  “Zur!” the mate babbled, shuffling on his knees with Alan.

  “I want out of here, hear me? OUT,” Alan yelled.

  “Run out, zur?” the gunner’s mate asked, eager for any sane suggestion. “Run ’em out? Right, zur!”

  “Let go of me, damn you, and do your job! Get up and do your job! Stand to your guns!” And he hauled Cole to his feet and shoved him away. “Corporal, run those shirkers to their guns!” Right, he told himself; I wouldn’t believe me, either, seeing the Marine’s dubious look.

  “Ready, zur!” Cole was wringing his hands in panic.

  “Fire as you bear!” Lewrie ordered, hoping to be heard in all the din. The thirty-two-pounders began to slam, rolling back from the sills and filling the deck with a sour cloud of burnt powder. This isn’t happening to me, he thought wildly. I refuse to be killed. I will not allow myself to believe this is real …

  Lewrie staggered to a port which no longer contained a gun and peered out to see through the smoke cloud. He was amazed to see some ragged holes punched into the enemy’s hull. The range was less than a cable as the two ships drifted down on each other.

  “Beautiful! Hit him again!” he shouted, happy that he might take a few of the bastards with him. “Swab out, there, charge your guns…”

&nbs
p; “Git yoor ztupid foot atta the bight a that tackle er yew’ll be Mister Hop-kins,” the gunner’s mate told someone. Just to be sure it wasn’t himself, Lewrie stepped back to the centerline of the deck. Knew we should have struck all this below, he thought, studying the wreck of chests and stools and spare clothing.

  As they were ramming down round-shot, a rammer man beside him took a large splinter of oak in his back and gave a shrill scream as he toppled over, scattering the terrified gun crew.

  “Clear away, there! Wounded to the larboard side! Run out your guns!” Lewrie was glad to have something to do besides shiver with fright. He had not thought it would be that cold below decks. Teeth-chattering cold!

  “Prime! Point!” He saw fists rise in the air as each gun was gotten ready and he felt the hull drumming to hits, but he also felt the scend of the sea under Ariadne. “On the uproll … fire!”

  This was much more organized, a twelve-gun broadside fired all at the same time. An avalanche of iron seemed to strike the enemy. She visibly staggered, and three waist gun ports were battered into one, whole chunks of scantling blown apart by the impact. Surely there was a cloud of splinters on her gun deck this time.

  “Kick ’em up the arse!” Lewrie sang out, which raised a ragged cheer from the men. “Sponge out your guns!”

  “B … better, zur!” the mate said as Ariadne was struck deep in the hull but not on the gun deck. He looked at Lewrie like a puppy who had lost his man in a crowd.

  “They’re not sullen about gun drill now, are they?” Lewrie said with a manic smile. “We’ll take a few of the shits with us, hey?”

  “Aye, zur!” Cole said, finding his courage and gazing at him with frank admiration, which Lewrie found disconcerting in the extreme.

  “Have we fired twice or three times?” he asked. “Should we worm the guns? Don’t want a charge going off early.”

  “I’d worm, zur!” Cole said. “Worm out yer guns there!”

  He must think I’ve gone mad, Lewrie thought, getting away from Cole as far as possible. In doing so he stepped over the body of a boy, a tiny, young midshipman who had lost a leg and bled to death, his dirk still clenched in a pale fist. Odd that after eight months in the same ship together Alan could not place him at all. Fuck me, I’m dead or deranged already, he told himself. If I have to go game, I wish I could stop shaking so badly. I’m ready to squirt my breeches! He clung to a support beam amidships and tried to get a grip.