The King's Coat

by Dewey Lambdin

  “We shall try to spend it wisely, sir,” Lewrie lied, knowing that Ashburn was ashore trying to get rooms and a private dining area for a long overdue shore leave, as well as some women.

  “As I said in my report, and I shall say it to your face, Lewrie, you did extremely well when put to the test,” Bales said, fingering a stack of guineas on his desk. “Eight months ago I despaired that you would ever amount to anything, and now here you are, the one bright bit in a dismal report. Had you not reorganised the lower deck guns and gotten them firing again there is a very good possibility that every man-jack in this ship would now be dead or a prisoner of war, and Ariadne sunk or a prize.”

  “Thank you for your good opinion, sir…” Damme, did I really do all that? And did you really put it that way in your report? If you did, I’m a bloody hero!

  “Of such good beginnings are great careers and reputations made in the Fleet. And, you have worked diligently at your studies as well. I predict that you may do very well in the Navy, Mister Lewrie. But watch the course you steer well. There’re a hundred pitfalls for the ambitious officer. No one can rush about blind to hazard, or forget to cover his back. I’d advise you to make caution your watchword and not let this fleeting fame be the high-water mark for you.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie said, not knowing what the hell Bales was talking about, and a little unsettled at seeing such a stern man muttering to himself between phrases.

  Once dismissed, Lewrie went back on deck, just in time to see Keith Ashburn coming through the entry port, and went to join him. His friend was now half a commission officer at least, clad in breeches and stockings, and had replaced his round hat with a cocked one. He wore a new smallsword on his hip instead of a dirk, but his tailor must have been a slow worker since he still had to move about in a midshipman’s short coat.

  “Twenty pounds, Keith,” Lewrie said. “Excuse me, Mister Ashburn. Ours, Bascombe’s and Shirke’s, though I don’t see what a parson’s son and a man with one arm in boards are going to do with a bareback rider.”

  “He forgot Chapman,” Ashburn said.

  “Who wouldn’t?” Lewrie shrugged. “What have you gotten for us?”

  “A good dinner for a start, and a suite of rooms, a dozen of wine. That’s fifteen shillings apiece. Only two girls so far, but they have friends. A guinea apiece for them.”

  “What are they, blood royal? There must be a whole island full of mutton that’d do it for half a crown, and that’s a whole night of it.”

  “These are gentlemen’s doxies, not common trulls. Won’t go for anyone less than a lieutenant, usually. The two I met are quite fetching,” Ashburn promised. Since his promotion to acting lieutenant, he had been acting, all right, acting much more superior, reclaiming those languid airs he had grown up with in rich society. Lewrie was getting a bit peeved with his attitude. It was not a week ago that Ashburn was not above borrowing money from him until his packet arrived.

  “There’s a boat comin’ offshore, sir,” a bosun’s mate told Ashburn, pointing over the starboard rail. “Headed fer us, I thinks.”

  “Very well. Hail him, Mister Lewrie.”

  “Boat ahoy!” Alan shouted.

  “Aye aye!” came the answering hail, meaning the boat was for them, and from the fingers stuck in the air by the bowman, there was a full captain aboard.

  “Bosun’s Mate, muster the sideparty,” Lewrie ordered. “Another ghoul come to marvel, I expect. I feel like the gatekeeper at Bedlam. Poking sticks, sir? Stir ’em up? Water squirts? Only a penny more.” He wheezed, rubbing his hands.

  A youngish post captain came in through the entry port and did a long survey of the splintered and stained decks, the lack of guns, and the many repairs still being done to the bulwarks. He carried a large canvas bundle of papers tied up with many fluttering ribbons.

  “Welcome aboard, sir,” Ashburn said.

  “Stuyckes, flag captain to Rear Admiral Sir Onsley Matthews. I am here to see your captain.”

  “This way, sir, if you please,” Ashburn smiled smarmily. “Here, you. Inform the captain of Captain Stuyckes’ arrival. You know, sir, I was looking forward to coming to Antigua. Sir Onsley is well known to my family in London.”

  “Here, you, indeed,” Lewrie grumbled as he ran off to inform Bales that he had a visitor, he being the “here, you” in question. I don’t think this is going to be one of those friendships that lasts for generations, Keith. And if I ever have a daughter, God help her, your son can go hang before he marries her.

  But it didn’t seem as if Keith’s toadying was getting him anywhere with Captain Stuyckes, since that worthy wore an expression more in keeping with a funeral, and whatever his business with Captain Bales was, it didn’t look like it was to be a social call.

  News of the visit did not take long to circulate through the vessel, so quite a few interested parties made it their business to take the air either on the quarterdeck, or as close as they could get to it.

  “The flag captain, was he?” Ellison asked the general vicinity.

  “A Captain Stuyckes, sir,” Lewrie volunteered. “With a bundle of papers all bound in ribbons.”

  “Then it’s bad news, no doubt of it,” Ellison said bitterly. “Poor old girl, shot to pieces.”

  “You mean they might not be able to repair the ship, sir?” Alan wondered aloud.

  “She’s bad sprung. Twenty years old, she is, and only brought out of ordinary because we need ships bad. You ask ‘Chips,’ she’s half rotten, and now too bad gut-shot to be repaired. Not out here, not in the tropics. Might make a powder hulk.”

  “So there might be a possibility I could end up in another ship?” Lewrie speculated with a tingle of hope for better chances.

  “Aye, a lot of us, most like,” Ellison said, considering his slim chances for future employment. Another sailing master would have to die before he could be taken aboard a ship already in commission. He could be temporarily derated to master’s mate “for the good of the Service” and spend years trying to get his pay straightened out after stoppages.

  “Shore duty for me, then, and my Marines,” Osmonde said. “Some garrison work would not go amiss.”

  “I’d love to get a frigate,” Lewrie announced.

  “Wouldn’t we all?” Ellison snarled, stalking off.

  “A chance to see more action, eh?” Osmonde asked Lewrie.

  “Aye, sir. As long as I have to be in the Navy, what better duty is there?”

  “Amazing what a taste of powder smoke can do for a boy.”

  “You were right, Mister Osmonde,” Lewrie said. “I almost ran and hid, but I didn’t. Or couldn’t. And then I didn’t have any time to think about it, I just did it. It was terrifying, and I thought I had gone mad. But never more alive.”

  “And you did extremely well,” Osmonde told him. “In fact, you may be the only one to garner any credit from our encounter. One word of advice?”

  “Aye, sir, your advice has been good.”

  “Don’t go dashing madly after more fame and glory. They are always bigger than you are, and will eat you right up.”

  “The captain said much the same thing, sir. At least, I think he did,” Lewrie replied, repeating Bales’ admonition.

  “Hmm, I fear Captain Bales and I do not mean the same thing at all. Of course, he is right, in a way. This service is very political. Whig, Tory, City interests, country interests. Anyone who makes a name will always be desperately envied, and there’s a hundred people ready to run you through for your position. You must be cautious about the people you anger on your way up, and the people you espouse. But in your actions, too much caution can get you killed, or ruined. It’s a fine line to walk, like the edge of a sharp sword.”

  The sideparty formed again as Captain Stuyckes took his leave of them. He was even grimmer in aspect than when he had come aboard, and most conspicuously, was without his bundle of papers.

  “Lewrie,” Kenyon called as they were breaking up the side-pa
rty. “Pass the word to all the midshipmen to be sure to wash and dress in their best uniforms in the morning. You’ll be called to the flag,” Kenyon ordered sternly. “You and a few of the others shall be called upon to testify at the court-martial.”

  “Eh?” Were they going to try Rolston?

  “Ariadne has been condemned,” Kenyon said bleakly, his own hopes for the future seemingly dashed. “Since she has been lost to the Fleet, the captain and the first lieutenant are to face charges in her loss.”

  * * *

  Just after breakfast, at one bell of the Forenoon watch, a gun boomed from the flag of the Inshore Squadron which Ariadne had been to join, the fifty-gun 4th Rate Glatton. A court-martial jack went up her masts, and boats from several ships in harbor converged on her, boats bearing the five captains that made a court-martial panel, and boats from shore bearing wounded witnesses, as well as two cutters from Ariadne, with her sorrowful-looking party. Once aboard, Bales and Swift were called aft to the admiral’s cabins while Lewrie and the rest were led below to Glatton’s wardroom and told to wait. Shirke was also there, his arm encased in a set of boards and wrapped with leather.

  “I understand we are unemployed,” Shirke whispered to Lewrie as he gave up his chair to him.

  “Accommodations ship, they tell me,” Lewrie said softly. “We may be kept on. But I expect the fleet here in the islands is in sore need of people, what with sickness and all.”

  “Pray God they’ve just had the plague,” Shirke said, then grinned. “What about our party?”

  “I have five pounds of yours,” Lewrie told him. “But with you laid up—”

  “Just get me a gentle one and I’ll take my fences as well as anyone. What’s my share?”

  “Three crown, say a pound total with tip for supper, rooms and wine. A guinea for the whore.”

  “A guinea? For a guinea, she’d better be Salome!”

  “Quiet, you two!” Kenyon admonished, from across the room.

  One at a time they were called upon as the morning wore on. First Kenyon as ranking officer, then the warrants. Ashburn went and was back in minutes.

  “That was quick,” Lewrie said as a cabin steward circulated a tray of fresh coffee about the wardroom and he used it as an excuse to get close to Ashburn. “How was it?”

  “It doesn’t look too good for them,” Ashburn muttered. “There wasn’t much I could tell them, except that I was on the quarterdeck, and never heard a word about clearing for action. Um, good coffee. First real article I’ve had in weeks.”

  “Passing the word for Midshipman Lewrie,” a Marine called.

  On his way up to the admiral’s cabins to testify, Lewrie saw two faces that he had not expected to run across again. The first was his dis-rated enemy Rolston. He stood by the larboard entry port with a small chest and canvas bag at his feet, going with a draft of men to one of the ships in harbor. He was dressed as a common seaman in slop trousers, checked shirt and neckerchief, with a flat, tarred hat on his head, and his feet bare. Evidently the needs of the fleet were such that there would be no further punishment for him, and he was a trained hand able to hand, reef and possibly steer. Rolston saw him and gave him such a black look that Lewrie was afraid for his life for a second. Then the irony of it struck him and he waved hello gaily.

  The second face was their silent Lieutenant Church. He was in the company of a Marine Lieutenant, dressed in normal uniform but minus his sword. Lewrie attempted to speak to him, but Church turned away with a “the direct cut.”

  “You’d think he could speak…” Alan groused.

  “Not likely,” his guide, an elegantly turned out midshipman on the admiral’s staff, told him with a wry grin. “He’s due in there himself tomorrow.”

  “What for?”

  “Court-martial. Cowardice under fire,” the boy took pleasure in informing him. “Seems you lot from Ariadne have no luck at all, eh?”

  Lewrie was announced, led in to face the assembled court and shown to a witness chair. Captain Bales and Mr. Swift sat to one side, and he nodded to them as he was sworn in.

  He was led through his name, his date of joining, his duties, and all the mundane things. Then came the day of their fight.

  “My station at Quarters was on the lower gun deck, sir,” he said, in response to the first serious question, and he tensed up, not knowing what would help or hurt Bales and Swift, and if he should even bother.

  “And what occurred, Mister Lewrie?”

  “We were finishing dinner, sir, when we were called to Quarters. We had been at gun drill all morning.”

  “Did you think it was another drill?” a sharp-featured captain asked. It was hard to figure out if he was a lawyer or a member of the court.

  “At first, sir. Just before one bell of the Day Watch.”

  “What was done on the lower gun deck, Mister Lewrie?”

  “We turned to the fourteen thirty-two-pounders to starboard, sir. The larboard guns had three men each. Sand was cast, the gun tackles were cast off, tompions removed and the starboard battery loaded with eight-pound charges, and single round-shot.”

  “You did not run out?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I see. What else did you do to prepare for battle?”

  “That was it, sir.” Lewrie squirmed in his hard chair as he said it, unable to look at Bales or Swift.

  “You did not strike the mess tables? Take chests below?”

  “Tables had been raised to the deckheads, sir. But everything else was placed on the centerline away from recoil.”

  “What was … everything else?” the officer posed.

  “Seamen’s chests, sir. Stools, plates, mess kits and bread barges. The gunroom was still standing and so was Marine quarters and the officer’s mess.”

  “You were on the lower gun deck. How could you know about the other?” another captain snapped.

  “I think what this young man means is that if those quarters had been struck below, they would have come down past him, is that right, Mister Lewrie?” the sharp-featured one put in.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Did that strike you as odd?”

  “Excuse me, but what a midshipman of so little experience holds as an opinion is of no interest,” a much older captain grumped.

  And God save me from serving under you, Lewrie thought.

  “Did your officers find it odd? Did they say anything about the fact that Ariadne would be full of dangerous sources of splinters should the ship be called upon to fight?” the sharp one pressed.

  “I asked Mister Harm if we should not clear, sir. But he did not like me asking questions.”

  “What did he say?”

  “To keep my trap shut, sir.” Which raised a laugh from the court.

  “Yess,” the sharp captain drawled, “so you went to Quarters at one bell of the Day Watch. And you did not engage until one bell of the First Dog. Is that your recollection?”

  “Aye, sir. We stood easy for a long time.”

  They got to the point when the Spaniard was only two cables off and struck her false Dutch flag, that awful first broadside, and the revelation of their foe’s true identity.

  “And what happened on the lower gun deck?”

  “Mister Harm was killed immediately, sir,” Lewrie replied, seeing again that shaved skull and the huge splinter in the man’s eye and in his brain. “Splinters from our cutter came through the gun ports, one gun was dismounted, one burst and a powder charge blew up.”

  “The cutter had been lowered from the boat-tiers?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “What about the other boats?”

  “At divisions that morning, sir, they were all on the boat-tier. But after we went to gun drill, I cannot say, sir.”

  “I would like to point out,” the sharp-faced captain said, “that Midshipman Lewrie and gunner’s mate Cole took over at this time and did exceptional service with the lower deck guns.”

  “Well, not exactly, sir.”

/>   “You did not?”

  “I was blown to the deck, sir, and it was an absolute madhouse. Mister Roth did join us but he was also killed almost at once. It must have been two or three minutes before we got sorted out.”

  “But you did, after that, take charge?”

  “After I had gotten over being terrified, sir.”

  “Mister Cole tells me he took orders from you. Did you find that strange, a warrant gunner obeying a midshipman?”

  “Aye, sir … but we got the job done.”

  “What was the final toll from the lower deck?” another officer asked, one who had been sitting silent for most of the testimony.

  “Two officers and nine seamen killed, nineteen wounded, sir. And three more have since passed on.”

  “Lots of splinter wounds, I suppose.”

  “Aye, sir. A lot.” Alan gulped.

  They conferred among themselves for a moment, then turned to face their court once more. “I believe that is all for this witness,” the president announced. “Unless you have anything, Captain Bales?”

  “I think Mister Lewrie will bear me out that we held regular gun drills, did we not?” Captain Bales said, looking sharper and more aware than in the past few days.

  “Aye, sir, we did,” Alan agreed.

  “And was the starboard battery of the lower deck run out and ready to fire when that Spaniard fired into us?” Bales added.

  “The guns were run out … sir, aye.”

  “And ready to fire!” Bales repeated, thumping his chair arm.

  “Um, no, sir. After Lieutenant Harm believed our chase to be a neutral Dutchman, he … never ordered the guns primed.”

  Bales’ exuberant defense crumpled. “But … ah … the gunners and crews were thoroughly competent, were they not?”

  “There goes someone asking an opinion of a newly again,” the old captain muttered.

  “I shall let this one stand,” the president of the court said.

  “Aye, sir, I felt we were competent,” Lewrie lied, knowing that they had been terrible shots, grudgingly adequate at best, men who had never considered gun drill a serious business; who could go through the motions but had found fighting for their lives to be a horror, not even used to the sound of their own gunfire.