The King's Coat

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Do they work real good?” Alan rephrased.

  “Devilish good, sir.”

  “Let’s hang on to them, then. Bring in a tub of water and make sure they are closed up, and unable to rub and take fire on their own. We just might find a use for them.”

  “Aye, sir,” Bright said, almost touching his forehead in a salute.

  The rest of the inventory went swiftly, counting the French model 1763 muskets, boarding pikes, cutlasses, tomahawks and pistols, and the gun tools and grindstone that went with them. Since Parrot had no master-at-arms, Lewrie would be filling in in that capacity, and was happy to have so much to play with. The days ahead looked very promising.

  * * *

  A week later, Parrot was in all respects ready for sea. Lewrie was happy with his duties, and with his responsibilities. He had the guns painted, all tackles and breeching ropes snug. There were enough cartridges made up for a good battle, and still a quarter-ton of powder below decks in casks. The round-shot had been filed and sanded and painted and laid out in shot-garlands, while the slightly imperfect hung in net bags ready for practice use. All the small arms were oiled and sharpened, and he had gotten two watches in which to hold arms drill and change the assignments of who got axes or pikes or muskets.

  Finally, a gig had flown out to them from the flag, and a stuffy lieutenant had handed over to them several weighted bags of mail or orders, along with their first sailing orders. For the first time the jibs were hoisted, and the anchor broken out of the bottom. The huge fore-and-aft sails rose up the masts and the booms swung out as they filled with wind. Water began to chuckle under Parrot’s forefoot as she tacked her way out of the narrow channel to the outer roads and past the shipping anchored there. Once past Cape Shirley they turned east-sou’east for an offing, going hard to windward.

  And then, with the island a smudge to the nor’west, they came about to the starboard tack with the wind abeam and began to thrash to the north, hoisting topsails as well, and winging out the gaff sails to use every ounce of wind. By the time they cast the first log they had gotten up to nearly ten knots, and it was glorious, since Parrot could go like a Cambridge Coach with her larboard side down slightly and cool spray bursting in sheets from her bows and creaming down her flanks, spattering the decks and wetting the jibs and fores’ls high over the beakhead.

  By evening Quarters at sundown Antigua was out of sight, and other islands were silhouetted against the sunset far away to the west as they drove to pass Barbuda to their lee side. They were bound for Road Town in the Virgins on the island of Tortola, thence to Nassau in New Providence, with a final stop at Bermuda. It was a risky voyage, prime hurricane season, but for then, the sea was kind, and the very best of the tropic weather prevailed.

  They reefed down for the night and took in tops’ls, but even in the Middle Watch with Purnell a pale ghost near his side, Lewrie was taken by how fast they were going, and how much glorious fun it was.

  “I think I am going to enjoy this immensely,” he told Purnell over the sluicing noise and hiss of their hull cleaving the ocean.

  “The freedom,” Purnell shouted back. “God, no line of battle, no admirals, no post-captains. We’re free as the wind!”

  “No sailing master. No screaming first officer,” Lewrie added.

  “Good food every time we anchor somewhere,” Purnell went on, making circling motions over his stomach. “Like tonight.”

  Lewrie had to agree that their dinner had been very good; boiled mutton cut fresh from a carcass, and seasoned with God knew what by the West Indian cook, but the old man had created a substantial meal that stuck with you, by God, and was snappier on the tongue than neat rum or plug tobacco. There had been new potatoes and strange red purple onions and a decent French red wine that was a lot more pleasing than Black Strap could ever hope to be.

  “Tell you what, I’ll be senior for the first two hours,” Purnell said. “You be my junior, and then at four bells we’ll change round.”

  “Fair enough. I suppose you want the windward rail?” Lewrie asked, referring to the senior officer’s right.

  “Yes, if you don’t mind.”

  Lewrie really didn’t mind. The night was too full of stars, of moonlight shimmering on the ocean, of the pleasing motion and the cool humidity of the night to be enjoyed.

  By God, this is more like it, he told himself at the larboard rail as he stared out at the ocean that glittered like a fairyland. If the rest of the Navy could be like this …

  Kenyon had allowed them to forgo heavy broadcloth uniform jackets. Now Alan rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, dressed in waistcoat, slop trousers and shirt. And since it was the Middle Watch he soon did away with the waistcoat and neckcloth as well, opening his shirt to the winds so that it fluttered and billowed out as it filled. Spray flew over the rail and smacked him now and then, and he found he looked forward to it each time, leaning far out to intercept it. He was in charge of a ship; maybe not much of a ship, but she was his for a while.

  Even if he had to share her with Purnell and the bosun’s mate.

  When it came his turn, he was amazed to see a dark smear to the nor’west. He left the windward side to cross to the binnacle and look at the chart by the tiller. By the feeble glow of the binnacle light he could see that they had already fetched Barbuda. Far inshore there were some faint lights, perhaps houses on the Atlantic side, or fishing boats working offshore. They would pass well to seaward of them, as long as the wind held steady. He closed his eyes and tried to measure the strength of the wind on his cheek. Had it shifted a point? Backed on us, he decided. Parrot seemed to slow a bit. He could order the quartermaster to adjust his helm, but was afraid to upset the settled order of the night. No, there was something else to do that would allow them to hold the course that Kenyon had ordained.

  “Bosun?” he called, and Mr. Kelly, the experienced bosun’s mate who was their watcher, was there in a moment.

  “Wind’s backed a point. Summon the hands of the watch to veer out a piece on the braces and heads’l sheets,” Lewrie ordered, hands behind his back and looking up at the set of the sails like a real watch officer would. But he found it hard to match Kelly’s eyes as he dared issue his first real order.

  “’Spect it’s about time fer that, Mister Lewrie,” Kelly replied, touching his hat with his fingers and turning away to call the hands.

  Damme, that wasn’t so bad, after all, Alan told himself after they had eased the sheets to allow the sails to stay full at a proper angle. “That ought to be enough, Mister Kelly. Belay all that.”

  Lewrie made an entry in the log, also his first, noting what he had done, and then they slogged along into the night with the wind now more from abeam, but still holding their compass course, and Parrot giving no sign that she was going to do anything dire after being meddled with by amateurs. And when the end of the watch came, and Mr. Claghorne took over for the Morning Watch, Lewrie was almost sorry to have to cede him the deck. As he doffed all his clothing and rolled into his bunk he pondered how fast people seemed to get promoted in wartime, as people got sick and had to be replaced, got killed and had to be replaced, or, like Parrot, the fleet grew in size and had to spread her substance thinner. Six years as a midshipman could be circumvented, if he were lucky enough, and in the right place at the right time. It felt like Parrot might be that place, and he swore that he would knuckle down once more and shine.

  * * *

  All during the hurricane season, Parrot dashed about the islands on her duties, putting in when a real storm threatened, but mostly out in full gales and riding it out, or running ahead of them with waves crashing into her bows and spraying the full length of her decks. In those times when it was clear, she flew from one port to another, from one command to another, with all the drama and panache of an actress making a surprise entrance.

  By the time hurricanes had ended for the winter, Parrot was a well-worked-up and fairly happy ship. The crew had settled down, the new men trained
well enough and salted by their experiences, and the old hands brought up to scratch as they realized that Parrot was different from the Navy in which they had so recently suffered. They had a good cook, which went a long way toward making a happy ship, and they had fresh food more often than most, because they were never more than a week or two at best from a new anchorage.

  Kenyon was firm but fair in his punishments when called upon to hand out disciplinary measures, and a taut-handed captain always seemed to do better than a lax one, or one who could not be relied upon to be fair. And as often as possible Kenyon let the ship Out of Discipline and allowed the doxies aboard to entertain the hands. With the regularity of their stops the men looked forward to seeing their favorite trulls on a steady basis, which provided a measure of stability and homelike consistency to their lives.

  Lewrie began to enjoy naval service. The food was fresh and spicy, the wine palatable, the hours of work reasonable, as were the hours available for a good long rest at the end of them.

  There was also the matter of their duty; it was independence, dash and speed, and everyone reveled in it. He knew that every lieutenant that saw them had his teeth set on edge in envy at their freedom from convoys, from plodding patrol duty, from rocking along in the wake of a flagship in rigid order under the pitiless eye of senior officers. Other midshipmen he saw envied him as he climbed through the entry port with orders, for they knew that he had more responsibility than they, more chances to gain experience they could never have on larger ships, more opportunity to practice those skills they only could read about.

  The days were so full of work, and the nights so full of learning how to lead, to steer, to be in charge, that he didn’t have much time to think about it; he just did it, and, to be honest, it was satisfying.

  Parrot went to so many interesting places. They might run over to Nevis and St. Kitts, then run with a landsman’s breeze for Kingston, Jamaica. They might go down to St. Lucia, or up to Road Town. There were despatches from the senior admirals that had to go to rustic little Savannah in the Colonies, where the recently vanquished civilians gave dirty looks to anyone wearing the King’s coat, but their women had to make a living, regardless. They might go into Charleston, where a tiny Tory minority made the most of their recent victory, and wondered how long they could hang on, and their parties for visiting officers were frantic with tension that translated into eager ladies whose men were away with Cornwallis and Tarleton.

  They might work their way into St. Augustine in the British Floridas, and wonder why anyone bothered with such a malarial, homespun sort of a place, more Spanish than anything else, a wilderness outpost with one foot in the grave, already.

  They might dash north from there to tiny Wilmington, up the Cape Fear River, and enjoy the pleasures that the place offered, as planters gathered at the shore for fear of their inland cousins.

  Once, they even got to carry messages as far north as New York, and finally went ashore in the great city, which turned out to be less impressive than Portsmouth back home. That was a city that could turn anyone crooked, Lewrie decided. You could hear cannon fire at night, and the women pulsed to its sound, and the monetary speculation that rode the latest omens for good or ill, and the general background of graft and cupidity with military and naval stores could turn a saint into a stockjobber or pimp.

  Alan Lewrie learned that war could be a powerful aphrodisiac, and that a well-set-up young man in a uniform was able to take advantage of it. And when he had time to think back on his time before the Navy in London, he no longer found an aching emptiness but merely vague regrets that he hadn’t had more time there to enjoy what he was enjoying now.

  Sometimes he was shocked to find, in the middle of some duty, that he had risen gladly to that duty, and was satisfied with the crew’s progress at small arms, gun drill, sailtending, or his own skill at leading them, or performing those personal skills such as longsplicing, position plotting and ship-handling. He knew he was a different person. The Alan Lewrie of December, 1780, in no way resembled the one almost press-ganged in January. His skin was bronzed by the sun, his hair a lighter shade of brown from constant exposure, hands tougher, muscles leaner and fuller and able to carry him aloft or wield a sword with ease. His uniforms needed alteration to make room for the bulk he had added in those months of hard work, hard play and good food.

  He had some money in hand, too, for those pleasures of their port stays, for Parrot had been lucky with prizes, though taking ships was not their primary purpose. But they had come upon a Spanish packet brig in the Straits of Florida after a gale, and took her without a shot being fired since she was still repairing damage and could offer no resistance.

  On passage to St. Lucia they had run into a native lugger that was manned by a crazed pack of Creoles, Spaniards and poor French who were intent on a little practical piracy. Without a letter of marque, they were totally illegal. The leaders were later hanged, the lugger sold, and the blacks sold at auction, plus the “Head and Gun Money” from taking her.

  They were chased once by a big privateer, and had the good fortune first of all to outrun her in a long stern chase, and the even greater fortune to run across an English frigate off Anegada, which promptly went to Quarters and took the privateer. Since they were the only other naval vessel in sight they shared in her prize money.

  Altogether, Lewrie had accrued nearly 160 pounds, or at least, Prize Court certificates for that amount, which he could sell off to a jobber for at least half their true value, or hold on to the largest until he returned to London, where he could be paid off.

  Had someone forced Lewrie to delve into the reasons for a certain smug look of satisfaction on his face, he could discover that he was well fed, had access to a goodly supply of decent drink, got enough sleep, was being treated like a real person without being shouted at, could play with God’s own amount of artillery, and what amounted to a yacht, and never went more than a fortnight without a chance to get beastly with all the willing mutton within reach.

  Chapter 8

  “Stand by, the anchor party,” Claghorne yelled through a brass speaking trumpet from the afterdeck by the tiller.

  “Aye aye,” Lewrie replied, raising his fist in the air. Parrot ghosted along in light air inside the harbor, barely raising a ripple under her bows since they had passed the forts on the Palisades. They had handed all but the outer flying jib and mainsail.

  “Helm’s alee.” The tiller was put over and Parrot rounded up slowly into the light ocean breeze until her sails shivered, and her forward progress came to a halt.

  “Let go!”

  Lewrie lowered his arm briskly, and the best bower anchor was cast loose, and cable rumbled out the hawsehole. “Loose the outer jib halyard and lower away handsomely,” he ordered. Parrot coasted on for a piece until, reaching the end of the anchor cable, she veered out. She snubbed, then drifted back slantwise for a way before streaming back from the cable with the light wind straight down her decks.

  By the time the sails had been handed and furled, the gig had been brought round from being towed astern, and Purnell and his boat crew had tumbled into it, ready to carry Lieutenant Kenyon ashore with his bags of mail and despatches. They had made good time from English Harbor to Kingston, Jamaica, this passage. The weather had been sparkling clear and mildly sunny, and they had not seen one other sail.

  The bumboats began to swarm Parrot almost before Lieutenant Kenyon was away from the side, the island blacks offering up tropical birds, rum, fresh fruits, cheap shirts and hats and neckerchiefs, and women of just about every color. Mooney and his mates were busy trying to fend them off good-naturedly and to stop any furtive trading for rum or other liquors.

  “Not yet,” Mooney shouted down to a piratical black entrepreneur. “’N’ keep yer cussed rum fer other ships, ya hear?”

  “De boh-sohn, he wan’ no rum, Lord,” the man grinned back. “Dis be de King’s Navy heuh?”

  “Sheer off, ya shark. We might be outa Di
scipline later, but not now.”

  “Then I see you later, Mistah Boh-sohn,” the woman in the trader’s boat promised, sliding her dress up to her waist.

  “Gawd.” Mooney gawped, staring at what was offered.

  Lewrie was standing at his side, and marvelling right along with him.

  Mooney licked his lips in anticipation and dug into his slop trousers to see what silver he had to offer the woman if she was let aboard.

  Kenyon returned about two hours later after his visit to the flag, looking happy and sated from a good lunch and a bottle of wine. He was in a very good mood, beaming at everyone.

  “Mister Lewrie, summon ‘Chips,’” he said. “I shall need him.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Pass the word for Mister Bee.”

  Within moments the elderly carpenter was there.

  “Mister Bee, we shall be carrying passengers to Antiqua, a lord and his lady, and two servants,” Kenyon informed him. “Arrange me some sleeping accommodations in the dining space. We shall shift all the furnishings to the day cabin, and I shall need a larger bed box in the cabin as well. There will be a maid berthing in the chart room, and a servant in the wardroom. Mister Lewrie, since your ears have grown long enough to hear, perhaps you could give up your cabin for the duration of the voyage?”

  “Aye, sir,” Lewrie replied sadly. “I shall fetch a hammock from the bosun.”

  “Have everything ready by Wednesday sundown, Mister Bee.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Mister Purnell,” Kenyon shouted. “Take the cutter ashore with Mister Leonard to collect fresh supplies. We’ll get a bullock for the men, plus some fresh meat for our passengers. Mister Claghorne?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “As soon as stores are aboard, we shall take the ship Out of Discipline for a day. We cannot depart until Thursday.”

  The hands standing closest by grinned happily and spread the word through the rest of the crew within seconds. They had all lately been given pay-certificates, and even though they would get cheated badly in transactions for perhaps a quarter of their certificates’ worth, they would have money to spend for their pleasure. So they turned to with a lusty will. The boat fairly flew across the harbor to the stores dock and returned laden in short order. A bawling lean steer was slung aboard and slaughtered on the spot. A coop full of chickens appeared, several tender piglets and lambs, a boar for the hands later in the voyage, fresh cabin stores for Kenyon and the wardroom, and several crates of wine. Hammering sounds could be heard aft as Kenyon’s request was fulfilled. George the servant and several of the West Indian ship’s boys busied themselves polishing and scouring the guest quarters so Parrot could make a favorable impression on whoever their prestigious passengers might be.