A Fine Retribution

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Before their spite sinks me?” Lewrie asked with a puckish grin.

  “Exactly so, sir,” Middleton said. “Exactly so.”

  *   *   *

  It was a fretful time, the few days waiting for the barges to be picked up. At last, rowing boats from Vigilance and the transports were despatched up-river towards Southampton, and a flotilla of boats returned to the main anchorage, their old boats and some of the new barges being towed. It took several trips to gather them all in and hoist them onto the cross-deck boat-tier beams, with the main course yards employed as cranes. More rowing took older, smaller, boats to the dockyards to be disposed of, or re-fitted and issued to other ships in need.

  Lewrie wanted to hoist the Out of Discipline pendants to give his crews a last-minute rut and some welcome ease, but he began to fear that the invisible but powerful cabal would discover a ploy to steal it all right out from under him, cancel it at the last minute, or give it to another officer, so, that next Monday, when a favourable slant of wind came from the Nor’west, he hoisted the signal flags for hoisting anchors and to make sail, and breathed a vast sigh of relief when the signals were struck to order the Execute.

  Lewrie had had his last shore supper, a last fresh-water bath, and had mailed his last letters. He had spent the last day in harbour explaining their coming duties to his officers and Midshipmen. Now, as yards inched upwards from their rests, as topmen laid aloft to free canvas, and jibs and stays’ls billowed out to the squeals of blocks, he stood at the forward edge of the poop deck, belly pressed against the iron stanchions and the rolled hammocks, watching his new ship come to life. Sailors tramped round the capstan, and the best bower anchor was barely out of the water, not yet rung up or fished, as Vigilance began to shuffle, to stir, and to make a feeble way as the winds filled freed square sails not yet properly braced about or drawn down. But she was moving, making a slow and ponderous knot or two. A glance down showed the helmsmen on the large double wheel on the quarterdeck spinning to and fro, searching for the first of the rudder’s bite.

  We’re really doin’ this, he told himself; we’re finally on our way. Do forgive me, Jessica, but I want to do this, even if it means bein’ apart from you. It’d be so sweet to stay ashore with you, but, this is what I do, what I’m good at, and so long as there’s a war, it’s what I have to do!

  “Cast of the log, there!” Lieutenant Farley barked, and a Midshipman at the taffrails tossed the line over, let the line run through his fingers ’til the sand-glass ran out. “Three knots, sir! Three knots!”

  “Helm bites, sir!” the senior Quartermaster reported.

  “Make for mid-channel down to Saint Helen’s Patch,” Lewrie said in a louder voice than any he’d used the last few weeks.

  “Mid-channel aye, sir!” came the welcome response.

  Lewrie looked aft at his transports, all under sail but not yet in line-ahead formation, sails pressed full, though, with frothy mustashios under their forefeet and cutwaters.

  Further casts of the log showed five knots, then six and a half, and Vigilance began to stride over the sheltered harbour waters, sure and steady, with a reassuring solidity, and Lewrie cocked an ear to hear the first glad seething, chuckling, and burbling of seawaters parting.

  A look astern showed Lewrie the beginnings of a churning bridal train of wake. Courses, tops’ls, jibs, and stays’ls were now properly braced round, drawn down to full deployment, and bellied out full of power and drive. Sea birds wheeled between them, trying to perch for a moment before fluttering off in dis-appointment, and astern more of them skimmed over, or dove, into Vigilance’s wake for unwary fish, or strands of green slime-weed scrubbed off the hull after weeks of idle growth. The ship moved well, somewhat like Sapphire had, but heavier and surer, and Lewrie could feel her beginning a thrum that felt so pleasing to him, right up from her keel to his boot soles.

  On a quartering wind, Vigilance and her consorts threaded their way through the anchorage at St. Helen’s Patch, where many warships, transports, and merchantmen had anchored awaiting a favourable slant of wind to carry them out into the Channel, now rapidly emptying as squadrons, convoys, and escorts hoisted anchors and spread sail, and for a time it was a dicey situation ’til the many other ships gained control of their courses and sorted themselves out.

  The Isle of Wight loomed up to starboard, and Bembridge and Foreland came abeam; with fishing smacks and dredgers working close to shore, well alee of the many out-bound ships. As the log showed nine knots, Vigilance met the first chops of the Channel, her bluff bows and forefoot smashing into them, parting them, and riding over them with an implacable forward drive, flinging the first sprays of seawater up to the beakhead rails and wetting the feet of the inner, outer, and the flying jibs, and pattering salt rain on the forecastle that made idle ship’s boys screech and caper about, forcing them further aft.

  Lewrie looked aft at his small convoy, and found them lined up like beads on a string, in line-ahead, with about two wary cables of separation between them, just clearing Ventnor.

  “Mister Farley?” Lewrie called out as he descended the windward ladderway to the quarterdeck. “Nine knots is all very fine, and I am delighted that our ship is faster than my old one, but, we’re leavin’ our transports behind. Once we’re a good five miles clear of the Isle of Wight, I’d admire did you take in a bit of sail, come about to West, Sou’west, and let ’em catch up.”

  “Aye, sir!” Lieutenant Farley cheerfully replied. “’Tis a pity we’re saddled with them, though, sir. On our own we could let her have her head, and really fly.”

  “I haven’t ‘flown’ since my last frigate,” Lewrie reminisced. “That would be fun, indeed, but … they’re the reason we’re here and I’d hate t’lose ’em, after all the trouble it took t’get ’em. A good day to be back at sea, anyway.”

  “Oh, aye sir, it is!” Lieutenant Farley quickly agreed, eager to shake off the weeks spent lying idle in port.

  “Carry on, sir,” Lewrie said, taking his rightful place at the windward corner of the quarterdeck, just by the ladderway that led to the waist, and hooked an arm round a mainmast stay. From there, he could look forward down the weather deck and waist to the forecastle belfry and manger, well shaded from fitful, passing sunlight by the four big twenty-nine-foot barges stowed on the cross-deck boat-tier beams. His crew, hundreds and hundreds of strange new faces, sailors, both Able and Ordinary, pressed or volunteered Landsmen, Marines minus their red tunics and hats, and ship’s boys dressed any-old-how milled about, some idle, some engaged on last-minute tidying of sheets, halliards, braces, and clew lines into neat coils on the decks, or tidy loops over the pin-rails and fife rails. Many idle men stood on the starboard sail-tending gangway for a last, longing look at England, and Lewrie was forced to take a long look, too, knowing what was in many hearts.

  Loss of loved ones, real wives and children, or sweethearts left astern. There would be relief for some who’d fled girls with “belly pleas”, debts they couldn’t pay, or gaol sentences. Older, more experienced tars had done it all many times, but the Johnny Newcomes, the volunteer Landsmen and the pressed men and Quota Men rounded up by the counties to fulfill their obligations, or the gaol sweepings who took the Joining Bounty, would be “all asea”, unsure of anything beyond the next rum issue or call to stand watch, dreading the separation and the chance that battle, disease, or dumb accidents would deny them a sight of their homeland once it fell below the horizon for the last time.

  All of them, at one time or another, would turn and look aft to the quarterdeck, and at their strange new Captain, wondering if this new fellow would be a tyrant, quick with the lash, reckless, or a poor seaman who’d find a way to get them maimed, crippled, or killed.

  “Bosun Gore!” Farley bawled of a sudden. “Pipe hands to stations to alter course and take in some sail!”

  “Hands to the braces and foresheets! Topmen, trice up and lay aloft,” Bosun Gore yelled in a deep basso after his pipe
had shrilled.

  “One reef in the fore course might just do, Mister Farley,” Lewrie suggested, turning his attention in-board. “If not, we’ll take a second.”

  “Aye, sir,” Farley replied. “Mister Upchurch, hoist signal to the transports. Make, Alter … West, Sou’west. In line astern.”

  “Aye, sir,” that Midshipman said, dashing for the poop deck and the flag lockers right aft, and Lewrie tried to fix a name and a face in his memory. There were seven of the sixteen Midshipmen aboard who were older, nineteen to twenty-five, and Lewrie thought he’d memorised them by now; the other nine lads were fourteen to eighteen, but except for Charles Chenery and a wee’un of only fourteen named Page, the rest were so many blanks, yet.

  Think, ye shitten fool! Lewrie chid himself; Surely, I ain’t so old that I can’t remember. Be losin’ my hat, next! Or use it for the shavin’ bowl.

  He put it down to the many hours of each day he’d spent ashore, away from the ship, depending on his officers to see to the provisioning, discipline, the painting and maintenance whilst he was fighting tooth and nail for scraps from the dockyard authorities. Once at sea, with daily familiarity, he was sure he’d do better.

  Vigilance came about, her jib-boom and bowsprit sweeping cross a stretch of sea, putting the Undercliff and the light at St. Catherine’s Point on her starboard quarter. With one reef taken in the fore course, she seemed to sag a bit, to slug through the Channel chops with a little less exuberance, and Midshipman Monkton, a lad of twenty, was sent for a fresh cast of the log.

  Monkton! Straw hair and pimples the size of pistol shot! Lewrie prompted his memory; He ought t’wash more often.

  “Steady on West,Sou’west, sir,” Farley reported, “and we make only eight knots.”

  “Good enough, Mister Farley,” Lewrie said with a grunt of satisfaction. “And if our transports can’t keep up with that, I’ll put ’em all on bread and water.”

  “Ehm, time to set the Forenoon Watch, sir,” Farley reminded him.

  “Very well, sir, do so,” Lewrie agreed. “I’ll be puttering about for a while. You and Mister Rutland have the deck.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” the First Officer said with a nod, and a glance at his replacement who was waiting at the top of the larboard ladderway from the waist.

  Rutland, Lewrie thought; strange man. Dark as a “Black Irish”.

  The Second Officer was tall, lean, with dark hair and eyes, and a well-tanned sailor’s complexion. He must not have shaved in the last two days, for his stubble was so dark it appeared that he’d shoved his face into ashes, coal dust, or black gunpowder. Rutland was the gloomy one in the wardroom, as opposed to the cheerful First Officer, Mr. Farley, the loud and irreverent Third Officer, Lieutenant Greenleaf, or the sweet-natured and earnest Lieutenant Grace. He looked to be in his early thirties, was married with one child, and neither he nor his wife could afford to travel to see each other whilst Vigilance was in port, so he probably had a reason to be glum.

  Lewrie exchanged a nod with him, then went down the ladderway to the waist, approaching the Bosun, Mr. Gore, so they could stroll forward to make an informal inspection of the neatness the crew had attempted to put right after altering course.

  Lewrie and Gore made their way up to the forecastle, past the galley stove chimney, the thick base of the foremast, the forward fife rails to where they could stand and look down on the bowsprit and the knightheads, the beakhead rails, and the seats of ease.

  “How’s our lion, Mister Gore?” Lewrie asked of the figurehead.

  “Peerin’ fit to bust, Cap’m sir,” Gore said with a grin.

  First, Second, and some Third Rate ships of the line, with famous classical names, had ornate carved and painted figureheads tailored to those names, but 64s and Fourth Rate 50s usually got a variation of a crowned lion, some so distinctive, though, that sailors could name an espied ship by the sight of them. HMS Vigilance wore a crowned lion, crouched on its haunches, tufted tail wrapped round its left front paw, with the right paw held just above its yellow-and-white-painted eyes, as if to shade them for greater sight, and the buff-painted lion with its dark brown mane had been shaped as if the beast was leaning forwards, ready to spring, with its mouth and lips curled into a snarl of warning, with long white fangs and red tongue rendered in a permanent roar of defiance. The only gilt was on the long-spiked crown, all newly touched up and ready to prowl the world’s oceans for prey.

  “He’s scary-enough lookin’ for me,” Lewrie said with a laugh, “and certain to make the French wet their trousers.”

  “Lookin’ forward t’that, sir,” the Bosun said. “Spent too damn long on the blockade, I almost forgot what a good ship’s for.”

  “Tomorrow morning we’ll exercise with the great-guns,” Lewrie promised. “And remind our people what a good ship’s for. I’ll be aft. Carry on, Mister Gore.”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  Lewrie went down a ladderway to the waist and took a peek into the manger, just to see how his rabbits and quail were doing. He’d been advised long ago to carry them aboard for they bred fast and made a good small supper for the evenings when he’d dine alone. It appeared that they were thriving, but … his cabin servant, Tom Dasher, was squatting on the deck with a bunny in his lap, stroking it and cooing to it.

  “Oh, sorry, sir,” Dasher said, holding the rabbit to his chest. “Just checkin’ on ’em. Fond, wee things, they is, sir. Never seen ’em where I grew up.”

  Oh, God, he’s got a pet! Lewrie thought.

  “Buck or doe, Dasher?” he asked.

  “Ehm, I dunno, sir. ’Ow d’ye tell?” Dasher said with a puzzled look, holding the bunny up to inspect its hindquarters.

  “Either way, we’ll need at least one of each so they can keep on makin’ bunnies,” Lewrie told him. “Edible bunnies, for my table?”

  Dasher clutched his bunny even closer,

  “Whichever it is, Dasher, put a hank o’ riband round its neck,” Lewrie instructed, “so we’ll know to not skin it and cook it.”

  “Oh, aye sir, thank ya, sir!” Dasher said, all but crying out in sudden relief. “I’ll do that directly, sir!”

  Christ, the cares of a Post-Captain! Lewrie told himself with a silent laugh as he made his way aft; He’ll be havin’ it in my cabins, next, for Chalky t’play with!

  BOOK FOUR

  Ne defice coeptis.

  Falter not in what thou hast begun.

  —VALERIUS FLACCUS, ARGONAUTICA, BOOK II, LINE 596

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “A damned eerie-looking place,” Lieutenant Greenleaf commented as he took a long moment to gaze about Malta’s Valletta Harbour. “Nothing but rock and stone fortresses as far as the eye can see.”

  “Hemmed in,” Lieutenant Grace pointed out. “Dry as a bone and not one green thing in sight.”

  “Just going to say,” the First Officer, Lieutenant Farley, chimed in. “Arabic-looking. Like Morocco, or Egypt.”

  “A little bit of everything, Mister Farley,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Wickersham, contributed. “Arabs, Greeks, Romans, Sicilians, the Normans, the Spanish, now us? Who hasn’t owned the place over the years? Crusader fortresses all round the harbour were likely build on top of Roman forts, to keep the Carthaginians out.”

  “Well, let’s hope that everyone’s left their mark on the local cuisine, hey, Rutland?” Farley joshed.

  “Rather have a beef steak, but God knows how they keep cattle on such a dry and rocky island,” Lieutenant Rutland laconically carped. “It’ll most-like be goat, or salt beef.”

  “Nothing wrong with goat,” Lieutenant Greenleaf said with a laugh. “A tasty kid? Beats cold, boiled mutton, any day.”

  “Shore liberty,” Lieutenant Grace suggested of a sudden, and all turned to look up to the poop deck, where the Captain stood with a telescope to one eye for his own survey of Valletta.

  “Since I deprived everyone of liberty at Gibraltar, we most certainly will allow the people liberty here,” Lewrie a
ssured them as he lowered his glass and compacted the tubes, satisfied with his viewing. “We worked ’em hard enough on the way here, and they deserve it. You can pass word of it … after we’ve re-provisioned.”

  As soon as Vigilance and her consorts had stood out of the Channel into the open Atlantic and turned South down the Bay of Biscay, the days on-passage had been filled with drills; striking then erecting topmasts, reefing then making sail, so Lewrie could judge the efficiency and skill of his new crew. Cutlass or boarding pike drills were held each afternoon, and exercise on the great guns was piped almost every morning for at least one hour.

  From his first raw days as a Midshipman, Lewrie had found that gunnery was almost his sole joy of shipboard life, the most exciting part of a drab existence, and his former superiors had drummed exacting standards into him. Months on dull blockade duties, with more effort required to merely keep the sea in winter gales, had blunted Vigilance’s gun crews’ skills, and, when looking over the Lieutenants’ journals, Lewrie had found that Captain Nunnelly had used very little shot and powder, even less than the parsimonious amounts that Admiralty allowed. Before the Battle of Trafalgar, before the Spanish withdrew from their allegiance with France, nobody had minded much if Captains shot off the top tier of powder in their magazines to keep their gun crews at their peak. Now, though, those journals cited concerns that Admiralty might frown on anyone too wasteful.

  It took the first four days on-passage before Lewrie felt his crew was ready for anything other than dumb-show practice, running-in then pretending to load, ramming powder and wads, playing at loading shot and second wad, ramming, then running-out. On the fifth day, he began live-firing; by broadside, as they bore (which went more like a timed salute since there was nothing to aim at), then ordered one of the transports to hoist sail on one of their new barges and tow a keg well astern off either beam, at varying distances from the ship.