A King's Trade (35 page)

“Might could
try,
Cap'm, but I'd not trust it in anythin' more than calm seas,” Towpenny said with a sad sigh. “Do it get boist'rous, th' rollin' gits too heavy, she might snap like a fresh carrot, an'
then
where'd we be, sir? Nossir, we need a whole new main piece.”

“Any other wood besides English oak that might serve?” Lewrie asked him. Towpenny hoisted the lanthorn up to the taffrails, with a distant look on his grizzled face, waiting ‘til the lamp was in-board before he spoke.

“Mahogany or teak, sir,” Towpenny speculated. “‘Tis dense an' stiff enough, but th'
findin'
o' such, long an' broad enough… an'
seasoned
enough, not green, wellsir. That'd be a real poser, Cap'm.”

“Damn!” Lewrie spat, clapping his hands behind his back, pacing forward and away. There were Cuban-built Spanish ships fashioned from truck to keel of mahogany, and the envy of anyone who captured them, for they were incredibly strong and long-lasting. He'd seen merchant vessels in the Far East, “country ships” in the local trade, made from teak, and they bore reputations for strength, too, but…India was a long way off, and without a rudder, they'd never get there to find the material necessary to
fashion
a new rudder! And, Lewrie rather doubted there were any Spaniards still in the Far East trade, who might put in at Cape Town and just
happen
to have a spare rudder gathering cob-webs in their bosuns' lockers!

He spun back around. “I take it we've not enough seasoned oak of the proper size to fashion a new'un, either, Mister Towpenny?”

“Nossir, we've not,” the Bosun's Mate replied, after sharing a quick, silent conference with the Carpenter. “Nothin' thick or long enough t'make new, Cap'm.”

“Well, damn my eyes,” Lewrie growled.

One
good
point,
he thought, taking what wee scrap of fortune he could from mis-fortune;
‘thout a rudder, surely to
God,
we'll not have t'go on to Bombay or Canton in Sir Tobias-bloody-Treghues's company!

Assuming they survived ‘til dawn, for Lewrie was reminded that
Proteus,
with the way now almost completely off her to save what was left of her shattered rudder, was still prey to the West wind and the Eastward-setting current. Mr. Winwood had thought them about twenty sea-miles offshore when the action had begun, and they had worn away to leeward and steered Nor'east for a time before coming back to Due North to follow the convoy, which might have resulted in their losing a mile or better shoreward… a high-cliffed, rocky shore where the bottom rose up steeply and quickly, and the waves crashed with a fury, even on the best days. There would be no chance to come to anchor as they drifted ashore with the sea-bottom so far below.

Neither could they come up to the wind close enough to attempt a tack, or even fetch-to, for God's sake! Such a swing might rip the tatters right off the sternpost. Besides, it took a sound rudder for fetching-to, to maintain her head when the fore-and-aft sails and the back-braced sails on the yards countered each other in a constantly-shifting balancing act!

Are we fucked, or what?
Lewrie miserably thought.

“Mister Langlie,” Lewrie called out.

“Aye, sir?”

“I think it's time we fired some more of those signal rockets,” Lewrie said, admitting to himself that he could think of nothing else to do, for once. “What is the number to convey ‘Need Assistance'?”

“Five at once, sir,” Lt. Langlie quickly replied.

“Make up a sea-anchor, get it over the side; and we'll hope for the best, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie said, glad that no one could see him blushing with embarrassment in the dark.

“At once, sir.”

About a half-hour later, HMS
Stag
came looming up in the gloom, surging alongside under reduced sail, but still going a lot faster than
Proteus,
within a long musket shot of her larboard, seaward, beam.

“Hoy,
Proteus!”
Capt. Philpott cried through a brass speaking trumpet. “You there, Captain Lewrie? Something amiss, is there?”

“Hoy, Captain Philpott!” Lewrie shouted back. “I'm still here, but we've a wee problem with our rudder. Shot halfway off!”

“That's what happens when you let a bad'un sneak up and spank you on the arse, aye!” Philpott cried, sounding like he was chortling.

God, I didn't know how
much
I despise him,
‘
til now!
Lewrie took a moment to think.

“Do you request a tow, Lewrie?” Philpott offered.

“Aye…we need a tow into harbour, Philpott!” Lewrie shouted, figuring that if Philpott would drop the honourifics, he would, too, no matter did he outrank him on the Captain's List.

“Be ready when we come round, again, sir!” Philpott ordered. “I'll fetch-to off your bows, do you reduce to bare poles, and lower a boat to transfer the towing cable. Your cable, or mine, ha ha?”

“I will supply!” Lewrie replied.

“Good-ho! Mind, Lewrie…towing you in, I'll
not
demand that you fly my flag over yours, as my ‘prize'!”

Choke on it, an'
damn
yer sense of humour, ye bastard!
Lewrie furiously thought, wondering if it could
get
any more humiliating.

After a moment, Lewrie took evil glee in the comforting thought that whilst
Proteus
swung to her anchors at Cape Town, making repairs, it would be Philpott who would have the utter delight in accompanying
Grafton
and
Horatius
‘cross the Indian Ocean, with not a jot of shore liberty…and Lewrie would have free access to the Cape, “the tavern of the seas”!

Do I thank that Frenchman for that?
Lewrie wondered;
Mine arse on a bandbox if I will!

BOOK IV

“Contemner?, miser! Vitanda est improba Siren desidia, aut quidquid vita meliore parasti ponendum aequo animo.”

“You will earn contempt, poor wretch. You must shun the wicked Siren, Sloth, or be content to drop whatever honour you have gained in nobler hours.”

H
ORACE,
S
ATIRES
II, 111 14–16

O
h, ‘twas a splendid little victory, the saving of the convoy, on paper, at least! Nine helpless merchantmen
(eight
of them worthy) assaulted by a French squadron, which
might
have been consisted of
two
frigates,
and
a brace of
corvettes,
the foes' fell purposes countered by English Pluck and Daring, superb Seamanship, and Argus-eyed gunnery, all most shrewdly directed and concentrated in a trice by rapid application of a unique night-signalling system invented by the escorts' commander, a system the Fleet would
surely
find superior to any other!

And, had the Frogs been possessed of
real
“bottom,” it could've been a
spectacularly
conclusive fight, resulting in the capture or the utter destruction of a significant number of the French raiders who preyed on British trade in this part of the world's oceans, adding even brighter laurels to the Royal Navy's fame, and their Sovereign's honour.

But, the shivering cowards had done as much as they dared, then scampered away in the face of overwhelming strength, well-peppered and “much cut up” by good British iron, whilst their own sea-gunnery fared as poorly as it usually did…except for
sneaking
most unfairly and knavishly (but what could one
expect
of Frogs?) up on HMS
Proteus,
and whose fault was
that,
certainly
not
the “Victorious Squadron's” alert commander, who was at that instant busy directing the activities of his own flagship, and his squadron's ships,
miles
away, so there!

Lewrie looked up from a copy of that report, after gathering the gist of it,
and bestowed upon the Flag-Captain to Vice-Adm. Sir Roger Curtis, commanding officer of the Cape Station, a most dubious expression, all but rolling his eyes.

“Indeed, sir,” the Flag-Captain derisively simpered after Lewrie handed it back to him. “Captain Sir Tobias Treghues may make of your encounter with the French what he will, but ‘tis doubtful if
Admiralty
will find his account much of a success. We shall, of course, despatch it to London….”

“Of course, sir,” Lewrie replied with a knowing nod.

“With an account of our own, of course, anent this odd affair,” the Flag-Captain further said, with a mocking brow raised.

Lewrie had already seen a thumbnail sketch of this report, in a scathing personal letter that Treghues had sent aboard, a letter replete with “Lewrie, how could you spoil such potential glory by your inattentiveness!” by
allowing
himself to be taken so unawares, salted with “I have always felt uneasy in my mind over your lamentable lack of assiduousness,” and with several “Tsk-Tsks” over his utterly
casual
and tongue-in-cheek and lack-a-day and dilettantish approach to such a serious and demanding profession as the Navy required, and
et cetera
and
et cetera,
in much the same vein, concluding with the supposition “that one could suspect that, to avoid a long and depriving voyage to the Far East, you
finagled
a way out by letting your ship be damaged by a mere
corvette,”
along with a closing warning that should any part of the convoy suffer loss due to further French action, with the escort so reduced, then he, Capt. Sir Tobias Treghues, would personally hold Capt. Alan Lewrie responsible for it, and make sure that Admiralty did, too!

Lewrie had not expected to see the
official
version, though… junior officers were
never
allowed such a luxury; but, this
was
Sir Roger Curtis he was dealing with, he had to recall.

They had met, briefly, in the aftermath of the battle that had famously become known as The Glorious First of June, in 1794, on the decks of HMS
Queen Charlotte,
when Capt. Sir Roger Curtis was Flag-Captain to Adm. Sir Richard “Black Dick” Howe. Lewrie had spent a whole day being pursued by two scouting French frigates, ending penned up against the unengaged side of the entire French line of battle, and had gotten round the end of their line and into the shelter of Howe's battle line by the skin of his teeth. That exploit had not been mentioned in despatches by Sir Roger, gaining Lewrie no fame of it. And, playing favourites most shamefully, then-Capt. Sir Roger Curtis had also omitted the names of captains and ships that had not been able to come to close grips with the French on the light winds that prevailed that day, denying them Admiralty recognition—and the gold medals!—given to those in the van of the
snake-bent line of battle; or, as some spitefully suspected, omitting the names of people with whom he'd served in the past, and still disliked!

Adm. Duncan at Camperdown, Adm. Jervis at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, certainly Adm. Nelson at the Nile, made sure that
all
captains were cited for their efforts, for all the world to see in the
Gazette
and the
Marine Chronicle,
but, evidently, Sir Roger Curtis, Baronet, still had no truck with the newfangled idea of “We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers”!

Treghues is fucked,
Lewrie told himself;
poor, desperate bastard.

“Ye say your ship was damaged aft, Captain Lewrie?”

“Our rudder was nigh shot off, sir, aye,” Lewrie replied. “Four guns dismounted, two with divots the size of dinner plates shot out of them, and I'm leery of firing full charges from them in future. I have six dead and thirteen wounded, as well, with three of those not long for this world, or so my Surgeon informs me, sir.”