H. M. S. Cockerel (8 page)

“So tonight was more a sort of . . . mutual favour, sir?” Lewrie inquired.

“She needed p'rtection, I need seamen,” Lilycrop shrugged his assent. “An' I drop by, now'n again, visit her establishment . . .”

“Just to keep your
hand
in, sir?” Lewrie snickered, though it hurt a bit.

“So t' speak, young sir,” Lilycrop wheezed. “Bridey allus did treat her girls better'n most, got th' handsomest. An' treated her oldest'n best customers t' th' finest her house has t' offer. Did ye do her much damage?”

“Some, sir. Nothing too sore, I suspect, but—”

“Got her ear t' th' ground, Bridey does, Mister Lewrie,” the old man snorted, coming up for air from his ale tankard like a seal blowing foam. “Bridey'll be back in business t'morro' night, but I s'pect she'll come 'round here, all blowin' an' huffin' 'bout her damages. She'll demand th' Crown square it for her . . .”

“Make you several attractive offers, sir?” Lewrie smirked. The smirk was easier on his lip than the full-mouthed grin.

“Oh, indeed!” Lilycrop beamed like a beatific cherub, and sucked air through his teeth in expectation. “Like I say, she's some damned handsome quim in her stable, oh my, yes! An' a poor ole cripple such'z myself can't do 'em
that
much harm, th' little darlin's . . . anyways, I 'spect, like I said, that she'll have more trade f'r us. I've expense money 'nough t' cover half o' her damages, an' she can make up th' overage. But, she'll whisper th' name an' th' address o' sev'ral more bawdy houses an' hideaways, where seaman're t' be found. An' put some o' her new competition's noses outa joint, inta th' bargain. Oh, 'tis a grand bus'ness, th' Impress Service, Lewrie! A
toppin'
bus'ness!”

It was for Lilycrop, at any rate. And, as Regulating Captain for the Deptford district,
he
didn't have to risk life and limb out in the streets, either! He had his lieutenants to do “the dirty.”

And he was finally making himself, in the twilight of his naval career, a truly princely living. Lewrie hadn't dared to probe into another officer's affairs—a friend's affairs—but he
had
seen Lieutenant Bracewaight's ledgers a few days after reporting for duty. They'd shared a brace of wine bottles at their rendezvous tavern where they both lodged, and Bracewaight, he of the missing hand, the eyepatch and the wooden dentures, had left them open when he jaunted out back for the “jakes.”

Still carried by the Navy Pay Office as a half-pay officer with a disablement pension, plus Impress Service allowances and subsistences, the swarthy swine was making fourteen shillings sixpence
per day
—more than a senior post-captain in command of a 3rd Rate!—
and
with travel and lodging reimbursed on his own say-so,
plus
the bonuses paid—five shillings for each raw landsman volunteer signed, up to ten shillings for each ordinary or able seaman brought in, by hook or by crook! And Lewrie rather doubted if Captain Lilycrop was maintained
per diem
in any less fashion, or denied any bounties of recruitment.

So far, up until that evening, that is, Lewrie had been spared the sordid side of the ‘press. He'd run the tender from Deptford Hard downriver to the Nore, full of hopeful innocents or gloomy experienced seamen. He'd set up shop, to assist the other officers, at rendezvous taverns up and down the river; the Horse & Groom at Lambeth Marsh, the King's Head at Rotherhithe, and the Black Boy & Trumpet at St. Katherine's Stairs. They'd lay on music, horn-pipes, beat the drum, and go liberally with rum and ale. His “gang” was half a dozen swaggering Jolly Jacks, True-blue Hearts of Oak, as gay and “me-hearty” as any gullible young calfhead could wish for. They were full of a fund of stories, chanties, japes and cajolery. Enough cajolery that many disappointed landsmen, many a young lad,
had
enlisted. And real, tarry-handed tarpaulin men, experienced sailors,
had
joined the Navy during those recruiting parties. Like the men pressed at sea off the
Five Sisters,
they at least had a chance to claim the Joining Bounty, and go with a pack of their old shipmates, instead of being shoved into just any old crew. They might return to a warship they'd served in before, with an officer they trusted! Navy work might not pay as high as merchant, but the crews were much larger, so the labour was shared out in smaller dollops. The food was regulated in quantity and quality, and in the Navy at least, they could complain, within reasonable bounds, if it wasn't. And there was the liberal rum issue, too!

And there was the excitement, the danger and the glamour of it all, for sailors and landlubbers alike. For many, it was a means of escaping their dreary existence. Boredom played a part, as did failure at trade or domestic service, as did poverty. For many farm labourers, enlisting in the Navy meant freedom from the narrowness of rural life, the mindless drudgery, the uncertain nature of putting food in one's belly—and the uncertain nature of the food itself.

And more than a few volunteers were running away from shrew-ish wives, demanding sweethearts they hoped to jilt, too many children at their ankles, or lasses turning up “ankled” and suing for marriage.

Well, perhaps the Impress had more than a few sordid sides, Alan had to admit. At those same jolly recruiting fairs, he'd seen masters connive to offer up their apprentices, to ship them off to sea so they would be spared the expense of feeding and clothing them, then register their indentures at the Navy Pay Office so they could draw off the impressed apprentices' pay! He'd seen rivals in love, or those selfsame jilted young girls, get their own back by whispering the location of a prime hand. Unhappy wives could find a way to pack off the brute who beat them once too often. Relations, usually in-laws, could rescue their family's good name, and their daughter or niece, from a marriage or engagement to someone unsuitable, if he was sound enough to man the tops of a fighting ship, or pulley-hauley in the waist.

And there were the lads, bastards like himself, who'd proved to be an embarrassment. Putative fathers would bring them 'round, tip the recruiting officer the wink, and leave them gamely weeping as future cabin servants, powder monkeys or landsmen. Mothers, who had too many mouths to feed as it was . . . widows who might get their new man to marry
if
the brat was gone! . . . or wives who wished to dally without testimony from sons to unwitting, or absent husbands and fathers . . .

And, there were the raids on taverns, brothels and lodgings, like the one they'd pulled that night. That took a different “gang,” with no need for Jolly Jacks and “me-hearty” True-blue Hearts of Oak.
Cudgels
of oak, more like!

The brutal fact was that there were a myriad of landsmen, but no surplus of seamen, and it took at least a third to a half of a crew of a warship to be made up of seamen, if she had a hope of getting to sea and surviving once she'd made her offing. Englishmen would not tolerate conscription for any military service; that smacked of brutal central government oppression. The only way left was the 'Press. And only seamen were liable to be pressed . . . supposedly. Though many innocent civilians caught in the wrong place at the wrong time were swept into the tenders. Yet the ‘press was so opposed by local magistrates, and the courts deluged with wrongful-taking suits, the Impress Service so thinly manned, that they could never “sweep the streets,” as the public's popular image held. It had to be done with craft and guile. With stealth and speed, in the dead of night.

“So you expect another raid soon, sir?” Lewrie asked at last.

“T'morro' night, I'd wager, soon'z Bridey whispers a few words in me shell-like ear, hee hee! An' ye done well, so I've a mind ye'll go on that'un, too.”

“Of course, sir,” Lewrie sighed. “Uhm, have any letters come?”

“Nothin' from yer good wife t'day, Mister Lewrie,” his superior grunted. “Aye, if a feller's goin' t'commit th' folly, then I give ye points f'r good taste, me lad. She's a living', breathin' angel, Mistress Lewrie is. Even finer'n all th' others I saw ye squirm' in th' West Indies. An' they was
mighty
fine.”

“I was hoping the Admiralty—?” Lewrie prayed.

“Nothin' from them, neither. Oh, I know ye b'long at sea, an' it rare breaks me heart t'see ye took so low, Mister Lewrie,” Lilycrop commiserated, topping up his ale. “I've wrote meself. Locker, down t'th' Nore . . . Jackson an' Stephens, an' Admiral Hood, too. Nothin'z come back t'me, official, so far, neither. Did get wind o' somethin', though . . .” Lilycrop frowned.

“Yes, sir?” Lewrie sat up hopefully.

“'Member how ye used t'speak about politics so glib, Lewrie?”

“Aye, sir?”

“Well, from what I gather, unofficial-like, 'tis petty politics holdin' ye back. Some rear admiral, name o' Sinclair?”

“Oh, shit. I knew he hated me more'n cold, boiled mutton.”

“And, there's another . . . some retired rear admiral. Not on any board, but he has lots of patronage an' influence . . . man ye crossed in the Bahamas, I hear tell.”

“Commodore Garvey?” Lewrie gasped. “He's Yellow Squadron scum! How could he sway my appointment?”

“Aye, that's th' name,” Lilycrop nodded between healthy swigs. “Rich as Midas, I hear, tied t' all th' nabobs in th' City.
Civilians
don't know Yellow Squadron . . . nor what it means. They retire a fool'r a cheat, they bump him in rank, 'stead o' cashierin'r court-martiallin' th' bastard, an' he's Rear Admiral o' the Blue, respectable-lookin'z anythin'. Rumour is, ye exposed 'im, him an' a pack o' thieves, your last commission. An' now he's thick with th' thieves
this
side o' th' ocean who liked th' old way o' Bahamas dealin'. High-placed thieves, too. That means under-th'-table, petticoat talk . . . rich City society wives'n mistresses with th' ear o' Navy Board wives'n mistresses. I 'spect that's why ye sat these last years on th' beach t'begin with.”

“My God, I never thought . . . !” Alan exclaimed. Of course, the last few years ashore, I didn't give a further Navy career the time of day, he confessed to himself. Show up at my door, back when we'd first started, and I'd have run the bastard through who'd have sent me back to sea so quick!

But now there's a real war . . . ! He sighed, squirming with impatience to do something more meaningful than coshing drunken sailors on the head and dragging them off by their ankles.

“Fear nought, me lad,” Lilycrop cautioned. “Corral enough men, ye'll get yer ship. Look at Bracewaight. There's rumours he'd done an arrangement . . . he fetches in 200 seamen, they give him an active commission. One-handed'r no, he's still a
dev'lish
sharp scaly-fish, an' just as wasted here'z ye are. There's a midshipman, down t' th' Nore, braggin' that his hundredth recruit'll fetch his lieutenantcy! 'Course, he's a high-up Dockyard sea-daddy f'r a patron, I'm told.”

Two hundred pressed men, Lewrie almost gagged? At the rate I'm going, that'll take 'til next Christmas, and how long'll this war last?

And with just whom, exactly, did one make such a Devil's bargain?

He vowed to “smoke out” Bracewaight at the first opportunity. And write yet another pleading, weekly letter to the Admiralty.

C H A P T E R 4

O
ld
Bridey, the Mother Abbess, must have had decades of hard begrudgements to work off (or far costlier damage done to her establishment), for the next few days, and nights, were filled with raids.

The Impress Service dealt with deserters, both those who ran deliberately and stayed away, and those who “straggled.” There were some who'd run, intent upon life-long escape from Navy service. And there were some who volunteered over and over again, collecting the Joining Bounty, then taking “leg-bail” to enlist under another alias. Their raids netted about a dozen of the worst offenders, and put the fear of capture in many others.

Then, there were the “stragglers.” These were seamen who had missed their ship's departure, gone on unsanctioned “runs ashore” on a whim, gone adrift from working parties intent on a stupendous drunk, a mindless rut, with no thought for the morrow. Or long-term sailors with good records who'd been granted shore leave, but had been robbed or otherwise “delayed,” who had a mind to rejoin, and were anxious to go back aboard. Hands didn't exactly join the national war effort, didn't sign up to fight “For King and Country”; they wanted to be aboard, and gave their primary loyalty to, specific ships and crews. Fellows from the same neighbourhood or village, the same shire, friends (or people they felt comfortable with). And the Impress Service was their clearinghouse.

Men who'd been put ashore sick or hurt into Greenwich Hospital, but had recovered, they were particularly vulnerable, for they owned pay certificates, or solid coin for once, and there were many jobbers and “sharks” who preyed upon them to buy up their certificates for a pittance, then turn them in at the Pay Office for full value. And get the released hospitallers drunk, penniless and desperate. Desperate enough to fear returning to the Fleet, and sign aboard a merchantman or privateer.

So some of their raids were in the nature of rescue missions to reclaim those befuddled men before worse befell them; the Navy “getting its own back.”

Tonight it was to be deserters, the genuine articles this time, not stragglers, and the “gang” was the round dozen of the toughest of hands. True deserters would face punishment, and would fight like a pack of badgers to stay free.

Their hideout was above an “all-nations,” a dramshop serving a little bit of everything, at the back of a winding mews of dockyard warehouses. It was a mean and narrow building, dwarfed by the height of the warehouses, hard up against a blank brick wall which separated it from one of the worst “Bermudas” of Wapping, a slum so gruesome and crime-ridden, and its lanes and alleys so convoluted, that their escape from any threat would be assured, if they had warning.

“One door art th' back, sir,” the crimp whispered in Lewrie's ear, his breath as foul as rotting kelp. “Winders'z bricked up, 'cept fer that'un ye c'n see. Winder Tax,” he shrugged. “But I'd s'pect 'ey got 'em one jus' boarded over, 'bove th' wall, sir.”

How Lilycrop, or Bridey, had talked the crimp into aiding them, Lewrie could not fathom. Crimps usually were in competition with the 'Press. The Navy had to use their own gangs, for locals stood a fair chance of being found beaten to a pulp, or dead, if they were spotted helping round up people for the Navy.

The old Mother Abbess, Lewrie decided, leaning away to escape the stench, must know where he buried the body! Took his clothes, too, no doubt; the crimp's body odour was, if anything, even more loathsome than his breath! He smelled like a corpse's armpit!

“Down to the end of the mews, Bosun,” Lewrie instructed, after giving it a long look. “Two hands atop the wall, either side of their bolt-hole window. You've placed two more at the back entrance?”

“Aye, sir. Snuck 'round a'hind th' warehouses. One to stop the front door, once we smash in.”

“No need f'r 'at, sir,” the crimp muttered, producing a sack of tinny, clanking objects from within his greasy coat.

“You have a key?” Lewrie goggled.

“Manner o' speakin', like,” the crimp chuckled softly, thumbing through a set of picks and tiny pry-levers, selecting them by feel in the dark, foggy gloom. “Best lock's on th' shop side, not th' stairs door. Been in afore, I has, an' nary a drap'd I get, th' knacky ol' whore-son!”

“Let's go, then,” Lewrie murmured, changing his grip on his truncheon. They flattened themselves against the front of the warehouses, vague darker shadows in the night, in single file. Alan gave the dramshop another squint as they got closer. There was one door to the alley, offset to the left of the storefront, and the window, or bulkhead bay, that formed the majority of the narrow building's face, was tightly sealed by large barred shutters.

“I gets 'is lock t'op'm, sir . . .” the crimp informed him in a gay, professional afterthought. “'Ey's a door t'th' right, 'at's th' shop. Pair-o'-stairs onna lef . . . that's y'r pigeon, sir. Up ye'll fly. I'll be waitin' backit th' corner. Ah, tha's me darlin'!” he wheezed as rusty tumblers clicked. A light thumb on the latch, and it was open. “Wait!” The crimp drew out a small flask of oil, and atomized the hinges of the door with as much loving care as a woman might, to apply her favourite, most alluring scent.

“On y'r own now, sir,” the crimp bowed, and lightfooted his way to the far end of the alley, farthest from observation.

“We'll creep, far as we may, men,” Lewrie ordered. “First sign of alarm, though, we go like blazes. Lanterns hooded, 'til I give the word. Right?”

They slunk into stygian blackness, feeling softly with toes for the first step of the riser, groping for a railing that was not there. And measuring the height of the subsequent steps, and their depth, one cautious tread at a time. Nine men, including Lewrie, his bosun and Cony, all trying to breathe, to climb as silently as possible; though to Alan's ears, they made as much noise as a like number of grunting, rasping hogs in that narrow, airless passage.

Lewrie held up one hand to warn his gang to pause for a moment, so he could listen. He thought he heard soft murmurings, a snatch of throaty laughter from above. Unfortunately, his men couldn't even see their hands in front of their own faces, much less his, so all he did was bunch them up to a chorus of grunts, subdued yelps of surprise, of awkward feet thunked on creaking boards, and the thud of truncheons on the peeling plaster walls.

“Hoy, wazzat?” came a cry from above.

“Go!” Lewrie screamed, almost on his hands and knees to grope upward quickly. “Lanterns! Go!”

There was a hint of light, so he could espy a tiny landing and an array of doors at the top of the steep stairs. One of them opened a crack, spilling more light, right ahead of him. Lewrie scrabbled to his feet and dove for the door, crashing into it before the people behind it could close and lock it. He stumbled through at waist level, avoiding the slash of a jackknife above his head. Before the assailant could slash again, he was brought down by a truncheon smashing on his arm. The knife dropped from his numb fingers.

“In the King's name!” Lewrie howled, lunging at the startled young sailor on the cot before him. He used his truncheon like a pike to knock the breath from the lad, and curl him up like a singed worm around his bruised stomach, gasping for air.

There was more ruckus from the center room, as its denizens discovered that their escape route through the boarded-up window which let onto the stews was filled with pressgang hands.

“Jeez-
us!
” the bosun exclaimed with disgust. “Bloody . . . !”

“Got
these,
sir,” Cony told him. “Christ!”

Lewrie turned about, taking his eyes off the younger sailor for a moment. His assailant was knelt on the floor, against the wall near a wardrobe. Cony and two more hands were already binding him in irons. Oh, he was a sailor, no doubt about it; tattooed and sun-baked, a ring in his ear in sign he'd survived a sinking sometime in his past. And as grizzled and stocky as a longtime bosun's mate. His clothes were sailors' “short clothing” and purser's slops—though the man was now bare-arsed nude, still sporting the remains of a prodigious cock-stand.

“Oh, bloody . . .” Lewrie muttered as he grasped the situation. He turned back to the younger sailor and ripped the filthy linen sheet away from him. He too was naked.

“Please, sir!” the lad whimpered, looking up with pleading in his large, doelike eyes. Except for the usual ruddy sailor's tan, he was . . . pretty; pretty as some biddable young miss! “Please, sir!” he begged again, almost fluttering his lashes in hopes he could stir pity. “Warn' wot ya think, sir, I swears it! Warn' my fault, sir!”

“A Goddamned sodomite!” Lewrie almost gagged.

“Don' take me, sir . . . they'd flog me somethin' awful. They'd
hang
me, sir! I'm a good topman, sir, see . . . ain't never been flogged? Ain't been no trouble 'board ship, sir.”

He reached out in supplication, tears rolling unashamedly down his face, and Lewrie flinched back from his touch, fended him off with the truncheon.

“Don'
never
mess 'board ship, sir,” the young seaman began to blubber. “An' won' never 'appen agin, sir. Won' do h'it no more, I swears it. Fell in wif bad comp'ny, sir. Run outa money, an' . . . an' I needed money, sir. Drink an' bad companions, sir! Sir!”

“Irons here,” Lewrie barked, snapping his fingers for his men.

“Oh, please mates, don' do h'it! I'll go back, swears I will. Ain't no trouble wif me messmates . . . !”

“Ain't no mate of yer'n, ya bugger,” one of the gang growled as he advanced with a set of fetters. “'Old still now . . .
missy!
”

Lewrie stumped stiff-legged from the chamber, onto the landing, peeking into the other rooms for confirmation. He had not only stumbled onto a nest of deserters, he'd stepped right into a
proper
dungheap.

No wonder they'd run, he thought. Sodomy was one of the few of the thirty-six Articles of War, besides murder and mutiny, the Navy really did hang people for.

“Gawd, sir,” his bosun spat, “ain't just deserters. This here be a boy-fucker's buttock-shop. Center room, sir . . . musta been seven 'r eight o' th' . . .
things . . .
t'gither when we busted in, as evil'z . . . anythin'! Not all of 'em seamen, though, Mister Lewrie. Dramshop owner, 'e'z one, too. Caught 'im in th' front room, we did. Had 'im a lad in 'ere no bigger'n me youngest boy Tommy, th' bastard. Two of 'em'z ship's boys. An' a coupla . . .
gen'lmen!
”

Lewrie took a look in the front room. It was much larger than the other two chambers, part bedchamber and parlour, and quite well furnished compared to the rest. A chubby old reprobate sat unmanacled on the edge of the high bedstead, trying to cover part of his nudity by shrouding his groin with his hands, wide-eyed and high-browed, and striving to appear as sheepishly innocent as a dog might, caught licking the Sunday roast. But cowering up by the pile of pillows, weeping fit to bust, was a cherub of a boy, not over ten years old.

“That . . . suet-arse was buggering that
boy?
”
Lewrie demanded.

“
'Pears
he wuz, sir. In bed with 'im, naked'z Adam, anyways.”

“You miscontrue, sir,” the harmless-looking old bugger began to explain, shaking his head as if it was a very tiny, silly mistake. “I can assure you, sir, you see—”

“Save it!” Lewrie snapped. “Tell it to the magistrate.”

The man gasped, paling with dread. Hauled before a court on a charge of sodomy, he'd face hanging for his peculiar tastes. A public whipping, then days festering in the stocks on display as his most hopeful prospect; but subject to the taunts, fruit, stones and physical abuse of the Mob. And few survived that, either.

“Didn' cuff 'im yet, sir . . . bein' a civilian'n all,” the bosun commented. The 'Press had been sued before for even laying hands on civilians, no matter how briefly. And the bosun was a cautious, and experienced, Impress man. “T'other bugger'z in 'ere, sir.”

Alan stomped to the door of the center chamber. There he saw what he could only construe as the aftermath of a backgammoner's orgy. Cheap, low beds lined the walls, feather mattresses and blankets stood service for the carpet. The room reeked of spilled rum, gin, brandy and ale. Several candles guttered in the corners, so the participants might take pleasure in observing, between bouts. Even by that guttery light, Lewrie could pick out several seamen, and a pair of snot-nosed, shivering ship's boys, from the pasty-skinned, maggot-pale civilians.

One of the civilians—again, unfettered—had hurriedly dressed. His clothes were elegant and expensive—silks and satins, fine-cut figured velvet coat and breeches, expensive shoes, the accoutrements of a courtly salon slug. And a courtier's smug airs.

“I am a
gentleman,
sir,” he began, with a sneer at discovering an officer to whom he could complain. “I am a civilian. I am not, nor have I ever been, a sailor, sir. Therefore you have no authority over me, and I insist you let me pass, at once!”