Hostile Shores (11 page)

Just after leaving
Athenian
and his last meeting with Grierson, Lewrie had announced to the crew that they would be sailing for home … where their pay chits would be honoured in full, and the shares in their ship’s prize-money would be doled out, he had reminded them, to make some of the dis-contented think twice about desertion. He had hoisted the “Easy” pendant and put the ship “Out Of Discipline” for a day and a night to let the whores and temporary “wives” come aboard, and even after full order was restored, he had granted shore liberty to each watch in turn so his sailors could stretch their legs ashore and lounge at their ease in the many taverns, rut in the brothels, and attend the “Dignity Balls” that the Free Blacks would stage. The Mulatto girls, the Quadroons and Octoroons, might be above being shopped by the pimps in the bum-boats like common doxies, but the fancily-dressed “Dignity Ladies”, for a
discreet
price, would make young sailormen feel as if they had discovered Fiddler’s Green, the sailors’ Paradise, where ale and spirits flowed freely, the music never ended, the girls were obliging and eager, and the publicans never called for the reckoning.

“Departing salute to the Governor-General, sir?” Lt. Westcott prompted.

“Aye, Mister Westcott, carry on,” Lewrie agreed, pacing over to the windward bulwarks where he belonged, and, as the gun salute boomed out in its slow measure, and the leeward side became wreathed in smoke, Lewrie doffed his hat to the women ashore, one memorable woman in particular whom he, in retrospect, had best never see again!

Once the last gun had been fired, Marine Lieutenant Simcock came to the top of the starboard ladderway. “Beg pardons, sir, but, given our departure for England, I wonder if ‘Spanish Ladies’ might be welcome.”

“A fine idea, Mister Simcock!” Lewrie heartily agreed. “Carry on and put a good pace to it, as you did before.”

“‘Fa-are-
well,
and a-dieu, to you
fine
Spanish la-adies, fa-are-well, and adieu, to you
la-dies
of
Spain
! Fo-or
we’ve
received orders to
sail
for Old England, but we hope very
shortly
to
see
you again! We’ll rant and we’ll roll, like
true
British sailor-men, we’ll rant and we’ll roll, all across the salt
seas,
’til
we
strike Soundings in the
Channel
of Old England, then straight up the Channel to Portsmouth we’ll
go
!’”

Reliant
’s sailors were bound for home. It was a beautiful morning of fresh-washed blue skies and white clouds, and the waters in the channel out to sea were clear enough to see schools of fish darting from the frigate’s shadow, the waters shading off to the most brilliant blue-green, bright jade green, and aquamarine. Now that the running rigging was belayed on fife and pin-rails, the excess flaked or flemished down, and the sails drawing well without tending, the crew could find time to sing, belting out the words with the joy of departing.

Older mast-captains and the younger and spryer captains of the tops had gathered in a group atop a hatch grating beneath the cross-deck timbers of the boat-tier beams in the waist, forming an
impromptu
chorus, swinging their arms as if their hands already held home-brewed ale mugs in their favourite old taverns.

“‘No-ow I’ve been a topman, and
I’ve
been a gunner’s mate, I can dance, I can sing, a-and
walk
the jib-
boom
! I can
han-dle
a cutlass, and
cut
a fine figure, whenever I’m
given
en-nough standing room!

“‘We’ll rant and we’ll roar, like
true
British sailormen, we’ll rant and we’ll roar, both
aloft
and be-
low
! ’Til we sight Lizard, on the
coast
of Old England, then straight up the
Chan-nel
to Portsmouth
we’ll
go!’” that chorus roared, and the ship’s boys, the cabin servants who served as nippers and powder-monkeys, pranced and practiced their horn-pipes round the covered hatchway, and the very youngest raced round and shrieked with delight, with Bisquit in pursuit, or being the chased, it was hard to tell which.

“Let them rant, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked as he joined Lewrie by the windward bulwarks.

“Aye, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie replied, a happy grin on his face, and his right hand beating the time on the cap-rails as he sang along now and then. “It’ll take half an hour more before we haul off Nor’west. They’ll play out long before then.”

He looked aft towards the larboard quarter to see Arawak Cay and the eastern tip of Long Cay well clear; off the starboard quarter stood the long spit of Hog Island. And framed between the taffrail lanthorns lay the harbour channel and the town of Nassau, glowing in an infinite variety of pastel paint on the walls, already shrinking away, the green hills of early Spring turning brown and dusty in the glare of late Summer.

“Mind, though,” Lewrie said, “does the wind give you an opportunity, I’ll have the fore course, main course, and t’gallants filled.”

“I don’t suppose it matters at this point, sir, what our duty will be once we leave the dockyards,” Westcott said with a shrug. “I only hope whatever we’re set to is as successful as our last.”

“Even if it ended badly,” Lewrie said, sighing and leaving the bulwarks to walk a few paces forward to look down into the waist at his singing and capering crewmen. “Damme, I’m going to miss Darling, Bury, and Lovett. We made a hellish-good team!”

“But, with any luck, sir, we’ll find another,” Westcott said with a hopeful tone.

“We’ll see,” Lewrie said, nodding. “We’ll see.”

BOOK ONE

KING:

Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver

Our puissance into the hand of God,

Putting it straight in expedition.

Cheerly to sea the signs of war advance.

—W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
,
T
HE
L
IFE
OF
K
ING
H
ENRY
THE
F
IFTH
,
A
CT
II, S
CENE
II, 189–192

CHAPTER TEN

Calling upon the Port Admiral of Portsmouth was always a dicey proposition. Admiral Lord Gardner was a lean and sour older fellow, “all sealing wax, stay tape, and buckram”, it was said of him (as well as his contemporary at Plymouth), who never seemed to have a good day, and God help the fool, or fools, who crossed him, disappointed, discomfitted, or disturbed him, for he never would suffer fools gladly. And this morning, he was looking particularly dys-peptic.

“Lewrie … Lewrie…,” Lord Gardner mused, working his mouth as if he’d bitten into a rotten lemon, or had dentures made by an itinerant Gypsy tinker. “Aha, sir! I recall you, now. You have not brought in any more of your secret, explosive thing-gummies, have you? Has he, Niles?” Lord Gardner snapped, turning to peer at his long-suffering senior Post-Captain aide. “Come to blow us all to Kingdom Come, has he?”

“Not this time, milord,” Captain Niles informed his master with a genial grin. “Our experiments with those infernal engines are done, and good riddance. Complete failures.”

“For which I say thank God, my lord,” Lewrie stuck in.

“His orders, milord,” Captain Niles said, efficiently whipping the single opened sheet of paper out and laying it on the desk before Lord Gardner, who picked it up and peered at it, myopically, his face in a grim and distasteful
moue
as if expecting the worst.

“This Commodore Grierson detaches you from his squadron, with orders for England, for a
re-fit
?” Lord Gardner huffed, waving those orders about. “What an impertinent, jumped-up pop-in-jay he must be, to assume that he may declare authority over His Majesty’s Dockyards, and send us whom he will!”

“Well, my lord, not a thorough re-fit, just a hull cleaning,” Lewrie offered, hoping that the lesser request would mollify him. “
Reliant
is very weeded, and slow after being brought out of Ordinary in April of 1803, and the bulk of her active commission has been in Bermudan, Bahamian, West Indies, and other tropic waters. The Gulf of Mexico, off Spanish Florida, and the Southern American coast?”

“He also ordered you to strike your broad pendant and sail away?” Lord Gardner gawped. “You are not sent home to face charges at a court-martial, are you, Lewrie? Under some cloud or other?”

“No, sir!” Lewrie quickly assured him. “He came up from Antigua with two sixty-fours, a Fifth Rate and two Sixth Rate frigates, and two more brig-sloops, and deemed my Fifth Rate redundant to his needs. As you will note, too, my lord, he deemed my small squadron’s duties against privateers sufficiently done, and that his new-come warships could do a much better job of keepin’ an eye on any new outbreak of raiders. And, he wanted the three wee ships under me for other duties down-islands. And, since he’s senior to me by nigh two years, there it is, my lord.”

“And you just
let
him order you to strike your flag and slink off?” Admiral Lord Gardner spat in astonishment.

“With the threat of privateers reduced, and their bases along the American coast eliminated, there was little I could do to argue the point, my lord,” Lewrie told him with a hopeless shrug.

“By God, but he takes a lot upon himself!” Gardner gravelled. “Henry Grierson … Henry Grierson. Who the Devil is he, Niles? Have you ever heard of him?”

“Uhm, I do believe that he is distant kin to Lord Melville, my lord,” Captain Niles tactfully said.

“Oh, good Lord!” Gardner snarled. “Even is he out of office, it will be some harpy in here, still, some female cousin thrice-removed, waving orders with Melville’s seal upon ’em, telling me to build a frigate for her son! The Prime Minister should
never
have dismissed Johnny Jervis from his post as First Lord of Admiralty. What the Devil was he thinking?”

“Given this Grierson’s connexions, then, perhaps we should put a new frigate together, for Lewrie here, hey, Niles?” Gardner wheezed.

“Would that a dockyard re-fit be possible, sir,” Captain Niles said with a whimsical air.

“Just a hull cleaning, my lord,” Lewrie reminded them. “We’ve weed as long as boarding pikes on our ‘quick-work’.”

“Recall, milord,” Niles said, leaning closer to his superior, “that we spoke with the Commissioner of the Dockyards, Sir Charles Saxton, upon the amount of work he has in hand, and the possible availability of a free graving dock for any vessel coming in damaged? He and his people are completely swamped.”

“‘Swamped’?” Lord Gardner querulously posed. “What the Devil sort of word is ‘swamped’? There are no swamps in England. Ireland, perhaps … all those bloody bogs of theirs … but not in England!”

“I stand corrected, milord,” Niles easily amended, bestowing a congenial look at Lewrie as if to say that Lord Gardner’s bark was not as dangerous as his bite, and that such word-play was natural to their working relationship. “Up to his neck in demands and needful work, rather. I fear that it may be weeks ’til what re-fit work and activation of ships now laid up in-Ordinary would admit your frigate the slightest bit of attention, Captain Lewrie. Even with specific, and urgent, orders from Admiralty, there is little we may do for you.”

“In the Careenage, Captain Niles? My lord?” Lewrie said, feeling that wheedling might suit. “As I said, we only need a bit of hull cleaning. If not the Careenage, any stretch of beach would do.”

“Lord, the beaches!” Captain Niles sadly mused. “I fear that there are now so many private contractors and shipwrights a’building ‘back of the beach’ that there may not be
room.
So many lost merchantmen to be replaced, new bottoms needed to expand our trade, and many smaller warships being built on speculation, not even under contract with Admiralty … I very much doubt there is a single seaport in all England where you might find the space, sir.”

Gawd, I’ve been diddled!
Lewrie thought with a cringe;
Sent to “Coventry” like a failure, and
stuck
there ’til the
next
Epiphany?

“What if I went up to London and sought fresh orders, my lord?” Lewrie appealed to Lord Gardner.

“You may try, sir, but even with orders, as Niles said, you do not stand a Chinaman’s Chance,” Lord Gardner told him, seemingly in sympathy with his plight. He was not snarling or roaring. “Were it me, I’d have stood on my rights, and previous orders, and given this Grierson puppy the back of my hand!”

“Then there
would
have been court-martial charges, my lord,” Lewrie croaked, his shoulders slumping in defeat. He puffed out his cheeks in a frustrated sigh, thinking hard.

“Excuse me, my lord, but … having just come in, I’m not yet considered part of Channel Fleet,” Lewrie schemed. “I
could
leave for London without being faulted for sleeping out of my ship, and see what fresh orders I might … wangle?”

“Do
any
of you younger sorts have the ability to speak in plain King’s English anymore?” Lord Gardner groused, slapping a fist on his desk top. “
‘Wangle’,
sir? Learn that word in a
swamp,
did you?”

“I
might’ve
heard it in Charleston or Savannah, sir,” Lewrie said with a shrug, “From the Yankee Doodles.”

“Both cities are famous for their surrounding swamps, milord,” Niles dared to jape in a mellow purr, tipping Lewrie a wink that the Admiral could not see.

“Aye, Captain Lewrie,” Lord Gardner grudgingly allowed, “until someone takes note of a perfectly good frigate lazing at anchor, and snatches you up, you are not under Channel Fleet, strictly speaking. If you imagine that you may discover a solution to your problem up in London, you are surely free to go … so long as you do not tarry ’mid the joys of the city.”