The Gun Ketch (14 page)

What had he known as love before? Pretty much a spectral semblance—flattery and
entendres
which passed for wit and talk, followed by ogling, grappling, and frantic coupling on whatever fell to hand.

Never regard, never esteem, fellowship, never... some affection, of course, but nothing of a lasting nature.

On, off, and where the devil'd I drop me shoes, he scoffed!

Granted, it would be bad for his career. But had he not already blighted that by marrying at all so junior an officer? And, once this commission was ended in 1789, would he really shed a tear to spend his life ashore on half pay, no matter how much pride he had at last derived from his growing skill as a Sea Officer?

He could spend that life with Caroline, with enough money to buy land, to live off interest with Coutts & Co., some investments in funds.

"Two weeks ago, the idea scared me witless, and now ..." Lewrie puzzled, bemused by his eagerness to admit that he was married, and married most damnably well, too, to an absolute gem of a young woman!

Even if it had come about like an unintentional dismasting.

Yet...

Lewrie knew people; admittedly some thoroughly despicable ones. He knew the enthusiasms of "grass widows," and the sort of men who went baying like a pack of hounds in pursuit of abandoned and lonely women; God knows
he 'd
prospered on them. He could see how other officers and Portsmouth gentlemen regarded her so hungrily when he and Caroline were out and about the town already. Might she... even Caroline ... succumb at last, missing lovemaking so much after a brief, glorious introduction, with him away for three years, might she... ?

"Christ, I've rattled too many wives and widows," he muttered in gloom. "Ironic justice, that'd be. Maybe innocence and ignorance would be a blessing! God, surely not her!"

So when, the night preceding, Caroline had shyly confessed that she had not actively sought decent lodgings, and begged his forgiveness for scheming to go with him, he had been more than relieved of all his worries, and had surrendered to her will most ecstatically.

There was a rap on the cabin hatchway.

"Ship's carpenter Mister Stock, sir!" the lone seaman on guard called out, filling in for the Marine sentry
Alacrity
did not have.

"Enter!" Lewrie replied.

"Yew wanted t'see me, Captain, sir?" the youngish Mr. Stock said as he ducked his head to enter and removed his stocking cap.

"Aye, Mister Stock," Lewrie brightened. "I need your expertise to rearrange my cabins to accommodate our passengers. I'd thought you might be able to turn the starboard quarter-gallery into a second 'necessary closet,'I give our passengers some canvas and deal partitions to provide privacy... oh, about here, say. And their maid needs sleeping space. The manservant will berth below in the stores room."

"Uhm ..." Stock pondered. "Foldup pilot-berth here, sir, over the sideboard in the dinin' coach fr the maid. Double berth fr the married folks." Here Stock actually blushed! "We've partitions enough, sir. And yon double hanging-cot a'ready. Not a day's work, sir."

"Best build a double hanging-cot for them," Lewrie said. "Leave me equidistant room down the starboard side, and a passageway t'other side. I'm ... ahumphh ... partial to the existing double."

"Oh, aye, aye, sir," Stock agreed with a sad expression.

"God, what a bloody pot-mess," Alan fumed on sailing day as he beheld his little command turn from a trig gun ketch to a bloody Ark, from a sane and rational construct to a barking shambles!

"Heave, and in sight!" Parham, one of his fourteen-year-old midshipmen, howled from up forward.

"Jib halyards, gaff halyards, peak halyards, Mister Ballard!" Alan snapped. The inexperienced landsmen and volunteers were being trampled by the ordinary and able seamen; the draft of midshipmen flitted about trying to appear useful, or to avoid a mob of hands who suddenly stampeded in their general direction. A yearling steer gave out a mournful bellow of annoyance, the pigs and sheep squealed or baaed in sudden terror, and ducks and geese in the fo'c's'le manger squawked and fluttered, so that
Alacrity's
foredecks were nigh awash in feathers. There was a deal of cursing from professionals, too.

The ship's boys served as nippermen, seizing the lighter line to the heavier anchor hawser, whilst inexperienced landsmen under the direction of the bosun's mate, a Portuguese named Odrado, tried to deal the stinking coils of salt-stiffened cable into manageable heaps, then down to the cable tiers to drape over the bitts to dry. And it was a truism that had
Alacrity
been a 1st Rate 100-gunned flagship, they would still not have had enough deck space for the nippers, the men on the cable, the hands heaving on the capstan, the sailhandlers or the sheetmen on the gangways ready to brace the jibs and gaff sails.

Blocks squealed,
lignum vitae
sheaves hummed, and gaffs cried as the sails were hoisted aloft.

"Payin' off t'larboard, no helm, sir," Neill said from the long tiller sweep with his fellow Burke standing by, ready to lend strength for when the wind gave enough way through the water to make the rudder function.

"Forrud!" Lewrie bawled. "Walk your jib sheets to larboard and haul away! Brace up the after course, there, lads! A luff, no more, foredeck!"

Alan spun to walk to larboard to peer over the side to see if there was even the slightest hint of a wake, and to gauge distances to other anchored ships. He almost collided with the Reverend Townsley and his wife who were gawking about like farts in a trance, cackling with amusement and treating the spectacle like a rare show.

"Your pardons," he said, not sounding much like he meant it as he brushed past them. He had advised Caroline to stay below and out of the way until he sent Cony for her, once the ship had gotten under way and things were a bit less disorganized.

"Brace on the capstan, well the cable!" Ballard called, tending to his chores. "Ready on the cat!"

Thank God for a first lieutenant, Lewrie thought. And thank God for a competent one. There, a wake, he exulted! He tossed a chip of scrap wood over and watched it bob astern, foot at a time.

"Bite t'the helm, sir," Neill cried.

"Larboard your helm, Mister Neill. Bring her up to weather on a soldier's wind for now. Forrud!" Alan called, once more stumbling over the Townsleys, who had moved to the forward left corner of the quarter-deck nettings. "Haul away on your larboard sheets!"

"Silly bugger!" Burke yelped as his way with the tiller sweep was impeded. Alan didn't have to turn around to see who it was that had gotten in the way.

"You might do better all the way aft by the taffrails, Reverend," Alan said, then shouted," 'Vast hauling! Luff enough! Now belay!"

Alacrity
was free of the land, free of the bottom, and moving faster. The wind was from the west, with a touch of northing, giving them a clear shot down the western passage past the Isle of Wight, with enough strength to it to let them harden up to weather to keep off the coast to their lee, to go close-hauled if they had to without a tack. With luck and no traffic, they could get to sea in the Channel on one long board.

Lewrie heaved a slight sigh of relief. Comical as they might have looked to ships longer in commission and practice,
Alacrity
was on her way. He walked back up to starboard, along the narrow space inside the quarter-deck railings and the after capstan-head to starboard, the windward side, which was his by right as captain.

"Anchor's fished, catted and rung up, sir," Ballard told him, touching his hat with a finger. Those studious brown eyes held the slightest hint of glee. "Cable's below, hawse-bucklers fitted."

"Thank you, Mister Ballard," Lewrie smiled. "Not
too
awful, considering. Two rehearsals seemed to have turned the trick. Thank you again, for your suggestion."

"My pleasure, Captain," Ballard said, inclining his head, his long upper lip curving just a trifle.

"I'd admire should you attend to the gun salute to the flag," Lewrie instructed. "The experienced hands, mind."

"Aye, aye, sir," Ballard said, turning away.

Lewrie looked down on his gun deck and gangways. What had been total disorder was now flaked down and lashed, hung on the pintails in neat loops; halyards and sheets, braces and lifts, were stowed for instant use.

Senior seamen were explaining things to their rawer compatriots, beginning to play the role of "sea daddies."

William Pitt sprang up atop the quarter-deck railings, his tail lashing with excitement. Alan reached out and ruffled the fur behind his ears. "How does it feel to have a ship of your own to terrorize again, hey, Pitt? Good?" Pitt tucked his paws in and lay still.

For an English day, it was remarkably lovely. There was some bite to the breeze, of course, but the sun was out, peeking between thin scud, making the waters of the Solent gleam, giving them color for once beyond steely gray, brightening the vista of ships and sea.

"Cony?" Alan called, flinching as he remembered Caroline.

"Aye, sir."

"My respects to Mistress Lewrie, and inform her the deck is quiet enough for her to come up," he told him, unable to control a blush at using the unfamiliar title "Mistress Lewrie."

"There's the pretty!" Caroline said, stroking Pitt as she came to the quarter-deck by one of the short ladders from the gun deck, and Pitt stood to get his petting. "Oh, how marvelous!" she exclaimed in delight, coming to his side to link arms with him. "A perfectly gorgeous morning. Good morning, Mister Ballard."

"Good morning to you, ma'am," Ballard replied, doffing his hat to her. "Your pardons, ma'am, but 'twill be a little noisy in a few moments. Aft, there! Prepare to dip the colours! Mister Fowles, be ready!"

"Aye, aye, sir!"

Abeam of the principal fort,
Alacrity
began to thunder out a gun salute. She dipped her colours briefly as the equally-spaced shots rang out, with Fowles pacing aft from one gun to the next, muttering the ancient litany of timing, "... if I weren't a gunner, I wouldn't be here. Number three gun.... fire! I've left my wife, my home, and all that's dear. Number four gun... fire!"

"Thank you, Alan dearest," Caroline whispered to him between shots. "I'll never give you cause to regret your decision. I love you so completely!"

"And I love you, Caroline," he whispered back, bending from his rigid pose of lord and master for a second, grinning foolishly.

BOOM!

"At least on passage, I shall learn what sort of life you lead aboard your ships," Caroline went on. "So I may understand you better and picture you more clearly when you're away."

BOOM!

"Oh, Alan, we're setting out on a grand adventure!" She laughed. "Such a honeymoon, no one has ever had!"

"There, there, my dear," Lewrie comforted, almost gagging himself as his bride "cast her accounts." She knelt in the starboard quarter-gallery, the "necessary" converted from a wardrobe little larger than a small closet.

"It passes. It will."

She looked up at him, dull-eyed and wan, her livery face now devoid of expression. "Dear Jesus, could I but... Harrackkk!'"

Back her face went over the hole as her body rebelled at such infernal motion, at the stomach-churning odors of ship and food. He knelt with her to hold her head, to apply a towel below her chin as solicitously as he could, for one whose cast-iron craw had withstood the fiercest gales since his first hours in the Navy. But he had to dwell on the smells of fresh-sawn wood and new paint
most
closely!

There was a rap on the flimsy louvred door to their share of the great-cabins. "Mister Ballard's respects, sir, and I am to tell you he is desirous of tacking ship," a thin voice called out.

"Mister Mayhew, is it?" Alan asked, trying to differentiate between two soprano midshipmen.

"Aye, aye, sir," the fourteen-year-old said, voice cracking.

"My compliments to the first lieutenant and I shall be on deck directly," he instructed. "Caroline. Dearest ... I must go on deck to oversee a change of course. I'll be back soon, I swear. Do you think you might be alright until then, love?"

All she could do was nod, dazed by illness, her face twisted inmisery as it was poised over the slop chute. He kissed her on the top of her head, rose, and made his escape, feeling pangs of guilt.

The Reverend Townsley collided with him in the narrow lar-boardside passageway, hands to his mouth and sprinting for the "jakes." But
Alacrity
was loping like a deerhound over the sea, stern rising high then settling like a dog's haunches as it dug in for a thrust with its back legs, dropping with a giddy swoosh. One moment, running aft was hastened by the slant of the deck; the next moment one churned in place or lost ground as the bows plunged. At least, laid hard over on her starboard side by the wind she did not roll. The good reverend danced in place like Punch pursuing Judy, then was almost hurled the last few feet to crash into the transom settee and the stern timbers. His feet went flying over his head and he landed like a pile of dominie's washing— black "ditto" coat, breeches, stockings and waistcoat all of a piece. He regarded Lewrie for a mournful moment like a hound being put down would stare at the gun, then spewed the last contents of his body over his lap and chest.