The Gun Ketch (15 page)

So much for serving fresh pork roast, Lewrie gagged as he turned away to stumble forward; there's four shillings wasted!

The door to the Townsleys' cabin was swaying open, left gaping in the reverend's haste, and Lewrie caught a peek of Mrs. Reverend Townsley and her prunish maid fighting to share a bucket.

"Oh, land us
ashore,
Captain Lewrie!" she wailed, giving him such a glare as said that it was all his fault. "No more, I beseech you! We shall all drown for sure. Gracious Jesus, to be on solid ground...!"

"Approaching a lee shore in the dark in these seas, ma'am, would be drowning for certain," Lewrie explained. "Sorry. Excuse me."

Bad weather might be best, he thought as he gained the quarterdeck; save me money feedin' 'em broth an' gruel for a few days!

"Wind's dead on the bows, and blowing right up the Channel, sir!" Ballard had to shout at him. "And now the tide's turned, we're set too much northerly on the larboard tack, headed for a lee shore!"

The English Channel was a nasty piece of water, with tidal flows as strong as spring rivers in spate. Those, combined with the current and wind, could waft a ship along quick as a "diligence-coach" on the High Road. Or nail her in place for twelve hours, no matter how much wind or sail area to beat against them.

And
Alacrity
was, like all shoal-drafted converted bombs, tending to slip to leeward like a sot sliding off a chair. Close-hauled into that stiff wind, she would require four or five times the mileage to make good a direct course with a more favorable beam or stern wind.

"On the starboard tack, we have sea room 'til dawn, when this tide turns!" Lewrie declared in return. "Aye, make it so, Mister Ballard! Before you tack, though, take in the outer-flying jib. She's too much pressure on her bows, and I'll not have her broach beam-on to wind and sea if she tacks too sharp!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" Ballard agreed with a firm nod, and the first, slight smile Lewrie had seen him attempt "Mister Harkin, 'All Hands!' Stations for stays! Fo'c's'le captain? Take in the outer jib!"

Getting her head 'round was no problem, with no need to pay off a point free on the helm to gather speed for a successful tack. They drove her up with her helm alee and
Alacrity
tracked about quick as a wink, deck leveling as she approached "stays," sails luffing and thundering, blocks rattling and tinkling, hull and masts crying.

"Meet her!" Alan warned the helmsmen. "Nothing to loo'rd!"

"Let go and haul!" Ballard screamed over the howling wind. Her bows crossed the wind and in a moment, she was laid hard over on a new tack, sails cracking like cannon shots as they filled and bellied out hard as iron, some luffing still as inexperienced men tailed on sheets too slowly. But paying off a bit too far and pressed hard over.

"Helm down, helm down! Keep her hard up aweather!" Lewrie said, throwing his own strength to aid Neill and Burke on the long tiller. "Thus! Steer west-sou'west, half west."

"Better, sir," Ballard stated after the deck was back in order.

"Smartly done, Mister Ballard, for such an inexperienced crew," Lewrie complimented him. "Thank God we have enough skilled hands, or we'd have rolled her masts right out of her."

"Thank you, sir."

"This may blow out by morning, sir," Fellows the sailing master opined after recovering his hat from the scuppers. "Damme, though, she swims even this lumpy sea devilish nice, don't she?"

"Aye, she does, Mister Fellows," Lewrie agreed. "Mister Ballard, before you dismiss the hands, take a second reef in the gaff courses, now we've unbalanced her by taking in the flying jib. Trim her until you're satisfied. Hank on a storm trys'l and bare thetack comer for a balance on her head. Able seamen only out on the sprit tonight, mind."

"Aye, aye, sir," Ballard said, going forward.

"On starboard tack all day tomorrow, most like, sir," Fellows decided. "Once the tide turns, with the current... tack again, I fear, as we fetch Alderney in the Channel Isles."

"I'd admire were it Guernsey, but we make too much leeway," Lewrie agreed, picturing a chart in the mind's eye. "Then larboard tack all the way toward Torquay and Tor Bay, and hope the winds back north."

An hour later,
Alacrity
rode much easier, with her large gaff sails reduced in area, and their centers of effort lower to the deck, and the center of gravity. Eased as she was, Lewrie had the galley fires lit so hot beverages could be served to ease suffering.

"Clear broth and biscuit," Ballard mused. "Just the thing for touchy stomachs. Though my other ships ran more to hot rum and water."

"Royal Navy's panacea for all ills," Lewrie chuckled as he had a cup of steaming black coffee and rum.

"I think it... uhm..." Ballard began to say, then had a second thought. For a fleeting moment, he showed indecision.

"What, Mister Ballard?"

"Oh, just that I thought it most considerate of you, sir. To be solicitous to the hands, their first night at sea. Easing the ship as we have. The galley ..."

Of course, Lewrie thought! We're feeling each other out!

For the next three years, they were stuck with each other, for good or ill; two total strangers thrown together at the whim of the Admiralty, an Admiralty which would not, or could not, take into account the personalities of officers when handing out active commissions. It could be a good relationship, or a horror; it could be friendly, or it could be cold and aloof as charity!

"Well, half of 'em're cropsick as dogs at the moment," Lewrie shrugged. "They need something hot they may keep down. Or won'tclaw on the way back up! And what's the sense of thrashing to windward as if we were pursuing a prize? The tide'll turn, after all. But those new 'uns make an easy adjustment to the sea. Don't make 'em hate the life they signed on for so eagerly."

"Most captains would not consider such, sir."

"I had a few good teachers," Lewrie allowed. "As I'm sure you did."

"Aye, sir," Ballard grinned. "And how fares our live-lumber?"

"Wailing and spewing," Lewrie snickered uncharitably. "Praying for dry land, last I saw of 'em."

"And ... and your good lady, sir?" Lieutenant Ballard asked carefully.

"Good Christ!" Lewrie cried. "I told her I'd be right back, and here it's been two hours at the least! Uhm, when I left her, she was suffering bad as the Townsleys, Mister Ballard."

"My tenderest respects to Mistress Lewrie, sir, and I pray that her seasickness will soon abate," Ballard offered.

"I'm certain she will be heartened by your kind concern, sir," Lewrie replied. "Stap me, two whole hours! She'll scalp me! But, I must confess, being on deck, being active, relieved some of my pangs, too."

"Uhm ... and will Mistress Lewrie be ... ah ... ?" Ballard squirmed.

"Oh," Alan snorted, "do I intend to cruise the West Indies with my wife aboard? Was that your question, Mister Ballard?"

"Your pardons, Captain, I mean no disrespect. It's just that the warrants, some of the turned-over hands were talking, and..."

"Do they disapprove?" Lewrie demanded.

"Your predecessor, Lieutenant Riggs, had no storm damage, sir," Ballard admitted. "He shammed it, and used Admiralty promissory notes in Lisbon and Nantes to stock his wine cellars. He was never without female companionship aft. A veritable parade of foreign morts, I'm told, sir. I gather that the people resented it, and feared you might be..."

"I'm not Augustus Hervey, Mister Ballard," Lewrie said, thinking even so that he'd made a fair beginning on that worthy's estimable record of over 200 women in a single three-year commission.

"Hardly a man may be, sir, and may still walk," Ballard found courage to jape with a droll, dry expression.

"Much as I might
care
for it, mind..." Lewrie laughed. "But, as you say, the hands would grow surly and insubordinate were I to parade what they want and can't have in their faces. I may not be an experienced captain yet But I do know better than that, sir!"

"I'm sorry if I discomfited you, sir. And I am of the same opinion as you, sir, and understand completely," Ballard said, even if he didn't yet understand what would compel a man to wed so early in a career, risk the loss of it. It had taken so much for him to even get to sea, and progress as far as he had, son of a Kentish innkeeper, a private school letter boy. Had it not been for a Navy captain who kept lodgings with them when he was ashore doinghis father a favor to take young Arthur on as a cabin servant, he might still be forrud garbed in slop-clothing, still a topman and Able Seaman, a mate at best!

"If you will allow me the deck, sir, you may see to your wife," Ballard extended as a peace-offering. "For this evening at the least, unless there's an emergency, you might..."

"No, Mister Ballard," Lewrie decided, finishing the last dregs of his coffee. "I'm no Augustus Hervey. Nor am I a Lieutenant Riggs. Call me, as stated in my Order Book, should circumstances merit. But I will take advantage of your kind offer and go below for awhile. God, over two hours! She'll have my liver! Good evening, Mister Ballard."

"And good evening to you, sir," Ballard replied, relieved. "And do convey my sympathies to Mrs. Lewrie."

"I will and thankee."

He's a raw 'un, no error, Ballard thought as Lewrie stumped down to the weather-decks. Means well. But not too well. Ain't playing a "Robin Goodfellow" to be popular with the hands, just taut but caring. So far.

Ballard should have envied Lewrie bitterly. He was taller and fairer, boyishly handsome, and came with an indolent courtier's repute; he'd not gained the sobriquet of "Ram-Cat" Lewrie for his choice of pet alone, Ballard grimaced! Womanizer, a brothel-dandy, he'd heard, with the confidence around women that Ballard lacked,
the panache
the Frogs called it to spoon them just shy of scandalous, and the devil-take-ye glint in his eyes to seem dangerous and desirable.

Yet he was a good sailor, and a married one!

Ballard should have resented Lewrie's rapid rise in the Service. Six years from gentleman volunteer to not only Commission Officer, but a captaincy in foreign waters! While it had taken young Arthur Ballard long nights of study, years of quiet observation to develop his skills with a stubbornly silent will to equal or best his contemporaries, and gain this first coveted slot as a first officer. Eleven years to his commission, to Lewrie's six! Why, he should have despised him for a whip-jack sham, a well-connected idler!

Oddly, he did not. Lewrie was too much of a puzzle to envy or despise. Trust? Ah, that might come as they progressed together. He already felt he might come to trust him. But it was early days.

The one thing that genuinely irked was the lovely Caroline who adored the fellow so enthusiastically, the sort of young woman Ballard had always most desired, but never seemed to find. And Lewrie had found her so effortlessly!

"Caroline," he whispered, testing her name on his lips.

"Say somethin', Mister Ballard, sir?" Neill the quartermaster inquired.

"Steady as you go, Mister Neill," Ballard said, shrugging deep into his soggy grogram boat-cloak.

Caroline was asleep on the transom settee's pad, curled up hard against the stern timbers by an open sash window overlooking the wake, hugging her knees. Alan took the painted coverlet from the hanging-cot and folded it about her to ward off the chill of the stiff winds.

"Oh, you're back!" she groaned, weary as death, spent from all her wracking heavings. She reached out for him, weak as a kitten, as he got a damp cloth to wipe her face. She didn't sound accusatory, he noted with relief!

"I'm so sorry, Caroline, but that's a ship for you," Alan lied. "It took forever. A tug here, a pull there. Are you feeling perhaps the tiniest bit better, darling?"

"A bit," she allowed. "Now you're here. Just hold me, Alan."

"Miss me?" he teased, easing down on the edge of the settee by her side as she rolled to him and embraced him.

"My love, I was much too ...
busy,
to miss you," Caroline sighed, amazingly able to jest even then. "The fresh air helped best. Once I got the window open, and made my
final
offering to Neptune, I was dead to the world."

"You should get into bed. Sleep's the thing for you now. The bedbox doesn't pitch or roll. Would you care for some brandy?"

"I do not trust myself," she said after one quick peek at their hanging-cot, which swayed impressively. She rinsed her mouth with the brandy, but spit it out over the stern, not trusting her stomach with any fresh contents, either.

"You are so good to me," she crooned sleepily, stroking his face as he came back to her side. "I'm so sorry to be a burden, when I promised just this morning I'd not be."

"You're no burden, love," Alan smiled. "Every sailor has to find his sea legs. You sleep, now. And you'll feel better in the morning."

He reclined with her, stroking her hair until her breathing went slow and regular. Only then did he close his own eyes and nod off, his head pressed against hard oak, lulled and hobbyhorsed to sleep by the ship's motion.There was a rapping at the door.

"Unnh?" he groaned, starting awake from treacly sleep.

"Midshipman Parham, sir. The sailing master's respects, and he wishes to shake out the second reef in the main course and inner jib, Captain, sir."