The Gun Ketch (17 page)

The morning was not particularly warm for the Bahamas, in Alan Lewrie's experience, no warmer than high summer in rural England, and the Trade Winds did much to moderate it, though late summer in these islands could be at times oppressively hot and humid. Alan was grateful to note that, despite the hundreds of draft animals on the streets, the swarms of flies and mosquitoes had diminished greatly, due perhaps to the marshy areas he could recall from previous visits, which were now drained and filled and claimed for small farm plots and houses. Even in his best blue wool broadcloth uniform coat, and kerseymere waistcoat and breeches, he was not unduly uncomfortable, even inside the local shore offices for the Royal Navy squadron.

"Commodore Garvey will see you now, Captain Lewrie," the clerk at last announced and Alan rose, shot his cuffs and .tugged his uniform into order to enter his new commanding officer's presence.

"Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, sir," the clerk said for their master's benefit. "Just come in from England in H.M. Sloop
Alacrity,
sir."

"Saw you come to anchor," Garvey grunted from the tall windows where he stood in shadow, hands behind his back and head bowed by what seemed all the world's troubles. "No more than adequate work, that."

"A new crew, sir, in commission two months," Alan checked, wary at once and hedging defensively. There had been little wrong with the approach down Hog Island, their reach across the wind between there and Silver Cay south and east, or their rounding up to windward and coming to anchor amid the disorderly swarm of shipping, just in line with Frederick Street. With tops'ls already brailed up, harbor gaskets on, and yards squared, they'd cruised in neatly with the after course and two jibs standing, fired their salute, and coasted to a stop without a flaw, and the best bower anchor was let slip the instant they lost way. Alan was away in his gig before the stern kedge anchor could be rowed out and set, but he'd seen that go well, too!

"I'll brook no lame excuses from a newly wetted down junior, Lieutenant Lewrie," Garvey barked, though it was more an old dog's jowl-flapping petulance. "You may be one of those who deem a peacetime Fleet all 'claret and cruising,' but you'll find to your dismay I demand the utmost of my captains. Should you persist in whip-jack seamanship and slovenly navigation, our waters here in the Bahamas will lay you all aback quick enough."

Garvey made his way from the tall double windows to his desk, out of the shadows into proximity enough so Lewrie could see his lord and master, no longer silhouetted against the glare.

"I..." Lewrie began to rejoin.

"Muddle through at your peril, sir," Garvey threatened. "Either you'll wreck that fine little armed ketch of yours, or you will answer to my exceeding wrath. Do I speak plain enough for you, Lieutenant Lewrie?"

"Indeed, sir," Lewrie said, fighting to hide his resentment. As he once had as a midshipman when dealing with ship's officers, he gave Garvey a sweet smile of complete agreement, one which had always turned away wrath, as the Bible promised; or masked ironic amusement.

"I have despatches and the latest post, sir," Lewrie offered, bringing a thick canvas-wrapped packet forward. "These are the official correspondence. These are your personal letters. Your clerk already has the squadron's mail, sir."

"Sit," Garvey commanded, pointing in the general direction of a wing chair as he leaned forward and dragged the personal bundle towards his side of the desk. "Brandy, Lieutenant Lewrie? Claret, perhaps?" The man had turned uncommonly civil and benign in an instant.

"I would admire coffee or tea, sir," Lewrie stated, settling on the front edge of the chair. "Bit early in the forenoon for me, sir."

"Hmmph," Garvey frowned as if disappointed.

And Lewrie was left to stew and fidget for many long minutes as Garvey sorted through his
personal
mail, breaking the wax seal on the more interesting to read a snatch or two, then set them aside for closer perusal later. It was quite outside Lewrie's experience for a serving officer to ignore the official despatches so blithely. He'd "kissed the gunner's daughter" for being late in delivering orders aboard his first ship in favor of sorting through the personal missives for something from home first!

Horace Garvey—another bloody "Horry"! Lewrie thought with wry humor—was slightly stoop-shouldered, and fond of his table, too, if the gotch-gutted appliance that bulged his waistcoat near to bursting was any clue. His face and hands were burned dark by tropic sun, finely wrinkled and splotched here and there from ancient searing. Or by drink. His forehead was high and narrow, the nose a prominent narrow beak, and his eyes were downward-turned at the outer corners, and slightly watery and gooseberry. At one time, Garvey had probably been a rather striking specimen, about Lewrie's height, and fashionably slim, but that heroic (and gentlemanly) frame had put on poundage in the trunk and face, though his limbs were still long and spare.

"You departed which port, sir?" Garvey asked at last.

"Portsmouth, sir," Lewrie piped up. "On the 16th last."

"A fast passage," Garvey nodded."We had good westerlies in the Bay of Biscay, and a favorable slant of wind off Lisbon, sir, allowing us to 'cut the corner' without dropping as far south as Cape St. Vincent," Lewrie boasted just a trifle. "My sailing master, and my supercargo master James Gatacre assured me I'd find leading winds around thirty-eight degrees north and sixteen west, so we might reach to make enough sou'westing to pick up the Trades, sir."

In Lewrie's last ship,
Telesto,
Captain Ayscough had sneered at the old way of navigating, where ships would fall far south to run across the Atlantic on a line of latitude for Dominica in the Leewards, even were they headed for the Bahamas, even were they bound for New York!

"Did you, indeed," Garvey sniffed, sounding unimpressed. "And whilst in Portsmouth, did you by happenstance come to hear of passengers who were to be given government passage to the Bahamas, sir?"

"Oh, do you mean the Reverend and Mrs. Townsley, your brother-in-law and your sister, sir?" Lewrie smiled as Garvey sat up with a show of interest at last. "They are arrived in my
Alacrity,
sir!"

"With you!" Garvey barked. "In that cockleshell of a ketch?"

"Aye, sir," Lewrie nodded.

Damme, just what
does
please the bastard? he wondered.

"Damme, I'll lay into the officials who entrusted them into a frail vessel such as yours!" Garvey ranted. "Was there no other ship available, no West Indiaman? Callous hounds! Mark my words, I will
blister
Whitehall with a letter expressing my displeasure. One does
not
treat relations of a senior officer so... so...!"

"She is a converted bomb, sir. Quite sturdy," Lewrie offered.

"Foul, miserable, cramped, bucketing about like a dory in all weathers. And you did not break your passage to ease the misery your passengers surely experienced, sir?" Garvey accused.

"Sir, my orders said to 'make the best of my way,'" Alan replied evenly. "From long usage that is to say, just short of 'with all despatch,' as I am sure you are aware, sir."

"Then you're a fool, a heartless fool, sir!" Garvey snarled.

"My other passengers, sir..." Alan winced as he carried on.

"What? More to be crammed in any-old-how?" Garvey sneered.

"Mister Gatacre and his assistant, sir. Seconded from Trinity House to the Admiralty to conduct a hydrographic survey. And a draft of six midshipmen, sir. I assume they are mentioned in the official despatches, sir," he concluded with what he hoped was a suitably subtle reminder about the Navy correspondence.

"As if I need more midshipmen!" Garvey scowled. "Newlies?"

"Two rather young, sir, two middling... twelvish. And, uhm... the last two from the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth, sir."

"Worse man King's Letter Boys!" Garvey sneered. "Sots and mountebanks! Latin, math, and not a single block in any of their rigging! Hah! Top-lofty cunny-thumbs and cack-hands, not an iota of wits in the lot! Foist 'em off on me, will they?
Wellll
... I'll put a flea in the Admiralty's ear about that, too! Boys cannot learn the sea in a bloody classroom, can't make the connections in the Fleet necessary for patronage and advancement Chasing and caterwauling is all they pick up at that damn-fool... Academy!"

"They did learn sea skills on passage, sir."

"A plow horse leaping two stacked boards ain't a blooded hunter, Lewrie, nor never will be."

"They are indeed a scurvy pair of Tom-Noddys, sir," Lewrie agreed, assaying a small witticism to ease the tension of this vitally important first interview with the man who could make or break him in the next three years, which had so far been tantamount to a disaster. "At present, they're no better than fresh-caught landsmen. Confused they may be, but neither of them is backward. They learn fast, sir."

"What is your armament, sir?" Garvey inquired suddenly, changing tack abruptly. "Your draught?"

"Alacrity
mounts ten six-pounders, four dismountable two-pounder boat-guns, and the usual swivels, sir," Lewrie answered crisply, glad to be back on safe professional matters. "Properly laden and ballasted, she draws just shy of nine feet. Say a half less than nine, sir."

"Hmmmm," Garvey mused, idly toying with the lid of his silver inkwell, opening it and closing it again and again, as if something other than ink would magically appear for once. "Anything needful?"

"Firewood and water, the usual plaint, sir," Lewrie smiled in reply. "Restock our biscuit and salt-meats from the dockyard... she is in all other respects ready for sea, sir."

"A touch too weak for deep-water patrolling," Garvey surmised. "We've more than our fair share of pirates and buccaneers, still, and ships voyage past the Bahamas at their peril. Too many privateersmen from the late-lamented war, spoiled by easy pickings. You're not well armed enough to cow merchantmen violating the Navigation Acts, either."

"Aye, sir," Lewrie responded automatically whenever some senior officer paused to gather his thoughts, as he did in this case.

"Shoal-depth enough, though, to be useful inshore, in most instances, where the opposition would be even smaller and weaker-armed than your ketch. This fellow Gatacre, d'you say... I was to supply him with a suitable vessel?"

"I could not presume to know his complete orders, sir," Lewrie wavered, "nor the contents of whatsoever directives from the Admiralty accompany him. I may only suppose. He did, however, express a desire for two local-built luggers, in addition to ship's boats from the vessel supporting him, sir."

"And what do you possess for ship's boats, sir?" Garvey smiled.

"A twenty-foot launch, a cutter of similar size, and my gig, sir."

"Since he is already aboard your vessel, Lewrie, and you have
room
enough aboard, after all, I do believe I'll let him stay there," Garvey smirked. "The other cutters and such of this squadron would cramp him unmercifully. But
Alacrity,
now used to extra 'lumber' aft, will cope, I am certain. And those two Naval Academy midshipmen?"

"Aye, sir?" Lewrie felt his buttocks puckering in dread. He'd been charitable at best as to their prospects and abilities, but would be glad to see the back of them. He'd not have them if they came with a post-captain's rank!

"Good at mathematics, to the exclusion of all else useful," Garvey said, leaning back in his cool leather chair. "And who could be more helpful to the exacting work of hydrography than superior students of mathematics and surveying, hmm?"

"What a splendid idea, sir!" Lewrie beamed, pissing down his back as if the bastard had done him a signal honor, though he seethed at the very idea! "What
eminent
good sense it is, sir. I should be delighted! May I suggest to Mr. Gatacre that he may feel free to call upon you to discuss his other requirements, then, sir? Once you have had time to peruse what the Admiralty wrote you concerning his duties, that is. A day, perhaps, at your convenience, sir."

"Uhm, of course, he may," Garvey replied, taken aback by Alan's reaction. "You may." He'd thought to punish this upstart for treating his kin so badly, to be the whipping boy for the Admiralty's callous unconcern for their comforts. To put this "newly" in his place, right from the start!

"And may I be allowed to inquire, sir, as to whether I may give leave tickets to my hands, too, sir?" Lewrie fairly oozed unctuous oils of sociability, sounding as though butter would not melt in his mouth. "Once
Alacrity
is reprovisioned and suitable luggers found, before we begin our surveying, sir?"

"I might allow it," Garvey almost sulked, put out that Alan was not "put out."

"Within reason, mind."

"Further, sir, might I inquire as to your Standing Orders for the Bahamas Squadron?" Lewrie pressed, bestowing blissful smiles upon his station commander. "Do you require captains to sleep aboard, as I do believe the Channel Squadron is wont to do in wartime? Or may I consider shore lodgings for myself between voyages, sir?"

"Like to stretch your legs on solid ground, do you?" Garvey asked, lifting an eyebrow, which evident suspicion as to his motives almost made Lewrie cringe with worry it might be disallowed.

"A run ashore now and again would be welcome, sir," Lewrie replied with bright-eyed innocence. "Within limits, of course, sir."