Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey

Shovin' us off t'sea in February, Lewrie groused to himself, as he pawed through his pile of letters; if that ain't a sign of their displeasure, I don't know what is. Lisbon first, despatches to Old Jarvy and his fleet… mid or late March, maybe early April before we fetch Antigua or Jamaica, hmmm… a safe month or so, fore it gets hot and the mosquitoes begin to swarm?

He pondered Jesuit's Bark, chinchona, what was termed quinine; South American, probably cheaper and more available nearer its source. It was reputed to cure malaria, or ease its symptoms. Could he force the hands to drink chinchona bark tea as a preventative? Or would he have another mutiny on his hands, since it tasted like Satan's Piss?

Fresh fruit would be plenteous everywhere they went, and Mr. Shirley was certain that almost any fruit was anti-scorbutic to some degree, so they could avoid scurvy, if nothing else.

But one had to go ashore to get 'em, he thought; Never anchor in a lee harbour or bay, near marshes and such, stand off-and-on after dark, well out to sea and up to windward of any land…?

" Yer coffee, sir," Aspinall announced, entering with an iron pot cradled in a dish-clout against its heat, to set on the brazier.

"Oh, good!" Lewrie replied, turning to smile at him, but seeing Caroline's portrait on the forward bulkhead of the dining coach; back when she was young and new-married, fresh and willowy, in a gauzy off-shoulder morning gown with a wide straw hat bound under her chin with a pale blue ribbon, East Bay of Nassau Harbour behind her, her light brown hair still worn long and loose and girlish, teased by the Nor'east Trades, painted smiling instead of the more common stern visage of most portraits, her merry eyes crinkling in delight, with the riant folds below those eyes…!

He averted his gaze.

He had considered taking her picture down, but had feared what gossip that would cause, worse. Busy ashore, and sleeping out of the ship nights, even when she was back in the water… God only knew what the gunroom, the bosun's mess, the midshipmens' cockpit on the orlop, and the forecastle hands had made of that! Already there were the averted eyes, the cautiously framed speech…!

Aspinall brought him a cup of coffee in his silvered tankard, from the HMS Jester days, with shore cream and pared turbinado sugar.

There were letters of a personal nature on his desk; one from his father Sir Hugo, one from Sophie, and a damned thick one from Theoni… already? He quickly shovelled that one into a drawer. Nothing from Caroline or the children, though.

All his official correspondence was up to date; his clerk Mr. Padgett had seen to that the past afternoon, all his bills paid. There was nothing to do but stew and fret and drink his coffee 'til Six Bells and 7 a.m. when it was time to sail, after the mists had burned off.

"Yer dunnage, sir," Aspinall said as two of his Irish sailors, the dim giant Furfy and his mate Liam Desmond, came traipsing in with his shore bags and the chest of last-minute stores.

"Mornin', men."

"Mornin', Cap'um, sor… top o' th' mornin', sor. That eager we be, t'see th' Indies… beggin' th' cap'um's pardon, sor."

"At least it'll be warmer, there's a blessin'," Lewrie replied, smiling in spite of himself. "Thankee, men. That'll be all."

Toulon bestirred himself after an impressive stretch or two and a gargantuan yawn, to come sniffing and pawing at the chest that held his "treats" for the coming months, mewing with expectant delight.

" Toulon… look!" Lewrie enticed, taking a new knit ball from his coat pocket. Theoni had made it, complete with a wee harness bell and some ribbons firmly sewn to it. "Tinkle, tinkle, see?"

"Murr-errf!" was the cat's glad cry. In a trice, he was hounding it from transom settee to forrud bulkhead, tail up and thundering.

"Up and down, sir!" Midshipman Grace, their youngest and newest, called from the forecastle.

"Heave and haul away!" Lt. Langlie shouted back. "Bosun…! Pipe topmen aloft! Trice up, lay out, and make sail!"

Lewrie paced his quarterdeck, wondering if he would ever be warm again, gazing upward with his hands in the small of his back, watching as his well-drilled crew scrambled to free gaskets, take hold of clews, and begin to bare canvas.

"Atrip… heave and awash!" The best bower anchor broke free of the sandy bottom and swayed above the surface.

HMS Proteus sidled a bit, swinging free of the ground, taken by the Nor'Nor'east winds, a quickly hoisted outer flying jib backed cross-deck up forrud to force her to fall off to larboard tack, taking the wind on the left-hand side of her bows, her square sails on her yards swinging about and luffing end-on, blocks clattering, canvas snapping and rustling.

Free!

Langlie was an able deck officer; Lewrie left it to him and his juniors to get way on her, as Proteus's bows swung more Easterly, still not under control. He stepped over to the double-wheel and the compass binnacle, to stand by the quartermasters on the helm.

"Full and by on larboard tack, Mister Motte," Lewrie ordered as he looked out to weather. "Nothing to loo'rd. Make her head Due East… or as close as you may manage."

"Aye, sir… Due East, an' nothin' t'loo'rd," Motte echoed as he tentatively spun the wheel to find a "bite" to the rudder.

The forecourse and main course were now drawing, being braced in to cup the wind. Inner, outer, and flying jib were bellied alee, as were the middle stays'l and main topmast stays'l; the mizen tops'l and the main and fore tops'ls were stiffening with the wind's press, and their frigate began to heel a bit, beginning to make her sweet way, churning salt water to a slight froth close-aboard, chuckling and muttering back to the sea as she got a way on, and hardening up on the wind's eye, on larboard tack.

There! A first lift of the bows as the scend off the North Sea found her as she gained the Queen's Channel, the first burst of spray under her jib-boom!

Free! Lewrie exulted, taking a deep, cleansing breath of iodine tang; Caroline, Theoni, rage, bills… shore-shite!

He paced over to the windward railing, up the deck which was now slightly canted as more sail sprouted to gather free, willful winds. A faint chorus sang in the rigging, a faint applause rose from her wake as she laid the start of a wide bridal train astern, fought to make the "mustachio" of foam before her bows.

He felt like singing, at that moment!

"Do you wish more sail at the moment, sir?" Lt. Langlie asked, once the t'gallants were set and drawing.

"No, Mister Langlie, that'll do quite nicely," Lewrie said as he turned to face him, smiling, at ease at last. "Stand on as we are, 'til we make a long offing."

"Aye, sir."

"And I'll have a tune, Mister Langlie," Lewrie added. "Summon the fiddlers. Spanish Ladies, I should think."

"Er… aye aye, sir."

The hands were piped down from aloft, the last tug of a brace was tugged. Sheets and halliards were gathered on pin-rails and fife-rails, the hawsers were hosed down and stowed below in the cable tiers, the hawse bucklers fitted to block spray and sluices from high waves. Excess ropes were flemished down in neat piles. Proteus was ship-shape.

Farewell and adieu, to you Spanish ladies,

farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain!

For we've received orders t'sail from old England,

and we hope in a short time t 'see you again.

We'll rant and we'll roll, like true British sailors,

We'll rant and we'll roll, all across the salt seas!

Until we strike soundings, in the channel of old England,

from Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues!"

Fiddles, tin-whistles, the youngish Marine drummer, and Desmond on his uillean lap-pipes, made it sweetly longing.

" 'So let ev'ry man, raise up his full bumper,' " Lewrie joined in, bellowing (as was his wont when singing) the words out, " 'let ev'ry man drink up his full glass… for we'll laugh and be jolly, a-and chase melancholy… with a well-given toast to each true-hearted lass!' "

A few lances of sunshine broke through the dawn clouds, spearing HMS Proteus, making her glisten as bright as a new-minted coin, as she proudly made her way to sea, all bustle and swash, gleaming fresh canvas and giltwork flashing… out where she properly belonged.

No matter where those sealed orders took them.

CHAPTER NINE

Is he reading them?" Lieutenant Catterall, the sly and waggish rogue who had risen from senior Midshipman to Third Officer, asked.

"Aye, just now," Lieutenant Langlie answered as he paced along the windward side of the quarterdeck, stepping over the ring-bolts and tackles of the light 6-pounders and 24-pounder carronades.

"Opened 'em, sir?" Bosun Mr. Pendarves enquired.

"I do believe, Mister Pendarves," Lt. Lewis Wyman replied with an abrupt nod, as he stood at the top of the larboard gangway ladder.

"So we'll soon know our orders, won't we, Mister Pendarves?" Mr. Midshipman Sevier (the shy one) opined near the ladder's foot.

"Or, not," Mr. Midshipman Adair, a clever Scots lad, jeered at him. "He has no duty to tell us anything, if it's secret doings."

"Gracious!" little Midshipman Elwes gasped. "Secret work?"

"Work o' some sort's in order, young sirs," Bosun Pendarves told them, noting that all six "mids" were hanging about, ears cocked for a bit of gossip and doing nothing, which was sinful in boys, either nautical or civilian. "Go on, now… back t'yer duties, lads."

"Bloody Christ, this is lunacy," Lewrie muttered aloud once he had broken the seals on his canvas-bound supplemental "advisories."

"Sir?" Aspinall idly asked from his wee pantry.

"Someday I'd love t'meet a one-armed Admiralty clerk, Aspinall. Someone who can never say 'but on the other hand'," Lewrie griped. At least Aspinall was amused.

The Royal Navy was infamous for over-vaunting orders. Sending a small brig o' war to patrol off Leith was too easy, too simple. No, additional tasks were always larded on, like sketching the headlands, taking new soundings when not chasing smugglers, amassing a new dictionary of Scots' slang, trawling for a 1588 wreck rumoured to contain Spanish Armada gold and silver, or fetching back some pregnant female sturgeons for the royal table!

His advisories did not require any new tasks of a secret or more perilous nature than usual, but…

On the other hand! Lewrie most snidely thought, snickering.

They were secret, nonetheless. Lewrie suspected that they had been so labeled because no one responsible for their issuance was willing to let himself be known as a complete lack-wit!

Lewrie got to his feet, shaking his head in wonder as he paced aft to the transom settee, to gaze out upon the ship's wake. It was a grey and blustery day, the horizon a bare two miles of visibility even from the mastheads, when Proteus was rolled and scended upwards atop a salty hillock. The ocean was a'heave, grey-green and spumed by white caps and white horses. Proteus groaned and creaked, then roared as she soared aloft on a wide, rising wave, her sails and masts, her standing rigging strained wind-full. Moments later, the sluicing roar was even louder as she coasted and surfed down into an equally wide, but deep, trough, where her courses were robbed of wind and slatted, whilst her tops'ls and t'gallants remained taut, and her stout bows thundered as they met a low hedge of water that ran a shudder through her timbers from stem to stern.

He unconsciously shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if he were riding a short seesaw atop a drum, as Proteus metronomically rolled about fifteen degrees either side of upright every thirty seconds or so-all the while soughing or rising, by turns, at least one every forty-five seconds, now that the weather had moderated, the seas had flattened a bit, and the space between great waves had increased.

The last cast of the log a half-hour before showed that Proteus was making about twelve knots, even under cautiously reduced sail, but the winds were finally out of the Nor'east on her starboard quarters, presaging the first of the Trades that would bear her slantwise for the West Indies. With a clean and newly coppered bottom, Proteus was always fastest on a quartering wind.

The rest of the voyage had been perfectly, miserably vile, but for a short break in the weather when they had met up with old Admiral Jervis's fleet to deliver despatches; day after day of reduced canvas, pouring icy rains and sleet pellets, of soaked and swelling rigging all going slacker by the hour, threatening the loss of spars and masts to every sickening heave, toss, or roll, with the bows smashing fist-like into every oncoming wave with a deep, echoing boom, as if they had run aground, an hundred miles out in the Bay of Biscay! Cold rations from an unlit galley, tepid soups and gruels when they had risked fires in the hearths under the steep-tubs, hatches mostly closed and everyone in a dim, foetid "fug" on the gun-deck, with bedding and every stitch of clothing sopping wet or only half-dry when re-donned, the drying salt crystals itching like mad, creating boils wherever flesh and wool had a chance to chafe, had made even the "chearly" hands grumble. Bedding was no dryer, and the hammocks, so tight-packed, had swayed and dipped and jerked to the ship's vicious motion, robbing everyone of sleep, and awake or a'nod, the cold and wet had set everyone coughing. Even that brief spell of decent weather had been boisterous, he recalled, just nice enough to air and dry things out under a weak and watery winter Mediterranean sun, and being rowed over to "Old Jarvy's" flagship, Lewrie had nearly been pitched from out his gig as it rose and fell so swoopily that he'd had to hang on for dear life, or end up flipped arse-over-tits like a pancake!

Not the sort of activity for a man who could not swim; nor was scaling the tall sides of a heaving, rolling three-decker. At least Admiral Jervis, now Lord St. Vincent, had been appreciative, and had a welcome glass of claret whistled up once Lewrie'd gained her upper decks; all the while doffing his gilt-trimmed cocked hat in his eccentric manner, from the instant Lewrie had addressed him 'til the moment he had turned to depart.

Now, even here past 15 degrees West and 34 degrees North, where he had been at last allowed to open those intriguing additional advisories, the weather was foul; just better by matter of degree. It was no longer frigid… now it could perhaps be described as only "cool and brisk." And he had finally thawed out!

He slapped his hands together behind his back and rocked on the balls of his feet as he swayed from side to side along with his ship, pondering.