H. M. S. Cockerel, page 4
“I’ll be with you shortly, dear,” he said, instead.
“Is it war?” Alan asked after he had closed the double doors upon the rest of the household.
“Not yet, sir.” The messenger scowled, busy at the wine cabinet. “But they’ve been calling officers and warrants back for weeks, now. I heard tell the ’Press has been warned. Just in case.”
“Doesn’t say much for me, then.” Lewrie forced a chuckle. “I was one of the first returned in ’91.”
“Our Lords Commissioners never released some of those called in over Nootka Sound, sir. The Fleet stayed at least quarter-strength since, once the Terror began in Paris. Uhm, hah . . . you see, sir, you are most certainly in the lower half of the lieutenants’ list, so if we are at quarter-strength, d’ye see—”
“Lower third, or lower, actually,” Lewrie scoffed, sitting at his desk. “February of ’82.” He laid out a fresh sheet of vellum, a pot of ink (black, preferred), and took a small penknife to the nib of the nearest goose quill.
He got through the date and his local address, the address of authority, and his salutation. Then sat, quite nonplussed, wondering exactly what the Devil he would say to Our Lords Commissioners.
Milords; bugger off. Perhaps?
The Navy had not been his career of choice; he could thank his father, far off in Bengal with the East India Company Army, for pressganging him into service, for he should have inherited the money from Granny Lewrie long before. He had never been what one might call your truly glad sailor. Thirteen years of his life he had given the Fleet (not without much real choice, truth to tell), nine in active service, midshipman to lieutenant—and these last four “beached” on half-pay.
He thought the French had a particularly apt word for these four years—they usually did, damn their troublesome, rebellious eyes: Ennui. Boredom and isolation. Shunned, and out of his depth. And as anchored as Ulysses in his dotage.
Without a war (and it was now certain one was coming, in spite of his assurances to dear Caroline), what would his life hold for him? More of Anglesgreen, still a leper to his neighbours, until such time in a misty future, when he had outlived Sir Romney and Uncle Phineas, and the grudge had faded out? Harry would inherit, become baronet, marry some unfortunate mort, and let it go at last? Lewrie might become a proper squire then, with owned, not rented, acres, have right to hunt and fish his own lands, instead of waiting to be asked by others’ charity; some stooped and graying rustic with a fund of tedious yarns, and hair growing from out his ears, with a nose that bowed in low congé to his departing teeth! A well-respected, cackling bore, no matter that he bored his audience at the Red Swan at last, instead of the Ploughman.
And whilst there’d been war with the French, as tall frigates prowled like tigers in the night, bright-eyed and hungry to claw at each other, as line-of-battle ships formed to bellow, to make or break history, he would have been nothing but a spectator, and one far back in the cheap seats, too! He would farm, hey! Read the news down from London, in the Naval Chronicle, brandish his walking stick and “Huzzah!” each victory . . . or write scathing letters to the Times.
Caroline needed him, though, would prefer this time . . .
He shuddered with revulsion at the image of his respectable civilian future—Caroline or no.
No, like his father, Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby, of the 4th, the King’s Own, now of the 19th Native Infantry, had said to him once, after they were reconciled in the Far East . . .
Damme! He realized, shivering again, recalling the details of a half-abandoned past. They had been arguing in a seething tropic rainstorm, hot as shaving water. It was at Bencoolen, on the Malacca Straits, ready to sail for the Spratlys, just my tiny ship and his regiment, to fight more pirates than the New Forest has nuts! Beat the bastards, too . . . oh, didn’t we just! Oh, it’s all moonshine, this death or glory chatter. Yet . . . !
Lt. Col. Sir Hugo had said: “Might not have been a glad soldier, boy . . . but I became a good’un.” Or something like that.
Growl he may, but go. . . aye, he believed he would. There would not be a second asking if he turned the Admiralty down. His place on the list would be scratched out, his commission thrown over.
Alan Lewrie might not have been a gladsome tar, either, but he knew in his heart that, by God, he’d become a damned good Sea Officer. And there would be no peace for his already restless soul if he didn’t take the King’s Shilling and serve, just one more time.
“Y’r pardons, sir,” Lewrie said, as if coming out of some trance. “’Tis been so long since I had to pen an official letter, formalities quite escaped me. You’ve found the brandy, I trust?”
“Rum, sir,” the messenger replied quite happily, baking before the morning fire, his large mug of laced tea in his hand. He had not taken the slightest notice that Lewrie might have been delaying, dithering or hesitant to accept the possibility of an active commission. In fact, what delay he might have at last noticed he would have liked, so he could warm himself against another cold ride and make free with Lewrie’s fine, sweet dark Jamaican rum.
“Rum for me, too, it seems. ‘Clear Decks And Up Spirits,’ seven bells of each forenoon,” Lewrie grunted with guilty pleasure as he put the finishing touches to his note of acceptance. He shook sand over it and blew on the ink so it would not smudge. He folded it carefully and applied candle wax to form a seal along the outer fold.
“There you are, sir. I expect to be in London by nightfall, and in the Waiting Room by tomorrow morning.”
“Then I shall keep you no longer, sir,” the messenger stated, finishing his laced tea with a gulp, and stuffed the precious note into a hard dispatch case, where fully two dozen more were already crammed, then bowed a swift departure.
Lewrie went to his wine cabinet and poured himself a glass of dark Jamaican, inventorying the study for items to take along. Would he get a ship of his own this time—something small, like Alacrity? Wine cabinet, fold-leg desk, caddy for tea, coffee, chocolate and sugar, extra chest yonder . . . pewter lanthorns down from the garret, just in case. Ferguson rifle there, the fusil musketoon, too, and—
No, he thought, taking a welcome, and bracing, sip. I’ll go a lieutenant still, most like. Dog’s manger of a cabin in the wardroom, not room for much beyond a sea chest, and little else.
He held the small glass of rum up to the firelight. It was almost opaque, and the alcohol fumes wafted the sweet, lush, adventurous scent of far-off West Indies molasses about his head, rife with promise of potency and over-the-horizon, beyond-the-sunset, larger-than-life adventure. Excitements! Honor and glory be damned.
He took another sip, savouring the rawness of the rum’s bouquet. Soon it would be passer’s-issue rum, cheap pop-skull, the weary seaman’s anodyne. With the rum, he could almost begin to sniff a whiff of ocean. The hemp and tar, the steep tubs and the fat used for slush on running rigging, the iodine tang of open, rolling seas, the fresh-fish aromas of storm wrack and the tidewater mildewed mustiness of harbourside, of hot sand and kelp baking under a cruel sun on distant strands, and the dank-cave breath of a ship, wafting up through limber holes, and carpenters’ walks from below—unwashed men, paint and wet wool, old cooking greases, of seasoned oak and sweating iron artillery.
Caroline, he thought, at last. What to say to her? Sorry, dear, but I’d crawl to Whitehall on my knees to escape the boresome shit my life’s become? Dear as you are to me, dear as Life is with you and the boys, it isn’t you—’tis me?
He tossed off his rum impatiently, steeling himself for the hurt words he was sure would come. He set the glass on the mantel, reached up and took down his sword—not a proper officer’s straight smallsword but a hanger, a slightly curved, single-bladed hunting sword, much like a light, elegant cutlass. It had stayed hung there for years, far out of reach of inquisitive little hands. There was dust on the royal-blue leather scabbard, and it had not gotten the strenuous attention their tableware did from the maids. He ran his fingers over the slightly tarnished silver lions-head pommel, the dark blue hilt wrapped in silver wire, the belt hook on the chase, the front and side handguards formed like argent seashells.
He half-drew it to test its edge against a thumbnail. But it was a Gill’s, a fine blade, and had lost none of its keenness. No matter how long it had hung, neglected and idle.
B O O K I I
Nee vero ipse metus curasque resolvere ductor, sed maria
aspectans “heu qui datus iste deorum sorte labor nobis!”
Now verily did the leader himself forget all fears
and cares, but gazing on the seas, “Alas,” he cried,
“how hard a task is here set us by heaven’s will!”
Argonautica
Book IV, 703–705
Valerius Flaccus
C H A P T E R 1
If great London also bore loathsome reeks of its own particular devising, at least they were urbane and cosmopolitan. And Lewrie, in his mounting excitement to be returning to the city of his birth, and gateway to the wider world beyond, took no notice of them. Farm lands and villages got closer together, villages became towns, until once they had passed Guildford, the conurbations crowded each other until they seemed one vast burgeoning of the capital, brimming over with bustling enterprise, like a boiling pot.
Lodging was almost impossible to find. All the coaching inns were full, as were the private residences which would let rooms, and the use of the parlours, to guests. Sparsely furnished rooming houses were out of the question. Even those dubious “rooms to let”—which usually signified hourly rates for the sporting crowd— were taken by officers of both Army and Navy being called back to their colours.
They finally alit upon a hideously expensive posting house just before dark, after hours of rumbling through the streets. It was near King’s College and Somerset House, on Catherine Street, just off the Strand. Being a posting house, though, accustomed to travelers who came to town in their own coaches, it could be expected to be clean and quiet enough to suit the most fastidious high gentry or titled visitor, and set a decent table.
At twelve shillings sixpence a day, it ought to, Lewrie carped, to himself; that’s more’n twice my active-commission lieutenant’s pay!
They.
Caroline never failed to amaze him. Where he had expected the tears and recriminations of an abandoned wife, accusations of running away from familial responsibilities . . .
Damme, she was packed herself and ready to travel near as fast as I was, he thought admiringly. Babes bustled off to Granny Charlotte and off we jounced! Himself, Cony, Bodkins as coachee, Caroline and her maidservant, all jumbling together as the closed coach clattered over winter-hard roads so crossrutted they were fortunate to still have a collective tooth in their heads!
Once settled, Lewrie wrote a letter to his solicitor, Matthew Mountjoy, to make arrangements for Caroline’s, and the farm’s, allowance whilst he was at sea. He also penned a note on his account with Coutts & Co., bankers, for ready funds, and future drafts to be sent overseas; all of which Cony would deliver on the morrow.
Then a quick, quiet supper and up to bed, so he would be well rested for his appearance at the Admiralty. He donned his night-shirt and slipped into a warm bedstead, wondering how often in future he’d have the luxury of retiring completely undressed, of enjoying a full night’s sleep, instead of two- and three-hour snatches between crises. Wondering what sort of ship he’d be assigned to . . . a frigate was his dearest wish. How slow and cumbersome a 3rd Rate ship of the line is by comparison, how plodding and dull, and . . . hello?
Caroline snuffed the candles (beeswax, a round half-dozen to the room, and each charged for what three would cost in the country!) and slid in beside him. Her head found its usual resting place upon his shoulder, her arms encircled him as he extended his right arm to nestle her warmly close. The light, citrony aroma of freshly dabbed Hungary Water enveloped him. Caroline slid one hand up his chest to his neck, to the back of his head. With sinewy strength, she turned his face to hers and their lips met in the dark as she grappled him nearer, as she slid upward, as she cast a slim thigh across his lap. Seductively, yet fiercely, her kisses searing and intense as sobs.
“I could not let you go away,” she whispered in a raspy breathlessness, “with last night your remembrance of me. God knows how long you’ll be gone, or how soon . . . how little time we . . . !”
All said between long, searching, open-mouthed kisses, breath hot and cow-clover musky, her soft, smooth flesh flushed and warming as Alan slid her silk nightgown to her waist to fondle, to possess that peachlike bottom, that butterfly softness of her inner thighs, that fount of all pleasures . . .
With almost frantic impatience, Caroline sat up on her knees and one arm and shucked her nightgown, tossing it to the four winds. Reached down as though to rip his bedclothes nigh enough away, to lean down over him, take his hands and guide them to her breasts as she pressed her mouth to his once more, her tongue almost scalding.
“All night, I swear it!” She almost wept. “All the time they give us!”
“God, I love you, Caroline!” he muttered as he took hold of the upswelling of her hips to guide her down to meet him. “I love you!”
“Oh, Alan, dearest . . . I love you!” she vowed. “Love me now, I beg you! My remembrance! Ahhh, yess!”
S’pose they’ll not see me that early, he most happily thought; God, I can get a whole day’s sleep in the Waiting Room, more’n like!
Even at half past six of the morning, London’s streets were thronged with mongers and their wares fresh from the market, wagons and drays, livestock, weary prostitutes and pickpockets, revelers on their way home to bed, shopkeepers and clerks on their way to work. The bulkhead shops were already open, as were the greengrocers and butchers. Coal-heavers were out, house servants or valets to fetch their masters’ or mistresses’ breakfasts from ordinaries or taverns. It was quicker for Lieutenant Lewrie to saunter down Catherine Street, cross the busy Strand, with a trained ear attuned to the rude cries of “Have care!” or “By y’r leave, sir!” of coachees, careening wagoners, or sedan-chair bully bucks. To stand still, dumb as a fart in a trance, even on the footpaths, was an invitation to getting trampled. And take a boat to the Admiralty.
At the foot of the bank where Charing Cross ended there were stairs to the riverside—slimy, mucked and erose, and worn down by long usage. As soon as he was spotted, the cacophonous din set in, reminding Lewrie of a hunting pack who’d cornered the fox.
“Oars, oars!” cried the boatmen. “Scullers, scullers, sir! Tuppence!” countered those with smaller dinghys featuring a stern-sweep as propulsion.
“Oars,” he answered back, scanning the flotilla and selecting a bullock of a fellow, who sported the crossbelt, brassard and coat-of-arms of the Lord Mayor.
“Whitehall Steps . . . sixpence, sir,” the fellow nodded as he boarded the small craft. “Tide’n wind be fair ’is mornin’, sir.”
“Hard not to tell,” Lewrie commented as he settled himself on a forward thwart, his coin out and ready.
“Aye aye, sir,” the man crinkled a sun-wrinkled smile as he shoved off and shipped his oars in the tholepins. “Young man wearin’ King’s Coat . . . canvas packet unner ’is arm . . . well, sir!”
“You were in the Navy?” Lewrie asked.
“Both th’ las’ wars, sir. Landsman . . . ord’nary’n able seaman . . . ’en gun cap’m . . .” he related between powerful strokes, seated to his front, knee-to-knee with Alan. “Quarter-gunner . . . Yeoman o’ th’ Powder ’fore ’twas done. Now ’ere come another war. Y’r welcome to it this time, sir. You an’ all t’other young’uns. War ’fore th’ week’s out’s my thinkin’. Can’t ’llow th’ Frogs t’spread ’eir pizen f’r long. Folks is stirred up enough a’ready, sir.”
“By leveling talk?” Lewrie inquired. His stretch of Surrey might as well have been in China, for all the rumors that missed him.
“Thom Paine, sir.” The old gunner beamed, tipping him a wink. “ Rights o’ Man. Correspondin’ societies. That Thom Hardy feller an’ all? Price . . . Priestley . . . dissentin’ an’ such. Learned t’ read in th’ Navy, I did, sir. Time on our hands so heavy an’ all? ’Nough t’ know all them Friends o’ the People societies’ penny tracts is trouble. Wrote in th’ same words’z anythin’ wrote in France. ’At spells rebels an’ combinations, sir. With so many folk outa work, an’ wages so low when ya do get work, well . . . ’ear tell they’ve plotted secret committees, gone right over t’ Paris itself!”
“Widespread, d’ye think?” Lewrie asked, morbidly intrigued.
“Not so much yet, sir. N’r by hard-handed men, d’ye see? Give ’em time, though . . . never thought I’d see ’at ‘Yankee-Doodle’ madness took up in a real country!”
“But it doesn’t upset you enough to . . . volunteer, I take it,” Lewrie said with a knowing smirk.
The waterman tapped the brassard on his chest which protected him from the Impress Service, and tipped Lewrie another and equally knowing wink. “I ain’t thet stupid in me old age, sir!”
He paid off the waterman at the foot of Whitehall Steps, amid a swarm of other boats, of other officers reporting for duty. A walk up Richmond Terrace to thronging Whitehall, a stroll of about one hundred or more yards north up Whitehall, and he was there, before the curtain wall with its columns and blank stone facade between; before the deep central portal which led to the inner courtyard, beneath the pair of winged sea horses which topped the portal.
Admiralty! What a leviathan one single word implied. Ordnance Board, Victualling Board, Sick and Hurt Board, boards for control of ship’s masters, of petty officers with warrants, of officers from lowly midshipmen to fighting admirals, port admirals, the Impress Service, HM Dockyards . . . cannon foundries, clothing manufacturies, pickling works for salt beef and pork, huge bakeries for untold tons of hard biscuit. And rope, tar, seasoned timber, paint, pewter messware, iron and bronze nails, pins and bolts, the copper industry for clean bottoms and defence against teredo worms. Sailcloth, slop clothing, leather works, sheath knives and marlinspikes, forks to cutlasses and boarding pikes . . . taken altogether, the needs of the Fleet, and the myriad of suppliers, contractors, jobbers—and thieves—who filled those needs, the Royal Navy was the single largest commercial enterprise in the British Empire. Which meant, of course, the civilized world. And one single word—Admiralty—spanned it all. Just as the Royal Navy would soon span the globe, the most efficiently armed, supplied and equipped military organization known to man. The enormity of the endeavour made even a cynic such as Lewrie take pause.
