The Gun Ketch (16 page)

"Very well, Mister Parham," Alan replied, reeling with weariness. "I'll be on deck directly."

Once
out of the Channel and around Ushant,
Alacrity
became a much happier, and tauter, ship. Seasickness abated, and the hands, back on their feet, were then brought to competence with drills and hard work.

Fire drills, boat launchings and recoveries, procedures for man-overboard rescues and working the ship became the day's chores. They tacked, they wore ship, spread or brailed up the tops'ls and royals, struck or hoisted the topmasts; they replaced entire suits of canvas. Cables for towing were laid out, then recovered, boarding nets were strung along the sides and hoisted from the yardarms, then lowered and stowed away. For the complete neophytes, and the newest midshipmen, the bosun and his mate conducted classes in knots and in long- and short-splicing, with the next day's exercises applying those newly won skills in practical uses. There was practice at musketry, at pistol shooting at towed targets, cutlass and pike drill under the first officer or the ship's corporal, a heavily scarred bruiser named Warwick. They learned to serve the great guns, the ship's ten iron six-pounders, two-pounder boat-guns, and swivels.

Discipline was brought to full naval standards gradually, once the hands gained some knowledge/Defaulters were allowed a chance to make honest mistakes with light punishment; stoppage of tobacco or the precious rum issue. Stiffened rope "starters" used as horsewhips on the slow and clumsy were at first discouraged—Lewrie did not feel the sting of a starter in (he hands of a mate on some poor inexperienced landsman much of a goad to learning.

Later, the starters could be plied more freely, if a man was truly shirking. Later, insubordination and the usual sins—drunk or asleep on watch—were awarded days of bread and water, along with a touch of the "cat"; one dozen lashes for a first penalty, two dozen for the second. Back-talkers, mostly the landsmen who insisted on their God-given right as Englishmen to complain at brusque usage, were "marlin-spiked" into silence, with a heavy iron marlin-spike bound between their teeth for a day. And the midshipmen suffered being bent over a gun barrel to "kiss the gunner's daughter," to be whipped on boyish bottoms rather than fully male backs, or suffered to be "mastheaded," consigned to the cross-trees aloft without food or water in all weathers and told to remain there, shivering and puking at the exaggerated motion of the ship, until Lewrie saw fit to relent. In a harsh age, Ballard and the warrants at first thought their new captain a little too mild, until they saw him administer captain's justice fair-handedly, and issue lashes with the cat-o' -nine-tails in the forenoon watches on those few truly recalcitrant or shifty.

They were fortunate in
Alacrity
—and Lewrie and Ballard thanked God for that good fortune—to have at least half the crew made up of seasoned people, to have had the men "pressed" for them reasonably intelligent and healthy, that a fair portion of those pressed were volunteers. Times were hard ashore, what with Enclosure Acts, unemployment and low wages, so Navy pay was steadier and surer than day-laboring. And the £ 14 12s. 6d. net pay for a raw landsman was half again as much as he could make as a civilian. Even figured at a parsimonious lunar month instead of the calendar month, with deductions of sixpence for Greenwich Hospital and one shilling for the Chatham Chest monthly, plus the purser's subtractions for tobacco, shoes, slop-clothing, plates, scarves, hats and sundries, it was a decent annual living.

Alacrity
settled down to being a somewhat happy ship. Most of her people were young and full of energy, even after a full day's work or drill. In the short dog-watches of late afternoon, when the weather permitted, there were sports and competitions, watch against watch.

And there was music and dancing, with fiddles, fifes and drums, stacks of spoons slapped upon knees if nothing else for meter,English morris dancing, Irish jigs and Scots reels, along with hornpipes or West Indian dancing.

Sometimes, Midshipman Parham on fiddle, Bosun's Mate Odrado on a beribboned guitar of which he was especially proud, the carpenter's mate, a Swede named Bjornsen, on fife, and Caroline with her flute, would play concerts by the quarter-deck rails. The Reverend Townsley made hymn books available for those seamen who could read, and the crewmen would gather aft for a singalong, or stare rapt at drawing-room compositions they'd never heard before, their eyes alight to Bach, Purcell, Handel or other great composers. But then Caroline would insist on rollicking airs familiar from an hundred village greens or taverns, or plaintive ballads, sometimes tunes she'd grown up with among her North Carolina neighbors, and the hands would sing along lustily, all over the scales, but enjoying themselves greatly.

The Townsleys disapproved of some songs—but then, they disapproved of a lot of things. Divine Services could not be conducted on a daily basis, but only on Sundays after Divisions, and after the first one, Lewrie had suggested shorter sermons and more hymns. And when the second droned on long as the first, he'd ordered the bosun to pipe "Clear Decks and Up-Spirits" to issue rum, ending services quite effectively!

The Townsleys sniffed prudishly at breakfasts, when Alan and Caroline emerged from their tiny cabins, flushed with excitement from making love. Once over her seasickness, Caroline began to enjoy voyaging, and both hanging-cot and transom settee provided ecstatic pleasures. The Townsleys, far past their own first remembrances of passion, coyly hinted that too much laughing, giggling and "odd noises" in the night had disturbed their slumbers. Which hints only served to spur Lewrie and his enthusiastic young bride to even greater feats of passion, of an even noisier nature.

And the Townsleys were upset that Lewrie did not wish to break his passage in Vigo, Lisbon, or the Madeiras, but, with Gat-acre and his own sailing master John Fellows to assist, determined upon taking a faster route for the Bahamas, edging more westing to each day's run so that
Alacrity
was well out to sea and beyond the normal "corner" at which most ships would turn west for the Indies off Cape St. Vincent.

He did it admittedly to save his fast-dwindling supply of wine and brandy, for the good reverend made more than free with the bottle at meals, and raided the wine cabinet in the narrow passageway every night. At least he did until Cony placed a bottle of undiluted Navy rum mixed with sea-water in the brandy's squat decanter, and beyond a startled splutter or two, and a fit of retching, no more was heard of Reverend Townsley after Lights Out for the rest of the voyage.

And so the weeks passed, from brisk Westerlies in the Bay of Biscay to tops'l breezes standing into spectacular tropic sunsets on the Atlantic crossing. From the gray green of the Channel to cobalt blue of Biscay, to bright blue waters of the Americas. From shivering with cold to the need for a hand fan in the daylight hours as
Alacrity
reeled off 200 miles from one noon to the next, until she rode a river of air, the Nor'east Trades, into the Providence Channel.

Their last sunset together was a beauty, beginning just at the end of the second dog-watch. From the deepest rose to palest saffron, it flamed across the whole of the western horizon, heightened by the darker clouds. The sea glittered on the glade of sunset, turned gold and amber ahead of
Alacrity's
course, fading to a deep blue gray to either beam, and almost black astern. The first stars were out, and a gibbous moon, brushed more gold than silver, rode low on the evening's horizon. The wind was steady but gentle, pressing
Alacrity
forward with a starboard quarter-wind that filled her winged out gaff courses, and the reduced tops'Is. The heat of the day, which had not been particularly fierce that early in the year, had faded, and the evening air was fresh, clean, and most temperate.

"Well, gentlemen, it is about time for Mister Gatacre to give you one last lesson in taking the height of the evening stars," Alan told the crowd of midshipmen. "And time for me to dine. Show heel-taps on your glasses, and be about your duties."

With his cabins crowded so, it had been impossible to dine any of his officers and warrants in on the voyage, as a captain usually did to get to know them better, so he had been reduced to a nightly "court" on deck once the weather had moderated as they neared their tropical destination, with wine served out to be sociable.

"Ahem," Midshipman Mayhew coughed, rising. "Uhm, sir... and Mrs. Lewrie? We ... uhm ... we should like to propose a toast to your lady, sir. I think I speak for all of us, for all the ship's people forrud as well..."

"You'd better, Mayhew, we deputed you, remember?" Midshipman Parham teased and the boys laughed nervously.

"Well, sir, and Mrs. Lewrie..." Mayhew began again, turning somewhat sunset-hued himself. "For those whose first voyage mis is among us, and for those of us who've sailed before, I have to state that we shall remember forever how pleasant this passage has been, because of our captain's lady. For her kind words, for her musical accomplishments. For her grace, and niceness of condescension to all hands. And for moderating a taut-handed captain's wrath upon us," he concluded with a jape. "To Mistress Lewrie, might it be possible for her to sail with
Alacrity
forever!"

"Hear, hear!" the others chimed in, "To Mistress Lewrie!"

"I thank you all, young gentlemen," Caroline blushed prettily. "May you have joy of your future careers. And my affection and gratitude for an exceedingly pleasant voyage to you, as well."

"Thankee, ma'am," they shambled, "thankee," as they set down their empty glasses and wandered off forward to the sailing master.

"That was so sweet of them!" Caroline sighed, touching an eye to control tears.

"There's no one like you in their experience," Alan said as he took her hand. "Nor in mine." They sat down together on the signal-flag lockers by the taffrail in the very stern. "Nor any voyage like this for them again, most like. It ain't the usual Navy experience. The lads in the draft, God knows what sort of captain they'll have next, if they get a ship at all."

"It was sweet, all the same," she insisted, dreaming on the horizon. "And a heavenly voyage for me. Our honeymoon. A lovely month at sea."

"Seasickness notwithstanding?" he japed.

"The Townsleys notwithstanding," Caroline whispered, leaning close to laugh with him. The cabin skylight was open to catch air, and their words could be heard below-decks by their "passengers" as they dressed for supper. "You will go easy on Parham and Mayhew, I trust, dearest? I know they're incorrigible imps, bad as my brothers when they were that age, but they're good lads at bottom."

"When they deserve it, I assure you I will, love."

"So much to do on the morrow," Caroline sighed, leaning close to him again, shoulder to shoulder. "Get ashore. Find lodgings and furnish them ... I shall miss this. God, to sleep without you will be dreadful!"

"And I you, Caroline."

"How long do you stay in port, do you think?"

"A day to unload, another to replace firewood and water, some more rations... three days at the least, ten at the most, I suspect."

He scowled, putting an arm about her shoulders. "Small ships spend less time at sea than most, and
Alacrity's
about as small as one may get in the Fleet. And it's not as if I have to perform war patrols, cruising until the salt-meat runs out. Half a month could be spent swinging at anchor in Nassau Harbor."

"I'd care very much for that," she said, snuggling into him. "Oh, look. The last of the sunset. Let's watch, do! My last with you, for awhile." She sniffed a little.

"But many more to come for us," he promised. "Many, many more!"

They waited until the last spark had dropped into the sea before rising, and the world turned quickly dark, as the night usually fell in the tropics.

"I love you, Alan!" she whispered, turning her face to him in the companionable and secluding darkness aft.

"I love you, Caroline!"

"A quick supper, and an early night," Caroline vowed.

"As that Pepys fellow said, my love," Alan joshed," 'And so to bed! "

"Oh, then, let us hurry!"

"Look from your door, and tell me now the colour of the sea. Where can I buy that wondrous dye And take it home with me?"

—Bliss Carman

Nassau, and its snug protected harbor, had changed drastically since Alan Lewrie had last seen it in 1781. Where there had swum tall frigates, there were now only brigs, sloops and cutters to represent the might of the Crown. But the commercial shipping had increased an hundredfold, and the town itself now boasted attractive stone public buildings where once there had been only wood biscuit boxes with palmetto thatched rooves, and the once-sleepy streets were humming with commercial endeavor. There were hundreds more homes to be seen, and, of course, since Nassau had been a shoddy pirates' haven since the 1600s no matter the strenuous efforts of a string of royal governors since Woodes Rogers's days, it boasted more taverns, more ordinaries, more public inns of dubious repute, and more out-and-out brothels.

But the transformation was stunning. With the arrival of thousands of dispossessed or disgruntled American Loyalists who had fled their spiteful Republican "cousins," the population had doubled and tripled. Humble Bay Street was now a good road and was fashioned "The Strand," while Shirley Street, named for a former governor, had become more sophisticated than a sandy lane lined with ramshackle, and could boast many fine residences, stores and shops. Though the official area of town was still bounded by Bay Street on the harbor, on the east by East Street, the west by West Street, and on the south by West Hill and East Hill Streets, more modest lanes had been laid out east and west of Government House. And "Over-The-Hill," the slumlike "stew" behind Bennett's Hill where the free blacks, poor whites and the criminal elements made their homes, had mushroomed.