A King's Trade (19 page)

A flurry of flag signals from the lead 74 created an answering blizzard of bunting from the frigate on the forward Southern quarter of the convoy, was repeated by the trailing sloop of war to seaward of the trade's stern quarter, and answered by the other Third Rate that brought up the rear, which, after a long moment, made a new hoist that the lead frigate repeated as she wore a bit off her “soldier's wind” and started to come down nearer
Proteus.

“Can't read ‘em, sor…sir, sorry,” Midshipman Larkin said as he stood atop the bulwarks by the mizen shrouds, a telescope to his own eye. “They're streamin' right at us, but I
think
she's askin' just who we are, I do! ‘Tis in the private signals for this month… I think.”

“Must believe we're a French fraud,” Lewrie agreed. “Mine arse on a bandbox, we've our Number aloft, already. Can you read his?”

“Er, aye, sor…sir,” Larkin, the Bog-Irish by-blow, replied, drifting back into brogue as he always did when flustered. “She's ah, HMS
Stag
… Fifth Rate, thirty-eight-gunner, Captain John Philpott,” Larkin stammered, fumbling through his bundle of lists and almost losing both his telescope overside and his grip on the shrouds.

“Last
Stag
would know, we're still in the Caribbean, sir,” Lt. Langlie commented by Lewrie's side. “A good ruse for a French raider.”

“Aye, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie said. “Mister Larkin, hoist that we are ordered to join the escort. Perhaps the latest signals book'll convince them. ‘Tis only three weeks old, after all.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

A long minute or two passed as Larkin and his “bunting tossers” made their hoist, which was acknowledged by
Stag;
then, they had more minutes to wait ‘til
Stag
made a reply, for she had to pass the message back to the repeating sloop of war, which passed it to the trailing 74-gunner, which was obviously the flagship. More time was taken for the flagship to hoist a new order, which had to come down the chain to the sloop, to the frigate, to
Proteus.

And, all during that time, the convoy was plodding along under reduced plain sail, bound roughly West, Sou'west, while
Proteus
still was on larboard tack, heading about Sou'east by East and drawing apart slowly.

“Wear her about to West, Sou'west, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie told his First Officer. “Nothing more convincing than showing leery people your arse. Like a dog rollin' over on his back.”

“Aye, sir. All hands! Stations to wear, ready…!”

“What did they ask that time, Mister Larkin?” Lewrie asked.

“Order, sir. ‘Come Under My Lee,' the flag said t'do,” Larkin puzzled out at last. “HMS
Grafton,
seventy-four. Captain Sir Tobias …Trey…Gwees? Triggers?”

“Truh-Gewz,” Lewrie corrected him. “An old captain of mine, me lad. Damme, they didn't do him too proud, did they?
Grafton
was commissioned in 1771. Why she hasn't been hulked…or rotted apart…”

“Ready to wear, sir,” Langlie reported.

“Very well, Mister Langlie. Once about, reduce sail so we may fall astern of
Grafton
yonder, then come up under her lee. With winds full astern, I
s'pose
he means come alongside her inshore beam. Might be, either'd do,” Lewrie said with a shrug. “Mister Larkin, alert yon suspicious frigate that we're wearing about. Try
not
to make it look like an order to Captain Wilkinson, hmm?”

“Aye aye, sor,” Larkin sheepishly replied.

“Wear about, then, Mister Langlie.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Perhaps half an hour later, HMS
Proteus
had fallen far enough towards the tail-end of the trade to make a bit more sail so she could angle in towards HMS
Grafton.
When she was close enough, it was an easy matter to duck under her high, old-fashioned stern and make a brief dash before the sails were reduced once more, so that she ended up off the 74-gun ship's starboard quarter, about half a cable inshore of her.

Lewrie left the details to Langlie, busy with his telescope by the larboard
bulwarks to study the people gathered on
Grafton's
quarterdeck. Officers, sailors of the afterguard, some gloomy-looking corn stalk of a fellow in drab, dark clothing, and…a woman? An officer, perhaps
Grafton's
First Lieutenant, lifted a brass speaking-trumpet to his mouth to shout across. The swash of the sea between the two ships, the wind, and the normal creaks and groans of
Proteus
's hull made what he shouted quite un-intelligible.

“Croror? Is'll pot?” Lewrie mimicked, cupping a hand behind an ear and shrugging at that worthy. “What the Devil does he mean by that, I ask you? Must be a Welsh insult,” he japed to his own officers.

“Come…up…to…
pistol…shot!”
Grafton's senior officer cried, again, all but screeching this time, and waving an arm to direct them to sidle up alongside
Grafton,
almost hull-to-hull.

“Ease a spoke or two o' lee helm, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie said, tossing back his boat cloak so the single gold epaulet of his rank on his right shoulder could be seen, as
Proteus
tentatively angled a bit to larboard, closing the distance between the ships to about twenty or so yards. “Ah,
there's
the bugger,” he muttered under his breath.

Capt. Sir Tobias Treghues, Baronet, had thrown back the wings of his own cloak, to display his pair of epaulets, with his chin high, as if he'd smelled something rank. Treghues had always been lean and tall, and so he still was, though his aristocratic face was thinner in the cheeks than Lewrie recalled, and there
was
a hint of the beginning of a gotch-gut ‘tween groin and chest that strained his pristine white waist-coat, the sign of good living, Lewrie surmised, once Treghues had inherited his father's estates and title… though Lewrie also could recall that Treghues was the
first
son from a poor holding, forced to sea to earn the better part of his living.

Lewrie lifted his cocked hat to doff it in salute, and after a moment, Treghues lifted his in response, revealing that his formerly dark brown locks had receded above his temples, and were now streaked like a badger's pelt with grey.

“Captain
Alan Lewrie, is it?” Treghues shouted across, after he had replaced his hat on his head. “Will wonders never cease!”

“To the life, sir!” Lewrie shouted back, wondering what sort of answer one could really make to that opening sally. He would have said that it was good to see Treghues, again, but didn't have a clue whether the man was in the proper half of his wits to accept it.

“You are
late,
sir!” Treghues primly said.

“Only got our orders yesterday, sir, and had to wait on the wind in Saint Helen's Patch!” Lewrie replied, his own hands cupped to make a trumpet. “I
thought
I'd catch you up, at sea, once the wind arose from the East.”
I'm
tryin'
t'be jolly,
he told himself.

“You should deal with your signals midshipmen, Captain Lewrie!” Treghues instructed. “They are…slack in their duties!”

“Dead downwind of you, sir, all signals were edge-on to us!” he explained, “The leading seventy-four did not repeat them!”

“Just like the old days!” Treghues seemed to scoff at that. “As I recall, you
always
had glib and ready answers!”

And bugger you, too, ye prim turd!
Lewrie silently fumed.

“Take station out yonder, sir!” Treghues cried, pointing off to the Southwest corner of the convoy. “Tell Captain Hazelhurst, of the
Chloe
sloop, that he is to re-position himself ahead and to larboard of
Horatius!”

“Just asking, sir, but my orders did not list all the ships in the escort!” Lewrie yelled over to him. “May I assume
Horatius
is the van sevety-four?”

“Aye, she is!” Treghues shouted, sounding both impatient and petulant together. “You will learn them soon enough! Make all haste to your proper station, Captain Lewrie! It is growing
dark,
sir!”

“Aye aye, sir!” Lewrie replied, doffing his hat once more, in sign of departure; and, hopefully, that his “joyful”
rencontre
with a shipmate of old was mercifully at an end.

“Clew up, Mister Langlie…Spanish Reefs, to slow us. Helmsmen, helm hard up and slew a knot or two off us,” Lewrie snapped.

Proteus
swung wide away, acting as if she'd been stung by the flagship. Course sails were briefly gathered up in their centres to spill wind, until she'd fallen far-enough astern of
Grafton
to avoid a collision when she swung Sou'-Sou'easterly, putting the wind on her larboard quarter to fall down towards the distant sloop of war, clews freed, and her course sails now drawing taut and full.

“Me pardons, sor,” Midshipman Larkin meekly muttered, wringing his hands over his supposed faults. “But I really couldn't read ‘em.”

“No one could,” Lewrie gently told him. “Not your fault.”

“Uhm, not a
horrid
beginning, was it, Captain?” Langlie queried in a soft voice at his captain's elbow. “After what you said of…”

“But not a good'un, either, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie resignedly replied, turning to look astern at the flagship in the gathering dusk. “I fear this'll be a hellish-long voyage. And feel
twice
as long.”

S
ignal from the flag, sir… our number!” Midshipman Gamble sang out, with a heavy brass day-glass to one eye.

“Damn
it!” Capt. Alan Lewrie spat, and thumped a fist on the cap-rail of the larboard quarterdeck bulwark for good measure, bleakly muttering under his breath, “What the bloody
flamin'
Hell does he want
this
time?” Before turning to face Midshipman Gamble he took a moment to re-collect the proper nautical stoicism, heaving a deep sigh.

“Aye, Mister Gamble?” Lewrie enquired, with what a disinterested observer might mistake for bland and idle curiosity. His play-acting was wasted on Midshipman Gamble, for that young worthy had clapped the telescope back to one eye, and had screwed the other shut, intent upon the distant HMS
Grafton
's hoists. Lewrie was, therefore, allowed to scowl, taking note that the First Lieutenant, Mr. Langlie, and Bosun Pendarves, with whom he was discussing the renewal of chafing gear to save the currently-strung running rigging, both lifted their eyes in sympathy, and pointedly looked away.

“Take Station…Alee, no…Ahead,” Mr. Gamble interpreted, after a quick peek at the sheaf of unique signals that Capt. Treghues had composed whilst they were hammering their way Sutherly across the dangerous Bay of Biscay, just in case the French raiders had managed to snag a copy of that month's code book. To simply obtain their copy of the convoy's code had required them to go close-aboard
Grafton
and put a boat down to fetch them; into
Proteus
's captain's hand, only, in the middle of a roaring Westerly winter gale!
Once soaked to the skin and nigh-drowned, Lewrie had clambered up
Grafton
's side to the entry-port whilst the line-of-battle ship had ponderously rolled, pitched, heaved, and even seemed to “wiggle,” only to be greeted by the First Lieutenant who had given him the signals, wrapped in oil-skin, then sent right back into his swooping boat, with nary a sign of Treghues to be seen! Lewrie didn't imagine that Capt. Treghues had
meant
for him to perish…but, the sight of his demise
might
have fetched their senior officer up from below to do a little “what a pity” horn-pipe!

“…five miles leeward of convoy, sir,” Mr. Gamble concluded.

“Crack on sail, Mister Langlie, all to the royals,” Lewrie said.

“Very good, sir,” Langlie replied. “More chafing gear, Mister Pendarves, once we're settled down. For now, I'd admire did you pipe ‘All Hands.'”

“And here we go, again,” Lewrie muttered, turning to stomp aft and peer ‘cross the quarterdeck at
Grafton,
now up on their starboard bows, and about five miles distant. Could he really shoot fire from his eyes like an ancient Greek god, the flagship would explode before he blinked, all his problems immolated in a towering ball of flames.

It had been like this for weeks, going on for the better part of two months since the rendezvous in mid-Channel. Did the shallows or rocky shoals of the Breton coast need scouting for fear of lurking Frog warships or privateers, one could count on
Proteus
to do it; were any of the towering East Indiamen dawdling astern or straying too far away, the safest wager would be that
Grafton
would hoist their number as the ship to dash off and play “whipper-in.” Did one of their merchantmen lose spars or sails in the generally horrid weather in the Bay of Biscay or off the equally-belligerent Spanish coasts, it was usually HMS
Proteus,
and Lewrie, given the task of giving her both close escort and succour, to the point that Lewrie's carefully hoarded supply of bosun's stores, sail canvas, light upper mast, and yardarm replacements had been sorely depleted… and would any of the other warships among the escort force whip round a share-out? Hell no, of course.