A King's Trade (28 page)

Capt. Graves (no kin to the influential Royal Navy Graveses) exhibited reasonably great patience, himself, and, for a tarry-handed and
direct
sort of old salt phrased his rebuttal slowly, borrowing a formal choice of words usually alien to his nature, Lewrie was pretty sure…but a volcanic simmering was just below the surface.

“Then we could flog them blind, as an example to the others,” Capt. Philpott of HMS
Stag
added, almost tongue-in-cheek.

“The island is thinly settled, Captain Graves,” Treghues said, with a thin-lipped aspersion. “All they'd have to do is scamper into the hills, live off the land for a few weeks to wait us out,
then
come down and sign aboard an Indiaman.”

“The island's thinly settled, sir,” Capt. Graves quickly said, “for
another
very good reason. Compared to Saint Helena, the Scottish Highlands are as lush as Tahiti! Can't
farm
hills this steep, except for this valley, so there's nought to steal and eat. Every resident of this bleak rock's a member of the militia, and bored to
tears,
most-like. Raise the hue and cry, and they'd run ‘em down in a Dog Watch! And enjoy the adventure, to boot, sir!”

“Then ‘John Company,' or the garrison of the forts, gives them their floggings, and holds them in gaol ‘til the next warship arrives, sir,” Capt. Philpott stuck in, again. “Pity.”

Treghues snapped his head about to glare his displeasure at such a waggish comment, but found Philpott's phyz composed in a wide-eyed, benign expression which expression made Lewrie hide a grin with his fist to his mouth, and stifle a snort of amusement. Treghues swivelled about to bestow upon him an even sterner glare.

“You said something cogent, Captain Lewrie?” Treghues snapped. “Is there a notion you wished to contribute, sir?”

“Erm… only that I am quite in agreement with Captain Graves, and Captain Philpott, Sir Tobias,” Lewrie declared. “Though I've not called here before, it seems evident that there's nothing upon which a deserter might victual, outside this little one-street village, and no place where any such might even find shelter. No trees to cut down to make a crude lean-to, to get out of the incessant winds. There are no beaches from which to fish. With only four hundred or so soldiers in the garrison, not over a thousand residents all-told, unemployed tars would stick out like sore thumbs, and be taken up right-promptly.”

“A sailor
intent
to run would take
any
risk, Captain Lewrie,” Treghues countered with an impatient wave of his hand. “The fools.”

“Though, may I point out, Sir Tobias,” Capt. Philpott eagerly added to Lewrie's remarks, finding a willing ally, “that sailors who were not allowed ashore in England before our departure, kept aboard at Recife, kept aboard here at Saint Helena, possibly denied liberty ashore at Cape Town, too, might be
more
eager to desert than sailors given a
slight
bit of free time, of leisure ashore…of trust, sir.”

“Oh, rot, sir!” Treghues sneered, all but rolling his eyes in scorn. “Your average English tar is a drunken, ignorant, and irksome lout who'd sink into sloth, crime, and alcoholic stupors given the opportunity, Captain Philpott. Without continual watchfulness, without unending discipline to rein in their baser desires, they'd run riot in a twinkling! Oh, I'll grant you, there are
some
honest volunteers who look to improve themselves, some men pressed under dubious legalities who come aboard imbued with sobriety and industriousness as a result of their former civilian employments, but…” Treghues waved away as if the situation was hopeless, and would always be so.

HMS
Grafton,
so they had all learned on their long voyage, was a “taut” ship. Lewrie didn't remember Treghues being quite so strict during the American Revolution, perhaps because old HMS
Desperate
had been a much smaller ship, with a smaller, more familiar crew. He
had
always stated that “a taut ship was a happy ship,” though how Capt. Treghues translated that to his present crew was reputed to be harsher. Then again, Treghues had been younger and full of promise, and hadn't spent so many years idling ashore on half-pay, either. Nor had he wed such a dour termagant of such a bleakly forbidding nature.

“But two whole days ‘Out of Discipline' since departing England, Sir Tobias,” Capt. Graves cautiously pressed. “‘Gainst currents, and winds to here as long a voyage as it took to fetch Recife, with perhaps better than a month more ‘til we break passage at Cape Town, assuming we even do…liberty here at Saint Helena is the
least
we may do for them. Do they face the prospect of an unbroken voyage all the way to Bombay, to Canton in
China,
well…compared to those ports, liberty granted here is safest of all, sir!”

That's why there were two ships of the line in the escort; once past Cape Town and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, some of their trade would head for Bombay, some would bend their course for the Strait of Malacca, and China, with a two-decker 74 for escort. Treghues would choose which duty HMS
Horatius
might perform, which half he'd escort onwards in
Grafton.

“Jack Ass Point, and the foreign factors' compound at Canton, sir,” Lewrie said, “I
have
been there. No risk of desertion, there, since the Chinese lop the heads off ‘red-haired foreign devils' when they get into
their
part of the city—”

“I was not aware you took
merchant
service, Lewrie,” Treghues interrupted, sounding as if involvement with “trade,” or its nautical assistance in a civilian capacity, was rather sordid.

“Wasn't merchant service, sir,” Lewrie responded with a smile. “Some secret work for the Foreign Office aboard a false trader, armed and crewed by the Navy. Bombay, too, sir. Well, my experience was in Calcutta, up the Hooghly,
but…there's nowhere for English tars to run among the Hindoos, either. Not for long, if they don't speak a word of the language, sir. Ports in India might not be walled off from the local population like Canton is, but they might as well be, for all the good they'd do potential deserters. And, as I recall it, every ship that put in was allowed shore liberty…liberal liberty, sir. If our hands'll be allowed liberty at Bombay and Canton, what's the harm in allowing liberty here, where they have
no
hope of jumping ship, sir?”

“For the very good reason, sir, that they will run
amok,
as the barbarians of the Malay Peninsula say!” Treghues snapped, now rapidly losing his patient, all-knowing-father air.

“On
what,
may I ask, Sir Tobias?” Capt. Graves gravelled, near the end of his seeming serenity, too. “The
very
few public houses of James's Valley? Upon the veritable regiment of bawds, now a-tip-toe on the strand, awaiting their arrival with open arms?”

“Sir!” Capt. Treghues barked, slamming a palm on his desk for punctuation. “You exceed proper bounds, Captain Graves! Aye, there's very few public houses or taverns hereabouts, and
should
we allow our people ashore, they'd be
swamped
by so many sailors all at once!”

“Exactly what the publicans and tavern keepers look forward to, I'd expect, sir,” Capt. Philpott blandly suggested. “How'd they make their livings, else? The garrison and the locals can't be much of a livelihood, sir.”

“And, there's Wigmore's Travelling Extravaganza, too,” Lewrie quickly seconded. “They've a decent band, and do musicals, comedies, and dramas, in addition to their circus performances, sir. All quite innocent, no more harmful than letting discharged sailors free in Covent Garden or Drury Lane, sir. It'd go hard for our people, to know that they're performing for the garrison, but
they're
not allowed to go ashore and attend, sir. Might make ‘em… surly.”

“You're entirely right, Sir Tobias,” Capt. Graves was quick to exclaim, scooting forward to the edge of his chair in his eagerness to make his point, “a taut hand and consistent discipline's the very thing to make an efficient ship, but it
can
become too much of a good thing, d'ye see, do you not give them a bit of slack, now and then. If my hands must sit aboard, close enough to see soldiers, civilians, and ‘John Company' sailors going ashore to take in the shows, it
will
make them surly, as our good Captain Lewrie suggests, sir.”

“Even more eager
t'be
aboard an Indiaman, perhaps, sir?” Capt. Philpott tacked on, sounding breezy, and trying hard not to smirk at his impious suggestion. “Never can tell.”

Lewrie wasn't sure which comment made Treghues bristle up, go puce-faced,
and bluster more…Graves's hint that strictness might prompt rebelliousness, Philpott's heretical idea, or Graves calling Lewrie “good”!

“Aye, that
circus,”
Treghues seethed. “Whacking good time you had ashore, did you, Captain Lewrie? At that circus, hmm?”

Damme, what does he know, and how did he learn it?
Lewrie had to take pause to ask himself, crossing his legs the other way round to guard his “wedding tackle.”

“An amusing, and innocent, distraction, Sir Tobias,” he replied. “Half the audiences at Recife were children and their parents, and the local authorities seemed satisfied that nothing prurient or bawdy had insulted their rather austere sense of morality, sir.”

“I enjoyed it, too, sir,” Capt. Graves chimed in, as did Capt. Philpott a second later: “Aye, it was innocent and amusing. And, I suspect, Sir Tobias, that were our sailors seated in their audiences, that'd be hours they'd
not
be spending in taverns or brothels. Half a day's liberty, watch and watch, say…Noon to Midnight. A fresh dinner, time enough for at least a
mild
drunk, then a bought supper and a ticket to a show, and…by the time the final curtain comes down, ‘tis time to return aboard their ships, hmm?”

“Depends on local sunset, full dark,” Lewrie speculated, “when they light their illuminations, I s'pose. Perhaps from Seven Bells o' the Forenoon ‘til Seven Bells of the Evening Watch'd work better. The usual arrangement of two ‘hostages' still aboard for each libertyman, their own run ashore dependent on t'other's behaviour, and return?”

“Wouldn't have to expend rations, do they debark before the rum issue, or call to messes,” Capt. Philpott slyly said. He and Graves had turned their attention upon each other to thrash out arrangements, as if the decision had been made in their favour, and Captain Treghues was no longer present. “And wouldn't our ‘Pussers' love
that,
hey?”

“Masters-At-Arms, Ships' Corporals, and Provost guards from the garrison to keep a wary eye on ‘em, perhaps?” Lewrie further suggested.

“Aye, that'd work out well, Captain Lewrie,” Graves exclaimed, turning to include Treghues, at last. “Garrison troops told-off as the Provosts might attend the shows in an official capacity, but…”

“Could watch ‘em, in essence, for free!” Lewrie hooted.

“An easy arrangement to make with the garrison commander, I'd think, Sir Tobias,” Philpott chortled, turning to face Treghues with a puppy-eyed, eager child's expression, waiting upon Treghues's say-so, as they all did, with a “please, Father, may we
please?”
expectancy.

Treghues stared them down, as stonily as the Egyptian Sphinx, lips down-curled, as pruned up as if he'd bitten into a sour citron. His fingers drummed on
the desktop, nails chittering as if he wished to hone them for a clawing in the near future. He heaved a great sigh and leaned back in his chair to stare at the overhead and the painted and lacquered deck beams. Perhaps he was consulting the Almighty as to the best course of action, praying a silent apology to Him for being a weakling, imploring the Lord to keep his sinful sailors from
too
much exuberance ashore, or…calling down
all
the Pharaoh's plagues upon his contemporary Moseses, who pleaded to “set their people free.”

“A third of each ship's complement, sailors and Marines, each day, sirs,” he glumly, sullenly, announced, at last. “Two-thirds will bide aboard, dependent upon the libertymen's behaviour, and if those miscreants depart one jot or
tittle
from decorous comportment, then I will cancel
all
further liberties, hear me, sirs?”

“Very good, sir!” they almost managed to say in chorus.

“I will consult the tables to determine full dark, hereabouts,” he further decreed, “does the circus require full dark for their performances…as
good
Captain Lewrie is
so
certain that they require,” Treghues could not help loftily sneering.

“Makes for a better experience, sir…like a darkened hall in Drury Lane draws the audience into the lit stage,” Lewrie explained to him, off-handedly. “Or, so I am told,” he added, withering under that steely gaze.

“Do
not
interrupt, sir,” Treghues gravelled. “As I was saying, perhaps an adjustment from
Six
Bells of the Forenoon to Six Bells of the Evening Watch…Eleven to Eleven, would suit, depending on what the tables say. I will send you word by dusk. In the meantime, you will see to wood and water for your ships. Liberty is … allowed.”

From behind the deal partitions and privacy curtains leading to his sleeping space and quarter-galleries came a faint, outraged “Hmmph!” from Lady Treghues, and, for a moment, Lewrie wasn't sure if he didn't feel sorry for the poor fellow. It was one thing to be talked out of a firm decision (no matter how rigidly daft) by officers junior to him, but it was quite a rather
grim
other to have to beard that harridan in her “den,” probably after making assurances to her that he would
not
allow sailors of his squadron access to Sin!