A King's Trade (37 page)

“They were related to those august gentlemen, were they?” he had comfortingly enquired in a private moment. “How horrible ‘twill be for such famous naval families to learn of such early demises for kin, who had their promising careers ended so tragically early. Should I write letters of condolence, perhaps…?”

“No kin to former admirals, nossir,” Lewrie had had to say with a straight and mournful face, suddenly amused nigh to titters with the astonishment everyone would evince were the shrouds opened, or letters sent to the Anson and Hawke families back in England. “In fact, they were but common sailors, good men, but without any ties to gentlemanly families, I fear. Men volunteer, or declare themselves when ‘pressed,' under false names.
Take
false names to avoid being taken up by civil authorities, were they wrongdoers before, d'ye see.”

“Ah, I understand, Captain Lewrie,” the rector had said, “and I feel certain that, no matter their sins were scarlet, dying in service to King and Country, they were washed as white as snow by their dedication to Duty, and by the true Valour they evinced in their last instants. Heaven will be their reward, no matter how humbly born.”

“Truly said, sir,” Lewrie had replied. “As for notifying their kin, I have already composed letters. ‘Tis
my
sad duty.”

Half the morning gone, kicking his cooling heels waiting to be seen by that Flag-Captain, whilst Mr. Pendarves, Mr. Towpenny, and Mr. Garroway had been over the side on a catamaran, a floating work stage, surveying what they could above the waterline, the damaged gun-trucks being repaired with what stocks of seasoned timber they had in stores aboard
Proteus,
and the “divotted” artillery pieces dis-mounted, ready to be slung into the cutter and rowed ashore for exchange, should there actually be Dutch 12-pounders to exchange them for. Lewrie would not be picky; they could be tiger-mouthed Hindoo or Chinese guns, for all it would signify to him at that point!

So much to do to put
Proteus
to rights, to care for his maimed sailors, one of whom, “Sam Whitbread,” was also Black, and what Dutch renters thought of that when he sought shore lodgings for them, well!

Six, eight weeks, he said?
Lewrie thought with a dismayed moan;
Longer? Land of The Lotus Eaters, bedamned! And, the French. Could they have gotten
strong, or bold, enough, to haunt Table Bay,
despite
what the local Navy officers think? I
can't
sit idle, swingin round the anchors, if the Frogs think they can raid this close to home.
For a bleak moment, he pictured that French squadron sailing right into the bay for a night raid on shipping, and with
Proteus
so lamed… !

He thrust himself erect, determined to get a way on, to achieve something productive before sundown; though, what that was, he hadn't a clue, at present. He paced back forward, but caught sight of
Festival,
anchored about a mile off, and now swarmed with barges and boats to unload her menagerie, scenery, and such for a long “run” of performances. Her main yardarm was dipping to sway out a sling which held a horse, a
white
horse, Eudoxia's well-trained gelding.

Hmm,
he speculated;
eight weeks or more, in a Paradise, even if it's a
deadly
sort. With her ashore? Lord, give me strength!

T
wo days later, and the prospects for his frigate didn't look so bleak. Requests for material assistance from the Indiamen that they'd convoyed this far had resulted in enough oak from their own, civilian, bosuns' stores for new truck-carriages to replace the ones too smashed up to be repaired, and for repairs on those that could be salvaged.

Out of gratitude that one, or all, of them hadn't been taken by the French, perhaps, there had also come enough dried and seasoned fir or pine with which to fay the face of the sternpost and the lead edge of the rudder, enough elm for faying and soling, as well. With timber had come a few iron pigs that could become reinforcing strapping bands, enough bronze in-pig for a shoreside blacksmith to forge new gudgeons or pintles, and bolts. A personal meeting with salty old Capt. Cowles, the convoy commodore, and he'd sponsored a whip-round from the other Indiamen that had resulted in a flood of offerings worthy of a Cornucopia, a veritable Horn of Plenty.

Had seven of his brave sailors now passed over? Were ten still lying wounded? For each man, mates and passengers had made up a small purse to cover their sick-berth fees, which Ships' Surgeons and Mates would deduct from their pay, even if the Spithead Mutiny had ended the practice of wounded men's pay being stopped ‘til they were healed, so they would not suffer financially. Dead men's grave fees were paid to the parish, and a tolerable amount had been contributed to send on to their families, to augment the miserly pensions Admiralty granted. More was to go to providing fresh victuals for those
who lingered in the rented cottage high up on the windy bluffs of the Lion's Rump!

Artillery, well…neither the stores ship nor the Prize Court storehouses had 12-pounders for exchange. They had some few 6-pounders and a pair of 9-pounders taken off Dutch merchantmen captured in port when Elphinstone had landed, and a pair of Dutch 18-pounders that had never been installed in the sea forts built to protect Cape Town; but, Lewrie was slavering, but wary, of how much recoil and weight that his decks, his bulwarks and his breeching cables could withstand, should he dare install those monsters and touch them off, fully charged!

In the face of such freely-offered bounty, Lewrie had no choice but to reciprocate by dining-in Capt. Cowles, the masters and mates off the other Indiamen, and those passengers who had contributed. He had dreaded the expense, but, a local inn had done him proud off the local viands, and at a fairly decent price, too.

It had turned out to be a “game supper.” The soup had been egg and guinea fowl, mainly, with some rice and fresh peas. Crisply fresh salad greens came next, then the vast assortment of meats brought in as removes, more guinea fowl or pheasant, even
ostrich!;
for venison there had been springbok or gemsbok, antelope and impala, even
giraffe,
for God's sake! Then had come wild boar with mushrooms, followed by fish courses such as Cape salmon, thumb-thick shrimp as long as one's whole
hand
done in olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, chilies, bay leaves, and cloves! There had even been a kick-shaw made of crocodile!

Local made-dishes such as
bredies
and
boboties
had made their appearance, the
bredie
a mutton stew stiff with pot vegetables, and the
bobotie
nearly the best mild curry of shredded lamb, fruit, and rice Lewrie had eaten in his life. Fresh breads, local wines, mounded rice pilafs or
satays
showing Javanese influences, and, to top all of that off (should anyone have had a cubic inch of stomach left for them), the desserts (besides fresh, whole fruits) had consisted of rich, cinnamon-laced milk tarts, a steamed brandy pudding as good as any to be found in England, or
koeksisters,
which were wee braided, doughy confections sopping with honey, spices, and heavy fruit syrups.

Port, sweet biscuit, and nuts had seemed superfluous, and Lewrie was still belching, two days later.

Now, though, Lewrie paused midships of the larboard gangway as the sound of cannon fire caught his attention. The convoy of Indiamen was setting sail to
complete their long journeys to India or China, and HMS
Grafton, Horatius,
and the unfortunate HMS
Stag,
with the equally disappointed Capt. Philpott, were getting under way with them, the flagship firing a proper salute to Vice-Adm. Curtis's flag as it went.

I made the effort,
Lewrie told himself, for he had sent an invitation to his shore supper to his fellow captains, and Treghues, too, but only Philpott and Graves had attended, Treghues had sent a stiff note of regret that Stern Duty would not allow for such idle socialising at such a moment.
Poor, stiff-necked bastard,
Lewrie bemoaned.

Sir Roger being Sir Roger, that worthy had laughed that report Capt. Treghues had submitted, and sent on to London, to scorn, eagerly
sharing
his scorn among his coterie. It actually made Lewrie wince to see Treghues grasping at such a slender straw, to turn what had been a half-blind shambles into a signal victory…or, at least a thumping-good repelling of a back-stabbing French attempt on his convoy. What a misery Treghues might find his wartime career, of plodding to India and back with his guns rusting for want of use, and with never a foe strong enough to challenge him, Lewrie could not imagine. Didn't
want
to imagine, for by comparison, he'd already had more than his share of a lively war, with the medals, rank, and “post” to prove it.

Did Treghues hope that a report of
any
sort of action involving gunpowder,
any
sort of success against the French, might bring him to the Admiralty's notice in a fresh, new light, which might earn him his promotion to
real
Commodore rank, command of a squadron in more active and important seas? Or, might a release from boresome convoy duties be the excuse he craved to land his dour wife ashore whilst he sailed “in harm's way,” as that American pest John Paul Jones had termed it? No one, in Lewrie's jaded experience, could tolerate such a tart and termagant mort like her for very long, not even if she came with access to the rents of an entire
shire!

“Fa-are-well, and
adieu,
you-ou
sour
English sai-lor, fa-are-well, and
adieu,
you-ou arse-load of
pain…
!” Lewrie softly sang under his breath as he watched HMS
Grafton
curtsy and heel as she manned her yards to make more sail.

Oh, a
host
of foreign “bye-byes”!
Lewrie gleefully thought, as he tried to dredge up half-forgotten phrases from his experiences.

Adios…
came to mind, quickly followed by
Vamanos!,
which was more
apropos. Auf Wiedersehen…au revoir,
both of which he thought too polite by half; the catch-all Hindoo
Namasté,
good for welcome and departing; what had he heard at Naples, Genoa, and Leghorn in the Med? Ah,
arrivederci!,
that was it!

Ave atque vale,
from his schooldays Latin. He would have tried the Greek, but there was a language he never
could
get his wits about, for which failure his bottom had suffered at a whole host of schools.

There was Eudoxia's
dosvidanya;
there was what he had read in Captain Bligh's book following the
Bounty
mutiny, that the Sandwich Islanders said…
Aloha Oh-Eh;
what the first explorers to the colony of New South Wales had heard the Aborigines shout at them on the beach of Sydney Cove…
Warra-Warra!
Later settlers—the willing, not the convicts—had learned that it was
not
a cry of welcome, but a wish for the strange new tribe to “Go Away!” How
very
apt!

“Warra-Warra!”
Lewrie softly called out, lifting one hand as if bestowing a blessing on HMS
Grafton,
though, did one look closely, one
might
have noticed that Lewrie's index and middle finger of that hand were raised a bit higher than the rest, that hand slowly rotated, palm inwards, towards the end.

Rudder,
Lewrie reminded himself, turning away to deal with his greatest problem. He went to the starboard entry-port, clad in an old shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, his rattiest, oldest pair of slop-trousers rolled to his knees above bare shins and shoes about to crack apart with age, mildew, and damp. Bareheaded, he tossed off a sketchy salute to the side-party and scampered down the battens and man-ropes to his gig, where Cox'n Andrews and only a pair of oarsmen awaited. They would not bear him far, just down the starboard quarter, then round the square-ish stern, where other people were already occupied.

“Good morning, Mister Goosen,” Lewrie said to the Dutch ship chandler, who had contracted to do the survey. He was a square-built fellow in his early fifties, heavily bearded contrary to current fashion elsewhere, garbed much as Lewrie was, but for a wide straw hat on his pink and balding head. Reddish cheeks and nose, the sign of the serious toper …or, one who spent his days in the harsher African sun, and on the water, to boot.

“Gut morning,
Kaptein!”
Goosen jovially replied from his boat, an eight-oared thing nearly fourty feet long, with both a false forecastle and imitation poop, that had once been as grand as an admiral's barge, but had gone downhill rapidly in civilian hands. Goosen waved a wooden piggin at Lewrie, by way of greeting, then emitted a belch at him, which required a fist against his chest. “Cold, sweet lime water. Ver'
gut
on hot days, Kaptein, but making die bilious,” he explained.