The Invasion Year (23 page)

The ships remaining were whittled down to a somewhat more manageable number—if the merchant masters kept what little wit they had together for longer than a four-hour watch—and the rest of the way was cross the open, rolling North Atlantic in mid-Summer; which passage wasn’t all
that
bad, really, for the weather and the seas, though boisterous, at times, co-operated nicely to speed the trade Eastwards. If HMS
Reliant
had been voyaging under Admiralty Orders, the winds and the Gulf Stream would have let her reel off nine or ten knots per hour, and she would have bowled along like a diligence coach, logging nigh 240 miles from one Noon to the next.

With their many slow merchant tubs, though, six or seven knots, after a time, began to seem a giddy pace!

Then came Ireland and the Old Head of Kinsale, the harbours of Queenstown, Dublin, and Belfast, and more ships departed for a run into the Irish Sea, most making for Liverpool or Bristol, and Lewrie hooted cheery ta-tas to them …
“Namasté”
in Hindoo,
“Adieu”
in Frog,
“Auf Wiedersehen”
in German, and
“Dasveedanya”
in Russian, mostly followed by, “Bugger off and die, ye bleak bastards!”

The trade reached Soundings as they bore up the Channel, and it was then Falmouth, Plymouth, and Portsmouth for more of the merchantmen with the number of columns and the numbers of ships in-column shrinking ever further, ’til they could espy the Dover cliffs, stand out to sea a bit further to avoid the risks of the Goodwin Sands, then finally sail up to the mouth of the Thames and let the trade make its way up-river to the London docks. The squadron bore away and made for the Nore and Sheerness, coming at last to weary, peaceful anchor.

“Your bloody turn! Better you than me!” Lewrie pretended to call to a frigate that was hauled to short-stays, ready to bring up her anchor, and was already shaking loose canvas to make sail. There was nigh an armada of merchantmen, an hundred or better, preparing for departure for overseas, all ships flying the horizontal yellow-and-blue flags indicating that it was a trade bound for America.

“May ye have joy of it, ye poor bastard!” Lewrie gaily called out. The captain of the departing frigate held a hand behind an ear, but it was too far for him to hear. He waved and smiled as if Lewrie had bade him good wishes, and Lewrie doffed his own hat and plastered on his best “shite-eating” grin.

“Beg pardon, sir, but the Bosun admires to have a boat lowered so he can see to the squaring of the yards,” Lt. Westcott said at his elbow.

“Aye, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie agreed. “Come t’think upon it, they all need a good soak t’keep their plankings swelled. Lower ’em all. And, give the Purser, Mister Cadbury, word that they’re available. He’ll be wishin’ t’fetch fresh meat off from shore for the men. When he does, give him my boat crew for it, and your choice of Mid.”

“Aye, sir,” Westcott agreed, turning away to direct the raising of a boat from the cross-deck tiers with the main course yard.

“Yeovill, sir,” Midshipman Grainger announced at the top of the larboard gangway ladder. “Permission for him to mount the quarterdeck?”

“Aye, come,” Lewrie bade.

“We’ve run rather short of staples, sir,” his cook told him. “I expect the Purser will be going ashore, and was wondering if I might be allowed to go with him, sir. Coffee, tea, sugar, cocoa beans, mustard, and such, sir, along with spices, sauces, and—”

“And boot-blacking, and stationery, ink, and sealing wax, along with raisins, currants, jams, eggs, and … you have a list?” Lewrie added.

“I do, sir,” Yeovill assured him.

“See Pettus before you go, then, for he’s my list, as well. If you think twenty pounds’d cover it?” Lewrie said. “Better yet, Pettus can go with you, too.”

“Very good, sir!” Yeovill beamed. “And I’ll be laying on something special tonight for your supper, sir.”

“Uhmm, best wait ’til we see if Captain Blanding is of a mood t’treat us aboard
Modeste,
” Lewrie cautioned. It had been weeks since Blanding had admonished him, and weeks since the early disasters with the order of the convoy.
Maybe he’s over his pet, by now,
Lewrie hoped to himself.

“Oh … aye, sir,” Yeovill replied, crestfallen that he might be up-staged.

The jolly-boat was in the water, by then, and Mr. Sprague was going down the man-ropes into it to assure himself that
Reliant
would present a mathematically exact picture to any scrupulous observer, all yards perfectly horizontal and even with each other, all stays, all of the running rigging, taut at the proper “tarry” angle.

“Deuced odd, Mister Caldwell,” Midshipman Grainger was saying to the Sailing Master as he took the air amidships of the quarterdeck. “It’s so quiet, and … still. I could swear my head is swimming!”

“Just you wait ’til you set foot ashore, young sir, haw haw!” Mr. Caldwell assured him. “There’s nothing like better than two month at sea to dis-cumbobulate your equilibrium, don’t you know.”

Lt. Spendlove and Lt. Merriman were supervising the hoisting-off of the gig, now, with Bosun’s Mate Mr. Wheeler doing most of the louder barking. Lewrie looked up at the commissioning pendant, at the set of the yards and the neatness of how the sails were furled and harbour-gasketed; it made
his
head swim a bit, too, and forced him to go over to the larboard bulwarks for a reassuring grip.

“Ahem, sir … the Purser wishes to mount the…,” Midshipman Grainger said.

“Come, Mister Cadbury,” Lewrie bade. “I expected you earlier.”

“If I could have a boat, sir, I will deal with the Victualling Board people ashore,” Cadbury offered.

“My gig, sir, and my boat crew,” Lewrie allowed. “See the First Officer for his choice of Midshipman.”

“Thank you kindly, sir, you read my mind, I swear,” Cadbury replied, most pleased.

“Yeovill and Pettus t’go with you t’see t’my needs,” Lewrie ordered. “Get the best bullock ye can, and warn your clerk that once we have the boats in the water, I intend to ‘Splice the Main-Brace’ while you’re still ashore. Keep a sharp eye on the boat crew, mind. Even if there’s prize-money due ’em, there’s sure t’be at least one of a mind to run.”

“Aye, and I shall, sir!” Cadbury promised him, doffing his hat and heading briskly towards the starboard gangway.

House-keepin’!
Lewrie thought with a sniff, looking over all the great lengths of running rigging that now lay on the sail-tending gangways in round flemishes, or was hung from the belaying-pin rails in equally symmetrical loops. The guns and their carriages were bowsed snug against the bulwarks at right angles to the stout timbers, and all the tackle associated with them stowed neatly beside them. The roundshot in the rope garlands beside each piece, the roundshot stowed in wooden racks round each hatchway in their hemispherical dimples, were scaled free of rust and freshly blacked as if ready for an admiral’s inspection.

What was worn or faded would be put right over the next day or two of labour by all hands.
Reliant
would require fresh paint to make her new-penny shiny … assuming the dockyards had any, or would give them enough to get the job done without a letter from the King himself. Frayed stays and rigging would have to be re-rove or replaced in full, what gilt trim round her entry-ports, taffrails, and transom name-board that needed touching-up would have to come from Lewrie’s own pockets. The boats would have to be inspected, and soft or wormed strakes would require fresh bosun’s stores and new wood, along with even more paint. The man-ropes strung through the outer ends of the boarding battens and dead-eyed with fancy Turk’s Head knots must be whitened, or replaced.

Then would come even more “house-keeping” to replenish her with rum, small beer, and wines, with livestock, and fresh fodder and clean straw for the forecastle manger; with tons of bisquit, kegs of salted meat, fresh-scrubbed and re-filled water casks. Expended powder and shot had to be replaced from Gun Wharf, and all that would be followed by the Purser’s wares, his new bales of trousers, stockings, shirts, or neckerchiefs, short sailors’ jackets and buckled shoes, new blankets and bedding, hammocks and small rope, tobacco, mustard, jams, sauces for each eight-man mess to purchase from their pay, and …

Lewrie reckoned it would be at least three days of work before he could even think to allow the ship to hoist the Easy pendant, and put the ship Out of Discipline for the crew’s leisure. And if orders came on the fourth day, the
Reliant
frigate would be ready to answer them and put to sea, instanter, her people’s rest and ease bedamned.

Mine
own
bedamned,
Lewrie told himself.

At the moment, though, all he really wished was the freedom to go below, roll into his hanging bed-cot, and be left to sleep in peace ’til this time tomorrow! Had
Reliant
been sailing alone, or had their squadron been sailing in-line-ahead at night, Lewrie could reasonably assume that not
too
much could go wrong, and could snatch as many as four hours at a stretch ’til the next change of watch, but as escort to their convoy … well! It had been
so
much like herding sheep that their gambolling and straying hadn’t allowed him more than a cat-nap between summons to the deck; they had done all but
leap over
each other in alarm, or crowd up to each other for security, then shy away to the far horizons, bleating like Billy-O!

“Ready to go ashore, sir,” Pettus reported from the entry-port.

“You’ve my list … and my latest letters?” Lewrie asked.

“Aye, sir, and your funds,” Pettus replied, looking very eager to set foot on solid land and prowl the chandleries and shops of Sheerness. The bleak naval town wasn’t London, but…!

“Off ye go, then,” Lewrie said with a cheerful wave.

Lewrie paced over to the starboard bulwarks, fighting the urge to
reel
like a drunken sailor; the ship was anchored and still, moving not an inch from dead-level, and what slight rising and falling from a harbour scend was negligible. What solid land would be like he didn’t
dare
contemplate. Pettus would be taking ashore letters penned during the last two days on-passage up-Channel.

There was that continuing fuss over the Franklin-pattern stoves that Captain Speaks had left aboard
Thermopylae
in 1801, left with her Purser when laid up in-ordinary, and vanished. Might Lewrie’s solicitor, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy, have news of them, or whether Speaks would be suing him in a Court of Common Pleas? Had his late wife’s uncle paid him for the house and improvements of his rented farm, yet, and if he had, what was his latest balance at Coutts’ Bank, and would Mountjoy remit him an hundred pounds to replenish his purse?

There was also his report of the voyage to Admiralty, as well as notice that
Reliant
was now in a British home-port, and what prize-money she’d reaped would be paid out to her crew … when?

There were long sea-letters penned a little bit each day during the long passage to be sent off to Admiralty to forward to his sons, Sewallis and Hugh, a letter to his father, Sir Hugo, a warning to the Madeira Club in London that he
might
be up to the city for a few days and would be needing lodging … they
couldn’t
turn him down; Sir Hugo was one of the founding members and financial backers! There were letters to his brothers-in-law, Governour and Burgess Chiswick, with news of his arrival home for his daughter, Charlotte, who still lodged with Governour and his wife, Millicent, in Anglesgreen.

Perhaps in a few days, he would have replies from some of them, with fresh news of doings at home, and …

“Newspapers, Pettus!” Lewrie cried, leaning out over the bulwark to shout down to the gig, which was already a pistol-shot off. “Lots of newspapers, every one you can lay hands on!”

“I’ll get them for you, sir,” Pettus promised with a cheery wave of his own.

“Dig in, t’gither, lads,” his Cox’n Liam Desmond, ordered his oarsmen. “A hot stroke, Pat,” he urged his long-time mate, Furfy, “and we’ll show these Sheerness lubbers man o’ war’sman fashion … f’r good old
Reliant,
hey, lads?”

“Beer, ale, an’ porter in th’ offin’!” Furfy was heard to grunt. “Stroke, and … stroke, and … stroke!”

Better
not
be,
Lewrie thought with a smile;
or not
too
much!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The bum-boats had been circling like buzzards for several days before
Reliant
’s necessities had been seen to, and Lewrie had allowed her to be put Out of Discipline. As soon as the Easy pendant soared aloft and was two-blocked, every hand and Marine raised a great cheer, and gathered on the gangways to await the arrival of “temporary wives” and doxies.