Up to the quarterdeck by the larboard, windward, ladder, to the further alarm of his watch-standers.
"Carry on," he called to them affably. "Just up for a breath of air," he elaborated, as he paced to the windward mizzenmast stays. Lieutenant Knolles and Mister Wheelock, the master's mate, shuffled down deck to starboard, yielding the windward side to him, which was his by right, alone, whenever he was on deck.
There was very little left of the sunset his paperwork had kept him from relishing. Just a faint bricky trace of red and umber low on the Western horizon, with towering banks of slag-gray clouds spread to either side oн Jester s course, and but the slightest sullen primrose glade upon the waves over which the ship's jib boom and bowsprit rose and fell. A touch more wind on his cheek, perhaps a hatful, no more, and veering forrud by no more than half a point from abeam. Jester rose and fell more regularly, now, gently hobbyhorsing as the deeper water hinted the long-set rollers of the Atlantic to come, after the chops of the Channel closer inshore. England was an indistinct razor-thin ebony smudge to the north. France was below the horizon, lost in the companionable darkness. It was almost late enough for the lamps forrud at the forecastle belfry, by the watch, hour, and half-hour glasses and bell, and the large taffrail lanthorns, to appear cheerful and strong. A few faint stars, mostly astern above the lanthorns, were already out.
Lewrie paced slowly aft along the larboard bulwarks, skirting the slide-carriages of the newly installed carronades. "Smashers"-eighteen-pounders-they were, short, pestle-looking cylinders of guns that threw heavy, solid iron shot, heavier than anything HMS Jester could ever mount as deck artillery. Though they didn't shoot quite as far as long guns, they dealt out horrific damage when they struck. And, so far (praise Jesus) only the Boyal Navy used them in any numbers. There were four on Jester's quarterdeck, and another pair forrud on the foc's'le, in lieu of
chase guns. Alan would have preferred two long six-pounders there, but the officials of the Ordnance Board at Gun Wharf had had only so much patience for the blandishments of a junior officer.
Lucky to keep the guns I have, Lewrie told himself, smiling in grim reverie. A full twenty guns made Jester a small frigate, under the new rating system, a post-captain's command; while an eighteen-ganned ship sloop was suitable to a newly promoted commander! They'd taken two away from him, with many "tsk-tsks" over his affrontery, to show up in a vessel armed beyond his rank.
British sloops, be they brig, schooner, ketch, or three-masted ship-rigged vessels, were allotted six-pounders, and that, by God, was that. Sixth-Rate frigates got nine- or twelve-pounders, 5th Rates carried twelves, or more lately, eighteen-pounders. The French, though (most sensibly, Alan thought), armed their equivalent corvettes with les huit-livre canon-eight-pounders. And the Frog Avoirdupois Livre was just a trifle heavier than the English Pound Weight, so his eight-pounders were the equal of a British nine-pounder. The shot was almost the same diameter, perhaps a quim-hair (about one twenty-fifth of an inch) smaller, allowing a tad more obturation, or "windage," between shot and bore diameter.
And what was that, about a cable less at extreme elevation, at range-to-random shot, where the odds of actually hitting anything, a mile-and-a-half off were pretty much By Guess and By God? Half a sea mile was considered long-range shooting, and most captains and gunners preferred point-blank, which was anything from one cable, right down to close broadsides, with the muzzles sticking almost through the enemy's gun ports-"close pistol shot"!
Had the officials insisted, it would have taken weeks more to outfit Jester; new six-pounders, a full eighteen of 'em, weren't just lying about, after all. Might not even be sufficient stock far up north near Scotland, where most of the foundries had relocated, now they'd gone to coke instead of charcoal for melting and casting pig iron. Wouldn't cost the Crown tuppence, sirs! Bags of Frog round shot aboard, sixty per gun now, and replacement nine-pounder English shot is a lot cheaper than an entire new set of artillery! Please, sirs! Pretty please, sirs? Can't swing idle for a month, sirs!
And, when they'd come, what would he have ended up with? Some of those new, lighter, and shorter Blomefield Pattern pieces, which he had heard had a distressing tendency to burst when charged with newfangled cylinder powder 'stead of puny old corned powder! No, there was only one thing he admired about Blomefields-that neat forged-on loop for the breeching ropes above the cascabel button. His old guns had breeching ropes eye-spliced about the button, while Blomefields let the ropes pass through ring bolts on the truck carriages, then through that loop, easing stress on the breeching if fired at extreme angles. They wouldn't snap their breeching and roll about like rampaging steers if pointed too far forrud or aft in the gun ports, or rip the end ring bolts in the bulwarks loose.
No, he'd have his nine-pounders, and God help the Frog who came within range, mistaking Jester for a quarterdecked ship sloop below the Rates, armed with mere popguns!
He spoke briefly with his surgeon, Mister Howse, that tall and lanky saturnine of the square, mournful face, who always looked as if he needed a shave, even right after shaving; and his surgeon's mate, LeGoff, who played the gingery terrier to Howse's rangy mastiff. No one had herniated yet; there were some sore muscles, but Howse held that horse liniment usually worked just as well on bipeds as it did for quadrupeds.
Midshipman Hyde with Knolles near the double-wheel. Knolles was midtwenties, blond-haired, and sun-bronzed. If some spark of relationship had arisen between him and his charge Sophie-and Alan had pressed 'em damn' hard together-there was no sign of it. Hyde… a year older than Mister Midshipman Clarence Spendlove, at sixteen, a seasoned lad, well-salted and daubed with his "ha'porth of tar" since he was nine. Hmm… good family, he'd learned, was Hyde. Talented, cheerful, able. A bit on his guard, being so new aboard, but the port admiral had recommended him highly, had lifted him out of a 3rd Rate seventy-four for more seasoning aboard Jester where he'd be one of two, instead of one among twenty-four middies. To do the port admiral a favor usually meant one in return; you scratch my protйgй, I'll scratch yours.
"Yer pahdons, Cap'um," Andrews said at last, coming onto the quarterdeck. "But dot Aspinall say yer suppah jus' now come from de galley, pipin' hot, sah."
"Thankee, Andrews!" Lewrie brightened, as famished as a middie on short commons by then. " Toulon slunk out of hiding yet?"
"Well, sah, ah 'spect he's ovah 'is sulk," Andrews chuckled in a deep, soft voice. "An' when he caught a whiff o' po'k cracklin's, he come on out, sah. 'Twoz all me an' dot boy Aspinall could do, keepin' him off de table. Do ah go forrud an' tell ya cook ya be wantin' cawfee later, Cap'um, fo' dey douse de galley fires fo' de night?"
"No, no coffee tonight," Lewrie decided. There was a very good chance this wind would veer ahead during the Middle Watch, rousing him from bed. After all the excitement and tension, a good meal would put him under quickly, and he needed some sleep, beforehand. "You tell him to forget it, this evening, and turn in, the pair of you."