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… shod" 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."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Signal 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.' "