The wind was fresh, the South Atlantic was a sparkling blue under an azure sky framed by high-piled white clouds, and soon, the guns would be bellowing.
The reek, the roar, the hull-shaking explosions, and the squeal of recoiling carriages, the gushes of spent powder, all of it pleased Capt. Alan Lewrie. The live firing would make him happy, too. Even more so…
At least Admiralty lets me have powder and shot for free! he could gloat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Oh, it had been a grand day at sea! Even after gun-drill, the rum issue, and the crew's noonday mess, Lewrie had ordered an hour and a half of small arms practice with boarding pikes and cutlasses to whet the rust off those skills, too, after so much harbour sloth. By the end of the First Dog Watch, as the sun was sinking into the West in a spectacular red, amber, and pink glory, Proteus's people were spent-wearily, but garrulously happily so, if the lack of horn-pipe dancing, but the cheerful songs and music, were anything to go by. Even if the horizon to the East and Sou'east gloomed up darker than the usual sunset greys, down-sun. The farther one sailed North along the coast of Africa, once past the arid regions that bordered the Dutch settlements, the more often rain squalls were commonplace. A passage close to shore took a vessel through a zone termed "The Rains," after all.
Mr. Winwood stood on the quarterdeck at the change of watch at six of the evening, hands clasped behind his back, and sniffing at the air again, much as he had at mid-morning when seeking the source for gunpowder, and frowning sternly.
"A squally night, Captain," Winwood slowly pronounced, at last. "A rising wind, and heavy rain, this evening. Rains which might continue through mid-morning, tomorrow, I do avow, sir. Can you not get a whiff of it on the wind?"
"It is muggier, and cooler," Lewrie agreed, noticing a hint of fresh water in his own nostrils as the Trades gusted slightly. As it grew dark, Proteus had ceased her wearing from one flank of the trade to the next, and had fallen in three miles astern of the convoy, with the two columns of ships equidistant from each bow, and steering Nor'west with the wind right astern; yet even with her sailing no faster than those winds could blow, now and then a stronger gust caught up with them to presage a stormy night. Just as well, Lewrie decided, that it was the convoy's practice to reduce so much sail at dusk, this particular dusk especially, for it could be a rough night.
"Deck, there!" a foremast lookout shrilled. "Flagship's lightin' 'er lanthorns! Convoy's lightin' 'eir lanthorns!"
"Thankee, aloft!" Lt. Adair shouted back through his brass speaking-trumpet.
"Mister Adair," Lewrie said, "light our own taffrail lanthorns, foc'sle lanthorns, and binnacle cabinet. Be sure all masthead fusees and signal rockets are near to hand, as well."
"Very well, sir. Permission to call masthead lookouts down to the deck, Captain?" Adair responded.
"Not 'til we've reefed down for the night," Lewrie told him as he paced aft to take a peek into the binnacle cabinet, to see that the proper course was being steered. "Pipe 'All Hands On Deck' to reduce sail." Even as he ordered that, another much cooler gust came sweeping up from astern and to the starboard quarter. "Additionally, sir, I'll have 'quick-savers' rigged on the fore course, and all three tops'ls, and… should any lurking Frog upset things, make certain that 'quick-savers' are borne aloft to the tops for rigging on the main course, and the t'gallants. Just in case," he said with a shrug.
"Aye aye, sir."
Quick-savers "crow-footed" over the faces of the squares'ls to keep them from blowing out into tatters in a hard blow were a last-ditch re-enforcement of ropes to gird the sails' canvas.
With "growl ye may, but go ye must" groans, Proteus's achy crew went aloft to perform their duties, knowing that soon, once this last hard chore was over, they'd be piped below to their suppers; a little after that, "Down Hammocks" would be piped, and half of them could turn in for a few hours of sleep.
"Aye, t'will be a wet and windy night," Mr. Winwood prophecied.
By the time sail was taken in for the night, and the precaution of the "quick-savers" had been rigged or stored aloft for future use, it was already raining, and the evening had gotten darker. Squalls of rain swept like curtains over the convoy from the East-Sou'east to the West-Nor'west, even blotting out HMS Jamaica and the lead ships of the short columns for brief moments. The seas were rapidly making up, and Proteus began to ride them in a more lively manner, performing a long, slow pitching motion, along with a leeward roll. The nearest ship to them, the Festival off their starboard bows, was pitching as well, and heeling her larboard shoulder to the seas; they could witness her taffrail lights swing down left from horizontal in slow arcs, and see her forecastle belfry lamp rise up above the taffrail lanthorns for a bit, then sink ponderously below them and out of sight as the old merchantman made heavy work of the night. Beyond her, other pairs of taffrail lights wanly glimmered, as the other six India-men struggled to remain on course to the Nor'west, and in line-astern of each other, trusting to "follow the leader" like sheep following the bellwether, and hoping that the lead ships knew what they were about.
Another half-hour and it would be the end of the Second Dog, and the watch would change once more, this time for a full four hours, which would let Lewrie go aft and below to his own supper. For now, he stood in tarred tarpaulins on the quarterdeck, stifling inside the supposedly impermeable hooded canvas coat, with wetness trickling down the back of his neck, and his old slop trousers soaked from mid-thigh down to his boots. He would dine alone this night, saving himself a few shillings by not entertaining officers, warrants, or midshipmen. Meagre though a typical solitary supper usually was-reconstituted "portable" soup, the last of his fresh shore greens for a salad, toasted stale rolls of what had been fresh bread, and a rice-and-biltong stew-he found it hard to wait that long. He wanted to be dry, to open a bottle of that spaetlese German hock he'd found at the last minute in Cape Town, then soak those stale rolls into the soup and slurp up something warm, for the rain was a chill soaker, when it was whipping 'cross the decks!
And it did not help that the last savoury smoke from the galley funnel got swirled as far aft as the quarterdeck, bringing lip-smacking aromas of boiled pork to him, along with the sound of fiddle, fife, or Liam Desmond's uillean lap-pipes, and the rough good humour of sailors hunched over mess-tables, half "groggy" from the last rum issue.
"What in the name o' God is that?" Lewrie yelped, like to leap out of his boots as an unholy, piercing wail arose from below.
"Ah, that'd be our bushbaby, sir," Lt. Langlie told him with a wince of his own as the high-pitched caterwauling continued. "I wish we'd known what a racket it could make, before allowing it aboard. A member of the Lemur family, I'm now told. And able to hoot, cry, and screech half like a howler monkey, half like a human infant. Eerie!"
"Eerie, and irritating," Lewrie growled, already miserable, and that damned thing wasn't helping. "It keeps that up, it'll end up in a pie, 'fore the next Dog Watch. Eerie, aye, and… ominous."
T'Hellwith this, Lewrie thought; suff'rin' like this is what lieutenants are for! "Mister Langlie, you have the deck 'til the end of the Dog. I'll be below." "Aye, sir. I have the deck," Langlie crisply responded. He clattered down the larboard ladderyway to the main deck just as the bushbaby's cries set off the parrot, which began to squawk, and then scream its few English words, which consisted mostly of curses or blasphemies, which squawking frightened the other caged birds atwitter, which tumult made the goats, lambs, cattle, and piglets bleat, bawl, or squeal. And, it really couldn't be, not with Proteus up to windward of Festival, but Lewrie could almost swear that he heard a lion's roar and some baby elephant trumpets in answer!