"Aye aye, sir," Lt. Adair replied, performing a shaky doffing of his hat in salute.
"And, Mister Adair… you are now our Second Lieutenant," he added in a sombre tone as he sheathed his hanger and un-cocked his pistol.
"Very well, sir," Adair gravely answered.
He felt it, then, that shuddery weakness and lassitude that he had suffered at the end of every sea-fight. There were an hundred details to be seen to before dawn, a myriad of repairs to be made aboard both frigates before he could feel sanguine, but God, he felt spent! What he most craved, that moment, was a bracing drink, a pint of water to put moisture back into his tongue and gums, then a brimming bumper of brandy or Yankee-Doodle corn-whisky… followed by a lie-down and perhaps a nap, maybe a long one since he wasn't getting any younger, but… "Urn, m'sieur capitaine?" It was the wide-eyed young officer below him on the main deck, who still stood there, looking up at him, looking a bit embarassed to bother him. "Mon epee… sword, m 'sieur," he said, offering up his small-sword, now sheathed in its scabbard, in formal sign of personal surrender.
It was "bad form," and un-gentlemanly, for Lewrie to accept it. The proper form would be to wave it off, tell the man whose throat one wished to slit and bowels one tried to spill what an heroic defence he had put up, so "honourably," but, Lewrie wasn't feeling especially charitable that evening, so he took hold of it and gave the young fellow a grave nod. Damned if he'd let any armed Frog ponce about with a sword… he might relent and give it back, once sure that both ships would float and sail. "Merci, "he said, its hilt to his face in salute.
He stumbled aft along the enemy warship's starboard gangway, a tangle of dead and wounded, of splintered wood, sails, rigging, and hidden ring-bolts, to the enemy's quarterdeck, where some of his sailors were capering and laughing that particular uproarious good humour that only whole survivors could laugh, atop slain foes.
"Cap'm, sir!" Ordinary Seaman Martyn chortled, handing him yet another sheathed sword. " 'Ere's 'er cap'm's blade, sir. Won't 'ave a need f'r it in 'is life no more, Cap'm, nosirree!"
"Mus' be worth fifty guineas, sor!" Able Seaman Clancey hooted, producing yet another. "An' thayr First Off 'cer's sword, 'ere, 'tis a fine'un, too, sor. Poor feller's not long f'r this world, neither, we reckon," Clancey callously snickered, pointing back towards the wheel, where an officer who'd had a leg shot off at the hip, and the other one bent at an un-natural angle, was being tended by two French sailors.
"A guinea for each of you, lads," Lewrie told them, "but, let's not be makin' a career of lootin' the dead… even Frenchmen." "Thankee, sor!"
"And, let's stay cold sober, too, 'fore I have ye all at 'Mast,' " Lewrie sternly reminded them.
Lewrie took a tour of the quarterdeck, taking in the heavy damage, the strewn corpses and dis-mounted guns, with his lips pursed in a silent whistle. Unlike most combats reported in the Marine Chronicle, where the French fired a few broadsides to salve their captain's conscience and uphold honour before striking, this ship had fought to win… and had paid the price. It was a slaughterhouse!
French frigates carried over-large complements compared to English warships, sometimes as many as 350 or more. For raiders such as this L 'Uranie, intent on prize-taking and long cruises, they carried more officers, petty officers, and sailors to man and safeguard those ships they took, leaving enough aboard to maintain the raider at full strength if she was required to fight to keep possession of her prizes.
But, with so many men aboard, it was no wonder that every shot through her hull or bulwarks had reaped L'Uranie's over-manned crew as thickly as a farmer's scythe would cut down a field of grain. Excess hands could replace gunners and sail-tenders for a time, but if battle lasted long enough…
To Lewrie, gazing down into the waist, it looked as if half of those 350 Frenchmen lay on deck where they fell, or whimpered their lives away in those two long rows of savagely mutilated! A few more lanthorns bobbed about, fetched from Proteus, so his own petty officers could survey their own frigate's damage from out-board, or rig thick rope mats as fenders to protect both ships as their hulls thudded together, or… to pick and hunt among the dead and wounded for their shipmates, leaving the French where they were, for now. Triage, but of a different form. From the French quarterdeck, Lewrie could look over at his own ship and shake his head at how many shot-holes and shattered planks he could count in the feeble, bobbing hand-lanthorn lights.
And what's me own "butcher's bill"? he sourly wondered, feeling sick at his stomach, in addition to bone-tired; What'd Twigg tell me, back in London? Save mine arse from the gallows whilst far overseas by doin' somethin'… glorious! He felt like spitting a foul taste from his mouth. This "glorious " enough for 'em, hey? I slay enough Frogs, sacrifice enough o'my people, t'keep me neck, un-stretched? Price is too damned high!
Surgeon Mr. Hodson and Surgeon's Mate Mr. Durant would tell him the cost, soon enough, Lewrie was sure.
He shoved himself erect from his slump on shot-gnawed railings, all but shook himself like a hound to wake himself from his lassitude. With three captured swords under his left arm, Lewrie descended an un-damaged ladderway on the larboard side to pace the main deck and waist of the French frigate, looking up at the cross-deck beams and the boat-tier, where the ruins of cutter, launch, gig, and jolly-boat sat like a pile of gayly-painted scrap lumber.
"Sir…" a voice intruded, and Lewrie turned to face it. Mr. Midshipman Darcy Gamble stood there, tears in his eyes. Nearby, Mr. Midshipman Grace knelt by a still form, just rolling it over face-up. " 'Tis Mister Larkin, sir," Gamble told him, and Lewrie looked down to see the rictus of agony on the poor lad's face, his final expression to the fact of his own hard death, so early in life. And the flickers of Midshipman Grace's cheap tin candle-lanthorn made the lad's wounds even more lurid. "Oh, damn," Lewrie softly muttered. "Poor, wee lad."
"Still has his pistol and dirk in his hands, sir," Grace added, snuffling as he looked up at his captain. "He went down fighting, sir."
"Honourable wounds to the front, aye," Gamble pointed out, striving for the stoicism the Navy demanded, but still on the ragged edge of open sorrow for a fallen mess-mate.
"We cannot let him just lie here, sir, perhaps…" Grace said.
"Time enough for Mister Larkin later, Mister Grace," Lewrie told him, after harumphing to clear his throat. "There's our ship, and our wounded, to see to, first. First, last, and always. Mister Gamble."
"Sir?"
"Pick one," Lewrie told him, extending the three sheathed swords to him, hilts first. "With Lieutenant Catterall fallen, you are now an Acting-Lieutenant, and Third Officer into Proteus. You, Mister Grace, are now our senior Midshipman… for now, our only Midshipman, though there may be a likely lad or two I may advance, later."
"I see, sir," Grace replied, sadly thoughtful.
"Up to you t'show 'em the ropes of table, duties, and cockpit," Lewrie further said, hoping new and demanding duties and responsibilities might take his mind off Larkin's loss.
"Hmm… a bit grand, these, sir," Gamble said, his mouth cocked into a shy moue, selecting the plainer sword, though one with a finer and more serviceable blade. Midshipman The Honourable D'arcy Gamble came from well-to-do parents, and could, when confirmed by Admiralty, easily afford better to wear on his hip, but for now, his choice gave Lewrie an even better estimation of him.