"Well, absolutely, sir," Lewrie said with half a grin. "Those all go, pretty much without saying, in the Fleet."
"Good," Braxton nodded, relaxing a bit. "Good, then."
"Might I inquire how long Cockerel has been in commission, sir?" Lewrie asked, eager to get on more mundane matters.
"Six weeks," Braxton shot back, sounding as if he was boasting, yet scowling as if it were one of Hercules' Twelve Labours. "And, no thanks to that incompetent fool, Mylett. Your predecessor, d'ye see? Slack, idle, cunny-thumbed as a raw landsman… how he ever gained his commission, I cannot fathom. Could have been done in four, sir. Four weeks, I tell you! Were it not for his dumb insolence, his belabouring of ev'ry matter. His idiocy. There's a war on, but Lieutenant Mylett'd not be stirred to energetic action. And obstreperous with me, to my ev'ry instruction! Like it was peacetime, hah!"
"I must say, though, she's…"
"Another thing I'll tell you straightaway, Mister Lewrie," the captain grumbled, like far off broadsides. "It is my wish, nay… my abiding order, that Cockerel distinguish herself in ev'ry instance. Sailhandling, gunnery, stationkeeping… in action, should it come our lot. Cockerel shall be the most efficient command in the Fleet, or I'll crush those who fail her, like cockroaches! And the ones who fail me, d'ye see, sir?"
"Aye, aye, sir," Lewrie all but gulped at Braxton's almost fanatical devotion. Damme, he thought; don't think I'm going to enjoy this.
"She will be the triggest vessel, the cleanest, the best!" her captain announced with righteous heat. "Her crew the keenest, officers the most unerring and watchful. Or I'll know the reason why."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"She's full of raw landsmen, idlers and waisters. Pressed and turned-over hands. Her professionals 've spent too long in-ordinary, too long swinging 'round the best bower-rode at peacetime slackness. Frankly, Mister Lewrie, there're people aboard, commission and warrant, who need hard stirring. They've set too long, like treacle. Mister Scott, that burly popinjay… frankly, sir, there're men aboard need afire lit under their fundaments. Too few upon whom I may completely rely. I trust you will be one of those, sir. Indeed I do." Braxton leaned over his desk intently.
"I'm certain you may, sir."
"We shall see, won't we?" Braxton smiled of a sudden, relaxing and turning cheery. "For the nonce, get yourself settled in, make the rounds, get to know the senior people. You'll find my Order Book in your cabin… unless Mylett added theft to his long list of crimes. You will find my ways demanding, sir. But they are my ways, and they work. As for our needs concerning hands and such, I strongly adjure you to get on good terms with our second officer. He stood in as acting first lieutenant the last week. I' d hoped… well. If Cockerel is near-complete in her recommissioning, you have his efforts to thank for it. Once we discovered what a total disaster Mylett was. You'll find his insights more than useful."
"I see, sir," Lewrie temporised. Too damn' right, he'd toe the line and walk small about his new captain. But defer to a junior officer? Not bloody likely. "Will that be all for now, sir?"
"Hmm, aye, I s'pose so."
"Then I will take my leave, sir," Lewrie announced, getting to his feet, and almost cracking his unwary skull open on the deck beam directly over his chair. "Bit out of practice," Alan shrugged, turning crimsonly abashed. "Civilian overheads, hey, sir?"
"Hmmmm." Braxton gave him a second, more searching appraisal. And frowned as if he didn't much care for what he saw.
Alan gained the quarterdeck, relishing the cool, brisk dampness of the winds upon his overheated face. He knew that captains in the Royal Navy came in a myriad of forms; and most of those… eccentric. But Braxton was a new form in his experience, and he was almost relieved to have escaped unscathed. So far.
What a cod's-head's error, he sighed to himself-conking myself addlepated on a deck beam! Like a raw, whipjack midshipman! Which thoughts made him wonder just how rusty (and treacly!) he really was after four years on half-pay. And what had ever possessed him to thirst for a sea commission. It was Lewrie's curse to be burdened with a touch more self-awareness and introspection than the run-of-the-mill Sea Officer. He knew his faults; they were legion. Predominant among them was a fear that he would be found wanting someday, that his swaggering reputation far exceeded the competence upon which such a tarry odour should be based. That he was a thinly disguised sham.
He glanced about the quarterdeck, the wheel, the guns and their tackles. He gazed aloft up the mizzenmast, naming things to himself, recalling the pestiferously quirky terms real seamen used. Braces, lifts, jears, clews, harbour gaskets, lubber's hole in the mizzen top, ratlines strung on the side-stays, and… and what the bloody hell were those?
Tensioning shrouds strung spider-taut from larboard to starboard stays below the mizzen top, they were… oh, Jesus! Uppers were called catharpins… lowers? Swifters! Right, swifters. There's a backstay outrigger… travellin' backstay? No, breast-backstay outrigger, there is the travellin' backstay… there, the standing.
Christ, what a dunce you are, you poxy clown! It'll come to me. It'll come, soon as I'm pitched in-I think. It had better.
He determined that, in the shank of his first evening aboard, he would, on the sly, swot up on his tarry, dog-eared copy of Falconer's Marine Dictionary. Along with the peculiarities of Captain Braxton's idiosyncratic Order Book.
"Excuse me, sir. You are our new first?" another intruded upon Alan's glum musings of disaster.
"Aye," he replied, happy for any distraction at that moment.
"Allow me to name myself, sir… Dimmock, sir. Nathan Dimmock," the other fellow informed him, doffing his hat in salute. "The sailing master. Your servant, sir."
"Lewrie. Alan Lewrie, sir," he responded with a like courtesy.
Dimmock was a sturdy fellow, bluff and square, just a bit shorter than Lewrie; soberly dressed in a plain blue frock coat, red waist-coat and blue breeches. Before he clapped his hat back on, Alan saw that he wore his hair quite short, barely over his ears on the sides, with a tiny queue in back.
"Well, Mister Dimmock, how do you find Cockerel, sir?" Lewrie asked him.
"An excellent ship, sir," Dimmock replied. "A most excellently crafted vessel, sir."
"Been aboard long, have you?"
"Five weeks, sir, my mates and I."
"So your department is prepared for sea, in all respects?"
"There are some charts I lack, Mister Lewrie, sir, but other than those, we are ready, aye."
"But not the entire ship, I take it?" Lewrie pressed, mystified by the stresses Dimmock put on his words. Dimmock all but grimaced, inclined his head towards the open skylights in the coach top, then began to mutter his answer. Lewrie got the hint. He put his hands in the small of his back, and paced slowly away forrud to the nettings overlooking the waist, for more privacy.
"If I may speak plain, sir?" Dimmock grimaced again, as if he were fearful that his words would come back to haunt him, even so.
"As long as you do not speak insolence, sir," Alan chid him in a grim tone. As first lieutenant, he must quash the first sign of any carping or backbiting against his captain, no matter what he thought personally.