Byard."
"Raw men, that obtains in every ship in the Fleet, Mister Lewrie," Sir Thomas scoffed. "I cannot guess your captain's standards, either, but… were I a younger man, entrusted with such a smart frigate, I'd be over the moon that my crew had shaken down so nicely in such brief practice."
That did not require an answer, until Sir Thomas pressed him to give an opinion; all Alan could do was nod enthusiastically.
"Well, hard as I pressed, I can find no fault in Cockerel, sir. She's weathered my scrutiny smart as paint. All of you did." "Thankee kindly for your good opinion, Sir Thomas." "Keep it up, though," Byard warned in a softer, more intimate voice. "I don't need tell you my admiral's… wroth with you."
"Me, sir?" Oh, damme!
"With Cockerel, I should have said," Byard expanded. "A convoy… a deuced rich Frog convoy, and all that prize-money, lost? And a French national ship allowed a laugh at the Royal Navy's expense. More to the point, sir, at Admiral Cosby's expense, d'ye see."
"I should imagine so, Sir Thomas," Alan nodded somberly.
"Deaf, dumb and blind, swarming about like a fart in a
trance, and cunny-thumbed seamanship… dear Lord, sir!" Sir
Thomas winced, as if recalling his vice-admiral's tirade of the
day before. It cheered Lewrie to imagine that tirade, though; surely Captain Braxton had spent the past six hours in a living Hell, and had gotten at least the afterglow of all that rancour heaped upon his head, soon as he'd gained Cosby's great-cabins.
"Had this ship not performed so well this morning, well, then… heads would have rolled, sir, indeed they would have."
Good God, I saved the bastard from dismissal, Alan wondered? Or did I save myself? No heads to roll, no brutal shaking up, then? What a bleak idea. More of the bloody same! With official sanction!
"Order your officer of the watch to close Windsor Castle, Mister Lewrie," Sir Thomas instructed. "Put us under her lee once more, and I shall take my leave of you."
"Aye, aye, sir. Mister Scott! Stations for wearing ship. Close the flagship, in her lee."
"Very good, sir," Scott rejoined, then began bawling orders.
"That will give me a few minutes to speak with 'Terrible Toby.' Before I do, though…" Sir Thomas concluded with a searching glance.
"Aye, Sir Thomas?"
"Is there anything pertinent I might be remiss in asking, sir? Any matter you'd care to impart concerning Cockerel?'
Oh, Christ, Lewrie sagged in bewilderment; I can't! One simply can't; it's not on. That's insubordination, disloyalty. He seems as if he sees what's going on, but…! It's not a direct order to tell him, it's only a request. God, make it order!
"I… there is nothing which strikes me at present, Sir Thomas," he was forced to intone, though keeping his eyes level and unblinking as he locked gazes with the flag-captain. And hoping the misery and the lack of enthusiasm in his voice might make the first shoe drop.
"I see," Byard harumphed softly. Neither disappointed nor disapproving, but with no hint of approbation for loyalty, either.
Leaving Lieutenant Lewrie to wonder just exactly what the Hell "I see" really meant.
IV
Quae classe dehinc effusa procorum bella!
Ah, what wars shalt thou see when the
suitors pour forth from the Fleet!
– Valerius Flaccus Argonautica, Book 1,551-552
It was surprisingly cool in the Mediterranean. So cool that charcoal braziers and a goodly supply of fuel had to be taken aboard once Cockerel had victualled at Gibraltar. Though the fires had to be extinguished at 9:00 p.m. each evening, along with all glims or lanthorns, their meek efforts did transform the wardroom to a fair measure of comfort, after a four-hour watch in a raw, chill wind.
Fluky, too, the Mediterranean was, compared to other oceans Lewrie had experienced. First of all, there were no tides to reckon with, which could be a blessing. Otherwise, though, he thought it a perverse bitch of a sea; there were perils enough in the irregular and unpredictable changes of currents that could put them miles out of any reliable "fix" of their position. And the winds were wickedly fickle, backing or veering as confusingly as the Bahamas in high summer. The frigate might beam-reach east with the wind steady to larboard in the forenoon watch, yet be taken aback by a capricious shift, and end the day beating close-hauled on starboard tack to make the same easting.
The beaches they saw when close inshore on patrol were pebbly, rock strewn, with only a thin rime of sand beach, and many anchorages were treacherous, rocky-bottom holding grounds-or the worst sort of semi-liquid mud that swallowed anchors, but gave no secure purchase to the flukes.
And there were the dread Levanters-brisk easterlies arising off Turkey, that could roar down in a twinkling with no high-piled bit of storm-cloud warning. At least the Siroccos out of Moorish Africa down south, which could arise just as quickly, were prefaced by bluffs of hazy, sand-coloured cloud fronts, which appeared as substantial as an arid landfall's mountains.
Positively frigid, not cool, was the most apt word for the ship's mood, though. Following the crew's brief moment of rebellion, and Captain Braxton's return from the flagship with his face suffused as a strangled bullock, floggings had abated, though not ended. Some men still had to go to the gratings for real, not imagined, offences. When they did go, their allotted number of lashes still remained high. But Lieutenant Braxton walked smaller, and morosely bitter, about the other commission and warrant officers, no longer the raging pit bull. Neither did the younger Braxton midshipmen tear through the ship, cackling with glee in their hunt for victims, though victims they still discovered, among the foolhardy and the stupid.
What was most surprising to all was the sea change in Captain Braxton. He was rarely seen on deck, and kept to his great-cabins for the most part. Most mystifyingly, those abundant occasions which had summoned him forth in the past, fretful to supervise the least evolution, looming ominously over junior officers and hands alike until they were done to his satisfaction-those he now waved off, and left to his subordinates, unless it truly was serious enough to endanger the ship.
When Lewrie reported to him now, Captain Braxton seemed careworn and spent, as if command of a King's Ship was something with which he could no longer be bothered. Their relationship, never of the best, had degenerated to a stiff, icily formal and punctilious politeness. A rigid nicety between two men of the merest acquaintance, both with the manners of lords, an observer unfamiliar with the situation might have concluded. Yet Lewrie could sometimes espy the quick-darting resentment of old in his glare, hear the tiniest rasp of abhorrence in the man's tone-as if Captain Braxton were biding his time, waiting for some unguarded moment when he could drop his sham of formal politeness, and get his own back.
And the hands… well, they were as efficient as ever they had been, on their best days, that is. They still performed their labours in silence. Yet, in the second dogs before sunset, on the mess deck, some now dared to jape and raise their voices to a somewhat normal level. Lewrie was pleasantly surprised, now and then, to hear the scrape of a fiddle, the peeping of a flageolet, a chorus of rough male voices harmonising over an old song, or a single shaky tenor lilting rhapsodic. Below decks- never on the weather-deck-Cockerel sometimes softly trembled to the stamp of bare, horny feet, as old hands taught new hands the way to do a true tar's hornpipe.