At the sight of the brig's complement of green-uniformed Marines, the Duke stopped short.
"Who the hell are these? Or what?" Hoare had used the identical words when he first saw them, but where he could only summon a whisper, the Duke roared.
"Our Marine detachment, sir," Hoare replied.
"Marines wear red coats, you ass! By whose orders are these men out of uniform?"
"They are trained and equipped as riflemen, sir, and have been uniformed as such."
"By whose orders, I asked you! Are you deaf as well as dumb, sir?"
"Admiralty orders, may it please Your Royal Highness," Hoare said. This would be safe, he hoped.
"It does not please My Royal Highness," the Duke snarled. "That may be the way you sailors run your service, but, by God, you'd never get away with it in the army! Lobsters should be served cooked, not raw. Isn't that so, sir? What what? Isn't it, then?"
"Sir," Hoare said.
"Bah," said the Duke. "Black buttons, indeed. My word. They look like a batch of currants in a spoiled pudding."
Hoping the worst was over, Hoare accompanied H. R. H. down the even lines of Royal Duke's crew. Cumberland halted before one trio and looked down his nose.
"And what are these?" he barked.
He was looking at three reddish gnomes. Hoare had never seen these members of his family himself. They had hidden, or been hidden, from his sight. They made him believe he was host to figures from some obscure Celtic myth.
But Cumberland was obviously waiting for an answer.
"Topmen, sir," Hoare whispered wildly. "Balthazar, Gaspar, and Melchior. Dutchmen, all. They also serve as sappers and miners as required."
"Hmph," the Duke said, and passed on. To Hoare's relief, the Duke did not even notice Taylor as he passed her, perhaps because she had wisely put on a smocked shirt belonging to a larger shipmate. The shirt was a loose fit and obscured her breasts. Since her thick queue was no longer than some of her male shipmates', she gave no clue to mark her sex.
Hancock, the pigeon fancier, had not yet had time to move his birds or disguise their ungainly habitat. The man himself hovered before the ramshackle construction as if trying to hide it from the inspecting party, surrounded by the miasma stench of his breath. Spurrier pretended to gag.
"Good God," the Duke said. "What have we here? Captain of the ship's shambles?"
"Pigeons, sir," Hoare whispered.
"Pigeons? What for, man, eh? For a pye?" At the idea of a feed, Cumberland's heavy-lidded eyes almost gleamed.
"Er… no, Your Highness. Messenger pigeons. But we have laid out a small collation below, sir."
Before he clambered below through the open scuttle that Hoare indicated to him with a bow, Cumberland turned, hands on hips, to look about Royal Duke's deck.
"At least you have the decency to keep your guns polished," he admitted, but then, with a glance, resurveyed the crew he had just inspected.
"This pitiful little barge demeans her title. I shall recommend to me father that he have it renamed, if not sunk. Honey-Barge might suit, what what? Or Dustbin. Ya-as. 'H.M.S. Dustbin.' Hee hee hee."
Hoare knew the people in the neighboring vessels had missed no single word of this.
While the Admiral had not opened his mouth during the Duke's inspection, he had certainly been listening, for his face was purple. Silence did not come easily to flag officers, even in the presence of royalty.
"I shall speak with you later, Mr. Hoare," the Admiral grated as he passed.
Belowdecks with a few selected cronies-including Walter Spurrier, who commenced to snoop about Hoare's belongings-the Duke apparently found matters somewhat more to his liking. Among the dishes offered him as refreshment, he sighted a platter of sherried lobster meats, gleaming in the lamplight on the great cabin table before the stern windows.
"There. You see? Someone here knows the proper color for lobsters. Hee hee hee."
The Duke placed himself before the platter and began to feed. When he had emptied it completely, he turned to Hoare and grunted, "Well, man, at least you keep a good cook. Have him sent to me. I'll put him to use, by Jove. Ya-as."
He looked up from the empty platter through the hastily repaired stern window. Seeing Neglectful lying peacefully in the light rain behind Royal Duke, he grunted again, more forcefully.
"Like the looks of that little boat. Have her delivered to me in Plymouth. With yer cook. Ya-as."
With that, he belched and returned on deck. Spurrier lagged behind him.
"You go to sea in this little thing?" he asked. "Makes me want to spew just to think of it. Can't stand the water, y'know.
"Oh, and by the by, Hoare, stay away from the Nine Stones Circle, d'ye hear? If you should be found there at the wrong time, you'll get a welcome that might surprise you most unpleasantly."
With that, Spurrier turned and followed his master topside.
Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, departed Royal Duke without further ceremony, followed by his snickering entourage. He left her Commander alone on deck, shaken and sick at heart.
For Hoare, this first full day in command of a Naval vessel had dealt him a foul blow and one he had not anticipated. True, Royal Duke's battery was trivial. But at least, he had thought, she could go to sea if permitted and serve as a dispatch ship, if nothing else. Now he knew that he would not dare take her off soundings, if even so far. Her crew would be too seasick to go aloft. Besides, they would have no idea what to do when they got there.
He must berate someone; he needed a cat to kick. There being no cat aboard as yet, Clay would have to do. He was handy, was unable to kick back, and was smaller than Hoare, as well.
"May I ask, Mr. Clay," Hoare whispered as soon as he could get the hapless man below, "how-beginning with this morning's bungled performance… between the mooring and the dock-you contrived to disgrace your ship, your Commander, and yourself so completely?"
Clay's face reddened. "Our hands are untrained, sir," he said. "They are proficient enough at their trades and at ship's housekeeping, but they are totally ignorant of seamanship."
"And whose fault is that, may I inquire?"
Clay could look anywhere, it seemed, except at his Captain. "Only a few Royal Dukes, sir-Iggleden, Joy, the woman Taylor-have ever been to sea at all. None of the standing officers."
"What? Surely…" Hoare could summon no words.
"I could not believe it myself, sir, when I first joined her. But when I discovered that the ships's people had no notion of how to cast off, let alone make sail, and when I began to take the standing officers to task for such neglect of their duty, they assured me that it was actually required of them. In fact, I was shown a document among the ship's papers in which Admiral Abercrombie explicitly forbade her Commander to take her to sea under any circumstances.
"Even worse, sir, I was forbidden to allow any of the crew aloft, even in harbor, unless they were fitted with lubber's harnesses. Virtually every man jack and woman jill might as well have been clerks in some city office. That's what several of them had been, sir, after all," he had the courage to add.
Hoare felt his sacrificial lamb beginning to elude him.
"Instead of using your undoubted creative powers, Mr. Clay," he rasped, "to dream up reasons for having disobeyed my orders… to prepare Royal Duke for an inspection, by royalty, at that, you might better have applied it to finding ways to carry them out."
He cleared his broken throat. He knew very well he was being most unfair, but he needed a cat to kick, and Clay had to be it.
"By the evidence of this morning, your excuse must certainly be true, although you can imagine how it reflects on your own performance
… Nevertheless, it leads me to wonder how you managed to bring Royal Duke around from Chatham and down the Channel to Portsmouth."