Half-past ten of the morning must have been the tea interval for Admiralty drudges, for a great many men in civilian suitings came out to purchase a mug or cup of tea, and something upon which to gnaw, then trotted back inside to more scribbling and copying.
Lewrie got himself a mug with sugar but no cream, and stepped out of the way for the others, quite near two young men who were sipping hurriedly at their teas and sharing a thin Spanish cigarro, what some tobacco aficionados demeaned as a cheroot. They nodded greetings, hoped he did not mind the drifting smoke, then returned to their conversation, most of which was grousing about their superiors and what tasks to which they were put.
“What about the charts, then, Jemmy?” one of them asked the other. “Dalrymple won’t be happy if our office has to pay for them.”
Lewrie knew that Mr. Alexander Dalrymple was the Hydrographer of the Navy, for the very good reason that it was to that worthy that Lewrie had mailed the up-dated charts and soundings that Lt. Tristan Bury had made of Bermudan waters, just before Lewrie had dragooned him into his little anti-privateering squadron in the Spring.
“Well, he’s in charge of charts and such,” the other breezily said between quick puffs on the cheroot before handing it over. “Even if Admiralty doesn’t print its own. The Board’s decided that all the troop transports, and the Lieutenants assigned to each one, must have them … the Cape of Good Hope, and the separate charts for Table Bay, and Cape Town, Blaauwburg Bay, Saldanha Bay, even Simon’s Bay on the other side of the Cape. If the hired-on transport masters want their own copies, they can buy them, but Admiralty will foot the bill for our people. Now, which office gets the bill, that’s the question!”
“We’ll be dashing all over London to purchase them, or pay for rush jobs to have them printed,” the fellow from the Hydrography Office bemoaned. “Then, we’ll have to amend them all with the latest soundings and hazards! By hand! When will Marsden let us know?”
“His Majesty Head Clerk Swami said the Board will tell him by mid-afternoon … just in time to ruin your evening, hah hah!”
“Gentlemen,” Lewrie intruded, putting his stern face on. “You may believe that discussing what sounds like a secret expedition to Cape Town is safe, here behind the curtain wall, but you never know who might be listening. The matter is better mentioned safely inside the building, if at all.”
“Sorry, sir, we didn’t—,” the young fellow whom Lewrie took to be a junior scribbler in William Marsden’s office said with a shocked look.
“Well, I doubt the tea vendor or the newspaper boys are Dutch, so it might be alright,” Lewrie allowed, giving them a reprieve, and a grin. “Upon that head, though … there is an expedition planning to capture Cape Town from the Dutch? I was there several years ago, and took the opportunity to hunt and ride all over the town and its environs, over to Simon’s Town on False Bay? When you speak with Mister Marsden, pray do you mention to him that Captain Lewrie of the Reliant frigate, who’s waiting word for an interview, may prove useful to the endeavour, hmm?”
“Captain Lewrie and the Reliant frigate, of course, sir,” the young clerk replied, nodding as he committed that to memory. “I shall as soon as I am abovestairs, sir. And, thank you for your caution … about the, ahem.”
“It always pays t’keep mum about official business outside of work hours,” Lewrie congenially agreed, shrugging off the young man’s thanks. “His Majesty’s Government has an organisation to root out any enemy spies, or people who’d profit by givin’ ’em information. You’d be surprised how many they discover.”
The two clerks finished their teas, took their last puffs from the cheroot, and the one from the Hydrography Office pinched the lit end, stubbed and scrubbed it on the sole of his shoes, and stowed it away in a waist-coat pocket for later. A last “good day” and they went back inside to their scribblings and filings.
Now, let’s see if that gets me invited up to the Board Room, Lewrie thought, feeling particularly clever for a rare once; and urgent orders for a hull cleaning!
* * *
Business was suspended for the mid-day meal. Mr. William Marsden trooped down the stairs and breezed out the doors for his dinner with his gaze fixed on the middle distance, acknowledging no one, else some uniformed mendicant on half-pay attempted to catch his eye for a brief word, which would turn into a queue of them. Lewrie followed the herd that left the Waiting Room, to seek his own dinner, but he didn’t go far. Only three blocks away, near Charing Cross, there was a chop-house, a cut above the riskier two-penny ordinarys, where the meat on one’s plate or wood trencher could be cat, dog, rat, or dead horse—and none of them too fresh, either. No one had died of the chop-house.
For six pence he got a pint of ale, a beef pasty which actually tasted like beef even if it was ground, half of a roast potato, and a glob of currant duff. Quite satisfied, and with no immediate sign of food poisoning, he returned to the Waiting Room a bit earlier than the rest, snagged an upholstered chair near the stairs, and scooped up a discarded copy of The Times to while away the rest of the afternoon.
Mr. Marsden returned, again acknowledging no one, and stomped up the stairs to his offices. By two in the afternoon, after another trip to the “necessary” and two more cups of courtyard tea …
“Captain Lewrie?” the “happy-making” clerk called out at last. “Captain Alan Lewrie? Is Captain Lewrie present?”
“Here, sir!” Lewrie replied, shooting to his feet.
“If you will follow me, sir?” the clerk bade. Smiling! That Lewrie took for a good sign.
* * *
“Ah, good afternoon, Captain Lewrie … Sir Alan, rather, I was not aware of your knighthood,” Mr. William Marsden said quite genially from behind his desk, waving a hand to steer Lewrie to a chair.
“Good afternoon to you, Mister Marsden,” Lewrie replied as he sat down and tugged at the set of his waist-coat. “Thank you very much for seeing me on such short notice.”
“Before having you in, I had my clerks look up your latest reports on your Bahamian doings, and the privateering situation which you were despatched to deal with,” Marsden said, carefully leafing through a file folder to scan the pertinent reports he’d sent in to Admiralty before leaving for home. “Settled most satisfactorily, it would seem … for the short term, at least. One may only hope that Captain Henry Grierson applies himself to the task with a determination equal to yours. It is quite disturbing, however, to read your last despatch in regards to his squadron’s arrival, and the panic that ensued. As for him ordering you to strike your flag and surrender the ships of your squadron to his command, I am most perplexed as to why he took that action. Do you have an explanation, Sir Alan?”
“He found me impertinent, Mister Marsden,” Lewrie baldly said, “for pointing out what a lame jape his arrival was, and insisted that his arrival made my squadron moot. Since he thought me so impertinent, he had enough Post-Captains to form a court, so…,” Lewrie said with a weary shrug, then added, “He’s distant kin to Lord Melville.”
“Ah,” Marsden replied with a knowing nod, and a grimace. “At any rate, your initial request for an interview involved a request for dockyard services, I believe?” Marsden went on, referring to a note scribbled on scrap paper by one of his clerks.
“Reliant was taken out of Ordinary in April of 1803, sailed in May when the war resumed, and has been in continuous service in West Indies or semi-tropical waters since, sir,” Lewrie explained. “She is badly in need of a hull cleaning. We’ve been able to keep up with the usual wear-and-tear, and rot, above the waterline, but she is weeded and slow. By next May, she should be due a total docking and re-fit, but … with a careening and cleaning, the replacement of any coppering that might have sloughed off, and some fresh white lead, she can still give good service beyond next May.”