Lewrie leaned close, hissing his words in a harsh whisper, for security against being too manipulative; after all, he'd seen enough aboard Jester of a pagan sea-god's ways to tread more than a touch wary. And he never. wished his beliefs… or his seeming beliefs… to be bandied about.
"And then… the touch of that lad's merest hand and… down the ways she went, groaning over it… but going," Lewrie purred seductively. "Did they bless her… the right way? The old, lost way? Did she accept the name Proteus as a huge jape on everyone, in spite of them? Take water and swim the world's oceans and bedamned to 'em, Mister Pendarves? Knowing that Proteus, Nereus, or… Lir, it makes no diffrence, for they're all the same long-lost, forgotten sea-god?"
There, he'd invoked it, feeling another shiver of awe-fear!
But his tarry-handed, stout-thewed Bosun had wavered away to the thick base of the main-mast, hard by the break of the quarterdeck. Pendarves laid a hand on the mast's anti-boarding pike beckets (never the mast itself, for that was bad luck!) almost reverently. He gazed up its height, the convoluted maze of rigging and spars, then down at the white-planed and sanded deck planks-and began a crafty smile.
"It could be as you say, sir," Pendarves said at last, swallowing as if he had a massive lump in his throat. "That'd mean she ain't a cursed ship."
"Nothing we could print on the recruiting handbills," Lewrie agreed, "but could say on the sly at the 'rondys'… you and some of the other respected senior hands. West Country men, hmm?"
"Aye, sir." Pendarves grinned wider, brightened by the prospect of a "run" ashore in the pubs.
"I'll see you in the early-early then, Mister Pendarves," Lewrie said in dismissal. "We'll give this new ship of ours a thorough inspection. Warn the others so they'll not show too badly. But not so much warning they think they can pull the wool over my eyes… hmm?"
A good beginning, Lewrie rather smugly deemed it, after doffing his hat and ascending the larboard ladder to his quarterdeck for a moment of reflection before taking a look at his new great-cabins.
As long as I've not gone and doomed my arse, he thought; being too damned boastful or… sacrilegious?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Proteus rounded up, coaxed, (or flat-out lied to) another fourteen seamen or lubbers from Chatham, volunteers who were of a mind to take to the sea. It was a pitiful result, for all of Lewrie's, Ludlows's, and Pendarves's efforts at recruiting ashore. They were still shy of the ninety-one seamen allotted, about a dozen shy of the twenty-two servants (who could quickly learn the seamen's trade) recommended for a vessel of their size and gun-power. Then the pool of possibles had dried up, turning further recruiting I work into frustrating futility.
It didn't help their cause, Lewrie most-sourly thought, that the mutinies at Portsmouth and Plymouth were still going on. News had come that retired Admiral Lord Howe-"Black Dick, the Seaman's Friend"-would be coaching down to Portsmouth and Spithead to negotiate an end to it, giving hopes of a final settlement. But desperate as England was for closure, most men of a mind to volunteer were holding out 'til the settlement had been reached and what demands the illegal working-men's guilds and underground organisations and the penny-tract writers were making to tack onto the settlement with the Fleet were inciting even more truculence and resistance to taking the Joining Bounty, when it might be worth more in a fortnight, when shipboard conditions and rations might be better!
There was nothing for it but to work what few they had into the basic stages of "River Discipline" and hope for the best. The Impress Service could not help them, and Lewrie's old captain, Lilycrop, wasn't the Reg. ulating Captain of the Deptford recruiting district any longer, so Lewrie was reduced to shaking the staleness off his few experienced hands and drilling a semblance of nautical lore into his wooly-headed new-comers so they could get downriver to Sheerness in one piece.
Sheerness and the Nore was where they'd find sailors; at least more warm bodies who could be driven or bullied into something nigh to sailors The receiving hulks and out-dated, line-of-battle ships there were crammed full of them. Admiral Buckner, the officer commanding at the Nore, had written back claiming that his static flagship, Sandwich, had a crew of nine hundred with an additional five hundred "volunteers" aboard. As soon as Proteus arrived, he'd be more than happy to ease his over-crowding.
Getting there to lay hold of them though…!
Proteus would have to work her way down the crowded, teeming, bendy Medway, a river simply heaving with brisk tidal flows, cross-swept by perverse winds from over marshes and lowlands, flanked by reeking mudflats and shoals, and the navigable channel reduced to a cart-path by the rapid ebbs, which narrow navigable channel was then even more crowded by a myriad of sailing barges, scows, fishing boats and coasters, tenders, merchant vessels, and other warships, all seeking the same precious, safe, and scant ribbon of deep water.
Proteus could run ashore, take the ground and be stuck for days on the shoals or mudflats, or half-wreck herself in collision with some other vessel, most especially one of those bastardly civilian captains of a towing scow with a long string of barges astern of him, who seemed to derive their sole pleasure in life from making things difficult for everybody else. Or collecting high damages from the smash-ups!
Lewrie dreaded the necessity, but finally had to admit that he had no other choice. It was sail-and risk his ship and career upon the vagaries of the river and its traffic-or admit defeat.
He had his Sailing Master in and swotted up every text he possessed which might offer a clue as to how he might pull this off without that career-ending disaster he feared so much.
"Nought to fear, sir," Mr. Winwood assured him, though looking a trifle askance at just how tarry-handed his new captain really was… "Know the Nore like the back o' me hand. And the river pilotsil see us safe, sir."
A last supper aboard, with his officers invited to dine in the great-cabins with his wife, children, and ward; he'd borrowed furniture from the officers' gunroom to seat everyone.
And for a man nigh to sweating pistol-balls (or at least fine buckshot by then!) it had turned off quite convivial and a most musical evening. He'd learned by then in his life how to disguise his trepidations and sure-to-God knew how to be witty and amusing. With Caroline and her flute, he and his more-modest flageolet, they had had a round of tunes with their after-supper brandy, and Lieutenant Wyman had produced his violin, at which he was better than passing-fair. Lieutenant Langlie of the romantic locks also proved himself to be a vocalist of some ability. And while Sophie was deprived of her harpsichord, she had sung along in an angelically high voice. With her eyes ashine in admiration of someone other than the beastly Harry Embleton for once, for several, in point of fact. Young Lieutenant Wyman's musical ability and his infectiously amusing air; Lieutenant Langlie's voice and his bronzed features-even a brace of the older midshipmen! For their last time together, it had really been quite gay, and Lewrie and Caroline had shared pleased glances that things had gone so well regarding Sophie and her brief exposure to a wider world and the variety of young men her age in it! Sewallis, Hugh, and Charlotte had even (mostly) behaved well!