Though, Lewrie felt like gritting his teeth and at times allowing himself a snarl or two, it was mostly pleasant. Even with all his professional concerns weighing on him, the new ship and crew so demanding of his time and interest, Lewrie had reached that moment he always reached, the one which always made him feel so inhuman, so disconnected from what real people should feel… and so guilty for his lack.
The children, no matter how delightful or loving, had grown to be irksome, and he wished for a respite from them and their ados. His lovely, : accomplished wife, so graceful and gracious, so loving, sensible, and affectionate-a woman most men would kill for as a mate!-was becoming an intrusion into his thoughts, his fretting over manoeuvring Proteus seaward, of stocking her, manning her, readying her…! 'Twas her needs her desires took precedence; and her faults and lacks-and her foreboding-reputation!-which rilled his waking thoughts and made him squirm with desperation to be off and free!
It didn't help that Caroline sensed this, as she did so many of his moods by then, and could feel the stand-offish apartness of a driven man beneath his cheerful exterior sham. He was becoming that feckless, uncaring, and ungrateful boor she'd wept about back in Anglesgreen, the one who'd throw off every tie to land and family to dash off at the slightest whiff of tar and salt!
And it really didn't help his feelings of inhuman boorishness that she was so very bloody… good about it! Not so much accepting their separation, or his eagerness for it, really, as she was "bearing up"-like a Christian martyr whose immolation depended on the timely arrival of a waggon-load of kindling. Saintly! She was long suffering, sweet-natured, temperate, and patient to the very end, and not letting her true feelings show even for an instant-for the children's sake, for his sake, and his career's. Though she could put more import into a faint sigh than most people could cram down the muzzle of a 42-pounder fortress gun…!
Her silent patience irked him by then about as much as the antics of the children. "Go on," she as much as said to him, "be a heartless monster. I'll grin and bear it, no matter how sore you hurt me… us. But don't you feel the slightest pangs of guilt?"
Aye, he did, which only made him wish that he could fly away-even sooner or quicker!
Marriages, Lewrie thought, most melancholic, as he waved shoreward at them as they stood forlorn but brave atop the King's Stairs to watch his departure. Christ, who thought them up? Had to've been some hermit in a hair shirt… his little joke on the rest o' mankind/ Or God's more a cynic than we think Him!
The night before, they'd said their goodbyes in a final hour of privacy in his quarters. He'd hugged them all, cajoled them all, and dried more than one set of tears. Now, once Proteus was well on her way downriver, Caroline would take them all back to London for a last round of sights, shows, and shopping before returning to Anglesgreen, their adventures over. His, however, were just beginning. And in a most perilous way too.
The high tide had just begun to ebb, and turn from slackwater. Even though it was an ungodly hour to be up and stirring, he had to make the most of that tide. It was nippy and cool, and the faint hint of sunrise promised a bleak, overcast day, with a whiff of rain on the light breezes, breezes which, unfortunately, stood from out of the Nor'east. The hands stood at sail-handling posts or about the capstan head, their few ship's boys and boy servants ready with the nippers to serve the messenger cable to the thigh-thick mooring hawser. A Medway river pilot stood by the quartermasters on the wheel, clapping his hands for warmth and chatting quite gaily with Mr. Winwood. With impatience, Lewrie could imagine, as he listened to those mittened paws slapping together now and again.
Proteus tried to stream downriver with the turning tidal flow, her stern pointing something near to Nor'east; the direction the Medway ran from Chatham until it got to Gillingham Reach and the sharp bend to the Sou'east. The wind, however, had just enough force to it to shove her down, even under bare poles, so that her bows pointed about due West. Directly against the tide, that wind. It promised to be an eventful morning!
Dear Lord in Heaven, Lewrie thought, deciding that prayers might not go too far amiss; let me get her down to Sheerness… safe. Lady, do you have a soul, remember I ain 't yer enemy? You 're a ship, born and bred, and yer proper place is the sea… so let's get down there. Be perverse as ya wish once there, but… it's me or ya get a real bastard for a captain next time! Christ, I'm daft…
"Very well, sirs," he announced in a voice he thought much too chipper and loud, as he turned away from the bulwarks and the sight of his family and wished Royal Navy captains could cross their fingers for luck in public. "Let us be going, even if it is a windward tide."
They stiffened, ceased their whispered morning chatters, and the tin mugs of coffee were stashed away so they could be about the demanding business. Everyone looked so bloody keen and earnest, masking the fears they felt. Lewrie could almost (but not quite) sympathise.
"Would you recommend we tack or wear off the mooring, sir?" he asked of the river pilot. "Bows to windward or alee?"
"Either'd suit just as well, Captain Lewrie," the pilot replied, with a long, lazy yawn, as if it were no matter to him. "Bows alee'd save a spot o' labour when we get to the bend. But there's bags of sea room alee, sir. Bows a'weather, you'd have to tack at the bend… and do you end up 'in-stays,' well…"
There was that, Lewrie thought; trying to tack in the narrow confines ofthe river bend, most-like with a dozen contrary vessels coming upriver and vying for sea room. Should they not get her bow 'round, she'd drift on the tidal current, right onto the far shore's mudflats! He'd been reading accounts of how to weather the Medway, had tried to recall his one-and-only downriver passage from so long before. That had been with a helpful beam wind from the West-Nor'west. He'd lain awake and schemed, played a tiny paper boat model down the river chart (when Toulon wasn't swatting it halfway to France or Peterborough!) in all imaginable weather conditions. This one, though, was the one he'd feared worst, almost as bad as a leeward tide, with wind and current flowing the same direction, which would have had them dragging anchors astern at the "trip" to keep from being hared along quite out of all control and at a prodigious rate of knots! No, this crew's not well-drilled enough for a proper tack. Alan sighed, feeling his innards shriveling. We 'd muck it, sure \ Fate! It was bows alee for them, and all the sail-handling and helm commands he would give- arse backwards!
"Back and fill, then… bows alee," Lewrie decided aloud.
"Nought t'fear, sir." The pilot yawned again.
Easy for him t'say. Lewrie glowered. Think I'm fearful, do … ?
"Larboard bower's a'cock-bill by the ring-painter, sir," Ludlow supplied, sounding much more agreeable and cooperative this day, now he had something nautical and challenging to do. Or delighting in goading his new captain into folly, Lewrie could also conjure! Taking joy from his dithering and delay. "Shank-painter's free, and we've a stream-anchor prepared astern, as you ordered, sir. Just in case."
"Very well, Mister Ludlow," Lewrie snapped, steeling himself, and for a dread, blank moment trying to recall what commands to issue and in what order. He cast a glance aloft at the commissioning pendant to see how strong the wind was and whether it was steady or not. It was firmly out of the Nor'east, dead foul of the tide and river.