They've forgotten we're here, Lewrie glumly thought one afternoon as his crewmen struggled to strike top-masts and reef in, gasket and lower upper yards almost to "bare poles"; or, that bastard Nepean does know, and means t'punish me past Epiphany!
"Drogue is ready, sir," Lt. Farley reported, looking half like a drowned rat in his sodden tarpaulins.
"See to its deploying, Mister Farley," Lewrie ordered, even more of a drowned rat in a camphor-and-rotting-hide reek of his own, for it was so chilly he'd had to dig out some of his furs from the solo dash into the Baltic weeks before the Battle of Copenhagen.
The frigate had thrashed out fifteen miles to seaward from the shoals of the Dutch coast before the gale had turned into a shrieking Nor'westerly storm, against which Thermopylae could make no progress. Their only choice was to lie-to under try-sails and a thrice-reefed main tops'l, letting out a canvas sea-anchor to check her inexorable drift sternward towards those sand and mud shoals 'til the storm blew itself out… and pray that it did before they were run aground and wrecked. Pray most earnestly!
"The bare yards will act like sails," Lt. Farley hopefully said, peering upward. "'Gainst a wind like this, well… "
"Quite so, Mister Farley," Lewrie replied, though still wondering if Sir Evan Nepean, the long-time First Secretary to Admiralty (no fan of his) who had served the former First Lord, the Earl Spencer, and now served Admiral Lord St. Vincent, "Old Jarvy," might not wish that he come a
cropper; Nepean had despised him more than cold, boiled mutton for years, and Lewrie's acquittal at King's Bench for the crime of stealing a dozen Black Jamaican field slaves to man his old ship must have set Nepean's teeth grinding in frustration. Could Nepean be that petty? Lewrie asked himself; for damned sure, I certainly could be!
"Full 'trick' for the Quartermasters on the helm, sir," Lewrie snapped as the buoyed sea-anchor was paid out over the bows. "Trouble always seems t'come with inattention… when fresh hands take over."
"Very good, sir."
The sea-anchor was a modern one, a large canvas cone held open with an iron barrel hoop worthy of the largest water butt, weighted to keep it under the surface with a light iron boat anchor, at the end of an hundred-fathom cable of four-inch manila. As the cable was let out it felt ineffective for the longest time, 'til the painted buoy bobbed up about one hundred yards ahead of the bows, and the cable went taut, hauling Thermopylae's bows closer to windward.
"Brace yards close-hauled to weather on the larboard tack, Mister Farley," Lewrie ordered, his left hand shoved into the pocket of his fur parka… with his fingers secretly crossed. He had never in his naval career been reduced to using bare yards as substitutes for proper sails, so it was an experiment to him-a life-or-death experiment! Pray God my sham doesn't catch up with me… with us! Lewrie silently wished, for he had never been one of those gladsome sailors who revelled in heavy weather, had never become so thoroughly salted as a tarry-handed "tarpaulin man" a fearful crew should look to as their sure and certain hope of salvation. In 1793, when the war with France had begun, after four idle years ashore playing an equal sham of being a farmer, his first daunting sight of HMS Cockerel's intricate rigging had made Lewrie quail and had left him gawping and grasping for even the proper terms to call them, and many hours off-watch in his little dog's-box cabin poring in secret over his tattered copy of Falconer's Marine Dictionary and other beginners' guides, to keep from being revealed as an utter fraud, and a cack-handed, cunny-thumbed dangerous lubber!
"That seems to ease her, sir," Lt. Farley said at last, sounding as if he'd been holding his breath to see if the sea-anchor and braced bare yards would really work.
"How's her helm?" Lewrie asked Beasley, the Quartermaster of the Watch, and his Mate, Elgie, who stood braced wide-stanced either side of the double-wheel drum and spokes.
"Stiff, with th' relievin' tackle rigged, sir," Beasley replied, shifting his quid of tobacco to leeward, "but she's steadyin', aye."
"Very well, thankee," Lewrie said. "Mister Furlow?" he called for the Midshipman. "Pass word to my steward, Pettus, and Desmond, my Cox'n, and I'll have my deck-chair brought up."
"Aye aye, sir," Midshipman Furlow answered, then stepped to the break of the empty hammock nettings-the ship's people needed their dry bedding for their scant hours belowdecks between calls for All Hands-and bawled the summons to men in the waist.
Lewrie knew he could trust his First Officer, Lt. Dick Farley, his Second Lieutenant, James Fox, as well, to do their best for their ship, but… should things go completely to shambles, he felt he had to be present. Even if he had to engage in one more of his eccentricities. A proper Royal Navy captain should be so stoic a paragon as to stand and pace the windward side of the quarterdeck to set a stout example and inspire confidence… even did he not have the first clue. Lewrie, though, had always been an idle sort. So, after the canvas and wood collapsible deck-chair had been fetched up, spread out, and lashed securely in place, Lewrie sat himself down in it, spread a scrap of oiled canvas like a blanket to keep the sleeting, showering spray off him, and sprawled his booted legs out, as seemingly at ease as a passenger aboard an East Indiaman on a fine morning, and a calmer ocean.
Or, as much at ease as a man could appear as the frigate heaved her bows skyward with showers of salt spray cascading over her, then plunging like a seal with her jib-boom and bowsprit and beakhead rails under, and even larger bursts of white-out clouds of spray bursting to life, and the very fabric of the ship thundering, juddering, and groaning like a tormented ghost at each plunge or rise.
Lewrie tucked his chin down, slanted his hat firmly down atop his eyebrows, and even tried closing his eyes. No, sir! he decided after a minute of that; eyes on the horizon… wherever that is, or I'll go sick as a dog! Which thought made him smile in spite of the circumstances, the well-contained fear, and the danger of wrecking; it would not inspire confidence in the crew if he had to "cast his accounts to Neptune"!
"Some hot broth, sir?" Pettus asked, looking as if the very idea of victuals would empty his stomach, too, but he had to offer.
"I'm fine for now, Pettus, but thankee for asking," Lewrie let on with a forced smile. And damn his eyes for the very mention, Lewrie thought, feeling a brief spate of biliousness that made him belch. "Ah, hmm! Bloody brisk, ain't it, Mister Farley?"
"Amen to that, sir!" Farley shouted back, sounding pleased; as if he was truly one of those odd'uns who relished foul weather. "OfF-watch hands below, now, sir?"
"Aye, make it so, Mister Farley. Let 'em dry out and thaw out for a spell," Lewrie decided. "Hot broth for them, if Sauder thinks he can trust a fire in the galley."
"I will see to it directly, sir," Farley agreed.
Lewrie doubted the roughness of the storm would allow fires to be lit below, but perhaps the offer might mollify Thermopylae's people. With no recall in the offing, they were sullen enough already. For better or worse, this storm, and the risk of drowning in the surf of a Dutch beach, would take their minds off thoughts of de-commissioning and freedom.
Damn Nepean, Lewrie fumed inside, again, as the ship shuddered and tossed, and the storm showed no signs of easing; it'd please him did we all drown!