Fond regards, and it don’t hurt. Well! he mused. All he did was shrug. Chalky, tired of scattering paper, crawled into his lap with some mews for attention, and a Mrrk or two, and settled down to be stroked and petted, slowly beginning to rumble and go slit-eyed.
There was a rap of a musket butt on the deck, the stamp of the Marine sentry’s boots, and a shout to announce Yeovill, his cook.
“Enter!” Lewrie called back, not rising.
Yeovill came in, shaking water from his tarred sailor’s hat and dripping raindrops from his tarpaulin coat. Chalky perked up in a trice, uttered a glad mew of welcome, and went dashing to Yeovill; Yeovill was food, and good smells.
“Fickle,” Lewrie chid him after the cat leapt away. “What is it, Yeovill?”
“Ah, I was wondering about the holidays, sir,” Yeovill began, “and what you might have in mind to serve to dine in our officers and such, sir. With the trade cross the Lines so free, now, I can find almost anything you wish … hams, geese, ducks, even turkeys.”
“Hmm,” Lewrie happily pondered for a moment, “smoked Spanish hams are always fine, but … a really big Christmas goose’d go down well. Devil with it, you might as well pick up one of everything, and we’ll have a two-day feast!”
“Ehm, I was also wondering if we could do something special for the ship’s people, too, sir,” Yeovill went on with his eyebrows up in hope. “A goose or turkey for each eight-man mess, perhaps, with shore bread, puddings or duffs, and fresh vegetables?”
“Good Lord, how would Tanner ever cook all that?” Lewrie jeered. “The only method that one-legged twit knows is ‘boil,’ and boiled goose is worse than cold, boiled mutton!”
“I was thinking I could find someplace ashore, sir, to roast whatever I could find, and have it rowed out,” Yeovill went on.
“Hmm,” Lewrie pondered, again, considering the drawbacks of that. On the days that salt-pork or salt-beef was issued to the hands, it came in the form of eight-pound chunks or joints chosen by weekly-appointed messmen from every eight-man dining arrangement. Once chosen, the meat went into that mess’s string bag with a numbered brass tab to identify it, and once boiled to a fare-thee-well, it and the accompanying bread or bisquit, duffs or hard puddings, soup, beans or pease, were hand-carried from the galley to the messes. The meat was sliced into roughly one-pound portions—less all the bone and gristle that the crooked jobbers left on—and doled out.
“’Oo shall ’ave this’un, then?” Lewrie said, chuckling, in an approximation of lower-deck accents. “Only two legs on a duck or goose, Yeovill, and everyone’ll want one. Then there’s the problem of how they’d deal with the carving, and what you’d do with the left-overs.”
“Well, perhaps they’d stuff themselves so full, there wouldn’t be any, sir,” Yeovill suggested, “and if they slice it off in slabs, they could reach over for seconds.”
“I don’t know…,” Lewrie fretted, stroking his chin. “Sailors are a conservative lot, and not exactly welcoming to new foods, as we have learned, hey?”
When his old frigate, Reliant, had been off the American coast, the crew had turned their noses up at plain boiled rice, and now his people aboard Sapphire weren’t fond of couscous, either, and had sent a round letter aft to complain, the spokesmen’s names arranged in a circle round the margins of the paper so no one could be singled out as the instigator.
And when it came to drink, well! The Navy could substitute wine in foreign waters for their rum, but to do that too often could result in loose cannon balls rolling over the lower decks, an ancient precursor to out-right mutiny. No, Jack Tar would have his rum and his small beer, and all else was so much foreign fiddle-faddle!
“Ah, well, sir, it was only an idea,” Yeovill said, slumping.
“Fresh-slaughtered bullocks’d be best for the holidays, shore bread, and sweet duffs … and of course we could ‘splice the mainbrace’ for the rum issue on Christmas Day,” Lewrie decided.
“Real ale with the meal, sir, not small beer,” Yeovill suggested quickly, “a pint apiece with no ‘sippers’ or ‘gulpers,’ and that might make them happy. There’s pasta available by the bushel, too, and I doubt Tanner could ruin big pots of cheesy pasta. I could see to the melting of the cheese, as a side dish.”
“Small beer with the meal,” Lewrie countered. “I’ll not have ’em suckin’ ale down in one go, then turnin’ angry when they don’t have anything more t’drink with their beef. God, next thing ye know, I’d be labelled a ‘Popularity Dick,’ and discipline’d go straight to Hell. By the by, Yeovill, you’ve a cat ready t’climb your leg,” he slyly pointed out.
Yeovill reached down and swooped Chalky up to cradle against his chest, where the cat sniffed eagerly at all the galley aromas on his clothing, then just as quickly tired of being held, and fussed and wiggled to be freed.
“Like I just said, Yeovill … fickle,” Lewrie said, grinning.
“Aye, sir,” Yeovill said with a grin of his own.
“Yes, we’ll think of something t’brighten their lives when the holiday comes round,” Lewrie began to sum up, but stopped and cocked an ear as someone on deck challenged an approaching rowboat, yelling over the loud drumming of the rain, but impossible to make out what was said in the snug great-cabins.
A moment or two later, though, and the Marine sentry was reporting Midshipman Griffin to see the Captain. Lewrie bellowed for him to be admitted, and rose to his feet as the lad came in, dripping even more rainwater from his tarpaulin coat.
“A letter from shore for you, sir,” Griffin announced, handing over a sealed square of paper.
“Thankee, Mister Griffin, you may return to duty,” Lewrie said as he tore it open, “and try not t’drown out there.”
“Aye, sir!” Griffin replied with a laugh.
“Mine arse,” Lewrie said, groaning after he had read it. “Get out my boat cloak, if ye please, Pettus. It seems I’m summoned out in the rain. Pass the word for my boat crew to muster, Yeovill.”
“Yes, sir. Uh … your supper?” Yeovill asked as he threw on his tarpaulins once again.
“Not a clue, sorry,” Lewrie said as he fetched his own coat and donned it, and selected his oldest, foul-weather, cocked hat from the pegs. “If I’m back aboard in time for it, I may have t’draw whatever the crew’s havin’, else I may dine ashore if anyone’s feelin’ charitable after.”
* * *
The summons had come from General Drummond, now the commander of the Gibraltar garrison and defences, for him to attend that worthy at the earliest possible moment. It was a miserable and soggy trip ashore in his cutter with his voluminous boat cloak wrapped round him and covering his thighs; even so, water had trickled down the back of his neck, and when the wind got up in a gust or two, and the rain came half horizontal, almost blinded him and soaked his face and his shirt collars. After that, it was a long, wet plod up to the Convent, almost wading through some patches and puddles as rain sluiced downhill along the steep cross streets.
Wonder what the bloody rush is about? he wondered as he handed his hat and cloak over to an attendant, shooting soggy cuffs and readjusting his neck-stock, and looking round. The army headquarters was as hushed as a church on Monday, not stirring to some alarm over a sudden crisis. His boots rang on the stone flooring, though in point of fact, doing so rather squishily as he approached Drummond’s office doors. Lewrie announced himself to a junior officer in the outer office, and was seen in.
“Ah, Captain Lewrie,” Drummond said, looking up from papers on his desk, and rising to greet him. “So sorry to have sent for you on such a day, but … there it is. Tea, sir?”
“Most welcome, sir, thankee,” Lewrie replied.
Uhoh, Lewrie thought, almost wincing as he spotted Mountjoy and Deacon seated apart from the desk, in front of the large fireplace; it must be something hellish if they’re here, too!