When the last shot had been fired, Lewrie called for his cox'n and boat to be rowed over to Halifax. Pointedly, he did not change to a clean uniform, nor scrub his face and hands; the greyness of his uniform from the gun smoke fog would speak for him.
"Excuse me, sir," Mr. Shirley said, just before he could leave the quarterdeck for his gig, and a salute from the side-party. "That poor lad Sevier passed over, sir. And Mister Nicholas… the slash on his arm quite shattered it. We had to take it off, just below the shoulder, Captain."
Lewrie blanched. "Nothing else to be done?"
"No use of it, now, sir," Mr. Shirley replied, "and no feeling in it at all. Half-severed, already, and why he didn't exanguinate on the dock before your boat fetched him is a wonder, Captain."
"Very well, then, Mister Shirley," Lewrie said with a mournful sigh. "You did your best for him… for them both. Thankee."
"We were lucky with you, sir," Shirley admitted. "Those boys, well… there's only so much modern medicine may do, sorry to say."
"Well, then…" Lewrie lamely said in answer, unconsciously massaging his left arm, and turning away.
"Damn you, Captain Lewrie! Damn you for blatant insubordination and arrogance!" Captain Blaylock howled, as soon as Lewrie had been let into his great-cabins under Halifax?, poop. "You frigate captains are all alike, damn your blood… swaggerin' cock-a-hoops who think they hung the bloody moon\ I will lay formal charges before Admiral Parker and see you court-martialed! I'll see you broken, d'ye hear me?"
"That is your right, sir," Lewrie wearily replied, prepared for a "cobbing" since mid-afternoon, and steeled beforehand for any abuse that the choleric Captain Blaylock had in his shot-lockers. "It will also be my right to point out to the court that I was unable to clear the mooring, since I was engaged in supporting the Army ashore. With testimony from the Royal Artillery officers aboard at the time, or the testimony of Brigadier Sir-"
"Blazing away at nothing!" Blaylock bellowed back. "Firing off blank charges, just to excuse your insolence! Firing blind!"
"Indirect fire, sir… lofting grape and cannister to harass the slave troops," Lewrie pointed out.
"There's no such bloody thing!"
"There is now, sir," Lewrie responded, almost ready to chuckle in genuine insolence, too tired and sad to let Blaylock's insults get to him. The only thing that irked was the presence of Halifax 's lieutenants, summoned aft to watch their captain take the hide off an upstart. Lewrie snuck a peek from the corners of his eyes at them; some of the six seemed to enjoy the show, though the much put-upon Duncan and others seemed ashamed of the spectacle, their eyes on the painted deck covering. Disputes between Post-Captains, personal or professional in nature-most especially taking another officer to task or upbraiding a midshipman, petty officer or mate-was not to be done in public. If there was no way to find privacy, it was to be done out of earshot, with no noticeable vitriol or raised voices.
Good officers, good captains don't do it this way, Lewrie told himself; but Blaylock, well… says it all, don't it?
"It's impossible, damn your eyes!" Blaylock insisted.
"Then I suggest you ask of Captain Wandsworth, Royal Artillery, sir," Lewrie coolly rejoined. "He's rather proud of what we did, and is simply panting t'write a paper on it for the Royal Society. Oh, I dare say he'll take all the credit for it, call it the Wandsworth System of Supporting Fires, but he needed Royal Navy guns to do it, sir."
Lieutenant Duncan and three others stifled smirks of glee, even snorts of taboo laughter. There then came a rap on the door.
"Come!" Captain Blaylock snarled, and a wary-looking midshipman entered the great-cabins. "Well, what the Devil is it?"
"Excuse me, Captain sir, but Brigadier General Sir Harold Lamb has come aboard, and…" the boy managed to stutter.
"Well then, fetch him in, damn yer eyes!" Blaylock snapped.
The midshipman gulped, reddened, and dashed out of sight, coming back a long moment later to hold the door open while an Army officer and an aide-de-camp entered the great-cabins, ducking under the beams overhead, and almost managing not to knock their white wigs askew, or bang their noggins on the polished oak.
"Captain Blaylock?" the general officer in all the gilt lace and gimp enquired, fanning his sweaty face in the close warmth of the cabins.
"Sir Harold, sir… welcome aboard," Blaylock said, turning as unctuous as anything and practically oozing from behind his desk to go seize the brigadier's hand. "A glass of something cooling, hey? Well met, sir, well met. Our arrival was more than welcome, I'm bound."
"And without notification, Captain," General Lamb said. "Yes, I am a touch dry."
Blaylock snapped his fingers at his steward, who sprang to the wine cabinet for glasses and claret.
"I've despatches from General Maitland for you, Sir Harold. He related to me, verbally, though"-Blaylock all but simpered to be "in the know" from the elevated Maitland's own lips-"that your troops were to be re-enforced with the garrisons of Gonaives and Saint Marc. We picked them up on our way, d'ye see. The other small ports twixt here and there were to concentrate on Port-Au-Prince. From the sound of it ashore as we arrived, I got my convoy in just in the nick of time, haha!"
Sir Harold took a seat without being bade, opened wax seals upon his orders, and shifted under a coin-silver overhead lanthorn to read them quickly, reaching into his ornate coat for a pair of spectacles that he held close to the page like a quizzing glass. He looked up briefly as Blaylock's steward placed a glass of wine on a small round table by his chair, nodded his thanks, then returned to his letters, a deep frown growing on his wrinkled face.
"That should be all, gentlemen, you may go," Blaylock said to his lieutenants. "You too, Lewrie. I will send you a letter aboard in the morning," he warned, turning pointedly frosty and stern.
"You're Captain Lewrie?" Sir Harold brightened, lowering letter and specs and rising to his feet, dodging a deck beam at the last moment as he came to Lewrie, hand out. "Spoke to Wandsworth. God bless you, sir, you and your ship! Never seen the like in thirty years as a soldier! Without your good offices, I dare say my lines would be completely rolled up by now, and an entire regiment massacred!"
" 'Twas a risky experiment, General," Lewrie said, shaking hands with Lamb. "But with your Captain Wandsworth's able and eager direction, him and his aide Lieutenant Scaiff, we thought it worth trying. Spur of the moment, all that?"
"Which succeeded admirably," Lamb prosed on, pumping away with belated joy. "Your two brave lads, who went ashore to signal?"
"One passed over, sir. The other lost his arm," Lewrie related, turning sombre again. "Should've sent older men, Commission Officers, or gone ashore myself, instead of…"
"Weren't to know, Captain Lewrie," Lamb assured him. "War ain't predictable, or clean. You pick men for such, send 'em off with your fingers crossed, even those in a 'forlorn hope' to breach the walls of a fortified position, never knowin' what the butcher's bill will be. The sorry price to pay for holdin' command over men. But, our duty. Should've seen him, Captain Blaylock, him and his ship this morning," he told the
stricken Blaylock, who stood with mouth agape in anguish. "Put out boats and rowed his ship into the shallows, and just in your 'nick of time,' too, else I and most of my troops would've been slaughtered long before you rounded the far point. Ah, but we surely know we can count on the Navy to save our hides, hey, sir? Do you let me make free with your claret, I'd admire to offer a toast to Captain Lewrie and his ship…"
"HMS Proteus, sir," Lewrie supplied, beaming with pleasure; and sensing salvation from Blaylock's bile, and a court-martial.
"Saw Major James lead a re-enforcement inland, General Lamb. I wonder how he fared?" Lewrie asked, as Blaylock's steward fetched out another glass and poured a brimming bumper. "Is he well?"
"Caught 'em strung out and disorganised, he did, sir. Carved 'em thin as a roast at a two-penny ordinary!" Lamb boasted. "Gave 'em the bayonet and ran 'em back into the woods… where your grapeshot and cannister strewed 'em six ways from Sunday! Oh, James got a cut or two, and I doubt his tailor'd approve, but he's main-well. I will tell him you asked of his welfare?"