"No, no," Sir Edward had countered at once, waving off the idea and sloshing a few drops of wine over the papers on his desk. "Better I send a brace of young gentlemen aboard your ship… along with a new officer, your lingering maladies notwithstanding. I'll think of someone… promising and aspiring." Then he'd gotten a fresh sly look.
That had almost put a cold chill down Lewrie's spine, sure that Captain Sir Edward Charles would saddle him with his very best slack-wits, drunks, or droolers.
"But you cannot spare a Surgeon or Surgeon's Mate, sir?" Lewrie had queried, as if it were inexplicable to him.
"With hundreds-nay, thousands-more sick or dying, sir? I think not!" Sir Edward had harrumphed. "You must do your best with what you have in that regard, for I cannot spare anyone."
"Very well, sir. And once Proteus is pronounced clean of disease once more, may I have your permission to hold recruiting 'rondys' ashore, sir?
"But of course, Captain Lewrie," Sir Edward most grudgingly allowed, knowing that the first sign of a press gang or recruiting party setting foot ashore would stampede every able-bodied male on Jamaica to the hills, the threat of death at the hands of the Maroons, bedamned!
"Once manned close to requirements, sir, what would be my orders after that?" Lewrie had pressed.
"Why, put back to sea to patrol, Captain Lewrie." Sir Edward had come nigh to sneering. "Admiral Parker and I will remain here through hurricane season. I think a close patrol of Hispaniola… both the French
half which we just abandoned as well as the Spanish half-you do recall we're still at war with the Dons, do you not? That'd suit quite admirably. Since you have trouble following orders, perhaps a roving commission, 'til you run out of rations, would do quite well. Time apart, to ponder your… faults."
" 'Out of sight, out of mind,' sir?" Lewrie had dared say.
"Completely out of mind and sight, Lewrie. Completely!"
"Very good, sir."
Lewrie loafed on the quarterdeck, under a vast sailcloth awning stretched beam-to-beam to provide a welcome bit of shade and cool dimness. For some reason, the awning seemed to create a breezeway that drew zephyrs beneath it, the way a tent never would. The awning trapped the smell of tar and citron-oil pots, now "doctored" with liberal doses of ground sulfur to "improve" their efficacy, but that was a small price to pay for a breeze to chill the sweat on his shirt and "ice" him down in the process.
Despite the many ill, ship-work continued; stays still had to be tensioned, worn running-rigging still had to be spliced, rerove, or replaced; sails still had to be hung and dried to prevent mildew, and the Sailmaker still had to sew and patch. Emptied kegs still had to be undone and the staves bound up for re-use; decks still had to be scrubbed and washed, laundry still had to be aired, along with bedding, from the gun-deck sleeping quarters, and most certainly from the sick bay. His crew, those of them still on their pins, were having a "make and mend" day, almost a "Rope-Yarn Sunday" of purposeful idleness free of drills, with lashings of fresh fruit and scuttle-butts of fresh water on hand. The gig, launch, and cutter were over-side, angling out from the single bow-painters so their seams and caulking, their planks, could soak up water and swell back to water-tightness.
More hot tar sulfur smells arose from the gun-deck, where hands knelt and crept as they plied heated loggerheads over freshly tarred deck seams to melt the tar and oakum into the gaps to restore water-tightness against the rain, as well. Lewrie saw Midshipman Grace by his father's side, helping him take tentative, weak steps to get his strength back, now that the last bouts of fever had left him.
Lewrie also saw his two new Midshipmen, Mister David Burns, and Mister George Larkin, and he could not help but scowl at them. Burns was a pimply, dark-haired scarecrow, a mouth-breather who gulped quite often… else he'd have drowned in his own spittle. His family had left it late, and had only sent him to sea at fourteen; now, with one certified year at sea, he still gawped about as if just wakened from a trance, wondering where the Devil he was. He was blankly pleasant, a perpetual cypher whom Lewrie was sure had been hustled off to sea for the Navy to care for, for his "young but widowed" mother surely could not, or would not, and probably had promising prospects for remarriage if only she disposed of her hopeless "git." It was an old story.
Young George Larkin was most-like born an unwelcome bastard, an Anglo-Irish by-blow of a wealthy absentee landowner and some daughter of a poor tenant. He was stout, almost knobbly at elbows, knees, and shoulders, possessed of an unfortunate nose so "Irish pugged" that it was more swinish than anything else-he stood a fair chance from drowning did he look up at a driving rain-topped by an unruly shock of straw-coloured hair. Larkin, at least, had some wits about him, a cheerful mien, and an ever-eager anxiousness to please and perservere; quite unlike poor Mr. Burns, who tended to stare, gape, and gulp a lot, with his eyes only half focused on the task at hand. Larkin was poor as a church mouse, his uniform a seedy melange of issue slop-clothing and the cheapest coat, waistcoat, and hat ever found in a trash pile, or looted from a corpse. He was sixteen, with three years of duty at sea, and was at least tarry-handed. Naturally, the crew had taken to the little ape, as they never would with Mr. Burns. They'd pity Burns and try to keep him from tripping over his own feet, but…
Lewrie had conferred with Mr. Winwood and at his recommendation had promoted one of his Master's Mates to make up the sixth midshipman that Proteus rated. Jemmy Merriam, now Mister James Merriam, was mid-twenties and as salty as anyone could wish. Though it was hard to be a "gentleman-to-be" over former forecastle messmates, Merriam was, so far, coping. But, at the same time, Merriam was junior to everyone in the orlop cockpit, even to Burns, Larkin, and little Grace! And how he kept a straight face below with them in the off-duty hours, Lewrie had no idea.
Try as he might, Sir Edward just couldn't conjure up a replacement Lieutenant for them, so Mr. Adair had been confirmed as an officer. Lewrie strongly suspected that Captain Charles had had a few "runners" in mind, each about as thick as an anchor stock, but might have felt that Burns and Larkin were trials enough for his least-favourite captain on station. Even he, at the last, could not be utterly vindictive!
Lewrie had just settled down in his folding canvas and wood deck chair (a contraption that most other "sea-dog" captains would look upon as dangerously luxurious) with his feet up on the taff-rail flag lockers, pennywhistle to his mouth and Toulon curled up napping beside his feet on the lockers. He essayed a scale, then launched into a gay hornpipe, when the midshipman of the watch shouted.
"Hoy, the boat, there!" Mr. Larkin shrilled.
"Hoy, the ark!" a booming voice rejoined. "Is Noah aboard?"
"Who, sir?" Larkin gawped, never expecting such a challenge.
"Your captain, laddy! Buggerin' camels, is he? Both male and female, did he take aboard?" the voice posed, rather loudly.
"Aye, he's aboard, sir! And who would you be, come a'callin'?"
"Colonel Christopher Bloody Cashman, the Lord of Plunder!"