"Load!" and the powder monkeys darted forward from the centreline of the deck and handed cartridges to the loaders, then once more dashed below for another, while loaders shoved cartridge down the iron throats of the guns, and the rammer men thumped them home. Round-shot came next, to be thumped in place, too, followed by damp waddings.
"Up ports!" and the gun-port lids were lowered, their blood red inner faces making a chequerboard against the wide, pale yellow horizontal hull stripe.
"Run out!" and gun crews threw themselves on the tackles, heaving 'til the truck-carriages thudded against the bulwarks, the wooden wheels and their ungreased axles rumbling and sqealing. The run-out tackles, blocked to the ring bolts set into the deck, were overhauled, as were the recoil tackles, and gun-captains and senior quarter gunners stuck one hand in the air to show that they were ready, and which was first. The powder monkeys returned with their second cartridges and knelt amidships, where they would bide 'til the artillery fired, and a further supply of propellant charge was needed.
"Marines at Quarters, sir," Lt. Eades reported with a doff of his hat. Sharpshooters were in the fighting tops of each mast, a file of Marines were posted down both sail-tending gangways, and sea-soldiers with bayonetted muskets stood guard at each companionway hatch to make sure that, from that moment, only officers, powder monkeys, Midshipmen, or the Surgeon's loblolly boys, with their stretchers to fetch wounded to the orlop surgery, could go below, or come up. "Arms chests opened, and weapons ready to hand, as well."
"Very good, sir," Lewrie replied.
"The ship as at Quarters, sir," Lt. Ballard reported a moment later.
"Capital, Mister Ballard. Now, heave us in to short stays, and ready to up-anchor," Lewrie bade him, wiping his fingers of fatty-bacon and mustard smears, then his mouth, on his pocket handkerchief.
"Hoist from the flag, sir!" Midshipman Furlow piped up. "The 'Preparative,' sir!"
By God, we're really goin' t'do it! Lewrie marvelled, wondering why he was so calm, for a rare once; Total lack o' sleep last night, I s'pose. His cabin steward, Pettus, took away his tin plate and pewter mug, and headed below. "Take good care of the catlings, Pettus!"
"Aye, I will, sir!"
"Two reefs in the tops'ls, t'begin with, Mister Ballard," Lewrie said, off-handedly, scowling at the sky, the pendant, and the state of the waters of the King's Deep.
"New signal, sir!" Midshipman Furlow cried. "Number Sixty-Eight!"
"We're right here, Mister Furlow," Lewrie chid him with a laugh. "We're not gun-deaf yet, so there's no need t'shout. Save your lungs for later, when it's really noisy. Watch for the 'Preparative' to be struck down. Calmly does it. Else, you set a bad example for the men."
"Hmm," came from Lt. Ballard, almost a snort of disbelief.
"Mister Ballard's your model, Mister Furlow," Lewrie chuckled, "quite unlike me. But I'm a Post-Captain, and allowed my… eccentricities. Shout and cheer, do I feel like it. Do I not, Lieutenant Ballard?" he asked, sidling up to the First Officer.
"Oh, of old, sir," Ballard gruffly replied, staring forward.
"Always have been enthusiastic," Lewrie prosed on, pacing 'til he was before Ballard's vision, and peering at him. "Pretty-much like Lord Nelson, over yonder. It works for him. Right, sir?"
"With no experience serving under that worthy, sir, I cannot in good conscience say, one way or the other," Lt. Ballard intoned.
"The Preparative is down, sir!" Midshipman Furlow announced, in calmer takings; though he was up on his tip-toes with excitement. " 'Weigh, the outer or leeward ships, first,' sir."
"Weigh, Mister Ballard," Lewrie snapped. And in the din of the capstan clacking round, the stamp of sailors breasting to the bars, and the groan of the cable of the best bower coming in through the hawse-holes, Lewrie stepped even closer to Ballard's right ear. "I swear I don't know what your problem seems to be with me B7;tcab, Mister Ballard, but you come over mutely insubordinate, you sneer at me one more time, and I will see you below in irons,… sir!" he harshly whispered.
Lt. Arthur Ballard half-turned his head towards Lewrie, swallowing what bile had sprung to the base of his throat, what reply he would have made, then grimly nodded, his sun-darkened, sea-weathered face going red as he stamped to the hammock nettings to be about his duties.
Sails sprang aloft, even as the best bower was rung up, catted, and fished, and Thermopylae paid off the breeze from her anchorage, a faint wake beginning to form as she gained a bit of steerageway among the many warships preparing for battle, slowly threading her way to join up with Capt. Riou's HMS Amazon.
"A tune, there!" Lewrie yelled. "Desmond, gather the lads, and carry us in!"
A moment later, and the Marine drummer lad, the fifer, Desmond and his uilleann pipes, and the ship's fiddler began One Misty, Moisty Morning, a gay, uplifting tune. Sailors began to stamp their feet in time, and several bellowed out the brief repeating chorus, of "And How D'ye Do, and how d'ye do, and how d'ye do, again!" whenever it came round.
Flags flying from every mast-head, reefed tops'ls, forecourses, and jibs standing, the squadron of twelve line-of-battle ships stood on towards the King's Deep channel, and the waiting Danish guns, sorting themselves out into line-ahead formation, with bomb vessels falling in trail, their sea-mortars prepared to throw shells into the Quintus and Sixtus bastions either side of the entrance to Copenhagen's main naval harbour, and the Arsenal, with six frigates and several armed cutters accompanying them, with barges full of Army troops idling out of gun-range awaiting the call to land and assault Copenhagen itself.
"Uhm, Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker's squadron, sir," Hardcastle said with a worried look on his face. "Last I heard from the civilian masters when we convened aboard the flagship, his part of the fleet was anchored above the Middle Ground… far above the Trekroner Fort."
"Aye, Captain Hardcastle?" Lewrie asked.
"Well, sir, it strikes me that a favourable wind for us will be a 'dead muzzler' for him, and the other eight ships of the line, so…"
"He was to sail, the same time as us, aye," Lewrie said with a faint grin, "though it'll take his ships hours to cover the distance before they can be brought to action. The Danes won't even pay him the slightest bit of attention. Somehow, I'd wager that Admiral Nelson had that in mind, sir. The greater the glory, the fewer to share it."
"God help us!" Capt. Hardcastle said with a shudder. He could have left the ship, his duty done, and been safely a witness aboard Sir Hyde's flagship, HMS London, as safe as houses, but he'd decided to stay and see a naval battle once in his life. Hardcastle had a pair of pistols in his overcoat pockets, and a borrowed cutlass slung on a baldric over his shoulder, but they felt, of a sudden, the frailest pretension, and he found himself suppressing an nigh-uncontrollable shudder in his lower limbs and stomach. "Ye really think…?"
"Captain Riou told me that Parker and Nelson despise each other, by now," Lewrie told him with a wink. "And that Nelson is sure that Sir Hyde should've stayed in bed with his 'sheet-anchor,' his wee 'batter-pudding,' than be trusted with a battle fleet. Don't know, really… but I've seen Nelson in action before, and if anyone can pull this off, then he's your boy. Mad as a hatter, he is. As a March hare."
"God help us," Capt. Hardcastle muttered again.
As Thermopylae came level with HMS Cruizer, anchored off of the very end of the Middle Ground to act as a marker which all other ships would leave well to starboard, the frigate's impromptu band struck up an even livelier tune, Staines Morris, a village dancing song that most knew from the Spring maypole performances; incongruous, yet uplifting.
Aboard HMS Glatton, 56 guns, Capt. William Bligh, of the mutiny fame, scowled and snapped. "Who is in command over there?"