“Aw, Able Seaman Breezy lays Ordinary Seaman Joke open from ’is gullet ta ’is weddin’ tackle, an’ you’d stop somebody’s grog?” Turner gaped at this dangerous notion. “Somebody says ‘no’ ta me when I tells ’im ta do somthin’, an’ you’d take his baccy from ’im?”
“Nothing like the cat ta make ’em walk small about ya,” Finnegan said firmly.
“I had a captain who had a hand who could not stop pissing on the deck. Learned it in his alley, I’ve no doubt,” Ashburn told them. “Grog, tobacco, nothing helped. Had him flogged, a dozen to start. Nothing worked. Finally tied him up in baby swaddles, itchy old canvas. Had to see the bosun whenever he had to pump his bilges and be unlocked. That cured him.”
“Shamed ’im afore ’is mates, too,” Finnegan said. “Felt more like a man iffen ’e’d got two-dozen an’ they learned him the right way.”
“Flogging is not always the best answer,” Ashburn said with a saintly expression. “Some intelligence must play a part.”
In the middle of their discussion, they heard the call of the bosun’s pipes. Then came the drumming of the Marine to call them to Quarters, bringing a groan. “Damme, not another drill,” Lewrie said. “I know we were terrible this morning, but do we have to go through it all afternoon?”
He raced up to the lower gun deck, where the crew had been having their meal. It was a mass of confusion as hands slung food into their buckets and bread barges, stowing everything away out of sight and slamming their chests shut. Tables had to be hoisted up to the deckheads out of the way so they could fetch down the rammers, crows and handspikes to serve the guns, grumbling at their lost meal.
Ariadne turned slightly north of their westerly course as the gun captains came up from the hanging magazines with their tools of the trade. By then, chests and stools and eating utensils had been stacked on the centerline out of the way of the guns, and the tompions were being removed. Ship’s boys arrived with the first powder cartridges borne in flashproof leather or wood cases.
“Another drill, sir?” Lewrie asked Lieutenant Harm.
“No, you fool. We’ve sighted a strange sail.”
“Oh, I see, sir…” This could be a real fight, a chance to do something grand … maybe even make some prize money. No, what am I saying? This is Ariadne. We’ll lose her or she’ll turn out to be one of our packets …
Little Beckett came scuttling down from the upper deck and went to Lieutenant Roth. “The captain’s respects, Mister Roth, and would you be so good as to attend to the lowering of a cutter for an armed party to go aboard the chase once we have fetched her,” he singsonged.
“My compliments to the captain, and I shall be on deck directly. Wish me luck, Horace,” he said to Harm. “If she’s a prize, I may be the one to take her into port. What an opportunity!”
Roth fled the deck as though devils were chasing him.
Horace Harm? Lewrie thought, stifling a grin with difficulty. No wonder he’s such a surly Irish beau-nasty.
“Arrah now, fuck you, Jemmy Roth,” Harm muttered under his breath. His associate could parley the strange ship into an independent command, first crack at fresh cabin stores, and a good chance at a promotion into another ship, while Harm languished aboard Ariadne, moving up to fourth officer, but still stuck in her until old age.
“Lewrie,” Harm said, spinning on him and following the old adage that when in doubt, shout at someone. “Check to see that sand is spread for traction. And look to the firebuckets. Can you stretch your little mind to handle all of that, Lewrie?”
“Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie replied sweetly, which he knew galled the officer. Horace!
By the time Lewrie had finished his inspection, had ordered more sand, told some crews to clear away their raffle and gone back to report, the guns had been loaded with quarter-weight powder cartridges, eight pounds of powder to propel a thirty-two-pound iron ball. An increase in powder charge would not impel the shot any farther or faster, since all the powder did not take flame at once. It was good enough for random shot at long range, about a mile. As they closed with the chase, they might reduce the charge for short range, especially if they double-shotted the guns. Then, a normal charge would likely burst the piece.
“Should we not clear for action, Mister Harm?” Lewrie asked, seeing all the mess deck gear stowed on the centerline, and the partitions still standing for the midshipmen’s mess.
“Should the captain require it, we shall,” Harm said. “And if he does not, then we shan’t. Now shut your trap and quit interfering with your betters, Lewrie, or I’ll see you bent over a gun before this day is out.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie chirped again, full of sham eagerness to serve, and wondering why he had expected a sensible and polite answer from such a man. It must be one of ours, he decided. There are recognition signals. We’ll most likely stand around down here until we’re bored silly and then be released.
Once more, there was nothing to do for a long time as the day wore on and Ariadne bore down on the chase, plunging along with the wind on her starboard quarter and her shoulder to the sea. But it was still an hour before Beckett came below and told the crews to stand easy. They dragged out their stools and sat down. Lewrie took a seat on a chest. In his heart, he knew it was wrong not to strike all the assorted junk below into the holds, take down those partitions and get rid of the chests and stools, but what could a midshipman do about it? And even if he got Harm to send a message with a respectful suggestion on the matter, what shrift would a lieutenant’s advice receive from a post-captain intent on the whiff of prize money?
Some of the older hands had tied their neckerchiefs about their ears, making them look decidedly piratical. When he asked a quartergunner, old Snow in fact, he was told that it would keep him from going deaf from the sound of the guns.
By four in the afternoon, the order came down to open the gun ports, and blessed sunlight flooded in, along with sweet fresh air.
The hands were called back to attention by their guns but they still ducked to peer out the ports at their possible prize.
“Full-rigged, boys!” a rammer man whispered to a side-tackle mate. “Maybe a French blockade runner full o’ gold.”
“Have ta be a rum ’un ta get took by us!” a handspike man said.
“Silence, the lot of you,” Lieutenant Harm shouted. “Watch your fronts!”
And it was another half hour by Lewrie’s watch before the strange ship was near enough to hail, about two cables off their starboard bows. A chase gun barked from the upper deck and a feather of spray leaped up right under the other ship’s bowsprit. A flag broke from the chase’s gaff—it was Dutch.
Everyone sighed with a hiss of disappointment. They weren’t at war with Holland yet. They had wasted their whole afternoon.
“Damme,” a hand cursed, rubbing his hands together with a dry rustle. “Thort she were a beamy one, woulda been a good prize.”
There goes the start of my fortune, Alan thought, easing his aching back from long standing by the guns. He could have almost felt and heard those “yellowboys” clinking together … good golden guineas.
Beckett appeared on the companionway. “Mister Harm, the captain wishes you to run out, sir.”
“Right,” Harm crackled. “Run out yer guns.” And fourteen black muzzles trundled up to the port sills with a sound resembling a stampede of hogs. “Point yer guns, handspikes there, number six!”
Harm had drawn his smallsword and stood with it cocked over his shoulder, and Alan wondered just exactly what good the officer thought a blade was going to do to a ship more than four hundred yards away.