Even if he had to share her with Purnell and the bosun’s mate.
When it came his turn, he was amazed to see a dark smear to the nor’west. He left the windward side to cross to the binnacle and look at the chart by the tiller. By the feeble glow of the binnacle light he could see that they had already fetched Barbuda. Far inshore there were some faint lights, perhaps houses on the Atlantic side, or fishing boats working offshore. They would pass well to seaward of them, as long as the wind held steady. He closed his eyes and tried to measure the strength of the wind on his cheek. Had it shifted a point? Backed on us, he decided. Parrot seemed to slow a bit. He could order the quartermaster to adjust his helm, but was afraid to upset the settled order of the night. No, there was something else to do that would allow them to hold the course that Kenyon had ordained.
“Bosun?” he called, and Mr. Kelly, the experienced bosun’s mate who was their watcher, was there in a moment.
“Wind’s backed a point. Summon the hands of the watch to veer out a piece on the braces and heads’l sheets,” Lewrie ordered, hands behind his back and looking up at the set of the sails like a real watch officer would. But he found it hard to match Kelly’s eyes as he dared issue his first real order.
“’Spect it’s about time fer that, Mister Lewrie,” Kelly replied, touching his hat with his fingers and turning away to call the hands.
Damme, that wasn’t so bad, after all, Alan told himself after they had eased the sheets to allow the sails to stay full at a proper angle. “That ought to be enough, Mister Kelly. Belay all that.”
Lewrie made an entry in the log, also his first, noting what he had done, and then they slogged along into the night with the wind now more from abeam, but still holding their compass course, and Parrot giving no sign that she was going to do anything dire after being meddled with by amateurs. And when the end of the watch came, and Mr. Claghorne took over for the Morning Watch, Lewrie was almost sorry to have to cede him the deck. As he doffed all his clothing and rolled into his bunk he pondered how fast people seemed to get promoted in wartime, as people got sick and had to be replaced, got killed and had to be replaced, or, like Parrot, the fleet grew in size and had to spread her substance thinner. Six years as a midshipman could be circumvented, if he were lucky enough, and in the right place at the right time. It felt like Parrot might be that place, and he swore that he would knuckle down once more and shine.
* * *
All during the hurricane season, Parrot dashed about the islands on her duties, putting in when a real storm threatened, but mostly out in full gales and riding it out, or running ahead of them with waves crashing into her bows and spraying the full length of her decks. In those times when it was clear, she flew from one port to another, from one command to another, with all the drama and panache of an actress making a surprise entrance.
By the time hurricanes had ended for the winter, Parrot was a well-worked-up and fairly happy ship. The crew had settled down, the new men trained well enough and salted by their experiences, and the old hands brought up to scratch as they realized that Parrot was different from the Navy in which they had so recently suffered. They had a good cook, which went a long way toward making a happy ship, and they had fresh food more often than most, because they were never more than a week or two at best from a new anchorage.
Kenyon was firm but fair in his punishments when called upon to hand out disciplinary measures, and a taut-handed captain always seemed to do better than a lax one, or one who could not be relied upon to be fair. And as often as possible Kenyon let the ship Out of Discipline and allowed the doxies aboard to entertain the hands. With the regularity of their stops the men looked forward to seeing their favorite trulls on a steady basis, which provided a measure of stability and homelike consistency to their lives.
Lewrie began to enjoy naval service. The food was fresh and spicy, the wine palatable, the hours of work reasonable, as were the hours available for a good long rest at the end of them.
There was also the matter of their duty; it was independence, dash and speed, and everyone reveled in it. He knew that every lieutenant that saw them had his teeth set on edge in envy at their freedom from convoys, from plodding patrol duty, from rocking along in the wake of a flagship in rigid order under the pitiless eye of senior officers. Other midshipmen he saw envied him as he climbed through the entry port with orders, for they knew that he had more responsibility than they, more chances to gain experience they could never have on larger ships, more opportunity to practice those skills they only could read about.
The days were so full of work, and the nights so full of learning how to lead, to steer, to be in charge, that he didn’t have much time to think about it; he just did it, and, to be honest, it was satisfying.
Parrot went to so many interesting places. They might run over to Nevis and St. Kitts, then run with a landsman’s breeze for Kingston, Jamaica. They might go down to St. Lucia, or up to Road Town. There were despatches from the senior admirals that had to go to rustic little Savannah in the Colonies, where the recently vanquished civilians gave dirty looks to anyone wearing the King’s coat, but their women had to make a living, regardless. They might go into Charleston, where a tiny Tory minority made the most of their recent victory, and wondered how long they could hang on, and their parties for visiting officers were frantic with tension that translated into eager ladies whose men were away with Cornwallis and Tarleton.
They might work their way into St. Augustine in the British Floridas, and wonder why anyone bothered with such a malarial, homespun sort of a place, more Spanish than anything else, a wilderness outpost with one foot in the grave, already.
They might dash north from there to tiny Wilmington, up the Cape Fear River, and enjoy the pleasures that the place offered, as planters gathered at the shore for fear of their inland cousins.
Once, they even got to carry messages as far north as New York, and finally went ashore in the great city, which turned out to be less impressive than Portsmouth back home. That was a city that could turn anyone crooked, Lewrie decided. You could hear cannon fire at night, and the women pulsed to its sound, and the monetary speculation that rode the latest omens for good or ill, and the general background of graft and cupidity with military and naval stores could turn a saint into a stockjobber or pimp.
Alan Lewrie learned that war could be a powerful aphrodisiac, and that a well-set-up young man in a uniform was able to take advantage of it. And when he had time to think back on his time before the Navy in London, he no longer found an aching emptiness but merely vague regrets that he hadn’t had more time there to enjoy what he was enjoying now.
Sometimes he was shocked to find, in the middle of some duty, that he had risen gladly to that duty, and was satisfied with the crew’s progress at small arms, gun drill, sailtending, or his own skill at leading them, or performing those personal skills such as longsplicing, position plotting and ship-handling. He knew he was a different person. The Alan Lewrie of December, 1780, in no way resembled the one almost press-ganged in January. His skin was bronzed by the sun, his hair a lighter shade of brown from constant exposure, hands tougher, muscles leaner and fuller and able to carry him aloft or wield a sword with ease. His uniforms needed alteration to make room for the bulk he had added in those months of hard work, hard play and good food.