"No, sir," Alan had to admit.
"Well, shit," Lilycrop grumbled.
"Sorry, sir, you were saying?"
"Like most ships commissioned from prizes on foreign stations, Shrike has her share of no-hopers." Lilycrop frowned. "Most of her warrants are a bit spavined, but with lots of practical experience. My crew was as scrofulous a lot as I've ever seen, even after my former captain let me have ten prime hands from old Bonaventure, the usual surly and slack-jawed louts you'd expect, with more'n average her number of Island Blacks, and half of those probably runaway slaves in the first place. But we've pulled together, and I'll touch 'em up sharp when needed. I'm not a Tartar when it comes to plyin' the cat, but I by God'll flay a man raw when he needs it, not like some of these Goddamn psalm-singin' hedge-priests in disguise you see clutterin' up quarterdecks these days. I don't splice the mainbrace nor cosset the people 'less I see a choir of angels to larboard announcing the Apocalypse. You're not a hedge-priest are you now, Lewrie?"
"Hell no, sir." Alan grinned. "Ow!"
Henrietta had made up her mind that his leg, encased in brand new silk stocking, was a scratching post.
"Ah, she's takin' to you, good girl," Lilycrop said softly, laying his head to one side in admiration of his cat. "Let her have a little lap to make friends with you. Go on, pick her up. She'll purr like a snare drum. Now, you ain't a Tartar, either, are you?"
"No, sir," Alan said, gingerly lifting the cat from his side to sit in his lap, where Henrietta began to lay down her head and rub to mark him, scattering a handful of black fur on his snowy-white breeches. "Firm but fair was the motto I was taught, sir."
"Good for you, then, laddie," Lilycrop nodded agreeably. "Now, as to the people. Caldwell is a sour little shit-sack, but a good master, a bit of a hymn-singer and in another life he'd turn evangel on us, so don't plan on getting much joy out of him in the wardroom. Walsham, well, he's a tailor's dummy, God help him, but what can you expect from Marines. His sergeant is good, though, but deaf as a country magistrate. Master gunner Mister Cox is a sharp'un, and Fukes is a good bosun, but we're thin in mates. Mister Lewyss the surgeon is competent but a horrid drinker, bein' Welsh, and if I hear that damned harp and his quavery fuckin' voice lollopin' out those mournful dirges in the mess past eight bells o' the second dog, I'll kick your young arse so you can kick his. Mister Henry Biggs the purser is the biggest weasel I've ever come across, and that's sayin' somethin' after fifty year at sea, man and boy. You'll watch him like a hawk, and if you discover how he prospers, you'll be the first. Midshipmen're just about what you'd expect, one stupid as cow-pats and t'other too clever for his own good."
"That would be Rossyngton, the clever one, sir?" Alan said as Henrietta draped herself over his chest like a warm blanket and began to vibrate and snore, her paws kneading his shirt front with sharp little claws.
"You're smart as paint, Lewrie. T'other, Mister Edgar, is not too long off the dung wagon, and I s'pect if it was rainin' claret he'd have a colander to catch it in, and he'd drop that. Clumsy young bastard. Stepped on Pitt's tail t'other day."
"Who, sir?"
"The ginger torn lives forrard."
"We've met, sir," Alan stated.
"Worst disposition in a cat I've ever seen," Lilycrop confessed. "Know why I named him Pitt, hey?"
"No, sir."
"Because I absolutely despise the bastard!" Lilycrop boomed with a short bark of laughter at his own wit. "Rapacious, sir, most rapacious mouser I've ever seen. Got the soul of a master-at-arms, though. Come to think of it, those are good traits in a Prime Minister, too."
"With so many cats aboard, I should think Shrike would not be plagued with rodents like other ships, sir."
"Their tribe stand no chance of prosperin'," Lilycrop boasted.
"Then what do the midshipmen eat, sir?" Alan asked.
"Ha ha, you're a wag, sir!" Lilycrop boomed again. "I can tell we'll get on, if there's a brain hidden behind all that dandy-prattery. Well, I'd expect you'd like to get settled into your cabin and get all squared away. You'll find my Order Book and all that bum fodder to look over, and then I expect you'll go over the ship and make your acquaintances, see what we have to work with, God help us."
"Thank you, sir."
"Got any questions, see me on the sly," Lilycrop commanded. "Can't let the people or the warrants think you're slack-witted or not experienced enough. Would you like a kitten?"
"Um, not right now, sir."
"You're not one of those people who can't abide the little darlin's, are you, Lewie?" Lilycrop looked at him sternly.
"Oh, no, sir," Alan assured him quickly. "It's just that none of my other ships ran to pets, and I do want to find my feet first."
"Well, keep it in mind, we've four new'uns ready for weanin' in a week or so. That'll be all, Lewrie."
"Aye aye, sir," Alan replied, standing up and trying to disentangle Henrietta from her death-grip on his shirt. She finally scaled his back, scratching him on the nape on her way down to the chair where she re-ensconced herself and began to wash.
Lilycrop turned to stare at a large, shallow wooden box by the quarter-gallery and bawled for his steward. "Gooch!"
"Aye, sir?" a wizened little mouse of a man asked, popping out of the captain's pantry by the chart-room.
"Cat shit, Gooch!"
"Aye aye, sir, right away, sir."
I've always believed it, Alan told himself as he pored over the captain's Order Book of set instructions in his small cabin. Not one captain on the face of this earth is dealing with a healthy mind. They're all daft as bats. This Lilycrop makes Treghues look sane as a banking house. What did I do to deserve this? Who did I fuck, who did I not fuck?
The officer's wardroom was not in the extreme stern in Shrike, but aft of the main-mast and ahead of stores rooms. As a single-deck ship, she had to cram all her holds and stores onto one deck, along with all her personnel accommodations. There was a solid deck under the fo'c'sle, broken aft of the galley into a capacious hold to allow her to stay at sea for up to three months. Seamen were berthed above the stores kegs and barrels on a temporary mess-deck flooring, swung in hammocks, with the last two rows furthest aft reserved for the Marine complement.
Aft of the Marines, there was room for the officers and senior warrants, with the main after hatch leading down just before the deal partitions that screened it off from the Marines. The captain was kept in his rather spartan splendor in what was called a hanging cabin under the highly steeved quarterdeck, which had a break much like a three-foot-high poop deck near the taffrail to give him standing headroom.
This cut the wardroom off from all sunlight, even though it was above the waterline, but the only openings to the outside were gunports that were kept tightly sealed unless the ship cleared for action.
Alan's cabin was right aft on the larboard side, hard up against the after bread room, spirit store and fish room, which added to the miasma of cat droppings and the usual human odors.
If he thought that promotion to lieutenant would get him any more splendor of his own, he was sadly mistaken. The cabin was six feet wide, which left room for a wash-hand stand and his sea chest, about six feet six inches long to accommodate a fixed berth raised up high enough to give him some storage underneath. Near the door at the foot of the bed there was a tiny portable writing desk, a three-tiered bookshelf already filled with the accumulated reading of an entire commission, and a stool to sit on while he wrote letters or conducted ship's business. Across from his cabin the surgeon, Dr. Lewyss, was housed. The next two cabins were for the sailing master to larboard, and the purser to starboard. Forward of those, the cabins got smaller to make walking space around the fixed dining table and the hatchway to the orlop stores. Walsham the Marine officer, the captain's clerk, Fukes the bosun, Cox the gunner and Mr. Pebble, the enfeebled carpenter, had those cabins. The spare cabin that completed the starboard tier was wardroom stores and the captain's servant and the wardroom servant swung their hammocks in there above the personal food and drink for the officers and warrants.