“Good God, though, sir!” Knolles almost goggled in amazement, raking the fingers of his left hand through his hair, “how do we get four civilian merchant masters to sail in an orderly column and maintain proper separation in the first place, much less convince them to play-act as warships? Do they sail into battle, they’d be as helpless as kittens! What are their burthens?”
“One’s three hundred tons, the other three are of three hundred and fifty tons,” Lewrie told him, calling that up from memory.
“That’s only fifteen men and some ship’s boys aboard one, and only a couple more hands in the other three, sir,” Knolles pointed out. “I suppose they’re armed, after a fashion … but with what? Four- or six-pounders, and some swivels? And, I very much doubt if their masters have pulled the tompions or cast off the lashings on those guns in the last year, except to look for rust.”
“There are soldiers aboard all four,” Lewrie said whimsically. “Perhaps Colonel Fry can be convinced that they’re only really big muskets, and man them on their own?”
“Oh now, sir!” Knolles countered, then broke out laughing.
“Only a thought,” Lewrie said, shrugging and waving a hand in the air. “Let’s get out to the fifteenth Longitude, ever further from France, form ’em all in column, and if we’re approached by the enemy, we’ll hoist the Blue Ensign and trust that Shakespeare was right … that ‘the play’s the thing’. How do you like the quail?”
“Quite savoury, indeed!” Knolles said, uttering a little moan of appreciation. “What does your cook do to make it so flavourful?”
“I fear that’s Yeovill’s secret spices and sauces,” Lewrie said with a sly grin, “and it’s rare that he tells me how he does it, but I wouldn’t trade the man for a keg of gold.”
“Mmumm!” Knolles agreed, then dabbed his mouth with his napkin and took a sip of wine. “If we do get out to the fifteenth Longitude, sir, I’d serve no purpose standing alee. Perhaps I should place Comus no more than one mile ahead of the column.”
“Aye, that makes sense,” Lewrie agreed. “Now, if the French don’t come from the East, but are discovered ahead of us, that’d be another matter … or, from windward. Do they appear North of us, it will be a long stern-chase, and we can wheel out of line and interpose our ships ’twixt the French and the transports, who can escape South as fast as their little legs’ll carry them.”
“You wouldn’t wheel us all about and challenge them, would you, sir?” Knolles asked with one brow up.
“Might depend on the odds, hey?” Lewrie joshed.
They spent the better part of the next hour enjoying their meal, right through the berry and cream cobbler, port, and sweet bisquits, sketching plans against every contingency. By the time Pettus poured them coffee, and Jessop cleared the table, they had filled two sheets of paper with their thoughts.
“Now, the only thing left is to introduce you to the masters of our transports, Knolles, and convince them that daring, and fraud, is their best bet,” Lewrie concluded. “I bought them Blue Ensigns, just in case.”
“I rather thought you already had, sir,” Knolles said, grinning.
“Shall we go, then? We’ll take my launch,” Lewrie offered.
On the quarterdeck, waiting for Lewrie’s boat crew to bring the launch round from astern, Bisquit came frisking up, whining and yowing for attention. Lewrie dug into his coat pocket for a strip of Indian-style pemmican, which made the dog blissful.
“What do you feed your Tyge, Captain Knolles?” Lewrie asked.
“Table scraps, cook extra, sir,” Knolles told him.
“Before we sail, have your Purser go ashore to Rutledge’s,” Lewrie suggested. “He has preserved, dried meats. American-styled jerky strips, pemmican with grains and dried fruits pounded in, and an host of wee sausages. Bisquit here, and Chalky, thrive on ’em. And they come in handy when I feel peckish ’tween meals, too. I’ve laid by a couple of hundredweight.”
“You think of everything, sir,” Knolles said. “But then, you always did.”
“I did?” Lewrie said, pulling a wry, dis-believing face. “You do me too kind, sir! Think of everything? Hah!”
BOOK TWO
Your course securely steer,
West and by South forth keep!
Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals
When Eolus scowls
You need not fear
So absolute the deep.
“TO THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE”
MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563–1631)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sunday’s weather was foul, but the winds came fair for sailing that Monday, and Lewrie at last got his small convoy to sea, beating out into the North Sea for a time to make a wide offing from the coast before turning South, then Sou’west to stand into the Channel and its chops well clear of Dover and the Goodwin Sands.
It was not an auspicious beginning, though. The masters of the transports, already leery of Lewrie’s dispositions, and loath to agree with the Navy—they were civilians, after all!—brought the expression about herding cats to mind, along with many a stifled curse. Comus led, followed in some sort of order by two of the transports in trail, sort of. Warships sailing in column were used to trimming and adjusting sail to maintain separation, and had large crews to perform the work. The thinly-manned transports, though, were either too slow or too quick, barging up alarmingly close to the ship ahead before taking in a reef, or too slow off the mark to spread more sail or shake out a reef, in danger of having the ship astern of them ploughing up their transoms!
“Two columns perhaps, sir?” Lt. Westcott muttered to Lewrie after Sapphire’s topmen and line-tenders had clewed up the main course once more. “A nice, tidy square formation?”
“Nice? Tidy? Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie growled, just about ready to howl in frustration. “The cunny-thumbed, clueless…!”
A single cable’s separation didn’t look as if it would work. He considered having a signal bent on to change it to two cables, allowing 1,440 feet between ships.
One’d think seven hundred and twenty feet’d be all the room in the world, but … no! Lewrie thought; The cack-handed … bastards! And we’re barely into the Channel, yet!
“Cast of the log, sir,” young Midshipman Ward reported to Westcott. “Seven and a half knots.”
“Just blisterin’ speed, by Gad,” Lewrie sneered. “Even we are able t’rush up and trample somebody. No, Mister Westcott, I’m not yet ready t’give up. If the winds hold direction, they just might catch on how to do it by the time we’re off the Lizard.”
Midshipman Ward was a youngster; he couldn’t help but grin, and let out a stifled titter.
“Ain’t funny, lad,” Westcott glumly told him.
“Sorry, sir,” Ward replied, only slightly abashed, moving away.
“What’s worrisome to me, sir, is what happens when the weather turns foul, and we have to go close-hauled,” Westcott went on. “They just might end up weaving Westward on opposing tacks, like so many wandering chickens. And, they’re civilians. They won’t tack, they’ll wear from one tack to the other, like they usually do, with so few hands aboard. That’ll be fun to watch. In a morbid way.”
“This’ll turn into a smaller version of our infamous ‘sugar trade’ a few years ago, is that what you’re sayin’, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie muttered to him, groaning in sour remembrance. That had been a disaster, from Jamaica through the Florida Straits then North ’twixt the Hatteras Banks and Bermuda, especially when ships bound for ports in the United States had tried to leave the seaward side of the convoy, through the lee columns!