“Fetch yourself a cutlass!” Lewrie barked.
“Aye aye, sir!”
Lewrie returned to the forward break of the quarterdeck, clapped his hands in the small of his back, and put his stern face on as the off-watch hands came up from below. Marine First Lieutenant John Keane turned up, as did Westcott and the Third Officer, Edward Elmes.
“Mister Keane, I’d admire did you have your drummer take place atop the main hatch cover,” Lewrie requested. “We are about to punish a defaulter for theft. Mister Westcott? Form the off-watch men in a gantlet, about four planks apart, facing in, right round the waist, and up atop the forecastle if you have to, to give everyone a clear shot, and room t’swing a fist.”
“Aye, sir, directly,” Westcott said, sounding eager.
“All hands, off hats and hark the Captain!” Lt. Harcourt called out. “Off hats and face aft!”
In an equally loud voice, Lewrie explained the crime, the brief court, and his sentence of guilty. Then, “Sapphires! Landsman Clegg is a thief, caught red-handed. There is nothing more repugnant to a ship’s company than a thief. Some of you have served other ships before, and know what it is to be shipmates. Some of you new to the Navy and this ship have learned what it is to count on your shipmates, in good times, in storms and perils. But, a thief is only thinking of himself, not his mates, nor his ship. So, instead of Landsman Clegg being triced up to get five dozen lashes, I am going to leave it to you. We will form a gantlet, and he will walk through it, with a cutlass at his chest to make sure he goes slow. You may only use your fists, no loggerheads, rope-ends, or belaying pins. Are you ready, Mister Hillhouse?”
“Ready, sir!” Midshipman Hillhouse reported with a gladsome growl of anticipation.
I suspected he’d really relish it! Lewrie thought.
“Twice around!” Lewrie shouted. “Begin!”
Sailors never had much in the way of possessions beyond issued necessities, and usually had no money with which to purchase better things. The simplest items, a pair of good shoe buckles, a fancier clasp knife and sheath, a locket with a picture of a parent or loved one, a ring from someone dear to them, was even dearer to them than solid coin. They would not tolerate a thief.
The drummer began a long roll, and the Master At Arms shoved Clegg forward, while Midshipman Hillhouse paced backwards at a very slow walk, with the point of his cutlass an inch or so from Clegg’s chest. Up the starboard side their felon went, pummelled and smashed from both sides of the gantlet with hard fists, and shouted curses, cringing and stumbling. There was a brief respite when Clegg was forced up the starboard ladderway to the forecastle, but as soon as his feet were on that deck, the beating began again, cross the deck, down the larboard ladderway, and down the larboard side to the break of the quarterdeck, and round once more. By the time Clegg fell to the deck face-down, he was a bloody, bruised bulk of raw meat.
“See to him, Mister Snelling,” Lewrie called to the Surgeon, who had stood to one corner, appalled, throughout the punishment. “Dismiss the off-watch hands, Mister Harcourt.”
“Aye, sir,” the Second Officer replied, sounding more natural, almost whimsical, for once.
Lewrie went back to the poop deck and fetched his book, then came back down and went into his cabins.
“Cool tea, Pettus,” he ordered, going to sprawl on the starboard-side settee to continue reading.
“Aye, sir, right away,” Pettus said. “Ehm … that was quite a lesson, if I may say so, sir.”
“You may, and I hope it was,” Lewrie agreed, propping a foot on the brass tray-table.
“By the time Clegg’s back to full duties,” Pettus went on, “I’d expect he’ll be saying ‘pretty please’ and ‘thank you’ before he dares reach for the mustard pot in his mess.”
“If they’ll have him, at all, Pettus,” Lewrie said, grinning briefly, and quite satisfied with his decision.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The convoy attained the 15th Longitude a few days later, then hauled their wind to steer Due South, with the transports managing to perform a passable semblance of Alter Course In Succession, by then. The prevalent Westerlies in the Bay of Biscay came upon them on their starboard beams, shifting only a point or so from day to day, blowing in varying strength. A beam reach was an easy point of sail, which HMS Sapphire seemed to enjoy, with her decks canted over only a few degrees, gently rolling to the scend of the sea.
It was time for more live-fire exercises, this time with a target. The gun crews were able to run in, load, run out, and discharge their guns right smartly, by then, with even the hands on the lower gun deck managing to get off three rounds every two minutes with the massively heavy 24-pounders.
Two cables of tow-line were spliced together, and an empty water cask was sacrificed, and painted white. Crawley, the former captain’s Cox’n, chose his men, and manned the pinnace under sail, going out a full cable’s distance from the ship’s larboard beam, the full 240 yards, to stream the target cask astern.
“Fingers crossed, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie hopefully said.
“And one’s tongue on the proper side of one’s mouth, too, sir,” Westcott said with a laugh.
“Haven’t heard o’ that’un,” Lewrie confessed.
“Oh, I hear it’s all the go at Woolwich, these days, sir,” Westcott japed, referring to the Royal Arsenal and artillery school.
“Carry on, then, Mister Westcott, and remind ’em t’aim damned careful,” Lewrie ordered.
Muffled cries below carefully put the gunners through the many steps of gun drill; Cast Off Your Guns, Level Your Guns, Take Out Your Tompions, Run In Your Guns, Load With Cartridge, Shoot Your Guns, then Run Out Your Guns, Prime, and Point Your Guns.
“By broadside … on the up-roll … fire!”
HMS Sapphire shuddered, shoved a foot or so to starboard as the larboard battery went off as one, with stentorian roars and a great pall of powder smoke that only slowly drifted alee, masking the target.
“All over the place, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth, posted aloft in the main-mast cross-trees, shouted down.
“Overhaul your run-out tackle, and swab out your guns!” officers on both gun decks cried.
Guns were charged with fresh powder bags, shotted, then run out once more. Sapphire grumbled and roared again as the many carriages’ truck wheels squealed, as un-told tons of artillery lumbered up to the port sills. Lewrie thought that their time was acceptable; his pocket watch had a second hand and his gun crews were close to his demanded three rounds every two minutes.
“Point your guns!” was the order, and gun-captains bent over to peer down the lengths of the cannon, fiddling with the wooden blocks, the quoins, under the breech-ends, or called for their tackle men to heave with crow levers to lift the rear ends of the guns to shift tiny increments to right or left, lifting the carriages a few inches.
“By broadside … fire!”
Sapphire’s larboard side erupted in another titanic roar, and wreathed herself in yellowish-grey powder smoke, with hot red-amber jets of discharge jabbing out, mixed with swirling clouds of sparks.
“Closer, from right to left, sir!” Kibworth shouted. “Short, or far over!”
“Overhaul your run-out tackle, and swab out your guns!”
A third broadside followed within the required two minutes, then a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth. Despite the mildness of the day, the gun crews began to work up a sweat as they fed their cannon, ran them back out, heaved upon the levers to shift traverse, heaved again to lift the breeches so the quoins could be inched in or out to elevate their barrels, then stood clear, making sure that the recoil tackles and run-out tackles would not foul—and that their feet were safe—before the next broadside roared out.
Fifteen minutes elapsed from the first broadside, and the hands were beginning to slow, much as they would in battle, for human muscle could only do so much arduous labour for only so long. They were not machines. If they were in real combat, lasting an hour or longer, the broadsides would be discharged closer to one a minute, and those would be ragged, stuttering up and down the ship’s side as if “Fire At Will” had been ordered.