Lewrie looked up as his boat crossed the Athenian’s stern, and he was grudgingly impressed by her transom decoration. Her name board was royal blue, framed in expensive gilded wood scrollings, and wooden letters, also gilded, spelled out her name. To either side, there were representations of Grecian helmets, shields, and spears, also done with gilt paint over bas-relief. Much the same had been applied to all her quarter galleries and stern gallery, where a senior officer could sit with his feet up on the ornate railings in good weather and sip wine, or read in private.
This McNaughton fellow must be rich as Croesus! Lewrie thought.
The bow man hooked his gaff onto the main-chains, the oars were tossed, and Lewrie unsteadily stood and made his way to the gunn’l to reach out to the battens and man-ropes. The climb was a lot longer than on his frigate, though the two-decker’s tumblehome was not as steep.
As the upright dog’s vane of his cocked hat appeared above the lip of the entry-port, the bosuns’ calls began a duet salute, Marines stamped and presented muskets, and sailors’ hats were doffed high. Lewrie reached the top step of the entry-port and hauled himself in-board with a characteristic jerk and stamp, well clear of being dunked back overboard should Athenian do an unpredictable roll. He doffed his own hat to one and all, to the quarterdeck and flag.
“Welcome aboard, sir,” a sun-bronzed and rough-featured Post-Captain said to him. “Allow me to name myself to you.… Meadows, the Flag-Captain of Athenian.”
“Lewrie, of the Reliant frigate, sir, and delighted to make your acquaintance,” Lewrie replied with a smile. “Your Captain McNaughton is below, Captain Meadows?”
“Oh sir, I fear your Steele’s is out of date,” Meadows told him with a frown. “Captain McNaughton passed away some weeks back of some fever. Captain Henry Grierson now commands the squadron. If you follow me, sir? He awaits you on the quarterdeck.”
That’s never a good sign, Lewrie thought as he followed the man aft; Whatever happened to something “wet” in the great-cabins? Christ, what a fashion-plate!
Lewrie beheld an officer about one inch taller than his own five feet nine inches, a man whom women might find devilishly and rakishly handsome, but for a long beak of a nose, down which this Grierson peered at the new arrival. Grierson wore his best-dress uniform coat with all the gold lace and twin epaulets and buttons gleaming. Despite the warmth of the day, the coat was doubled over his chest, perhaps to show off the two vertical rows of nine buttons each side, and the expensive width of the lace edgings. There was an expensive and ornate watch fob hung below the waist of the coat, which was cut a bit higher than most. Grierson also wore snow-white breeches of the finest duck, breeches so white that they might never have seen tar, slush, or saltwater washes. The breeches were so snug that it appeared Grierson was sewed into them, or greased up beforehand. The shiny black boots were not Hessians like most officers wore, but more like top-boots minus the brown-leather upper band. And Grierson sported a fore-and-aft bicorne hat like a French general!
His neck-stock’s starched and ironed, by God! Lewrie took note; What a fop! Don’t he know ye get dirty on ships?
Conversely, Captain Henry Grierson did not much care for what he saw of Captain Lewrie, either. The plain coat and hat, with gold lace epaulets slowly turning green from exposure to salt airs, the slightly curved and plain-hilted hanger at his hip instead of a small-sword of value, combined with a silk shirt and fresh neck-stock seemed paradoxical. And the old style of that plain hat!
“Alan Lewrie, reporting aboard, sir,” Lewrie said, doffing his hat once more, a few feet away from Grierson.
“Sir Alan, I presume,” Grierson said in a drawl with one brow up as he doffed his own in carefully studied welcome.
“Only on good days, sir,” Lewrie japed and grinned.
Grierson took note of the faint scar on Lewrie’s cheek, paler than his dark tan, and wondered where it had come from. This Lewrie fellow, Grierson determined, was a rather handsome and well set up chap, handsome enough to raise his hackles when confronted by one who could be considered a rival in Society. If only this Lewrie would bear himself more gravely! Why, he appeared to be the unlikeliest “Merry Andrew”, for all the repute that Lt. Hayes had imparted!
“My word, Captain Lewrie,” Grierson said as he put his fore-and-aft bicorne back on, the front so low to his eyes that he just naturally had to cock his head back and look down his nose, “your welcome to the Bahamas was most war-like. One could conjure that you would have crossed my line and raked my leading frigates, ha ha!”
“Until you hoisted British colours, I would have, sir,” Lewrie told him with a serious and level expression.
“With a lone frigate and three little cockleshells?” Grierson asked with a loud laugh. “Whatever did you think to accomplish?”
“The rumour was that you were a French squadron,” Lewrie said with a shrug. “I was prepared to defend Nassau at all hazards, sir.”
“If we had been French, you would have been swatted aside in a trice!” Grierson said with another dis-believing laugh, sweeping one arm to encompass his warships, and all their immense firepower.
“Well, we might’ve gotten in a blow or two, sir,” Lewrie said in reply, irked at Grierson’s dismissive airs, “but, we would have done our duty to the very last. It’s what England expects.”
Grierson clapped his hands into the small of his back and gave Lewrie a high-nosed glare, as if he’d never heard the like. Out of the corner of his eyes, Lewrie espied a Lieutenant standing nearby who allowed himself an approving nod, and turned to whisper “Ram-Cat” to Captain Meadows.
“Well, at any rate, such neck-or-nothing was not necessary, so all’s well,” Grierson concluded. “It would appear, Captain Meadows, that my little jest was mis-understood. Ah, well.”
“So, sailing in and flying no colours was a jest, sir?” Lewrie asked with a brow up in sour surprise. “I must tell you, then, sir, that you ruined a day’s fishing for a great many Free Blacks, and put the wind up the residents of Nassau and New Providence. In point of fact, there were one or two merchantmen who fled you, and sailed on Westerly. It was they who first spread the alarm.
“I’d imagine by now that they’re halfway up the Nor’west Providence Channel, fleein’ to some American port, with the news that a French invasion force has taken Nassau,” Lewrie sternly pointed out, and admittedly took some joy in the doing. “Who knows how long before that news reaches our Ambassador in Washington, or the Admiral commanding the North American station at Halifax … or London?”
If Lewrie had whipped out a belaying pin and jabbed Grierson in the groin, the fellow could not have looked more stricken!
“Captain Lewrie,” Grierson intoned after giving that a long thought, and re-gathering his aplomb, “I see that your frigate flies the inferior broad pendant. Did you take it upon yourself to promote yourself in Captain Forrester’s absence?”
“I already had independent orders from Admiralty to sail for the Bahamas and form a small squadron in shoal-draught ships to hunt French and Spanish privateers along the coast of Spanish Florida and in neutral American waters, sir,” Lewrie patiently explained, resenting Grierson’s tone, and the accusation that he had broken out his broad pendant without authorisation. “By the time we returned to New Providence, after clearing out a nest of privateers up the Saint Mary’s River, Captain Forrester had already departed, leaving me as the senior officer present. There was a promise from Antigua of re-enforcement, but I was not holdin’ my breath waitin’ for them.”