No wonder some captains prefer t’go down with their ships, he thought in wry humour; They couldn’t afford t’replace ’em even if they were as rich as the Walpoles!

Add to that careful perusing, there were the muster books and the assignments given to each hand for every evolution, the stacks of loose papers showing expenses and requisitions from the Sheerness Dockyards which had not yet been entered into the proper ledgers, and Captain Insley’s Order Book and punishment book. He would be at it long past suppertime. What Lewrie really wished to do was prowl the ship from bilges to the weather decks, bow to stern, but that would have to be put off to another day.

Lewrie determined that he would dine Westcott in for a working supper, and would keep his clerk, Faulkes, past his suppertime, too. Westcott had been aboard a week longer than he, and would know by now enough to get him past the paperwork. As for Faulkes, well …

So much for him bein’ an idler with “All Night In”! Lewrie told himself with a wee snicker as he opened the first book in the pile.

*   *   *

The fifty private Marines of Sapphire’s complement traditionally were berthed forward of the officers’ wardroom on the upper gun deck; mutiny was not an un-heard-of occurrence. Lewrie’s Cox’n, Liam Desmond, led the bulk of the Captain’s retinue to a spare mess-table just forward of the Marines, now they were done with setting up the great-cabins, in search of their own berth spaces. They set their sea-chests round the table to sit on, and hung up their sea-bags along the thick and stout hull between a pair of gun-ports. Bisquit accompanied them out of curiosity to see where his friends were going.

“Diff’rnt than Reliant,” Patrick Furfy commented, looking round at the rows of 12-pounders, and the seeming hundreds of sailors idling at the other mess tables. “They ain’t room t’swing a cat.”

“Could be worse, Pat,” Desmond said, chuckling. “We could be on the lower gun deck, with nary a breath o’ fresh air.”

“’At’s Crawley’s table,” an older sailor told them.

“Who’s he?” James Yeovill, the Captain’s cook, asked.

“’E’s th’ Cox’n,” the older fellow said with a sour look, “an’ ’is boat crew berth there.”

“I’m Liam Desmond, Cap’m Lewrie’s Cox’n,” Desmond told him. “Me mate and stroke-oar, Pat Furfy, there … Cap’m’s cook, Yeovill, and them there’s Pettus an’ Jessop. Th’ Cap’m’s men.”

“Been with him f’r ages an’ amen,” Furfy vowed.

“It’s still Crawley’s mess table, I tells ye,” the older hand growled.

“What, all f’r him alone, sure?” a younger man scoffed aloud. “Crawley an’ Cap’m Insley’s people’re ashore t’tend him in th’ hospital, an’ most o’ them’ll come back aboard’z plain Landsmen an’ Ord’nary Seamen … if they come back at all. Michael Deavers, I am, an’ I was in Cap’m Insley’s boat crew, but…” he said with an iffy shrug.

“Then I reckon ye still will be,” Desmond told him.

“Maybe Cap’m Insley’ll keep his cook and servants on after he’s faced a court,” Deavers went on, “but, th’ rest of ’em belongs t’th’ Navy, no matter the come-down.”

“With him long, ye say,” another sailor nearby asked, taking a cold pipe from his mouth. “What sorta officer is Cap’m Lewrie?”

“He’s a scraper, arrah,” Furfy boasted, warming to the subject. “We been in more fights than we’ve had hot suppers.”

“Much of a hope f’r that in this ship!” another sailor griped. “All we’ve done is convoy work inta th’ Baltic an’ back f’r months on end, an’ nary a shot’ve we fired.”

“Cap’m Lewrie’ll find us some action,” Yeovill spoke up, “he always does, sooner or later.”

“’E come aboard all tarted up, wif star an’ sash, an’ medals,” the older hand sneered. “Born to it, wos ’e? Silver spoon in ’is mouth an’ all?”

“Won ’em!” Furfy barked. “We were with him at Camperdown and Copenhagen, an’ he was at Cape Saint Vincent afore that. He got his knighthood f’r defeatin’ a French squadron off Louisiana back in ’03, so he earned it, fair an’ square.”

“Tartar, is he?” a younger sailor asked. “A hard flogger?”

“Firm but fair,” Desmond assured him. “The Cap’m ain’t much of a flogger, but ya give him good cause an’ he’ll have ya at th’ gratings.”

“Proteus, Savage, Thermopylae, and Reliant,” Furfy added with a grin, “none o’ th’ Cap’m’s ships did much floggin’ at all.”

The younger sailor looked relieved, then began to smile when Bisquit, sensing a kind soul, trotted to him and began to nuzzle his hands for petting.

“‘At’s Bisquit, he is,” Jessop said.

“Cap’m’s dog?” the sour older hand asked.

“The ship’s dog aboard Reliant,” Pettus told him. “Our Mids rescued him from the flagship at Nassau. Mersey’s Mids brought him aboard, but her Captain and officers had purebred hunting dogs, and threatened t’drown Bisquit in a sack if they snuck him back aboard again. When Reliant paid off, no one else could take him, so Cap’m Lewrie took him on. But, he’s still pretty-much the ship’s dog.”

“He’s a fine’un, no error,” the younger sailor crooned, “ain’t ya, boy? Aye, ya are! Want a piece o’ hardtack?”

“Th’ onliest beast who’d appreciate it, hah!” Furfy laughed. “Bisquit’s th’ only one who likes somethin’ that hard t’chew!”

“An’ yer beef bones, wif a shred o’ meat on ’em,” Jessop said. “Ye’ll not have t’heave ’em out th’ gun-ports wif Bisquit aboard.”

“Well, now we’re situated, I suppose we should get back aft, Jessop,” Pettus announced.

“Aye, and I need to go forward and meet the Ship’s Cook, and set my goods up in the galley,” Yeovill said, getting to his feet, cautiously. The overhead did not quite allow standing head room.

“Oh, ye’ll just love ol’ Tanner!” the older sailor said with another sneer. “Th’ one-legged bastard’s been tryin’ t’poison us since we been in commission! I swear ’e pisses in th’ cauldrons just f’r spite! ’E’s a damned sour man, ’e is.”

“And you ain’t?” Deavers teased.

“Damn yer eyes, Deavers,” the older fellow snapped. “Ye wish a change o’ mess, yer welcome to it.”

“Aye, I think I do,” Deavers decided of a sudden. “I see ya have but five for an eight-man mess, Cox’n Desmond, and if ya say I’m t’stay on in th’ Cap’m’s boat crew, I might as well shift my traps to yours, an’ tell the First Officer of it. How about you, Harper?” he asked the younger sailor.

“Be fine with me, Michael,” Harper agreed.

“Then, when Crawley an’ his lot come back aboard, if they do, you can have ’em, Thompson,” Deavers said to the older hand. “You’ll all get along’z thick as thieves, hah hah.”

“Better mess-mates ’an th’ likes o’ you!” Thompson shot back.

Bisquit left off gnawing on his chunk of ship’s bisquit as his old friends departed, looking anxious ’til Deavers and Harper shifted their chests and sea-bags to Desmond’s table, then settled back down on his belly to crack the bone-hard treat. And, by the time he’d eaten the last crumb, the dog found that he had won two new friends who would ruffle his fur, let him lay his head on their thighs, and tease him.

CHAPTER TEN

“I’m beginnin’ t’think that a two-decker fifty’s not the worst ship to have, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said about a week later, after he had prowled his new command from the cable tiers to the fighting tops. “I’m especially impressed with the iron water tanks, and those iron knees.”

“Well, we still have to pump from the tanks to fill the scuttle-butts so the hands can use the dippers when they need a sip or two,” Lt. Westcott said as they emerged from the upper gun deck to the weather deck and fresh air. After a time, all ships developed a permanent stink that could not be eradicated, no matter how often the bilges were pumped out, the interiors scrubbed with vinegar, or smoked with burning faggots of tobacco leaf. Salt-meat ration kegs reeked, after years in cask, fat slush skimmed from the cauldrons when those meats were boiled had its own odour, and was liberally slathered on running rigging to keep it supple. Add to that the ordure from the animals in the forecastle manger, damp wool and soured bedding, the hundreds of sailors who went un-washed for days on end, and their pea-soup farts, and un-warned civilian visitors could end up stunned and gagging.