He stepped back onto the quarterdeck and into the fresher air, clapped his hands in the small of his back and rocked on the balls of his boot soles, allowing himself a brief moment of feeling pleased. Comus out ahead had lit her taffrail lanthorns for the night, and the transports astern of her were doing the same. The column was ragged, not the beads-on-a-string perfection of a seasoned naval column, with some transports off each of Comus’s stern quarters, or HMS Sapphire’s stern quarters, but they looked to be only one cable, or a bit more, apart and managing decently enough.
This may not be as bad a prospect as I feared, Lewrie thought.
“Beg pardon, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, coming up from the waist with a sheet of paper in his hand. “Defaulters, I’m afraid. Damned near a dozen for Captain’s Mast in the morning.”
That was more than they had seen in a month aboard their old ship, and in the Reliant frigate, most of the sailors brought up on charges had been guilty of minor or trivial misdeeds, punished with deprivations less than the use of the cat-o’-nine-tails.
“How many serious defaulters?” Lewrie asked with a gloomy sigh.
“One fist-fight, one pissing on the lower gun deck, two quarreling or showing dis-respect to a Midshipman or petty officer, one who was trying to pilfer some jam from the galley, and the rest are either drunk, or drowsing on duty, sir.”
“Christ on a crutch,” Lewrie gravelled. “So much for a happy ship. Gun drill, weather permitting, in the Forenoon. Live powder and shot, for a change, then I’ll hold Mast after Noon Sights.”
“Very good, sir,” Lt. Westcott said with a rueful look, and a heavy, commiserating shrug.
Then again, things may not turn out well, Lewrie thought.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The winds swung more Northerly for a day or two, allowing their column to make their way West-Sou’west, almost on a beam wind, which was grand for the soldiers cooped up in the transports to accustom them to a ship’s motions, giving them their “sea legs”. It was good for maintaining the proper order of sailing, too, as they stood out beyond the Lizard and into the open Atlantic. Both Comus and Sapphire wreathed themselves in spent powder smoke for at least one hour each Forenoon to bring their gun crews back up to scratch, Lewrie’s hands most especially. For a warship in commission the better part of a year, her gunners were very rusty, and initially slow to run out and fire, or reload, nowhere near Lewrie’s, and Westcott’s, exacting standards. Westcott confided that the other officers had commented that former Captain Insley had been more than frugal with the expenditure of shot and powder, perhaps in worry that Admiralty might send him a harsh note for wasting too much of the stuff.
In the beginning, it seemed that the roars and explosions from the muzzles was so alien and terrifying a din that the guns crews were addled by it, stunned into confusion, and the proper steps of drill blasted from their heads, standing round stupefied, or fumbling like complete new-comes at their first exposure, without a clue as to how to perform the simplest task, afraid of their great charges.
It took a whole week before the 12-pounders on the upper gun deck and the 24-pounders on the lower gun deck could run in, load, run out, and fire somewhat co-ordinated broadsides. Aiming was what worried Lewrie after that. If he ordered the launch or pinnace away to tow an empty cask—on a very long tow-line!—it was good odds that his gunners would sink the boat! The best he could do was to fire off a 6-pounder and order a broadside fired at the feather of spray where the roundshot struck the sea, at once, and hope for the best. And that proved to be a very ragged second-best, with roundshot soaring off half a mile beyond, and raising splash pillars along half the length of the convoy.
Lieutenant-Colonel Fry had much better luck with his musketry, dumping empty kegs overside and having his Fusiliers volley at them in ripples of platoon fire. Of course, his soldiers were not expected to hit anything much beyond seventy-five yards!
Lewrie would have kept them at it more often, but for the wind and weather. Further out in the Atlantic, as they strove to attain at least the 15th Longitude, the winds came more and more Westerly, and at least twice a day all ships had to wear about from one tack to the other, then make long boards for at least six hours, making progress Westward on larboard tack, steering Nor’west, then wear about to sail on starboard tack to the Sou’-Sou’west to make progress Sutherly.
Some days were just too boisterous to call the hands to Quarters and cast off the bowsings and lashings, as the winds piped up and veered or backed, and the seas got up, and the decks were soaked with rain. At least it was warm rain. On those days, Sapphire’s crew was exercised on muskets and pistols, on cutlasses, boarding axes, and pikes. The ship’s Marines, much better shots, would fire a volley to create a rough point of aim in the sea close alongside, and the sailors would shoot at it before the myriad of shot-splashes would subside.
Discipline was another matter. There were some violations that had to be met with the “cat”. When holding Mast—almost every other day, it seemed—Lewrie tried to deal with the petty stuff by awarding the defaulters with deprivations; no tobacco for a week, no rum for a week, or putting men on only bread and water. Most sailors depended on those little things to make their lives the slightest bit tolerable, and being denied their grog or “chaws” usually raised groans of real pain from the condemned. Fighting, insubordination, showing dis-respect to petty officers and Mids, though, had to be punished to drive the point home and make the hands fearful of violating the stern discipline necessary aboard a King’s Ship.
He would start with the awarding of one dozen lashes, with the defaulter bound to an upright hatch cover, shirtless, with a wide leather sash round his middle to protect the man from errant strokes that might hit the kidneys or the buttocks. The Ship’s Surgeon, Snelling, would examine the man to determine if he was fit to suffer punishment. The crew would be assembled to bear witness and take heed from their shipmate’s pain. The Marines would form up to one side in the waist in full-dress kit and under arms. The Sailmaker would have fashioned a red baize draw-string bag, in which a fresh-made cat-o’-nine-tails was hidden. Lewrie would read the crime committed, cite the applicable section of the Articles of War, then ordain the punishment, and tell the Bosun and his Mates to “let the cat out of the bag” to administer that required dozen.
As the days went by, though, Lewrie could note that the names of the hands who’d been lashed did not appear again, except for the hardened few, who would commit the same petty crimes and suffer the ritual once more, with two dozen lashes for a second appearance.
* * *
“Thief! Thief! Git ’im!”
Lewrie was reclined in his collapsible deck chair on the poop, reading a novel and regally above it all, when that tumult began. He put the book aside and descended to the quarterdeck.
“What’s acting, Mister Harcourt?” he asked the watch officer.
“No idea, sir,” Harcourt said in his usual laconic, stand-offish manner. “I expect we shall see, shortly.”
Too bad officers can’t be flogged, Lewrie fumed to himself; I’m gettin’ tired o’ him. He’s skirtin’ damn’ close to the line o’ mute insubordination!
“Aha, sir,” Harcourt said, jutting his chin to the main hatchway as Baggett, the Master At Arms, and his Ship’s Corporals, Packer and Wray, came up from the upper gun deck to the weather deck, wrestling a burly, struggling hand with them. Just behind, a horde of men boiled onto the deck, threatening to beat the man.