The King`s Coat

’Such language from a young gentleman, but better being humiliated than killed by someone with bad breath and no forehead. Fetch your cutlass and we'll get some water.’

In warmer climes a butt of water was kept on deck with a square cut, or scuttled, into the upper staves so that a small cup could be dipped inside without spillage. It was too long incask, that water, and tan with oak and animaIcules, but in Lewrie's parched condition it was sparkling wine. ’Most men are afraid of blades, Lewrie,' Osmonde told him as he sipped at his water, making a face at the color and taste. 'That's why people were so glad that gunpowder and muskets and cannon were invented. You don't have to get within reach of a blade or a point to get rid of the other bastard. I am glad to see you are not one of them.’

’Thank you, sir,' Lewrie replied. 'I think.’

’Most men these days wear swords the way they wear hats.’

Osmonde sighed, handing the cup back to Lewrie. 'Or to give them a longer reach at the buffet table. Yet society, and the Navy, require us to face up to the enemy with steel in our hands. Fortunately for us, the Frogs and the Dons are a bunch of capering poltroons for all their supposed skills as swordsmen and swordsmiths. But there are a few men who are truly dangerous with a sword.’

’Like you, sir?' Alan grinned, hoping to flatter. ’Do not toady to me, Lewrie.’

’I was merely asking if you thought yourself dangerous, sir.’

’Yes, yes, I am. I am because I like cold steel,' Osmonde said with a casualness that sent a chill down Lewrie's sweaty back. 'I can shoot, I can fence prettily but I can also hack with the best of 'em. Axe, cutlass, boarding pike, take your. pick. Ever duel?’

‘Once, sir. Back home.’

’Ever blaze?’

‘No, sir. SmaIIsword only. I pinked him. ’

‘Huzzah for you. How did you feel?’

‘ WeIl-’

‘Was he skilled?’

‘No, sir. He was easy to pink.’

’And you were properly brave.' Osmonde sniffed. ’Well.. ‘. ’You were both frightened. Hands damp, throat dry, trembling all over. Probably pale as death but you stood up game as a little lion, did you not?’

‘Yes, I did, sir,' Alan said, getting a little tired of being humiliated. ’It was only natural. And until you are really skillful with steel you will always feel that way, trusting to luck and hoping the foe is clumsy. Like going aloft, which I sincerely thank God I do not have to do, one learns caution, but goes when called, by facing one's fear and conquering it.’

’I think I see, sir.’

’Most likely you do not, but you shall someday. You do not know how many young fools have rushed blindly into danger and died for their supposed honor, or for glory. Those two have buried more idiots than the plague. Heroism cannot conquer all. You'll run into someone better someday. Better to be truly dangerous and let them come like sheep to the slaughter. Let the other fool die for his honor. Your job is to kill him, not with grace and style, but with anything that comes to hand.’

’I suppose I'd live longer if I were that sort of man, sir?' Lewrie asked, not above placing his valuable skin at a high premium. ’Exactly. So I suggest you find the oldest and heaviest cutlass aboard and practice with that, until a smallsword or hanger becomes like a feather in your hand. Keep fitter than the other fellow. Not only will you tire less easily, but the ladies prefer a fit man.’

’Aye, sir,' Lewrie replied, now on familiar ground. 'Practice with all this ironmongery until they each become an instinctive part of you. I will let you know if you are slacking. ’

‘Aye, sir,' Lewrie said, not looking forward to it. It was a lot of work, and he had to admit that the sight of a pike head coming for his eyes was most unnerving. 'I shall try, though the ship's routine does take time from it. It must be easier to devote oneself to steel if one were a Marine officer, sir.’

’Tempted to be a 'bullock,' Mister Lewrie?’

‘The thought had crossed my mind, sir.’

’Prohibitively expensive to purchase a commission, d'you know,' Osmonde said by way of dismissal. 'Certain appearances to maintain in the mess, as well.’

’Well,' Alan said, turning to go as seven bells of the Forenoon watch rang out, and the bosun's pipes sounded cleardecks-and-up-spirits for the daily rum ration. Osmonde's Marine orderly was there with a small towel and Osmonde's smallsword and tunic, as the Marine sniffed the air from the galley funnel. ’Bugger the snooty bastards, anyway,' Alan muttered, going below to his own mess, soaking wet from the exertion. He dropped off Lieutenant Kenyon's hanger and vowed that before the voyage was over, Captain Osmonde would rate him as a dangerous man.

Days passed as Ariadne made her westing, running down a line of latitude that would take them direct to Antigua as resolutely as a dray would stay within the banks of a country lane. There were two schools of thought about that; it made navigation easier to perform, and could almost be done by dead reckoning with a quick peek at the traverse board to determine distance run from one noon to the next, but it was a lazy, civilian way of doing things. Or, it was quite clever, since lazy civilian merchant captains would do it, and that put Ariadne in a position to intercept enemy Indiamen, or conversely, those privateers who might be lying in wait to prey upon British ships. But since the ship had not distinguished herself in the past as a great fighting ship, the latter was a minority opinion. Gun drill and some live firings were practiced, but it was undertaken with the tacit assumption that Ariadne would never fire those guns in angerspite or pique, perhaps, but not battle-and it showed.

What a happy ship we are, Alan thought, stripping off his coat and waistcoat as he sat down for dinner following one of those morning gun drills in the Forenoon watch. Lieutenant Harm had yelled himself hoarse with threats and curses to the gun crews on the lower deck, and the mechanical way they had gone through the motions. And when Lewrie had told some of them to remember to swab out so they would do it for real in action, Harm had screeched something like 'a midshipman giving advice, by the nailed Christ?' and for him to shut the hell up, if he knew what was good for him.

There may have been a war raging in the Colonies, all round the world as France, Spain, perhaps soon even Holland joined to support the rebels and rehash the Seven Years' War, and ships may have fought in these very waters; somewhere over the horizon British vessels could be up to close-pistol-shot with the broadsides howling, but the general idea was that Ariadne was not part of that same fleet, and never would be, so drilling on the great guns was make-work, sullenly accepted.

The pork joint in their mess was half bone and gristle, and the real meat was a piece of work to chew. Their peas were lost in fatty grease; the biscuit was crumbling with age and the depredation of the weevils. Lewrie watched his companions chew, heard the rapping of the biscuits on the table like a monotonous tatoo. He was sick to death of them all, even Ashburn. Shirke was telling Bascombe the same joke for the umpteenth time, and Bascombe was braying like an ass as he always did. Chapman chewed and blinked and swallowed as though he was concentrating hard on remembering how, and in which order, such actions of dining occurred. The master's mates smacked like pigs at a trough, and the surgeon's mates whispered dry rustlings of dog-Latin and medical terms like a foreign language that set them apart from the rest. Brail fed bim…elf with a daintiness he imagined a gentleman should, and maintained a silence that was in itself maddening.

I'd love to put a pistol ball into this damned joint, just to have something new to talk about, Lewrie decided. It might wake old Chapman up, at least. No, probably ricochet off the pork and kill one of them… ’And was our young prodigy all proficient at gun drill today?' Shirke asked him. 'What?' Lewrie said, realizing he had been asked a question. 'Were you a comfort to Lieutenant Harm?' from Bascombe. ’I'm sure the foretopmen heard it,' Ashburn teased. ' 'By the nailed Christ,' I think the expression was.’

’Did big bad bogtwotter hurt baby's feewings?’

‘I see you have reverted to your proper age and intellect, Harv,' Lewrie said. 'How refreshing. For a while there, I thought counting higher than ten at navigation was going to derange you.’

Bascombe was not exactly a mental wizard when it came to the intricacy of working navigation problems, and had spent many hours at the masthead as punishment. The insult went home like a hot poker up the arse. ’You're a right smart little man, ain't you, Lewrie?’

‘Smarter than some I know. At least I can make change. ’