H.M.S. COCKEREL

day's sleep in the Waiting Room, more'n like!

Even at half past six of the morning, London 's streets were thronged with mongers and their wares fresh from the market, waggons and drays, livestock, weary prostitutes and pickpockets, revellers on their way home to bed, shopkeepers and clerks on their way to work. The bulkhead shops were already open, as were the greengrocers and butchers. Coal-heavers were out, houseservants or valets to fetch their masters' or mistresses' breakfasts from ordinaries or taverns. It was quicker for Lieutenant Lewrie to saunter down Catherine Street, cross the busy Strand, with a trained ear attuned to the rude cries of 'Have care!' or 'By y'r leave, sir!' of coachees, careening waggoners, or sedan-chair bully bucks. To stand still, dumb as a fart in a trance, even on the footpaths, was an invitation to getting trampled. And take a boat to the Admiralty.

At the foot of the bank where Charing Cross ended there were stairs to the riverside-slimy, mucked and erose, and worn down by long usage. As soon as he was spotted, the cacophonous din set in, reminding Lewrie of a hunting pack who'd cornered the fox.

'Oars, oars!' cried the boatmen. 'Scullers, scullers, sir! Tuppence!' countered those with smaller dinghys featuring a stern-sweep as propulsion.

'Oars,' he answered back, scanning the flotilla and selecting a bullock of a fellow, who sported the crossbelt, brassard and coat-of-arms of the Lord Mayor.

' Whitehall Steps… sixpence, sir,' the fellow nodded as he boarded the small craft. 'Tide'n wind be fair 'is mornin', sir.'

'Hard not to tell,' Lewrie commented as he settled himself on a forward thwart, his coin out and ready.

'Aye, aye, sir,' the man crinkled a sun-wrinkled smile as he shoved off and shipped his oars in the tholepins. 'Young man wearin' King's Coat… canvas packet unner 'is arm… well, sir!'

'You were in the Navy?' Lewrie asked.

'Both th' las' wars, sir. Landsman… ord'nary'n able seaman… 'en gun cap'um…' he related between powerful strokes, seated to his front, knee to knee with Alan. 'Quarter-gunner… Yeoman o' th' Powder 'fore 'twas done. Now 'ere come another war. Y'r welcome to it this time, sir. You an' all t'other young'uns. War 'fore th' week's out's my thinkin'. Can't 'llow th' Frogs t'spread 'eir pizen f r long. Folks is stirred up enough a'ready, sir.'

'By levelling talk?' Lewrie inquired. His stretch of Surrey might as well have been in China, for all the rumours that missed him.

'Thorn Paine, sir.' The old gunner beamed, tipping him a wink. 'Rights o' Man. Correspondin' societies. That Thom Hardy feller an' all? Price… Priestley… dissentin' an' such. Learned t'read in th' Navy, I did, sir. Time on our hands so heavy an' all? 'Nough t'know all them Friends o' the People societies' penny tracts is trouble. Wrote in th' same words'z anythin' wrote in France. 'At spells rebels an' combinations, sir. With so many folk outa work, an' wages so low when ya do get work, well… 'ear tell they've plotted secret committees, gone right over t'Paris itself!'

'Widespread, d'ye think?' Lewrie asked, morbidly intrigued.

'Not so much yet, sir. N'r by hard-handed men, d'ye see? Give 'em time, though… never thought I'd see 'at 'Yankee-Doodle' madness took up in a real country!'

'But it doesn't upset you enough to… volunteer, I take it,' Lewrie said with a knowing smirk.

The waterman tapped the brassard on his chest which protected him from the Impress Service, and tipped Lewrie another and equally knowing wink. 'I ain't thet stupid in me old age, sir!'

He paid off the waterman at the foot of Whitehall Steps, amid a swarm of other boats, of other officers reporting for duty. A walk up Richmond Terrace to thronging Whitehall, a stroll of about one hundred or more yards north up Whitehall, and he was there, before the curtain wall with its columns and blank stone facade between; before the deep central portal which led to the inner courtyard, beneath the pair of winged sea horses which topped the portal.

Admiralty! What a leviathan one single word implied. Ordnance Board, Victualling Board, Sick and Hurt Board, boards for control of ship's masters, of petty officers with warrants, of officers from lowly midshipmen to fighting admirals, port admirals, the Impress Service, HM Dockyards… cannon foundries, clothing manufacturies, pickling works for salt beef and pork, huge bakeries for untold tons of hard biscuit. And rope, tar, seasoned timber, paint, pewter messware, iron and bronze nails, pins and bolts, the copper industry for clean bottoms and defence against teredo worms. Sailcloth, slop-clothing, leather works, sheath knives and marlinspikes, forks to cutlasses and boarding pikes… taken altogether, the needs of the Fleet, and the myriad of suppliers, contractors, jobbers- and thieves-who filled those needs, the Royal Navy was the single largest commercial enterprise in the British Empire. Which meant, of course, the civilized world. And one single word-Admiralty-spanned it all. Just as the Royal Navy would soon span the globe, the most efficiently armed, supplied and equipped military organization known to man. The enormity of the endeavour made even a cynic such as Lewrie take pause.

Until he got to the door, of course.

'Lewrie?' The long-term tiler sighed with a weary, frazzled anas he scanned his admittance list with one arthritic finger, and applied the other index finger's horny nail to ferret between mossy teeth. 'Y'r sure they wish t'see ya, then, sir? However d'ya spell that? Doubya-Arr-Eye-Eeh, is it?' The tiler seemed offended that it wasn't some simpler name, perhaps. Or perhaps he was disappointed he had no wisp of fatty bacon left to suck on. Whichever it was, he made an open grimace of disgust. 'Aye, y'r listed,' he announced at last, almost grumbling with outrage to find Lewrie's name. 'Go 'long in, sir. Take a pew wi' th' others, God help ya.'

'You have no idea when…' Lewrie began, after heaving a tiny sigh of frustration, anxious to know what hour, or which day, his appointment might be.

'Run outa ideas, summer o' '78, sir, when I took this position,' the tiler shot back impatiendy. 'There's one lad, midshipman he was, was three full year warmin' 'is backside in yonder. Will-ya-not-go-m, sir-there' s-a-horde-o' - others-waitin'-you-next-yes-yoM, sir!'

Lewrie stifled his retort, knowing it would do him no good, or even begin to penetrate the querulous tiler's thick hide. He entered, left his cloak with an attendant who was even surlier than the tiler, and 'took a pew' in the infamous Waiting Room.

Early as it was, all the chairs, benches and sofas were taken by commodores, by post-captains, by commanders. Lowly scum such as he had perforce to stand, and in the draughtiest corners at that, as far from the fireplaces as rank and dignity would allow.

So much for a long nap, he sighed to himself. Without children to cock an ear to, he and Caroline had spent a night so passionate it rivaled their first days together as man and wife. And they had gone far past the point at which they might usually crash to sleep in utter exhaustion. He no longer held that thirty was exactly the dotage he'd feared. Truth to tell, he was quite proud of himself and his prowess, his endurance. But he was now paying for it. Once still, and hemmed in in the frowsty-warm Waiting Room, he was almost asleep on his feet, held up by the press of other nodding men's shoulders.

Except for the boisterous, Old Boys' Day jocularity which the rest displayed; the hummumm of an hundred men conversing, punctuated by cock-a-whoop laughter, calls of welcome, the 'damn my eyes if it ain't…!' greetings of shipmates long separated, whether they'd despised the person greeted or not, after three years' commission elbow to elbow. And the clatter of scabbards as both clumsy and adroit slowly paced the room, tangling and untangling, taking or giving way. He dry-swabbed his face, shook himself, and made his way towards the steamy aroma of hot tea, gladly willing to kill for a cup.

'Mister Lewrie, sir!' cried a cheerful voice.

'Damn my eyes,' Lewrie called back, 'if it ain't Hogue! A commission officer, now. How d'ye keep, hey?'

'Main-well, sir,' Lieutenant Hogue blushed. 'And you to thank for my promotion, I learned.' His former midshipman was aglow with fondness.

Damn right you should thank me, Lewrie thought smugly.

'Did it yourself, sir,' he pooh-poohed, though. 'Your service did it. When they gave us Culverin, and we fought the Lanun Rovers in the Far East.' Lewrie took care to say that loud enough for others. The Waiting Rooms were no place to show lickspittle meek before one's peers. Now there was almost war with France, their covert work could be revealed. 'Put paid to Choundas and his pirates. Where are you bound? Do you know yet?'

'Third Rate 74, sir,' Hogue boasted. 'Only fourth officer, but… I'm off to Chatham on the next diligence coach. And you, sir?'