King`s Captain

Were you smart, you d have waited 'til this evening after I was long gone, Lewrie glowered back just as stonily, as his Coxswain, Andrews, and his servant, Aspinall, clambered into the barge.

'Shove off then,' Lewrie pronounced. And the new captain was stroking forward to take his barge's place below the entry-port in an eyeblink. As he drew close though, as they passed, Lewrie thought he saw the new man begin to beam in appreciation, his face turned upwards, bearing that ineffable look of a man gone 'arse over tit' in love… that wide-eyed crinkle of joy that all sailors bestow upon only those loveliest of vessels. The new man, most likely less-senior, had the presence of mind to doff Lewrie a cautious salute with his hat before clawing eagerly at the man-ropes.

Eager to claim the hands, Lewrie smirked to himself; lay hold of 'em before the vultures from the dockyard did! With the new captain in his barge were a half-dozen seamen, just as eager to board her and continue their favouritism and seniority under their patron.

'Portsmouth Point, sir?' the tillerman enquired.

'Aye, Portsmouth Point,' Lewrie glumly agreed, facing the town, unable to bear the tweetle of bosun's calls welcoming her new captain.

'Ain't gonna like dot new cap'um, sah,' Andrews commented. ' 'E didn't give 'em time t'give ya yer presents proper-like.'

'What presents?' Lewrie gloomed as the barge turned, the older waterman by her mast beginning to hoist her single lugsail.

'Dere's a letter, sah,' Andrews told him, untying a canvas packet and handing it over. 'Model o' de ship… and d'is, sah.'

Lewrie read the letter quickly, coughing to cover his chagrin. Every man-jack had signed it or X'd his mark (except for Mr. Howse and LeGoff, of course), thanking him for being a tolerant, firm-but-fair captain; vowing, should they have the chance, they'd be glad to ship with him again; wishing that he didn't have to leave Jester…

Lewrie squinted over that, feeling his eyes mist up as the barge sailed out oi Jester s shadow into bright sunlight. 'Ah, hummm!' was all he could manage to say, clearing a prodigious lump in his throat.

'Ain' often po' sailormen git a good cap'um, sah,' Andrews told him, showing him the ship model. It was about two feet long, as fine a rendering as any Admiralty model run up to present to the King himself, with Jester's every detail precisely and meticulously reproduced, every line, brace, clew, slab, or buntline strung spider-thin aloft. Months, it'd taken, he thought. . 1 started before Lisbon and his glad news?

'Dey's 'is too, sah,' Andrews offered.

A coin-silver tankard, pint-sized, engraved with a scroll of seashells and chain round its base and upper lip, with a profile sail-plan of a sloop of war in all her bounding glory, and a scroll-board claiming her to be HMS Jester engraved below her. There was a suggestion of the waves, a boisterously erose dash at her waterline, inverted Vees about one side… and a pair of leaping dolphins, the enigmatic heads of two smiling seals, and a forearm stretched forth from the deeps ahead of her bows, wielding a sword as if pointing her way onward. Seals and a sea-god-a cryptic meaning known only to one who'd been there, 'board that ship, in that crew, and only during that commission.

'My, God, it's beautiful, it's…' Lewrie mumbled in appreciation. 'T'other side, sir.' Aspinall winked. 'Read t'other side.' He turned the tankard, so the handle was to the drinker's right, discovering a dedication which would ever face the drinker:

Presented To Commander Alan Lewrie, R.N.

Lucky Captain of a Lucky Ship

From a Grateful Appreciative Ship's Crew

of HMS Jester 1794-1797

'Model got done aboard, sir,' Aspinall revealed eagerly. 'Cup, well…'member Bosun Cony's runs ashore once we anchored? Took up a donation from ev'ry hand, he did.'

'And I spoiled the moment for 'em,' Lewrie groaned. 'Too hot t'flee 'fore I…'

He'd vowed he'd not look back, but he did, even while the other new man was reading himself in, shouting his orders so everyone would hear and understand, from taffrail to jib-boom tip.

'… directly charging and commanding the officers and company belonging to the said sloop of war subordinate to you to behave themselves jointly and severally in their respective employments with all due respect and obedience unto you, their said captain…!'

The crew's attention was bound inboard, yet he stood, his head bare, raised the letter high in one hand, the silver tankard high in the other. A few men upon the starboard gangway spotted him, nudged each other, and attracted the surreptitious attention of more. They waved hats and hands below the bulwark, smiling fit to bust, so the new captain would not spot them.

And when the new man finished reading himself in, there came a thunderous-undeserved-cheer.

Ruined it for him, Lewrie thought, a silly ass's smile plastered on his phyz, but with tears coursing down his cheeks at last; well, what of it? Just bugger him! And he 'd better treat 'em right!

CHAPTER TWO

There came a second hard leave-taking for a sailor; standing atop Ports-down Hill as the overloaded diligence coach toiled up to the crest and the passengers, as usual, got down to walk the muddy track to ease the horse teams… to gaze back and down at the wide sweep of Spithead and the Solent, past the Isle of Wight, outwards to the flood of the Channel as the tide turned. The harbours, so full of warships, a forest of masts… and savouring his last noseful of kelp, fish, and salt breezes… as if saying farewell forever to a dying lover!

Andrews and his clerk, Padgett, went one direction for Anglesgreen aboard a stout dray laden with his possessions. Lewrie and his manservant, Aspinall, went another, for London in the thrice-daily 'dilly'… for Admiralty and word of future employment. The wind, now a land breeze, heavy with springtime growth, with nurturing rains and turned-earth smells, stole the sea-scent and whistled cool over the crest of the hill… almost foreboding, he could conjure?

Lewrie marvelled, though, how much England had changed during his absence; roads, where before there had been foot paths, branching from the main London route and teeming with waggon traffic. The main road now become a congested highway, with cottages, row-houses, shops, and inns lining the sides, where cows or sheep had grazed before! Mysterious, fuming, bustling manufacturies crammed with workers, amidst the clank and hiss of new-fangled steam machines that drove belts, pumped water and spun looms and lathes, reeking of burning coal and the musty wet-laundry odour of the steam itself!

Tiny crossroads hamlets had blossomed into villages, villages into towns, and London had sprawled even further afield, absorbing a host of settlements and farmland into its industrial, residential conurbations as though it had leapt southward, almost to Guildford, in the span of a single Dog Watch! Like an oil