Sea of Grey

almost a 'Rope-Yarn Sunday' of purposeful idleness free of drills, with lashings of fresh fruit and scuttle-butts of fresh water on hand. The gig, launch, and cutter were over-side, angling out from the single bow-painters so their seams and caulking, their planks, could soak up water and swell back to water-tightness.

More hot tar sulfur smells arose from the gun-deck, where hands knelt and crept as they plied heated loggerheads over freshly tarred deck seams to melt the tar and oakum into the gaps to restore water-tightness against the rain, as well. Lewrie saw Midshipman Grace by his father's side, helping him take tentative, weak steps to get his strength back, now that the last bouts of fever had left him.

Lewrie also saw his two new Midshipmen, Mister David Burns, and Mister George Larkin, and he could not help but scowl at them. Burns was a pimply, dark-haired scarecrow, a mouth-breather who gulped quite often… else he'd have drowned in his own spittle. His family had left it late, and had only sent him to sea at fourteen; now, with one certified year at sea, he still gawped about as if just wakened from a trance, wondering where the Devil he was. He was blankly pleasant, a perpetual cypher whom Lewrie was sure had been hustled off to sea for the Navy to care for, for his 'young but widowed' mother surely could not, or would not, and probably had promising prospects for remarriage if only she disposed of her hopeless 'git.' It was an old story.

Young George Larkin was most-like born an unwelcome bastard, an Anglo-Irish by-blow of a wealthy absentee landowner and some daughter of a poor tenant. He was stout, almost knobbly at elbows, knees, and shoulders, possessed of an unfortunate nose so 'Irish pugged' that it was more swinish than anything else-he stood a fair chance from drowning did he look up at a driving rain-topped by an unruly shock of straw-coloured hair. Larkin, at least, had some wits about him, a cheerful mien, and an ever-eager anxiousness to please and perservere; quite unlike poor Mr. Burns, who tended to stare, gape, and gulp a lot, with his eyes only half focused on the task at hand. Larkin was poor as a church mouse, his uniform a seedy melange of issue slop-clothing and the cheapest coat, waistcoat, and hat ever found in a trash pile, or looted from a corpse. He was sixteen, with three years of duty at sea, and was at least tarry-handed. Naturally, the crew had taken to the little ape, as they never would with Mr. Burns. They'd pity Burns and try to keep him from tripping over his own feet, but…

Lewrie had conferred with Mr. Winwood and at his recommendation had promoted one of his Master's Mates to make up the sixth midshipman that Proteus rated. Jemmy Merriam, now Mister James Merriam, was mid-twenties and as salty as anyone could wish. Though it was hard to be a 'gentleman-to-be' over former forecastle messmates, Merriam was, so far, coping. But, at the same time, Merriam was junior to everyone in the orlop cockpit, even to Burns, Larkin, and little Grace! And how he kept a straight face below with them in the off-duty hours, Lewrie had no idea.

Try as he might, Sir Edward just couldn't conjure up a replacement Lieutenant for them, so Mr. Adair had been confirmed as an officer. Lewrie strongly suspected that Captain Charles had had a few 'runners' in mind, each about as thick as an anchor stock, but might have felt that Burns and Larkin were trials enough for his least-favourite captain on station. Even he, at the last, could not be utterly vindictive!

Lewrie had just settled down in his folding canvas and wood deck chair (a contraption that most other 'sea- dog' captains would look upon as dangerously luxurious) with his feet up on the taff-rail flag lockers, pennywhistle to his mouth and Toulon curled up napping beside his feet on the lockers. He essayed a scale, then launched into a gay hornpipe, when the midshipman of the watch shouted.

'Hoy, the boat, there!' Mr. Larkin shrilled.

'Hoy, the ark!' a booming voice rejoined. 'Is Noah aboard?'

'Who, sir?' Larkin gawped, never expecting such a challenge.

'Your captain, laddy! Buggerin' camels, is he? Both male and female, did he take aboard?' the voice posed, rather loudly.

'Aye, he's aboard, sir! And who would you be, come a'callin'?'

'Colonel Christopher Bloody Cashman, the Lord of Plunder!'

Lewrie whooped in glee and got to his feet, his music forgotten.

'Captain, sir,' unfortunate Mr. Burns said, doffing his hat as he came to the quarterdeck, 'but there's a drunk soldier alongside, is asking for you, and…' He gulped a time or two, fretfully.

'Tell him I'm fucking a zebra,' Lewrie said with a chuckle.

'I can't tell him… that, sir!' Burns said, so embarrassed that his face paled, making his acne stand out like bubonic buboes.

'Make it 'carnal knowledge of-never mind, I'll tell him,' Lewrie said, gladly trotting to the entry-port to lean over and wave.

'Permission t'scamper up that wee ladder thing, sir!' Cashman cried, standing unsteadily in the gently rocking rowboat. 'I've come t'get you drunk, Admiral Lewrie, and I'll not be denied, dammit all!'

'The zebra I was stuffin' was a virgin, you reprobate, so this had better be good!' Lewrie called down, to the great amusement of his crew.

'Half dozen o Jean-Pierre's best bubbly, Admiral Noah!' Cashman promised, displaying a bottle from a straw-packed case at his feet in the

rowboat's bilges.

'Aye, then… scamper on up that ladder thing, General Cashman!'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

So this is the infamous Toulon,' Cashman said, stripping away his scarlet tunic, neck-stock, and waistcoat as a seaman fetched in the crate of bottles. He tossed his uniform at the starboard-side settee, then plunked into an upholstered chair, reaching out to the desk where the cat sat, hunkered down over his front paws, uncertain of this newcomer's antecedents. 'Meow, puss. Killed any rats lately?' he asked as he offered fingers under Toulon 's nose. A moment later and Toulon was on his side, tail lashing, and head writhing in bliss to be petted.

'Fickle bastard,' Lewrie grumbled. 'Ah, Aspinall, kindly take the tompion from the muzzle of one of those bottles, and run it out in battery for us, will you? There's a good lad.'

'What is that smell?' Cashman asked, wrinkling his nose.

'Tar, citron oil, and sulfur,' Lewrie chuckled. 'Our Surgeon's Mates are still tinkerin' with the formula, but it's cut the number of men who come down sick, and run off the flies and mosquitoes.'

'Like Satan breakin' wind under clean sheets.' Cashman hooted.

'Takes our minds off the bilges and the pea-soup farts,' Lewrie told him as Aspinall produced a loud Thwockl and a flying cork, which made Toulon scramble to his paws and fly off the desk to intercept it. Good flutes were filled, the bottle stood on the desk, then Aspinall faded back into his tiny pantry. 'Damn' fine, even warm. Aahhh, damn fine,' Lewrie said after a first tentative sip.

'We'll not see its like this side of Paris any longer,' Cashman mourned. 'Jean-Pierre and Maman escaped Port-Au-Prince, and took all their wine cellars with 'em… their cooks, their families, and their best girls. Hired a schooner, emptied their house o' furnishings and plate, chests and chests o' money, and all, and headed for Charleston.'

'Mighty tempting target, all that pelf,' Lewrie speculated with a frown. 'Who's t'say the crew won't turn pirate for an hour or two, and have 'em over the side?'

'Took a half dozen o' their bully-bucks armed to the teeth, and their girls and kin, as well,' Cashman snickered, topping them up once more. 'Doubt they'd have any trouble on that score. By the by, your darlin' Henriette sends her love. When in Charleston, look her up, she says.' 'That'll be the day,' Lewrie scoffed.

'Must've made a hellish impression on her, old son. But then, you have that effect on all the willin' little biddies, don't ya, hey?'

'Hah!' Lewrie replied, even while wondering if even Cashman had heard rumours from Home, by now. 'So, what's the occasion?'

'Alan, my boy, we're havin' a wake, a proper old Irish wake, in honour of someone… somethin