A King`s Trade

enough! Make all haste to your proper station, Captain Lewrie! It is growing dark, sir!'

'Aye aye, sir!' Lewrie replied, doffing his hat once more, in sign of departure; and, hopefully, that his 'joyful' rencontre with a shipmate of old was mercifully at an end.

'Clew up, Mister Langlie… Spanish Reefs, to slow us. Helmsmen, helm hard up and slew a knot or two off us,' Lewrie snapped.

Proteus swung wide away, acting as if she'd been stung by the flagship. Course sails were briefly gathered up in their centres to spill wind, until she'd fallen far-enough astern of Grafton to avoid a collision when she swung Sou'-Sou'easterly, putting the wind on her larboard quarter to fall down towards the distant sloop of war, clews freed, and her course sails now drawing taut and full.

'Me pardons, sor,' Midshipman Larkin meekly muttered, wringing his hands over his supposed faults. 'But I really couldn't read 'em.'

'No one could,' Lewrie gently told him. 'Not your fault.'

'Uhm, not a horrid beginning, was it, Captain?' Langlie queried in a soft voice at his captain's elbow. 'After what you said of…'

'But not a good'un, either, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie resignedly replied, turning to look astern at the flagship in the gathering dusk. 'I fear this'll be a hellish-long voyage. And feel twice as long.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Signal from the flag, sir… our number!' Midshipman Gamble sang out, with a heavy brass day-glass to one eye.

'Damn it!' Capt. Alan Lewrie spat, and thumped a fist on the cap-rail of the larboard quarterdeck bulwark for good measure, bleakly muttering under his breath, 'What the bloody flamin' Hell does he want this time?' Before turning to face Midshipman Gamble he took a moment to re-collect the proper nautical stoicism, heaving a deep sigh.

'Aye, Mister Gamble?' Lewrie enquired, with what a disinterested observer might mistake for bland and idle curiosity. His play-acting was wasted on Midshipman Gamble, for that young worthy had clapped the telescope back to one eye, and had screwed the other shut, intent upon the distant HMS Grafton's hoists. Lewrie was, therefore, allowed to scowl, taking note that the First Lieutenant, Mr. Langlie, and Bosun Pendarves, with whom he was discussing the renewal of chafing gear to save the currently-strung running rigging, both lifted their eyes in sympathy, and pointedly looked away.

'Take Station… Alee, no… Ahead,' Mr. Gamble interpreted, after a quick peek at the sheaf of unique signals that Capt. Treghues had composed whilst they were hammering their way Sutherly across the dangerous Bay of Biscay, just in case the French raiders had managed to snag a copy of that month's code book. To simply obtain their copy of the convoy's code had required them to go close-aboard Grafton and put a boat down to fetch them; into Proteus's captain's hand, only, in the middle of a roaring Westerly winter gale! Once soaked to the skin and nigh-drowned, Lewrie had clambered up Grafton's side to the entry-port whilst the line-of-battle ship had ponderously rolled, pitched, heaved, and even seemed to 'wiggle,' only to be greeted by the First Lieutenant who had given him the signals, wrapped in oil-skin, then sent right back into his swooping boat, with nary a sign of Treghues to be seen! Lewrie didn't imagine that Capt. Treghues had meant for him to perish… but, the sight of his demise might have fetched their senior officer up from below to do a little 'what a pity' horn- pipe!

'… five miles leeward of convoy, sir,' Mr. Gamble concluded. 'Crack on sail, Mister Langlie, all to the royals,' Lewrie said. 'Very good, sir,' Langlie replied. 'More chafing gear, Mister Pendarves, once we're settled down. For now, I'd admire did you pipe 'All Hands.' '

'And here we go, again,' Lewrie muttered, turning to stomp aft and peer 'cross the quarterdeck at Grafton, now up on their starboard bows, and about five miles distant. Could he really shoot fire from his eyes like an ancient Greek god, the flagship would explode before he blinked, all his problems immolated in a towering ball of flames.

It had been like this for weeks, going on for the better part of two months since the rendezvous in mid-Channel. Did the shallows or rocky shoals of the Breton coast need scouting for fear of lurking Frog warships or privateers, one could count on Proteus to do it; were any of the towering East Indiamen dawdling astern or straying too far away, the safest wager would be that Grafton would hoist their number as the ship to dash off and play 'whipper-in.' Did one of their merchantmen lose spars or sails in the generally horrid weather in the Bay of Biscay or off the equally-belligerent Spanish coasts, it was usually HMS Proteus, and Lewrie, given the task of giving her both close escort and succour, to the point that Lewrie's carefully hoarded supply of bosun's stores, sail canvas, light upper mast, and yardarm replacements had been sorely depleted… and would any of the other warships among the escort force whip round a share-out? Hell no, of course.

In point of fact, the only signal that Grafton had not hoisted was 'Captain Repair On Board,' and an invitation to supper, as was made to every other warship captain, and even to some of the 'better- behaved' Indiamen.

The third time I blink, she blows to smithereens, Lewrie fantasised, and feeling a bit of disappointment when Grafton did not, after a last shutting and snapping-open of his eyes.

Their trade was now well South of the Tropic of Cancer, steering mostly Sou'-Sou'west with the weakening Nor'east Trades fine on their larboard quarters, to churn out enough Southing in mid-Atlantic so the Westward- flowing Equatorial Current did not slosh them too far over to the New World and onto the shoulder of South America, where they could end embayed against the coasts, and hit bows-on by the Sou'east Trades. It was theoretically possible to shave the Cape Verde Islands without being forced too far West, then do a long and labourious tacking course direct to St. Helena, if the weather allowed, though that would require fighting the Equatorial Current and the Trades all the way.

Anything t'make this hellish voyage shorter, pray Jesus! Lewrie fervently prayed, and quite often, at that.

The easier way, so their Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, insisted, would be to let the current and winds waft them West'rd, as far South as the bleak and lonely St. Paul 's Bocks, then haul their wind to fall down upon Cape St. Boque for a landfall, and coast South to Becife, in neutral Portuguese Brazil. But, somehow Lewrie just knew by then that Capt. Sir Tobias Treghues, Bart., would demand that they do things his way… the hard way. He was charged with convoying the Indiamen to St. Helena, and by God, that's where he'd escort them.

Besides, heading over to Recife would require that their trade would have to run down the coast of Brazil, then down the hostile shore of the Spanish possessions, 'til they could strike the strong Easterly winds round the 40th Latitude, 'The Roaring Fourties,' using them to be gusted over to the Southern tip of Africa, and exposed along their way to the odd Spanish or far-roaming French warships or privateers.

At least the weather's warmer, Lewrie could console himself.

Though it was mid-December, and the Atlantic was still a lively place, and the skies were rarely completely clear enough for reliable sun or star sights, the seas were a cheerier blue, and the rising and setting of the sun each day was dramatically and colourfully tropical. Equally dramatic were the height of the waves and the spacing between their sets that they encountered, which made both deep-laden Indiamen and sleek men o' war wallow, soar, and snuffle atop them.

One blessing to that moderation in the weather was that Lewrie no longer had need of his coal stove for heat during the days, but for the rare night when the wind had a nip to it after sundown, and most times, one of Caroline's quilts, and the cats, made his swaying bed-cot snug and cozy.

God, but the thought of even an extra week, an extra day, more in Treghues's company was enough to curdle his piss, and even the sudden turn of speed that Proteus was now displaying could not cheer him, even were they ordered to take station a blessed five sea-miles ahead and apart. And, Lewrie dourly