A King`s Trade

attention to duties.

Lewrie, who had fallen in lifelong lust for artillery as a most angry-to-be-there Midshipman in his early days, the winter of 1780 on his first ship, finding in the power of the guns the one, perhaps the only joy a displaced dandy (as good as 'press-ganged' by his own father for his own damned lust for soon-to-be-inherited funds!) relished in an ordeal that had seemed at the time as miserable a drudgery as a long prison sentence! He had, therefore, high standards, higher even than those of the experienced officers who had taught him Navy gunnery.

Lewrie was disturbingly surprised by just how 'rusty' his men had gotten, but promised himself that by the time they reached the Cape he would have them back up to 'scratch,' even re-acquainting them with the rarely used light swivel-guns and 2-pounder brass boat-guns to be mounted in the bows of the gig, cutter, and launch.

'Oh, they'll come up to par soon enough,' Lt. Adair, their Scot Third Officer, cheerfully opined, swiping a hand through goat-curly and dark brown hair as he raised his hat to air out his scalp in the rain and the warmly-moist, green-smelling winds that blew from the far-off shores of Africa.

'Par, d'ye say?' Lt. Catterall, the Second Officer, scoffed. 'Whatever the Devil's that, some Gaelic word? Par-broiled makes some sense. Par-tici-pate, par-fy? But half a real word, Mister Adair? '

'It is a golf term, Mister Catterall,' Adair impishly replied. 'And what the Devil's golf?' Catterall hooted in his bearishly burly way. 'Once more ye've lost me, sir.'

' 'Tis a game we play at home, Mister Catterall, and great fun, actually,' Lt. Adair explained. 'A game which requires great patience and skill… well, perhaps it might be lost on Englishmen, sir,' he said with a twinkle. Then Adair proceeded to describe 'golf ' to him-tediously and minutely.

'Mean t'say,' Lt. Catterall querulously asked, minutes later, 'you take yer 'mashie' with a 'whuppy shaft' and whack a 'sma' leather-bound rock… that never did harm to anybody… 'cross yer 'braes,' rain, fog, cold, or snow no matter… 'til it lands in a rabbit hole, then do it all over again? Why, I never heard the like! Is there a prize in it? Does the rabbit keep the rock, or do ye haul the rabbit out of its hole, take it home, and jug it for yer reward? Sounds daft t'me, but, I s'pose 'tis amusing to Scots… who have so few amusements.'

'Par means 'average' for getting there, Mister Catterall,' Lt. Adair said, biting off an exasperated sigh, as he usually had to do in dealing with 'Sassenach' heathen Englismen in general, or the sardonic Lt. Catterall in particular. 'The number of whacks necessary.'

'Then less than yer 'par' is doing worse}' Catterall chuckled. 'Better, Mister Catterall,' Adair insisted, with a slight edge to his voice; he knew Catterall's cynical humours, knew he was being twitted, but never could help himself. 'The fewest strokes win a…'

'Well, that's arsey-varsey, then,' Catterall snickered. 'Over average is worse, under average is best, and someone actually keeps a score of it!'

'Then 'par' will never do, gentlemen,' Lewrie commented, after listening with amusement to their typical bantering from his post by the windward bulwarks. 'I'll not be satisfied with average gunnery, not after our experiences in the Caribbean. I'll settle for two shots per gun, every three minutes, but I'd rather we get off three in that time. In the early minutes of engagement, at any rate, when the hands are not fatigued… and well-aimed 'twixt wind and water. Remember what that American captain from Georgia said…'

' 'The captain ain't happy, ain't nobody happy,' sir!' Lt. Adair piped up with a laugh. To which, in lieu of a hearty 'Amen!' or 'Here, here!' for a second, Catterall added one of Lewrie's patented, piratical 'Arrs!,' which he'd become quite good at imitating.

'I fear I must stand more aloof to you, gentlemen,' Lewrie said as he tucked his hands into the small of his back and peered back up to weather. 'No more dining some of you in,' he pointedly commented over his shoulder. 'Some seem to have come to know me, and my ways, simply too well, alas. And Mister Catterall and the Surgeon were to dine with me this very night… on fresh beef, too, what a pity.'

He swivelled about to face them, quite enjoying the smirk upon Adair's phyz, and Catterall's strangled expression. With a droll grin, and an energetic clap of his hands, he announced:

'Once gun-drill, the rum issue, and noon mess is done, sirs,' he said, 'I think we should strike topmasts, then re-rig them, should the winds abate. Just to see how quickly the evolution can be performed, 'rusty' as we seem t'be, hmm? Then… with the wind abeam, and sailing mostly on an even keel, I will also have the hands work off excess energy by going aloft, waisters, idlers, and all, along with the topmen. Larboard division 'gainst starboard division.' Aye, sir.

'Up and over, from the windward foremast shrouds to the fighting top, then down to the lee gangway, up the lee main shrouds and down to the larboard gangway, then up and over the mizen-mast. Encouraged, and led by their officers, o' course. Mister Langlie and I shall observe, and time it.' Lewrie continued with a smirk of his own, 'Much like the Irish whore instructed… 'up, down… up, down… up, down, repeat if necessary'! Winning division gets extra grog on completion of their Dog Watch.'

The fortuitous winds abated, at last, shifting back to Sou'east, forcing the trade to steer wider to the Sou'west, but they had logged nearly six hundred nautical miles, mostly at Due South, more than a quarter of the total passage, placing the convoy and its escorts more Easterly to Africa, and even sailing six points off the wind they would only skirt the edge of the Doldrums, not get becalmed in it.

For a much shorter time, the Trades and the Equatorial Current that flowed the same direction in concert with each other would impede them, then… though the Sou'east Trade might still rule, an Eastward-Rowing current that girded the southern rim of the Doldrums, parent to the one they now fought, would kiss them on their starboard, lee, bows to counter the leeway lost to the winds. A few slogging degrees more of latitude, and the winds would shift to out of the West, in concert with that current, and they'd all be be there!

And, so it was, one mid-afternoon in March, that HMS Stag, far ahead of the convoy, hoisted a string of signal flags in the private code that Capt. Treghues had invented that read:

'Land-Four Points-Larboard Bow.'

' Table Mountain, that'd be, most-like, sir,' the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, carefully opined. 'Visible from seaward on a clear day as far as fifteen leagues… or, so my book of pilotage tells us.'

Almost over! Lewrie quietly exulted; This part, at least.

'We'll not enter harbour tonight, sir, beg pardon,' Winwood said. 'I'd expect we'll stand off-and-on 'til morning, so we may be able to spot the rocks and such. A poor set of anchorages, even so, sir, this Table Bay or Simon's Bay. Bad holding ground, the both of them, both subject to sudden and contrary afternoon clear-weather gales, it says.'

' Cape Town, or Simon's Town,' Lewrie said with a shrug of resignation. 'With any luck, we'll not be in either, very long, sir. In point of fact, 'twill require a great deal of luck should we come to anchor, at all!'

'The, ah… results of our sailors' deeds at Saint Helena, I should think, Captain?' Winwood, ever the sombre Christian, whispered.

'Exactly so, Mister Winwood,' Lewrie agreed. 'There's odds we might just sail right on by, do Captain Treghues and Captain Cowles, as Commodore of the Indiamen, concur.'

'Might be just as well, sir,' Winwood commented, though with a slightly disappointed sigh. 'I've never really been ashore, here.'

'The 'tavern of the seas,' Mister Winwood,' Lewrie told him with a chuckle. 'An infamous sink of sin, no matter the stiffness of the Protestant Dutch.'

'Even so, though, sir…' Winwood said most wistfully.

'I wonder if they have corn-whisky?' Lewrie wondered aloud.