Troubled Waters

Assumin' I don't kill the bastard fore the soup! Lewrie thought.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

One could usually tell a lot about a sea-captain by how well his ship was kept, despite the ravages of sun, storm, or the inevitable depletion of Bosun's stores after a long voyage, or, in this case, a long time on-station. HMS Erato seemed at first to prove that truism, once Savage had fetched-to to seaward of her, about a cable to windward.

She was a trim little ship, perhaps 110 feet on the range of the deck, maybe 135 to 140 overall from taffrails to the tip of her bowsprit, about 30 feet abeam, and might draw no more than 12 feet. Lewrie could count eight gun- ports along the beam facing him, and pick out the light 18-pounder carronades she mounted in place of chase guns on her fo'c'sle and flush quarterdeck. Her masts were well painted, her spars oiled, but… her sails were the colour of ancient parchments. The running and standing rigging was geometrically taut, the standing well tarred, and the running looked fat and amply slushed with fats skimmed off the cauldrons as salt-meat rations were boiled up.

So far, so good, for no matter his dislike of Kenyon, the man had always been a proper sailor. Yet, it was the little things that made Lewrie wonder.

Erato's figurehead was not an approximation of a Grecian legend, but a simple, rather crudely chopped crowned lion torso, the sort that got churned out by indifferent woodworkers by the dozen, and bore not a single flake of gilt paint trim. The same went for Erato's beakhead rails, entry-port, quarterdeck bulwarks^ and counter. Lewrie had not kept track of Kenyon's career, but could only conclude that he either didn't care about the niggling details of decoration, or had no money beyond his naval pay, and could not afford such niceties.

A brig-sloop could not store much more than three months of victuals, rum, beer, or water, so she could not have been standing guard over the Gironde much longer than that, yet… her gunwale hull stripe paint was fading, flaking, and peeling, the original blue colour now so pale that she looked as if she hadn't seen a lick of Admiralty- issued paint in over a year, and had gone through several whole gales to boot!

In reply to his hoist of 'Captain Repair Onboard,' a twenty-five-foot cutter was being rowed over from Erato to Savage, with Kenyon in the stern-sheets, sitting upright in a boat cloak against the sullen rain.

The cutter, in comparison, was a pristine thing of beauty, with a shiny white hull and royal blue gunn'ls, and the oars being plied by her crew were painted white, with bright blue blades, and the shafts where sailors' horny hands gripped had been turned-down at least a foot with ropework.

The boat's crew and Cox'n were equally rigged out, dressed in a uniform manner as clean and natty as Sunday Divisions. Slop-trousers that had never seen slush or tar, so white they might have been pipe-clayed like Marines' kit; bright red solid-colour shirts under the typical short blue jackets with white tape or piping on every seam, and glittering brass buttons. As the boat came alongside, oars aloft and dripping, Lewrie could see that every man aboard her wore white cotton stockings and fresh-blacked shoes with newly polished brass buckles.

'They'd do an Admiral proud, sir,' Lt. Gamble commented.

'Indeed,' Lewrie drawled back. 'Though I dare say Savage makes a much better impression, compared to her shabbiness.'

'Erm… they're awfully… handsome lads,' Midshipman Dry said in an aside to Midshipman Grisdale.

'Indeed,' Grisdale agreed in his top-lofty, nasal voice.

Lewrie raised a handy telescope and quickly scanned Erato's bulwarks and gangways. Those sailors yonder were nowhere near as natty as the boat crew, their slop-clothing the usual stained, patched, and ragged motley, their shirts mismatched from several baled lots of calico or gingham, and from appearances, stripped from dead beggars and turned down by rag-pickers. The most slovenly of Savage's people looked like footmen at a formal supper by comparison.

Captain's 'pets '? Lewrie silently sneered as he stowed the telescope back in the binnacle cabinet; Kenyon's hareem? Well, a captain is second next to God at sea, and sets the rules.

He returned to the head of the starboard gangway ladder just as the Bosun's calls began to shrill, the officer of the watch, Lt. Gamble, presented his sword and the Marines stamped and slapped their boots and palms. Commander James Kenyon's hat had just loomed over the lip of the entry-port, and the ritual was on.

Damn, he's got old! was Lewrie's first impression. In 1780 he had been a trim and lean figure of a man, a fellow who certainly could have been considered handsome and fetching, but now…!

As Kenyon doffed his hat in return salute, he revealed heavily salt-and-pepper hair, more salt than anything else, greatly receded at his temples, thin atop, and worn long and combed straight across like seaweed… pomaded to stay in place to cover his advancing baldness in strands!

Kenyon's features, once so regular and dashing-handsome, had a sad old hound's thick and flaccid droopiness, heavily lined and just a touch pale, too. His body looked to be as lean as Lewrie dimly recalled; perhaps a touch too lean, for his uniform seemed to hang upon his frame, as if he was ill with something.

'Welcome aboard Savage, sir,' Lt. Gamble said.

'Thank you, sir,' Kenyon replied, though looking aft at Lewrie with what could be taken for a wry, secret smile.

'Commander Kenyon, welcome aboard,' Lewrie was forced to say as he walked up to him, lifting a hand to his hat.

'Captain Lewrie,' Kenyon responded, doffing his hat again. He sounded a bit bemused, and still wore that taut, wry expression as if he found the situation funny, which immediately raised Lewrie's hackles. 'I am glad to see that the French did not put a ball or two through yer hull when you swanned into their range. Didn't anyone warn you of the fort on the north shore?' No, yer not! Lewrie thought, irked at once; you 'd've adored it!

'Well, perhaps we should go aft to my cabins, then, Commander,' Lewrie all but snarled, though keeping a smile on his own phyz whilst he said it, 'so you may impart t'me your vast store o' knowledge about the Gironde defences… and save me from myself!'

Lt. Gamble, and Midshipmen Dry and Grisdale, all winced or made moues over that retort, sure that their captain would put this fellow in his place, right smart, though it didn't seem to have any effect on Kenyon, whose face still bore that bemused look.

'But, of course, Captain Lewrie,' Kenyon said, allowing himself a broad, tooth-baring grin.

Damn my eyes, is he drunk? Lewrie thought as he caught a whiff of wine on the man's breath; and, teeth so grey, it looks as if he's been on the fifteen shillin' Mercury Cure for the Pox!

'This way… Commander,' Lewrie offered.

'A glass of something, sir?' Lewrie asked once they were seated at their ease in the great-cabins, at the collapsible settee and matching chairs. 'Claret? Brandy? American bourbon whisky? Cold tea?'

'Cold tea?' Kenyon asked with a brow up, seemingly appalled.

'Quite refreshing in summer,' Lewrie told him, 'as I discovered in the West Indies. With an admixture of sugar and lemon.'

'Brandy, I s'pose,' Kenyon allowed, then, as Aspinall fetched a brandy for him, and a glass of white wine for Lewrie, swivelled about to look at the cabins' furnishings, that brow still up in nigh-mocking appreciation; just one more thing that raised Lewrie's dander. Maybe Kenyon liked the wine-cabinet and the desk in the day-cabin, the table and chairs, and the side-board in the dining-coach, or Caroline's portrait hung on the bulkhead… the wide- enough-for-two hanging cot?

'Heard you married,' Kenyon said after a deep sip. 'Your wife, there? Handsome woman.'

'Aye,' Lewrie said. 'And you?'