the frigate cleared for action. A chart-space had been constructed at the forward starboard side, its fiddled shelves now bare, and the tall desk with its slanted top empty. To larboard, Lewrie could see where a side-board, a dining table and chairs, had been placed. Much the same brighter marks or scuffs on the canvas deck covering showed where desk and chairs made the day-cabin, where a settee and more collapsing chairs had been grouped round a wine-cabinet to larboard. There was a narrow hanging-cot still slung in the sleeping-space, handily near to the larboard quarter gallery and its 'necessary closet,' and…
'Hello, you old bastard! Hello!' something squawked.
Furfy had fetched in the wicker cage which held the cats, both of whom stood on their hind legs, front paws working on the wicker and their tails swishing. Little jaws chattered as they let out shuddery urgent trills of hunting-killing lust.
'I meant to mention that, sir,' Lt. Ballard dryly pointed out. 'Captain Speaks's African Grey parrot. He's had it for years, and it's developed quite a vocabulary. Bought it at Cape Town when he-'
'Flog the bugger! Flog the bugger!' the parrot cried, once it had espied the cats.
'-was just a Lieutenant in the eighties,' Ballard continued. 'Captain Speaks's wife detests the bloody thing, and refuses to have it at the Wrestler's Arms… the hotel where they're lodging for him to recover.'
'I'd think the hotel would agree with her,' Lewrie commented.
'I'm a saucy rascal! Tweep!' the parrot cried. 'Hello!'
'Go to the Devil, why don't you?' Lewrie muttered.
'Oh, don't encourage it, sir,' Ballard cautioned. 'That only makes it worse.'
'What the Hell are we t'do with it, then, Arthur?' Lewrie asked.
'God only knows, sir. The gun-room don't want it, though there are the Midshipmen…,' Ballard replied, 'but the Master's Mates and Surgeon's Mates who bunk with them might object. Strenuously.'
Captain Speaks had obviously doted on the bloody bird, for its cage was big enough for a frisky mastiff, with many rods and ladders, and even a spread of inch-thick tree limbs for exercise, with a ball on a twine, a small mirror, a bowl of seeds, a water dish, and a dry cuttlefish on which it could hone its beak; the whole thing was made of dulled brass rods soldered together, with a bright green painted canopy.
'Won't last a Dog Watch, once my things are in, and the cats are free to roam,' Lewrie predicted, removing his boat-cloak and hat, and looking for a row of pegs on which to hang them. 'Good God, that's a Franklin stove!' he exclaimed as he spotted the squat metal monster in the semi-enclosed sleeping-space.
'We've spent the last year running the Baltic convoys,' Ballard explained, 'and prowling the Dutch and German coasts, right into the Heligoland Bight. There are French and Dutch privateers working out of Christiana and Amsterdam. Captain Speaks bought several of them, for the gun-room, and the people's quarters on the gun-deck. They've come in handy to take the chill off… when we can obtain coal. And that only during the day, when the wind and sea allow. The Victualling Board does not see the need to provide heat belowdecks in winter, and told us that supplying coal was our own business. Captain Speaks was thoughtful, but not so rich that he could purchase enough, all by himself, and it's been rare that the officers and hands could chip in and afford a decent store, either, sir.'
'Meaning that I should, is that it, Arthur?' Lewrie asked.
'I would not presume to speculate, sir,' Ballard replied. 'But I admit some coal would be welcome, so long as we're firmly anchored. The harbour, and the North Sea, have been awfully raw this winter.'
Lewrie could agree with that. If the weather had seemed to moderate in London, the further east he'd come, closer to the sea, the wind had blown colder and colder, wetter and downright icy. Even here, belowdecks and out of the wind, he still felt an urge to shiver now and then. 'Well, we'll see, depending,' he allowed. He pulled out his pocket-watch and checked the time; half-past eight in the morning. To prove it, One Bell of the Forenoon Watch chimed, far forward at the belfry. And a glad sound that half-hour bell was to Lewrie, for time to be rung… aboard a ship once again.
'I'd expect I'll be hard at it, past dinner, to get all my dunnage and bumf set up properly,' Lewrie announced. 'But I would like you to sup with me tonight, Arthur. Shall we say seven?'
'Of course, sir,' Ballard responded with a solemn half-bow.
'Oh, shit,' Lewrie said. 'I've no cook or steward, or personal victuals… live or not.'
' 'Scuse me, Cap'm,' Furfy said as several sailors entered with chests and furniture. 'Settee t'starb'd, same as ye like, sir?'
'Aye, Furfy, thankee,' Lewrie told him. 'Any recommendations, Mister Ballard?' he asked, now that others were present, and the use of first names might be taken the wrong way by the hands.
'Well, sir… Captain Speaks took his manservant ashore with him, to help nurse him through his illness,' Ballard explained. 'His wife insisted one of the cabin servants go, too. His cook is still aboard, though, a fellow named Nettles. He's very good. Used to be at an Ipswich hotel before the Captain discovered him and hired him away. You've one cabin servant left, a lad named Whitsell, though he isn't much. Only twelve, after all. You didn't bring the usual entourage, sir? I'd have expected to see Will Cony with you.'
'He's a Bosun into a Sixth Rate now,' Lewrie told his old compatriot. 'Married to a woman in Anglesgreen. He and Maggie have two boys now. No, when I had to give up command of Savage, I could only take away three or four people, and one finally went back aboard her, and t'other, my prime man, had family need of Discharge. Since then, I lodged at a gentlemen's club where I had no need to hire anyone on, and… quick as a wink, orders came to report aboard, instanter.'
'Aye, I heard, sir,' Ballard said, with a veiled look, as if he disapproved but would not say so, about Lewrie's recent contretemps. 'I do have a suggestion, sir, if I may?' he added, tilting his head to the chart-space, where there was more privacy. Once there, and with the first load of furnishings delivered and the work-party departing for a second load, Ballard continued. 'There's a young fellow who's been aboard about a year, sir, who's more suited to steward duties than ever he would be as a sailor. Last up the shrouds, last down, and damn all useless aloft. Too puny for pulley-hauley, as well. The Bosun and mast-captains, gun-captains, all despair of him. He's named Pettus. A Pressed man, no matter he was never a seaman.'
'How well I know that fraud,' Lewrie said with a wry sigh.
'Indeed, sir. He claims he was a manservant to a bishop's residence, at Brighton, before he was rounded up,' Ballard said. 'Do you wish to see him, sir?'
'Round Seven Bells, aye,' Lewrie decided. 'I should have enough of my cabins set up, by then. Beggars can't be choosers, I s'pose. Ye have things t'see to, Arthur? Then I'll not keep you, if you do.'
'Very well, sir,' Ballard replied, delivering another grave half-bow, and departing.
'Hello, you old bastard!' the parrot squawked, bobbing its head.
'Stop yer gob, ye bloody… pigeon,' Lewrie snapped.
'Give me the punch ladle, I'll fathom the bowl!' the bird responded, singing the old drinking tune right on key.
'Roast parrot on a bed of rice!' Lewrie shot back.
'Damn my eyes, damn my eyes!' the bird sing-songed.
'I'll sic the cats on you if you don't shut up,' Lewrie warned.
'I'm a good parrot, I am… tweep!'
'Christ on a crutch,' Lewrie muttered, 'but you're a nuisance.'
'Bloody nuisance!' the parrot uttered, making Lewrie whirl about to gawp in wonder. How smart was the damned thing? he wondered; And what'll he blab next, if I say anything unguarded in here?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Landsman Pettus t'see th' Captain… SAH!' the Marine sentry cried, banging the brass-bound butt of his musket on the deck.
'Enter,' Lewrie commanded, looking up from his desk, where he and Captain Speaks's former clerk, a former solicitor's clerk with the unfortunately chosen name of George Georges, were going over the ship's myriad of forms and accounts, to assure that Lewrie was not accepting responsibility for a 'pig in a poke.'
In came a young fellow in his early twenties, tall enough to have to duck under the overhead deck beams…
