King, Ship, and Sword

truck-carriages or pivotting wood recoil slides; the carriages came aboard first, the cannon second. Then came the kegs and kegs of black powder to fill the belowdecks magazine, all the gun tools to load, worm out, swab, or shift the united carriages and barrels, and a bale or two of empty cartridge bags for the Master Gunner, his Mate, and the Yeoman of the Powder to fill and stow away.

And cutlasses and boarding pikes and muskets with all their accoutrements, and clumsy and inaccurate Sea Pattern pistols to be put in the locked arms chests 'til needed for drill or combat… it was a never-ending series of barges, of hoisting aboard with the main-mast course yard as a crane, and human muscle power, to hoist it all from the boats over the bulwarks and gangways and down onto the deck, or into the holds just above the bilges, or onto the orlop.

And each and every bit of Admiralty's largesse, seemingly down to each pot of mustard or each shoe buckle, had to be signed for and carefully inventoried, by both Purser and Captain, the usage and depletion of which over the course of the ship's typical three-year commission was to be carefully, meticulously accounted for, as well, or the ones responsible would be at their financial peril.

Ten days it took to prepare HMS Reliant for sea, for journeys to any of the far corners of the world, for battle against the foe… and Alan Lewrie found that he revelled in it!

It was not so much that he sprang from his bed-cot each morning at the end of the Middle Watch at 4 a.m. with joy, no. It was more like being so engrossed in details, in projects, in planning and supervising the labours of stowing and arming that he had no time to brood on his children's fates, the coming loss of his rented farm and his house, or the lingering remnants of grief over Caroline's loss. He found that he could actually go an entire day without thinking of all that, so busy with making decisions that it was only in those rare hours he spent on shore purchasing things he would need three months, six months, at sea, or the evenings when he dined alone and did not invite his officers and midshipmen in a few at a time to get a better grasp of them and their personalities, that he had time, in a proper captain's solitude, for musing.

Over twenty-three years in King's Coat, he realised one evening as he sprawled on his familiar old settee, his stockinged feet rested on his low, old Hindoo brass tray-table before it, with a cat nodding on either thigh and a glass of claret in his hand; and now, this is all I am? My father's house for a home, do I ever set foot ashore again? The Navy a substitute family? Just damn my eyes… mine arse on a band-box! All these young sprogs come aboard… Middies and children of Mids from long ago? Good Christ! He supposed it was natural, and inevitable, did he live long enough. There were only so many warships and only so many officers to command them. Large as the Royal Navy had grown since 1793 and the start of the war with France, it was still a small, esoteric and arcane world of its own, and he had risen to become a somewhat senior member of that salty, tar-stained clique. He had to stumble across former shipmates sometime. Whether they were worth the time to know again, well… that was another matter.

'You ready t'go t'sea again, lads?' Lewrie whispered to Chalky and Toulon. They opened their eyes to stare at him, Chalky yawning as he stretched every muscle, front legs out straight. 'By God, I think that I am! No more shore shite. Let's get orders and be about it.'

Chalky took that comment as an invitation to stand, arch up, and clamber up his chest, ready to play.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The next two weeks at anchor were spent at Harbour Drill, the basic training of lubbers and Johnny New- Comes in the mystifying maze of sheets, halliards, lines, and cables, of braces, jears, and lifts, clews and brails. The proper way to tie a host of knots at sea; to go aloft and lay out on a yard; to set sail, to reef in or gasket, to strike or hoist up top-masts without being injured, maimed, or killed! Older, experienced hands got the rust scaled off their skills, as well, and were urged to take 'newlies' under their tutelage. Men who had never touched a firearm or held anything more dangerous than the hoe, axe, or scythe in their civilian lives learned how to wield the cutlass and boarding pike, and were made familiar with pistol and musket 'til the loading, charging, and firing process could be done with some skill and speed; dry-firing first, then live-firing at a painted target on a scrap sail held aloft by two oars in an anchored rowboat at fifty yards' range off the ship's beam-with no one aboard it, of course, during the firing, and well clear of other ships or work-boats beyond it. The ship's people practiced with the swivel guns, as well.

Then came practice on the great-guns, the quarterdeck 9-pounders and carronades, the 12-pounder chase guns, and the heavy main artillery pieces down each beam, with half the hands hauling quickly on the run-in tackles to simulate recoil, to teach the 'newlies' how quickly and brutally arms and legs could be broken, feet torn off or crushed, did they not look lively and keep clear of the truck-carriages and their tackles, blocks, and ring bolts. Lewrie could not risk actually loading and firing round-shot in crowded Portsmouth Harbour, but he could spend powder in full-measure charges to get his people used to the noise and the heart-fluttering, lung-flattening power of their discharge, along with the drill that would, hopefully, result in three broadsides every two minutes.

Then, when orders came, they came in a rush. Barely after his morning shave and sponge-off, Lewrie was summoned to the deck, noting the arms of the semaphore towers in town working like demented Dervishes.

'Hardinge, sir,' a Midshipman said, doffing his hat to present himself. 'From the Modeste, sixty-four? Captain Stephen Blanding? He wishes S you, and your First Officer, to attend him on board as soon as possible, sir.'

'Indeed, Mister Hardinge?' Lewrie replied, deciding to put on a scowl of displeasure, hands in the small of his back. 'Why the haste… and not a written request?' he pretended to grump.

'Haste, indeed, Captain Lewrie, sir,' the young fellow assured him, chin up and proud to be his captain's emissary on a vital mission. 'I am given to believe a squadron will be formed for a specific duty. And Captain Blanding wishes me to inform you that this morning, word came from Admiralty that the King has given orders to begin issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal. If that satisfies you as to the urgency of the matter, sir.'

'That does, Mister Hardinge,' Lewrie answered, feeling a thrill of satisfaction that what all had expected had come to pass. 'Mister Warburton, pass the word for Mister Westcott at once. My compliments to him, and that he is to attend me in proper order.'

'Aye aye, sir!' his own Midshipman, Warburton, shot back, beaming with joy that it would be war.

'Where away, Mister Hardinge?' Lewrie asked of Modeste's anchorage, after turning aside to summon his Cox'n and boat crew.

'Off the Monkton Fort, sir… yonder,' Hardinge supplied. 'She will be the two-decker flying a broad pendant with white ball, and has dark red hull stripes, sir. Can't miss her.'

'Speak for yourself, young sir,' Lewrie japed. 'It's a bit too early for my Cox'n's eyes. Captain Blanding plannin' to breakfast us?'

'I am certain he will, sir,' Midshipman Hardinge further assured him, smiling for the first time and relaxing his tense pose; he'd not had his head bitten off after all!

A red broad pendant with a white ball upon it denoted a senior officer who would command a small squadron, a Post-Captain who for all appearances might as well be a Commodore but lacked that rank and had to captain his own ship, without another of Post-rank to take that burden. And Modeste, his putative flagship, was a sixty-four gunned two-decker of the Third Rate, with a French name and of obvious French construction-a previous capture for certain. Sixty-fours were a bit too light to stand in the line-of-battle anymore, but were still useful outside European waters. Her lines, the fineness of her entry and bow, and her aft taper made her look fast for a two-decker.

I live long enough, I could do worse, when my frigate days're done, Lewrie told himself as he took the salute from Modeste's Marines and side-party, then was escorted aft to Capt. Blanding's great-cabins under the poop.

'Captain Lewrie, and Lieutenant Westcott, of the Reliant, sir,' his escorting Midshipman announced.

'Aha! Lewrie!' Captain Stephen Blanding said with a glad bark of pleasure and welcome as he came from his