lubberly, but excitin'.'
'So sorry, sir,' Westcott said, suddenly downcast.
'Not your fault, Mister Westcott,' Lewrie assured him. 'With a crew as raw as ours, and with so little time allowed for workin' 'em to competence, I'm just relieved we got out without killin' anybody in the process, or bein' trampled by a two-decker. Now we're out at sea, though, we can continue drillin' 'em proper, to pur
'Thank you, sir,' Westcott said with a nod of his head.
'Damn my eyes, it's a nice morning, ain't it?' Lewrie said as he looked up at the commissioning pendant streaming towards the bows, at the wind-ful sails and set of the yards' bracing; at the clouds and the patches of blue sky. 'A merry May morning.'
'Indeed, sir,' Westcott agreed. 'And the sea's moderate.'
'We'll give the hands one hour in which to gawk and get used to her motion,' Lewrie decided. 'And some music'd suit. Desmond?' Capt. Lewrie called out. 'Your lap-pipes and the other musicians, and give us some cheer!'
'Right away, sor!' his Cox'n shouted back.
Liam Desmond and his
''It was pleas-
''… and the larks they sang melodious, and the larks
He turned away to face out-board, to larboard, pacing down to the lee rails, squinting with suddenly damp eyes. He reached into his coat for a handkerchief.
'Damned nonsense,' he muttered, blowing his nose, yet… the last verse!
'A fresh cup of coffee, sir?' his cabin steward, Pettus, asked, arriving on the quarterdeck with Lewrie's old black-iron pot.
'Uhm? Aye, Pettus, that'd be welcome,' Lewrie told him, taking one last embarrassed swipe at his face. He wandered back up the slight cant of the deck to his proper place at the windward bulwarks, his and his alone as captain. 'Coffee, Mister Westcott?'
'Aye, sir, thank you,' Westcott eagerly replied, accepting a cup from Pettus, but waving off goat milk or sugar, preferring it
'Is our wardroom musical, sir?' Lewrie asked as Desmond led the musicians into 'The Jolly Thresher.'
'One or two decent voices, sir, but no instrumental talents that I've been able to discover,' Lt. Westcott told him. 'I believe, however, that the Midshipmen's mess is where you'll find fiddlers and tootlers on recorders, flutes, and such… perhaps a guitar?'
'And you, Mister Westcott?' Lewrie further enquired.
'I clap and beat time marvellously well, sir,' Westcott said, a brief chuckle of self-deprecating humour punctuating his claim. 'May I ask if
'I've a penny-whistle,' Lewrie allowed with a modest shrug. 'An host of people have
No matter, for the winds seemed to increase a bit, and
'Pleasant and delightful, indeed,' Lewrie muttered, taking more than a little joy in the feel of a ship under him once more, savouring the sunshine, the moderate and pacific seas, the wind, and… the far horizon beyond the thrusting jib-boom. What lay there, well… that was up to Fate, but… didn't they say that the getting there was the most fun?
CHAPTER FORTY
0nce
They wore in succession off the wind, they tacked in succession to windward; he signalled for them all to tack to form a line-abreast, then come about as one to form a line of battle. They sailed Nor'west to the Scillys in-line- ahead, then reversed course by wearing in succession at one instance, or wore or tacked together to re-form line on the reciprocal heading.
For the most part, Captain Blanding preferred that HMS
He also worked the signalmen half to death. Blanding had gotten copies of Adm. Home Popham's revised signals book of 1803 for all ships and was so delighted with how many thousands of words, how many phrases and orders could be expressed by one-to-four numeral flags, that Mids and men of the Afterguards aboard all four