" '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.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was a rather abstemious little gathering for supper in the great-cabins: the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, who never drank much at all, seated to his right; Lt. Devereux, in charge of Proteus's Marine detachment, to his left, and (for a sea-soldier) never known as one who over-indulged in tipple; and his three midshipmen, Mr. Gamble the older, Mr. Grace, and wee Mr. Larkin, at the table's foot, as the Vice. All of whom were so daunted by Mr. Winwood, who was the midshipmen's tutor in matters navigational and mathematical, and by dread of making a fool of themselves by taking too much "aboard." Mr. Win-wood's grave, mournful scowl when his sense of primness was offended could make the "middies" scurry like cockroaches. Lt. Blase Devereux was a languidly elegant sort, whose gentlemanly mannerisms they wished to emulate, anyway, and the captain was, well… the captain, not a man to disappoint, if they wished to stay in his "good books."
Once Capt. Treghues had signalled that the trade would, indeed, stand "off-and-on" the coast 'til dawn, they had sailed legs North and South abeam the wind, with the Indiamen back to their usual custom of reducing sail to bare steerageway, which had let the avid fishermen in the crew dip a line, ending in the catch of a middling-sized tunny, which had been shared between the gunroom and the captain's table.
They had had reconstituted "portable soup," a sea-pie made from shredded salt-beef and salt-pork, diced potatoes fried with bacon, and the tunny for the last course, great slabs of it, dredged in flour and crumbled biscuit, spices, and lemon, then fried in oil. There had been a decent claret with the sea-pie, and an experimental white wine bought off a homebound Indiaman. One of the first things the Dutch settlers at the Cape had planted was vineyards, though with mixed results, so far. The white had gone well with the fish, though not as smooth or sweet as a German hock, but miles better than the Navy-issued "Miss Taylor," the thin, vinegary, and acidy wine that could double for paint thinner, and Lewrie was intrigued enough to think of buying more, once at anchor.
There had also been the promise of an apple stack-cake to come, a dessert that his wife Caroline had brought from her native Cape Fear in North Carolina, shrivelled and wrinkly older Kentish apples that had not gone over, or been wormed, pulped and boiled with dollops of molasses and sugar, then spread thick between several layers of pancakes. Once the tablecloth would be removed, there would have been a tray of "bought" sweet biscuits, nuts, and port. Midshipman Larkin to propose the King's Toast, Mr. Winwood to make one to the Navy, and, as it was a Saturday evening, it would have fallen to Lewrie to propose a traditional Navy toast, "To Our Wives And Sweethearts, May They Never Meet!," which Lewrie found excrutiatingly apt.