"So, Proteus is now ready for sea, in all respects?"
"Well, sir, there is the problem of my two damaged guns," Lewrie casually allowed, crossing his legs the other way round. "I have been informed the stores ship has no twelve-pounders available, so I could sail two pieces short, but… I am also told that she holds several twenty-four-pounder carronades salvaged most swiftly from the wrecked Lord Clive, and I had a thought to mount two of them in lieu of great-guns, temporarily. To be turned over to Gun Wharf, soon as we're back home. Other than that lack, we are, indeed, ready for sea, and for an engagement with any lurking French raider or privateer, sir. Unless a greater need exists here on the Cape Station for 'em, that is."
He crossed the fingers of his left hand, down below the edge of the desk where the Flag-Captain couldn't see them.
"I'd be very much obliged, eternally grateful, really, to have your permission to indent for two of them, sir, along with sufficient round-shot for a brief engagement, should that occur."
"Hmmm…" the Flag-Captain said, thoughtfully rubbing his chin.
"With the rest of Captain Treghues's ships now halfway to India or China, Proteus must either become part of the Cape Squadron, or be assigned to bolster the escort of one of the other 'John Company' convoys, I'd suppose, so…" Lewrie suggested. "Perhaps the one waiting to depart in harbour now, sir?"
"Aye, Captain Leatherwood would find you useful, Lewrie," the Flag-Captain informed him with a smile of his own. "Some trouble with the previous escorting frigate reefing down too late in a squall just off Ceylon. A squall, and a heavy roll that put her on her beam ends, and rolled her masts right out of her. She put back to Calcutta, or the nearest port with a yard, under jury masts, and Captain Wheeler had to request the assistance of a warship from the Bombay Marine, which saw his convoy as far as the Southern tip of Madagascar. Not allowed to operate West of Good Hope, the Bombay Marine, and, not much of a sea-force, either. A few British officers of doubtful abilities, and the
crews made up of God knows what sort of natives. Low-caste Hindoos at the best…"
"Who can cross the 'great black water' without breaking their caste, aye, sir," Lewrie happily supplied.
"Been in Indian waters yourself, sir?" the Flag-Captain asked.
" 'Tween the wars, sir, aye."
"Under the circumstances, then, I do believe that Leatherwood will find you more than welcome, Captain Lewrie," the Flag-Captain said with a beamish smile, as if that settled the matter. "Bad run of luck, all round, has Captain Leatherwood. Three of his charges took bad water aboard when they victualled, and there's been sickness among passengers and crew."
"Cholera, sir?" Lewrie asked with a shudder of dread. Cholera was to blame for most of the untimely deaths among Britons who sailed East to make their fortunes.
"No, thank the Lord," the Flag-Captain told him with a shudder of his own, and a rap of his knuckles for luck on his desktop. "A bit of 'gippy-tummy,' mal de mer, and 'the runs,' but no deaths. It'll be a day or two more, before they scrap their water casks and load fresh ones, then fill them with safe Cape Town water."
"My brother-in-law's a passenger aboard the Lord Stormont, sir," Lewrie said. "He said nothing of it when we met, and looked healthy as a horse."
"Don't believe she was one of the affected ships."
"Uhm… about those carronades, sir," Lewrie reminded him one more time. "Might I have your permission to indent for them, if this Captain Wheeler is in immediate need of a frigate, sir?"
"Don't see why not, Captain Lewrie," the Flag-Captain allowed with an easy chuckle. "It's not as if short-ranged carronades will be doing us much good here. 'Tis proper fortress guns we need. Thirty-two-pounders and fourty-twos, but will Admiralty, or even the Army's Artillery Board at Woolwich, respond to our needs? Can't hold this harbour without, should the French stir themselves, but…" He dug into his desk for paper and pen, a steel-nib much like Lewrie's, and opened his brass inkwell to begin scribbling a formal indenture.
Thank bloody Christ! was Lewrie's thought; That was easy!
"There ye are, Lewrie," the Flag-Captain said, handing over the note to the stores ship. "Put them to good use, if needs be."
"Hopefully, sir, we'll yawn our way to Channel Soundings, but I am indeed grateful to you, no matter," Lewrie declared as he got to his feet. For a quick exit, before the Flag-Captain could change his mind! "I'll be going, then sir and thank you once again for all you have done for us."
"A good voyage, Captain Lewrie," that worthy replied as he rose as well and offered his hand in parting. "Fair winds, calm seas… all that, what?"
His gig came alongside the starboard entry-port just about the same time that the first carronade's slide-carriage was being hoisted aloft from the ship's cutter in a sling hung off the main course yardarm. All the gun-ports gaped open, the port lids raised to show their red interior paint, and Lewrie was delighted to see that the two aftermost in his great-cabins already were yawning empty, and the red tompions stuck in the muzzles of the 12-pounders which had occupied those ports were now brooding in the amidships gun-ports.
"Got 'em, sir!" Lt. Catterall hooted from the cutter, where he was overseeing the hoisting. "Fifty rounds of shot apiece, to boot!"
"Next trip, Mister Catterall, I'll have the formal permission for you to give to the stores ship's captain!" Lewrie shouted back.
"Right-ho, sir!"
A scamper up the boarding battens and man-ropes to the gangway and the ceremony of welcoming a captain back aboard, and Lewrie could beam with pleasure to see that both slide-carriages for his new carronades squatted in the waist, ready to be hauled aft.
"The 'Smashers' will take two more trips, sir," Lt. Langlie told him, after he had paced to the centre of the hammock netting overlooking the waist. "A further trip for the shot, with the launch to bear all that Mister Carling requested, and it's done, Captain."
"Very good, Mister Langlie. Excellent!" Lewrie declared.
"This note came aboard for you, in your absence, sir," Langlie told him, offering a folded-over sheet of paper.
"Ah, hmm," Lewrie said, breaking the seal, which did not bear any stamp or signet mark. "Ah! My brother-in-law, Burgess, is ashore, and asks me to dine with him."
He dug out his pocket watch and checked the time, frowning as he realised that the hour appointed was fast approaching for dinner at a shore establishment, the very place, in point of fact, where he'd fed those generous Indiaman passengers and captains. There was no time to send a reply; he would just have to show up.
"My compliments, Mister Langlie, but I'm off ashore, at once," he told the First Officer. "Here… give Mister Catterall this note from the flag, so the
stores ship captain won't think we bilked him out of anything. Call away my boat crew… no, Cox'n Andrews, but a fresh set of oarsmen, and I'm away."
"Aye, sir."
Burgess surely has gotten sour letters about me from Caroline, Lewrie fretfully thought, no matter the casually-pleased face he put on it as he waited for his gig to be readied. Is he t 'give me a good cobbing 'bout my "sinful" ways, I wonder?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
So nice of you to invite me," Lewrie said as they were seated on a deep side veranda at the travellers' inn, where jewel-bright birds in cages flitted and chirped, and a cool breeze blew stirring hanging-baskets of local flowers.
"Well, I saw that your ship was no longer in danger of sinking," Burgess Chiswick snickered, "and supposed that you'd be off as soon as the next tide, or something, and meant to see you before you departed."