“They are insulting beyond belief,” Grierson went on with his plaint, pacing behind his desk and peering down his nose at the odd corners of his cabins. “One woman even had the nerve to take me to task for the manner of my arrival, sir!”
That’d be Priscilla, most-like, Lewrie happily thought.
“Quite fetching a mort, but for that,” Grierson growled. “The nerve of the bitch! I saw you with her, Lewrie. Did you put her up to it? That Mistress Frost baggage?”
“I most certainly did not, sir,” Lewrie vowed.
Aye, I did, did you like it? he thought, his face stony; And is that why ye summoned me, ye petty bastard?
“She did tell me, though, sir,” Lewrie explained, “that there were many locals who were frightened out of their wits ’til they learned the true identity of your ships. Recall, I did warn you that your idea of a jest might turn round and bite you.”
Did he expect ’em t’be so relieved they’d cheer him and chair him through the streets? Lewrie asked himself; What an ass!
“As I was rowed past your frigate, Captain Lewrie, I noted that she is rather heavily weeded,” Commodore Grierson snapped, changing the subject as he whipped round to glare at Lewrie once more. “I saw more green slime than I did coppering or white lead, and I expect you also have so many barnacles that you could not find her coppering. How long has it been since your ship was docked and cleaned, sir?”
“Well, since she was taken out of Ordinary in April of 1803, I don’t believe we’ve had time for such, sir,” Lewrie informed him. “We spent much of that year in the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico, then back to England as escort to a sugar trade, half of 1804 in the Channel, then right back here via Bermuda, since January.”
“Then you are more than due,” Commodore Grierson said with a satisfied nod of his head, though he didn’t even try to plaster on a gladsome smile. “Since I now have three frigates and two more brig-sloops on station, your frigate is redundant to my needs. And, as you say, it is doubtful that the French Admiral, Villeneuve, has designs upon the Bahamas. Those, plus the vessels already assigned here will more than suffice. As slow as your ship is reduced, she would be a hindrance to me.”
And … and what? Lewrie wondered, waiting for the other shoe to drop as Grierson took his time to walk back to his desk, sit down behind it, and leaf through some correspondence.
“I will send you orders, releasing you from my squadron, sir,” Grierson at last said when he folded the correspondence away, folding his hands atop the desk.
“What about the continuing problem with French and Spanish privateers, though, sir? My independent orders from Admir—”
“As Senior Officer on-station, and senior to you, sir, by nineteen months on the Post-Captains’ List, I deem such enemy activities temporarily ‘Scotched’, and feel that, with my re-enforcements in frigates and brig-sloops, will be more than capable of dealing with any new outbreaks,” Grierson cut him off, and simpered at Lewrie.
That won’t last ye six months, Lewrie sourly thought; not when the trade route’s so busy, and privateerin’s so profitable!
“If you say so, sir,” Lewrie said, instead.
“And I do,” Grierson gaily rejoined, quite perkily. “As for you and your frigate, Captain Lewrie … I will allow you to detach yourself from my command and … and sail for England for a proper time in dry dock. Does that prospect not please you, sir?”
“Well, aye, it does, sir, but…,” Lewrie flummoxed. The prospect was pleasing, and he had to admit that Reliant was in serious need of a hull cleaning, The loss of his temporary status as a Commodore even of such a small squadron really meant little, either. It was the way he was being shooed off that rankled!
“Good, then,” Grierson said, smiling at last, though not with the sort of smile one could trust. “That’s settled. I will have your orders aboard by the start of the First Dog Watch this very day … before I despatch the wee vessels of your former squadron to other duties down-islands. I expect you and their commanding officers will wish a last shore supper together, before you all depart.”
Vindictive bastard! Lewrie fumed inside.
“I expect that we shall, sir,” Lewrie said, keeping his disgust well-hidden, and thinking that their last shore supper would be a bitch session which Grierson should studiously avoid.
Damn him for takin’ it out on them! he thought.
“Will that be all, sir?” Lewrie asked.
“Uhmm, yes,” Grierson said, all a’twinkle by then, rising from his chair to see Lewrie to the doors. “You may return to your ship.” Grierson leaned a bit close then away. “Where you may sponge the lady’s scent from your clothing.”
I wondered why his cabins smelled like rose water! Lewrie realised; Well, they say ye can never smell yourself! Priscilla did dab it on a tad thick.
“Beg pardon, sir?” Lewrie countered, stiffening his back. Would the fellow prove himself that crude?
“A good ride, was she? Mistress Frost?” Grierson leered.
“I deem it most un-gentlemanly of you to ask that question, sir,” Lewrie stiffly intoned, glowering at the Commodore. “As for the lady’s qualities … that’s something I very much doubt you’ll ever know.”
Grierson’s reaction was a hearty laugh, and another easy and arrogant “we’ll see about that” cock-sure leer. “Goodbye, Captain Lewrie. Bon voyage, and bonne chance!”
Grierson did not go so far as to see him to the deck, so Lewrie had to make his way alone, his ears and the nape of his neck burning, determined to call upon the bouncy Priscilla one more time, if only to tell her what Grierson had in mind, and how low a mind he possessed!
CHAPTER NINE
A day or two later, and HMS Reliant was ready to up-anchor and depart. Last-minute rations had been fetched aboard, along with some sheep, pigs, and a bullock for supper on the eve of sailing, and for fresh meat for the first few days on-passage. The officers’ wardroom and Lewrie’s cabins had been re-stocked with the many needful things that would be unavailable or in short supply on their long voyage to England. For Lewrie, Mister Cadbury the Purser had purchased several one-gallon stone crocks of aged American corn whisky, and an hundred-weight weight of jerked, smoked, or cured meats and hard sausages for his cats and, begrudgingly, for Bisquit, the ship’s dog. He might be a playful pest, might still foul the decks, and took to howling whenever Lewrie tried to practice on his penny-whistle, but Lewrie had grown somewhat fond of the beast.
“Pettus, wos ’em things in th’ quarter-gallery?” young Jessop, the cabin servant, asked the cabin steward as Captain Lewrie finished his pre-sailing breakfast in the forward dining coach, dressed in casual and comfortable old sea clothes, with the finery packed away.
“What things in the quarter-gallery?” Pettus patiently asked as he stowed away spare shirts and trousers, just come back from the shore laundry where they had been washed and rinsed in fresh water, not salt. “You have to be specific.”
“’Em stockin’-lookin’ things in ’eir, them wif th’ ribbons on ’em,” Jessop pressed.
“Those are ‘protections’, Jessop,” Pettus coolly informed him.
“P’rtections f’um wot?” Jessop further asked, puzzled.
“They are cundums,” Pettus told the lad in a mutter, not wishing to disturb their captain, who was in a sour-enough mood already. “Things gentlemen wear when they, ah … take pleasure with ladies so they don’t get them pregnant, or catch the Pox. They are made from sheep gut.”