* * *
“I wonder what the soldiers will do when we cross the Equator, sir,” Lt. Westcott mused as the peaks of Madeira shrank and shortened astern. Westcott looked in merry takings, quite chipper in point of fact. A brief half-day ashore at Funchal, and a visit to that highly recommended brothel, had done him wonders.
“Have a group, ceremonial vomit, I’d imagine,” Lewrie chirped back, rocking on the soles of his boots with his hands clapped in the small of his back, and relishing the fresh breezes and the easy motion of their frigate. “Why change routine just because they’ll be crossing the line?”
“I was just wondering how they would welcome King Neptune and his Court aboard, sir,” Westcott said with a laugh.
“I doubt they’d do anything,” Lewrie mused, tickled by an image of riot. “Who’d enforce the rites? The transports are manned at the rate of five sailors and one ship’s boy per every hundred tons, plus the master, two mates, and perhaps five or six more petty officers. If they tried to initiate the soldiers, I expect they’d end with their throats cut. Speaking of, Mister Westcott … you have made plain to our ‘shellbacks’ that they’d best make their revels harmless, with no insults against any superiors?”
“I have, sir,” Westcott replied with a stern nod.
“Having been ‘anointed’ once, myself, and a ‘shellback’ several times over, I intend to stand and watch and enjoy the ceremony. But, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie teased with a leer. “You have not yet said if you have ever crossed the Equator. Have you, sir?”
“Ehm … I fear that my naval career has taken me no further South than Trinidad, sir,” Westcott hesitantly confessed.
“A ‘Pollywog’ are ye, sir?” Lewrie purred, leaning a tad closer to grin. “Oh, how jolly this will be!” Then, to Lt. Westcott’s consternation, Lewrie strolled off to the weather rails, his step jaunty, and humming a gay air. Now there was something to look forward to!
* * *
The first few days out of Funchal, they still had the Nor’east Trade winds, so the going was good as they sailed past the Spanish Canary Islands with the isles only fifty or sixty miles East of them.
The next few days were also passable as Lewrie led the convoy almost Due South across the Tropic of Cancer, the 20th Latitude, then down the wide strait between the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands and Cape Vert on the shoulder of Africa, where the Equatorial Counter Current, the swirling eddies off that, and the Sou’east Trades began to greet them.
Round the 10th North Latitude, though, the perverse Sou’east Trades forced them to stand Sou’-Sou’west, close-hauled towards eventual shoaling waters, which were badly or sketchily charted, and then all four ships would have to make a heart-breaking turn to the East-Nor’east and sail back towards Africa, losing ground ’til the shore could be seen from the cross-trees, and they would tack and bear off Sou’-Sou’west once more, and safely out to seaward. To make matters worse, it was growing hotter, even though they were well into early December, and the sun, so friendly round Madeira, began to feel brutal, and Surgeon Mr. Mainwaring had little in the way of balms to ease unwary sailors’ burns when they worked shirtless.
A little South of the 5th North Latitude, on a shoreward tack, they raised Cape Palmas, the Southwestern limit of the Western bulge of the African continent, and stood away Sou’-Sou’west once more.
At least the next time they had to tack shoreward, there would be hundreds of miles of sea-room before they fetched the coast again, deep into the Gulf of Guinea.
A day or two more and they would cross the Equator, where the Bosun, Mr. Sprague, and his mates and some of the other older, saltier hands would hold court. They were already cackling among themselves and rubbing their hoary palms in glee.
It was then that Pettus, over breakfast, pointed out to Lewrie that Toulon was not acting his normal self.
“Toulon? What’s wrong with him?” Lewrie asked. His older cat had been all laps and affection the last week. He looked to the foot of his dining table, where Toulon and Chalky sat by their food bowls.
“He doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite, sir. At first, I took no notice, but now?” Pettus said, pointing down-table.
Yeovill had whipped up the last of the eggs purchased at Funchal in an omelet, a third of it laced with dried sausage bits and shreds of bacon just for the cats. Chalky was nibbling away at his bowl, but Toulon was just hunkered down over his, paying no heed to the welcoming aromas, and just staring off into the middle distance, eyes half-slit as if he was napping. And, when Chalky had polished off his own bowl and nudged Toulon aside to wolf down his as well, Toulon paid no heed. He had never been the assertive cat, but allowing himself to be robbed?
Lewrie left his plate, and his chair, to go to the other end of the table and stroke Toulon. “What’s wrong, littl’un? What’s put you off your victuals? Are ye feelin’ ill?”
Toulon looked up at him, made a meek little Mrr, and licked at Lewrie’s hand. Lewrie pulled out the chair at that end of the table and sat down to gather Toulon into his arms, where the cat went willingly, starting to purr.
“My Lord, he’s light as a feather!” Lewrie exclaimed. “Ye can feel his ribs, and his backbone. Here, Toulon, have a wee bite or two. Come on, now.” Lewrie dug into the food bowl for a tiny morsel of sausage and put it under Toulon’s nose, but he would have none of it.
Jessop had come to the end of the table to watch.
“’E’s been pissin’ a lot, too, sir,” Jessop informed him, “an’ ’ardly ever in their sand box. Seems all ’e warnts t’do is sleep, an’ drink water. Won’t play like ’e usedta.”
“Whenever you’re on deck, sir, he’s most likely to be found in the starboard quarter gallery,” Pettus contributed, “napping atop the crates and chests, so he’s level, with the windows. I thought that he was just watching sea birds.”
Lewrie cradled Toulon, stroking his cheeks and chops with one finger, and Toulon tilted his head to look up and meet Lewrie eye-to-eye, slowly and solemnly blinking. He might be softly purring, but his tail tip did not move.
Lewrie sat him back on the table right over his food bowl, now all but empty after Chalky’s raid, got to his feet, and went for the door to the ship’s waist. Coatless and bareheaded, he mounted to the quarterdeck. Lt. Spendlove, the officer of the watch, began to move leeward to cede the weather rails to his captain, but Lewrie stopped him with a question. “Have you seen the Surgeon, Mister Spendlove?”
“At breakfast, sir,” Spendlove replied, knuckling the brim of his hat in salute. “I believe he is forrud, holding the morning sick call. Shall I pass word for him, sir?”
“No, I’ll go forrud,” Lewrie told him, and went back to the deck to make his way to the forecastle. Bisquit the ship’s dog darted out of his cobbled-together shelter under the starboard ladderway and came bouncing to join him, prancing for attention, Lewrie took time to give Bisquit some pets and “wubbies” before reaching the forecastle.
HMS Reliant was a modern ship. Her sick-bay was not below in the foetid miasmas of the orlop, but right forward, where the warmth from the galley fires could keep patients comfortable in cold weather, and still provide fresher air during their recovery. In battle, surgeries and the treatment of wounded men would still take place on the orlop, in the Midshipmen’s cockpit, but after as many wounded as could be accommodated under the forecastle would be moved there.
“Good morning, Mister Mainwaring,” Lewrie began.
“Ah, good morning, Captain,” Mr. Mainwaring cheerfully replied. He was a burly, dark-haired, and swarthy-complexioned man, with hands and fingers more suited to a blacksmith or butcher, but he had turned out to be a skilled and able surgeon for all that.