“Aye aye, sir.”
“Get off my quarterdeck.”
“I’m in the watch, sir?” Alan quailed.
“Then get down to loo’rd and out of my face.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Welcome back to the real Navy, Lewrie thought, gazing off to the north as it got darker. There was a spectacular sunset astern, all reds and golds and layers of clouds painted pink and amber and blue grey, and the seas were bright as glittering rubies. At least he could appreciate that without harm.
Lewrie idled his time until evening Quarters thinking about that brig. She would most likely run to windward until after full dark, then come about north once more, probably wear on a reciprocal course because she did not want to get tangled up with the inshore patrols near St. Barts and St. Maartin. She could go due north outside the island chain. She could not set west—that would take her back into the arms of Desperate and the prize schooner. And on the map engraved in his head, Lewrie saw the Saba Bank. No, she would turn nor’west and run the gap for the other smuggler’s holes in the Danish Virgins, St. Croix as the best bet, Spanish Puerto Rico if she was set to westerly. Lewrie was not sure what Commander Tobias Treghues had planned, but he knew where he would have waited to find her again. But then, nobody was asking him about it, were they?
* * *
If he could not dazzle his new ship with his brilliance, he could at least succeed at appearing competent, and that was what he did in the weeks of cruising that followed. He requested that Railsford let him assist in small arms. He let it be known at lunch to the captain’s clerk that he had assisted an acting purser and had worked in the English Harbor stores warehouses. He chatted with Mr. Gwynn and dropped a hint that he loved artillery and the great guns. At navigation practice with his new sextant (thanks to Lord Cantner’s reward) he displayed to the sailing master his skills naturally, and Mister Monk let it be known that he was a dab-hand at navigating. In the course of his endeavor he casually revealed that Lieutenant Kenyon had let him stand Middle Watch with a bosun’s mate, and that he had filled in as an acting master’s mate in Parrot during her time with fever.
To each of these worthies he also showed a false front, that of a young man lately run to death by duties and happy to be once more a junior petty officer with no major responsibilities. Having been in the Navy long enough to know how hatefully any senior Warrant or Commission Officer regarded idle hands, and knowing that when a midshipman was working some officer was well pleased (and cannily understanding the perverse nature of his fellow man), Alan soon found himself exactly where he wanted to be.
He assisted the master-at-arms and Marine lieutenant at small arms. He assisted Mr. Cheatham with the ship’s books and expense ledgers. He and the gunner’s mate and yeoman of the powder room became coequal authorities on the upkeep of the great guns and all their ancillary gear.
Avery found his niches as well, and they drilled young Carey in terminology and lore until he could spout technical lingo with the ease of a bosun twenty years at sea. Carey also learned how to curse most wondrous-well, it must be said.
As the weeks went by, Treghues and Railsford learned that there was indeed a new order aboard—midshipmen who were useful, instead of the usual snot-nosed younkers-in-training they had grown accustomed to. There was less snarling from Treghues. In fact, there was a grudging acceptance, then a secret delight in having thoroughly salted and tarred midshipmen who could be trusted to carry out an order smartly.
Forrester, however, began to pout more, to purse his lips and squint his porcine eyes and curse them roundly. He was being threatened, and he knew it. Oh, he still had Captain Treghues’ favor, since he had long been the man’s star pupil, and their families were obviously cater-cousins. He was one of the original crew when Desperate was commissioned, and it would take an act of incredible stupidity or craven cowardice to break that bond. But when it came to something prestigious to do, his name was no longer the first on Treghues’ lips.
Nor could he hold his superior social position in their mess, because if he struck out at Carey, he had Avery and Lewrie to contend with, and he could not push his weight around with either of them. He did try, but Avery was a most inventive fellow when it came to filling the young man’s shoes with molasses during the night, nailing his chest shut when he was on deck, starting small rips in his hammock with a shaving razor that would tear open and leave his wide arse hanging out in the air by the start of the Morning Watch; substituting smaller sizes of slop trousers so that Forrester had to appear on deck with a distinctly pinched look about the middle. With all of them on deck during the day at exercises and drills, Forrester found it hard to respond with his own brand of trickery, since they all watched him close in a cabal sworn and dedicated to drive him to distraction.
Lewrie was a little more direct. When Forrester was caught trying to sabotage Avery’s chest one morning, Lewrie simply told him that if he caught him at it again he would kick him in the balls. And when he caught him trying to open his own chest the next day, Alan made good on his threat, which made Forrester crouch for a week.
After the loss of the smuggler brig, Desperate made up for it … there were still dozens of islands engaged in illicit trade and hundreds of ships crossing the Atlantic on the Trades. Not a fortnight went by that they did not send a prize crew into port with the Red Ensign flying over the striped colors of the Rebels, the flag of Spain, or the golden lilies of France.
Their prizes were small—brigs and snows, brigantines and schooners, luggers and cutters, but the value of the cargoes and bottoms lost to the American Rebellion mounted steadily. Powder, shot, carriage guns, stands of arms, crates of swords and uniforms, blankets and camp gear for Washington’s army—rice, pitch, spars, indigo, molasses and rum, log-wood, and bales of cotton—it all piled up in Admiralty Prize Courts warehouses in British hands.
To Lewrie it was as much like a legal form of piracy as any he had ever read about (with not the slightest idea that he would ever be involved), piracy with the right to have a bank account.
And while Article Eight of the Articles of War specifically stated that all contents of a seized ship were property of the Admiralty, Desperate could continually feed herself on casks of salt-meat “condemned” as unfit, firewood, water, coffee and cabin stores from the officer’s messes, “split” flour sacks, “rat-infested” bread bags, crates of wine that no one thought to list in the prize manifests, livestock that had “died,” spare cordage and sailcloth and yards and spars … everything they needed to continue cruising. They ate well, they drank well and they maintained their ship in prime condition at their enemies’ expense, and the prize money piled up for eventual payout.
After two months Desperate was becoming seriously undermanned for fighting, much less for working the ship. One at a time she had been forced to part with quartermasters and mates, bosun’s mates, both master’s mates, half a dozen hands into this prize, ten into that one, until all the midshipmen, including Carey, had been called to stand a deck watch with no supervision.
The turnover in an active frigate that spent so much time on the prowl, and had had such good luck with prizes, was nearly fifty percent a year, but it made grand chances for able men. Able seamen constantly rose to more demanding acting positions. And they could always hope that the man they replaced was not languishing ashore, waiting to be recalled, but had been appointed into another ship, leaving them the possession of their new berth and extra pay.