Читать интересную книгу King`s Captain - Dewey Lambdin

Ah, a sweet chit, he thought as he handed her to the entry-port gate, as she swept her skirts to turn outward and lower herself over-side by battens and man-ropes. Tryin t'gain manners and style. I just might look her up…

"Arr, ye keep yer fuckin' eyes awrf me bum, ya googlin' shits!" Mistress Sally "Blue" Caruthers chid the boat-crew below, as she heard their appreciative moans and whistles. "Ain' none o' yew gettin' e'en a 'finger-lark,' so hush yer gobs!"

Then again… perhaps not, he sighed with a wry grin.

At last, the final boat-load of women and sailor's children had gone. The darkening seas were getting up a tiny bit more boisterous, and the wind was backing from due North a wee touch more with each gust… presaging a switch to Nor-Nor'east in an hour or so perhaps. Lewrie was anxious to get underway, make an offing from the shoaling coast before he was caught on a lee shore at night. And it would be safer for the lugger to get into port before the rising, shifting wind raked up rollers over the bars, which might poop her.

The last boat-load, though… he simply had to stay on the gangway to watch Handcocks, Morley, and Rolston go, along with two more of the green-cockaded committeemen. Everyone did, it seemed. No sailor wore their red cockades any longer. Once Proteus had escaped for sure, her wake had blossomed with their discards, and their frigate's creamy stern-froth had resembled a sea-bride's train on a bloom-strewn church aisle.

Bales… he was still unable to call him Rolston! His ancient dislike of the boy he'd been so long ago had been dismissed from Lewrie's ken ages before… he despised the twisted, jealous, radical hell-spite the man had become in his latest guise.

"Once the boat's returned, Mister Wyman, ready the hands to recover the boats and stow them on the cross-deck tiers," Lewrie said.

"Aye, aye, sir," Lt. Wyman piped from the companionable dark. A number of hand-held muscovy-glass lanthorns along the rails threw amber-yellow moon-glades so the hands could see what they were doing, and Captain Vernish's lugger's lights competed to turn the patch of sea between them into a gently heaving, glittering sheet of molten gold.

Him and the others gone, Lewrie decided as the ringleaders got pushed to the open gate of the entry-port, then this ship'll be clean, untainted… like I told the hands, the slate erased. Then we make of her what she should be. What Proteus deserves to be, he mused.

Handcocks went down the battens, chains clinking at every step. Then Private Mollo, stripped of his red tunic, for he didn't deserve to wear a real Marine's jacket. Morley next, complaining and whining, as he descended to a sure death a few days or weeks away, once the Court Martial Jack was hoisted at the Nore.

The crew lined the larboard side, perched in the lower shrouds, or hung half-over the gangway bulwarks for a better view of the departure of their tormentors, their fallen heroes. A few of the stauncher loyalists hooted softly as they left, some of the particularly threatened or browbeat, but most were still just too numb-or too unsettled-to utter a peep.

"Go on then, ya bugger," Corporal Plympton urged Rolston, the last of them. "Think we got all night for th' likes o' you?"

Rolston would go game. He sneered a faint smile of disdain for the gathered seamen, chin-high and clearly disgusted, as if to wonder out loud why he'd ever thought he could make a revolution with such a poor grade of malleable clay, trying to stare individuals down, and make them duck and cringe in shame they'd failed him. Stiffly, he shuffled in leg and wrist chains, his back straight, as if he was determined to face his music with the innate superiority and courage of a Commission Sea Officer, a cultured, educated gentleman-which to his lights he'd always been-but for Admiralty's "Guinea Stamp." He twisted his neck, straining the cords of his throat like a man fighting a tightening noose, and his badly tied gag fell away.

"Damn the lot of you!" Rolston gravelled, silencing what half-hearted jeering there'd been. "Faithless cowards. Weak as water. To think I believed you were men worth saving! But you never were. You will always be sheep… you'll always buss the rich folks' arses."

He turned his back outwards, shuffled his feet so the chains on his ankles wouldn't tangle on the entry-port lip, took hold of the man-ropes, and began to descend, glaring fire-and-brimstone at them. Lewrie stepped closer to the port gate to make sure that Rolston was well and truly going away, happy to see the back of him.

Lewrie felt a brush along his right boot, heard a faint grumble in Toulon 's throat as he moaned and spat, as if even a cat could recognise evil when he saw it.

Clank-shuffle-thud… clank-shuffle-thud, Rolston jangled, taking his eyes off the unfaithful sailors to peer over one shoulder, to see where to place his feet below the gun-ports and wale; and men in the cutter were shuffling to make room for him on a centre thwart. He glared back up once he was sure of his footing, stepping down with an old sailor's expertise, now he'd found a rhythm.

"Oowww!" he yelped, of a sudden, and his hands on the man-ropes flew open, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Shit!" Softly, from the bow-man in the cutter when he let his boat-hook slip off the dead-eyed shrouds on the main-chain platform and the cutter began to drift free, though its stern was still secure to a painter. He stabbed out and down… and missed!

Rolston stabbed out too, got his right hand around a man-rope, with a petulant frown and child-like purse of his lips at almost falling, getting dunked, eyes slit upward to see if anyone had dared kick him or prick him.

Then Proteus heaved a bit, as a rogue swell lifted her, rolled to larboard as if bowing alee. Below, the oarsmen were dipping their free-side oars at Andrew's direction to stroke her back to the hull where the bow-man could hook on once more, but it was as if everyone had caught a cramp as their looms tangled in confusion. Proteus… a few degrees from horizontal, and Rolston's feet went out from under him as if the battens were slick with tallow or hoared with sea-ice!

He dangled by that one hand, swinging his feet for a place to stand, swinging his left arm to a grip on the left-hand man-rope, then the right one below his precarious grip.

"Aahhh…!" he yelped again, as the seamen on the bulwarks and shrouds gasped or moaned with alarm. Bosun's Mate Towpenny scrambled past Lewrie to the top step of the battens to reach down, when no one else looked like they'd help him. "Well, damme…!"

Toulon moaning and spitting, bottled up and arch-backed. Leaping atop the bulwarks before Lewrie and balancing easy on four close-placed paws.

"Ahhhf' Rolston cried again, his right hand flying open as if he'd grasped a red-hot poker. And fell, his yelp of pain and incredulity turning to a thin, disbelieving scream. He plunged into the gilt-lit sea in a huge eruption of foam and spume, like a moth seared from the air into a blossom of yellow flame-points in a chandelier! Down Rolston went into the gap 'twixt ship and cutter, oarsmen and bow-man swinging oars out to probe for him underwater, for him to grab, should he meet up with one.

As the splash plume subsided like a guttering candle flame, the mutineer corked back to the surface, as most divers must at least once, hands stretched high as if in supplication. He heaved a great gasp of air, even as another wide welter of spray erupted 'round him-as if a beast had risen from the great deeps, expelling its whale-breath after an abyssal sounding.

"Nnoo!" Rolston screamed, disbelieving, accusing eyes locked on Lewrie, above him, cut off suddenly as he was dragged back down in an eyeblink by the weight of his shackles and chains.

"Holy…!" Lewrie gasped, feeling his nape hairs bristle with a sudden terror. He barely heard the shocked tumult that gusted through his sailors, barely heard the long, eerie moan from his cat, right by his left elbow, over the distant, rushing ringing in his ears.

All that remained was a spreading, fading grey-white target of roiled water, with a bull's-eye of the palest, winking lanthorn-amber… like a sea-beast's eye, that faded away to ripples.

Lewrie turned to see many of his hands crossing themselves or standing gape-mouthed in awe… looking at him. There were whispers… soft, sibilant sighings and almost-words he strained to fathom that came on the fickle night wind.

"Ah… hmm, then," Lewrie finally managed to say, removing his hat to swipe at his hair, that felt clammy and suddenly cold on that night wind from a gush of funk-sweat.

"Reckon he's a goner, sir," Lt. Wyman ventured to say, breaking the spell.

"Very well, Mister Wyman. Let's be about it then. Finish the ferrying, quick as you can, Andrews; then we must get underway. This wind is backing," Lewrie ordered, clapping his hat back on and placing his hands square in the middle of his back. "Take the ship's boats in tow for the nonce. Ready to make our offing, are you, Mister Win wood?"

"Aye, sir, but… some of the people are saying the most blasphemous, un-Christian things, sir. Pagan sea-gods and vengeance…"

"I'm sure 'tis nothing of the sort, Mister Winwood," Lewrie said, sure he was lying through his teeth.

"We should put a stop to it, sir, at once!" Winwood insisted, as prim as a slapped vicar. "The simple minds of your common sailor, and so many superstitious Irish aboard, why…

"Have we learned nothing, sir?" Lewrie asked him. "Our common sailors are nothing like simple or child-like; we just saw that at the Nore and Spithead. Do the people come to believe that Proteus had an odd birth, an air of mystery about her… a soul, if you will, what's the harm in it? Perhaps they'll serve her more chearly for that."

"From fear, Captain?" Winwood countered, nigh to scoffing.

"For the ship, sir… if she demands it," Lewrie allowed, turning to stroke Toulon, who was now washing himself as if he hadn't one care in the world. "Pride, stubbornness… that's more important among them than Navy, King, or Country… the ship, and their mates are paramount, if you get past all the patriotic cant. Shame of failing mates, good officers like Lieutenant Devereux for our Marines, that makes 'em toe up and stick it in a scrap. Discipline and fear of punishment… that only goes so far. But it doesn't inspire them, Mister Winwood!"

Winwood got cutty-eyed, seeing his point, but not liking it.

"We'll not encourage such moonshine, sir. But let 'em have a spindrift, and a sense of bein' unique men servin' a unique ship. In the long-run, it really doesn't signify."

"Uhm… very good, sir." Winwood surrendered, though dubious.

Let him think what he likes, Lewrie thought, turning away to see to getting his ship underway. I begged God-and Lir-the both of em, to get her back. I promised Bales's… Rolston s heart's blood for it. Whichever answered my prayer, well… that don't signify either. As long as I have a proud ship!

EPILOGUE

Forsan et HaecOlim

Meninisse juvabit.

Perhaps someday it will be pleasant

to remember these things.

– Virgil

HMS Proteus lay peacefully at anchor in the port of Harwich, up the coast from the Nore. She was finished with provisioning, and her people were Out-Of-Discipline, after six rugged weeks at sea, off the Texel. Six weeks they'd bluffed with but a handful of ships to shut the door on the Dutch, with Admiral Duncan's two or three liners anchored almost aground, right in the channel, and Proteus and a few other frigates or sloops further out, flurrying bogus signals to a pretended "fleet" under the Northern horizon. With battle expected daily, Lewrie had found his external bogeyman, the roweled Spanish spur that focused his crewmen on learning their trade as quick as they could. Now she was of passing professionalism-still with some raggedness about her, of course, but Lewrie reckoned that she'd just about do. So when she had been relieved by the Nore ships, the re-assembled North Sea Fleet, which had given up their mutiny not ten days after Proteus had escaped, everyone had been more than grateful for a spell in harbour.

The skylights were open to cool his great-cabins as he worked, and he could hear the voice of Lieutenant Devereux drilling his Marines on the quarterdeck above him, the clomp of booted feet as they sweated through close-order under arms. Music drifted up from the berthing-deck where the hands idled with a new lot of temporary "wives."

"Down By The Sally Gardens," he recognised, pausing in his writing, smiling to himself since he'd learned a thing or two himself, learned to play a few new airs on his battered, but straightened tin-whistle.

"Boat ahoy!"

"Aye, aye!"

"Marines! By the left… quick-march!".

Though the crew had settled into a trouble-free Navy routine-for the most part-summoning Marines to the entry-port boded ominous. That "Aye, aye!" might mean the presence of an officer in the approaching boat. Or it might be Thomas McCann, come back from his tar and chains! There was a stamp by the door, the rap of his sentry's musket butt. "Midshipman Nicholas… SAH!"

"Come."

"Captain, sir!" Little Mr. Nicholas burst out, flushed and excited, "the First Officer Mister Langlie's respects, sir, and I am bid to inform you that we've a visitor arriving… a soldier! A real general, he appears, sir!"

"Good, God," Lewrie replied, with a frown, startled to his feet, and grasped for his coat that hung on the back of his chair.

He only knew one general… his father! And what the Devil was he doing in Harwich? Lewrie feared the worst; there had been no fresh letters from Anglesgreen since he had taken Proteus over to Holland… whilst recent bumf from his solicitor, tailor, Coutts's Bank, chandlers, and such had come aboard with Langlie and Devereux. Despite his own letters home, there'd been no replies, and he could explain that away only so long with the urgency of the spring planting season.

He dashed out of his great-cabins, up the starboard ladder to the gangway and entry-port, as the Marines formed up and Lt. Langlie had Bosun Pendarves shrilling like a starved harpy on his silver call to assemble the crew. "Present! Ship's comp'ny… off hats, face to starboard, and… salute!" Langlie bellowed.

A cocked military hat loomed over the lip of the entry-port, the bosun's calls tweetled a long, complicated trilling… gold lace then appeared. Damme, it is my father, Lewrie thought with a deeper frown.

Sir Hugo Saint George Willoughby got safely to the deck, almost spryly, gaily, and stepped inboard, grandly doffing his hat to one and all, with a condescending smile on his phyz, like a hero might at the theatre, cheered and clapped for his most recent exploit and basking in his glory from a loge-box before the curtain rose.