Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH

• Название: THE GUN KETCH
• Автор: Dewey Lambdin
• Жанр: Морские приключения

It's 1786 and Alan Lewrie has his own ship at last, the Alacrity. Small but deadly, the Alacrity prowls the waters of the Caribbean, protecting British merchants from pirates. But Lewrie is still the same old rakehell he always was. Scandal sets tongues wagging in the Bahamas as the young captain thumbs his nose at propriety and makes a few well-planned conquests on land before sailing off to take on Calico Jack Finney, the boldest pirate in the Caribbean.

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They had had to coach as far as Petersfield to feel safely out of range of any residual rancor. Once there, in a homey, low-ceilinged set of rooms at a rambling old coaching inn, the happy couple celebrated the especial bliss of newly begun married life in proper style, which left Caroline purring, and Alan so ecstatically spent, and so delighted by her physical charms and her ardor that he wondered just how he was going to deal with being separated from her once his new ship was ready for sea.

Charms or no, there was a thrill of expectation that morning. Following a teasing, tickling, mirthful and infinitely pleasing bout after the "abigail" at the George Inn had brought their tea, breakfast in the public rooms, and a lingering goodbye kiss, Alan still felt an impatient urge to tear away from her.

Dressed in his best, brand-new uniform, white waistcoat and breeches gleaming, and buttons and metal appointments shining fit to blind the unwary, Lt. Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, made his presence known at the shore offices of the Port Admiral before going out to his new command.

"And you are?" a punctilious silver-buttoned naval clerk said with a traplike opening and shutting of a severe little mouth.

"Lewrie, sir," Alan replied. "I'm come to take command of Alacrity."

The clerk looked him over carefully, one bored eyebrow cocked in cynical appraisal. Silver-Buttons had sometimes been appalled by the turnout of some holders of the King's Commission, by how shabbily and "pinchbeck" salty stalwarts could dress themselves, as if their slightest attempt at nearness was a civilian crime.

Silver-Buttons also made a rough estimate of Lieutenant Lewrie's value during his appraisal. Real gold coat buttons, not gilded; a new cocked hat, and by the officer's London accent, probably from James Lock. Real silver buckles on his shoes; a good watch and impressive fob, and a damned good sword, even if it was a hanger and not a slim, straight smallsword. A Gill' s, and they didn't come cheap! Hmm!

Silver-Buttons rang a tiny handbell on his desk to summon his compatriot, the regulating captain of the Portsmouth Impress Service. Aye, this Lieutenant Lewrie had the wherewithal, unlike so many others, and could pay to get his ship commissioned and manned when the pettifogging frustrations of the dockyards (and Silver-Buttons knew just how to invent said frustrations) became insurmountable for an aspiring young captain. Not too much, though, Silver-Buttons decided; that scar upon the cheek, that restless look in those genial eyes (were they gray or were they blue, he dithered) spoke caution, and a limit to what Lewrie might abide before making loud complaints to Silver-Buttons' superior.

"Might I see your orders, Mister Lewrie?" The clerk smiled, deciding upon a larger measure of civility than was his wont.

Alan surrendered his documents from the Admiralty.

"You'd be amazed how many Sea Officers positively lurk around this anteroom," Silver-Buttons "tsk-tsked" as he read those precious papers. "Or attempt to bluff their way aboard a ship, bold as a dog-in-a-doublet. One must be certain of the bona fides in these times. Aye, yours are quite in order, sir," he concluded with a smirk.

"Quite, sir," Alan nodded, itching to get his documents back, and safely into a deep side pocket of his coat. "Would it be proper for me to make my courtesy call to the Port Admiral at once, sir, or might I perform that chore after reading myself in?"

"I regret to inform you, Lieutenant Lewrie, that that worthy is not here. Nor will he be for the rest of the week," Silver-Buttons sighed with an audible sniff. "Matters of state in London, with the Board of Admiralty, do you see? Ah, Captain Palmer! Captain Palmer, allow me to name to you Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, come down to assume a new command. Lieutenant Lewrie, our Regulating Captain."

"Your servant, sir," Lewrie said, extending a hand to the oily older man who had appeared with breakfast grease on his chin.

"Nay, I be yours, sir. And that, soon, I'm thinking. And what ship?"

"The Alacrity, sir."

"Alacrity, Alacrity, hmm…" Silver-Buttons mused, searching his files stacked in untidy piles on a sideboard.

"A ketch-rigged sloop, sir. To turn over, then fit out for the Bahamas Squadron," Lewrie prodded impatiendy.

"Ah, here we are!" Silver-Buttons brightened. "Ten-gunned, once a bomb ketch. Should have been in port over a month ago, but she found nasty gales returning from Gibraltar and broke her passage, hmm… once in Lisbon. And a second time in Nantes. Odd."Odd, sir? What's odd?" Lewrie fretted. "Was she damaged? How badly? To dock in Frogland… she is here, is she not, sir?"

"Well, of course she's here, Lieutenant Lewrie!" Silver-Buttons snapped. "Else how would I have this paperwork, hey? Came in Tuesday last. As to her material condition, I haven't a clue, though. I cannot be expected to keep track of everything! Aha. Docked and breamed last week, her coppering redone, and is now lying at anchor, awaiting turnover."

"And does that say how many hands stayed aboard, sir?" Lewrie continued. "Any Discharged I must recruit to replace, or will the men turn over entire?"

"Portsmouth's full o' willin' hands, sir," Captain Palmer said after masticating a last, fetching bite of bacon. "I'll be that able to fulfill yer ev'ry desire. Bahamers, is it to be, did y'say? Then y'd rest easy to know there's Cuffy sailors aplenty, awishin' the hot o' their tropics. Mister Powlett's Marine Society o' London's sent down a draft o' their very best, and were ya able to deem 'em Ordinary Seamen, seein' as how they know their knots an' can box the compass good as a hand a year at sea, then half yer problem's solved, I say!"

"I see, sir," Alan nodded. West Indies sailors were as good as any he'd seen in his limited experience, though most English captains would not take them. They were better behaved, more religious, and a lot less likely to cause trouble as long as they were treated fairly. He didn't know squit about any Mr. Powlett's Marine Society of London, but it sounded very much like some Poor Relief for street urchins. If they'd gotten any instructions at all, they'd stand head and shoulders higher than truculent, ignorant landsmen from a debtors' prison.

"I must confess ignorance as to my needs for personnel, Captain Palmer," Lewrie said, finally getting his documents slid back to him, and into his pocket once more. "I shall go aboard Alacrity and read myself in at once, determine my lacks, and get in touch with you, sir."

"Afore the Admiralty changes its mind, hey?" Palmer cajoled.

"Quite, sir," Lewrie smiled bashfully. Captain Palmer had hit the nail directly on its head.

"God, she's lovely," Alan breathed as he beheld the gun ketch which lay at anchor before him as he was rowed out by a bargee.

"Ever' ship be, sir," the bargee grunted over his oars.

Alacrity was a saucy thing. Seen side-on, which view disguised her wide beam, she possessed a lovely, curving sheer-line to bulwarks and gunwale, and the jaunty, upward thrust of her jib boom and sprit yard made her appear eager and lively. She was about seventy-five feet on the range of the deck, and ninety feet overall from taffrail to the tip of her bowsprit. She was rigged as a two-masted ketch, a bomb ketch of the older style with equally spaced masts, the after mast by the break of the quarter-deck railings shorter than the mainmast forward. Her principal motive power would be those two courses rigged fore-and-aft on the lower masts, hoisted like batwings from gaff yard atop and long booms below. She sported crossed square-sail yards for tops'ls on both masts, and stays forrud for outer-flying jib, inner jib and fore-topmast stays'l.

Her hull below the black chainwale was linseeded or oiled a dark brown with a glossy new sheen, while her gunwale and bulwarks, all her upper hull was a spritely blue several shades lighter than royal blue, and her rails, transom carvings, quarter-galleries, beakhead and projecting strips above and below the gunwale were done in a yellow deep enough to at first be mistaken for giltwork. Her crowned-lion figurehead at the tip of the beakhead, below the thrusting jib boom, was the only place true gilt appeared.

"Boat ahoy!" one of the harbor watch shouted in query.

"Alacrity!" the bargee bellowed, and raising several ringers in the air to indicate the number of side-boys due their visitor; and with his shout telling them that their new lord and master had arrived. He stilled his oars and let the rowboat coast to give them time to sort out a proper welcome.

The boat at last thudded against the hull by the boarding battens and dangling manropes. Alan hitched his hanger out of the way, set his hat firmly on his head, and stood. He reached out, took hold of the manropes and heaved himself onto the wide and deep shelf-like battens to ascend to the entry port cut into the bulwarks above. He heard the sweet trills of bosun's pipes squealing his first salute as a captain of a man of war, and once through the entry port and standing on the starboard sail-handling gangway (his gangway, he relished!) he doffed his hat in reply. Surprised as they were to see him, he was as much surprised to see a Commission Officer standing before him with a sword drawn and presented in salute.

"Welcome aboard, sir," the young man said once the ceremony was done, and he had sheathed his sword.

"Lewrie," Alan announced. "Alan Lewrie. And you are?"

"Ballard, sir," the trim little officer replied. "Arthur Ballard." He pronounced it Ball-ahhrd, emphasizing the last syllable.

"Are you temporary, or…?" Alan quizzed.

"First officer, sir," Ballard informed him with a slight raise of his eyebrows. "A bomb would normally rate but one Commission Officer as master and commander, sir, but rerated as a sloop, sir…"

"Ah, I see!" Alan nodded with a smile. He would have someone else to help with the navigation, and the watch-standing, which suited his indolent nature perfectly! "Did you turn over with her, sir, from her previous commission?"

"Came aboard to join four days ago, sir, just after she left the careenage," Ballard rejoined.

"Right, then," Lewrie said, digging into that side pocket for his precious orders. "Assemble ship's company, Mister Ballard."

"Aye, aye, sir," Ballard intoned with a sober mien.

It was thin audience Lewrie had to witness his reading-in. Two gangly midshipmen of fourteen or so, hopefully salty enough from being at sea since the usual joining age of ten or twelve; eight or nine boys dressed the usual "Beau-Nasty" he took for servants and powder monkeys; twenty or so hands from fifteen to forty dressed in blue and gray check calico and slop-trousers, plus the older men who affected cocked hats and longer frock coats with brass buttons who would be her holders of Admiralty warrants; the bosun, carpenter, cooper, sailmaker and gunner, and their immediate mates who were the ship's career professionals.

Alan read them his orders, savoring every mellifluous, ringing phrase which directed him "to take charge and command" of His Majesty's Sloop Alacrity. Finished at last, he rolled up the document and retied the ribbons, wondering if he should say else.

"I am certain," he began, looking down at their hopeful faces peering back up at him from the waist amidships, "that many of you came up on blood and thunder in the recent war, as did I. Service in a ship in peacetime may not hold the ever-present threat of battle. We may have more time for 'make-and-mend,' more 'Rope-yarn Sundays.' But that is only after we've drilled and trained to be ready to fight, and I am satisfied. And our old friend the sea is still a demanding mistress. I deem peacetime service no less rigorous than war. Mind you, I'm no Tartar nor a slavedriver. But I am a taut hand, and a taut ship where every man-jack works chearly for me, our ship, his mates, and our Fleet is a happy ship, I've found. And that is what will satisfy me, and that is what will bring us safely home from the fiercest gales or the hottest fight, should they come to us. Fair enough?" he asked, expecting no answer. "That'll be all for now. Dismiss the hands, Mister Ballard."

"Aye, aye, Captain," Ballard replied, using that honorific for the first time now that Lewrie's assumption of command was official. "Ship's company, on hats and dismiss! What next, sir?"

"Introduce me to the warrants and mates, Mister Ballard." Once more, Lewrie felt he was standing outside himself like some theatregoer, judging his own performance on the Navy's stage. He had almost reddened with embarrassment as he uttered those trite-but-true phrases he'd borrowed from other, and whom he considered, better, men.

I've six years in the Navy; why do I still feel like such a low fraud? he asked himself.

He knew his own preferences for peacetime service would be to cruise like a hired yacht, sip claret and dine well, perhaps carry some doxy in his cabins for sport. Yet he wore the King's Coat, and perforce had to live what felt like a great sham; a sham which he was sure others would someday recognize.

"Mister Fellows the sailing master, sir," Ballard said as Alan's senior mates gathered round. Fellows was short, wiry, ginger-haired, and seemed like a timorous store clerk. "Mister Harkin the bosun, sir." Harkin was built like a salt-beef barrel with arms as thick as hawsers, and a round hard face. "Mister Maclntyre the surgeon's mate. This is Mister Taft, the sailmaker, Mister Fowles the master gunner…"

"Fowles?" Lewrie interrupted. "Ariadne, winter of '80. You were but an able seaman then. My first ship as a newly."

"Aye, sir, I were. Thankee fer 'membrin' me, Cap'n, sir," the clumsy older salt bobbed happily. "An' that 'appy I be t' be a'servin' unner 'Ram-Cat' Lewrie, sir." The introductions finished, Lewrie plucked at his uniform. "I meant to pay my respects to the Port Admiral, else I'd have dressed more suitable for a first-day's inspection, men," he said with a small jape at himself. "Something less grandl So, I'll delay going over the ship from bilges to mast trucks until tomorrow at eight bells of the morning watch. At which time I will wear slop-clothing and put my nose into everything. So put right what you will, and have a list ready concerning any deficiencies you want corrected in your departments, or items still wanting, hey?" He gave them a warning, and time enough to present a going concern, sure there were glaring faults hereabouts in a ship fresh from the graving dock and careenage, with most of her furniture and fittings recently reloaded. "Mister Ballard, let us go aft. I assume the ship's books are in the great-cabins?"

"They are, sir. This way, sir," Ballard replied gravely.

"How many hands have turned over, Mister Ballard?" Alan asked as they descended to the waist from the quarter-deck for the hatch to the aft cabins.

"At present, sir, there are thirty-six hands aboard, ordinary, able or landsmen. All but eleven may be rated seamen. The purser Mister Keyhoe has nine men away from the ship at present, to row him over to the dockyards. Alacrity came into port with fifty-five, ten short of her rated complement. Five were discharged, sprung or ruptured, three retired. But, there's a new frigate fitting out here, sir, and we lost eleven hands into her. The Port Admiral sent an officer aboard and got them to… ahem… volunteer for her," Ballard said with a wry pout.