Dewey Lambdin - H.M.S. COCKEREL

• Название: H.M.S. COCKEREL
• Автор: Dewey Lambdin
• Жанр: Морские приключения

Alan Lewrie works to get a leg over on Emma Hamilton, and comes face to face with the rising star in France, a guy called Napoleon, as well as the infamous Captain Bligh. Not a small feat!

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He gained the larboard gangway and looked down into the waist. Women and children milled about down there, weeping and wailing, crying to heaven. Surgeons moved among them, loblolly boys were fetching up more from below, on the orlop. Wounded women! Dead, lolling children!

Dear God, that last broadside she got off, just before we went up in-irons, he quailed. The collision, everything come adrift below…! I killed 'em, winnin' my damned… victory!

He was at the head of the larboard quarter-deck ladder, about to descend, when Phoebe came rushing from the press to its foot, came up to throw herself upon him, laughing and weeping at the same time.

Thankee, Jesus, she's alive! Thankee! he thought, hugging her no matter who saw them. Stroking her hair as she babbled, one minute trembling and bubbling over with joy, the next instant bawling fit to bust-all punctuated by hiccoughy French tripped off so fast he couldn't catch a word in twenty.

"Calm, Phoebe, calm… I'm alright now. Calm," he Shusshed.

"Oh, Alain, merde alors, ze canon…! Beaucoup de femmes et d'enfants, zey tuer. Keel! Si trиs beaucoup… hurt!"

"Charles!" came a scream from below them. Sophie de Maubeuge scrambled up the quarter-deck ladder, blood on her gown. "M'sieur Lieutenant Luray, Charles…?"

He let go of Phoebe, extended his arms to her. But she did not accept his embrace, but stopped short, paling, as she realised what he was about to say, by the expression of grief and sympathy on his face.

"Non, non, mon Dieu, «on!"

"Mademoiselle vicomtesse, je regrette…" he said gently, taking her hands instead. "Charles Auguste, Baron de Crillart… il nous a quittй." Before she had time to take a breath for another hysterical scream, he told her the rest. "Aussi, Chevalier Louis de Crillart, il nous a quittй."

God, how I hate that bloody phrase, he thought; nous a quittй… left us, gone away from us. Like it was their bloody idea!

Sophie let go of his hands, put them to either side of her head as if to tear her hair out by the roots, and screamed and screamed, as she sank to her knees. Had not Phoebe gone down to her, she would have tumbled to the base of the ladder, broken her neck. Phoebe cradled her head upon her breast, crooning to her, gentling her, while Alan stood, embarrassed by his role and his slowness… his uselessness.

"Charles… Louis…!" Sophie wailed, gone white, with her eyes ready to roll back into her head in a faint. "Madame!"

"What?" Lewrie started, finally noticing the blood on her gown.

"Oui, Alain," Phoebe whispered as he went down to them, looking up with tears running free on her face, as bleak as if she'd lost someone, too. "Madame de Crillart. Ze murs, uhm… walls?… zey break open. Boulets de canon? Ze grande dame, elle est morte. Pauvre petite mademoiselle… she 'as lose 'er famille entiиre… 'ave no one, now."

"I…" he whimpered, turning away, overcome. And sure that it was all his own bloody fault! "Oh, bloody…"

"Go, I see to 'er," Phoebe urged. "You' ship, she…"

Lewrie staggered away across the littered quarterdeck, and his borrowed cutlass clattered to the deck as it slipped from his nerveless fingers. He fetched up at the battered taffrails by one of the stern-chasers which still radiated spent heat. Scrubbing bis face with both hands, trying to deny what he'd done, wondering if he could have done something different, taken another course of action that wouldn't have gotten so many innocent and helpless slaughtered.

Off on the nor'east horizon a frigate was flying, pursued by a British ship. Near the transports, both fetched-to and looking as if they'd been knocked about, Cockerel cruised slowly. And the corvette he'd crippled had struck her colours, a Royal Navy ensign flying at her taffrail. How had the civilians fared aboard those transports, he wondered; had they suffered this much, after putting up token opposition, then striking? He feared they hadn't.

Damme, he thought; I could have stood on, just a few minutes longer, endured her fire, and help would have arrived, these French would have had to sheer off, soon as they saw our warships closing…!

He turned to the sound of tumult, saw wounded men being brought aboard, the healthy slowly crawling across the bulwarks as empty-eyed as the defeated, saw his mates and petty officers putting them to work on the chain-pumps after they'd embraced their families, and gotten a sip of something to relieve their dry mouths. Agamemnon fetching-to and lowering her boats-boats crammed with strong, helpful sailors to salve his ship and his prize. And saw men who'd faced battle and suffered come back aboard to find a loved one departed.

Shouldn't be like this, he groused. Hard as the aftermath of a battle is… shouldn't be like this.

Men could fall, be cruelly wounded and linger in their agonies among shipmates, in a tough masculine world where men could josh the dying, buck them up to go game or offer awkward comfort. And grieve for good friends departed, of a certainty, as their canvas-shrouded corpses were put over the side with round-shot at their feet. But to hear the lamentations of the orphaned, the widowed… 'stead of imagining some far-off bereavement, notified half a year later that the son, the father, the brother, the husband or lover was Discharged, Dead…!

"Shouldn't ought to be like this," he muttered, leaning on the taffrails for a few, last private moments, letting his own tears flow, choking on his own bereaved sobs before stern duty recalled him.

Phoebe had quieted Sophie de Maubeuge, last vicomtesse of her lineage, turned her over to the care of another aristocratic family's women, and made her way back up the quarter-deck ladder to find him. She saw him far aft, leaning forward, head down, squeezing the rails, and her heart went out to him. She hitched up her skirts, ready to run to him, but Spendlove intervened.

"Ma'am?" he called, stepping in front of her, snuffling himself as the list of familiar hands who'd fallen accumulated in his ledger, as he recognised the bodies of friends and mentors and troublemakers from a full year's association. "Don't. Not now."

"M'sieur Spen'loove, 'e need…" Phoebe pled weakly.

"Ma'am," Spendlove objected gently, taking her nearest hand, "I know you an' Mister Lewrie… well, 'tain't my place to say, what's… but, ma'am? Do you care for him? Do you love him?"

"Vis all ma 'eart!" she declared, weeping anew at the force of her affection.

"Then, ma'am… give him a minute or two more, if you do," Mister Midshipman Spendlove dared to suggest. "He'll be back with us. For now, though, ma'am… let Mister Lewrie… let our captain have a cry."

L'ENVOI

Cessere ratemque accepere mari. Per quot

discrimina rerum expediter!

They have yielded, they have received

the vessel on the sea. I find my way,

now, through many a change in

Fortune.

– Valerius Flaccus

Argonautica, Book 1,216-218

Chapter 1

Twilight at Gibraltar on the decks of H.M.S. Victory, the fleet anchored about her, with glims and binnacle and belfry lights agleam, and lanterns strung by entry-ports, poop and quarterdeck aboard the flagship. Wardroom and great-cabin lights reflected off the waters from over forty vessels. And from the transports from England: the ships that had brought, just a few weeks too late, the regiments of British Redcoats that might have made the difference, the ones held back too long by indifference, miscommunication. They'd put in to Gibraltar just days before Admiral Hood's ships had returned from the defeat at Toulon, as if in the worst sort of mockery. They had been held at Gibraltar, pending instructions from Hood to send them on to him, though he had no idea of their arrival at all, and was even then arranging for the hurried evacuation of Coalition forces.

Lewrie paced fretfully, turned out in the best that local chandlers could boast, now his packet had come from home; pristine new breeches, waist-coat and shirt, and a new hat. He'd clung to the Hessian boots, though-they seemed to be all the rage among Sea Officers lately-and, perversely, to the tatty older coat. He wore an elegant smallsword at his hip, taken from the captain of the corvette he had captured as prize, though he still longed for his original hanger.

"Lieutenant Lewrie?" a flag lieutenant called at last. "Milord Hood is now free, and may see you, sir."

Lewrie crossed the vast expanse of Victory's quarterdeck, aft to the admiral's quarters under the poop-but was brought up short by the sight of Captain Howard Braxton leaving those great-cabins. He seemed ill, as ill as he had in the days just after his recovery; spent and old, white-faced, the incline of his mouth to larboard even more pronounced.

"Sir," Lewrie said icily, doffing his hat properly in salute.

It took Braxton a moment to notice him. When he did, he turned even paler, almost dropped the bundles of logbooks and ledgers he bore. Then his eyes flared before slitting in anger, and mottled ire coloured his cheeks. "Goddamn you, sir!" Braxton bleated in a harsh whisper. "Happy now, are you, Lewrie? Happy now! May God damn you to hell!" he hissed, before stalking away for the entry-port.

"Hmm, well…" Lewrie shrugged to the flag lieutenant.

"Indeed, sir," that worthy rejoined with a sad, embarrassed moue.

"Lewrie. Good," Admiral Lord Hood grunted, as he mused upon the paperwork on his desk in the day cabin to which Lewrie had been shown. A festive display of linen, crystal, fine china and a sideboard buried in bottles he'd seen, in the dining coach and reception area. Evidently, the admiral would host a supper party that evening.

"Milord, so gracious of you to receive me," Alan replied.

"Take a pew, sir. A glass of something? Do avail yourself of a quite decent brandy, there, on the side table. Pour one for me, as well." Hood signed his name with a quill pen before rising to cross the cabin to join him. Hood accepted the glass Lewrie offered him and sat himself in the matching high-backed wing chair, crossing his legs as if ready to converse with a close acquaintance at his London club.

"Now, sir," Hood began, after a refreshing sip. "Read your account of Cockerel's performance last week. And that report I requested of you, anent her past since her commissioning. Appalling, simply appalling! But… there will be no court martial, I have to tell you, sir."

"I thought… sorry, milord," Lewrie sighed, disappointed, a bit appalled himself at the reach of patronage and politics.

"Matter's been dealt with," Hood was quick to assure him. "Can't abide being lied to, either by omission or commission. Most certainly, I cannot abide a scoundrel who will not support a fellow captain brought to action… a total poltroon, no matter how plausible his explanations. Nor one, sir, who will falsify log entries in such fraudulent manner."

For a disconcerting moment, Alan thought Hood was speaking of his actions, wondering if Braxton had lied his way out once more, even if his words on the quarterdeck sounded as if he hadn't.

"Braxton, sir," Hood continued with a disguised snort, "should never have had command of a harbour-watch cutter. Fascinating, really. Made all the appropriate noises 'bout fetching aid. Claimed he took your prize frigate, and that horse transport, can you believe it, for a brace o' warships, so he felt free to scuttle off, the situation being so well in hand! Changed his tune when pressed, though, said he could not accept battle against three frigates, could never be expected to do so… conveniently forgetting that he'd already misidentified your two ships, and was later amazed to learn that two foes were corvettes! Admitting, in essence, he'd put discretion above valour, and fled. Not only showing cowardice in the face of the enemy, but disobeying a direct order-from mine own hands, sir!-to safeguard the laggard ships to his utmost. What he could have done with a single 5th Rate 32, had he remained… your valiant action, sir, proved that most assuredly. As for lying to me, anent Naples… he and his clerk, most likely, rewrote portions of Cockerel's log for that period. No mention of sickness… yet never thinking that I would have in my possession correspondence from Sir William Hamilton which proved him a complete liar, sir! Well!"

"Didn't think he'd go that far, milord," Lewrie replied, easier.

"Put it to him direct," Hood said with a wolfish grin. "Take a court… of mine own appointing, d'ye see, sir… take his chances with a board of seven post-captains. Or he could, for reasons of health, throw up his command, ask to be relieved immediately, and go on the half-pay list. Return to civilian employment. Resume his service with 'John Company,' lucrative as that is. But, I was quick to assure him, I would append to his letter of resignation, a letter of mine own to Stephens and Jackson, and our Lords Commissioners, that while he may be continued on the roster for post-captains-indeed, may attain, should he live, to the very pinnacle of that list-he should never have another appointment of any kind… sea-going command or sinecure ashore. And further, that even should Captain Braxton rise to the highest seniority as post-captain, he shall never… never, sir!… be 'Yellow-Squadroned' as a flag officer. I believe that takes care of that problem, do you not as well, Mister Lewrie?" Hood all but snickered.

"I do, indeed, milord. Most handily despatched. With the very least harm to his son's career. Or to his family."

"I fully expect his letter of resignation aboard by eight bells of the morning watch. Failing that, well…!" Hood chortled, almost looking forward to a court martial. "Now, sir… Cockerel. She shall have a new captain aboard by eight bells of the forenoon, should Captain Braxton oblige me, and himself. Tell me all about her. Who needs weeding out. And explain this, uhm… mutiny which took place, sir."

For the next quarter-hour, Hood listened, having his flag lieutenant in to make notes. Nodding grimly, surprising Lewrie by laughing when he came to the mutineers.

"Aye," Hood said at last. "Mister Clement Braxton deserves a second chance. The midshipmen must be separated and assigned to new ships. Under a new order of captains. Tell me, Lieutenant Lewrie… you ended up with most of those men whom your captain deemed troublemakers. Did they ever cause you any grief, sir?"

"None, milord," Lewrie could state with assurance.

"Damme, loath as I am to turn a bund eye to an act of mutiny, or to condone the crime by taking no action against the perpetrators," Hood gloomed. 'Terrible times we live in, Lewrie. Rights of Man and this spirit of revolution, a world turned upside down, as it were… time out of mind, we've kept our sailors in strict discipline with the lash, which they understand. Now, faced with two nations which have revolted against the proper, ordained authority of their betters… I fear your Captain Braxton may become a more common figure aboard our ships, in future. As our tars absorb the radical, levelling teachings of the American Rebels and these French we fight, we may all have to become ever more watchful and taut-handed to keep Jack obedient. I should…"