“Boat, ahoy!” came a shout from HMS Boston as Lewrie’s hired boat neared its starboard side, steering for the main channels under her entry-port.
“Aye aye!” a boatman shouted back, showing four fingers aloft to warn Boston that a Post-Captain was arriving, and creating a dash to form a side-party, and hunt up the Bosun and Bosun’s Mate to pipe him aboard.
The newcomer went up the battens and man-ropes, gaining the deck inboard of the entry-port with a last tug on the cap-rails, and a skip-step as the silver calls tweeted the greeting.
“Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet,” the newcomer announced himself, doffing his new-styled bicorne hat to the flag and the waiting officers.
“Ehm, Lieutenant Fletcher, sir, First Officer,” the senior-most officer replied, doffing his own. “I say … we’ve met before, sir … I was Agent Afloat for the cavalry transports you escorted to Cape Town five years ago.”
“Ah, Mister Fletcher, aye,” Lewrie said, smiling and offering his hand. “You were partially lamed, then, as I recall. It is good to see that you’ve recovered, and gained a proper sea berth.”
“Thank you, sir,” Fletcher said, grateful to be remembered. “I must ask, sir … you are come aboard to command? We all thought the ship is to be stricken.” His junior officers looked anxious that the frigate would get a last-second reprieve, too.
“I fear she will be, Mister Fletcher,” Lewrie told him, “But I am come to ah, commandeer, as it were. I have need of your services, and those of your officers and Mids, as well as Boston’s people. Has your Captain departed yet?”
“He has, sir,” Fletcher said, “and left the duty of dis-arming her and landing all stores ashore to me. Us, rather.”
“So, his great-cabins are vacant? Good,” Lewrie said. “Please summon your officers, Mids, Sailing Master, and Mates there and join me, so I can explain things to them.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Fletcher said, utterly mystified.
Boston’s age was not noticeable on deck, but once aft in the empty great-cabins, the years of hand usage were evident from the wear of the painted canvas deck chequer, and dents in the hull timbers where the guns had been served. It was chilly, too, and depressing.
Fletcher did the introductions to Lieutenants Hoar and Creswell, and Midshipmen Kirby, Thornton, Peagram, Jolliffe, Cotter, and Mabry, Sailing Master Trotter, and his Master’s Mates.
“Gentlemen, you have a chance to keep your crew somewhat together, continue in active commission, and take part in an experiment that, if successful, will make you pioneers,” Lewrie began, “and if successful, will prove to be a grand adventure.”
He explained that three troop transports of the proper size were to be bought in and manned by Royal Navy crews, not merchant seamen, each rated as His Majesty’s Ship, equipped with six eight-oared twenty-nine-foot barges to carry soldiers ashore, altogether at the same time, then retrieve them when their shore raids were done, and gave them a thumb-nail sketch of how that would be accomplished.
“Each of you gentlemen will command a King’s Ship, no matter how humble,” Lewrie said to the Lieutenants, “and you older Midshipmen are to be re-rated as Sub-Lieutenants. Mister Trotter, you will be the Sailing Master of one transport, and your Mates will be elevated to Sailing Masters of the other two. Bosun’s Mates will be promoted, and new men chosen to be their Mates.”
That pleased most of them right down to their toes, and Lewrie could discern which Mids would be promoted; there were at least three fellows in their mid to late twenties who had not yet passed the exams before a Post-Captain’s Board, and this un-looked-for stroke of luck might give them a leg up to their Lieutenancies.
Rough details were laid out; continue dis-arming Boston and sending her shot and powder ashore, but retain enough small arms, cutlasses, and swivel-guns to give the future landing-boat crews the means to defend the beaches; keep at least a month’s rations aboard ’til they could go aboard their new ships; choose or find men who could cook rations for the crews and from one hundred to one hundred and fifty soldiers, and Boston’s Purser to appoint his Jack-in-the Breadroom, and another man, to serve in that office.
“Your Marine complement has already departed?” Lewrie asked.
“Went ashore yesterday, sir,” Lieutenant Fletcher replied.
“Pity,” Lewrie said with a scowl. “We could have used them to keep order, and re-enforce the landings. As to who among your present crew would best serve each ship, I leave that decision to you, Mister Fletcher, you and your officers. Just so long as you present me with a going concern aboard each transport, and equal in skills and experince. Anybody from the dockyards gives you any guff, tell them to see me, and I’ll wave my orders under their nose, right?”
“Right, sir!” Fletcher said enthusiastically.
“I’m to take command of a sixty-four, the Vigilance, as soon as she comes in from the blockade,” Lewrie said, “and we can hold the change-in-command ceremony. ’Til then, I’m lodging at the George Inn, so if something comes up, send for me. You will, from time to time, be dealing with a Captain Robert Middleton, who is an Admiralty Commissioner, and I may send my aide, Midshipman Chenery, to you. He speaks with my voice, young’un though he is, so … tolerate him, if ye will, hey?” Lewrie cajoled. “Lastly, there are a lot of nay-sayers who don’t think this experiment will work, but if you throw yourselves fully into the plan, you can prove a lot of them wrong. If we can pull it off, we could end up with five transports in the squadron, with an entire army battalion to work with, and staging even bigger raids against the French, hurting them where they don’t expect. In, rampage, then out and away before they can react, what? In the future I am counting on you all to get us ready to sail, and once at Malta and Sicily, and we get our troops aboard and trained, I trust that we will work ourselves to perfection … and have a lot of wicked fun in the doing.”
* * *
Hmm, that seemed to go well, Lewrie told himself as he landed ashore and turned to look seaward at the Boston frigate one more time. With hopes that Captain Middleton had turned up at least one suitable transport ship, he returned to the George Inn for a late-morning pot of coffee and a scone, drenched in jam. He spotted Middleton in the dining room, hailed him, and went to join him.
“How’s the hunt going, sir?” Lewrie asked as he sat down, waving for a waiter.
“I have discovered just one ship, Captain Lewrie,” Middleton glumly told him. “She’s about three hundred tons burthen, full-rigged, and just returned from carrying troops to Lisbon. She’s named the Bristol Lass, and there’s the problem.”
“Hmm?” Lewrie commented over the rim of his coffee cup.
“Her owners and ship’s husbands are at Bristol, and any offer on her purchase must be done by mail, if her owners decide that to sell at the price I may offer is preferable to her continuing being leased at the top rate per ton from the Transport Board. And if they do wish to sell, they’ll surely haggle, which may take weeks of negotiating back and forth, by mail, before we could get her.”
“Oh,” Lewrie grunted, wondering why he had imagined that things were going well. “Damn. Nothing else available?”
“Oh, there are nigh sixty merchantmen in port, of which the men at the local Transport Board offices tell me there are at least seven which might suit,” Middleton gravelled, looking morose. “Unfortunately, they are all spoken for, and loading to sail in an escorted convoy to Spain and Portugal, so they would not come free ’til they return from overseas, d’ye see. Weeks? An entire month?”
“Oh, shit,” Lewrie groaned, setting down his cup before the urge to fling it cross the dining room struck him. “Christ, what’ll I do with Boston’s crew, then? They’re available now, and if they have to sit idle that long … Oh, God! Her scrapping’s scheduled, and their pay and rations might be stopped before we could get ’em off her!”
“Lodging them ashore would be impossible,” Middleton said. “If we even found an empty barracks or warehouse, half of them would take ‘leg bail’ and desert before we could get them aboard the new ships.”
“Or a Captain recruitin’ for a new ship doesn’t steal ’em,” Lewrie griped. “Needs of the Service … mine arse on a band-box! And here I thought we had orders, writs t’wave under people’s noses to smooth the way! Surely, you can find something available in port!”
“Well, I’ve only been at it one morning,” Middleton said, with a touch of “don’t blame me!” snarl.
Lewrie’s scone arrived, along with a jam pot and a butter dish, and he split it and slathered it, though he had suddenly lost his appetite. “Not every ship in port is hired on by the Transport Board,” he suggested. “There must be some available.”
“I would imagine there are, Captain Lewrie,” Middleton gloomed, as if an inspection of every hull in Portsmouth might be necessary. “How many, though, are fitted for troop berthing, large enough, able to be converted?”
“Blackbirders?” Lewrie tossed out.
“Slave ships?” Middleton scoffed. “Only if you plan to chain the soldiers belowdecks. Most of them are smaller than what we need, can’t accommodate your large Navy crews, or berthing space for soldiers who expect to be able to stand upright and walk about. And, most of the slavers work out of Bristol and Liverpool, anyway. Not exactly ready to hand.”
“Hmphf!” Lewrie commented. “I suppose it’d take half a year to get the stink out of them, too,” and Middleton nodded an amen. Both men had encountered “blackbirders” at sea, and the reek of their West-bound wretched cargo could never be forgotten, and could even put rats and roaches off their feed.
“Insult the Army, too,” Middleton agreed.
“Well, what’d they expect, passage in an East Indiaman?” Lewrie scoffed. “Here now, you went aboard this Bristol Lass, spoke to her master?”
“Spent a couple of hours at it, aye,” Middleton informed him. “She’s already fitted out for troops, though her four-man cabins will have to be rebuilt. You know how soldiers are, Lewrie. Give them a cabin, and built-in cots, and they’ll knock down the in-board partitions and sleep on the decks, and you show them hammocks, and they’ll riot. She’s leased at twenty-five shillings per ton per month, and currently under a six-month contract.”
“What if we offered thirty shillings per ton?” Lewrie wondered. “Surely that’d be cheaper than buyin’ her for nine or ten thousand pounds. That’d be uhm…” He had to scribble with a finger on the tablecloth. “That’d be five hundred and twenty-five pounds per month and … three thousand one hundred and fifty pounds for a six-month contract. A whole year’d be double that. Christ, why sell for nine or ten thousand, when her owners are makin’ ‘chink’ hand over fist, already!”
“It would save the Navy some money,” Middleton said, stroking his chin. “What would we do with her Master, Mates, and skimpy crew, though? And if she’s only hired, not bought in, she can’t exactly be called a King’s Ship.”
“Don’t we have armed transports in service?” Lewrie pressed.
“Aye, we do, with Navy crews, Lieutenants’ commands, but they are meant to carry troops independently, or carry troops but act as escorts to the convoy they’re in,” Middleton pointed out. “The merchant crews are left ashore, able to run the owners’ other ships.”
“We could hire them as armed transports,” Lewrie enthused, “but leave the guns off, and that way, they would be King’s Ships, in name only. Offer the owners a year’s contract up front, a note-of-hand by mail or courier, and we just might have ourselves a ship!”
“Good morning, sirs,” Midshipman Chenery cheerily said as he entered the dining room, after running some early morning errands for Middleton. “My, the scones look good! Here, waiter?”
“Take half of mine,” Lewrie offered, peering at Middleton who was mulling the idea over with several Harumphs and Hmms.
“Thank you kindly, sir!” Chenery said, quickly snatching half a scone and gobbling it down before he could ask for a coffee cup.
“You know, Lewrie, it just might work, at that,” Captain Middleton slowly said, at last. “We should go speak with her Master, again, and let you have a look over her.”
“No time like the present,” Lewrie declared, slapping a hand on the table top.
“Aye, let’s go, this instant,” Middleton agreed.
“Ye wish t’look over a trooper, Mister Chenery?” Lewrie asked as he rose and dug out his coin-purse to settle the bill.
“Ehm, aye sir,” Chenery replied, getting up, too, and casting a longing look at the other half of the scone, and his lack of coffee to wash down what he’d devoured. He was still chewing and probing with his tongue for crumbs as they stepped out into the street.
* * *
“Thirty shillings a ton?” Bristol Lass’s flint-faced Master said after they made the offer. “Bless my soul, thirty? This very minute, sirs? Well, now, that’d be up to the owner and his partners. She is already under hire, only two months into a six-month contract, ye know. And an armed transport, ye say? With a Navy crew? Ye trying to put me and my Mates out of work?”
“The owner has other ships in which you could serve, sir?” Lewrie asked him.
“Nigh a dozen, all hired by the Transport Board, even cavalry ships,” the Master boasted, “and more building all the time. Aye, we could … but we’d have to coach to Bristol or Liverpool to go aboard one of the new ones. Lost wages ’til we do.”
“We could offer to pay your fares, with per diem to cover meals and lodging atop that, sir,” Captain Middleton said to sweeten the pot. “Your sailors…”
“Bugger them!” the Master scoffed, looking about to see if any of his crew could hear. “A sorry pack of sulky ‘sea lawyers’ and lack-wits I’d as soon see the back of. A touch of the lash would keep them on the hop, but I can’t, not like you in the Navy, more’s the pity. We tell them they’re paying off, they’ll drink and fuck their money away, and find new ships the next morning, as easy as ‘kiss my hand’.”
“So, if we continue their pay ’til your owners agree to the new terms, you could remain in port?” Middleton asked him.
“Makes no matter to me,” the transport’s Master spat. “Even if you offer them their pay, half of them would jump ship before the ink’s dry on a new contract. We were supposed to take a fresh draught of soldiers aboard, but, if you tell the Transport Board Captain that there’s a better offer, I’ll sit here at anchor ’til the next Epiphany!”
“I will do that this very afternoon, sir,” Middleton vowed. “And write your owners with the new offer by the evening post.”
“I’d like to take a look below,” Lewrie said.
“Why, then, let me give you the ten-pence tour, sir!” her Master almost whooped in glee, leading them below while boasting that Bristol Lass was built to be a trooper, that she was only three years old, and her copper-clad hull had been scoured of weed and barnacles only two months earlier, and how she could turn a fair ten knots on a quartering wind, made little leeway, and didn’t “gripe”.
Down either beam of the lower deck there were dog-box-styled cabins, rather tiny in all, with room for only four private soldiers each, and as Captain Middleton had described, the deal-and-canvas partitions had been torn down to leave the cabins open to the midships, for air circulation most-likely, so the soldiers who would idle and sleep in them would not feel cut off from the world and crammed into a wee, dark box. The foremost and aftermost cabins either side were usually for Corporals and Sergeants, while gentleman officers, subalterns, and Captains would be berthed right aft where the wardroom for Master and Mates lay. As in any ship, the overhead was low, and here where cargo would usually be stowed, there were no gun-ports that could be opened when at anchor to allow circulation; only grated hatch covers for air.
Stores, water, salt-meat rations, and other victuals were stored on the orlop, along with whatever the troops needed ashore, but not at sea, like their tentage and camp cook pots.
“Be a tight fit for your sailors,” Captain Middleton pointed out as they went up one deck. “And, I’d suppose the galley is big enough to feed sixty or so crewmen, plus soldiers.”
“About an hundred and fifty troops, all told,” the Master told them, “with officers and servants included. Thick as cockroaches!”
Lewrie puzzled over how many seamen he could assign to the ship, considering that the six rowing barges would require at least fifty-four oarsmen and tillermen, the bulk of the sixty-five or seventy available for each transport from Boston’s crew. Once anchored, the nets lowered, and the boats manned, there wouldn’t be a complete Harbour Watch still aboard, should anything go smash, the anchor dragged, or the weather suddenly piped up foul!
Christ, can we take the risk? he asked himself; Now I see the reality of it, can it really work? Looked fine on paper, but … I’d be better off back home with Jessica!
“Will she do, sirs?” the ship’s Master asked once they were all back on the weather deck.
“Looks suitable to me, sir,” Lewrie grudgingly allowed, loath to sound too eager.
“Splendidly,” Captain Middleton declared, though, “and I shall communicate with her owners this very day!”
In for the penny, in for thirty shillings a ton, Lewrie thought as Middleton shook hands on the prospective bargain.
“And if your owners have other ships like her available, I shall contract for them, as well,” Middleton said, in happy takings. “Whilst we wait to hear what the owners think of the arrangement, you just may speak with other Masters in port, sir, who have similar ships under contract. Never can tell,” he said with a wink to one and all. “The higher fee might tempt them, too!”