“No barges available?” Captain Middleton asked, looking as if he would tug at his hair as he faced yet another hurdle, and it was too early in the day, and his breakfast from the kitchens at the George Inn had been, ’til that news, too good to be ruined. “You will put me off my feed, sir,” he grumbled.
“And no help in that direction from the Portsmouth Dockyards, either,” Lewrie had to tell him, feeling a tad guilty to impart such news, and equally bad news almost every morning.
Lewrie had already had a fine breakfast of his own aboard HMS Vigilance, but Middleton’s fried eggs, pork chop, and mound of spiced hashed potatoes looked too tempting; he snatched a slice of toast off the bread barge and began to butter it.
“The yard suggested that we’d do best issuing a contract for ’em with one of the independent builders ‘back of the beach’ somewhere along the hard,” Lewrie added hopefully. “What does a fir-built barge cost, d’ye imagine?”
Middleton’s response was a heavy sigh, and a hard frown at his plate, with both hands nigh-balled into fists either side of it. “It may be about an hundred pounds for each, labour included.”
“We did save on leases versus purchases on the transports, so … wouldn’t we be under budget?” Lewrie pointed out. “Assuming that we even have a budget, that is.”
“It’s rather nice, being a Commissioner Without Special Functions, you know, Lewrie,” Middleton said. “Well, it was. Breeze in at a decent hour, read some paperwork, ring for a pot of tea and the newspapers, go out for a good dinner, then pack up and be home with my feet up before supper. Now, though. Ah, me. Getting you to sea is become akin to the Labours of Hercules.”
“Sorry, sir,” Lewrie pretended to apologise. “But, this is all new, and nothing we need is in the cupboard, ready to go.”
“Oh, I know, dammit,” Middleton griped, then took a sip of his coffee and resumed with his knife and fork. Between bites he said, “I was going to inspect a promising ship this morning, and speak with her owners, who keep offices at Southampton, but … if you don’t mind, we could do that together, then prowl about the minor shipbuilders’.”
“I am at your complete disposal, sir!” Lewrie vowed.
“Just as I seem to be at yours, sir,” Middleton said rather frostily. “I think all that can wait ’til I’ve had my breakfast … don’t you, Captain Lewrie?”
“But of course, sir! Bon appétit!”
* * *
They took Lewrie’s cutter out into the harbour to inspect the ship in question, just come in from the American Chesapeake. Once in the holds, she was still redolent of kegged tobacco, West Indies rum and molasses, and the dry, musty smell of baled cotton which she had just landed. The Lady Murray was not fitted out with many small cabins like a trooper, but she was more than big enough belowdecks to carry at least one hundred and fifty soldiers, and constructing the partitions and berths would be an easy task. She was bigger than Bristol Lass, too, longer and beamier, and of four hundred and fifty tons. In all respects she would more than suit their purposes, and she was in very good material shape.
“If her owners are amenable, we might contract with the people who’ll build our barges to do the conversion, sir,” Lewrie suggested, once they were back on deck
“Hmm, we’ll see,” Middleton said with a shrug as he thumped on her larboard main stays. “If they’re amenable, depending on how many other ships the owners have, and how lucrative their trade has been. Cotton, is it?” he asked, looking at a wad of cotton lint that had come loose from a bale.
“I’m told it’s the coming thing, sir,” Lewrie told him. “Finer feel for bed linens and undergarments. Not as scratchy as flax.”
“If you say so,” Middleton said, rubbing the boll about in his hand. “Looks more like the dirty lint one finds under furniture, in its natural state. Well, let’s go keep our appointment with Lady Murray’s owners, and see if thirty shillings a ton will tempt them.”
* * *
Thirty shillings a ton per month for an entire year was tempting to the ship’s owners, a dour pack of money-grubbers who struck them as impoverished counting house clerks. The West Indies trade with British colonies was alright, both for exports and returning import cargoes, but the American trade was getting harder and harder to deal with, and Lewrie got an earful about the Royal Navy’s enforcement of the embargo of American ships bound for Europe and the predations of man-starved warships stopping and inspecting, then pressing, sailors suspected of being British deserters, even the ones with legitimate declarations of US citizenship, which practices had enraged the Americans and engendered bad feelings and hard dealings in American ports. The motto “Free Trade and Sailor’s Rights” was becoming widespread. And even British ships were not immune to being stopped and robbed of crewmen once in Soundings of Great Britain, either!
If the Navy wished to take Lady Murray over that instant, it was fine with them, and they would shift her present crew into other ships of their burgeoning line!
Just as soon as they had the money deposited, of course!
* * *
“Bless my soul, sirs,” the owner of a small yard down-river from Southampton exclaimed after they had put in to begin their search for a boat builder. “You’ve come to the right place if it’s boats you want, and in pudding time, to boot. We’ve just finished launching a brace of fishing yawls, and I’ve been at sixes and sevens wondering where and when our next work was coming from. Fancy Admiralty barges, would it be?”
“No sir, standard twenty-nine-foot ship’s-boat-type barges,” Captain Middleton told the fellow. “Nothing fancy, but sturdy.”
“I’ve a twenty-five-foot cutter here, sirs,” the man said as he led them to a six-oared boat on skids, hauled out for a bottom clean. “You look at our workmanship, sirs, you won’t find better in any yard on the coast. Tight and snug, and will keep as dry as a stone crock. Sound as the pound should she be run ashore, on sand, shingle, or rock. You said barges, plural, sirs. How many did you have in mind?”
“Twenty-one,” Lewrie told him as he and Middleton inspected the cutter, with Middleton making approving “Hmms!”
“All at once, sirs? Well, bless my soul!” the shipbuilder said in wonder, removing his knit cap to scratch his head. “With every man working sunup to sundown, I doubt we could turn out eight a month! Kills my soul to say it, but … what do you need so many for?”
“For troop transports,” Middleton said, not wishing to give any more clues. “To land soldiers, if docks aren’t available.”
“Hmm, there’s another yard just down-river of mine, sirs,” the man said, “decent sort of fellow runs it, and hard as it is to throw him some business, between the two of us we might be able to build at least sixteen or seventeen a month. You’re in a tearing rush, sirs?”
“Unfortunately yes,” Lewrie said, which earned him a glare from Middleton.
“Well, now,” the fellow said, shrewdly rubbing his raspy chin, “I doubt between the two of us that we could turn them out for less than, oh … an hundred and fifty pounds apiece, with oars and all.”
That made Middleton cough into his fist, and throw another glare in Lewrie’s direction. “That, ah … seems fair, sir,” Middleton said. “Your competitor down-river would be free to begin them at once, do you imagine? With the same fine quality as your yard, sir?”
“If you can row me down there, we could see,” the fellow said with a sly smile.
* * *
“One hundred and eighty-five pounds per boat, Captain Lewrie,” Middleton complained as he and Middleton left the cutter for a moment at the King’s Stairs in the naval base hours later. “Three thousand, eight hundred and eighty-five pounds all told. You really don’t know how to negotiate, do you, sir? Paid full price for everything, haven’t you.”
“They saw us coming, sir,” Lewrie attempted to apologise. “It’s a seller’s market? Soon as we admitted how soon we need ’em, it was out of our control. Could I dine you aboard to make amends, sir?”
“No no, not tonight,” Middleton wearily griped. “I have to write London to tell them how much we’re costing them, write up the contract for the boats, look for the contract for Bristol Lass and Spaniel … and the contract for Lady Murray has to be laid out. I’ll be at it ’til Midnight, if I’m lucky.”
“Well, I’ll take my leave, sir,” Lewrie said, “and call upon you in the morning.”
“Oh, joy,” was Middleton’s parting comment.
And, after doffing his hat to Middleton’s departing back, and a hapless shrug, Lewrie got back into his cutter and allowed himself to be stroked back to his ship in a rueful silence.