C H A P T E R 1

Post nubila—Phoebus, Cony,” Lewrie informed his man. “My thought for the day. ‘After clouds—sunshine’!”

“Iff’n ya say so, sir,” Cony replied, trying to shelter under a scrap of canvas in the bumboat, as Portsmouth Harbour seethed at the lash of a sullen April rain shower.

Bare days after his antic over his half brother Gerald, there had at last come a packet from the Admiralty. Perhaps Rear Admiral Sir George Sinclair had turned his toes up, or sailed. Perhaps some rumour of Garvey’s past dealings in the Bahamas had come to light at last. Or, more likely perhaps, his and Captain Lilycrop’s almost weekly letters to far and near had become such a nuisance to some overworked clerk—whatever, Lt. Alan Lewrie, RN, was ordered to make his way to Portsmouth instanter and report aboard the Cockerel frigate, a 32-gunned vessel of the 5th Rate currently fitting out, as her first officer.

Even the gloom of a drizzly day could not dampen his appreciation of his new ship as they neared her, nor could spume, mist nor rain detract from Cockerel ’s aggressively angular and martial appearance.

Her lower hull above the waterline was a glossy ebony, as were her bulwarks. Her gunwales were, however, buff-coloured, and gleamed with the sheen of prized ivory, slickened by the rain. The yards on her three towering masts were neatly squared away, of a golden buff from linseed oil or fresh paint where the wooden spars were bared to the gloom; courses, tops’ls, royals and t’gallants all in perfect alignment with each other a’span the decks, and lift lines tugged until each spar lay perfectly horizontal. And not a brace, parrel, halliard or jear hung slack, not a clew, brail or lift line varied from purposeful, straight-line perfection.

There were touches of red and gilt about the transom and the taffrails, the quarter-galleries, windows and ports, and the lanterns aft. There was lavish gilt about the entry port. And what Lewrie could espy of the figurehead, an irate, wing-fanning rooster wearing a golden fillet crown, and the beakhead rails, was liberally coated with gilt paint as well.

“Shiny as a new-minted guinea!” Lewrie muttered to himself as he marveled how devilish-handsome she appeared, as if she was fresh from the builder’s yard—or she had a captain who possessed a duke’s purse to bring her from in-ordinary, idle seediness to a state worthy of a royal yacht. Her captain had been named in Lewrie’s orders as one Howard Braxton; but with no “the Honourable,” “Sir Howard,” or aristocratic title attached to his name and naval rank, which indicated inherited wealth. Perhaps Cockerel had been captained by one so rich, and had been turned over to Braxton entire, he speculated.

Cockerel was supposed to be fitting out, yet to Lewrie’s eyes, at last (and grudgingly) experienced with such matters, the frigate’s “Bristol Fashion” orderliness bespoke a warship ready at that instant to set sail.

Thankee God, Lewrie smirked to himself with relief; You surely know what a lazy bastard I am. Less work for me, my first week’r so, ha ha! She’s better fitted out than any ever I did see!

“Boat ahoy, there!” came a shout from the entry port.

“Aye aye!” Cony bellowed back, shucking his sailcloth cover, and Lewrie shrugged his boat cloak over his shoulders to expose his uniform. Cony held up fingers to clue the harbour watch to the requisite number of sideboys needful to the dignity of a first officer’s welcome aboard. Despite the rain, Lewrie undid the chain about his neck and folded the boat cloak for Cony to tend to, so he could go aboard unencumbered by anything that could trip him up, or embarrass his first appearance before his new crew. He tucked his hanger to the back of his left hip, and half-rose off the thwart.

Ariadne, Lewrie thought, vexed by the memory of his very first boarding, of being dunked chest-deep, nigh drowned, by the puzzles of slimy boarding battens, algae-slick man-ropes, and a ship rolling her guts out. Thankfully, there was little breeze and Cockerel lay still as a patient old hacking mare, gentle enough for a lady to ride. Man-ropes threaded through the outer ends of the battens were red-painted two-inch manila, taut as shrouds in the mainmast chains’ deadeyes. And, he noted with relief, someone thoughtful had ordered fresh tar on the battens, reinforced with gritty sand to make a secure foothold.

He scampered up lithely, inclining a bit toward the entry port as the tumblehome of the ship’s side retreated inward to lessen the weight of top-hamper and spar deck above her artillery’s monstrous mass.

His hat drew level with the entry-port lip as the bosun’s pipes began to shrill. Marines slapped muskets and stamped their feet; sideboys lifted their hats, and a Marine sergeant and a Navy officer flourished half-pike or sword, respectively, as he arrived. Lewrie gained the starboard gangway (stepping far enough in-board so a sudden roll wouldn’t sling him back where he’d come from) and doffed his own hat.

“Alan Lewrie, come aboard to join, sir,” he announced, trying to quash his sudden joy.

“Welcome aboard, sir,” the Navy officer said in greeting as he swept his sword down, spun it overhand with a practiced fillip, and resheathed it. “Allow me to name myself, sir . . . Lieutenant Lewrie. I am Barnaby Scott. Third lieutenant.” If he’d said his name was Eric the Red, Lewrie would have considered it more apt; Barnaby Scott looked more like an ancient Viking raider (albeit a cleanshaven one). His body was thick and square, saved from brute commonness by his height, which was about two inches more than Lewrie’s. Wide-shouldered, thick-chested, bluff and hearty as a professional boxer. Scott’s hair was pale blond, almost frizzy, and only loosely drawn back into a seaman’s queue that more resembled a horsetail that badly needed teazeling. His complexion was deeply tanned, though sporting ruddier colour on nose, cheeks and forehead. And his eyes were a disconcertingly penetrating watery blue.

“Mister Scott, good morrow to you, sir,” Lewrie smiled, taking his hand, which more resembled a bear paw, for a hearty shake. There was no choice about that; Scott did the pumping.

“And you come aboard, sir, as . . . ?” Scott inquired, cocking one suddenly wary blond eyebrow.

“First officer, Mister Scott.”

“Thank bloody Christ, sir, and very welcome aboard!” Lieutenant Scott beamed of a sudden, and almost mangled Lewrie’s hand with fresh vigour.

“Our captain is aboard, is he, Mister Scott?” Lewrie asked, glad to get his hand back at last, with all the requisite fingers.

“Aye, sir, Captain Braxton is aft in the great-cabins. Mister Spendlove?” Scott called over his shoulder without looking.

“Aye aye, sir?” a tiny midshipman chirped as he popped up from nowhere.

“Escort Mister Lewrie, our new first officer, aft so he may announce himself to the captain.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the fourteen-year-old piped, almost bobbing in eagerness. Or relief, Lewrie wondered? What made his arrival such a joyous occasion?

“I’ll see to getting your chest aboard, sir,” Lieutenant Scott offered.

“Just steer my man Cony the right direction, Mister Scott.” He turned to follow the boy to the quarterdeck ladders which led below from the sail-tending gangways to the gun deck.

“Another hand, then? Bloody good!” Scott beamed, cracking his palms together with satisfaction.

Cockerel, like all modern frigates, was flush-decked. Her after fourth was a bare and functional quarterdeck, with no accommodations in a poop cabin. It was broken only by the after capstan heads, the base of the mizzenmast, a double wheel, compass binnacle, chart table and traverse board aft of that, and guns. There were signal-flag lockers right-aft by the taffrail, a hatchway near the stern so her captain had a quick, informal access, and a long coach top, a skylight which fed sun and air below to that worthy’s great-cabins, between after hatch and the wheel. On either beam, bowsed up to the low bulwarks, were pieces of artillery; two long six-pounders and two shorter-barreled twenty-four-pounder carronades in both larboard and starboard batteries.

Cockerel ’s gun deck proper stretched 130 feet from bow to stern, with the bulk of it exposed to the sky in the waist between the foc’s’le and the great-cabins. There her main armament nested— twenty-six twelve-pounder guns, with some aft in the captain’s quarters.

Unlike larger two-decked ships of the line, her officers and men did not sleep, idle or sup jammed between the artillery. Frigates had a second, lower deck (confusingly named gun deck) below the gun deck proper, for accommodations, with hands forrud, Marines aft of them and the commission and warrant officers right aft, under the captain, in the wardroom. A frigate’s captain was the only person to reside on the true gun deck, in solitary splendour of the great-cabins, which were as large as the entire wardroom.

Tiny Midshipman Spendlove announced Lewrie to the Marine sentry on guard without the entry door, underneath the overhang of the quarterdeck’s forward edge. The Marine hitched a deep breath, and banged the butt of his Brown Bess musket on the oak planks, then shouted out just what, and whom, dared interrupt their captain’s musings.

“Come.” A laconic voice was heard from within.

Lewrie entered, hat and orders under his left arm, in past the chartroom to starboard, and a roomy and inviting dining coach which lay to larboard, rich with waxed and varnished table, bulkheads and beams. On a gleaming sideboard there were coin-silver lamps and tea-things, ornate, highly polished brass accoutrements, much like what he had seen in Calcutta or Canton. The dish service was Oriental, too.

He took in the usual black-and-white chequered sailcloth which covered the deck of the day cabin in lieu of formal tiles, and several carpets laid atop it. He’d seen their like before, as well. There were intricately figured trellis-patterned Hindoo and Bokhara, all red and gold and black. And a few pale green, beige or pale yellow Chinee carpets, with their enigmatic glyphs in their centers. To starboard was a seating area, made up of fancy-filigreed Chippendale-Chinese chairs and a real sofa, with ecru silk fabric, and side tables and bookcases of gleaming teak, a large square, glossy black construct he took for a wine cabinet, lightly sketched over with pale gilt scenes. For a moment, he thought he was back in a trader’s “hong” in Canton, or his father’s luxurious, Grand Moghul of a palace-bungalow in Calcutta!

“Yes?” his new captain prompted at last with some irritation.

“Sir . . . !” Lewrie harrumphed, drawing his wits back to the matter at hand, ending his perusal (and rapid valuation) of his new lord and master’s private digs. “Lt. Alan Lewrie, sir, reporting aboard.”

“I see,” Captain Braxton sighed, sounding a bit put upon. “And you are to be my new first?”

“Aye, sir, I am.”

Captain Braxton was seated to larboard, behind a heavy teak work desk, all scrollwork and leaving, inlaid with ivory chips in a “Tree of Life” pattern round the top of the outward-facing sides, and around the edges of the top surface. Braxton rose, careful not to smash his head on the overhead deck beams. Those beams, every exposed wood surface in his cabins, whether permanent structural members or temporary partitions, were highly linseeded and waxed. Where paint did show, it was a pleasing, restful beige. And the traditional blood-red bulwarks below the wainscotting were done in a brighter-than-Navy fiery, Chinee red, too. Against that, the squat black iron twelve-pounders seemed drab.

Braxton was about Lewrie’s height, in his middle forties, he estimated. His hair was so very curly, short and iron-gray that Alan at first thought he wore a powdered tie-wig. His queue was very short, no lower than the bottom of his collar.

For his age, Braxton appeared remarkably fit, and only just the slightest tad stocky. Most captains in their senior years, once they had gained purses to match their appetites, thickened about the waist. Braxton seemed to have avoided that.

“Your orders, sir,” he demanded, creating two deep vertical ruts between his thick, bushy brows. “Take a pew, do, Mister Lewrie.”

Alan sat down in one of the comfortable armchairs before the desk, turning to keep a wary eye on Braxton as he paced the cabins and read to himself. His face kept those vertical ruts, making Alan wonder if he always looked so dyspeptic and ill at ease. The Captain possessed a long, square face, with a thin, though jutting, chin. His nose was a weather vane, large and narrow. His eyes were on the small side, however, and set rather close, slightly downturned. And his mouth was downturned, too, to the left side, as he spoke at last.

“Served in the Far East, I see, Mister Lewrie?”

“Aye, sir. Two years.”

“Don’t recall Telesto, ” Braxton sniffed, dismissively. “Calcutta, Canton . . . ’pon my word, I don’t. Held command of an East Indiaman, ’tween the wars. Spent years out there, d’ye see.”

“I wondered, sir,” Lewrie smiled, hoping to ingratiate himself, “when I saw your cabin furnishings, well . . . it rather took me back, if you get my meaning, sir. Only a China hand’d appreciate . . .”

“Yes, yes,” Braxton cut him off.

John Company captain, were you, Lewrie thought. Gad, ’tis no wonder Cockerel ’s so well appointed. Those buggers make £5,000 for the round voyage! And that’s the legal sort. Little speculation in opium and such . . . sky’s the bloody limit!

“P’raps we’ll get on together, then,” Braxton continued, still frowning, though. “Navy Board must’ve taken my experience, and yours, into account, for once. Damn fools.”

“As if they intended Cockerel to . . . serve in the Far East, sir?” Lewrie stated, striving to cover his sudden qualms.

Oh, bloody Jesus, is that why they . . . ? Off to all those damn plagues an’ shit, again?

“I doubt they’ve that much sense,” Braxton snorted with derision as he came back to his desk, flung Lewrie’s orders atop it, and took a seat. “Indian Ocean, China Seas, full t’the brim with Frogs and their proxies. Half the princes, Chink or Hindi, eager to revolt. But . . . ! Considerin’ the Admiralty’s poor parcel of collective wit, sir . . . well, I more expect we’re off to Nova Scotia. Beyond orders to outfit and man, I’ve no word yet where we’re bound.”

“I see, sir,” Lewrie replied evenly, though with a great deal of relief.

“Says you’ve had independent commands.”

“Aye, sir.”

“I trust you didn’t develop any bad habits, Mister Lewrie. Such as getting so used to doing things your own way, you can’t cope with an order.” Braxton all but sneered.

“Not at all, sir.”

“That was the last fellow’s problem, why he didn’t last under me. I will not have my orders questioned, ever, I’ll tell you straightaway, Lewrie. I’ve captained a King’s Ship, captained Indiamen, before you were ‘breeched,’ I expect. I will be obeyed. Hear me?”

“Of course, sir,” Alan agreed by rote, though mystified.

“I run a taut ship, sir,” Braxton informed him. “Officers and men, no matter. I’ll brook no dumb insolence, no insubordination. I give a command, an order, I expect ’em to be carried out to my satisfaction, instantly. Can’t abide being second-guessed. No schoolboys’ debatin’ society, no sir, not for me. Not from you, not from anyone. As first lieutenant, you’re my voice, my eyes. My whip, if it comes to it. Is that clear, sir?”

“Well, absolutely, sir,” Lewrie said with half a grin. “Those all go, pretty much without saying, in the Fleet.”

“Good,” Braxton nodded, relaxing a bit. “Good, then.”

“Might I inquire how long Cockerel has been in commission, sir?” Lewrie asked, eager to get on more mundane matters.

“Six weeks,” Braxton shot back, sounding as if he was boasting, yet scowling as if it were one of Hercules’s Twelve Labours. “And, no thanks to that incompetent fool, Mylett. Your predecessor, d’ye see? Slack, idle, cunny-thumbed as a raw landsman . . . how he ever gained his commission, I cannot fathom. Could have been done in four, sir. Four weeks, I tell you! Were it not for his dumb insolence, his belabouring of ev’ry matter. His idiocy. There’s a war on, but Lieutenant Mylett’d not be stirred to energetic action. And obstreperous with me, to my ev’ry instruction! Like it was peacetime, hah!”

“I must say, though, she’s . . .”

“Another thing I’ll tell you straightaway, Mister Lewrie,” the captain grumbled, like far off broadsides. “It is my wish, nay . . . my abiding order, that Cockerel distinguish herself in ev’ry instance. Sailhandling, gunnery, stationkeeping . . . in action, should it come our lot. Cockerel shall be the most efficient command in the Fleet, or I’ll crush those who fail her, like cockroaches! And the ones who fail me, d’ye see, sir?”

“Aye aye, sir,” Lewrie all but gulped at Braxton’s almost fanatical devotion. Damme, he thought; don’t think I’m going to enjoy this.

“She will be the triggest vessel, the cleanest, the best!” her captain announced with righteous heat. “Her crew the keenest, officers the most unerring and watchful. Or I’ll know the reason why.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“She’s full of raw landsmen, idlers and waisters. Pressed and turned-over hands. Her professionals’ve spent too long in-ordinary, too long swinging ’round the best bower-rode at peacetime slackness. Frankly, Mister Lewrie, there’re people aboard, commission and warrant, who need hard stirring. They’ve set too long, like treacle. Mister Scott, that burly popinjay . . . frankly, sir, there’re men aboard need a fire lit under their fundaments. Too few upon whom I may completely rely. I trust you will be one of those, sir. Indeed I do.” Braxton leaned over his desk intently.

“I’m certain you may, sir.”

“We shall see, won’t we?” Braxton smiled of a sudden, relaxing and turning cheery. “For the nonce, get yourself settled in, make the rounds, get to know the senior people. You’ll find my Order Book in your cabin . . . unless Mylett added theft to his long list of crimes. You will find my ways demanding, sir. But they are my ways, and they work. As for our needs concerning hands and such, I strongly adjure you to get on good terms with our second officer. He stood in as acting first lieutenant the last week. I’d hoped . . . well. If Cockerel is near-complete in her recommissioning, you have his efforts to thank for it. Once we discovered what a total disaster Mylett was. You’ll find his insights more than useful.”

“I see, sir,” Lewrie temporised. Too damn’ right, he’d toe the line and walk small about his new captain. But defer to a junior officer? Not bloody likely. “Will that be all for now, sir?”

“Hmm, aye, I s’pose so.”

“Then I will take my leave, sir,” Lewrie announced, getting to his feet, and almost cracking his unwary skull open on the deck beam directly over his chair. “Bit out of practice,” Alan shrugged, turning crimsonly abashed. “Civilian overheads, hey, sir?”

“Hmmmm.” Braxton gave him a second, more searching appraisal. And frowned as if he didn’t much care for what he saw.

Alan gained the quarterdeck, relishing the cool, brisk dampness of the winds upon his overheated face. He knew that captains in the Royal Navy came in a myriad of forms; and most of those . . . eccentric. But Braxton was a new form in his experience, and he was most relieved to have escaped unscathed. So far.

What a cod’s-head’s error, he sighed to himself—conking myself addlepated on a deck beam! Like a raw, whipjack midshipman!

Which thoughts made him wonder just how rusty (and treacly!) he really was after four years on half-pay. And what had ever possessed him to thirst for a sea commission. It was Lewrie’s curse to be burdened with a touch more self-awareness and introspection than the run-of-the-mill Sea Officer. He knew his faults; they were legion. Predominant among them was a fear that he would be found wanting someday, that his swaggering reputation far exceeded the competence upon which such a tarry odour should be based. That he was a thinly disguised sham.

He glanced about the quarterdeck, the wheel, the guns and their tackles. He gazed aloft up the mizzenmast, naming things to himself, recalling the pestiferously quirky terms real seamen used. Braces, lifts, jears, clews, harbour gaskets, lubber’s hole in the mizzen top, ratlines strung on the side-stays, and . . . and what the bloody hell were those?

Tensioning shrouds strung spider-taut from larboard to starboard stays below the mizzen top, they were . . . oh, Jesus! Uppers were called catharpins . . . lowers? Swifters! Right, swifters. There’s a back-stay outrigger . . . travellin’ backstay? No, breast-backstay outrigger, there is the travellin’ backstay . . . there, the standing.

Christ, what a dunce you are, you poxy clown! It’ll come to me. It’ll come, soon as I’m pitched in—I think. It had better.

He determined that, in the shank of his first evening aboard, he would, on the sly, swot up on his tarry, dog-eared copy of Falconer’s Marine Dictionary. Along with the peculiarities of Captain Braxton’s idiosyncratic Order Book.

“Excuse me, sir. You are our new first?” another intruded upon Alan’s glum musings of disaster.

“Aye,” he replied, happy for any distraction at that moment.

“Allow me to name myself, sir . . . Dimmock, sir. Nathan Dimmock,” the other fellow informed him, doffing his hat in salute. “The sailing master. Your servant, sir.”

“Lewrie. Alan Lewrie, sir,” he responded with a like courtesy.

Dimmock was a sturdy fellow, bluff and square, just a bit shorter than Lewrie; soberly dressed in a plain blue frock coat, red waistcoat and blue breeches. Before he clapped his hat back on, Alan saw that he wore his hair quite short, barely over his ears on the sides, with a tiny queue in back.

“Well, Mister Dimmock, how do you find Cockerel, sir?” Lewrie asked him.

“An excellent ship, sir,” Dimmock replied. “A most excellently crafted vessel, sir.”

“Been aboard long, have you?”

“Five weeks, sir, my mates and I.”

“So your department is prepared for sea, in all respects?”

“There are some charts I lack, Mister Lewrie, sir, but other than those, we are ready, aye.”

“But not the entire ship, I take it?” Lewrie pressed, mystified by the stresses Dimmock put on his words. Dimmock all but grimaced, inclined his head toward the open skylights in the coach top, then began to mutter his answer. Lewrie got the hint. He put his hands in the small of his back, and paced slowly away forrud to the nettings overlooking the waist, for more privacy.

“If I may speak plain, sir?” Dimmock grimaced again, as if he were fearful that his words would come back to haunt him, even so.

“As long as you do not speak insolence, sir,” Alan chid him in a grim tone. As first lieutenant, he must quash the first sign of any carping or backbiting against his captain, no matter what he thought personally.

“She’s a queer ship, sir,” Dimmock fretted, with a shake of his roundish head.

“A Jonah?” Lewrie stiffened. He’d heard of hard-luck vessels, with souls perverse as Harpies, where no sailor’d ever prospered.

“Oh, no, sir . . . no sign of that! ” Dimmock was quick to assure him. “I speak more of a certain . . . tension, more like. Listen, sir. Pause a moment and give her ear.”

Lewrie peeked about, cocking his head to heed any odd sounds, half-expecting some eldritch screech or moan beyond the normal creak of timbers, iron and stays, of masts working with the soft, whispery groans of the damned. But, beyond the sough of the morning wind and the far-off piping mutters of taut rigging, he heard nought.

“Dead silence, sir,” Dimmock hissed softly. “No shouting or chaffering. We’re still in-Discipline, e’en so, but . . . a crew must make some sound, sir. But no. They’re below, silent as a pack of whipped curs. And more’n a few already wearin’ the bosun’s ‘chequer.’ Hands on watch, hands below, they’re ordered to maintain the ‘Still.’ A dead-silent ship’s beyond my experience, sir. And a dead-silent ship’s dev’lish queer.”

“Not a mutiny plot, surely!” Lewrie scoffed, though he found Cockerel ’s silence almost belly-chillin’ eerie himself. “Six weeks in commission? Hardly, Mister Dimmock!”

“ I’ll not be the one dare to call it mutinous, Mister Lewrie,” Dimmock gloomed, shrugging deeper into his coat collar. “Though, do we drive ’em taut as we’ve done so far . . . tauter’n any ship I’ve ever been aboard, well. There is the possibility, someday, d’ye see, sir?”

“Captain Braxton informed me he’s a taut-hand,” Lewrie allowed.

“Oh, aye, sir,” Dimmock sneered.

“Ahum!” Lewrie grunted in warning. “I think we’re stretching the bounds of proper discussion too far, Mister Dimmock. Hate him or love him, he is our captain. And he must be obeyed. Clearly. Most of all by his commission officers and warrants.”

“And your impression of him, sir?”

“Mister Dimmock, what I think don’t signify. Now, unless we’ve professional matters to discuss?” Lewrie shot back sternly.

“Well, then, sir,” Dimmock coloured, huffing up as if stifling a belch. “You will excuse me. There’s to be a flogging at five bells o’ the forenoon, so I must go. You’ll wish to get settled in. Speak to our illustrious second lieutenant, too. I’m mortal certain you’ve been bid do so? Mister Braxton?”

“ Captain Braxton,” Lewrie growled between clenched teeth. He had never heard the like from a professional officer. Not even from himself, and Lewrie could backbite and carp with the best of ’em.

“No, sir. Lt. Clement Braxton, I meant,” Dimmock said, grinning sardonically. “Not Capt. Howard Braxton.”

“Nephew?” Lewrie frowned deeper.

“His son, sir,” Dimmock said with all signs of great pleasure. “Damme, it really does become confusing. We’ve a Mister Midshipman Anthony Braxton. Now, I do believe he is a nephew. And then, there’s Midshipman Dulwer. He’s cousin to them all, somehow. And the captain’s clerk, Mister Boutwell. Oh, it’s quite the grand family outing, this frigate of ours, Mister Lewrie, sir!”

“Bloody Hell! ” Lewrie exclaimed cautiously, dropping the stern demeanour required of first lieutenants. “Any more under foot, Mister Dimmock? Mean t’say . . . how far may one carry nepotism? How many of the hands turned over with him? Any of the warrants?”

“Ah, now that’s the queerest bit, sir,” Dimmock sighed. “Captain Braxton’s Indiaman? A war declared, soon as he drops the hook, guinea a man Joining Bounty, and all? And nary a hand, nary a mate from his past ships followed him to the Fleet, sir.”

“Christ,” Lewrie all but groaned. That was hellish queer, that a captain could not entice a single tar to serve under him. Even the hardest captains had some loyal to ’em! Even the fools did!

“Forgive me for speaking plain for the nonce, Mister Lewrie, sir,” Dimmock gloomed. “And that’s the last you’ll hear from me, by way of insubordination. My word on’t, sir. But I thought you had to know. There’s good men aboard, afore the mast and in the ward-room. There’s many as could be good men, given half a chance, and a dose o’ ‘firm-but-fair’ whilst they’re learning. But the captain is not the onliest aboard who’s . . . ‘taut-handed.’ Runs in the family, so to speak. They’re a hard lot, sir. Ask Lieutenant Mylett.”

“Wish I could, sir,” Lewrie shivered, though not with cold. “I was told . . . no matter. Mister Dimmock, well met, sir. You understand, I have to make my own way in this. Come to mine own conclusions, not . . . well, not take the word of the first senior warrant I meet. I mean no offence, sir.”

“None taken, sir,” Dimmock muttered back, glancing about to see if they had been witnessed talking together too long, in too covert a confidence. “I’ll leave you to get squared away. At supper, though, tonight . . . I’ve a brace of French calvados. Apple brandy. Better’n any country applejack you ever swigged. My treat, to ‘wet’ you into the mess?”

“I should be delighted, Mister Dimmock, thankee.”

“And, sir . . . ?”

“Aye?”

“We all tread wary, and watch our tongues,” Dimmock whispered, though he performed a hat-doffing salute and slight bow, with a smile on his phiz, as if he were imparting nothing peculiar. “It isn’t the hands alone who find the ‘Still’ the safest way.”

“I will keep that in mind, Mister Dimmock. Later, sir.” Lewrie nodded his head in dismissal, clapped his hands in the small of his back, and paced. He looked below into the waist, where a bosun’s mate was braiding a cat-o’-nine-tails, and a sailmaker’s assistant was sewing up a small red-baize bag. They looked up at him, as if trying to read his soul, then looked away hurriedly when caught under his gaze. The harbour and anchor watch-standers on deck stood their posts rigid as carved wooden soldiers, stiff-backed and mute.

Those men in working parties, swaying up tuns and kegs on the midships hull skids, heaving away on stay tackles, performed their labours with mere, unisoned grunts, instead of a pulley-hauley chanty or fiddle tune.

Three midshipmen were scaling the rigging of the mainmast, up by the crosstrees, ready to go further aloft. They looked down at him, pausing in their vigourous exercise. Two, fearful; one with the air of a leery customer in a poor tradesman’s shop, who’d seen better goods elsewhere. Lewrie matched gazes with him, unblinking, until the lad’s face suffused, and he returned to his instructive “play.”

Wull, stap me! Alan thought; what the Devil’ve I got meself into this time!

He turned to the nearest gangway ladder, to descend to the waist and make his way below through the nearest hatchway to the wardroom.

Perversely, he began to whistle a gay country air Caroline had played an hundred times, if she’d played it once, on her flute. One he had taught her.

It was familiar to all hands, making a few smile timidly.

The lyrics were hellish vulgar.