"Uhm, quite, Mister Lewrie, sir," Lieutenant Braxton fumed.
"My compliments to Mister Fairclough, and he is to overhaul the tackle, soon as the hands have finished dinner," Lewrie snapped, going below once more to the companion-way, then aft to the wardroom for his midday meal. "Inform the captain," he tossed off over his shoulder.
The wardroom was not nearly as grand as the captain's quarters. There were small, rectangular deadlights in the stern transom, either side of the thick rudder post. Below those windows was a long, narrow settee. On either side were dog-box cabins, temporary shelters framed in light deal, with canvas walls, with insubstantial narrow doors made of shutter-like louvers. There were no locks; commission and warrant officers were supposed to be gentlemen-above stealing or prying. A space long enough for a bed-cot, wide enough for sea-chest and bed, and room enough in which to dress-that was their individual portion. That portion was about six feet long and five feet wide for the junior officers who berthed furthest forward around the mess table and mizzenmast trunk; Lieutenant Braxton and Lieutenant Scott, a Marine captain named O'Neal and his lieutenant, Banbrook. Lieutenant Banbrook was the merest child, fair and slight, a seventeen-year-old whose parents had purchased him a commission upon the outbreak of war, and (Lewrie thought) had done so with the greatest sense of relief. All they'd seen him do was rail at Sergeant Haislip and the corporals, flick lint off his uniform, and drink. The Marine captain, O'Neal, a saturnine Belfaster, despaired of the lad ever learning a single blessed thing, and in private referred to Banbrook as "Leftenant Sponge," or "Little Left-enant Do-Little."
Farther aft, slightly (but only very slightly) larger cabins were for first officer, Sailing Master Mister Dimmock, the ship's surgeon Mister Pruden, a roly-poly font of what little good cheer their mess possessed, and the "pusser," Mister Husie. And no purser was ever of good cheer.
"Come and cup a rum of take," Lieutenant Barnaby Scott offered, lolling idle on the long, narrow settee with Lieutenant Banbrook.
"Hey?" Lewrie gawped, wondering if he'd heard right.
"Or is that a cup of rum, sir?" Scott amended with a befuddled squint. "No matter, there's plenty." He indicated a glistening pewter pitcher on the dining table. "Fresh Vigo lemons, Azores lump sugar in the bottom somewhere… touch o' Madeira. And rum, o' course. Have a cup, sir. I'm quite took a'ready."
"Bit early in the day for me, Mister Scott."
"For me, too, sir. Heep" Banbrook hiccoughed myopically.
"Pacing yourself are you, I see, sir?" Lewrie scoffed.
"Heep!" Banbrook nodded, looking angelic.
"Saving his energies for the ladies, he is, sir," Lieutenant Scott said with a wink. Every now and then, when his faculties had been dulled by drink (more so than usual), the wardroom made Banbrook the butt of their old jokes. They'd sent him capering throughout the ship, the first days at sea, calling for Marine private Cheeks. "Private Cheeks! I say now, Private Cheeks, front and center!" he'd bawled, never suspecting that it was a bugger's term. Banbrook, righteous but reeling, had reported back that Private Cheeks had evidently either deserted, or fallen overboard. There wasn't a sign of him anywhere, though Sergeant Haislip had recalled seeing him up forrud, relieving himself on the beakhead rails.
"Pish!" Banbrook snorted. "What ladies, I ask you? Heepr
"Well, hardly ladies, really," Bamaby Scott confided, turning to Lewrie for help. "The first officer knows all about 'em. About the whore transport? I expect we'll fetch her under our lee, oh… 'bout the end of the second dog? Isn't that true, sir?"
"Perhaps not until first light tomorrow, I'm sorry to say," Alan said with a somber shake of his head, which awakened a chorus of groans. "And you know they'll have to service the liners first. They might not put 'em straight to work when we sight her. Might give 'em a morning to rest first." More disappointed groans-even one from Banbrook, who did not yet have the first inkling what they were talking about.
"Whores, sir?" he asked. "Heep!"
"Can't allow a new crew ashore in wartime, don't you know anything, sir?" Lewrie frowned sternly. "No, shore leave's out, right out. But a ship will go Out of Discipline, now and again. If she's allowed time in harbour, she'll replenish firewood and water, then hoist the 'Easy' pendant, and out come the whores, or the wives, if she's in home waters. Ever hear the old saw 'bout sailors having a wife in every port? That's where it comes from, Mister Banbrook."
"And you'll note, we didn't stay anchored long at Lisbon, sir," Scott rejoined, weaving the web thicker. "Top you up there, lad? A rum of cup, sir?"
"Believe I shall," Lewrie smiled. "What one in harm?"
"Hey?" Banbrook goggled, trying to decypher the first officer's last statement. He looked down into his full mug, wondering if he had not taken perhaps a tad too much aboard. They were beginning to sound… higgledy-piggledy. Or something.
"Thank God the Navy's so thoughtful of its people, sir," Mister Pruden confided from his seat at the long mess table. "Better this way. There's many a Jack been hung for buggery, else. Months and months at sea, without feminine companionship? And, if you hoist the 'Easy' in harbour, why just any old drab may come aboard, and then there's your crew, poxed to their hairlines. No, sir, this is the better way. The British consul at Lisbon will hire the prettiest doxies, get 'em certified by a Navy Sick and Hurt Board physician… can't expect one surgeon and a mate to do it, y'know… contract a ship, and send her out to tag along with the squadron. Then, when a vessel's deserving-like-"
"Or the hands've no fingers left, from 'boxing the Jesuit,' " Alan stuck in, "and can't pulley-hauley any longer."
"Over she'll sail, sir," Scott cajoled, putting a comradely arm about the foxed Marine. "Tippy-toein' under our lee, coy as any minx."
"The hands take their pleasures below, on their mess deck, elbow to elbow. Shockin' t'watch, sir," Captain O'Neal confided to his swozzled second-in-command. "We officers, though, now… ah, we get rowed over to the whore transport, d'ye see, lad."
O'Neal was almost cooing in a soft, lilting, more affected Irish brogue, whilst Lewrie had to stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
"Handsomer run o' quim for officers, aye," Scott stuck in from the other side. "Only the prettiest'll do, with the awe-somest poonts."
"And in private, in cabins much grander than these, d'ye know," O'Neal went on.
"What… keep!… what 'bout th' 'socket fee,' sir?" Ban-brook inquired, eyes round as fried eggs with lustful wonderment by men.
"Why, laddy, that's the best part," O'Neal beamed, though he did bite the lining of his cheek to stifle a hellish case of the sniggers. "You get a guinea ride for ten shillings… Navy sports the rest. Just be sure you sign your mess bill, and Mister Husie sorts it all out later."
"Heep!" Lieutenant Banbrook speculated hopefully, fingering his crutch.
"Dinner's on, gentlemen, sirs," the senior wardroom steward sang out as he entered with a tureen of pea soup. Ship's boys trailed him, bearing bread barges of only very slightly weevily biscuit.
"Ah, pea soup!" Lieutenant Scott enthused as he came to the table. "God, there'll be a foul wind from astern this night, I'll wager."
"Do we get long, sir?" Banbrook asked the purser as he took his seat. "Ab… heep!… aboard the whore transport?"
Husie sighed, pulling at his large, though puggish nose, gazing at the expectant, prompting faces of his messmates. Though Husie deplored their high cockalorum, damme-boy antics from the nether depths of his well-ordered, double-entry soul, he felt forced to abet them, just the once, and play up in similar spirit. "Well, d'ye see, young sir… much like Marines and idlers aren't required to stand ev'nin' watches… one gets what is pretty much, how do you describe your nights off? 'All-Night-In,' so t'speak, sir?"
"Oh, I say!" Banbrook all but swooned. It was hard to tell. It could have been the rum punch. The others cheered Husie for his effort.
'Thought I explained it before," Captain O'Neal chuckled, stuffing his napkin firmly behind the rank gorget which hung high on his chest, below his throat, "Damme'f I know just how it slipped me mind, Leftenant Banbrook."
"Ahem," Mister Boutwell, the captain's clerk, interrupted at the entrance to the wardroom. Boutwell wore his usual well-fed, nose-high and top-lofty superior sneer. "Excuse me, but… Mister Lewrie, sir, the captain bids me convey his compliments to you, and inform you that he wishes you to confer with him in his cabins."
"This minute?" Lewrie grumbled, cocking an eyebrow. The pea soup smelled hellish good, and for once they had fresh roast pork to follow!
"At once, he said, sir," Boutwell purred, looking anything but sorry to deprive Lewrie of a hot dinner.
"Very well, Mister Boutwell," Alan sighed, feeling much put upon, and griping in his bowels with dread of another rant from Captain Braxton. "My utmost respects to Captain Braxton, and I shall be up directly."
"Very good, sir," Boutwell replied, bowing his way out.
"Speaking of a foul wind, gentlemen," Lieutenant Scott whispered sotto voce once the man was gone, prompting another knowing chorus of groans, or dismal chuckling.
"Mister Scott, I despair of you," Lewrie snapped, putting on his coat anew. "Damme, it's hard enough…" He almost allowed his personal feelings to escape, but checked them. "There will be no disparaging remarks in this wardroom, whether I'm present or not."
"Ah, but I was not disparaging the captain, sir," Scott gaped in pretended innocence. "I referred to the captain's clerk, Boutwell!"
"Just stop it!" Lewrie snarled in exasperation. "I'd admire you save me at least a slice of pork. Hot, I s'pose, is too much to ask."
"Might as well not," Dimmock, the sailing master, muttered once the first lieutenant was himself departed. "He never has an appetite after one of those sessions, poor man." "Christ love you, Mister Dimmock… but who does?"
"You sent for me, sir?" Lewrie opened, standing before Captain Braxton's dining table. Braxton was having fresh roast chicken from his personal stores which had come off from shore. There was soft bread instead of biscuit, what smelled like a very fruity Portuguese varietal burgundy in his crystal glass; the only common touch was a dollop of pease pudding on his plate. Waiting on the sideboard for later were fruit, a fresh wheel of Stilton, and extra-fine sweet biscuit, with a blood-dark bottle of port breathing for the nonce.
"Yes, Mister Lewrie," Braxton scowled, looking as if Alan's presence put him off his food. He laid aside his cutlery to sip wine as he perused him. "The second officer informs me the steering tackle is slackening. The steering tackle, sir!"
"Mounson told me of it, sir. I ordered Mister Braxton to command the bosun below to overhaul it, soon as the hands have eat."
"You will see to it at once, sir," Captain Braxton barked. "We wallow on this following wind and sea. The ropes could part at a moment's notice under the strain. Should she round up or broach-to, we could end up dismasted. And I will not see my ship disabled because you were slack, sir!"
