Страница 42 из 92
And that night, long after Lights Out when Lewrie was in bed, sleeping atop the coverlet in his underdrawers for coolness, he came awake. The hanging bed-cot was swaying gently to the roll of the ship, a motion which always calmed him and lulled him to deep sleep, but … he felt as if Chalky had leapt from the deck to the bed, and was walking and brushing up his legs and chest. Lewrie opened one eye and reached out to stroke Chalky, but there was no cat there.
He sat up on an elbow and looked round in the deep gloom of the cabins. There was Chalky, curled up at the foot of the bed with his head resting across Lewrie’s ankle! He lay back down on the pillows and was almost drifted off once more, but, there was the feeling of a cat padding up behind his back, this time, and he sat up once more in a start. Chalky woke, still draped over his ankle, yawned widely, and sat up to give out a low, challenging Mrrr! with tail thrashing. In the faintest light of pre-dawn, Chalky’s eerie green chatoyant eyes were fixed intently on nothing, just to the starboard side of the bed, then to the overhead, as if fearfully watching something that drifted away!
Chalky finally hopped over Lewrie’s legs and came to Lewrie’s face, nuzzling for a hand and looking over his shoulder to larboard.
“Don’t you go dyin’ on me, now, Chalky,” Lewrie whispered as he stroked and calmed him. “I wouldn’t know what t’do with both you and Toulon hauntin’ my cabins.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was almost Christmas Eve before Reliant’s little convoy finally caught sight of tops’ls and t’gallants on the Southern horizon, a wide smear of weathered tan or ecru canvas that spread from three points off the larboard bows to three points off the starboard. When the cry of “Sail Ho!” came, Lewrie was in the middle of shaving, and he dashed to the quarterdeck with a towel still round his neck and the thin foam of shaving soap still on his face.
“It would appear that there are at least seventy ships, sir,” Lt. Spendlove, the officer of the Forenoon Watch, eagerly reported. “I believe I can make out their fores’ls … fore topmast stays’ls … lying to the right, so they must be making the long board Sou’-Sou’west, the same as us, sir!”
“Hmm, that’ll make for a long stern-chase, then,” Lewrie speculated aloud. “As we close with them, we’ll fall into their wind shadow and be blanketed. They’re hull-down under the horizon, so we’re about twelve or more miles alee of ’em, but it may be dusk before we come to hailing distance. Mast-head!” he shouted aloft. “Any signals yet?”
“Just now, sir!” Midshipman Munsell cried down. “It is ‘Query’!”
“Very well. Mister Spendlove, have our number hoisted, and in this month’s private signals book, add ‘Come To Join’.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Spendlove said, turning aft to relay the order to Midshipman Rossyngton at the taffrails, flag lockers, and signals halliards.
“Caught them up at last, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked as he mounted to the quarterdeck, with Lt. Merriman right behind him, and both of them as hastily half-dressed as Lewrie.
“It appears so, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told him with a grin.
“Do we know which ships Commodore Popham commands, sir?” Lt. Merriman asked, with his own telescope glued to one eye.
“I think I recall that he has the Diadem, sixty-four,” Lewrie said, off-handedly stroking a raspy cheek in thought and finding that his fingers came away soapy. “He’s the Raiso
“As a trooper, sir?” Lt. Merriman further asked.
“As far as I know, Diomede’s still rated as a warship,” Lewrie said with a shrug. Fifty-gu
“Pity the poor fellow who has charge of her!” Lt. Merriman said with a snicker of derision.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lewrie, laughed. “One could be worse off. One could be appointed an Agent Afloat with the Transport Board!” After the others had had a slight laugh, Lewrie ordered, “Carry on, Mister Spendlove. I will be below, finishing my shave.”
“A close, Sunday Divisions shave, sir,” Westcott teased. “You will be reporting aboard Commodore Popham’s flagship by supper time.”
“And, after this long on-passage, sir,” Lt. Merriman, their wag, posed, “you might have to fetch them rabbits and quail for the entrée, else the Commodore serves you salt-meat junk!”
“Like a housewarming supper?” Lewrie laughed. “Signal my host t’see if I can bring anything before I boat over? Hah! Carry on, gentlemen.”
* * *
By five of the afternoon, in the middle of the First Dog Watch, Reliant gladly shedded her three charges, and Ascot, Marigold, and the Sweet Susan swa
Lewrie found that almost bearable. For many long weeks, he had dressed any-old-how in his oldest, plainest coat, loosely tied neck-stock, and roomy slop trousers. Now, he would have to dress in snug breeches, silk shirt and ironed stock, snow-white waist-coat, and his finest uniform coat with the sash and star of the Order of The Bath. At least the supper would be held after sundown, so the present latitude’s oppressive heat would not be as bad as a mid-day di
Once the salutations had been rendered, one of Diadem’s officers showed Lewrie aft to the Commodore’s great-cabins, where he was a
“Lewrie! My Lord, you’re a sight for sore eyes!” Commodore Sir Home Riggs Popham happily exclaimed as a cabin servant took his hat and sword. “You didn’t bring along any of those damned torpedoes, did you? Good riddance to bad rubbish, hah hah! Those infernal engines, I mean, not Lewrie! Come, sir! Have a glass of Rhenish, and allow me to name to you the others.”
Sir Home Riggs Popham was ebullience itself, but of course, in Lewrie’s brief experience with him, he always was the epitome of good cheer even in adversity. Popham was considered dashingly handsome by many, with a high, intelligent brow, pleasant eyes, good cheekbones, and a firm, clefted chin, and was possessed of a slim but solid build. In the latest mode, Popham wore his thick blond hair without even a sprig of an old-time sailors’ queue, and long sideburns below the lobes of his ears. Perhaps his only mar was a long and pointed nose with an up-tilt. Popham was garbed in his best, and costly, uniform coat which also bore the star of the Order of The Bath.
The others of whom Popham spoke were senior Army officers in command of the five thousand or so soldiers sent to take the Cape of Good Hope, a General Sir David Baird, and his second-in-command, Brigadier-General Sir William Beresford. Baird seemed a gruff and capable sort to Lewrie, though Beresford struck him as overly mild. Beresford had thick hair brushed back over his ears on the sides of his head, but was as bald as an egg above, and the fellow almost had pop-eyes.