Dewey Lambdin - Reefs and Shoals

“Good God!” Lewrie gawped. “Well, congratulatons, of course.”

When Lewrie had fitted Reliant out for sea in May of 1803, when the war with imperial, Napoleonic France had broken out again, Midshipman Houghton had been his senior and most experienced at twenty-one, and had already faced one board of harsh Post-Captains’ grilling for promotion. Houghton was very competent, in a stolidly quiet way, but not the sharpest nail in the keg; he’d always struck Lewrie as rather dull. Whilst Reliant had been at Sheerness the previous Spring, he’d finally become a Passed Midshipman, but no immediate commission. The secret nature of their work with catamaran torpedoes that Summer might have been the factor.

“Where are ye bound, and how soon, Mister Houghton?”

“I’m to be Fifth Officer aboard the Victorious, a Third Rate, sir, just in with a Spanish prize sloop, and her First was promoted to Commander, so there’s an opening, and, well… my uncle’s one of the civilians on the Board of Admiralty, so…”

I’d known that, I’d’ve cultivated the fart a lot hotter! Lewrie told himself.

“Immediate, is it? Well, if you must,” Lewrie said, rising to shake Houghton’s hand and offer him a parting “stirrup cup” of brandy, though pondering how he’d fill Houghton’s experienced but dull shoes. Could he advance one of the Master’s Mates? Eldridge and Nightingale were in their mid-to-late twenties, and were good at their trade, but… might he be able to cultivate a little “interest” from stuffy old Admiral Lord Gardner, Port Admiral of Portsmouth, or from Admiral the Honourable Cornwallis, head of Channel Fleet, of which Reliant was yet a part ’til sailing?

“Sorry to place you a fellow short, sir, but…” Houghton said.

“Oh, tosh!” Lewrie quickly assured him. “That’s the Navy’s way. Never can be sure of anything, one year to the next. And, when a man gets a shot at promotion, he’d be a fool t’turn it down outta sentiment. We’ll send you off in my gig, with my boat crew, to make a good show for your new captain. A brandy with you, Lieutenant Houghton?”

“Ehm… thank you most kindly for the offer, sir, but, I’d not wish to report myself aboard my new ship with spirits on my breath, if you see my point, sir?” Houghton hedged.

“Coffee, then, t’warm yer long row,” Lewrie decided. “Pettus, a coffee for Lieutnenant Houghton, and a top-up for me,” he bade his cabin steward.

“Accepted most gladly, sir,” Houghton brightened. “And might I say that the last two years aboard Reliant have not only been most instructive, but… delightfully exciting, Captain Lewrie, sir. I shall consider serving under you one of the…”

“Hoy, ‘ware…!” came a shout from on deck, followed by a loud series of thuds and bangs, as if a large sack of potatoes had slipped from someone’s grasp and was tumbling down a steep ladderway.

“Oh, ow! Gottverdamt! ” came a painful howl, and then a curse or two. “ Sheisse, meine arm, meine beins! Sheisse !”

“Mister Rahl!” Lewrie said. There were very few “Dutchies” in Reliant ’s company, and the raspy voice of the Master Gunner, Mister Johan Rahl, was easily recognised by one and all.

“Passing word for Mister Mainwaring!” a muffled shout demanded from the gun-deck, forward and below.

“Let’s go,” Lewrie urged, dashing for the forward door.

Master Gunner Johan Rahl had fallen down the main companionway hatch, and lay sprawled on his back, grimacing and growling bear-like to keep from howling in pain, and un-manning himself before his shipmates. Even as Lewrie knelt beside him, the Ship’s Surgeon, Richard Mainwaring, arrived with his kit-bag, closely followed by several loblolly boys from the forward sickbay, with a carrying board.

“What happened, Mister Rahl?” Mainwaring asked.

“I trip unt fall… down der fockin’ verdamnt ladder, arrhh! ” Rahl shot back, his long and stiff-waxed grey mustachios wriggling. “ Heilige sheisse , but it hurts!”

“A tot o’ neat rum for Mister Rahl, smartly there!” Lewrie ordered. “Stand back and give the Surgeon room t’work, lads.”

“ I’d take a tumble for a tot,” Patrick Furfy whispered to his mate, Liam Desmond, Lewrie’s Cox’n.

“Oh, hesh yerself,” Desmond hissed back. “Is it bad, sor?”

Lewrie shrugged his answer, looking into Mainwaring’s face as he glanced up from his work.

“It seems you’ve broken your left arm, Mister Rahl,” Mainwaring said at long last. “It seems a clean break, and it’s good odds that it will heal, but your legs… hmm. The right one feels like a clean break, as well, but the left…”

“You cut it off, sir?” Rahl asked, almost incredulous. “I vill not be der ein-legged cook , nein !”

“We must get you to the sickbay, up forward,” Mainwaring said. “That’ll be easier on you than being strapped down and bumped down to the orlop cockpit. More light and air, up forward, too. Get Mister Rahl onto the carrying board, you lads. Easy, now! Don’t jostle him too much.”

“Der doctor heff to take meine leg, Captain Lewrie, do not make me a cook,” Rahl insisted, rasping, gasping, and spitting his words as the loblolly boys gently shifted the carrying board under him, causing him sheer agony.

“I swear I won’t, Mister Rahl,” Lewrie told him, shaking his hand for a moment. “Served with ye before, and I never saw a sign ye could even toast bread.”

“ Ja , d’ose were gut times, sir,” Rahl replied. “ Sheisse , you are trying to kill me, you bastards?”

“Slowly and gently, there!” Mainwaring snapped, before his hands started the carrying board down the length of the gun-deck, between the mess-tables, stools, and sea-chests, and the horde of curious onlookers.

“Desmond, Mister Houghton’ll need a boat so he can report aboard his new ship,” Lewrie told his Cox’n. “Best turn-out, and see him to the Victorious in my gig.”

“Arrah, you’re a Commission Officer now, Mister Houghton?” Liam Desmond exclaimed.

“He is,” Lewrie assured him, and the rest of the nearby people.

“Huzzah fer Mister Houghton!” a sailor cried, raising a cheer from the rest.

“When you’re ready to debark, Mister Houghton, pray do inform me, and we’ll see you off, proper,” Lewrie promised.

“Thank you, sir. Well, I should go pack my traps,” Houghton said.

“Can I have your second-best silk shirt?” Midshipman Warburton, one of Reliant ’s cheekiest, asked tongue-in-cheek, razzing him.

“Uhm, pass word for the Gunner’s Mate, there,” Lewrie said. “I will be in my cabins.”

“Acres, you’re now Master Gunner,” Lewrie told that worthy when he reported to him.

“Thankee, sir. Though ’tis not the way I’d o’ liked t’get it,” the burly Gunner’s Mate replied, fidgetting with the wide brim of his hat that he held before him. “Poor old Rahl. Th’ Surgeon think it’s bad for ’im, sir?”

“No word, yet, Mister Acres,” Lewrie said, shrugging his lack of information. “His left leg looked damned bad, though. Old Rahl, well… Lord, he was ‘old’ Rahl when we served together, years ago.”

“An’ stiff’z th’ guards at Saint James’s Palace, sir,” Acres said, chuckling. “Or one o’ those Prussian grenadiers, where he came from, in the Kaiser’s artillery.”

“Does Kemp look likely to take your place?” Lewrie enquired. The current Yeoman of the Powder was fairly young in his position, up from a gun-captain of short service before Reliant commissioned.