Dewey Lambdin - Reefs and Shoals

Now the wind was clawing at their ship’s larboard quarter, and she was coming round, wallowing and rolling, but on larboard tack.

“Man main tack and sheet! Clear away the rigging! Spanker outhaul! Clear away the brails!”

“Haul aboard! Haul out!”

“Mind yer helm, there!” Lewrie cautioned as she swung up closer to the wind and seas.

“Brace up head yards!” Lt. Merriman ordered, looking and sounding calmer than when he began the evolution, now that Reliant had crossed from one tack to the other. “Overhaul weather lifts, and haul aboard!”

“Nicely done, sir!” Mr. Caldwell congratulated.

“Thankee, sir,” Merriman replied, quite pleased and relieved, then turned to deliver his last trimming-up orders. “Steady out the bowlines! Haul taut weather trusses, braces, and lifts!”

“And, here comes the bloody seventh wave, again,” Lewrie said just as the larger, fiercer wall of water humped up before them. The ship heaved up and over, then down into the trough, where she wallowed as the wave stole the wind from the tops’ls for a moment before bowling astern.

“Clear away on deck, there!” Lt. Merriman ordered.

“Mister Westcott,” Lewrie bade. “Let’s go forrud and see to the shrouds. Rhys, how’s her helm, now?” he asked the Quartermaster of the watch at the wheel. “Can you hold West-Nor’west?”

“Aye, sir. Fair balanced, she be. Not too crank, nor griped.”

“Very well,” Lewrie said with a firm nod. “Full and by, and none to loo’rd. Ready, Mister Westcott?”

“Aye, sir,” Westcott replied with a brief flash of teeth. “I’m as wet as I’ll ever be. Bosun Sprague? Hands to the lee bulwarks.”

The shrouds, the main portion of the standing rigging, ran from the outboard channel platforms down the sides of the ship, the thick and stout oak “anchors” that jutted out to ease the steep angle of support to keep the masts standing, and un-moving. Each thick rope shroud was further supported below the channel platforms by metal fittings bolted into the hull, called the chains. For each shroud there were two massive blocks, the dead-eyes, with lanyards running between them in four-part purchases. To ease or tighten the dead-eye lanyards, sailors had to go overside-the steeply angle lee side-where the heaving waves that creamed down Reliant ’s flanks could surge up over the channels, turning every hand-hold or precarious foot-hold ice-slick with chill water. Even with the slackened starboard shrouds now eased by being on the lee side, it would require gruelling manual labour to set the tension to rights. For every man going over the side, there were two to anchor a shipmate with safety lines.

“Handsomely, now, lads, and have a care,” Lewrie urged them as the first clambered over the gangway bulwarks to work on the foremast shrouds. In better weather, they might have seen to all three masts at once, but not now.

Lewrie was shivering with cold, his clothing soaked with spray, and his face felt like a bad shave with a dull razor as the icy droplets kept stinging. Despite a wool scarf, cold water trickled under his tarred canvas coat, too, but he was determined to remain on deck as long as the work took; if the ship’s people were miserable, then he would be, too. At least he could comfort himself with the thought that he was on the gangway, not on the weather deck below, where the icy surging waters showered down each time the bows soughed deep into the sea, and left shin-high floods sluicing from beam to beam with each roll of the ship!

“Think that’s got it, sir,” Lt. Westcott reported, at last, an hour later.

“Very well, Mister Westcott. Dismiss the working party below,” Lewrie replied. “Let ’em thaw out, and dry out, as best they can.”

“Aye, sir.”

Lewrie went back forward from the mizen stays, steeled himself, and waited for the hull to roll upwards before making a dash for the hammock nettings and stanchions at the break of the quarterdeck. Then it was a slow ascent, clinging to the nettings, to the weather side, where a captain was supposed to be. He hooked an arm to the shrouds of the main mast to stay upright as Reliant heeled far over to starboard with the next roll, and stood there, scowling at the fury of the sea, and wishing for a cup of something boiling hot; coffee, tea, or cocoa, it made no difference. Even hot water would suit, but with the ship pitching, heaving, and rolling so violently, everyone was on cold rations, for the galley fires could not be lit in such weather. Lewrie let out a long, deprived sigh.

Eight Bells chimed in four double-dings from the foc’s’le belfry up forward; it was 4 P.M., and the end of the Day Watch and the beginning of the First Dog. There were happy and relieved smiles upon every hand’s face, for they could go below for two hours. Far glummer were the faces of the men of the fresh watch, some of them the spare hands who had just gotten below for a few minutes, and would face two more hours of misery before the Second Dog Watch.

Lieutenant Spendlove was mounting to the quarterdeck to replace Merriman, so Lewrie timed a (fairly) level-deck dash down to the helm, and the binnacle cabinet as those worthies exchanged salutes.

“I relieve you, sir,” Spendlove was intoning.

“I stand relieved, sir,” Merriman answered. “Course, full and by to West-Nor’west. The last cast of the log showed five knots.”

“Gentlemen,” Lewrie intruded.

“Sir,” they chorused.

“I’ll go below with you, Mister Merriman, and leave the watch to you, Mister Spendlove,” Lewrie told them. “Should the wind shift a touch more Sutherly, alter course as near as you’re able. If the wind veers ahead, summon me at once. Nicely done, by the way, Mister Merriman.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lt. Merriman said, grinning.

“Aye aye, sir,” from Spendlove.

Once below and aft, in the relative warmth of his great-cabins, Lewrie peeled off his hat and canvas coat, both stiff and soaked with half-frozen spray, and wound off the useless scarf. He hugged himself and shivered, blowing on his chilled fingers as he slid into the chart space to plot the last few hours’ progress, and the change of course.

“Might you care for something warming, sir?” Pettus asked. “I could heat up some of your cold tea over the candle warmer.”

“God, yes, Pettus, and thank yer kind soul!” Lewrie boomed out with a quick laugh. “How’s Jessop doin’?”

“Crop-sick as a hound, sir,” Pettus said with a shrug.

Lewrie looked aft, and found Jessop in pretty-much the same position he’d been in when he’d left to go on deck, hours before.

“Aye, some warmed-up tea, Pettus, with lots of milk and sugar.”

Lewrie returned to peering at the chart, speculating with brass dividers and parallel ruler that if they could maintain at least five knots over the ground for so many hours going West-Nor’west, the ship would have made… Pah! He tossed the tools aside in frustration, for that course would carry them further North into even colder seas, and gained them nothing to the West.

As much as he detested the idea, they would have to wear about once more, right at the time that the second rum issue of the day was doled out, in the midst of preparations for what meagre cold rations would be served. Before sunset would be best, but… it was better than standing on ’til they struck Iceland!

Lewrie managed to make his way aft to his hanging bed-cot, to check on the cats. “How ye copin’, lads?” he gently asked them.

He was answered by low moans and the flicks of bottled tails. They had not moved far from where he’d last seen them, either.

“Tea’s almost ready, sir,” Pettus informed him. “A few minutes more, and it’ll be nigh scalding.”