Dewey Lambdin - A King`s Trade

Lewrie took a tour of the quarterdeck, taking in the heavy damage, the strewn corpses and dis-mounted guns, with his lips pursed in a silent whistle. Unlike most combats reported in the Marine Chronicle, where the French fired a few broadsides to salve their captain's conscience and uphold honour before striking, this ship had fought to win… and had paid the price. It was a slaughterhouse!

French frigates carried over-large complements compared to English warships, sometimes as many as 350 or more. For raiders such as this L 'Uranie, intent on prize-taking and long cruises, they carried more officers, petty officers, and sailors to man and safeguard those ships they took, leaving enough aboard to maintain the raider at full strength if she was required to fight to keep possession of her prizes.

But, with so many men aboard, it was no wonder that every shot through her hull or bulwarks had reaped L'Uranie's over-manned crew as thickly as a farmer's scythe would cut down a field of grain. Excess hands could replace gunners and sail-tenders for a time, but if battle lasted long enough…

To Lewrie, gazing down into the waist, it looked as if half of those 350 Frenchmen lay on deck where they fell, or whimpered their lives away in those two long rows of savagely mutilated! A few more lanthorns bobbed about, fetched from Proteus, so his own petty officers could survey their own frigate's damage from out-board, or rig thick rope mats as fenders to protect both ships as their hulls thudded together, or… to pick and hunt among the dead and wounded for their shipmates, leaving the French where they were, for now. Triage, but of a different form. From the French quarterdeck, Lewrie could look over at his own ship and shake his head at how many shot-holes and shattered planks he could count in the feeble, bobbing hand-lanthorn lights.

And what's me own "butcher's bill"? he sourly wondered, feeling sick at his stomach, in addition to bone-tired; What'd Twigg tell me, back in London? Save mine arse from the gallows whilst far overseas by doin' somethin'… glorious! He felt like spitting a foul taste from his mouth. This "glorious " enough for 'em, hey? I slay enough Frogs, sacrifice enough o'my people, t'keep me neck, un-stretched? Price is too damned high!

Surgeon Mr. Hodson and Surgeon's Mate Mr. Durant would tell him the cost, soon enough, Lewrie was sure.

He shoved himself erect from his slump on shot-gnawed railings, all but shook himself like a hound to wake himself from his lassitude. With three captured swords under his left arm, Lewrie descended an un-damaged ladderway on the larboard side to pace the main deck and waist of the French frigate, looking up at the cross-deck beams and the boat-tier, where the ruins of cutter, launch, gig, and jolly-boat sat like a pile of gayly-painted scrap lumber.

"Sir…" a voice intruded, and Lewrie turned to face it. Mr. Midshipman Darcy Gamble stood there, tears in his eyes. Nearby, Mr. Midshipman Grace knelt by a still form, just rolling it over face-up. " 'Tis Mister Larkin, sir," Gamble told him, and Lewrie looked down to see the rictus of agony on the poor lad's face, his final expression to the fact of his own hard death, so early in life. And the flickers of Midshipman Grace's cheap tin candle-lanthorn made the lad's wounds even more lurid. "Oh, damn," Lewrie softly muttered. "Poor, wee lad."

"Still has his pistol and dirk in his hands, sir," Grace added, snuffling as he looked up at his captain. "He went down fighting, sir."

"Honourable wounds to the front, aye," Gamble pointed out, striving for the stoicism the Navy demanded, but still on the ragged edge of open sorrow for a fallen mess-mate.

"We cannot let him just lie here, sir, perhaps…" Grace said.

"Time enough for Mister Larkin later, Mister Grace," Lewrie told him, after harumphing to clear his throat. "There's our ship, and our wounded, to see to, first. First, last, and always. Mister Gamble."

"Sir?"

"Pick one," Lewrie told him, extending the three sheathed swords to him, hilts first. "With Lieutenant Catterall fallen, you are now an Acting-Lieutenant, and Third Officer into Proteus. You, Mister Grace, are now our senior Midshipman… for now, our only Midshipman, though there may be a likely lad or two I may advance, later."

"I see, sir," Grace replied, sadly thoughtful.

"Up to you t'show 'em the ropes of table, duties, and cockpit," Lewrie further said, hoping new and demanding duties and responsibilities might take his mind off Larkin's loss.

"Hmm… a bit grand, these, sir," Gamble said, his mouth cocked into a shy moue, selecting the plainer sword, though one with a finer and more serviceable blade. Midshipman The Honourable D'arcy Gamble came from well-to-do parents, and could, when confirmed by Admiralty, easily afford better to wear on his hip, but for now, his choice gave Lewrie an even better estimation of him.

"Very well, Lieutenant Gamble. Seek out Lieutenant Langlie and tell him my decision," Lewrie ordered. "My respects to him, and he is to work you 'til you drop to make both ships fit to sail, again."

"Aye aye, sir," Acting-Lieutenant Gamble said, with sudden pride awakening in his eyes.

"I'll have Andrews see to Mister Larkin, Mister Grace," Lewrie added. "For now, we've need… what?" he asked, feeling a cold chill in his innards as Grace's face screwed up in fresh, shy grief.

"Sorry, sir," Grace all but wailed as he got to his feet. "We saw your man fall. Didn't wish t'be the one t'tell you, sir, but… I s'pose I must. He… was in the main top with the other marksmen and… was shot, and tumbled out, and hit the…" Grace had to pause, and gulp, "the edge of the gangway, sir, and…!"

"He's gone?" Lewrie croaked, suddenly much weaker, and wearier. "Andrews is gone?" All these years, my right-hand man, Cox'n, and…? he thought, squinting his eyes in pain; How many people must I get killed? Strangers, enemies… friends? For he was…

"They… passed him out a starboard gun-port, sir, with the… other dead," Mr. Grace managed to relate. "Sorry, sir. Sorry."

Gone. "Fallen" was the euphemism of the age. It was what was done with Navy casualties in battle. The dead were put over the side, at once, to clear the decks for those who still fought, a brutal necessity to maintain their morale. In many cases, the hopelessly mangled and sure to die were "put out of their misery" by a petty officer with a heavy mallet, then shoved, un-conscious and un-knowing, out the ports, too, as a "mercy" for an old shipmate whom the surgeons couldn't save. It was why the inner sides of the hull, by the guns, were traditionally painted red, as red as fresh-spilled or fresh-splattered blood… in the heat of action, the living might not notice.

Lewrie looked down, not at Larkin, but at a bare patch of deck, willing himself not to weep. Andrews… Matthew Andrews!… a long-time companion, was dead and gone. No matter the gulf between common sailors and officers, how aloof and apart a captain must appear to his hands, Andrews and Aspinall had been his touchstones with reality, a pair of close friends, really, and his loss felt like an abyss, a part of his own years in-company with him, had been cut away and lost. In a way, perhaps it was best that Andrews had been put over the side… best that he was physically gone, for Lewrie didn't think he'd be able to bear to look on many more familiar dead faces. There would surely be enough of them, already.

Blaming himself, too, scathing himself, for Andrews had been the one to go ashore and lead his dozen "Free Black volunteers" aboard the night in Portland Bight on Jamaica when he'd stolen them from one of the Beauman family's plantations… as a cock-snooking lark!