Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey
What Proteus did not have, though, were skilled sailors, for the new "volunteers" were farmboys, landsmen, and "new-caught fish," about as ignorant of the sea as any clerk press-ganged from a Wapping tavern in London. And, to beat all, for the first few days the bulk of them were seasick, as well as homesick!
Lewrie had decreed a "sea school" be formed, with the experienced tars, both White and Black, as the "bear leaders," to guide the newcomers about, name the myriad items of rigging and sails, and get them acquainted with their future duties. During this time, none were to be "started," even the stupidest.
Their frigate stood out from Hispaniola far to the Sou'east, to cruise along the southern shore of Saint Domingue, well out of sight from the port of Jacmel or any shore watcher, most especially of other Royal Navy ships that might get near enough to "speak" her and wonder where Proteus had gotten all of her ham-fisted, puking amateur Black sailors.
And her newcomers had had a lot to which to adjust, besides the homesickness and nausea. The first few days, they'd been dazzled by their spanking-new slop-clothing uniforms, the "privilege" of stockings and brass-buckled shoes (hastily put aside except for Sunday Divisions) never bought for field hands, the art of sleeping in a properly spread and hung hammock and its rolling-up each dawn, of scrubbing decks, and pulley-hauling-eating!-alongside White sailors. They had been at first amazed then incongruously daunted by that closeness, as if it were perhaps too much egalitarianism to digest at one sitting.
Certainly, their first sight of White sailors being "started" by the bosun and his mates on their way aloft to trim or shorten sail before the almost-daily squalls had been a revelation; even if Lewrie never allowed petty officers to use the stiffened rope starters in real anger, just as instructive incentives to quicker action. And while it had been weeks since a man had merited a dozen lashes from the cat-o'-nine-tails, whilst lashed barebacked to an upright hatch grating, the idea of punishment for anyone in violation of the Articles of War that Lewrie had read weekly had sent them first into giggling fits, then a sombre reflection about upright behaviour, and just what they had gotten themselves into.
And the novelty of three square meals a day, with portions at least twice the victuals they had ever gotten as slaves, even on the rare holidays, was a wonder! For the first time in ages, Lewrie was just about dumbfounded to hear people rave over boiled salt meats, the pease pudding, or even the burgoo! And as for the daily rum rations, and the small beer…! The newlys agreed, though, that the rock-hard ship's biscuit was a peril to all mankind, but the currant duffs and the weekly figgy-dowdys were just handsome-fine. Even a "Banyan Day" of cheese, beer, biscuit, and gruels pleased them, for now.
Then there was the matter of arms drill.
No one in the West Indies or the New World ever put weapons in a Black's hands, nor even in his close proximity for fear of revenge murder or full-blown rebellion. Even Black freedmens' rights to own weapons was strictly regulated. Here, though, the newlys were expected to become proficient with cutlass, hatchet, boarding pike, musket, and pistol, and were even allowed to purchase clasp-knives to hang on their belts (with the tips blunted like everyone else's) even if used for nothing more than whittling in off-duty hours, or for cutting their tough meat portions.
"Most enthusiastic students ever I did see, sir," Lt. Devereux told Lewrie one morning off Santo Domingo, the Spanish half of Hispaniola, as the hands shot at towed kegs from the taff-rail. "Even do I halfway suspect ulterior motives."
"Such as, sir?" Lewrie asked.
"Well, sir, there's bound to be one or two using us as a school for later rebellion… like Irish volunteer soldiers who get paid by our Army to teach 'em how to fight us?" Devereux said offhandedly, as if he was merely joshing, after all. "Where else might young Black men get the chance to learn weapons-handling as good as any European soldier or sailor? Or, do you come to it, sir, the art of the great-guns, and the use of artillery?"
"Over yonder, with L'Ouverture and his bully bucks," Lewrie responded, jerking his chin northward. "Or with our Jamaican Maroons."
"Exactly, sir," Devereux said with a sage nod, but with a wink, as well. "But we got 'em young, so perhaps serving aboard our ship, where they'll get firm but fair and humane treatment, will be a civilising influence against rebellious thoughts."
"Don't make me rue my decision, Mister Devereux," Lewrie said, with a mock shiver. "I've qualms enough, already."
And how I let Cashman talk me into it, I'll never know! Lewrie thought anew; He's corruptin', and I'm weak and corruptible, just as he said. Always have been, and I doubt the sorry old plea of 'drink and bad companions ' will excuse me in court!
"Damme, but that wee Rodney fellow is a cracking shot, sir… e'en with our poor old muskets!" Devereux exclaimed.
Little "George Rodney" had plumbed a round right in the center of the keg lid, in the second that it had swirled about end-on to the ship's stern, and at a creditable seventy yards, too! Sergeant Skipwith pounded him on the back in congratulations, and his mates whooped in shared glee, whilst Rodney's face lit up in ecstatic joy.
"Wonder what he could do with my Ferguson rifle, or with one of those fusils?" Lewrie said. "We might detail him in the main-top as a sniper when we go to Quarters, alongside your Marines, 'ey, Mister Devereux? Make him a Marine…?" Lewrie japed with a wide grin.
"Well, uhm…" Lt. Devereux demurred, wincing and sucking his teeth. "That might present a problem, sir. There have never been any Black Marines, and did we wish to experiment, as it were, my men would resent it mightily… most especially our five new volunteers we got from your Colonel Cashman's disbanded regiment."
"I don't really intend to kit him out in pipe-clay and a red coat, Mister Devereux!" Lewrie said with an amused snort.
"Those five are West Indies-born and bred, or have lived here so long they've taken on local prejudices, sir," Devereux explained, "and strictures against armed Blacks most of all. Their regiment was lily-white, and you know how little mixing there is in island society."
"Outside the sheets, that is," Lewrie dryly commented.
"Uhm, aye, sir," Devereux agreed shyly. "So, should we station Rodney with a musket at Quarters, it might be best did he shoot from the bulwarks, but not in the tops with the Marines, sir."
"Are they disgruntled, you're saying?" Lewrie demanded.
"Only mildly, sir… so far," Devereux replied, his usual air of elegant detachment slowly shredding. "They're happy, in the main, for another chance to 'soldier,' with their pay, uniforms, and rations. They're adapting well to most aspects of shipboard life… so much so that they're already expressing the.usual low opinion of sailors, and the superior air of Marines. None seem to be future disciplinary problems, though they're tough men, sir. No raging drunks or troublemakers have reared their heads… yet. A ship, though, with so many of her people Black…"
"So their only plaint is against our Black sailors?" Lewrie asked. "Damme, sir… it's not like they haven't seen ten Blacks to each White settler already, ashore, haven't seen ships stationed out here for three years or more with half their British crews perished, and God knows who mannin' 'em?"
"They have, sir, but…"
"Damme, are they so disgruntled they'd blab where we got 'em?"
"Oh, no fear of that, sir!" Devereux was quick to reassure him. "Their disgust with that Colonel Ledyard Beauman is so great that they found our little raid rather delightful. Frankly, Captain, they despise him worse than cold, boiled mutton, and think what we did was a grand buggering! No, the only fear I have concerns desertion, sir… should they hear of a chance to see Colonel Cashman duel the hen-headed bastard, and run off to cheer him on!"
"I see," Lewrie said, calming, but still furrowing his brow in contemplation of a new threat. "That's a comfort… I think."
"About fusils, sir…" Devereux said, with a shifty look in his eyes- eyes usually steeled with rigid Marine rectitude. "Our new men were trained on, and equipped with, fifty-four calibre fusil muskets. While they're no match for German jaeger rifles, or Yankee Doodle Pennsylvania rifles, fusils are more accurate than Brown Bess. Your friend Colonel Cashman sent us extremely good marksmen, born to shooting and hunting. So I was wondering, uhm…"-Devereux coughed gently into a fist to cover his scheming-"should you have another opportunity to speak with Colonel Cashman, sir, might it be possible that he could obtain some fusils for us? With his regiment disbanded, their arms will rust away in an armory, and you just know how the Army will insist everyone use seventy-five calibre Tower muskets just to ease problems with ordnance supplies, so…"
"You wish to arm our Marines with fusils, then, sir?" Lewrie asked, rocking on the balls of his feet with a stern glower on his face. "Opposing the 'wisdom' of our Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty?"
"Oh, not all of them, sir, just a dozen… a half-dozen fusils." Devereux squirmed. "The Army surely would not miss so few. Was a swap possible… our Short Sea Pattern muskets for fusils, well…" righteous Lieutenant Devereux muttered like a housebreaker chatting plans for his next robbery in an ale house. He coughed into his fist again.
"But too hard to explain to the Ordnance Board and our own superiors when Proteus pays off, Mister Devereux," Lewrie told him, with a knowing leer and a tap on the side of his nose. "Why, damme if they didn't charge us for 'em! And I doubt the local Army staff would find it easy to explain, either, how a dozen or more weapons went missing. Might charge them for 'em, too! Besides, as far as the Army is concerned, Horse Guards, and God Almighty ordained the use of the Tower Musket, Long Land Pattern, calibre seventy-five. Might've been etched into the tablets Moses brought off the mountain, for all I know."
"But we could claim-"
"Damme, sir!" Lewrie barked with amusement. "D'ye mean for me to steal 'em for you, Mister Devereux? Since I'm such a dab-hand at stealin' slaves for sailors?"
"Well, I would not characterise it as stealing, sir, exactly," Devereux said, tucking his hands behind his back (perhaps to keep them a semblance of clean!) whilst his phyz reddened with flusterment, and jutting his chin horizon-ward.
"You've another synonym handy, I take it, sir?" Lewrie teased, snickering to see their stolid Marine officer so discomfited.
"A mere half-dozen would suit, sir. Well, perhaps ten, or the dozen," Devereux all but begged. "For our new men, and those already aboard who are demonstrably good shots. Why, think of the possibilities, sir!" he wheedled. "Skilled men in the tops equipped with fusil muskets could decimate an enemy's officers and mates at one go, sir! We could cripple any ship we face with one accurate volley!"
"Even does our staff-captain, Sir Edward Charles, oppose such a practice of targeting officers and gentlemen as savage and barbaric, Mister Devereux? I am ordered never to engage in such, tsk tsk."
"Well, sir, what actually happens, and what is written up in a report are two horses of another colour," Devereux slyly posed. "I do also recall our recent competition with the American frigate… and how the Hancock's men out-shot ours. Do we ever fight them, they will not feel such nice compunctions against shooting us, sir. And neither would French naval infantry, or bloody-handed privateersmen."
"Granted," Lewrie allowed.
"And I must own, sir, that the Yankees' superior arms and skill did irk me. And fill me with envy," Devereux confessed. "Recall our fight with those rebel slaves off Monte Cristi, sir. Had we possessed fusils, accurate long-range musketry would have slaughtered them long before they could get close enough to detonate their cargoes of powder. And done it more cheaply than using our great-guns, too, sir. Improve our, uhm… efficiency 'gainst small privateers and smugglers?" Devereux fantasised, aswell with ideas and barely disguised impatience.
"Hmmm," Lewrie sobered, pondering that galling event and weakening a trifle.
"And, have we not, sir, with you as our guide, already set an example as being more than ready to, uhm… extemporise if needs must, Captain?" Devereux pled.
"Extemporise," Lewrie scoffed as they paced forward to amidships of the windward gangway. "Now, there's a word that covers a multitude of sins. Damn my eyes, Mister Devereux. Are you pissing down my back? 'With me as our guide'? Christ on a crutch!" he snorted dismissively.
"We may not be able to swap for them, sir, but your friend the colonel could, ah… spirit them away for us?" Devereux schemed. "Or fusils could be explained away as personal weapons of our officers and gentlemen midshipmen, sir. Kept aft in the gun-room or your cabins…'til we get a chance to go ashore and hunt? Sporting arms, sir, aha! After all, fusils arose as officers' weapons back in the Seven Years' War, so they could appear as common soldiers to French or Indian sharpshooters, and not be targeted as leaders… but didn't wish to bear the burden of a Brown Bess musket. A fusil is much lighter…"
"No, we must never overburden officers," Lewrie laughed aloud. "They've enough stress, already!"
Hmmm, though…
Personally, he liked the.54 calibre fusil musket, and had from his first experience with them, with Kit Cashman, at the tail end of the American Revolution, even fetching off one as a memento of their failed expedition up the Appalachicola River in Spanish Florida. And where was it now? Hanging over the mantel in his private office/study at home in Anglesgreen… that is, had Caroline not sold it or given it away out of bloody-minded spite.
"If all else fails, sir, we could claim we captured them off a suspect merchantman, or a privateer, or…" Devereux hinted.
"You wish 'em hellish-bad, don't you, Mister Devereux?"
"I do, indeed, sir!" Devereux vowed, childishly hopeful.
"Even if that means sailing back to Kingston for 'em and exposing our new hands to recapture? Us into court? Or letting your new Marines ashore for liberty, where they might brag and get us hung?"
"Well, uhm…" Devereux shied, with a painful squint. "Do you put it that way, sir… I know it's a risk, but I still think that did we have them, it would be in the ship's best interests, Captain."
"Dear me, Mister Devereux," Lewrie said, checking their pacing, and with a sad shake of his head, "but I do believe we've managed to corrupt even such a proper young fellow as you! Society ought to lock us all away as a threat to the Public Good."
