Once the last gun had been fired, Marine Lieutenant Simcock came to the top of the starboard ladderway. “Beg pardons, sir, but, given our departure for England, I wonder if ‘Spanish Ladies’ might be welcome.”

“A fine idea, Mister Simcock!” Lewrie heartily agreed. “Carry on and put a good pace to it, as you did before.”

“‘Fa-are-well, and a-dieu, to you fine Spanish la-adies, fa-are-well, and adieu, to you la-dies of Spain! Fo-or we’ve received orders to sail for Old England, but we hope very shortly to see you again! We’ll rant and we’ll roll, like true British sailor-men, we’ll rant and we’ll roll, all across the salt seas, ’til we strike Soundings in the Channel of Old England, then straight up the Channel to Portsmouth we’ll go!’”

Reliant’s sailors were bound for home. It was a beautiful morning of fresh-washed blue skies and white clouds, and the waters in the channel out to sea were clear enough to see schools of fish darting from the frigate’s shadow, the waters shading off to the most brilliant blue-green, bright jade green, and aquamarine. Now that the running rigging was belayed on fife and pin-rails, the excess flaked or flemished down, and the sails drawing well without tending, the crew could find time to sing, belting out the words with the joy of departing.

Older mast-captains and the younger and spryer captains of the tops had gathered in a group atop a hatch grating beneath the cross-deck timbers of the boat-tier beams in the waist, forming an impromptu chorus, swinging their arms as if their hands already held home-brewed ale mugs in their favourite old taverns.

“‘No-ow I’ve been a topman, and I’ve been a gunner’s mate, I can dance, I can sing, a-and walk the jib-boom! I can han-dle a cutlass, and cut a fine figure, whenever I’m given en-nough standing room!

“‘We’ll rant and we’ll roar, like true British sailormen, we’ll rant and we’ll roar, both aloft and be-low! ’Til we sight Lizard, on the coast of Old England, then straight up the Chan-nel to Portsmouth we’ll go!’” that chorus roared, and the ship’s boys, the cabin servants who served as nippers and powder-monkeys, pranced and practiced their horn-pipes round the covered hatchway, and the very youngest raced round and shrieked with delight, with Bisquit in pursuit, or being the chased, it was hard to tell which.

“Let them rant, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked as he joined Lewrie by the windward bulwarks.

“Aye, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie replied, a happy grin on his face, and his right hand beating the time on the cap-rails as he sang along now and then. “It’ll take half an hour more before we haul off Nor’west. They’ll play out long before then.”

He looked aft towards the larboard quarter to see Arawak Cay and the eastern tip of Long Cay well clear; off the starboard quarter stood the long spit of Hog Island. And framed between the taffrail lanthorns lay the harbour channel and the town of Nassau, glowing in an infinite variety of pastel paint on the walls, already shrinking away, the green hills of early Spring turning brown and dusty in the glare of late Summer.

“Mind, though,” Lewrie said, “does the wind give you an opportunity, I’ll have the fore course, main course, and t’gallants filled.”

“I don’t suppose it matters at this point, sir, what our duty will be once we leave the dockyards,” Westcott said with a shrug. “I only hope whatever we’re set to is as successful as our last.”

“Even if it ended badly,” Lewrie said, sighing and leaving the bulwarks to walk a few paces forward to look down into the waist at his singing and capering crewmen. “Damme, I’m going to miss Darling, Bury, and Lovett. We made a hellish-good team!”

“But, with any luck, sir, we’ll find another,” Westcott said with a hopeful tone.

“We’ll see,” Lewrie said, nodding. “We’ll see.”

BOOK ONE

KING:

Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver

Our puissance into the hand of God,

Putting it straight in expedition.

Cheerly to sea the signs of war advance.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

T HE L IFE OF K ING

HENRYTHEFIFTH,

ACT II, SCENE II, 189–192

CHAPTER TEN

Calling upon the Port Admiral of Portsmouth was always a dicey proposition. Admiral Lord Gardner was a lean and sour older fellow, “all sealing wax, stay tape, and buckram”, it was said of him (as well as his contemporary at Plymouth), who never seemed to have a good day, and God help the fool, or fools, who crossed him, disappointed, discomfitted, or disturbed him, for he never would suffer fools gladly. And this morning, he was looking particularly dys-peptic.

“Lewrie … Lewrie…,” Lord Gardner mused, working his mouth as if he’d bitten into a rotten lemon, or had dentures made by an itinerant Gypsy tinker. “Aha, sir! I recall you, now. You have not brought in any more of your secret, explosive thing-gummies, have you? Has he, Niles?” Lord Gardner snapped, turning to peer at his long-suffering senior Post-Captain aide. “Come to blow us all to Kingdom Come, has he?”

“Not this time, milord,” Captain Niles informed his master with a genial grin. “Our experiments with those infernal engines are done, and good riddance. Complete failures.”

“For which I say thank God, my lord,” Lewrie stuck in.

“His orders, milord,” Captain Niles said, efficiently whipping the single opened sheet of paper out and laying it on the desk before Lord Gardner, who picked it up and peered at it, myopically, his face in a grim and distasteful moue as if expecting the worst.

“This Commodore Grierson detaches you from his squadron, with orders for England, for a re-fit?” Lord Gardner huffed, waving those orders about. “What an impertinent, jumped-up pop-in-jay he must be, to assume that he may declare authority over His Majesty’s Dockyards, and send us whom he will!”

“Well, my lord, not a thorough re-fit, just a hull cleaning,” Lewrie offered, hoping that the lesser request would mollify him. “Reliant is very weeded, and slow after being brought out of Ordinary in April of 1803, and the bulk of her active commission has been in Bermudan, Bahamian, West Indies, and other tropic waters. The Gulf of Mexico, off Spanish Florida, and the Southern American coast?”

“He also ordered you to strike your broad pendant and sail away?” Lord Gardner gawped. “You are not sent home to face charges at a court-martial, are you, Lewrie? Under some cloud or other?”

“No, sir!” Lewrie quickly assured him. “He came up from Antigua with two sixty-fours, a Fifth Rate and two Sixth Rate frigates, and two more brig-sloops, and deemed my Fifth Rate redundant to his needs. As you will note, too, my lord, he deemed my small squadron’s duties against privateers sufficiently done, and that his new-come warships could do a much better job of keepin’ an eye on any new outbreak of raiders. And, he wanted the three wee ships under me for other duties down-islands. And, since he’s senior to me by nigh two years, there it is, my lord.”

“And you just let him order you to strike your flag and slink off?” Admiral Lord Gardner spat in astonishment.

“With the threat of privateers reduced, and their bases along the American coast eliminated, there was little I could do to argue the point, my lord,” Lewrie told him with a hopeless shrug.

“By God, but he takes a lot upon himself!” Gardner gravelled. “Henry Grierson … Henry Grierson. Who the Devil is he, Niles? Have you ever heard of him?”