Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey

"Dey started barkin' and splashin', an' I thought ever'body was gonna die o' fright 'til we saw what dey was, sah." Andrews chuckled. "Swam out with us, dey did, rollin' an' snortin' so close, dey made it hard t'keep de stroke fo' de oarsmen. Leadin' us, sah, out to de deep water. Stayed with us almos' right to de side, sah, den disappeared."

Lewrie dashed to the landward, the larboard side, to peer out almost anxiously for a glimpse of them, but the night was black and the sea was ebon, with only tropic starlight to gleam off whitecaps and horses as the deep ocean waves met the shore, and the rebounding echoes of those that had crashed on the beaches hours before.

There! he thought, espying a misplaced whitecap between wavetops in a trough, the faintest, quickest glimpse of a head, a flash of eyes, as briefly chatoyant as a cat's from the single burning lanthorn, lambent and large approving sea-hound's eyes…

Then the apparition was gone as if it had never been, as if he had wished it to be, leaving him grinning when he should have been deflated with disappointment and dread of his crime.

"Damme, if I don't feel we've done something right, tonight," Lewrie said. "Even was it wrong."

"Aye, sah."

There came a whoop as a new-come was hosed down under the force of the wash-deck pump, turning and shivering naked, along with a laugh from his waiting companions and the off-watch crew who'd gathered for the show, encouraging him to make the best of it.

Mr. Winwood came forward, a bared sword in his right hand, once the fellow was through, urging everyone to hush. He laid the blade on the man's right shoulder, as if conferring knighthood, and said, "With God as my witness, I christen thee in a new life and a new name. Put on sailor's clothing and be known as…"

"Abraham," the former slave supplied, in an awed tone.

"As Abraham Howe. Welcome aboard, lad!" Winwood cried, laying the sword on his left shoulder then the top of his head, eliciting a round of applause from the sailors, and two dozen hands to be shaken.

"Uhmm… Andrews," Lewrie murmured.

"Aye, sah?"

"You might, uhm… pass the word among the crew. About those seals? Might make them easier of mind about our little raid," Lewrie suggested.

"Oh, aye, sah!" Andrews laughed, tumbling to it. "By de way, sah?

Don't know if ya ever knew it, but my slave name was Caesar, sah. My ol' massa name me after some damn' ol' Roman," Andrews said in a soft voice, as if daring to suggest a first-name basis.

"Want to pick another whilst Mister Winwood's dolin' 'em out?" Lewrie replied with a tentative chuckle, feeling that there was an accusation in there someplace. It stung, in fact, since he had known it, ages before, but had quite forgotten it; like any seaman aboard ship, Andrews was "Andrews" or "Coxswain," known by his place and his duty, with nothing more required between a common seaman and an officer. If Andrews, to hide his identity in the Navy, had chosen a new name, a new first name, when he'd run away, he'd never bothered to learn it, either!

"Think ah'd have t'strip an' bathe, sah?" Andrews asked, a tiny mocking edge to his voice.

"Mister Winwood's Church of England, not a Dissenter, so total immersion's probably not necessary," Lewrie said, tongue in cheek, to jape Andrews out of whatever "pet" he was in. "A wee dribble atop yer head'll be all." Damn, he still couldn't recall his first name!

"Ah'll stick with the one ah got then, sah," Andrews said, as if weary of trying. "Too many ship's books, an' those fake papers you and Mistah Padgett done for me, already got it down."

"I'd admire, did you have a word with our new volunteers, once they're named and settled in," Lewrie went on as if Andrews had not put him on the spot, for whatever bloody reason. "Cruel as it was, they might be feeling a touch homesick."

"Missin' dey mamas an' daddies, sah," Andrews expounded. "And worryin' 'bout how bad de beatin's and whuppin's gonna be when dey is missed. Gonna be a ruckus raised. White folks is antsy enough 'bout runaways and rebel slaves, already."

"You don't think they'd talk, do you?" Lewrie asked suddenly.

"I think dey'd die fo' dey say a word, sah," Andrews told him, turning to face him in the darkness for a moment. "Deir sons is free, and dot's all dot matters. De massas are fooled, with a scare put on 'em, and dot sort o' victory's worth all de lashes dey can deal out."

"But they'll still be homesick," Lewrie pressed.

"Aye, sah, dey will. And I'll talk with 'em, and try to ease dey minds."

Matthew! Lewrie suddenly recalled, after frantically dredging his memory; his first name's Matthew!

"I'd admire that… Matthew Andrews."

"Aye, sah."

In the faint gleam of the single lanthorn, Lewrie could see his eyes brighten.

"Carry on, then, Cox'n."

Saepe trucem adverso perlabi sidere pontum?

Saepe m are audendo vincere, saepe hiemem?

How oft under unkindly stars thou glidest over the

savage deep? How oft in thy daring thou conquerest

the sea, and oft the storm?

Catalepton, IX 47-48

PUBLIUS VlRGILIUS MARO "VIRGIL"

P roteus now had a distinguished list of names on her books for all the world to wonder at; there was a Howe, a Hood, an Anson, even a Byng. There was a skinny little runt going by George Rodney, another by Hawke, yet another was now a Cook, a massive teenager who still was growing (if such a thing were possible for someone already built like Atlas) was named Jones Nelson. And, of course, there was a Groome, to reflect his slave duties as a horsetender; a Carpenter, a Sawyer, even a Brewster, for a slightly older fellow who'd tended the vats where the molasses had been turned to rum. Along the same line, Proteus boasted a Newcastle, a Bass, and a Samuel Whitbread, in honour of their favourite imported English beers; even if they'd never been allowed a taste, the stone bottles and names emblazoned on them had been thought of as a white man's, their masters', ambrosia.

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.