“Yes, sir. I’ll fetch it.” Pettus said.
“Pettus?” Westcott interrupted. “Given the circumstances, I’d like to sample Captain Lewrie’s American corn whisky.”
“Of course, sir,” Pettus said, smiling.
* * *
The First Dog Watch was about to end, and the Second Dog to begin, and the sun was sinking towards the Western horizon, the heat of the day yielding at last to a refreshing breeze. Lewrie mounted to the poop deck for a breath of that cooler air, looking aloft at the sails and commissioning pendant, scanning all about for threatening weather, and hoping that the faint tinges out sunward would turn into a spectacular red and gold splendour.
HMS Sapphire loafed along under easy sail, head of the column of warships for a few minutes more, with smoke rising from the galley funnel as the crew’s supper was boiled. After the exertions of the day, Sapphire’s people were at their ease, some below napping ’til called to their messes, but most were on deck savouring the air and the sights to see. Pipes fumed here and there, and the spit-kids were surrounded by those who chewed. The scuttlebutts did a lively business as hands awaited the second rum issue, taking a dip of water before the real stuff arrived.
And, there were novel things to see. The hard-won prizes were departing, at last, a separate four-ship squadron in their own right, with British ensigns streaming, showing their sterns as they shaped course for England, and some people cheered their departure and the leave-taking of shipmates chosen for the prize crew.
Off shoreward, the few merchantmen taken before encountering the French warships, their civilian crews landed ashore to make their own way to France long before, were burning fiercely. Compared to the prize frigates, their value was paltry, and the demand for more men than usual to sail the prizes home and guard so many prisoners made the men aboard the captured merchantmen needed on their own ships.
Lewrie pulled out his pocket watch to check the time, nodded, and went back down to the quarterdeck for the change of watch. Acting-Lieutenant Hillhouse, very proud of his new status, even if it was temporary, was about to be relieved by Acting–Sailing Master Mr. Stubbs, who would stand watches with the ship so short-handed. Lewrie took a peek into the open door to the re-erected sea cabin which the late Mr. Yelland had occupied. Stubbs had already made it his own, and if God was just, there would be no more noxious reeks emanating from it, or the chart room on the other side of the quarterdeck, either.
“Is my signal ready to be hoisted, Mister Hillhouse?” Lewrie asked.
“Aye, sir, Mister Carey has it bent on,” Hillhouse crisply reported. “At the last stroke of Eight Bells.”
“Very well,” Lewrie said, nodding. He went back to the poop, just to the top of the ladderway, and looked forward to the boy at the forecastle belfry, eyes glued to his sand glass and the whitened rope to the clapper in his hand.
Eight Bells chimed in four double-chimed strokes.
Lewrie looked aft to see Midshipman Carey and the men of the signal party hoisting away, and the hoist breaking open to stream his “Goodbye … Godspeed” to his squadron.
His squadron.
The last stroke of Eight Bells was also time for his broad pendant to be struck, and he watched that triangle of red bunting with its white ball in the centre be run down the halliard, un-bent, and folded. Midshipman Chenery brought it to him.
Now it was no longer his squadron, but Capt. Chalmers’s.
“Alter course to Due West, Mister Stubbs,” Lewrie ordered.
“Due West, aye sir. Bosun Terrell, pipe hands to stations to alter course! Man sheets and braces!” Stubbs roared, in a loud and carrying voice un-expected from such a terrier-like man.
And HMS Sapphire peeled away from the head of the column of ships, swinging her bows about to sail into the sunset, one that was pleasingly turning into the sort that Lewrie had hoped for. He went on up to pace the poop deck, his broad pendant held over both hands as if to warm them, wondering if he would ever hoist another, or have a deck under his feet, again.
He snapped about to peer aft at the sound of gunfire! Had the French prisoners risen and re-taken their ships?
No, it was Undaunted, firing a departure salute to him; gun after gun, as steady as a metronome down her side, and Lewrie took his hat off and held it aloft long after the last shot fired and died away.
Goodbye, and an end to a too-short adventure.
Godspeed to the next?
He dearly hoped so.
Also by Dewey Lambdin
The King’s Coat
The French Admiral
The King’s Commission
The King’s Privateer
The Gun Ketch
H.M.S. Cockerel
A King’s Commander
Jester’s Fortune
King’s Captain
Sea of Grey
Havoc’s Sword
The Captain’s Vengeance
A King’s Trade
Troubled Waters
The Baltic Gambit
King, Ship, and Sword
The Invasion Year
Reefs and Shoals
Hostile Shores
The King’s Marauder
Kings and Emperors
About the Author
DEWEY LAMBDIN is the author of twenty-one previous Alan Lewrie novels. A member of the U.S. Naval Institute and a Friend of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, he spends his free time working and sailing. He makes his home in Nashville, Tennessee, but would much prefer Margaritaville or Murrells Inlet. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Diagram of Full-Rigged Ship
Diagram of Points of Sail and 32-Point Wind-Rose
Map of Golfo de Vizcaya
Map of Iberian Peninsula
Epigraph
Book One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Book Two
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Book Three
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Book Four
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Also by Dewey Lambdin
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
A HARD, CRUEL SHORE. Copyright © 2016 by Dewey Lambdin. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 1001
0.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Maps by Cameron MacLeod Jones
Cover design by David Curtis
Cover art: Battle Between the French Frigate ‘Aretbuse’ and the English Frigate ‘Amelia’ in View of the Islands of Loz, 7th February 1813 (oil on canvas), Crepin, Louis Philippe (1772–1851)/Château de Versailles, France/Bridgeman Images
Cover photographs: parchment © Tischenko Irina/Shutterstock; compass © rangizzz/Shutterstock
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Lambdin, Dewey, author.
Title: A hard, cruel shore: an Alan Lewrie naval adventure / Dewey Lambdin.
Description: First edition.|New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2016.|Series: Alan Lewrie naval adventures; 22
Identifiers: LCCN 2015039020|ISBN 978-1-250-03009-2 (hardcover)|ISBN 978-1-250-03008-5 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Lewrie, Alan (Fictitious character)—Fiction.|Ship captains—Great Britain—Fiction.|Great Britain—History, Naval—19th century—Fiction.|BISAC: FICTION / Action & Adventure.|FICTION / Historical.|FICTION / Sea Stories.|GSAFD: Sea stories.|Historical fiction.|Adventure fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3562.A435 H37 2016|DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039020
e-ISBN 9781250030085
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First Edition: February 2016