Sea of Grey by Dewey Lambdin

Author:Dewey Lambdin [Lambdin, Dewey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9780312320164
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Published: 2002-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Captain Joshua Kershaw, U.S. Navy, was a hearty older fellow, a tall, bluff, and stout man in his fifties, and in his youth might have been a most handsome and impressive physical specimen. His waistcoat strained over a rounded abdomen, and his thighs were as thick as standing rib roasts. His jowls were round, and he wore a white side-curled wig that was much too small for a head that large, yet he appeared elegant, and well turned out. Though Lewrie did find the American Navy uniform a bit too like the French to suit him.

The turn-backs, lapels, collar, and cuffs of Kershaw's dark blue coat were French-style red, as was his waistcoat, nicely trimmed with gold lace and gilt buttons. His breeches were dark blue, though, not French red, or the usual white.

"Such -a fine ship, sir!" Captain Machias Wilder off the Bantam, Kershaw's other supper guest, exclaimed for at least the tenth time in as many minutes on their abbreviated tour of the Hancock, as he looked over the sumptuous decor of the great-cabins. "Aye, ye're fortunate, sir, t'be appointed into her."

"You are, indeed, Captain Kershaw," Lewrie agreed, keeping professional appreciation—nigh awe!—to a minimum.

"Just goes t'show what American know-how can do, Cap'um Lewrie," Wilder boasted as a cabin servant took their hats and swords. "I pity the French frigate that tries t'cross hawse with her."

Wilder, by contrast, was a wizened little fellow dressed in somber black "ditto," a civilian suiting, and eschewed a cocked hat for a narrow-brimmed "thimble" of a thing, much like what Lewrie's Marines of late were issued. Wilder was a Downeaster, a very brisk, older, classic Yankee from Connecticut, with the stereotypical nasal twang and fast speech that the London stages so delighted in twitting.

Unlike most folk, he wore grizzled grey whiskers and—from the way he had pranced about, all but stamping his feet and clapping hands in paroxyms of wonder on their abbreviated tour of the ship—had made Lewrie think of him as a short-haired terrier puppy, like to soil the deck if he got any more excited.

"For a poor old man from South Carolina, I s'pose I am lucky at that, Captain Wilder," Kershaw said with a proud and pleased simper. "Sit, gentlemen, sit. We'll have us a pre-prandial, before our supper is ready."

He steered them to some wingback chairs done up in red leather and nailheads, and puttered about at his cherry-wood and brass-trimmed wine cabinet.

Lewrie shot his cuffs, settled the tail of his handsome new cotton dress coat, and crossed his legs at the knee, surreptitiously eying the great-cabins, measuring worth; again, he was impressed. There were good figured carpets on the deck, atop a painted canvas covering of a solid colour. Despite the artillery bowsed to the ports, it was an elegant place, agleam with wax on the overhead deck beams and wainscotting. The furniture was mostly cherry or oddly pale washed oak, and was awash in brass, coin-silver, or gilded fittings. On one bulkhead in the dining-coach was a portrait of the ship's namesake, the Hancock of Revolutionary patriot fame.

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