A King's Commander (50 page)

S
ir?”
Knolles prompted, a little closer to Lewrie's ear, and giving him a “gentlemanly” nudge. “Sir?”

“I'm awake, sir,” Lewrie grumbled, rising from a treacly sleep from his wood-and-canvas deck chair. He fought the constricting folds of his boat cloak, sensing immediately that the weather had changed.

“Wind's died out, sir,” Knolles reported, fighting a yawn himself. “The last five minutes, it went scant, then . . . nothing.”

Jester
was rocking and heaving, her timbers and yards groaning in protest and her sails slatting like flapping laundry amidst all the squeaking of parrel blocks and pulleys. Lewrie marveled that he could have slept so soundly through all that. “What's the time?” he asked.

“Two bells of the morning just went, sir,” Knolles informed him. “I make it about a quarter-hour to false dawn, sir. Sorry, sir, but as we kept both watches on deck all night, I held off on pumping and swabbing, and let the hands caulk for a bit. Do you wish me to . . .”

“No no, you did quite right, Mister Knolles.” Lewrie shivered, wrapping himself in the boat cloak again. “Galley fires going? Soup's the thing. Soup and gruel. Cold . . . but clear.”

“Remarkably clear, sir.” Knolles grinned. Or fought a yawn, it was hard to tell. “The sea's moderating, too.”

“Just what I feared.” Lewrie groaned. “Good as stranded, much too far to seaward. Northerly, or a Levanter easterly to come, after sunrise proper. Beat for hours to get back inshore, against the land breeze. I s'pose there's no sign of our Chase?”

“Uhm . . . not yet, sir,” Knolles had to admit. “But we can see a bit better now.”

The moon had set, but their world was a nebulous charcoal gray, disturbed only by an occasional whitecap. The coast was definable . . . just barely. About ten miles off, that solid blackness? he thought. Off which a morning's land breeze would flow, dammit to hell. Maybe a nor'wester, to begin with, before the ocean heated and countered, from whatever capricious direction the Ligurian Sea had in mind today?

“If the galley fires are going, I'd admire some coffee,” Lewrie said. “And an idea how far west we were blown during the night.”

“I'll send a messenger down to roust your steward, sir,” Lieutenant Knolles offered. But Aspinall clomped up the larboard ladder from the gun deck, having already made a trip to the galley. For a warm-up, if nothing else, Lewrie thought, uncharitable that early in the morning. He cradled a battered old lidded pot, and bore some tin mugs on a string.

“Coffee, sir? Coffee, Mister Knolles, sir?” He beamed. “Got enough fer all, sir. Thought th' gennlemen'd relish a spot o' hot.”

Toulon had gone with him on his errand, for a bite of something from the cooks, who ever would spoil him. Now he came prancing up the ladders to the quarterdeck, tail stiffly erect and
“maiwee?”
-ing
for a good-morning rub. He leapt atop the hammock nettings to greet Lewrie with loud demands for attention. After a warming sip or two, Alan went to him to give at least a one-handed tussling and stroking.

He stiffened suddenly, stopped his frantic purring, and turned to look to the north. His ears laid back, his back hairs and tail got bottled up, and he craned his neck, whiskers well forward.

A faint whicker of wind came from there, the worst direction of all, to Lewrie's lights, just as Knolles extracted his pocket watch to state that it was now time for false dawn.

“Sail
ho!”
a forecastle lookout yelped. “
Four
points off th'
star-
b'd
bows!”

“Due north?” Lewrie gulped. “Due north of us?” He looked at the cat, wondering whether he'd sensed the wind's arrival, or caught a scent of that ship . . . Toulon was now busy washing himself, intent on a paw, and the side of his face that Lewrie had tussled.

“What
sort
o' sail?” Knolles bellowed back.

“Tartane
,
sir!” came the quick reply. “Close-hauled t'th' nor-east! 'Tis
her,
d'ye hear, there!”

“Get us underway on starboard tack, Mister Knolles. Sheet home and brace in. Full-and-by to weather,” Lewrie demanded. Coffee mug in one hand, telescope slung open in the other, and laid on the mizzen shrouds to starboard, he espied her. Aye, a two-masted tartane
,
about three miles off, showing them her stern as she ghosted against a faint land breeze, pointing higher than
Jester
ever could but riding so slow her decks were level, even with her bows as close to the wind's eye as she could lie, with her lateen yards braced in almost fore-and-aft.

Slowly, just as painfully slowly as the tartane
crawled,
Jester
began to gather headway, to pinch up point at a time to the wind, her bows at last aimed west-nor'west, as close as
she
could lie. Two knots were reported, then three, when the log was cast astern.

“Good mornin', sir,” Buchanon reported to the quarterdeck. “I'm happy someone can find something good about it,” Alan said as he finished his coffee. “Do you give me a rough idea of position, I would be much obliged, Mister Buchanon.”

“Aye, sir,” Buchanon replied, crisply cheerful as Aspinall gave him a mug as well. “But I make 'at cape off th' larb'd bows t'be th' one guardin' Finale. 'At isle t'th' north'rd, 'at'd be sou'-sou'west o' Vado Bay, sir. 'Bout ten mile offshore, we are. Didn't get blown half so far'z I'd thought, Cap'um. 'At our Chase, at last? Th' poor bugger's on th' wrong tack, don't ya think, sir?”

“She's three miles ahead, sir, that's what I think,” Lewrie shot back. “Up to windward, safe as houses.”

On a hugely diverging course, too. The tartane
was beating to the nor'east, but had bags of room in which to tack, safely two miles out of gun range. She could turn nor'west for the coast
between
the island and the western headland, and there were inlets aplenty for a beaching, in shallow water where
Jester
could never dare go.

“Four knots! Four knots t'this log!”

The best Lewrie could hope was to stay on this starboard tack, gain speed as the wind rose, as it seemed to be wanting to, to deny her a shot at tacking further west. It wasn't over yet . . . there might come a patrol from Vado Bay. But so far, though, they had the morning sea to themselves.

“Five knots, sir!” Spendlove shouted.

“We'll tack, sir?” Knolles asked. “There's wind enough.”

“No, not yet, sir,” Lewrie decided, feeling an urge to chew on a thumbnail. “We'd lose ground on her, she'd tack once we were on a new course, and force us to do it all over again. We'd fall even more behind. Hands aloft, and shake out the night reefs. Let's fill every sail bellyful.”

“Aye aye, sir!”

Six knots, then seven at times; nothing to write home about with pleasure, but
Jester
was increasing her speed, two miles nearer to that coast pointed just east of Finale's headland. Now and then the winds grew a tiny bit stronger, backing a little east of north, and Spenser and Brauer luffed her up into it to wring every inch of advantage from the puffs.

“Deck, there!” a foremast lookout called down. Once the dawn had come, men could be posted aloft, once more. “Chase is tackin'!”

“Had to, sir,” Buchanon opined. “She stood any more east'rd . . . she'd end up in Vado Bay. She was a'ready level with th' island.”

“We're at west-nor'west, she's making nor'west, two points higher to windward, though, Mister Buchanon.”

“But closin' th' range, sir. Closin' th' range.”

Lewrie eyed her again with his telescope. The tartane
was hard on the wind, on starboard tack now. Her decks were still fairly level, though, which puzzled him.
Jester
was beginning to heel, as if being two miles farther out at sea they'd caught a stiffer wind than what it might be like closer inshore, under the shadow of the rugged coastal heights.

“Run out the starboard battery, run-in larboard!” Lewrie barked.

“Seven-and-a-half knots, sir!” Spendlove shrilled.

Jester
was really moving now, no matter how average the winds. With her longer waterline and greater weight, once she got a way on she tenaciously held it, in even the lightest winds, as the tartane
could not. For once, she was the shorter vessel, the one more prone to fall off, to slough and slow. As she did, even as he watched! To sail as fast as she needed to, she'd have to fall away from close-hauled, let the wind cross her decks a little more abeam, on a close reach. Slow to gather way, and quick to lose it, beating to wind-ward could result in her crawling at a snail's pace, cocked up but going nowhere.

Was it his imagination, did she appear to be falling off? To the same compass heading as
Jester,
west-nor'west? And trending aft.

Jester
was outfooting her to the coastal shallows, which were now only five miles off!

“Abeam,” Lewrie said with satisfaction a half hour later, now within two miles of that rocky shoreline. The Chase was almost abeam, and closer to
Jester,
as she'd pinched up and luffed to weather, every opportunity; at least a half mile nearer, though still tantalizingly a half mile outside the most optimistic shooting range. “She'll not get to Finale, at this rate. If that's where she was headed.”

Had the tartane
been on starboard tack when the wind came back, had she tacked immediately, she'd have been gone long since, but it'd still be a close-run thing. The closer
Jester
got under the lee of a tall range of coastal hills, the more fickle and weak the wind was for her, too. His telescope revealed no shelving beaches ahead, no inlets in which to flee. Behind the island, yes, there was a deep inlet, but they'd have to tack soon, if they wished to get back to it.

“Deck, there! Chase is tacking!”

“Reading my bloody mind,” Lewrie grumbled. Now, she's able to steer nor'east by east, run along the coast to pick her spot . . . “Mister Knolles, we will—at last—tack ship!”

“Aye aye, sir!”

Around
Jester
came, thrashing and flogging, carrying her way into the turn smoothly, pivoting, it seemed, almost in her own length, it was so quickly done by a well-drilled ship's company. Slowing as sails were laid aback, of course, as fore-and-aft sails flagged and fluttered lift from themselves. But surging back to seven, almost eight knots within a scant couple of minutes. Now the Chase lay just one point off their larboard bows, and within a mile-and-a-quarter.

“Run out larboard battery, run-in starboard to the centerline,” Lewrie shouted, once
Jester
was stable. That made a tiny difference, though the tartane
still pointed about ten degrees higher to wind-ward, even sailing “a point free” of close-hauled for more speed.

“Lookit th' sea, Cap'um!” Buchanon shouted suddenly, pointing ahead. “Lookit th' sea!”

“Meet her, Spenser, meet her!” Lewrie warned, as the wind laid a brush on his left cheek. There was a rising zephyr, one which backed a point or more, with which they could luff up to claw at least a cable of advantage to windward.

There were ripples on the slow-heaving wave tops around
Jester
's
bows, out ahead and inshore of her. There were
not,
out where the Chase lay! There, the sea was oily-smooth, glittering with many small inshore chops, but the tops of the wavelets were undisturbed. Beyond, tempting but unreachable yet, the winds rippled the waters, but the tartane
had staggered into a flat, limpid circular pool of calm.

“I see it, Mister Buchanon!” Lewrie almost laughed with glee. The tartane
would take a long minute to coast through the calm patch of water, slowing all the time, her shorter waterline shedding speed while
Jester
stood on through it. She could tack, but tacking might slow her even more. And did the winds return to that calm patch, they might be perverse and “head” her more westerly than she wished.

“I make her no more'n a mile off now, Cap'um,” Buchanon said, after taking her measure with a sextant. “Almost gun range. An' th' shore, maybe a mile and a half off.”

The tartane
rode it out, coasting through the calm, with
Jester
marching up her stern relentlessly. Then caught the edge of the wind beyond, her sails luffing as it took her bows-on. “Headed, by God!” Knolles cried out with delight.

She fell away, crossing to dead on
Jester
's
bows, poised over a rhythmically rising bowsprit and jib boom, having lost at least a half-mile lead, and forced down more easterly. Unless she tacked, she'd be thrown below and east of the island, toward the western headland that marked Vado Bay. She'd shave the island, on her present course.