H. M. S. Cockerel (16 page)

“Lor', sir! Indiamen, sure'z Fate. Too fancy t'be 1st Rates . . . e'en Frog 1st Rates,” he cackled. “Be some prize money comin' our way, by God, they'll be, Mister Lewrie. Whaww, though . . .”

“Where away?” Lewrie asked, knowing from Gittons's cautious tone there was trouble in gaining that fortune in prize money.

“Almos' dead on th' bows, sir . . . 'at fifth sail? Abeam th' wind, almos' cocked up full-an'-by. 5th Rate, I say, sir. Big frigate.”

Lewrie retrieved his telescope and swung it to the left. There was a large ship there, at right angles to their course, one of the big forty-four-gunned 5th Rates the French were building, with eighteen- or twenty-four-pounders . . . the sort of frigate they might use to command a small overseas squadron. And she was already flying her national colours, the vertical stripes of blue-white-red of Republican France.

“Warship!” Lewrie bawled. “Deck, there! Frigate on our lee bow!”

He took hold of the standing backstay, slung the telescope on his shoulder, and half-slid, half-monkeyed his way back down, his legs clasped about the stay.

“A 5th Rate, sir?” Braxton demanded before his feet hit the deck. “A warship, sir? What about the others?”

“Indiamen, sir. With one warship for escort. They're running almost free on a landsman's breeze,” Lewrie explained, panting with his exertion and his excitement. “She's bearing almost north, close-hauled, to interpose. She'll cross our bows in a few minutes, sir.”

Braxton tucked his hands behind his back and paced the wind-ward side of the quarterdeck, a naval captain's inviolate sanctuary when he was on deck. Lewrie noted that Braxton's blunt fingers were twining and fretting.

“And the squadron, Mister Lewrie?” he grimaced, turning to look in-board to his officers.

“Uhm . . . coming up astern, sir. I didn't . . .” He flushed.

Petulance twisted Braxton's mouth; it looked like he had muttered
fool!
“Aloft, there! What of the squadron?”

“Courses 'bove t' horizon, sir!” the lookout shouted back. “Be line-abreast, starboard quarter' off t' wind, sir!”

God, one could espy their tops'ls from the deck, Lewrie thought! There they were, stretched out, bows-on to
Cockerel,
arrayed like beads on a string, a little sou'west of her stern. Were there to be a fight, they could bear off, or bear up to windward, and form line-of-battle. Or dash on, if Vice-Admiral Cosby ordered general chase, and run those Frog merchantmen to ground, one at a time.

“Mister Lewrie,” Captain Braxton decided, snapping his fingers to summon him to the windward side. “We'll harden up, close-hauled.”

“Same course as yon forty-four, sir,” Lewrie nodded in understanding. “Trading shots with her, though, sir . . . eighteen-pounders . . .”

“Are you a coward, as well as a fool, sir?” Braxton blustered.

“Sir, I am not!” Lewrie shot back. “I'm as ready as you, when it comes to fighting this ship. I wished to ask if you wanted to overhaul in her best gun range, sir, or lask down to her on a bowand-quarter-line. Allow me to suggest we lask, sir, then haul our wind, cross her stern and rake her . . . sir.”

Call me any kind of fool, or sham, he thought; but you
never
call me a coward, you bastard. Now you go too bloody far!

As if sensing that he
had
gone too far, Braxton stifled a belchlike flood of outrage which rose in his chest, and turned away.

“Close-hauled, aye aye, sir,” Lewrie parroted, going amidships. “Bosun, hands to the braces! Hard-sheets! Lay her full-and-by!”

He could see the French frigate from the deck by then, long and sleek, like a cut-down line-of-battle ship, a touch of poop, a bit of forecastle, with her courses well up over the horizon. She swung from dead on their bows to the starboard side, just forward of abeam as
Cockerel
turned nor'east. They would slowly overhaul, and head-reach her on this course, though a couple of miles out of gunnery range. Or their own. Alan expected her to haul her wind any moment. Surely the French lookouts could see the squadron's threatening tops'ls by then.

What a bloody wasted effort, Lewrie thought, his senses acute and calculating. He felt they should be hauling their wind, going for the Frog 5th Rate like a terrier, then nipping past her stern at close range. Give her a well-timed broadside, then dash on past to get at the merchantmen. Every ship in sight would share in the prize money if one or all of them were taken. But
Cockerel
was the only frigate present—the rest were too far to the south, or far to the north of the squadron. Their misfortune, he smirked! Out of sight, out of the running. And that was what frigates were for.

Cockerel
barreled on, surging and slashing at the uncooperative sea, slowly head-reaching until the French warship was just a bit aft of abeam. They could turn now, go tearing down on her, and still pass within half a cable of her stern, if she held her course and did not shorten sail. Lewrie began to pat his foot in anxiety.

“Excuse me, sir,” he asked, going back to windward to join his captain. “Should we not allow her four-points-free, so we may fall to loo'rd, onto her, sir?”

“It is my decision, sir. Now be still!” Braxton hissed, wheeling on him. “The squadron, sir, will daunt them. She'll haul wind, she can't trade fire with the liners. Attend to your duties, sir.”

“Sir, should she haul her wind, there's still the Indiamen—”

“I gave you an order,
Mister
Lewrie!”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“There, d'ye see, hah?” Braxton hooted with scorn suddenly. “She's falling off, at last. Turning to run! Now, Mister Lewrie . . .
now
you may haul our wind. Gybe, and steer sou'east.”

“Aye aye, sir,” he replied evenly.

Damme, another puzzle, he carped! Should be
due
east, by God; go right for 'em! This'll put us the same distance from the Indiamen,
or
the frigate. What's Braxton playing at?

“Bosun, prepare to wear to the starboard tack.”

“
Wear,
sir?” Bosun Fairclough gaped from the waist below him.

“Aye, wear, Mister Fairclough,” Lewrie repeated testily. “Stations for wearing ship! Main clew garnets . . . buntlines, there!” he called through the speaking trumpet. “Spanker brails, weather main and lee braces! Manned?”

Hands darted to the pin rails and fife rails to undo belays on the running rigging, to tail on and prepare to take a strain once the lines were free of all but the last over-under hitch on belaying pins.

“Come on, lads! Smartly, now!” he urged them. “
Manned,
damnyer eyes? Smartly, I said!”

“Drive 'em, Bosun! Smartly!” Braxton interrupted. “Lay on yer starters!”

The hands
were
readying for a wear, but it was damn' slow work—handsome work—church work. Petty officers and midshipmen lathered the slow and the clumsy (and there were more than a few on the gangways who were suddenly struck clumsy, Lewrie noted!) with rope starters. The hands flinched, like flicked steers, as the starters cracked on their coats. But that didn't make them very much faster.

“Oh, Christ . . .” Lewrie whispered, seeing the game for what it was at once. “Come
on,
lads! There's a fortune in prize money downwind, so let's be
at
it! All manned? Haul taut! Ready about? Up mains'l and spanker! Clear away after bowlines! Brace in the after yards!” Lewrie turned to the senior quartermaster, and in a softer voice cautioned, “Handsomely does it. New heading, sou'east. Right! Up-helm, Quartermaster!”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Overhaul weather lifts! Man the weather braces! Rise fore-tack and sheet!”

Cockerel
fell off the wind, heeling harder to starboard, laying her shoulder to the sea, sloughing and snuffling foam as she lost way, and the sea gripped her more firmly. With the wind swinging rapidly onto her larboard quarter, growing finer and finer, Lewrie looked to the commissioning pendant aloft, then aft, judging the best moment to anticipate a stern wind. There!

“Clear away head bowlines, lay the head-yards square! Shift over jib fore-sheets! Come
on,
smartly, now! Move!” he fumed at the crew, whose efforts had turned so ox-slow, so hen-headed awkward.

“Jaysis, bloody . . . !” the senior helmsman yelped suddenly, and Lewrie turned his head to see the huge double wheel's spokes spinning like a Saint Catherine's wheel at a fair. The steering-tackle ropes bound 'round the wheel drum were sizzling and smoking as they unwound themselves! “No helm, sir, no helm!”

“Avast, there!” he called, trying to head off disaster. “Back the fore-sheets, flat 'em in!
Lee
braces, Bosun, main and . . .”

Too late.
Cockerel
was across the eye of the wind, with her after and main yardarms angled to take a stern wind, the main and forecourses smothered so far, but not for long. She carried a lot of weather-helm, and was going to round up. For a moment, her yards would luff ineffectually, then, as she swung her bows windward, they'd fill again—pressing
against
the masts and spars, snapping her upper masts like carrots, if they weren't quick about it!

This ought to be damned int'restin', Lewrie thought, with what felt like a stupefied calmness; we're going to
broach
this barge!

“Lee braces, damn you! Smartly! Let go weather braces!”

With a tremendous whooshing sound, much like a gargantuan bird, the spanker filled and flew across the quarterdeck overhead, dragging the men of the starboard after-guard, tailing on what was now a weather sheet, in a tug of war they could never win.

They let go, tumbling in a heap. They let
go!
The spanker was a slightly older design, a loose-footed trapezoidal sail suspended from a light wooden gaff, with the after-most, lower-most corner, the clew, the attachment point for the sheets. With a sharp crack, the gaff yard met the much heavier mizzenmast cro'jack yard, which directed the set of the mizzen tops'l and spread its foot. The spanker gaff shattered, of course, dangling half the upper length of the spanker like a duck with a broken wing, which let it swing further out-board to tangle in the larboard mizzen stays! Taken by surprise, the larboard sheetmen of the after-guard stood slack-jawed, and slack-fingered, and let the larboard sheet snake over the side, along with the weather sheet!

Both sheets, Lewrie goggled:
both
the bloody sheets?

“Heavy-haul on the braces, fore, main and cro'jack!” he howled as
Cockerel
wallowed, now heeling to larboard. The
y could
save their masts, if the bows could be got down. They
could
steer downwind without the rudder, for a time, if the hands were quick.

But the deck was already inclined over twenty degrees of heel, and the men were laid back almost parallel to the gangways. It wasn't clumsy, semi-mutinous theatrics now. They began to slip and fall, to go sprawling on their backs, to slide to leeward into the bulwarks as their bare feet lost purchase; or were dragged toward the pin rails as they tried to hold onto the braces, by the enormous pressure of wind on the sails which exerted tons of pull on the lines.

Cockerel
groaned in outraged protest as she swung up a-weather, the wind rapidly clocking forward of abeam, laid over so far that water surged high as the gun ports on the lee side, and the breeching ropes of the starboard battery sang a taut torment. Masts, spars, rigging, hull . . . her wail was a chorus of danger, and the sea surged hungrily.

At least 'thout the spanker, Lewrie thought bitterly, we won't have weather-helm for long! Or masts, either, he concluded, hanging light-footed from the starboard mizzen stays by a death-grip.

The flatted-in jibs and fore stays'ls saved her, pushing down her bows, keeping
Cockerel
from broaching, though she lay hard over on her larboard side for what seemed like forever, her rudder quite ineffective, even if it
had
been attached to something. Alan whined with a brief terror as he looked
down
at the hungry ocean, at the image of course-sail yards dragging wakes in the sea! The ship creaked and moaned, with ominous sloshes and thuds echoing from below on the orlop deck. Round-shot tumbled from their nests along the hatch rims or the rope shot-garlands to bowl down alee and
thonk!
into bulwarks.

Then
Cockerel
rolled back upright, rebounding so quickly that he was flung hard up against the mizzen stays, even as she began to pay off the wind, at last. But she didn't come quite level after that; she was still alist to larboard. Cargo and ballast shifted, sure, Alan thought, as his feet at last found a place to stand, as he darted for the nettings overlooking the waist.