CHAPTER 4

Perhaps Midshipman Carey’s geste against Midshipman Forrester was not the most aptly timed event in the continual war of wills in the mess that Alan had seen yet, nor was it particularly bright to jape so soon after such a galling failure as the Battle of the Chesapeake. The repercussions did not bear thinking about, and had Lewrie or Avery had a chance to talk Carey out of it, they most definitely would have. But, given Lewrie’s own recent history and the series of misadventures that seemed to dog his existence, it was much of a piece, and therefore seemed almost fated.

Once full dark had fallen, the galley stoves had been lit and the steep-tubs began to bubble and boil to prepare the crew’s dinner, though few men or officers who had eaten with such gusto at dinner in the forenoon watch had much of an appetite for their plain-commons supper. Avery was in the evening watch, which left Carey, Forrester, and Lewrie in their small mess compartment to be served boiled salt beef and biscuits, livened only by a communal pot of mustard and the watered-down issue of red wine come aboard in New York, with a redolence of varnish. There were only four men in their mess, and the normal issue for a seaman’s mess of eight was a four-pound cut of meat. Minus gristle and bone, it might make a third of a pound of meat for each man. Theirs, however, was even tougher than most, composed of more useless junk, and had the consistency, even after boiling, of old leather.

“Freeling, if you do not deal sharply with the mess cook when they choose the joints, I shall see you at the gratings,” Forrester threatened, throwing his utensils down in disgust. “This is inedible!”

“Aye, zur,” Freeling answered noncommittally. He was half dead already, a toothless oldster of forty who appeared over sixty from a hard life of seafaring, herniated from hoisting kegs with stay tackle once too often, shattered by too many years aloft in all weathers. He had seen too many midshipmen come and go and turn into officers, and held a particular abiding hatred for each and every one of them. Even bribes could not move him to charitable efforts on their behalf.

“I mean it this time, damn your eyes,” Forrester snarled.

“You’re not going to eat that?” Carey asked, eyeing his plate and the raggled strands of meat. Carey would eat anything.

Forrester did not answer but picked up his utensils once more and began to gouge at the beef to carve it into bite-sized pieces. It was much like trying to slice old rope with the edge of a fork as the only appliance.

“Why not just pick it up and gnaw?” Alan said. Forrester was the only person he had ever seen who seemed to prosper on ships’ rations. The lad had been fat as a piglet when Alan came aboard in spring, and now was in such fine and obese fettle as to excite the fantasy that soon some villagers would trice him up by his heels and bleed him for the fall killing. It was September after all, almost time for the first frosts and the slaughter of excess animals for the salt kegs or the smokehouses.

“That would be more your style,” Forrester said. “I leave it to you. Such a lot of peasants! God rot the lot of you!”

“Did you hear some snuffling and rooting, Carey?” Alan jibed. “My ears definitely did. Or was it human speech after all?”

“Oink, oink,” Carey said through a mouthful of biscuit.

“Do not row me tonight, Lewrie,” Forrester snapped. “Perhaps this performance of ours today did not affect you, but, by God, it angered me!”

“But it did not seem to affect your appetite,” Lewrie said, happy to have Forrester to abuse to alleviate his own sense of gloom concerning the battle. Desperate had been short two midshipmen when he had come into her — one had drowned, the other was a raging sponge who had been drunk most of the time and was finally dismissed, a hard feat to accomplish at any level of English society in these days. Forrester had been the tyrant of the mess until Avery and Lewrie had sided with Carey and played one prank after another on him until Forrester had been driven almost to distraction. It enlivened the usual drabness of their existence, and there was little that Forrester could do about it. One did not complain to superiors that one could not hold his own against the spiteful cruelty of his peers. It was their rough and tumble microcosm of society, where lads as young as ten or twelve became men along with becoming potential officers, and if one could not cope, one could not hope to prosper. It had come to blows a few times, at which point Forrester could only snarl and withdraw and scheme to gain his revenge, an event that so far he had never achieved, for with three against one, he had no chance. His not being the brightest person ever dropped also had a great deal to do with Forrester’s frustrations.

Angry or not, Forrester managed to clean his plate and call for the cheese after Freeling had removed the joint to save the last of it for Avery.

“A small slice for me,” Carey said as Forrester cut into the hoop of fairly fresh Cheddar recently shipped from England.

“Cut it yourself,” Forrester replied, still sulking and taking the equal of two men’s shares.

“Oink, oink,” Carey said again.

“Damn you, will you stop that stupid noise!” Forrester barked, rising from his seat and taking a swing at the younger boy with the back of his hand. Before Lewrie could respond and deflect the blow completely, he had succeeded in cuffing Carey on the head.

“How would you like me to kick your nutmegs up between your teeth, Forrester,” Alan warned, grabbing the offending hand and holding it immobile against Forrester’s best efforts to free it. “By God, it’s blow for blow in here, and well you know it, just like a Scottish feud.”

“Goddamn you, Lewrie, unhand me,” Forrester commanded, squirming with the effort to free himself. “I’ll square your yards for you!”

“The hell you will,” Alan said, laughing cruelly. “You may inherit your daddy’s title and rents, but you’ll always be a churlish, craven pig.”

Alan let go of Forrester’s arm with a shove that almost unseated him. Forrester glared at him hard while Alan cut himself a slice of the cheese and poured a glass of Black Strap in lieu of port. He knew Forrester’s type from civilian life, the bullying sort who would try to get even backhandedly, but would never face an enemy in a fair fight, and he enjoyed taunting him with a merry grin of physical superiority.

“How sadly is our aristocracy fallen, Carey, since the days of the Crusades,” Alan scoffed. “Or when they faced Caesar’s legions painted blue with woad.”

An hour later, the master-at-arms and ship’s corporals came about to see that all lights were extinguished for the night to lessen the mortal danger of fire, and they turned in. Alan took a moment while Forrester was forward in the heads to warn Carey to be on his guard in days ahead.

“He doesn’t frighten me,” Carey said with a smirk. “What can he do to us? Three of us against him.”

“But he might get to you when we’re not here.”

“No matter, you’ll settle him for me,” Carey said, full of young confidence in his older mates to protect him. “But I’ll make him pay for that slap.”

“Carey, I think — given the captain’s mood — that you leave well enough alone for now.” Alan frowned. “Let it go, or you’ll get us all in trouble, not just Forrester.”

Carey had only smirked at him once more, then skinned out of his clothes and sprang into his hammock to curl up and sleep, and Alan thought no more about it, eager to get to sleep himself for a few hours before his midnight-to-four tour of duty in the middle watch.

Perhaps it was something about blue woad that set Carey off, for at dawn quarters the next morning, all the midshipmen turned up on deck to await the rising of the sun and the possible renewal of the battle with the French fleet, whose riding lights had been visible all night on the south-east horizon, still headed out into the Atlantic under easy sail.

As the grayness of predawn began to lessen the darkness, and the binnacle, belfry, and taffrail lanterns began to lose their strength, some of the men began to titter into their hands and almost bite their tongues to keep from laughing out loud about something.

Must be a grand thing to get them going, Alan thought wearily after another night on deck with only three hours’ sleep. There’s not all that much to be amused at in this fleet.

“Silence on deck,” Lieutenant Railsford snapped, unusually out of sorts.

“Whatever is with the people this morning?” Treghues growled, stalking by the windward rail, unshaven as of yet and unfed.

“Don’t know, sir,” Railsford replied.

“I’ll prove to them they have nothing to laugh about after yesterday, by . . .” Treghues said, almost blaspheming himself.

I like him better when he has a mug of whatever that stuff is, Alan thought, planning to ask Mr. Dorne if the captain was under any medication; not that he really expected an answer, but he was intrigued anyway by the sudden change in behavior that Treghues evinced whenever he partook of it.

A man next to him on the gun deck began to laugh softly and Alan went to his side. “If you wish to be at the gratings in the forenoon, go ahead and laugh, why don’t you?”

“Sorry, sor,” the man replied, much too brightly.

“Just what is so all-fired funny to you?” Alan queried, and the gunner jerked a finger in the general direction of the starboard gangway and screwed his mouth shut, trembling with the effort not to laugh.

Alan looked up at the gangway. Nothing funny up there; the yeoman of the sheets looked about as stupid as usual, the marines were mustered properly at the hammock nettings with their muskets, and the landsmen and brace-tenders all seemed normal enough. Lieutenant Peck was pacing slowly, as was his wont, with his burly sergeant in tow, just as every morning.

“Oh, my God!” Alan gaped at Forrester as he came aft from the fo’c’s’le belfry. “Carey, you little shit, you’ve done for us, by God if you haven’t! It had to have been Carey . . . Avery has more bloody sense!”

Forrester had had his countenance adorned during the night. There was blue paint on his face, large dots on each cheek, a false mustache a Hessian guardsman would be proud of, great arching false brows, a streak down the nose and two quarter-circles on the jowls to emphasize their roundness, with a final large blot on the slack chin.

“Jesus,” Coke, the bosun, commented as he spotted Forrester. “We’re for it now, Mister Lewrie!”

“Amen to that,” Lewrie whispered back.

“When’ud ya find the time, sir?” Coke asked once he was past them.

“Me?” Alan yelped. “By God, it wasn’t me . . . honest!”

“Merciful God!” A wail came from aft on the quarterdeck as Railsford spotted Forrester’s phyz in the lightening gloom. “Mister Forrester, what is the meaning of this?”

“Mister Railsford?” Forrester snapped back, too sleepy to be wary, too surprised by Railsford tone and totally unknowing the nature of his sin.

“What sort of harlequin are you to appear caparisoned so?”

“Sir?” Forrester replied, on his guard now and feeling about his body to see if he was properly dressed after donning his clothes in the darkness of the midshipmen’s mess with no time for a peek in a mirror.

“You . . . clown!” Treghues shouted in his best quarterdeck voice as soon as he spotted the miscreant. “How dare you turn out like that! Get below and wash that . . . that foolishness off at once, do you hear!”

“Sir?” Forrester begged, aware that he was in trouble for sure.

“And I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head when addressing the first lieutenant,” Treghues said.

“But, sir . . .”

“Now, idiot!” Railsford commanded.

The word “wash” alerted Forrester to the possible nature of his offense. As he saluted and spun away to disappear below decks, he felt of his waistcoat, his breeches, then his face as a last resort, and was appalled to bring his fingers away still sticky-damp with blue paint.

“Mister Lewrie, get your miserable carcass up here instantly!” Treghues bawled, and there was no denying the summons. With a bitter shrug he scampered aft to a quarter-deck ladder and faced his irate captain.

“Sir,” he said, doffing his cocked hat in salute.

“I know your brand of deviltry by now, Lewrie, and this time you shall pay for it in full measure,” Treghues said, spittle flying from his lips.

“I did not do it, sir.”

“Don’t bother to lie to me, Lewrie!”

“On my honor, sir, I did not do it,” Alan persisted.

“Avery, Carey, come aft at once,” Railsford commanded.

“There’s no need for that, Mister Railsford. I know who the biggest sinner in my own crew is, you can be assured of that.”

“Sir, Mister Lewrie had the middle watch all night.”

“Sir,” the other midshipmen said as they reported and saluted.

“On your honor, did you paint Forrester’s face blue, Avery?” their lieutenant asked of him. Avery had seen Forrester’s new appearance and had said nothing, but even the seriousness of the situation could not keep the smirk off his face as he swore up and down that he had not done the deed.

“There’s nothing to laugh about,” Railsford barked, his own lips quivering at the edge of humor anyway, which did nothing to keep Avery from grinning even broader. “Carey, was it you?”

“Oh, this is a waste of time,” Treghues grumbled. “Mister Coke!”

“I did it, sir,” Carey said, pleased with his handiwork.

“You?” Treghues gaped.

“Aye, sir. Forrester cuffed me at supper last night.”

Forrester reappeared on deck, the sharp edges of his new makeup now smeared, but still bright blue.

“I told you to go below and wash!”

“It won’t come off, sir,” Forrester admitted miserably. “It’s paint, sir. I tried, sir, honest I did!”

“Did you strike Carey last night?” Railsford demanded.

“I . . .”

“Did you or did you not?”

“Lewrie stopped him from doing more,” Carey stuck in mischievously.

“Sir, they were . . .”

“Did you strike a fellow midshipman?” Railsford reiterated.

“Aye, sir, I did, but they . . .”

“Bully!” Railsford roared. “To think of a young man of your size, cuffing a little boy about. You disappoint me, Mister Forrester.”

“Vile wretch,” Treghues said, frowning heavily at his relative. “I had thought better of you until now, boy! And you, Carey, playing at shines as men such as us bleed and die yonder. All of you, shame on you for being such a spoiled pack of unfeeling prodigals. What did we do yesterday? Watched a battle being lost, good ships shot to pieces, good men shot to pieces, and you dare to cut such a caper and still call yourselves gentlemen-in-training as professional sea-officers. Well, you’ll pay for it. Mister Coke, a dozen of your best for Forrester and Carey, and a half-dozen for Lewrie and Avery as well. Mastheading for Forrester and Carey until I remember to let them come down. And get that . . . stuff, off your face. Carry on!”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Once Treghues was gone below and the strokes had been given out, Railsford turned on them as well. “Goddamn you all for this childish . . . shit. I shall have the next fool flogged again, so help me!”

The sun was fully up after quarters were stood down, a day of calm seas and light winds. The sixth of September could have been a marvelous day to be sailing, were the circumstances different. The British fleet still sailed in easy column towards the south-east, pursuing the French, who were perhaps five or six miles off to leeward, drawn further and further away from the Chesapeake and the coast. But there was no question of battle being rejoined; too many ships had been roughly handled and needed urgent repair. The light winds were a blessing, allowing shattered topmasts to be struck so they could be fished or replaced with what few spare spars had been available from ships less hurt.

Admiral Drake’s van ships had taken the worst of the pummeling; the Intrepid and Shrewsbury looked as though even an easy swell would roll the masts right out of them. But Terrible was the worst off, nearly in sinking condition, and her many wounded being parceled out to the less damaged ships for medical attention. The chain pumps clanked continually to stem the inrush of the sea from her bilge and lower decks.

The frigates still dashed back and forth on their ceaseless errands to scout dangerously close to the French and to keep an eye on their intentions, to carry spare timber and spars from well-endowed vessels to those most needy, and to pass messages too complicated for the meager signaling book.

Or messages too vitriolic to be shared, Alan thought grimly. He could imagine the choler with which Graves might be penning a despatch to the Admiralty about the debacle, dashing off irate questions and accusations to Admiral Hood; Drake might be pouring out pure bile about the near destruction of his ships in the van, thrown away without proper support by the rest of the fleet, especially Hood’s rear division. Hood and Drake might be countering with invective about Graves’s incredible decision to let the French form beyond the Middle Ground and the waste of a splendid opportunity that Providence did not give grudgingly to any admiral.

How long does it take to become an admiral, anyway, Alan wondered as the usual ship’s day proceeded to spin out its ordered sameness. Even with a newly like me in charge, we’d have accomplished more yesterday than what this pack of fools did. And if I should ever make flag rank, will we still have a navy at this rate? We should have stood on into the bay and cut the Frogs’ gizzards out of them! Even I know that.

The day before, the sight and sound of battle—in the early stages at least—had raised in him a martial ardor and pride in his uniform that he could scarcely credit as coming from such a churl as himself, and now it all seemed like a fever dream. What was the point in becoming an officer in such an inept Service? What sort of honor and credit would it bring him, and what sort of glory was there to reap with such an addled pack of bunglers?

Why are we still following that damned de Grasse like a cart horse on the way to the stable? Alan wondered. There was a French army in the Chesapeake now landed in Lynn-haven Bay, an army that would force Cornwallis to withdraw within his siege-works sooner or later. The fleet needed to go back and aid the army. Let de Grasse bottle them up in the bay. He would be denied entrance until after the hurricane season began, and had no force of note still with him other than his ships to threaten New York or Charlestown or any other port on the coast. A fleet, even a large one, had never succeeded in taking and holding a garrisoned and fortified location on its own with only marines to put ashore. By God, I don’t believe one of these ridiculous jackanapes in charge over us has the slightest idea what to do with the fleet now. We’d do better with that damned Frog to lead us.

In the afternoon a flag hoist from the London summoned Desperate to attend her. Once near enough to hail, London’s hard-pressed sailors had a chance to laugh at the sight of Forrester at the main masthead, still blue in the face as a Pict, for the paint indeed would not come off.

“A talisman, is your ancient warrior?” a lieutenant from London asked Treghues by way of greeting as he gained the quarterdeck with the usual canvas-bound packet of despatches under his arm.

“Your japery is out of place, Lieutenant,” Treghues said with icy harshness.

“Your pardon, Commander Treghues,” the lieutenant stammered, taken off guard and remembering his place in the scheme of things when facing a senior officer, even if the lieutenant was blessed to be the senior in the flagship of a major fleet. “Admiral Graves sends his most sincere respects and directs you to make the best of your way into the Chesapeake to deliver despatches to Lord Cornwallis and then return to the fleet.”

“And where shall the fleet be, I wonder?” Treghues asked of him. “Halfway to France? Still tagging along behind de Grasse?”

“I would not presume to know, sir. We shall still be at sea, certainly, to the east’rd of the capes.”

“Hmm,” Treghues sniffed in a lordly manner. “My deepest compliments to Admiral Graves, and I shall assure him the safe arrival of despatches or die in the attempt.”

“Very good, sir. I shall take my leave, then, and not detain you.”

“Good day, sir,” Treghues said. “Mister Railsford! Mister Monk! Stations to tack ship and lay her on the most direct course for the Chesapeake. Drive ’em, bosun. Crack on all the sail she can fly.”

Before the lieutenant from London had even regained his seat in the flagship’s cutter, Desperate was boiling with activity as every reef was shaken out, as she wore about to pinch up close-hauled preparatory to tacking across the wind to a course opposite that of the fleet.

Even with a light north-east wind, she began to fly like a Cambridge coach with the wind broad on her starboard quarter, one of her fastest points of sail.

“Be in soundin’s agin by around two bells o’ the evenin’ watch, sir,” Monk announced after they had taken several casts of the log. “We’re nigh on nine knots. Will ya be wantin’ ta enter the capes afore dawn, sir?”

“High tide should be making around then?”

“Just the start of the flood, sir. But we’ll be off the entrance ’bout six bells. Be full dark, sir, and no moon ta speak of. Even so, I wonder if ya wants ta stand in under full sail er plain sail, what with no idea of what the Frogs left behind.”

“Might not be a bad idea to reduce sail, especially the royals and topgallants before sundown, sir.” Railsford stuck into the plans. “Even if the sun is going down behind the French watchers and we’ll be out in the gloom, they’d shine in the last light.”

“You’d have us loiter off the channel ’til dawn and the turn of the low dawn tide, Mister Railsford,” Treghues countered, “and our orders brook no delay. Royals down in the second dogwatch, topgallants down after we fetch the coast, but we’ll enter just as the tide is beginning to flow inward. We shall just have to chance any French warships.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“I’ll have the ship at quarters, no lights showing, as we enter.”

Treghues looked about the deck once more, then went below to his quarters, bawling for his steward Judkin to attend him.

“Probably wants to look his best when he sees Symonds or Cornwallis,” David whispered once he was off the quarter-deck.

“He’d have to wear coronation robes to sugarcoat this disaster,” Lewrie observed. “What a shitten mess.”

“Oh, don’t be such a Cassandra,” David sighed. “Once Graves gets his fleet in any sort of order, he’ll turn about and come back into the bay, and where will de Grasse be then?”

“The only reason they harvested Cassandra’s liver is because she was always right,” Lewrie said, grinning. “Keep that in mind, my lad.”

“I love you dearly, Alan, but there are times when you have absolutely no faith in our superiors,” David replied, withholding most of his vexation. “If you weren’t so jaundiced in your outlook, you’d fare all the better. Think on this: there’s a clutch of French transports in that bay, most likely without decent escorts, what with de Grasse and de Barras off ahead of Admiral Graves. We could snap one or two of them up tonight on our way in.”

“What if Symonds and his frigates have already done so?” Alan countered. “They might not have left much for us. At least, for once, I hope they haven’t.”

“God, you’re hopeless,” David grumped.

“But still alive and prospering,” Alan retorted.

The seas had begun to rise once they got in soundings. They reduced sail bit by bit as it got darker and darker, so that not even the faintest reflection of the setting sun would gleam from the upper yards. Just before entering the black channel near midnight, they even brailed up the main course to reduce the chance of fire if they were intercepted by a lurking French vessel. They then went to quarters.

Not a light showed above the gangways, and the slow-match in the tubs by each gun was shielded from sight and the gunports still were tightly closed so they would not give themselves away.

“Ships in the bay, sir!” The message was passed down from the topmast, from the lone lookout to the maintop to the quarterdeck staff. “Ridin’ lights aburnin’!”

“Three men to each gun, excess crews stand easy amid-ships,” Mister Gwynn the gunner ordered softly. “Be ready to leap to it on either beam.”

“Lewrie?” A disembodied voice called from the quarter-deck. Lewrie recognized it as Railsford’s.

“Aye, sir.”

“Do you go forward and remind the boy at the belfry to ring no bells but only turn the half-hour glass at the change of watch.” Railsford thought a moment as it neared midnight. “Then take charge of the fo’c’s’le.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

He went forward, stumbling over men and gun tackle in the stygian darkness until he reached the belfry at the break of the fo’c’s’le, where one of the ship’s boys stood by the bell.

“You ring that damned thing and the first lieutenant’ll have your head off,” Lewrie said. “Turn the watch glass, hour glass and all when the small glass runs out, but no bells.”

The other two were peering almost eyeball-close to see when the last of the sand ran out of the half-hour glass and did not answer, but only snuffled in anticipation. Alan went on up to the fo’c’s’le and the carronade gun crews, making sure the slow-match for the pair of short-ranged “smashers” was safely out of sight on the gun deck first.

“Sitwell,” he whispered into the gloom.

“’Ere, Mister Lewrie.”

“Stand easy.”

“Aye, sir.”

Once on the foredeck, Alan could see much better in the night, and the assembly of anchored ships ahead of them were quickly evident by their riding lights in the taffrail lanterns. There seemed enough ships there for a couple of brigades of troops, perhaps enough supplies for a full season of campaigning. The French were in the Chesapeake to stay, certainly. And where they were, there would be Rebel units as well.

“Sitwell, send a man aft to the quarterdeck and request a glass,” Alan said. “Neither of the lookouts has one up here.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The hand returned via the gangways with a day telescope instead of one of the precious night glasses. It was better than nothing, but did not gather the light as well. At least I don’t have to look at everything upside down and backwards, Lewrie thought, extending the tube and raising it to his eye. Expecting some kind of guard ship at the mouth of the main channel that led to the precious merchantmen, he looked instead off to either side of the bows for a darker, harder shadow in the blackness. Even a rowed cutter could give the game away, and if there were indeed French warships in the bay, it would summon one of them up in a moment.

“Summat ta starboard, sir,” one of the bow lookouts exclaimed in a harsh whisper. “Looks like a ship, sir, four points off the bow.”

Alan swivelled about and laid the telescope on the man’s shoulder to let his arm guide his eye. “Yes, it’s a ship, alright, under tops’ls and jibs only. Going away?”

“Cain’t tell, sir.”

“Sitwell, send a man aft. Enemy ship to starboard, four points off the bow.”

“Aye, Mister Lewrie.”

Within minutes the messenger was back, a little out of breath from making two trips to the quarterdeck in as many minutes. Even before he could lean back on something to rest, Alan was snapping fingers for him again.

“Run and tell the captain the ship to starboard is slipping aft and appears to be going away. She’s six points off the bow now.”

“Aye, aye, sor!” the man gasped.

The minutes passed agonizingly slowly as the French guard ship went her unwary way further off toward the Middle Ground and the north end of the ship channel until she was lost in the blackness, her slight wake not even discernible any longer against the pattern of the few cat’s paws.

“Guard boat, sir,” the lookout called, “dead ahead. A cutter o’ some kind, Mister Lewrie.”

“Sitwell, pass it on.”

“Maple,” Sitwell hissed. “Go aft an’ repeat the message.”

“Agin, Mister Sitwell?” the now weary man complained. There was a meaty sound much resembling a bare foot connecting with someone’s nether anatomy and the messenger staggered off along the gangways once more.

Alan could make out the enemy, a large cutter with a single mast and a gaff sail and jib winged out for a reach across the wind. She was crossing left to right ahead of them, perhaps two cables off, but Desperate was slowly falling down on her and it would take a crew of blind men to miss seeing her!

“Anything to larboard?” he asked.

“Nothin’ yet, Mister Lewrie,” the other lookout replied.

“Sitwell, another man aft. The cutter is heading north towards our starboard, about two cables off at right angles.”

“Aye, sir.”

They could feel Desperate alter course slightly a few minutes later, angling to larboard closer to the coast, where she would be merely another dark shadow against the hulking darkness of Cape Henry and the shore of the bay, while the cutter went blithely on without spotting them.

“By God, we’re in the anchorage,” Alan muttered. “Too close in for anything but rowing boats. Everyone watch the surface close in.”

Desperate wore to starboard, altering course again as she got too close into the shore, probably at Mister Monk’s insistence. They were now closing in on those tempting transports that slumbered with only an anchor watch, thinking themselves protected in a secure harbor. Hands came forward to brail the forecourse to reduce their ship’s top-hamper, lessening the chance that anyone would spot her. With the taffrail lanterns throwing long glimmering troughs of reflections on the sea, they could now spot any oared guard boat rowing about the transports much more easily, could catch those flashes from oar looms and the splashes they made. It did indeed look as though they might have some of the enemy as prizes before morning!

Anchored tantalizingly close, the French transport fleet looked like a small seaport town with all its street lighting burning in a peaceful evening. Further beyond the transports, the shore was also lit up with the campfires of a newly landed army, adding to the impression of a town.

Desperate took in all her sails, laboriously reloaded her guns with grapeshot and langridge instead of solid shot to repel any boat expeditions that might want to return the favor on her, and hoisted out the boarding nettings. The nets were hoisted loose and sloppy from the ends of the course yards and cro’jack yard on the mizzen to prevent easy entry over her bulwarks by enemy sailors intent on her capture, and draped in unseamanly bights so that no one scaling the nettings could count on any sort of firm foot or handhold before he was picked off or skewered by the men on Desperate’s decks. Finally, the boats were led around from astern and the first lieutenant given parties of men for each boat to form a cutting-out expedition against the nearest French transport.

Lieutenant Peck, the marine officer, joined Railsford in the place of honor, along with half his platoon of marines, four to each of the boats. Cottle took charge of the captain’s gig, with six hands and a steady quartermaster’s mate in command. Railsford took the barge, Avery the cutter and Alan the jolly boat; only Carey remained aboard ship along with the older and less spry hands who could not be expected to scramble up a ship’s side in the perfect darkness and continue on into unfamiliar rigging to put sail on a prize.

Railsford’s barge led the short parade of four; the night was so black without even a sliver of moon that it was hard to see the boat next in line unless they were almost touching. The hands stroked as softly as they could, the rowports muffled with old tarpaulin or wornout sail scraps. The natty white-painted oar looms had been hastily daubed with tar to lessen their gleam. The stroke was slow to cut down on any splashes that might be seen as reflections from the enemy’s riding lights, and to save the men’s strength for battle. The making tide did as much to propel them forward as their efforts at the oars.

Alan sat on the sternmost thwart of the jolly boat, tiller bar under his arm, and peered intently into the blackness. The rumble and thump of the oars was maddeningly loud, and he licked his lips continually in concern and a little bit of fear as well. It was not merely the unseasonal chill of the night that made him shiver this time. It was the first time he had ever been on a cutting-out, and he was on the water in the dark, remembering once more that he could not swim. Under the circumstances, he could not even cry out for aid if he fell into the water, but would most likely be expected to drown in perfect silence. Sitting in the open boat was bad enough, but worry about how he would gain the deck of a French ship in the night was uppermost. Once he reached the dubious safety of an enemy deck with steel in hand to fight whatever presented itself was almost a happy afterthought.

What if there are still troops aboard, like the Ephegenie? he wondered, gnawing his cheek unconsciously. We could end up tumbled back over the side at bayonet point. Given a choice of being skewered or shot, I’d take either one over drowning.

More to the point, had Desperate been spotted despite all their caution, and were they now rowing into a well-laid trap which would result in many deaths, most significantly his own?

He noticed that he had clamped his jaws so tightly shut to avoid chattering teeth that his mouth was beginning to ache, and though he was not exerting himself at an oar, he was breathing about as hard as the two men nearest him.

What the devil is the matter with me? he chid himself. It’s not like me to be so skittish. Of course, it’s my first time for this sort of expedition, but that don’t signify. Mayhap it’s because I’ve seen enough in the last two years to know there is something to fear. What if I get killed?

He felt the muscles of his back twitch at the thought and had to shake himself to settle down. I’ll try to go game, of course, like a gentleman should. But not to tussle with a wench again, or lift a bottle or two—God, how hellish. Wonder what the world would be like without me?

Probably much better off, he decided after a moment of rueful cogitation, and smiled in spite of his feelings and the circumstances. Lucy Beauman would weep over him until some other swaggering buck came along, which might not be too long a period of mourning, if he knew anything about impressionable young tits like her. No one in London, certainly; he was already dead and gone to anyone he had known there, anyway. David Avery and little Carey might miss him, a few former shipmates from his first ship Ariadne, such as Keith Ashburn and . . . no, the rest of them had hated his overachieving guts, and it had been pretty much mutual. Treghues? The captain might do a short hornpipe of delight before he remembered what a fine Christian he was and put his solemn Sunday face back on.

A faint sound intruded on Lewrie’s musings; the sound of one of his oarsmen moaning softly, a moan of the truly lost with each oar stroke.

“Just who is that ass who’s fucking the manger goat?” he snapped, unsticking his tightly lashed jaw muscles.

There was a soft titter of relief from all his hands as their own fears were momentarily forgotten in disgust for some faceless and nameless shipmate more fearful even than they, someone they could despise most heartily because he could not control his fear like a stalwart English seaman, and they could.

“Ecstasy with the French camp followers will have to wait,” Alan said, shifting his numb posterior to a more comfortable position on the hard thwart.

“They’d bring women, sor?” someone asked from up forward with an interested gasp of surprise.

“Who knows,” Alan answered wryly. “They’re Frogs, ain’t they? Do be quiet now, and mind your stroke.”

A few moments later, they almost went up the stern of the next boat in line, Avery’s cutter. The thought of women carried aboard a French ship had indeed lengthened and strengthened their work at the oars.

“Damn you, Lewrie,” Avery hissed. “Ease off, there!”

But they were almost at their destination. Out of the black night they could hear wavelets lapping, could hear the faint groan of ship timbers as a vessel rode to her anchors not far from them. This vessel’s taffrail lanterns were not burning; only a faint glow from her binnacle by the unmanned wheel was lit and barely threw the loomhint above her bulwarks, as a coastal navigation light or the glow of a coastal town will appear just below the horizon. All four boats drifted into an ungainly pod with upraised oars pointed skyward, trying to fend off with their hands quietly.

“Forrester, take the stern,” Railsford said in a whisper as they drifted closer together. “Cut her stern cable and guard her watch.”

“Aye, sir,” Forrester piped.

“Silence, damn you! Avery, do you take the starboard main chains and go for the wheel. I shall go to larboard and send my people aloft to set sail. Lewrie, do you take the fo’c’s’le and cut her bow cables. Do not any of you load a musket or pistol until you are on deck. Use cold steel if you have to put anyone down, and try to do it quietly.”

“Give way, gently,” Lewrie ordered after the other boats began to drift away far enough to re-employ the oars. He put the tiller bar over to steer alongside the French ship in Railsford’s tiny wake. They both ducked under the jutting jib-boom and bowsprit, ghosted to a crawl in a tight turn just under the rails of the beakhead, eyeing the loose bights of line from the brailed up spritsail as a possible way up.

“Hook on,” Alan mouthed almost silently. “Boat your oars.”

Railsford’s boat faded out of view into the night and Alan waited, not sure exactly for what. The sound of Railsford scrambling up the side? Or would that be too late? A response from the sleeping French?

“Let’s go,” he whispered finally, after the tension began to grow on him to almost unbearable proportion. His men sprang into action, going up hand over hand by the bight of line to the beakhead rails, using the bulge of the gunwale termination as a footstep. Alan had no choice but to try and follow clumsily. He was weighed down with a pair of those awfully inaccurate Sea Pattern pistols in his jacket pockets, a cutlass on a baldric over his shoulder, and his dirk hung by a belt frog from his waistband. If I fall in, I’ll sink like a stone, he told himself fearfully.

He stepped on the bow of the jolly boat, hauled himself upward with both hands on the bight of spritsail brace until he could hook one claw over the lowest beakhead rail, which was slimy with night damp and the excreta left behind by French sailors. He almost lost his grip as he used the rails for a backward-leaning ladder, but there was a horny hand on his wrist and a great tug that pulled him up and over the rails with ease to the grated platform atop the cutwater.

“Las’ shit that turd’ll drop, sir,” a harsh voice whispered to him with great glee, indicating the Frenchman who was sprawled ungainly like a sack of scrap canvas at his feet. The man had his slop trousers down by his ankles and had obviously had his throat most efficiently and silently cut as he sat musing at his ease.

“Jesus!” Alan gaped in awe, feeling like a very green and unblooded cod’s-head at the sight, which he had not expected. “Any alarm yet?”

“No, sir. Caulkin’ like lumber, sir.”

“Load your musket,” Alan ordered. “Watch my back while I load my pistols.”

He had already tamped down powder, ball, and wad into the barrels but had left the pans empty and the hammers full down. Fumbling for powder flask around his neck, he snapped open the frizzens of first one gun and then the next to prime his pistols, dribbling powder into the pans. He could not see what he was doing, but hoped that he was being accidentally liberal. He shut the frizzens, drew the hammers back to half-cock, and stuffed them into his jacket pockets once more. He drew his cutlass, looped the short lanyard around his wrist and touched the man with him on the shoulder to let him know that he was ready.

They advanced to the outer doors to the bulkhead roundhouses where petty officers took their ease when called by nature. There was no one there. Passing through the bulkhead, they emerged on the fo’c’s’le. In the faint light of the fo’c’s’le belfry lantern, they could see that their men had preceded them and had slit the throats of several Frenchmen sleeping on deck in preference to the close air below decks. Their blood gleamed wet and black in the gloom.

“We’ve got her,” the man said in triumph, baring his teeth in a wide grin and turning to beam at Lewrie, who wasn’t sure of anything at that moment.

Then they heard a shout from aft, where Forrester’s people should be ascending to the poop deck to take charge of the stream anchor cable and the officers’ sleeping quarters, where the small arms would be kept.

“Qui va là?” the shout came.

“Pont de la gard!” a voice called back full of confidence.

“Oh, you unspeakable, ignorant ass!” Alan hissed.

“Merde, alors, c’est l’Anglais!” someone in command screamed. “Aux armes!”

A pistol discharged and somewhere in the dark a man who had been the target—French or English, it was impossible to tell—yelped in agony as he was hit, followed by a large splash.

“At ’em, Desperates!” Railsford bellowed over the sudden alarm and bustle.

“Get that anchor cable cut and set one of their jibs,” Alan told the man with him. “Bow party to me. Head aft by the starboard gangway.” He knew that Railsford would be on the larboard side, Avery aft by the main-chains to starboard and trying to take the wheel from the awakened French watch party, and most in need of assistance. There were Frenchmen everywhere, as though they had stirred up a hornet’s nest, as men who had been asleep on deck in hammocks or bedding on deck rose up and took in hand what weapons they could.

There was a hammock slung before Lewrie, and a man trying to exit the cocoonlike sack. Before he could get one foot on deck, Alan swung his cutlass with all his force and took the man across the neck and chest, bringing forth a howl of pain as the man tumbled out of his hammock to the deck to twitch and thrash in his death throes.

Several sparks gleamed in the night, then came the ragged crash of muskets or pistols and more cries of anguish. A marine loomed up in front of Lewrie, bayonet lowered and blood in his eyes, howling some wordless shout as he drove for his ribs.

“English, dammit!” Alan cried, forced to step aside from the glittering bayonet point, and the musket shoved between his arm and his side as he ended up close enough to count the marine’s remaining teeth. “Stop that!”

“Oh, ’scuse me, Mister Lewrie, sir!” the marine said, once more in possession of his faculties, spinning about on his heel and plunging aft into the fight once more without a backward glance, leaving Alan shaking with the closeness and stupidity of his near-death.

“Alan,” Avery called, coming out of the night with his uniform facings flashing. “Are you hurt?”

“Scared so bad I wouldn’t trust mine own arse with a fart,” Alan said. “That damned bullock almost knackered me.”

“Well, this is turning into a bloody shambles!” Avery spat, wiping his cutlass blade on the swinging hammock that had lately contained a man.

There was a deep boom off in the night, a cannon fired as an alarm to wake the other ships to the danger of raiders in their midst. Lights began to appear on the distant decks as crews came up on deck to peer into the night to see where the danger was.

For the moment, anyway, the fighting was over, for the small French civilian merchant crew had surrendered, and those few who had been below were being chivvied on deck at sword point. Very few people really had been killed or hurt. They were not paid to take the risks of naval seamen and had caved in almost before they had rubbed the sleep out of their eyes, the only resistance being the anchor watch around the wheel and binnacle and those mates that had gotten on deck from the officers’ cabins aft.

“She’s empty,” Railsford told them as he came up on the gangways. “They’ve already unloaded her. Looks like she was carrying troops. Nothing of value. Who was that idiot who said pont of the guard?”

“Somebody aft, sir,” Avery said.

“Forrester, I’ll be bound,” Railsford said. “Only a perfect little Latin student could cling to pontis instead of bateau. ”

“Ship or boat was classis, sir,” Avery advised. “Pontis was bridge.”

“And fuck you too, Avery,” Railsford growled, going aft to the men by the wheel.

“If the truth be known, Avery,” Alan drawled, wiping and sheathing his own cutlass, “classis was fleet; navis was ship, and boat would be a linter, cymba, scapha or, in rare usages, navicula. ”

“Do tell,” Avery snapped.

“And to compound the error, pons was the singular, pontis the plural . . .” Alan went on, as though nothing had happened of any consequence to their chances for prize-money, and escape.

“Yes, Mr. Dorne,” Avery cried, exasperated. He walked away.

“Cables’re free!” The shout came from the fo’c’s’le.

“Avery, Lewrie,” Railsford called. “Attend to getting the ship under way!”

The foredeck party had already gotten a jib hoisted and had let fly the spritsail under the jib-boom to get a forward way on their prize so the rudder could get a bite and allow them steerage-way. Alan led three men aloft onto the fore-mast to cut loose the harbor gaskets from the foretops’l for more speed. Before they could even gain the foretop, however, the hull drummed to several cannon balls fired from the ships to their lee.

“Warship off the starboard bow, sir!” the foredeck party called.

There was something out there, something not too big— another of those damned cutters, perhaps, or a sloop of war.

“We’re in the quag now, sir,” one of the hands told Lewrie as they gathered in the foretop ready to scuttle out the tops’l footropes.

Small as the enemy might be, they would have artillery which could punch through the frail scantlings of a merchantman, and a crew of trained men ready to board and retake the ship from them.

By God, I’m beginning to wonder if we can do anything right any more, Alan cursed to himself.

“Burn her!” Railsford announced. “Lash the wheel and set her alight. By God, they’ll not have her!”

“Back to the deck,” Alan ordered. “Daniels, secure our jolly boat!”

“Aye, sir!” the man replied. “We’re gonna be needin’ it.”

They scrambled back down to the deck and began to gather up anything they could find that was flammable, which on a ship was considerable. Within minutes they had a fine little fire going below decks in the waist, made from the straw bedding the soldiers had used before being disembarked.

“Lash the wheel!” Railsford yelled. “Make sure we leave no one behind, now. Into the boats and abandon ship!”

“Anyone hurt from our party?” Lewrie asked his most senior hand by the larboard foremast chains.

“All here, sir,” the petty officer informed him. “Even the marines is here!”

“Into the boat, then, hurry,” Alan said, looking over his shoulder at how the fire had spread already and was beginning to leap above the gangways to gnaw at the rigging and the base of the masts. He was last to leave the deck after looking around for anyone he recognized still standing or left wounded and discarded in a dark corner. Before he spun away, the French warship had already opened fire with her bow-chasers, and one iron ball slammed hard into the merchantman’s hull and flung broken wood everywhere, making him duck and scramble over the side. With a slashed fore-brace for a manrope, he lowered himself close to the waiting jolly boat and jumped the last few feet, landing roughly on some of his men who were struggling to ship their oars, making them all curse and grumble.

“Shove off,” he ordered, stumbling over their legs and feet to his place at the tiller. “Out oars, there! Give way all!”

As long as they were in the lee of the burning prize, they were safe from the warship’s attentions, but that situation could not last long.

The ship was now being pounded to matchwood by the French sloop of war, and was well alight but still under way heading west on the making tide and the slight wind for the rest of the anchorage, while their hope of rescue lay east. Within a moment they would lie exposed on the open waters to the guns of the sloop of war, and would be hopelessly vulnerable targets. Taking Railsford’s course as a fine example, Alan steered for the darkness to the south and the black shore beyond the other ships.

“Gawd, they got guts, sir,” Daniels said in awe, pointing aft. When Alan looked over his shoulder he could see that the sloop of war, a fine brig-rigged ship of at least fourteen guns, had come about to run down on the burning merchantman, either to nudge her out of the way or put a crew aboard to put her helm over to steer her away from the rest of the threatened transports.

“May they roast in hell for their pains,” Alan said, but it did give them a chance to escape, which Railsford took at once, waving an arm and pointing them back east toward where Desperate was anchored, away from the transports and the possible guard boats that would be gathering to intercept them.

“Row like Satan was after you!” Alan encouraged. “Put your backs into it like you never did before.”

They tried, he gave them credit for that, but it was a hard row. The tide was against them and splash and dip as they might, sending the boat surging forward with each stroke, they seemed to make no progress at all. He was almost despairing of them keeping up such a furious pace when a gun discharged somewhere and sent at least a six-pound ball humming over them, close enough to wind them with its passage and splash a cable off.

“Who goes there?” an English voice called into the night.

“Desperate!” Railsford shouted back. “Ahoy, the ship!”

“Come alongside!”

“Thank Christ,” Alan breathed. “Easy all.”

Desperate had raised her anchors at the first sign of alarm to come to their rescue, since nearly a full third of her crew was off on the raid. She loomed out of the dark, a hard shadow still showing no lights and let her boats nuzzle up to her by her chainwales and entry ports even as she continued to gather way.

“Quickly, now!” Treghues’s voice could be heard urging them from the quarterdeck. “Lead the boats astern after the people are on deck. Mister Monk, lay her nor’-nor’-west. Mister Toliver, hands to the braces to wear ship. Mister Gwynn, we can use some of your gunners on the sheets and the braces.”

Life on the Desperate could be drab and dull, the food could approach swill at times and Treghues could be an unpredictable martinet, but every man jack was exceedingly delighted to get back on board.

“I shall expect your report in the morning, Mister Rails-ford,” the captain said as the ship turned onto her new course and the confusion of overworked hands and frightened arrivals began to sort themselves out to their duty stations. “What a muddle!”

Lewrie went to the larboard gangway for a moment before joining his gunners in the waist. The French prize that had almost been theirs was now turned crabwise and though still burning fiercely was no longer any danger to her consorts, some of which had cut their cables in their eagerness to avoid being set on fire. However, the sloop of war was heading their way.

There were other warships to seaward of them, but of no immediate concern, and by the light of the fire they could espy no ship of any strength that could beat up to windward on the light breeze against that tide to reach them before dawn.

“Mister Gwynn, draw grape from the larboard battery and reload with solid shot,” Railsford called from aft. “We shall be having company soon and must give him a proper greeting.”

Alan dropped down into the waist and supervised his gunners as the bags of langridge and grape were wormed from the barrels and tossed aside.

Gun captains rolled nine-pounder balls around the deck to find the most perfectly cast that would fly true when fired, then had them rammed down the muzzles and tamped down. Arms raised in the air to indicate each gun’s readiness.

“Run out yer guns,” Gwynn ordered, and the crews hauled on the side tackles to trundle their charges across the slightly canted deck to the port sills where the carriages thumped against the hull. Side tackle was laid out for smooth recoil with no snags; train tackles were overhauled as well.

“Prime yer guns.” Gun captains reached down with prick-ers to poke holes through the serge cartridge bags. They inserted powder-filled goose quills into the touchholes and stood by with their slow matches.

“Wots ’e got, Mister Lewrie?” the nearest gun captain asked.

“Six or seven guns per broadside, six-pounders most like; that’s what they felt like when they were shooting at the prize,” he answered.

“Wuz she worth much, sir?” another man asked.

“Empty. Usual Frog trash—filth and no cargo.”

To get close enough to make his lighter guns do damage, the French commander had to beat up to them close-hauled on the starboard tack. Since Desperate was still making for the mouth of the York River, that meant that the French sloop would spend long minutes almost bows on to them, hoping for a convergence. But this would leave her open for raking fire on her own bow. And when the range was about two cables, and the target barely recognizable in the darkness now that the burning prize had burned out or sunk, this was what Desperate proceeded to give her.

“As you bear . . . fire!”

One at a time, starting with the larboard carronade on the fo’c’s’le, the guns barked harshly, flinging themselves backwards to the center line and stabbing long amber flames into the night. The hands threw themselves on their artillery, sponging out the barrels, inserting new cartridges, ramming down fresh shot, and running out, as well drilled as clever little German clockwork toys freshly wound up.

The French sloop of war replied, aiming high as was their practice, but the angle of convergence was getting more and more acute and her guns could not bear, so most of the storm passed overhead and to sternward on the first broadside.

He’ll not cut us off, Alan decided, seeing the way his own ship was headreaching on the Frenchman; he’ll have to haul his wind or pass astern of us, and we’ll get clean away.

The shadow of the enemy vessel did lengthen as she turned, seeing that she was not fast enough to intercept Desperate. But as she did so, she got off another broadside, and this one brought all her guns to bear. There was a loud crash from aloft, and things began to rain down.

“Jesus Christ!” A gun captain yelped in alarm as he was almost beheaded by a heavy halyard block that crashed to the deck beside him. Rope snaked down to droop over the guns as braces, stays and sail-tending lines were torn loose.

“Look out below amidships!”

The main tops’l yard came swinging down like a scythe to smash into the larboard gangway, scattering the brace tenders and sheetmen, who had to dive for their lives.

“As you bear . . . fire!” Gwynn yelled. “Lewrie, take three men and cut that raffle away. Save the yard if ya can. We’ll not see its like in the Chesapeake.”

“Aye, sir.” Leaving a party from the gangway to anchor the free end, he went aloft to see what was holding it and found it resting on the edge of the maintop, snagged by its starboard rigging into the shrouds. The topmast and topgallant mast above it were leaning drunkenly over the starboard side, ready to let go themselves.

“Yeoman,” he called down, “work the butt end forrard by the shrouds and begin lashing down.” He turned to the bosun’s mate, Weems, who had come aloft with him. “We’ll have to get a gantline on this end and just lash her to the shrouds. She’ll lean there alright for now, do you not think?”

“Aye, sir,” Weems replied, sending a man further aloft to haul in a surviving parrel and preventer backstay to secure the upper end of the yard. “But, that up there . . .”

“Topmast is shattered halfway up, looks like,” Alan agreed.

“Might save it an’ fish it. Topgallant mast, though. Don’t know what’s keepin’ it aloft as it is. ’Bout ready ta let go.”

There was another broadside from Desperate, and a ragged cheer which made them turn to look. They had the French sloop of war at roughly musket shot now, half a cable away, and had just punched some holes into her, making her stagger in the water as though she had run aground on an uncharted reef. Her foremast leaned over drunkenly and she began to slow down, now unable to keep up with Desperate even on a parallel course.

“We’ll need more men,” Alan said, removing his baldric and cutlass, unloading his pockets of the weight of the pistols, which were still at half cock. He eased the hammers forward for safety, laid everything in the top platform and gritted his teeth to make the ascent to the topmast to see how bad the damage was. It was expected of him, God help him.

There was a great groan of tortured pine, and the damaged masts leaned over to starboard even more, the topmast beginning to split down its length as the weight of the topgallant mast tore loose from whatever last shred had been holding it.

“’Ware below!” Weems boomed.

Alan had no choice but to slide back down the topmast he had been scaling until he fetched up at the lower mast cap and the trestletrees, clinging for dear life to avoid being pitched out of the rigging or torn asunder if the mast split off at the cap. With a final shriek, the entire topgallant mast and half the topmast split off and went over the side to raise a great splash of water alongside, and Alan exclaimed in terror as standing rigging and trailing rigging slashed about him like coach whips.

“I’m sorry, I quit!” he shouted, not caring who heard him. “I’ve done just about bloody enough tonight, thank you! If you want to kill me, you’ll find me in my hammock below decks!”

“Damme, we’ve lost it!” Weems cried, in anguish at the hurt to his precious rigging and masts. He scrambled up to the cap with Lewrie and surveyed what little he could see in the night. “Not a shred left of it. Ripped every stay, every shroud right out. We’ll be the next week makin’ repairs, an’ where’ll we get spare spars enough, I’m wonderin’.”

“I am well,” Alan told him, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Thank you very much for asking, Mister Weems!”

“Goddamn French bastards, the poxy snail-eatin’ sons-abitches!” Weems continued to lament the scarred perfection of his masts, shaking an angry fist at the French sloop of war that was, as Alan finally noted, being pounded to pieces by Desperate’s heavier fire. Her own damaged foremast went by the board over the farther side, and must have still been attached, for she stewed about as though snagged by an anchor cable, which threw such a shock to her remaining rigging that Lewrie saw for the first time a ship slung about so violently that she indeed had all “the sticks” ripped right out of her, her other mast crashing down in ruin to cover her decks in timber, rope, and canvas.

“Serves ya right, ya duck-fuckers!” Weems howled.

“May I go down to the deck now, Mister Weems?” Alan asked, picking a rather large splinter out of his palm from the shattered topmast.

“Aye, nothin’ left doin’ aloft, not on this mast. Hurt yeself, did ya? Best let the surgeon see ta that. Might get a tot of rum outen it if ya talks sweet to him,” Weems said.

That’s the best offer I’ve had all day, Alan decided.