H.M.S. COCKEREL

Chapter 5

"There's going to be trouble," Lieutenant Scott intoned. They were inspecting the standing rigging along the larboard gangway. Cockerel had come about just after dawn, and was now standing nor'east toward Portugal. To their sou'west, far up to windward, the tops'ls of the line-of-battle ships could barely be seen, if one were high aloft.

"Yes, and you're not helping," Lewrie bitterly accused. "Cony has ears. Your man, too, I expect. Tongues, too, but…"

"But can't mollify 'em. They speak too much of obedience, it smacks of toadying cant, sir. And then they lose their 'ears' among the people. I did try, though, sir. Same as you," Scott rejoined, sounding sulky and heavy.

"I'm sorry, Mister Scott. It was unfair to you, what I just said, I know, but…" Alan muttered, pausing in their slow pacing to fix his eyes upon Scott's, as emphasis of his sincerity.

Captain Braxton had held his court, solicitously nodding with grim disapproval as the two midshipmen had presented their "evidence." Lisney and Spendlove were in Scott's watch, so he had spoken for them, as had Lewrie. As had Lisney and Spendlove themselves. So new at sea, Spendlove looked to Lisney, a man in his late thirties who'd spent his own boyhood in the Fleet, as a "sea-daddy" who knew all the knots, all the cautions. Lisney was a leader, looked up to by everyone, seaman or landsman alike, on the foremast. Oh, aye, there'd be trouble!

But Captain Braxton was intent upon punishment. And could that bitter man have awarded lashes for back-talking sea officers, Lewrie and Scott would have been due at the gratings themselves. Three dozen he'd foreordained, and three dozen it would be, this forenoon. Spendlove already had been caned with a stiffened rope "starter," bent over a quarter-deck six-pounder. Beating boys on the bottom was done much less formally than the gloomy, stylised ritual of a man's flogging.

There was only so much the officers could do. Obedience and loyalty in the Royal Navy were a captain's due, and the rigid Articles of War spelled out the consequences for those who didn't toe the line, even if they didn't agree, even if they felt a captain was a raving Bedlam "bug-eater"-they had to support him totally, once he decided what was best. There was no recourse open to them that didn't smack of failure to support Captain Braxton, no one to whom they might complain. To inform a senior officer behind his back was disloyalty, and an officer's mutiny against him. Making matters worse, they could not even mention that dread word "mutiny" by way of warning yet. Braxton would become even harsher, perhaps spurring into occurrence the very thing his punishments were intended to prevent. And their careers would be ruined in either case -for failure to support, and to inform him of their fears, until the situation had so festered that it was moments from eruption-or for failure to nip it in the bud in the first place. It might even appear at a court martial that they had encouraged it, or at least sympathised, and hidden a plot's existence.

"Like rannin' before a hurricane bare-poled, sir," Scott grunted, sounding almost amused. "One hears of it bein' done, but damme if one wants to try it firsthand. Damned if we do, damned if we…"

That made Lewrie grin for an instant, even so. Lieutenant Barnaby Scott was normally a loud, blustery jackanapes- exuberant and blisteringly profane, the sort who went through life windmilling his arms fit to wake the dead with an improbable curse, a side-splitting jest, and the sort of booming laugh that made one wish to place a bet or order one more bottle, even if one knew better. He was also exceedingly competent- more so, perhaps, Lewrie suspected, than he himself was.

"No leaders yet, though?" Lewrie asked softly as they gained the foc's'le ladders. "No real sign of trouble?"

"Not that organised yet, sir," Scott scoffed, looking at that moment anything but exuberant. "Leaders, well… none who stand out. For obvious reasons, too. Too new a crew, too many landsmen aboard, who've never known a fair…" He choked off his comments as a working party under bosun's mate Porter neared. It was dangerous to be heard criticising the captain by the hands, or be recalled later as one who mentioned mutiny. That would be his ruin.

"Yes," Lewrie agreed with a bleak nod. "After today, though, I'd expect that to change, don't you? Black as their mood is…"

"Count on it, sir."

"And then we'll be in the unenviable position of being bound to tell him of our suspicions, else…" Alan shrugged heavily.

"More suppression, even more floggings," Scott agreed gloomily, lifting his hat to swipe his unruly hair. "Make it happen."

"Duty-bound to uphold… himl" Lewrie fretted, " 'Cause when it does occur, there'll be a court, and we'll end up tainted black as-"

"SAIL HO! " came a wild cry from the main-mast cross-trees.

They froze in their tracks, sharing astonished looks.

"Where away?" Lieutenant Braxton on the quarterdeck demanded.

"Two points off t'starb'rd bow, sir!" came the singsong reply, like the wail of a passing soul. "Tgall-antsl Three… FOURl Four, sir! Four sets o' t'ga//-ants!"

"A French squadron out for prizes, I'll wager!" Lewrie yelped with sudden joy.

"Convoy, p'rhaps, sir!" Scott countered, whopping fit to bust with his own excitement. "Rice ships from New Orleans? East Indiamen, loaded gunn'1-down! Prize-money, sir! Lashings of it! Action, at last!"

"Maybe salvation, at last!" Alan hooted, clapping Scott on the shoulder.

Cockerel had gone to Quarters, with a purpose for once. Drums rattled, fifes peeped, the ship rang to the slamming of doors as the temporary partitions were struck below to the orlop. The cabin furnishings were removed to a place of safety, and to lessen the danger of splinters. The gun deck and the mess deck became two long roadways, bare of any fittings or comforts. Sand was slung to give gunners and gun carriages a grip on the white-sanded planking. Fire buckets were topped up, slow match was lit and coiled in case the flintlock strikers of the artillery failed to work. In case they had to board a foe, the weapons chests were flung open, and pistols, muskets and cutlasses were distributed, piled 'round the bases of the masts below the wicked pikes in their beckets.

Twelve minutes it took to convert Cockerel into a vessel ready for battle, a little slower than the previous day's drill, Alan noted, but still a respectable time. Perhaps the hands were clumsier and more nervous than before, since it was a real foe they'd be spying out

"Give us three points free, quartermaster. Steer east nor'east," Captain Braxton commanded, sounding grumpy and out-of-sorts. "Mister Braxton, signal to Windsor Castle : 'Enemy-In-Sight.'"

"Aye, aye, sir," the midshipman snapped, turning aft to the taffrails. A moment later, the proper signal flag soared aloft on a light halliard. With a jerk of the line, when it was "two-blocked" as high as it would go, the bunting bale burst open.

"Deck, there!" the lookout howled. "Tops'ls, now! Tops'ls' 'bove t' 'orizon, sir! FIVE chase, now, sir! Five chase!"

"We're overhauling 'em damn' fast," Lewrie exulted. He looked aloft. The signal flag was streaming at an odd angle, which made him frown. The westerlies which prevailed 'round Cape St. Vincent were at this latitude usually tending northerly, down where ships turned for the Caribbean. Today, though, they were perversely backing, blowing from west-nor'west, and it wasn't exactly the clearest day he'd ever seen, either. "Mister Braxton, any reply from the flag?" he inquired.

"Uhm, nossir," the midshipman replied, a digit up his nose.

"You can't tell from the deck, sir," Lewrie rasped. "Go aloft. They may not have seen it yet. Captain, sir?"

"What is it, Mister Lewrie?" Braxton grumbled impatiently.

"Signal flag's streaming, larboard quarter to starboard bows, sir. Might be unreadable yonder."

Captain Braxton rocked back on his heels, craning his neck to peer upwards over his shoulder. "Has the flagship replied?" he bade of the midshipman, now in the mizzen-top.

"No return signal, sir! They're barely in sight!"

"Damn," Braxton growled, scratching his unshaven chin. Cockerel was almost t'gallants-down over the horizon from the squadron, with the wind fluttering her alert towards the unidentified ships.

"Mister Lewrie, we'll put about. Lay her close-hauled on this larboard tack. We'll close the flagship, then spy out our visitors."

"Aye, aye, sir. Bosun!" he roared through his brass speaking trumpet. "Hands to the braces! Man for full-and-by!"

Lewrie had little charity for the captain; even so, he thought it professionally slovenly not to have alerted the squadron first off, before going to Quarters and turning eastward, even further downwind out of visual, and signalling, range.

Cockerel came trundling about, bows chopping on the lively sea, shrouds and lines beginning to moan to the apparent wind. Abeam the wind as she'd been sailing, it had not seemed so boisterous; but now spray dashed high as the bulwarks, and she heeled, hobby-horsing over long-set wavetops, loping into the wind something champion.

It took a quarter-hour on that exhilarating beat before they fetched high enough above the hazy horizon, before Windsor Castle rose tops'l high, and finally caught her urgent signal. Bunting soared up the flagship's masts, and sails foreshortened, as the squadron of tine-of-battle ships altered course eastward, to get in on whatever it was which the scouting frigate had found.

"Now, by God…" Braxton snapped. "Put about, Quartermaster. Make her course due east. Haul our wind, Mister Lewrie."

Back they flew towards the unidentified ships which were now well below the horizon, without the tiniest scrap of masthead trucks visible, guessing at where they might reappear.

"Buggered off to loo'rd once they spotted us," Lewrie opined with Mister Dimmock. "If they had a lick o' sense, o' course."

"Bound for Toulon or Marseilles, perhaps, sir," the sailing master agreed. "But… be they French East Indiamen, they'd hope to get in-shore, finish at that L'Orient of theirs, on the Bay of Biscay and-"

"Silence, both of you," Braxton barked. "Speculate off duty, not on. We've work to do. Or hadn't you noticed, sirs?"

"Of course, sir," they almost chorused.

"SAIL HO!" the lookout shrieked. "Four points off t'star-board bows! Five sail, same'z afore, there!"

"Running?" Braxton shouted back.

"Can't tell, sir!"

"Allow me to go aloft, sir," Lewrie bade, wriggling with curiosity. And to get away from Braxton for a few precious moments.

"Uhm… very well," the captain grudgingly allowed, giving him a grumpy once-over. Lewrie snatched his personal telescope from the binnacle-cabinet rack and dashed for the mizzen chains.

Up the ratlines on the windward side, where the ship's angle of heel made the ascent less steep, laying out on the futtock shrouds, then up and over the mizzen-top deadeyes onto the upper shrouds for the cross-trees, with Cockerel shrinking to a toothpick below him. A heaving, wallowing toothpick, and the mastheads swaying like treetops in a stiff wind.

They were almost hull-up to him, those unknown ships. Running downwind almost at Cockerel's point-of-sail, with the wind large on their larboard quarters. Big, dark, bulky three-masters, as impressive as 1st Rates. There were winks of cloudy sunshine on their wide sterns, on transom windows, gilt galleries and an acre of glass. But they were not warships. They looked like Compagnie des Indies ships, stiff with priceless Asian cargoes, and loaded so heavily they wallowed in the sea like cattle on a boggy moor. Cockerel had fetched them hull-up, almost in the time it had taken Lewrie to scale the mast! They could not outrun her. Slow and logy as the squadron's line-of-battle ships were to the west, even they would overhaul them within the hour.

"Seen their like before, Gittons?" he asked the mizzen lookout, lending him the heavy, shotgun-long telescope at full extension.

"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' 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. Fifth 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 bis 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 windward 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 inboard to his officers.

"Uhm… coming up astern, sir. I didn't…" He flushed.

Petulance twisted Braxton's mouth; it looked like he had muttered/oo/! "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'Is 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 bow-and-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 belch-like 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'U 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 St. 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 foresheets, 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 fore-courses 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'll 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, lowermost 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. They 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 towards the pin rails as they tried to hold on to 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 gunports 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 thonkl into bulwarks.

Then Cockerel rolled back upright, rebounding so quickly that she 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.

"Bosun!" he bawled, "Get below and set relieving tackle to the tiller head! All hands, secure from Quarters! Mister Scott, take the foc's'le and foremast, set the sprit-s'l, fore-tops'l and forecourse for a run. Main-mast, mizzenmast, there! Topmen aloft! Trice up and lay out! Brail up all sail! Clew up now, Mister Porter, Mister Thorne. Clew up the mizzen t'gallant, main course, main tops'l and t'gallant! Spanish-reef 'em, for now! After-guard, mizzen tops'l braces!"

They'd have to have the foresails for drive, and a lifting effect, making the stern heavier for a repaired helm. The mizzen tops'l could serve for steering, of a rough and clumsy sort. The rest of her square sail would be drawn up by the clew lines towards the yards which hung them, baggy and bat-winged, towards the tips of the yardarms, close and snug inward towards the masts… Spanish-reefed.

He dared allow himself at last a deep, shaky breath and a look aloft. Well, that didn't help his nerves much, he thought, blaring his eyes in wonder-there were t'gallant and top-mast shrouds flying free as the commissioning pendant up yonder, and the light upper masts were swaying a lot more than normal as Cockerel wallowed from side to side, her untended lift lines allowing the yards to droop a-cock-bill.

"What in the name o' God d'ye think yer playing at, sir!" the captain fumed as he made his way amidships of the quarterdeck. "Get the bloody hell outa my way, you brainless, cunny-thumbed…!" Captain Braxton screamed to all and sundry, shaking his fists as if he wished to bloody his knuckles on the quarter-deck gunners and after-guard.

"They're firing at us!" Midshipman Braxton shouted from aloft. "The French are firing at us, sir!"

The 5th Rate had rounded up abeam the wind, about four or five miles alee of Cockerel. The roar of her upper-deck guns could not be heard, of course, but they could see the puffs of grey-tan gunpowder erupt from her sides as the forty-four-gunned vessel delivered a slow, timed salute-a most mocking and derisory salute to their "seamanship"-before hauling her wind once more and loping away eastward to guard her convoy, which had used their entertaining diversion to sail away from harm, towards the Straits of Gibraltar.

Cackling their fool heads off, Alan thought miserably. "Fowkner," he called to a senior hand of the after-guard. "Get aloft. Get a line on the spanker gaff-what's left of it- and haul it clear of the shrouds. Boat hooks, you men. Get the spanker sheets in-board, and ready to lower away. Mister Spendlove? Inform one of the bosun's mates to fetch out one of the stun'sl booms and 'fish' it to the broken spanker gaff." "Aye, aye, sir."

"You, sir!" Braxton snarled, hatless, his fists balled for a fight still, as he came to his first lieutenant. "Of all the stupid, inept-!"

"Steering tackle parted, sir," Lewrie tried to explain. "There wasn't much we could-"

"That you should have re-rove completely before, you-!" "Captain, sir," Lewrie replied, "you were there when we overhauled it. You said yourself you were satisfied-"

"You disputatious dog, sir!" Braxton shot back. "Think I can't see your game? Think I'm blind, do you? How convenient the hands, of a sudden, were struck-"

"Captain, sir," Mister Dimmock interrupted from the other side, "I think a little calm is in order, sir. 'Least said, soonest mended' and all that? The hands, ye know… won't do, in their hearing, sir."

"I'll kindly thankee to keep out of this, sir," Braxton sneered. "I want your advice, I'll ask for it. Now, be silent."

"No, sir," Dimmock quailed, though determined to have his say, at last. "Not this time. You're saying Mister Lewrie put the people up to it, is that your meaning, sir? And I say that is wrong, sir. Were it not for his quick wits, we'd have rolled the 'sticks' right out of her, sir. Frankly, Captain Braxton, Cockerel's damn' lucky somebody kept their wits about 'em when perfectly sound steering-tackle ropes snapped, at the worst possible moment. Tackle you did inspect, sir."

Braxton seethed, turned red as turkey wattles, but realised he was in the wrong place to shout the dread word "mutiny." "How dare you, sir, deign to interfere!" he hissed, in a much more private, though much more threatening voice.

"There may be trouble 'mongst our people, sir," Dimmock told him in a mutter, "but I may swear to you on a stack o' Bibles, 'tis none of Mister Lewrie's doing."

Dimmock had such a way of canting his accents, of laying stress on innocuous words, that his meaning was quite clear at that moment; and quite accusatory, too. Though were his statements recalled at any court martial, verbatim, they could sound quite innocent. He'd as much as implied that the source of the crew's unrest lay solely with Captain Braxton. He'd further implied that when Cockerel had come nigh broaching, her captain had uttered no orders for her salvation.

"You, as well, sir?" Braxton sniffed, raring back with outrage.

"Sir, you can't believe that. We're all as-"

BOOM! From windward.

Windsor Castle had fired a forecastle chase gun to get Cockerel's attention. She and the rest of the squadron were completely hull-up to them, and had been flying "Do You Require Assistance" for some minutes, until at last their admiral had become so exasperated at their lack of notice he'd ordered a gun touched off. The line-abreast warships were going to pass Cockerel close-aboard soon, as she staggered sou'east with the wind right up her stern, and they continued east-nor'east in chase of the French convoy. Some of them might have to alter course to avoid her, slowing that pursuit even more.

"From the flag, sir!" Midshipman Braxton screeched aloft. " 'Do You Require Assistance,' it reads, sir!"

"We can see that from the deck, damn you!" Lewrie hailed upward. "God help your slack arse, Mister Midshipman Braxton!" he vowed. He'd have the lad bent over a gun, should the Devil himself dare to cross him. "What reply do you wish to send, sir?" he asked the captain, in a more civil tone.

"No!" Braxton thundered. "We require no assistance!"

"Very well, sir. Mister Spendlove? You're free aft. Hoist a Negative."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

"Might ease the starboard mizzen tops'l braces, Mister Lewrie," Dimmock advised, in his proper role of sailing master. "Haul taut on the larboard, and we may be able to pressure her 'round more east'rd."

'Thankee, Mister Dimmock. Should I attend to that, sir?" Alan asked the captain.

Braxton's mouth worked in anger. To fly up as lubberly as some first-time lake sailor in a dinghy… to completely ignore a signal of their flagship…! His abiding wish that Cockerel distinguish herself as the best frigate in the Fleet was in shambles.

"I have the deck, sir," Braxton snarled at last. "Do you attend the purser below. We're alist, sir. Ballast has shifted, stores… I vow you've done quite enough for one day, sir."

"Aye, aye, sir," Lewrie replied as chearly as he might.

"Whoo, neck-or-nothin' there, for a moment, hey, sir?" Banbrook the Marine crowed, fanning himself with his hat as he and O'Neal came up from the waist.

"On your way, see what's taking Mister Fairclough so long to repair the steering tackle," Braxton continued.

"I shall, sir," Lewrie vowed, doffing his hat in salute.

"I say, Mister Lewrie, sir?" Banbrook nattered on, nearing their small gathering, completely unaware of any problems, now that the ship no longer appeared to be in danger of sinking.

"Might I suggest, Captain, sir, that the master-at-arms take a muster?" Lewrie dared to suggest. "Hard as we were slung about, it'd be a miracle were no topmen dashed over the side, sir."

"Umph!" the captain grunted, calling for his son to attend to it.

"Then I shall go below, sir," Lewrie said in parting.

"Uhm, Mister Lewrie, sir… 'bout the whore-transport?" Lieutenant Banbrook inquired breezily. "All these repairs and wot-not… does this mean we miss our turn with her, sir?"

Good God, Lewrie thought, appalled; not now, you blitherin'…!

Captain O'Neal took Banbrook's arm to jerk him out of earshot, coughing fit to die-much too late, of course.

"The what!" Captain Braxton roared, wheeling to look at Banbrook with a mixture of utter loathing and complete incomprehension on his phiz. "The bloody what, sir?"

"The whore-transport, sir," Lieutenant Banbrook began gaily. "The one the wardroom told me about?"

A very tardy realisation struck the young Marine officer at last. "The one with the… uhm…" he stammered, blushing beet red as he discovered himself the goat of their cruel jape. "Well, the… whores aboard? Who come alongside and…?"

"Get off my deck! Get off my quarterdeck, you useless damn fool!" the captain screamed, again in full cry, and with a suitable target for his pent-up wrath. "I want this… tailor's dummy… under close arrest, Captain O'Neal! Under close arrest, sir!"

Time to bolt, Lewrie thought.

He made his way down a quarter-deck ladder, down the midships companionway hatch, safely out of screeching range, as the full fury of the captain's storm broke.

The first people he met as he attained the orlop deck were the ship's carpenter, Mister Dallimore, and his carpenter's crew, all of whom were hugging carline posts, and each other, sniggering and chortling.

" 'Hore-ship, megawd!" one of them wheezed.

'"Tain't funny, damn yer eyes," Lewrie snapped. "Look at this bloody mess, Mister Dallimore."

Huge water butts, salt-rations barrels, beer kegs, piled ship's stores… half the well-ordered stowage on the orlop was now lumbered loose to larboard. They'd be half the watch shifting it, the waisters and idlers, such as Dallimore's people, and probably require Marines to pitch in, too, to shift ballast in the bilges.

"Aye, sir. Sorry, sir," Dallimore tried to reply, though it was more like a strangling, sneezing sound.

"Get to work, there. Turn a hand, and stop that sniv'ling."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Lewrie stomped stiff-legged aft to the tiller head in the midshipmen's cockpit. The bosun and a few senior able seamen were finishing up the first vital part of the repairs, stringing a block-and-tackle series to the tiller head so Cockerel could be steered from the cockpit, with helm orders relayed down from the quarterdeck. Re-roving new rope and long-splicing old would take longer, before the wheel would serve.

"Whip-staff an' windlass, Mister Lewrie, sir," Fairclough told him, "but 'twill do f r now. We've our rudder back."

"Herdson, go on deck and inform the captain," Lewrie ordered.

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Buggered, sir," Fairclough grunted, shifting his quid.

"When? How?" Lewrie demanded.

"Lookee 'ere, sir," Fairclough whispered, drawing his attention to a squarish hole in an overhead deck beam, hard by where one of the turning blocks for the tiller ropes would pass. "Looks t'me, sir, if a rat-trail rasp'z drove in 'ere, it'd chafe th' steerin' tackle sore, Mister Lewrie, ever'time a spoke'r two was put over. There's frayin' on the lines, aye, but… ye can see where some'un couldn't wait, an' cut it."

"Sometime after we went to Quarters, I suppose," Lewrie sighed.

"Aye, sir, else the 'younkers'da seed it bein' done, and…" Fairclough shrugged heavily, lifting thick brows in studied perplexity.

"And I didn't think they'd found leaders yet," Lewrie muttered softly. "Looks like they have, though."

"Aye, sir," Fairclough agreed, sounding shifty and truculent.

Damme, Alan recalled suddenly-Dallimore and his crew-they had a tool box with 'em! Rasps, punches, hammers, saws… and draw-knives! And I'd wager it wasn't just Banbrook's lunatick gaff set 'em to laughing! The newcomers, the lubbers, the waisters… they'd never think of such a stunt. It was the experienced crewmen who'd know how to disable the ship, who'd know how to make the landsmen slip, fall, or look clumsy. Who'd know just how far they could go without really disabling Cockerel, or endangering her or themselves.

"A word to the wise, Mister Fairclough," Lewrie said sternly, finding another conspirator in the way the bosun could not seem to meet his intent gaze. "And I believe you might just have a very good idea of who those… wise… are, hey? There will be no more. Once was the limit, and there… will… be… no… morel Because if there is another occurrence, if things go farther, than it won't be floggings for the ones involved… it'll be courts-martial… and that means the noose for 'em. And if I'm forced to search out the man, or men, who hobbled our ship, I swear to God, I'll have their nutmegs off with a dull knife! Do you understand me plain, Mister Fairclough?"

"Aye, sir," Fairclough nodded sadly.

"Signal sent, read and understood, I believe, then," Alan said. "The crew's… and mine."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"And a further word of warning, bosun. They'd best be the finest crew a captain could ask for from now on-else even he'll take notice and flay 'em to bloody rags, first, and 'scrag' 'em, second."

"Aye, aye, sir," Fairclough huffed, looking as if he wished to be anyplace but there at the moment, getting flayed himself. "Best behaviour, sir."

Lewrie went back amidships to find the purser, his Jack in the Breadroom, a working party of gangway idlers, the sail-maker, carpenter and their crews, with Marine help, heaving nigh to ruptures to set the shambles right. He slithered and scaled the piles forward to the cable tiers for a better view.

There, somewhat separated from the hands, and in delayed but shuddery relief that Cockerel hadn't been dismasted, hadn't broached or rolled completely keel-up and killed him, he began to snicker to himself. He put a hand to his mouth, looking as if he was about to "cast his accounts" to Jonah, as an uncontrollable, lunatick fit of mirth quite took him. Lewrie was forced to duck deep into the cable tiers, amid the stinking mile of thigh-thick hawsers for privacy.

"Whore-transport!" he whispered to the darkness. And then he began to laugh himself sick, until his sides hurt.