Hoare and the headless Captains

Chapter I

Twenty miles to the south, Bartholomew Hoare, cruising in his pinnace in the Channel, knew he had bungled, and bungled badly. The sudden gust laid Neglectful nearly on her beam ends, to the ugly tune of crashing crockery in the cuddy below. There was no escaping it; he had misjudged the rate at which the weather to seaward would degenerate and the westerly storm strike the Channel. As a result, he and Neglectful were about to experience a very nasty October gale. He wasted no more time but brought her to the wind, reduced sail to a storm jib and a corner of mainsail, then hove her to and went below to lash down all the gear he could, wedge unlashable items securely, and pad everything breakable that had not already broken.

Remembering what had happened once last autumn, when he had neglected this precaution, he lidded tight the hod of cannel coal he kept for his galley stove. He lashed it to the side of Neglectful's mast away from the stove itself. He would not have gritty black chunks and slurries fouling the cuddy again for months, not if he could help it. He put on his precious suit of Dutch foul weather gear, took two turns of line around ankles and wrists, pulled the suit's visored hood over his head, and fitted to his body a canvas harness well equipped with D rings from which depended short lengths of line ending in pelican hooks.

Just as he was about to double-secure the pinnace's cuddy hatch, he remembered something else. He reached back below, took up a towel, a jug, and a bag of biscuits. "With one last look below to satisfy himself that Neglectful's innards were as snug as he could make them, he finished securing the hatch.

Neglectful was moving slowly but well. She rid herself easily of the seas from the west that were already sluicing across her deck and made a comfortable two knots nearly directly due south. Hoare could imagine she was looking forward to their mutual ordeal.

As it roared heavily across her larboard bow, the wind carried the spray down Neglectful's modest length. Hoare could swear that most of it was directed at his head and shoulders while he sat at her tiller, nursing her along. Wind and spray dropped for a moment whenever a rogue sea took her under its wing and put her under its lee before sweeping her skyward, leaving her exposed once more and rushing on toward its end. Hoare guessed the wave would crash ashore somewhere near Pevensey.

Whenever the seas passed beneath the yacht, lifting her into the wind, she felt the weight of the gale more deeply, and her moments of respite in the combers' lee began to become more welcome to Hoare. Depending on whether Neglectful was riding a crest or cowering in a trough, the gale either howled in her exiguous shrouds or moaned emptily above her reeling mast.

This blow was no squall. At this rate, it would build for the next six hours or so, hold for another four, and then pass on to bludgeon Bonaparte's Frogs. Or so Hoare judged. But considering his failure to predict the strength of this blow, he had to doubt himself more than usual. It might be no more than four hours before he could safely fall off and run down, home to Portsmouth. It might be fourteen hours. Objectively, Hoare knew that this weather was nothing, but… in a twenty-six-foot boat, alone, at his age, surely he should be anxious-or, failing that, proud.

He wondered in passing if this blunder of his had not been intentional. Perhaps he had been trying to tell the world that he, Bartholomew Hoare, Lieutenant, RN, might be forty-three, mute, and beached forever by the Admiralty, but that, when face-to-face with Nature in the raw, he was any man's equal. Perhaps he was seeking an excuse to take shelter in Weymouth, where he could continue his suit for the hand of the widow Graves. In any case, he and Neglectful were in for a long watch together. He made his lanky, brown, silent self as snug in her cockpit as he could under the circumstances and hooked his harness into the eyebolts set into the coaming. The tiller under one arm and his bag of provisions at his feet, he let his memory take him four days back, to when Admiral Hardcastle broke the news.

"Now, as to Royal Duke." Rear Admiral Sir George Hardcastle, KB, paused to await Hoare's reaction.

That afternoon, Sir George wore his own hair, as he commonly did except on formal occasions. It was stone gray, cut short, and formed into a bang over his forehead in the fashionable Brutus cut. Brute he was often called, in fact, and he enjoyed the appellation, for he sought the reputation of being a grim and a merciless man.

To a large extent he had succeeded. Reputations too numerous to mention had been destroyed at his hand, leaving their owners-junior officers for the most part, but a sprinkling of Commanders and Post Captains as well-bereft, dangling more or less helpless on half-pay. Irrespective of whatever interest they might have, it collapsed when Sir George Hardcastle turned his adamantine will upon it.

"Royal Duke, sir?" Hoare remembered his Admiral's having once made passing mention of her and her late Commander-Ogilvy, if he remembered, or some such name. Oglethorpe, that was the name. What had Royal Duke to do with Hoare in any case, or he with her?

"Yes. Admiralty yacht, now lying in Greenwich. A hundred tons or so, brig-rigged. Eight brass four-pounders. Crew of thirty, more or less."

Hardly fit to stand in the line of battle, Hoare thought. And undermanned for even that trivial armament.

"She never takes the sea," Sir George had continued, "but rests in her home port, almost like a receiving ship.

"In fact, in some respects, she is a receiving ship, and in other respects a manufactory. For, you must know, Royal Duke serves the Navy as a mobile secret information bureau whose people maintain copies of all files relating to the efforts of foreign powers-Frenchmen for the most part, of course, but Swedens, Dutchmen, even Russians, Yankees, and Turks as well-to damage and defeat the Royal Navy by means of stealth.

"Pour me a glass, sir, and help yourself."

When he wished, as he did now, Sir George Hardcastle, Rear Admiral of the Blue, could address his listeners as if they were the House.

"She also includes a small corps," the Admiral continued, "who are charged with defeating, frustrating, and foiling the enemy's knavish tricks. This corps have not yet been put to the use for which they were intended, and Admiral Abercrombie has decided, among other things, that this must be remedied. Most of her crew are actually half clerk or assassin and half seaman, if that. All can read and write, though I am told 'tis hard to credit of some. Thus, she is manned in quite an unusual manner, as you are about to discover."

Here the Admiral had interrupted his discourse again, ostensibly to take refreshment but actually, Hoare suspected, to appraise his listener's reaction. He avoided making any but waited with suppressed amusement. Finally, Sir George grew tired of waiting.

"For you appear, sir," he went on, "to be well regarded in certain Whitehall corridors, as one of those experts in your own right. I imagine they believe you largely responsible for breaking up that gang that was blowing up so many of His Majesty's ships. Those affairs of Severn's missing Master and that Bourbon Duke also stand to your credit. Accordingly, Their Lordships of the Admiralty have been pleased to put you into Royal Duke."

I am to go to sea again! Hoare cried to himself. To be sure, with a company of only thirty, Royal Duke could hardly support more than one Lieutenant, but even so, he would, under his commanding officer, of course, once again be an officer of a fighting ship. Or, more probably, he would be a mere supernumerary, one of those experts the Admiral had mentioned, though precisely where they thought his expertise might lie eluded him. Just the same… to be at sea again!

"Of course," the Admiral went on, "you could hardly expect to fill poor Oglethorpe's shoes in every respect. After all, he was a Post Captain, seventy-five years of age, and wise in the ways of the ungodly. No. The best rank I-Their Lordships, I mean-have seen fit to bestow upon you is that of Master and Commander. You will read yourself in as soon as she makes Portsmouth from her present berth in Greenwich under the temporary command of her Lieutenant."

Hoare had simply sat there, bereft of words. Together, those three words Master and Commander put teeth into his new commission. His title was to be more than nominal: Commander was an appellation often used to recognize deserving Lieutenants who thereafter languished on half-pay for lack of an actual vessel to command. He was to be "Master and Commander," on active service, confirmed in command of his own vessel. He was only three-and-forty now; with luck, he would make post after all before he died, despite his disabilities of name and voice.

"While you will be Master and Commander in actuality," said Sir George, thereby figuratively nailing Hoare's rank to the mast of advancement, "you are not, yourself"- here he paused and read from a paper before him-" 'expected to issue spoken orders with respect to the working of the vessel under your command. Instead, you may give instructions to your Lieutenant, who in his turn will order the crew as conditions require.'

"In other words, in all circumstances where your lack of a voice would endanger Royal Duke, her mission, or her men, your Lieutenant will be-to coin a phrase-your executive officer. That will, of course, almost always be the case on deck and under way. You know that as well as I.

"However," Sir George added, "the case is hypothetical. Royal Duke can sail, but she must not sail. Lest she be taken by the French, secrets and all, she must never go to sea. 'This is the first and great commandment.' "

Hoare nodded. It was his crushed voice box that had cut short a promising career at sea and put him ashore- forever, as he had believed for ten years and more. Well, half a loaf… To all intents and purposes, Royal Duke might as well be a mere idle hulk, but she would be his, his to command.

"The arrangement is unprecedented, sir," Sir George continued. "It demonstrates a highly unusual degree of trust on the part of Their Lordships in your ability to, er, navigate, so to speak, the uncharted waters on which you are about to embark. It will require an especially high level of mutual trust and accommodation between yourself and your Lieutenant. However, I reassure you that your command is not merely pro forma. It is de facto as well."

Sir George paused again, this time to admire his own mastery of Latin.

"And de jure, of course," he added triumphantly. Sir George was an accomplished and articulate flag officer as well as a grim and a merciless man, but, as Hoare knew, had gone to sea at nine and even as a midshipman had never sailed under the instruction of either a schoolmaster or a chaplain. An officer of the old school, he was more comfortable with action than discourse. Perversely, in Hoare's opinion, this inclined Sir George all the more to parade whatever classical crumbs he might have gathered up from under the tables of more learned men. It might also explain his excursions into periphrastic orotundity.

"In short, the duties of Master in Royal Duke will be assumed in practice, as a rule, by your First Lieutenant."

"May I ask, sir, who my Lieutenant is to be?" Hoare whispered.

"You may ask, sir, but you will receive no answer. I exercise my privilege of being irritating to my subordinates whenever I choose. Let you reveal yourself to the man, and he to you, when you read yourself in.

"I can state, however, that I briefly entertained the name of Peter Gladden, who, as you will remember, was your colleague in defense of Mr. Arthur Gladden's recent court-martial. However, I chose to leave him in Frolic."

Hoare thought he could guess the reason. Peter Gladden was openly enamored of Sir George's daughter, and Felicia was known to reciprocate. Her papa the Admiral had given evidence that he did not oppose the connection; Mr. Gladden's parents were both wellborn and wealthy, and since Felicia, however good-hearted she was, was dumpy, spotty, and lacking in presence, he would be hard put to it to find a better match for the young woman. But, as prudent in his role of pater familias as in his position of Port Admiral at Portsmouth, Sir George had probably determined to separate the lovers for a spell before approving the union. Thus, any second thoughts on the part of either young person would have a chance to surface before it was too late altogether to cry off.

"Since your appointment will appear in the forthcoming Chronicle," the Admiral continued, "I give you leave to christen it as you please without necessarily waiting to read yourself in. You cannot draw your pay as Commander, of course, until Royal Duke has made port and that ceremony has come to pass."

That was true, Hoare knew. Neglectful's former owner had fallen into that trap. When the brief Peace of Amiens had been signed with Napoleon, Their Lordships had refused to confirm him in rank and required him to restore every penny of his Commander's pay. Until the weary war had resumed, the poor man had had to scrape along on nothing except his winnings at whist and Hoare's payment for Neglectful.

"That will be all for today, then, Hoare," said Sir George with a wintry smile. "Go, make holiday; make merry. Put yourself in proper uniform, and wet your swab as you see fit."

Hoare was about to relive the christening of his swab, an occasion that, in keeping with the celebrant's advanced age, included Sir George himself and as many Post Captains and senior civilians as it did sprightly Lieutenants and therefore resembled a gathering of stately, convivial walruses. But a gust bore a sheet of cold October rain across Neglectful, and she heeled another strake. Hoare shook himself back to the present. He lifted himself stiffly, to scan the full horizon, first to windward and then, ducking under the boom and its straining trysail, to leeward.

Directly on Neglectful's lee beam, tossing in the squall that had just passed overhead, a two-masted vessel emerged from the blowing rain. One mast was canted against the other; from both streamed the remnants of sails and rigging. As Hoare watched, the stranger was obscured by a fountain of spray, reappearing to show only a single mast remaining upright.

Timing his maneuver to coincide with the lee offered by an oncoming sea, Hoare eased both sheets and edged Neglectful eastward, off the wind. Trysail and storm jib, which had been straining before, were now pressed to their utmost, and her double backstays hummed in the following gale. Neglectful heaved, nearly pitchpoling, but gained her stride and rushed down the wind, the stranger growing in Hoare's vision as the two vessels neared. Another sea lifted between the two craft, reached the other, and hoisted her skyward as it passed under her, to reveal her condition more clearly.

It was perilous. Both masts-she had carried two lug-sails, apparently-were over the side now, and she drifted, waterlogged and rolling heavily, bows-on to the seas, the wreckage of her top-hamper serving as sea anchor.

The floating wreck was less than a cable's length to leeward when she released a flock of birds. Hoare blinked in disbelief. Yes, they were birds, indeed, and no seabirds. They formed a confused cloud, seemed to veer upwind toward Neglectful, then gave over and let the gale carry them scudding off out of Hoare's sight.

Long since, Hoare had distinguished her people. There were two of them, clinging to the stumps of her masts so as to withstand the seas that were washing over their vessel. Both were waving frantically with their free hands, as though they must make absolutely, totally, utterly sure that Hoare saw them and knew their distress. He was close enough now to hear their faint cries, even against the gale.

This would call for his best seamanship. Neglectful closed the gap between herself and the wreck at a full ten knots, heaving and bucking in the scend of the following seas as if she were a wild mare. At top speed, Hoare lashed the helm lest she broach to while he occupied himself with the rescue. As they passed, Neglectful and the stranger would present their larboard sides.

Hoare snatched up a grapnel to which he had long ago spliced a light dock line and clambered forward into Neglectful's eyes. Shifting the clips of his harness onto her fore-stay, he stood erect, whirled the grapnel in a circle, and let it fly. Before the grapnel could even strike its target, he had dropped the line into a bronze chock, taken a turn, and braced himself.

The grapnel caught in the lugger's bulwarks. Hoare had a lightning memory of the last time that grapnel had been put to use; it had caught a Frenchman between neck and shoulder and pulled him off the schooner Marie Claire.

Now Hoare cleated the far end of the line to one of the sockets he had set to take Neglectful's swivel gun at need. Neglectful lurched steeply to starboard, her timbers squealing in protest as the line drew taut and spun her full about, nearly in her own length, bringing her head to the gale, bucking in the seas aft of the stranger, her two scraps of sail a-thunder.

Between them, the three men heaved Neglectful and the dismasted lugger close enough to each other so that the castaways could scramble across their own swimming deck, take a purchase on Neglectful's jib-stay, and drop onto her bowsprit. The first man made it without incident, but the second missed his timing and went over the side with a shriek of despair, carrying Hoare's grapnel with him, into the widening strip of Channel between the vessels. He had kept a tight grip on the grapnel, however, and the other two men readily dragged him aboard Neglectful, spluttering but no wetter than he had been before his bath.

Especially in foul weather, the Channel hereabouts was a no-man's-land, so until now Hoare could not be sure whether he had saved French lives or English ones.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," the swimmer gasped, crawling after Hoare into the stern sheets, where Hoare could take the con once more. The sentiment might be Papist, Hoare thought, but the words were English. At least, then, he did not face the risk of being overpowered by ungrateful guests and carried off to some Breton port.

The first castaway looked back at the lugger, dwindling in the distance and wallowing visibly. "There goes me livelihood," he said bitterly through chattering teeth.

Hoare gestured to the two to go below and mimed eating, drinking, and dry clothing. They looked puzzled.

"Can't ye talk?" the first arrival shouted at him. Like so many people, he must assume that anyone who could not speak certainly could not hear. Hoare shook his head, smiled an apology, and repeated the motions. The swimmer went below, but the owner waited while his livelihood raised her weary bows into the air and disappeared behind a roller. She did not appear again. Thereupon, the owner joined his companion below.

Hoare kept his yacht's course easterly, scudding before the wind, even though wind and seas were far outpacing her. He knew Neglectful's cleverly formed transom would prevent her from being pooped.

The choking reek of coal smoke, sweeping horizontally from the little yacht's Charley Noble, was followed quickly enough by the more welcome smell of soup a-heating. The gale had not let up, but it had not strengthened, either, and Neglectful rode smoothly enough that Hoare's guests- probably as good seamen as he, if not better-had judged it safe to light her galley stove. Hoare had no spare oilskins, but he had several loose heavy garments that would fit any wet visitor well enough. It was no more than half a glass before the bereaved owner, clad in Hoare's thick Shetland sweater, stuck his head out Neglectful's cabin hatch and reached his host a cup of thick, hot soup, in one of his own thick, hot mugs. It was welcome; events had moved so fast that Hoare had not thought to breach his emergency cockpit supply.

In his other hand, the rescued owner held one of the Roman-style wax tablets that, together with numerous other devices, Hoare carried about for easy communication whenever his feeble whisper could not be understood.

"Name's Dunaway, your honor," he said, "Abel Dunaway. Owner of the Fancy lugger-though that means nowt this day."

Dunaway handed the tablets to his rescuer. His mournful, tanned face bore a week's growth of grizzled beard, and a shag of gray hair dropped into his eyes. He made himself comfortable in the cockpit, face-to-face with Hoare. In Neglectful's narrow cockpit, their knees all but touched.

"Just the same, sir, I owes you for me life, and Jamie below as well, though he must speak for himself. The boy Jethro Slee went overboard this morning, when a thicky murderous gale hit.

"I should never ha' sent him forward to reef the foresail; he went overboard. When I bore up to fish him out, we broached to, and her mainmast went by the board. 'Twere all my fault, my most grievous fault, and I don't know how I'm to break it to his da." Dunaway fell silent and studied his borrowed mug.

"May be lettin' up" he observed after a bit. "What d'ye think, sir?"

Hoare smiled into the growing darkness and shook his head. In point of fact, the moan of the wind in Neglectful's rigging had risen a half-tone. It was nigh time to heave to completely.

"Sorry, sir," Dunaway said. He handed Hoare the waxen tablets. "To whom do I owe my life, then?"

Hoare scribed his name in the wax, added "Lieutenant RN," then recollected himself, scratched the title out, and replaced it with "Commander, RN." He had been a Lieutenant for twenty-two years and still found it hard to remember that he now rated the courtesy address of "Captain."

"Captain," he said to himself. "Captain."

Dunaway managed a grin. "A new creation, I'll warrant, Captain," he said, as if he had been reading Hoare's mind. Hoare nodded again and returned the grin.

"Fancy?" he wrote. "Smuggler?" He knew very well she was no fisherman. There had been no sign of nets or trawls aboard the lugger, and her rig had been better suited to another calling.

"Fisherman," Dunaway said. Hoare shrugged.

A heavier sea came within a hair of breaking over Neglectful's stern. Cleverly formed or not, her stern sheets risked being overburdened within minutes.

"Sea anchor," he wrote. He tapped Dunaway's hand and pointed to the tiller with raised eyebrows. The other nodded.

"Aye aye," he said.

Hoare crawled forward once again, securing the idle grapnel as he went. Timing his moves to coincide with one of the periodic lees afforded him by the sea, he cracked the forward hatch, reached down, and dragged out Neglectful's seldom-used drogue. He hitched its pendant beside the useful grapnel, took in the scrap of storm jib, and signaled Dunaway to let the yacht work herself around into the wind. He gave the sea anchor ten fathoms or so of scope and cleated the line before crawling aft again.

Since she was no longer running with the wind, Neglectful's rigging began to shriek instead of merely moaning, but she rose willingly to the seas, now breasting them instead of fleeing them. Her trysail held her in place, so that once he had lashed the tiller again, she would do her duty as long as Hoare called on her to do so. He motioned Dunaway below and followed him, catching up his bag of sustenance as he went and securing the cuddy hatch behind him.

Neglectful's builder had not designed her to accommodate more than two. With three sizable men below, she was cramped. A man-o'-warsman, as used as any sardine to living bump-bottom with his shipmates, would have hardly been troubled, but Hoare had never gone to sea as less than a very junior mid. He saw that the proximity of two companions would become irksome in no time and resolved to set them ashore as soon as the weather permitted. Meanwhile, he accepted the fresh mug of his own pea soup that Jamie, the swimmer, offered him. Strangely, the rich smell of the soup blended cozily with the smell of wet wool that both his guests gave off as they began to warm up and the pervasive reek of Stockholm tar.

"Thank you," Hoare whispered, as much as to see if he could make himself heard above the muffled cacophony here below as to give the man a polite response.

"No; thank you, sir," Jamie said. His voice was unexpectedly cultured, but with a slight accent. French perhaps? His unweathered face was open and innocent. "Bose Mr. Dunaway and me 'ood be feedin' the fishes long since if it were not for you."

"A grand piece of seamanship," interjected Dunaway. "Both Jamie and I owe you our lives."

"Permit me, sir, to drink your healf in this most uncommon good soup," Jamie added.

"Permission granted," Hoare whispered with a smile. "If you'll steer your mugs this way, I'll even bless 'em with this." He wedged his own mug securely in his corner of the padded starboard locker, withdrew a jug from its bag, and, having drawn the cork with his teeth, poured a noggin of black rum into the others' extended mugs, remembering to christen his own before restoppering the jug.

"What brings you to sea, sir, alone, in such weather, if I might be so bold?" Dunaway asked.

"Pure foolishness Mr. Dunaway. I am about to take command of one of His Majesty's ships"-here he must take a breath-"and I knew that from that moment my time will no longer be even as much my own as the Port Admiral's office has allowed me these past years.

"As… a man who makes his living from these waters, you may find it hard to credit that there are some of us who fish almost as much pleasure out of them as you do cod."

More, almost certainly, Mr. Dunaway, Hoare thought, considering your real calling.

"And the name of your vessel, sir?" Dunaway inquired.

"Neglectful, Mr. Dunaway. Today, that is." With this, Hoare steered the conversation into very familiar waters.

"Today?"

"Today. Lift up one of the floorboards under your feet, if you will, and look at its underside. Any one of them will do."

Dunaway did as directed. He snorted with surprise.

"'Inconceivable'" he read.

"Yes. I also call her Insupportable, or Molly J, or Dryad, or Serene, or Unspeakable. I change her name according to my mood of the moment-most often at the outset of a voyage, but sometimes, if the luck is bad, in midpassage as well. As you see, I keep several trail boards below, and face the spares into the bilges for a cabin sole. It makes no difference to her; she answers to none of them. She just answers her helm, and very well, too, at that."

He knew these lines by heart.

Dunaway gave a bark of laughter.

"I recognize you now, Mr. Hoare. I should ha' done so earlier. You're the sharp cove as caught that Frog Moreau and his gang."

Dunaway and the man Jamie exchanged a glance. The stuffy, warm air in Neglectful's cuddy grew a trifle ominous.

"Do not be foolish, gentlemen," Hoare whispered. "I know who you are, and you know I know it…"

He interrupted himself to take a breath, as he must from time to time whenever venturing more than a short sentence or two.

"… Pray do not make war on me; it would not be worth your while."

He displayed a small pistol he had won from the mate of an American brig only a year ago.

"As long as your trade does not diminish His Majesty or his Navy, and as long… as long as I am not under orders to suppress smuggling, your trade is no concern of mine.

"I would like your word of honor, both of you, that you will permit me to land you both, unharmed and secure… at the first landfall we make where a landing can be made without risk to my little Neglectful.

"Failing that, I shall be forced to shoot one of you and require the other to leave this little patch of dryness in the middle of a very wet Channel."

With this, Neglectful gave a little extra lurch, as though she agreed with Hoare.

The two guests exchanged another look; Jamie shrugged.

"You have our word, sir," Dunaway said.

"Will this do, or shall I beat back up into Weymouth?" Hoare asked his passengers the next morning. The gale had gone its way, yielding to an easy westerly breeze. The tiny harbor of West Lulworth lay a mile on the larboard beam, next to its landmark, the Durdle Door.

"Don't trouble yourself for us, Captain Hoare, sir," Dunaway said. "What with this and that, we'd as lief not even pass through Weymouth. No, Lulworth will do just fine. Fact is, I've folk in Lulworth.

"Now, by your leave, Jamie here and I will shift out of the clothing you so kindly lent us and be on our way."

Without too much difficulty, Hoare persuaded the two men to keep their borrowed gear for the time being, carry their own still-soggy garments, and send Hoare's clothing to him in Portsmouth.

"It will reach me at the Swallowed Anchor," he told them. To tell the truth, he wanted to see if they were as trustworthy as he hoped, for he could see the opportunity of putting their apparent skills to use in the future. But then he remembered.

"At Royal Duke, I mean after she enters port," he said. He was no longer to lodge ashore. He had a ship, or would have, soon.

Hoare dropped Neglectful's useful grapnel again and let out its line while swinging her inshore, driven by the still-heavy breakers. He had Dunaway raise her sliding keel into the trunk that split her cuddy fore and aft, so she was able to grind none too gently onto the shingle. Her passengers could now step ashore all but dry-shod.

"Our thanks again, Captain," said the owner, gripping Hoare's hand with both his own before he disembarked. "Call on Abel Dunaway of Langton Herring, by Weymouth, whenever you have the need."

The man Jamie followed suit. "Thenkee, sir," he said now, in no unfriendly tone, knuckling his forehead awkwardly. He followed his skipper ashore, leaving Hoare to heave Neglectful up to her grapnel through the surf. He took reefs in mainsail and jib and fell off before the wind toward Portsmouth and home.