A King`s Commander

'Ready, sir.'

'Helm alee! Tack her, Mister Knolles. New course, due east.'

And Jester came about. Logy at slow speed, but her bows came around sweetly, the harbor sweeping by in an effortless pirouette. Seawater began to chuckle and gurgle under her forefoot, to murmur down her sides. From aft, there was a burbling, high-throated sound of chuckling from around her rudder as she settled on her new course and found new strength in a wind now come more from the south. From France, where she'd been born.

Across the harbor she trundled under reduced sail, Ride Sand and No-Man's-Land astern, and Horse Sand, and the Horse Tail, off her bows, in the narrows.

Directly the wind backed more from the east, she fell off and tacked again to larboard tack, with the wind striking her left side, with Warner Sand and St. Helen's Patch well to their lee. Monkton Fort was the stern range- mark, up to the nor'west.

Damme, can we do it in one long board? Lewrie exulted within. It would be a hellish comedown to chortle too soon, if he all but promised an easy departure, then was forced to come to anchor, after all. Best keep silent, for the nonce. And fret, while appearing a paragon of equanimity.

No, they were headed again as the fickle breeze swung back to the South. Larboard tack would force them down below St. Helen's Patch and toward Denbridge Point, into the cul-de-sac of Nab Rock, the New Grounds, and Long Rock.

'Ready about, Mister Knolles! Quartermasters, new course east-sou'east. Mister Buchanon, I propose to go east-about the New Grounds, and stand out into the Channel to make our offing, before we come about to west, in deep water.'

'Aye, sir, that'd be best, I think.' Buchanon nodded, after he'd pored over the chart pinned to the traverse board on the binnacle cabinet. He looked relieved, that his expertise would not be tested in those narrow channels, for below Denbridge Point there were also the risks of Betty's Ledge, the Denbridge Ledge close inshore, and North Offing, or Princessa Rock. They were day-marked, supposedly lit at night, but it was still a chancy business.

Around Jester came to the starboard tack, shallow Langstone Harbor and Cumberland Fort abeam to larboard. Chuckling again, as she passed four knots. There was a bit more chop now, the promise of the Channel's lumps to come. Current flowing one way, tide race opposed to it, and a southerly wind cross-patched atop it all, they would be careening and bounding like a coach on a winter-rutted road soon enough. If the wind stayed from the south, and they remained at ESE, close-hauled as dammit, right up against it.

Finally, St. Helen's town, and its creek on their starboard quarter! The last spit of New Grounds abeam!

'Ring up anchors, Mister Knolles, we've no more need of 'em. Ring up and fish, then buckle the hawseholes. Idlers! A tune, there!' Commander Lewrie demanded, utterly relieved, now that he and his fine little ship were safely on their way to making their offing.

The fiddle screeched again, in harmony with a tuning box and a fife. 'Heart of Oak,' they began, and everyone knew it by heart-the former Cockerel's, the fresh-caught merchant seamen from the press, the hands turned over from the guard ships, those that Howe hadn't put to sea aboard his line-of-battle ships; the ships' boys second class down from

London and Mister Powlett's Marine Society, the Marines, and the sailors lent to him off Nelson's Agamemnon, off Victory and Windsor Castle to work her passage home; the midshipmen, of a certainty, and the brace of nine-year-old boys first class gentlemen volunteers who'd signed aboard as cabin servants to learn enough of the sea so they could become midshipmen someday themselves.

And the landsmen from the hulks and debtor's prisons, the volunteers from some rendezvous tavern inland, the sprinkling of Maltese seamen hired out by the Grand Masters he'd ended up with-soon they all would learn it, and know it by heart.

Come cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,

to add something more to this wonderful year;

Add something, Alan vowed to himself. Something writ large. I've never known a peaceful commission, a voyage that was 'all claret and cruising.' Trouble… well, damme, trouble has a way of findin' me. This time, though… this time I'm all but a captain, on me own bottom with a ship and crew seasoned just enough for starters. And I'll make 'em even better. God save me, but I love this ship! What she's capable of, given half a chance. What I think this ship, and I, together, can accomplish. Father, Fate… the Navy, beat me into a sailor. Well then, so be it. A damn' good'un, too, I believe, at last. And who'd have ever thought it!

To honor we call you, not press you like slaves,

Oh, yes, we do press! Pressed me, in my own way, he laughed.

For who are so free as the sons of the waves?

Free? he scoffed. Mostly, yes, I am. At last! To run a ship my own way. Take her in that Rebel John Paul Jones's 'harm's way.' And win! Damme, that's been my main fret-that I wanted this just as much as family… maybe more.

Heart of oak are our ships,

heart of oak are our men,

we always are ready;

steady, boys, steady. ..

Alan Lewrie had never been known as much of a singer, but this time he lolloped out the chorus in a bellow, along with the hands of the afterguard and the quarterdeck people.

We'll fight and we'll conquer, again and again!

A first lift of the bows to the Channel chops, a sluice of sea breaking over her forecastle. The rush of water creaming alongside of her impatient flanks. A sibilant, silken respiring, it was, of a live being made of oak and iron. Wind coming stronger aloft, keening among a maze of sheets, braces, jears, lifts and halliards, an Irish banshee's crooning moan among the stays and shrouds, with frolicsome flutterings, as luffs and ratlines danced.

HMS Jester, eighteen-gunned Sloop of War had been reborn; and reborn English. And around her beak-head rails, and new figurehead of a gilt-crowned fool, an English Channel now christened her with salt.

'Offing enough, Mister Buchanon,' Lewrie decided, one hour later. 'Mister Knolles, come about to larboard tack, then make sail. Fore and main courses to the first reefs. Take in the main topmast, and the mizzen t'gallant, stays'ls.'

'Aye, sir… all plain sail. Bosun Porter? Ready about!'

More canvas-more speed; white-hued virginal canvas never exposed to weather except at sail drill during their working-up period of River Discipline. Course-sail brails undone, drawn down by their clews to sheet them home, with a wary portion gathered in reserve about the yards to the first line of reef points. Long yards creaking around to the best angle for a beam wind-a 'soldier's wind'-powerfully long English yards, and wider, fuller-cut sails than the more-timid French practice.

More flutings and keenings aloft, more moans and whisperings. Jester began to bound over the sea, her wake-breath sonorous yet insistent. As Commander Lewrie left his quarterdeck, at last satisfied, to go below, he could almost believe he could hear her singing to herself-a chorale of freedom and power.

While around her forefoot and cutwater, around her transom post, that chuckling, gurgling rush…

HMS Jester, he could almost conjure, was laughing softly with delight, as she stood out to sea. Stood out to find the war.

CHAPTER 2