the larboard brace, leading aft to its sheave on the maintop and from there to deck level, hauled that end-the weather end-of the yard aft. The force of the wind itself helped the maneuver, pushing the starboard end of the yard around to leeward, and as the yard swung, the sail shifted from perpendicular to the wind’s direction to almost parallel. The shrouds supporting the mast got in the way and prevented the yard from being trimmed as close to fore-and-aft as Destiny might have wished-that was the main reason no squarerigger could come as close to the wind as a schooner could-but it still eased the pressure on the forecourse immensely.
“Clew up! Spilling lines, haul!”
The clewlines ran from the lower corners of the course to the ends of the yards, then through blocks near the yard’s center and down to deck level, while the buntlines ran from the yard to the foot of the sail. As the men on deck hauled away, the clewlines and buntlines raised the sail, aided by the spilling lines-special lines which had been rigged for precisely this heavy-weather necessity. They were simply ropes which had been run down from the yard then looped up around the sail, almost like another set of buntlines, and their function was exactly what their name implied: when they were hauled up, the lower edge of the sail was gathered in a bight, spilling wind out of the canvas so it could be drawn up to the yard without quite so much of a struggle.
“Ease halliards!”
The topmen in the foretop waited until the canvas had been fully gathered in and the yard had been trimmed back to its original squared position before they were allowed out onto it. Squaring the yard once more made it far easier-and safer-for them to transfer from the top to the spar. Under calmer conditions, many of those men would have scampered cheerfully out along the yard itself with blithe confidence in their sense of balance. Under these conditions, use of the foot rope rigged under the yard was mandatory.
They spread themselves along the seventy-five-foot-long spar, seventy feet above the reeling, plunging deck-almost ninety feet above the white, seething fury of the water in those fleeting moments when the deck was actually level-and began fisting the canvas into final submission while wind and rain shrieked around them.
One by one the gaskets went around the gathered sail and its yard, securing it firmly, and then it was the main topsail’s turn.
“Keep her as close to northeast-by-east as you can, Waigan!” Sir Dunkyn Yairley shouted in his senior helmsman’s ear.
Waigan, a grizzled veteran if ever there was one, looked up at the storm staysails-the triangular, triple- thickness staysails set between the mizzen and the main and between the main and the fore-which, along with her storm forestaysail, were all the canvas Destiny could show now.
“Nor’east-by-east, aye, Sir!” he shouted back while rainwater and spray ran from his iron-gray beard. “Close as we can, Sir!” he promised, and Yairley nodded and slapped him on the shoulder in satisfaction.
No sailing ship could possibly maintain a set course, especially under these conditions. Indeed, it took all four of the men on the wheel to hold any course. The best they could do was keep the ship on roughly the designated heading, and the senior helmsman wasn’t even going to be looking at the compass card. His attention was going to be locked like iron to those staysails, being certain they were drawing properly, lending the ship the power and the stability she needed to survive the maelstrom. The senior of his assistants would watch the compass and alert him if they started to stray too far from the desired heading.
Yairley gave the canvas one more look, then swiped water from his own eyes and beckoned to Garaith Symkee, Destiny ’s second lieutenant.
“Aye, Sir?” Lieutenant Symkee shouted, leaning close enough to Yairley to be heard through the tumult.
“I think she’ll do well enough for now, Master Symkee!” Yairley shouted back. “Keep her as close to an easterly heading as you can! Don’t forget Garfish Bank’s waiting for us up yonder!” He pointed north, over the larboard bulwark. “I’d just as soon it go on waiting, if you take my meaning!”
Symkee grinned hugely, nodding his head in enthusiastic agreement, and Yairley grinned back.
“I’m going below to see if Raigly can’t find me something to eat! If the cooks can manage it, I’ll see to it there’s at least hot tea-and hopefully something a bit better, as well-for the watch on deck!”
“Thank you, Sir!”
Yairley nodded and started working his way hand-over-hand along the lifeline towards the hatch. It was going to be an extraordinarily long night, he expected, and he was going to need his rest. And hot food, come to that. Every man aboard the ship was going to need all the energy he could lay hands on, but Destiny ’s captain was responsible for the decisions by which they might all live or die.
Well, he thought wryly as he reached the hatch and started down the steep ladder towards his cabin and Sylvyst Raigly, his valet and steward, I suppose it sounds better put that way than to think of it as the captain being spoiled and pampered. Not that I have any objection to being spoiled or pampered, now that I think of it.
And not that it was any less true, however he put it. .
HMS Destiny, 54, Off Sand Shoal, Scrabble Sound, Grand Duchy of Silkiah
“Master Zhones!”
The miserable midshipman, hunched down in his oilskins and trying as hard as he could not to throw up- again-looked up as Lieutenant Symkee bellowed his name. Ahrlee Zhones was twelve years old, more horribly seasick than he’d ever been in his young life, and scared to death. But he was also an officer in training in the Imperial Charisian Navy, and he dragged himself fully upright.
“Aye, Sir?!” he shouted back through the howl and shriek of the wind.
“Fetch the Captain!” Zhones and Symkee were no more than five feet apart, but the midshipman could barely hear the second lieutenant through the tumult of the storm. “My compliments, and the wind is backing! Inform him it-”
“Belay that, Master Zhones!” another voice shouted, and Zhones and Symkee both wheeled around to see Sir Dunkyn Yairley. The captain had somehow magically materialized on the quarterdeck, his oilskins already shining with rain and spray, and his eyes were on the straining staysails. Despite the need to shout to make himself heard, his tone was almost calm-or so it seemed to Zhones, at any rate.
As the midshipman watched, the captain took a turn of rope around his chest and attached it to one of the standing lifelines, lashing himself into place almost absently while his attention remained focused on the sails and the barely visible weathervane at the mainmast head. Then he glanced at the illuminated compass card in the binnacle and turned to Symkee.
“I make it south-by-west, Master Symkee? Would you concur?”
“Perhaps another quarter point to the south, Sir,” Symkee replied, with what struck Zhones as maddening deliberation, and the captain smiled slightly.
“Very well, Master Symkee, that will do well enough.” He turned his attention back to the sails and frowned.
“Any orders, Sir?” Symkee shouted after a moment, and the captain turned to raise one eyebrow at him.
“When any occur to me, Master Symkee, you’ll be the first to know!” It was, of course, impossible for anyone to shout in a tone of cool reprimand, but the captain managed it anyway, Zhones thought.
“Aye, Sir!” Symkee touched his chest in salute and carefully turned his attention elsewhere.
Despite his calm demeanor and deflating tone, Sir Dunkyn Yairley’s brain was working overtime as he considered his ship’s geometry. The wind had grown so powerful that he’d had no choice but to put Destiny directly before it some hours earlier. Now the galleon scudded along with huge, white-bearded waves rolling up from astern, their crests ripped apart by the wind. As the wind shifted round towards the east, the ship was being slowly forced from a northeasterly to a more and more northerly course, while the seas-which hadn’t yet adjusted to the shift in wind-still coming in from the south-southwest pounded her more and more from the quarter rather than directly aft, imparting an ugly corkscrew motion. That probably explained young Zhones’ white-faced misery the captain thought with a sort of detached sympathy. The youngster was game enough, but he was definitely prone to seasickness.
