He lowered the glass and wiped his eye with his sleeve. Main and mizzen courses had been taken in, fore course and topsails reefed. He glanced at the big double wheel; he had put three helmsmen there to match the power of the rudder.
The sailing master was talking with his senior mate, who would be going across to the schooner with a boarding party,
all experienced hands, with the two new midshipmen to assist and run errands. If the schooner proved to be a slaver, she would be held as a prize. No wonder the master's mate could grin about it. His own command, with a lion's share of slave bounty and prize money for good measure.
He ran his eye along the tilting deck to the boat-handling party, and the men who would be going over to the other vessel.
Audacity's first patrol on the station. It would make some of the other captains sit up and take notice of this old newcomer.
He said, 'Close enough. Fire the signal.'
The gun captain must have been watching and waiting. The dull bang of the shot was carried away by the wind.
He walked to the quarterdeck rail and said, 'No risks, Mr. Mowbray. Keep under our lee until you have everything in hand.'
'She's shortenin' sail, sir! '
Munro looked at the sailing master. 'Worried?'
He rubbed his chin. 'If there's a bad storm on the make, we should be able to work clear of it, or run ahead of a real blow. Lucky we hadn't entered the Windward Passage less room to spread our wings there! '
Munro looked up at the clouds. Here and there he could still see a patch of blue, clear sky. Now or never.
'Heave to, if you please! Stand by to lower boats! '
Cutter and jolly boat, up and over the gangway and then as if by some miracle rising and plunging alongside, seamen scrambling down, the dull glare reflecting from cutlasses and muskets. Munro watched closely, remembering. He had been in boarding parties as a lieutenant, even as midshipman. The moment you left the ship was always the worst. Refuge, home, life itself. Afterwards, it was only the cut and thrust of combat you heard mentioned.
Some one breathed loudly, 'Oars out, sir! Both boats away! '
Canvas cracked and banged momentarily overhead as Audacity drifted out of command.
'Get the ship under way again! Man the braces! Resume course, nor' nor' west! '
When he looked again the two boats seemed already lost against the heaving water, like leaves on a mill race.
He walked to the compass box. The worst part.
Mowbray, master's mate, leaned back in the jolly boat's stern-sheets and stared beyond the oarsmen and their steady, seemingly unhurried stroke. The boat felt heavy and cumbersome, with extra hands and weapons and the uncomfortable motion. Like running up a steep slope and down the other side, every man soaked in spray, trying not to peer astern at Audacity's topsails.
He twisted round to look for the cutter, running almost abeam, with a boatswain's mate in charge. They had worked together before, and had enjoyed runs ashore in one port or another. They were professional, trusted sailors, who would always be back on board after a night they usually regretted.
Mowbray glanced at the two midshipmen huddled below the tiller. Officers one day, when they could make a Jack's life hell if the mood directed. When they walked their own quarterdecks, did they ever remember times like these, and the real sailors who had taught them?
He stared up at the schooner's poop. Close enough to see the scars and rough repairs. A hard-used vessel. Even the sails looked like patchwork.
The younger midshipman asked, 7s she a slaver, Mr. Mowbray?'
Mowbray considered it, and wondered how or where this midshipman, Napier, had started off in life. But he never took his eyes from the other vessel, and a handful of figures clinging to the shrouds as if watching the two boats.
'Soon know. If we was lyin' downwind of 'er we'd already be able to smeller I've seen a few in me time, when it was all nice an' legal! '
The other midshipman muttered, 'All the great empires were built on slavery.' He could not continue; his face looked green.
Mowbray snapped, 'Over the side. Don't spew in th' boat, damn you! '
He was too late.
The stroke oarsman lay back on his loom and rolled his eyes toward the clouds. 'Jesus.'
David Napier swallowed and tried not to hear Boyce retching and vomiting over the gunwale.
The vessel loomed right over them now, so that the other sounds seemed muffled. Somewhere else. He knew without looking that the bowman had hurled his grapnel over the bulwark,
and that somehow the oars were all suddenly inboard. Weapons had appeared, and he saw a seaman unwrapping the lock of his musket. The man's face was devoid of expression. As if it were a drill.
He felt for the dirk under his coat, remembering the fire and smoke of Algiers, Jago taking charge of a boat's crew for boarding one of the enemy ships. Voice flat and calm, eyes everywhere. And that other time when he had been on deck with the captain. Keep by me, David.
The crash of the shot was so close that he imagined for a second that one of the seamen's muskets had exploded prematurely.
Some one shouted, 'Cast off! Now, for God's sake! '
Napier stared round, his heart pumping wildly. Boyce had been shot. He could still hear his scream.
He stared down at the hand fastened around his wrist, and at Mowbray's face. His eyes, which seemed to steady him. It was then that he saw the blood on Mowbray's thigh and running across the bottom boards.
Mowbray spoke slowly and carefully, his grip never weakening, his gaze quite steady.
'I will be all right in a minute.' Somewhere in the background, another world, men were yelling and cursing. The cutter must have grappled alongside.
Mowbray stared at him as if making sure of something. Then he said, 'Lead them, Mister Napier. Lead them! '
Napier felt the boat riding against the hull on the swell. Somehow he was on his feet, the fine new dirk drawn and held above his head.
There was a voice, too. To me, Audacity! To me, lads! '
The rest was drowned by an animal roar as the seamen sprang up the side, one of them pausing only to give his hand to the midshipman who had rallied them.
Napier clung to a halliard and stared around the unfamiliar deck. Men were being herded into groups, weapons kicked aside. Audacity's boatswain's mate shouted, 'Put 'im down, Lacy, you've already scuppered the bugger! '
Napier looked over the side and saw Mowbray being helped into a sitting position. He was alive, and as he peered over the seaman's shoulder he saw him, and very slowly gave a mock salute.
Napier had to make three attempts to sheathe his dirk, and yet he was not aware of his hand shaking. Some one hurried past, but paused long enough to slap him on the shoulder.
Mowbray was being hoisted up and over the bulwark in a makeshift boatswain's chair, his face creased with pain.
He saw Napier and grinned weakly. 'To me, AudacityV Then he fainted.
A burly seaman, with a bared cutlass thrust through his belt and wielding a boarding axe, yelled something to a group of the schooner's crew and glared wildly around at Napier. 'That showed 'em, by God! ' He turned to hurry after the boatswain's mate, but halted as Napier said, 'Can you help Mr. Boyce? He's been wounded! '
He remembered the unknown seaman's face for a long time afterwards. Boyce had somehow followed the others aboard and was squatting on a crate below the bulwark, one arm wrapped inside his coat, head bowed. Unable to move.
Abruptly, the seaman said, 'Don't you worry about the likes of 'im, sir, not after what you just done. 'E's not got a mark on 'im.' The boarding axe lifted a few inches. 'Not yet, anyways! ' Then he was gone, with men he
