The King`s Coat

death grip. The man smiled back at him, teeth gleaming white as foam in his face.

Don't tell me this cretin enjoys this, Alan thought… 'New lashin's first, er baggy-wrinkle; sir?' The man asked, coming close enough to carry the smell of his body.

Alan clung tight as Ariadne rolled once more to larboard. He felt more than heard the grating as more than two tons of wooden boat shifted against the tiers to the leeward side-the boat he was sitting on. ’New lashings!' he decided quickly, bobbing his head nervously. 'Aye aye,' the man yelled, then scrambled over to the next boat, with a grace that Alan could only envy, and shout something to the rest of his party, then hopped back over to Alan. 'How do we do it?' Alan asked when the wind gusted a little softer than normal. 'I'm not too proud to ask.’

’Stap me if I know, sir, thought you did.’

And that's the last time I am not too proud to ask, Alan promised himself as the man beamed his stupidity at him. Alan bent over as far as he dared and studied the existing lashings, the way they threaded under the beams, crossed under like a laced-up corset and crossed over the boats. 'Give me a… bight on the forward timber,' Alan shouted. 'Then make sure it's wrapped snug in oakum or old canvas. Take it up and over the boat, under this beam we're on, and on aft… then back forward, like… well, like a woman's bodice is tied up, see? Double lashings this time.’

’Aye aye, sir.’

Ship work on a heaving deck or shaky spar was, as Ashburn had prophesied, much like church work; it went damned slow. Alan inspected each point where the new ropes could rub on wood and had them padded and wrapped. He thumped on each bight until satisfied that they were as taut as belaying pins so there would be no play after they were finished. Lieutenant Church made his way out to him and gave him an encouraging grin, squatting on one of the boat-tiers.

Once his men had gotten the idea, Alan swung his way over to thecentermost boats, the massive cutter and barge, to watch from another vantage point. He was feeling very pleased with himself, in spite of being wet as a drowned rat and aching in places where he hadn't thought one could ache. ’Being useful?' Rolston shouted into his face, taunting him. 'Yes, damn yer eyes,' Alan shot back, and was disappointed that he had to repeat himself to be understood. His throat was almost raw with the effort of making himself heard. ’Church tell you to do that?' Rolston shouted back. ’Do what?’

‘Rig new lashings before padding the old… that's wrong. ’

‘What if the old ones part before you have new ones on?’

‘They won't part,' Rolston shrieked into his nose. But he didn't look as confident as he had earlier, which prompted Alan to look at what his hands were doing. Rolston's team was applying a single lashing without any padding or baggywrinkling, and were loosening the frayed lashings to pad them. 'Then what the hell are we doing out here?' Alan demanded. 'Did Kenyon tell you to do it that way?' Rolston looked away.

Alan made his way farther to starboard over the barge to the captain's brightly painted and gilt-trimmed gig, which was being lashed down in much the fashion that Alan had thought correct, providing him with a tingle of satisfaction. He waved to Lieutenant Kenyon, who clambered out to join him. But once out there Kenyon took one look at the way the two heaviest boats were being treated and frowned. ’Rolston, you young fool,' he shouted. 'Leave those lashings be!’

‘Sir?' Rolston cringed, not able to believe he had done wrong. At that moment Shirke came from aft to request some topmen to go aloft and secure a comer of the mizzen tops'l that had blown out her leeward leach line. Alan looked at Rolston, gave him a large smile, then went back to his own hands, who were busily doing things all seamanlike. He climbed over the keel of the biggest and heaviest boat, the barge, and was about to traverse the short distance to the jolly boat when he felt the barge shift underneath him. A frayed lashing gave way and came snaking over past his head with the force of a coach whip. It struck the jolly-boat and cracked like a gunshot, leaving a mark in the paint. ’Jump for it,' he yelled, wondering if he could do the same. There followed a series of groans and gunshots as other lashings parted under the tremendous weight they had restrained, and he was on a slide along the timbers toward the jolly-boat as the barge came free.

One of his men had been sitting on the boat -tier between the two boats. He turned to look at the weight that was about to smear him like a cockroach between a boot and a floor, and screamed wordlessly. Alan leaped over him, one foot touching the man's posterior, and flung himself across the keel of the jolly-boat. The man grabbed at him and hauled away, which pulled Alan down off the keel and down the rain-slick bottom of the upturned boat. Using Alan as a ladder, he got out of the way and disappeared over the far side.

The ship now rolled back upright for a moment, snubbed as her bow dug deep into a wave, and came up like a seal blowing foam. The barge shifted back to the starboard side, making a funereal drumming boom against the cutter.

Rolston came over the top of the barge to check for damage as Alan hoisted himself out of harm's way, just in time to meet Lieutenant Church and the panicked working party. The ship tucked her stem into the air once more, rolled to larboard, and Rolston fell between the barge and the jolly-boat. He was face-down on the boat-tier as'the barge began to slide down on him, a leg dangling on either side of the thick beam. Wonderful, Alan thought inanely; I'm about to see a human meat patty and it couldn't happen to a nicer person… Then, without really thinking or calculating the risk, he planted his feet on the boat-tier, leaped forward and grabbed Rolston as he flung himself off the tier to drop to the upper gun deck, which was about eight feet below them. He had the satisfaction of landing on Rolston, who landed on a thick coil of cordage at the foot of the mainmast. Overhead, the barge slammed into the jolly-boat to the sound of splintering timber. Now why in hell did I do that? he wondered, trying to get his lungs to work again after taking an elbow in the pit of his stomach. For a moment he thought he was dying, until with a spasm his lungs began to function again and he could suck in fresh air. As for Rolston, he was stretched out like a dead man, but Alan could see his chest heaving. ’Merciful God, are you alright, young sir?' Lieutenant Roth asked him, kneeling down by both of them. ’I believe so, sir,' Alan said, trying to sit up, which was about all he thought he could manage at the moment. Roth hoisted Rolston up in his arms and slapped him a couple of times, which cheered Alan a bit. In fact he wished that he could do that to Rolston himself! Rolston rolled his eyes and groaned loudly, trying to shrink away from that hard palm. 'Stupid gits,' Lieutenant Kenyon shouted down from above. ’Get your miserable arse up here. Now. ’

‘Aye, sir,' Alan shouted back, thinking it was a summons for him, as usual. ’Both of you,' Kenyon added.

Lieutenant Swift and the captain were there on the gangway by the time they had ascended to that level by the forecastle ladders and gone aft to join the officers. 'Silly cack-handed, cunny-thumbed whip-jack of a sailor you are, sir,' Swift howled, spitting saliva into the wind in his fury. 'A canting-crew imitation tar would know better than that. There's a jolly-boat stove in and the barge damaged as well because of you.’

’Sony, sir,' Alan said along with Rolston. ’Oh, not you, Lewrie, at least not this once; it's Rolston I'm talking to.' Swift's face was turning red as a turkey cock's wattles. 'Get back to wode, Mister Lewrie.’

’Oh, aye aye, sir,' said a surprised Alan, not on the carpet for the first time since he had joined Ariadne. ’If it wasn't for Lewrie you'd be pressed flat as a flounder, and good riddance to bad rubbish…' Swift was going on as Alan scrambled back across the boat-tiers to leeward, out of earshot.

I should have let him get mashed, damme if I shouldn't have, Alan thought. But now I've done something right for a change, and somebody else is getting grief.

An hour later, they finished lashing down the boats and by then the watch had changed. Alan went down to the lower gun deck and sniffed at the odors of sickness and bodies. Even as bad as the weather was topside, he almost contemplated going back on deck rather than stand the atmosphere down here, but he peeled off the sodden tarpaulin and began to work his way through the swinging hammocks toward the after-ladders to the orlop. He passed the junior midshipmen's mess, where there was a single glim burning. The master gunner Mr. Tencher had a stone bottle by his elbow on the table, secured by fiddles, and was humming to himself. ’Lewrie,' he whispered, not wanting to wake up his sleeping berth mates. 'Want a wet?’

‘God, yes, Mister Tencher, sir,' Alan croaked in gratitude. He seated himself on a chest and locked his elbows into place on the table so he wouldn't slide about. The gummy wetness of his clothing that had been soaked in salt-water for hours almost glued him to the dry wood. ’Cider-And, boy,' Tencher promised, pouring him a battered tin mug full of something alcoholic-smelling. 'And what, Mister Tencher?' Alan asked, sniffing at it as it was handed over to him. ’Good Blue Ruin, Holland gin.' Tencher laughed softly, his leathery face crinkling. In the fitful light of