Havoc`s Sword

'My pardons, Captain,' Lt. Adair said, entering the cabins with a 'Weak horn-pane lanthorn in one hand, and his hat in the other, 'but the wind is come more Easterly, and the seas are getting up, somewhat.'

'Felt her working,' Lewrie grunted as he finished buttoning up the front flap of the trousers, and fumbled his toes into his shoes. 'What's the time, and where stands the wind, Mister Adair?'

'Just gone Two Bells of the Middle Watch, sir,' Adair replied, 'and the wind has backed a full point. We've hauled off with it, just this minute, sir.'

'But she needs easing, aye,' Lewrie decided aloud, shrugging into a thigh-length tarred sailcloth coat-now that he had Adair's light by which to find it. 'Lead on, Mister Adair.'

Once on deck near the quartermasters, who were straining on the helm, he could smell rough weather up to windward, a fresh-water miasma that put him in mind of a water well's dank throat. A sliver of moon gave faint light, but there were a few wisps of semi-opaque scud near it, and just enough moonlight and starlight to reveal a solid blankness up in the Nor'east.

'Well, damme,' Lewrie muttered as the wind gusted fitful for an ominous moment or two, and the 'banshees' keened in the miles of stays, sheets, halliards, and braces, before falling off as if dying suddenly, allowing Proteus to roll more upright and groan like an old woman turning over in her arthritic sleep. 'Ease her, hell, Mister Adair, we'll rig for heavy weather. Pipe 'all hands.' We'll strike topmasts, and take first reefs in both courses and tops'ls… hand the stays'ls and outer jibs, as well. First off, hands to the braces once on deck, and we'll ease her another point off the wind to a close reach.'

'Aye aye, sir! Mister Towpenny? Pipe 'all hands'!'

'Something the matter?' Mr. Peel enquired, popping up like some Jack-In-The-Box by Lewrie's side, wrapped in a blanket over shirt and breeches.

'Weather's making up, Mister Peel,' Lewrie snapped, wishing the man wouldn't do that, coming up on his blind side and scaring him like a graveyard ghost. 'Have to prepare for it, and bear off Sou'east.'

'I see. How much delay will there be, then, to our arrival at Antigua?' Peel asked, following Lewrie to the compass binnacle, where Lewrie took a long squint at the traverse board.

'Three days?' Lewrie speculated, 'A whole bloody week? No one could tell you that, Mister Peel. Depends on how rough it's going to get, from where the wind blows, how hard… if our luck's out, we'll end up halfway to Barbados… or stagger down nigh to the Vice-Royalty of New Granada. Wish t'visit the Dons and buy some cigarillos, do ye, Mister Peel?'

'Not particularly, Captain Lewrie, no,' Peel said, a shakiness to his voice despite his stab at jocularity, which sound made Lewrie turn to peer at him with a faint grin. Was this 'blow' Peel's first experience of heavy weather? He hadn't spent that much time on ships in the Mediterranean during their last pairing, and might have had good winds and easy seas on his way there, even in the fickle Bay of Biscay. It had been heard of, though 'twas damned rare.

'Ah, Mister Winwood,' Lewrie said, turning his attention to the Sailing Master as he lumbered up from the gun- room and the main deck to the quarterdeck, with one of his charts under one arm, as Proteus awoke with a thunder of horny bare feet on oak, amid the shrills of bosun's calls. 'I intend to remain on larboard tack, 'long as she'll bear it. New course, oh… Sou'-Sou'east, to begin with. Any dangers we should know of on that course? 'Til we run aground on Saint Vincent that is?'

'Let me consult this particular chart, Captain, sir,' Mr. Winwood ponderously, soberly said, carefully unrolling it and pegging it to the traverse board, and waving a ship's boy forward with a better lanthorn so they could see it. 'Ah… your initial estimate of landfall near Saint Vincent, should this slant of wind persist, sir, may be correct. And though the weather may plague us, I know of no shoals or reefs to the lee of the Windwards, sir.'

Winwood was hopeless, Lewrie thought, following the man's ruler and course-tracing finger on the chart. He seemingly had no sense of humour, on-duty or off.

'A hurricane, do you think, Captain Lewrie? ' Peel asked of him, clutching his wind-flagged blanket close round his chest and shoulders.

'Hurricane winds usually veer more Northerly, first, as Mister Winwood may tell you, Mister Peel,' Lewrie told him.

'The counter-clockwise rotation, demonstrably proven throughout years of observation, Mister Peel, is not present here,' Winwood said. 'Though this is the season for them…' he trailed off, shrugging.

Damme, is he actually pullin' Peel's leg? Lewrie wondered, grinning at the seeming jape; No, just bein' his own cautious self.

'Pardons, Captain, but the hands are all on deck, and standing by braces and sheets,' Mr. Adair reported.

'Very well, Mister Adair, put the helm up a point, and ease the set of the sails,' Lewrie bade him, seeing Lts. Langlie and Catterall now on deck, in case something went amiss.

'Uhm…' Lt. Adair quailed for a second at the enormity of the task which had just fallen on his slim, barely experienced shoulders obviously hoping that Mr. Langlie the First Lieutenant would supplant him. 'Aye aye, sir.'

Lewrie paced 'uphill' to the windward bulwarks to observe, with the fingers of his right hand crossed in the pocket of his storm coat, his left elbow braced over the cap-rail and his left leg straddling a taut, thick breeching rope of a larboard quarterdeck carronade. After a moment, he took his hand from his pocket, crooked a finger, and bade Lt. Langlie to join him.

'Evening, sir,' Langlie said, doffing his hat, which let a gust of wind dance his romantic dark curls.

'Has to learn sometime,' Lewrie commented, jutting his chin at Mr. Adair, now standing by the forrud quarterdeck rail and the nettings with a brass speaking-trumpet to his mouth and bawling orders. 'Do you have any qualms, Mister Langlie?'

'He's a good, seasoned lad, sir,' Langlie replied, 'and just as smart as paint. He'll cope with it, I expect.'

'And if he don't, well here you are, Mister Langlie, ready for anything,' Lewrie chuckled, leaning close to Langlie's ear so that his words didn't reach his junior-most officer. 'Soon as we've eased her, strike top-masts. This may blow out by dawn, but… better safe than sorry. I'd admire, did you oversee that, sir. And, I'd expect Mister Adair will be much relieved that you do. Take charge until we have her reefed down snug, then let him finish the Middle Watch alone.'

'Aye, sir,' Langlie answered, grinning in secret with Lewrie.

'Course now Sou'east by East, sir!' Adair shouted up to them a moment later. 'Broad reaching. Ready to hand stays'ls and outer jibs!'

'Carry on, Mister Adair!' Lewrie shouted back, forcing himself to slouch against the railings and direct his attention outboard, far up to weather in search of the coming storm. 'Though, once we've done and he's come off-watch, Mister Langlie, you will inform him that my order book requires that I be summoned much earlier than he did… gently, Mister Langlie, hmmm?' Lewrie suggested to Langlie, a sly grin on his face. 'A too-confident officer of the watch is about as dangerous as one with none.'

'I half suspect he's realised his mistake, sir,' Langlie said in return. 'And sometimes it isn't overconfidence that keeps the watch officer mum, but the fear of looking foolish, or incapable…'til it is indeed much too late, sir. I'll have him supervise the lowering of the foremast top-hamper. That's a task that won't make him feel as if we distrust his abilities, sir.'

'An excellent idea, Mister Langlie, thankee. Do so.'

'Aye, sir.'

'Take reefs, next, so no one aloft is in too much danger, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie instructed, as the first few patters of raindrops hit his bare head and face. 'Get her flatter on her bottom so the hands're not flung halfway to the horizon.'

A brisk and efficient half-hour's labour later, and HMS Proteus was rigged for heavy weather, with furled and gasketed t'gallants and royals, yards, and the top-masts lowered to the decks, bound snug among the piles of spare spars on the boat-tier beams, with both fore and main courses taken in one reef, and all three tops'ls at two reefs, only the main topmast stays'l still flying 'twixt the main and the fore mast, and the two inner-most jibs on the bow still standing to balance her spanker and helm effort.