The King

stumbled into the boat, shaking like a whipped puppy.

'I hold nothing against you, Burgess,' Alan whispered softly. 'I doubt you gave the harsh side of life, and soldiering, enough thought before you took this commission. And Caroline and I were worried about you out here in the East Indies. Mind, now,' he said, taking Chiswick by the elbow, 'that was before I even suspected I'd be stuck out here myself!'

'You didn't volunteer to'-Burgess gasped-'to look after me for Caroline's sake?'

'Do I look that stupid?' Alan sighed.

'Yes, I thought you did. Ah, I see. Sorry, Alan. All this time, I thought you'd volunteered, for Caroline,' Burgess fumbled. 'I mean, the volunteering part. Not about your looking stupid, ey?'

'That's a fine relief.'

'Excuse me, I've been nursing this… not a grudge, actually, ever since we sailed. I was rather glad to see the back of you when I went ashore in Calcutta. And here we were, together again, and I thought it was your doing. Something you said to your father, Major Willoughby.'

'Burgess, you idiot!' Alan grinned. 'The less I have to say to Sir Hugo, the better, man! No, I'm not your governess. And, no, I never held you in less respect because of Jenkins Neck. I think you're a glory-hunting fool sometimes, but that don't signify. You're not as brutal and direct as your brother Governour, so yes, I do think you less suited for all this death-or-glory venturing. But that don't mean I consider you soft.'

He still had his doubts about that, but Burgess was a friend.

'God bless you, then, Alan,' Burgess brightened, standing taller in his own estimation, and what he took to be Alan's. 'Here's my hand on it. It wasn't concern for a helpless fool you felt. It was concern for a friend. A firm friend, I trust.'

'Aye to that, Burge,' Alan replied, shaking hands with him.

'A fellow I'd be proud to have as a relation someday.'

'Thankee kindly for your opinion, Burge,' Alan said, feeling cornered. Now the little oaf was buttock-brokering his sister at him! Maybe I'd be better off if he despised the very air I breathe! I'm much too young for that, sweet as Caroline is, he thought.

'Ahoy, the lookout!' Ayscough wailed upwards to the cross-trees. 'Still there?' His permanent litany, it seemed.

'Royal 'bove the 'orizon, sir!' the lookout shouted back.

Just after full darkness, before the last waning sliver of moon-rise, they let slip the cutter. Telesto had brailed up her main course, taken a first reef in all three tops'ls and reduced her t'gallants to third reef to reduce their silhouette against what was left of the sunset horizon. From the deck, it appeared they were alone on the ocean, an ink-black shadow on an ink-black sea.

With lug-sail winged out, and a small jib set forward, the cutter paced alongside Telesto for half an hour, slowly drawing ahead from stern-quarters to bow-sprit. From sprit-s'l boom to larboard bows: a cannon-shot away, another spectral imagining.

'Four knots, sir,' Alan reported to Ayscough after a check of the knot-log. Ayscough nodded and drew out his pocket watch, leaning over the single candle in the compass binnacle to read it. Other than that one tiny glimmer, the ship was dark as a boot.

'Eight of the clock. Sound eight bells forrud. End of the second dog-watch,' Ayscough ordered.

Ting ting… ting ting… ting ting… ting ting, the last echoing on and on. Time to begin the evening watch. Time on a well-run ship to call the lookouts down from aloft and post the oncoming watchstanders on the upper deck vantage points. Time to recover the hammocks so men could sling their beds on the mess-decks and sleep, for ship's corporals to prowl about below to see if every last glim was extinguished for the night. Time to light the taffrail lanterns to help illuminate the quarterdeck for the watch-keepers, and warn other ships of her presence to avoid collision.

Ahead on the larboard bows, there was a tiny flurry of sparks as the captain's cox'n struck flint on steel, several times, until the tinder caught. A brief flare of light. Then the sullen ruby glim of a burning slow-match swaying about in the darkness.

'And the Lord said, let there be light,' Ayscough whispered, as first one, then the other taffrail lantern began to glow their yellow whale-oil cheeriness.

'Mister Choate! All hands on deck! Stations to come about!'

Chapter 2

If he holds his course, sir,' Mr. Brainard said in the airless chart space, all ports and doors, all partitions doubly cloaked in covert canvas, 'at a pace of about… uhm, say five knots with night-reefs aloft, he'd be here by now.' A pencilled X appeared on the ocean chart. After a moment's thought, Brainard drew a guesstimate circle around the X. 'We put about here, nor'west with the wind abeam, at ten past the hour. Held that course for one hour, tacked to east, sou'east at ten past nine of the clock. We should, if God is just, be somewhere off his starboard stern-quarters now. We should see him dead ahead, or slightly…'

'Excuse me, sir, Mister Choate's compliments, captain, and the hands are at Quarters,' Lewrie reported, leaning through the folds of canvas that served as a light trap for one betraying lantern that swayed and winked coin-silver bright over the chart table.

'Any sign of his lights, Mister Lewrie?' Ayscough asked.

'None, sir.'

'He's sneaking along to trail us like a foot-pad in a London fog,' Twigg sniffed. 'All the more sign he's out there. An innocent ship would be burning her running lights.'

Evidently, Twigg and Ayscough had shared the same doubts Burgess had expressed earlier as to the identity of their dogged pursuer.

'As I was saying,' Brainard continued, marching a brass divider across the ocean chart slowly, punching a small pin-hole in the paper and turning to protractor and rule. 'Do we come about to our original course in… ahhumm… five minutes, say, and we'll be astern of him. He should be dead ahead, or fine on the larboard bow. I say five minutes, so we do not overrun his track in the dark.'

'Very well,' Ayscough grunted, satisfied as much as he was going to be until he could throw rocks at La Malouine and hear them go chunk. 'Six after ten. Mister Lewrie, let me see your watch? Ah, with mine. My respects to the first officer, and he is to lay the ship back on our original course of sou'sou'east half south in… four minutes.'

'Aye, sir,' Alan replied, stumbling out of the chart space to fumble his way to the passageway that led forward to the quarterdeck. He relayed his message to Choate.

'Now how the hell do I know when four minutes have passed?' Choate griped. Even the compass binnacle candle had been extinguished now, just in case. 'Night black as a Moor's arse…'

'I hadn't thought about that, sir,' Alan had to admit. 'Perhaps if you prised the glass cover off your watch, sir? Read it by feel?'

'Not my watch, Mister Lewrie. My wife gave it me.'

'My father gave me mine, sir,' Alan stated.

'Mister Lewrie,' Choate coaxed. ' Tis for the King!'

'Excuse me, sir, I'll go aft into the passageway. Perhaps I'll find a glim there, sir.'

Damned if he'd ruin a prize watch for anyone!

They were saved by Ayscough and the others coming on deck and issuing the instruction to come about. Ropes slithered and hissed through blocks. Sheaves squealed in those blocks loud as opera stars. Sails rustled and boomed, and the hull groaned loud as a storm as she adjusted to a new angle of heel, resettling her timbers in complaint.

There was nothing to see. And damned little light from the occluded stars to see by. The sliver of moon was not enough light to help pick out a man on deck were he dressed all in white.

'Keep close watch astern,' Ayscough warned. 'Just in case.'

But there was nothing there, either. The only sign of motion on the sea were the taffrail lanterns in the cutter's