The King

'Ah, yes,' Howe nodded. 'We've need of swift, shallow-draft vessels out there, Lewrie. If it's not piracy in the Bahamas, it's our Yankee cousins, violating the Navigation Acts and stealing our carrying-trade, selling their shoddy goods without paying customs due. And the Bahamas are so temptingly close to that new nation, so easily reached from their southern ports. Rather a dull little back-water but for that, as I remember. But just the place for an ambitious young officer to show his mettle, hey? What say you, sir? Ready to conquer the King's enemies a little closer to home?'

Lewrie remembered the Bahamas as well, and none too fondly. The most fun he'd had there was watching the dogs roll over halfway through their afternoon snoozes. Well, Nassau on New Providence was sporting enough after sundown, and heaps of American Loyalist families had made the place their home after the war ended. Surely one or two of 'em'd have daughters! He swore to be more careful this time.

I really should never set foot in the Admiralty again, he told himself: Every time I do, I come out feeling raped!

With an exuberance he most certainly did not feel, he was at last forced to say, 'Words cannot express my gratitude, milords, sir. Naturally, I shall be delighted to serve in any capacity! Lead me to 'em!'

'That's the spirit!' Lord Howe exclaimed approvingly. 'That's our sort of lad, Lewrie! I knew you'd be pleased.'

Yes, he thought. It seems I'm fated to be your lad for bloody ever, don't it?

Afterword

From some of the fan mail I've received, I may have erred on the side of authenticity when it comes to ship- handling and the jargon of the sea in use in the eighteenth century.

This came from a deep-seated fear that someone a whole lot saltier than I ever hope to be would telephone me in the middle of the night and call me a lubberly 'farmer' if I got it wrong. It also came from my abiding love of ships and the sea; I figured that if I was already 'there' (so to speak) I might as well learn something for myself as well. And, too, there is the tendency among sailors to speak a language that most landsmen don't readily understand, a language I must admit I have to partly relearn every boating season, but one that makes me one of 'the fraternity.'

Ships propelled by the wind didn't deal in numbered bearings on their compasses; their crews spoke of WINDWARD or LEEWARD. Going up to WINDWARD, eighteenth-century square-riggers could not get closer than roughly 66 degrees to the apparent wind (6 points of 11!4 degrees each). When sailing as close to the wind as they would lay, they were said to BEAT, to go FULL AND BY, or lay CLOSE-HAULED.

If their destination was up to WINDWARD, it could take forever to get there, sailing aslant in a zigzag that took two or three times the actual straight-line distance to fetch a port.

They would BEAT or proceed CLOSE-HAULED on either the STARBOARD or LARBOARD tack. When the wind crossed the STARBOARD (right) side of the vessel first, and they sailed a course to the left of the baseline, this was called the STARBOARD TACK. When the wind crossed the LARBOARD (left) side of the ship first and they proceeded to the right of the base course, this was called the LARBOARD TACK.

(I warn you now, sailors were, and still are, a contrary lot!)

To zigzag from one side to the other, ships TACKED across the eye of the wind, wheeling the YARDS around from one TACK to the other, shifting the fore-and-aft sails from one side to the other.

To go with the wind abeam was called REACHING. This was also know as a 'Soldier's Wind,' since sailors have always considered a soldier less capable and intelligent than a sailor.

The side of the ship facing the wind was referred to as up to WINDWARD, sometimes A'WEATHER, while the side away from the wind was the LEE side, or ALEE. Anything below the ship and the source of the wind lay to its LEE. And a ship made LEEWAY going to WINDWARD as well. This

depended on how deep and how long the keel and underbody of the ship were, her QU1CKWORK below the waterline; as well as how hard the wind was blowing and how much she leaned over from upright, how much she HEELED. Too much sail aloft could make her HEEL even more, making her less efficient through the water, as could the distribution of her cargo.

To sail off the wind, with the wind from abaft, is now called BROAD REACHING but back then was termed RUNNING FREE with the WIND ON HER QUARTER. A ship just a little off the wind had a FAIR WIND. One heading steeper down to LEEWARD had a LEADING WIND, and one sailing even more southerly on the chart provided had the wind LARGE ON HER QUARTER or FINE ON HER QUARTER.

To sail directly downwind was to RUN, sometimes to SCUD or to carry BOTH SHEETS AFT, and was also known as a 'Landsman's Breeze.'

Winds, by the way, are named for the direction from which they blow, not the direction in which they blow. The northeast trade winds in the Caribbean come principally from the northeast; they do not blow toward the northeast.

To change course while sailing off the wind is now called a GYBE but in the eighteenth century was termed WEARING SHIP. It was easier to perform shorthanded, so many captains preferred, even when going to WINDWARD, to make a complete circle in the water, falling off the wind, WEARING the wind from one quarter of the stern to the other, then hardening back up to the wind on the opposite TACK CLOSE-HAULED.

The pointy end up front is called the BOW; that is FORWARD, corrupted to FOR'RD. The wide end at the back is the STERN-AFT.

A ship has two sides. The right-hand side of the ship is always the STARBOARD side. The left-hand side back in the eighteenth century was called the LARBOARD side. It's simple when you're facing the BOW, but when you turn and face AFT, they don't change places!

Sailors back then were more concerned with which side was the WEATHER side and which was the LEEWARD side, depending on where the wind was coming from, anyway. Steering commands were issued with that as the prime concern.

Here we reach another of those pesky posers created by the contrariness and conservatism of seafarers. In the very old days, every ship (they weren't so big back then) was steered by a rudder that was controlled by a TILLER, a wooden bar that sticks out from the top of the rudder like a lever. You still see them on smaller boats.

Boats do not steer like a car. To make a boat turn to the right, to STARBOARD, the tiller has to be pushed over to the left-hand side, to LARBOARD. This angles the rudder so that the force of the water across it swings the stern out in the opposite direction and swings the bows the way you want to go.

That's why Lieutenant Lewrie would order 'helm alee' when he really wanted the ship to head up closer to the wind. Putting the helm down turns the bows up! Putting the helm up turns the bows away from the wind: 'helm aweather.' By his time, most ships had a wheel on the quarterdeck to steer with, but the wheel controlled ropes and pulleys connected to a TILLER HEAD below decks that did the same thing that a small boat's tiller did. When Lewrie said 'helm up' or 'helm aweather,' the helmsman would turn the wheel a few spokes to either the LEEWARD side to put the helm 'down' or turn it to the WINDWARD side to put the helm 'up' or 'aweather.' But even if the addition of the wheel made it seem more like driving a car, the deck officer and the man on the wheel knew what they were really referring to was what was happening with that TILLER hidden below decks and what the rudder was doing, not which way the wheel was turning.

There were no auxiliary engines back then, no motive power except the wind and sometimes an 'ash breeze,' when the ship's boats were used to tow a vessel in light air. When the wind came FOUL so that there was no way to work out of harbor, no matter how well drilled a crew was in TACKING, ships sat in harbor until the wind shifted. In the Indian Ocean, South China Seas, and the Bay of Bengal, the monsoon winds shifted FAIR or FOUL by six- month seasons. While it might be fine for a ship bound south and west for the Cape of Good Hope and a homeward voyage, it would be almost impossible for a ship to make a journey in the opposite direction, beating into the teeth of that same wind from the Cape of Good Hope to Calcutta, which lay to the northeast.

Further, no naval captain would willingly cede the WINDWARD advantage to a foe. Staying up to windward and