H.M.S. COCKEREL

hands were quick.

But the deck was already inclined over twenty degrees of heel, and the men were laid back almost parallel to the gangways. It wasn't clumsy, semi-mutinous theatrics now. They began to slip and fall, to go sprawling on their backs, to slide to leeward into the bulwarks as their bare feet lost purchase; or were dragged towards the pin rails as they tried to hold on to the braces, by the enormous pressure of wind on the sails which exerted tons of pull on the lines.

Cockerel groaned in outraged protest as she swung up a-weather, the wind rapidly clocking forward of abeam, laid over so far that water surged high as the gunports on the lee side, and the breeching ropes of the starboard battery sang a taut torment. Masts, spars, rigging, hull… her wail was a chorus of danger, and the sea surged hungrily.

At least 'thout the spanker, Lewrie thought bitterly, we won't have weather-helm for long! Or masts, either, he concluded, hanging light-footed from the starboard mizzen stays by a death-grip.

The flatted-in jibs and fore stays'ls saved her, pushing down her bows, keeping Cockerel from broaching, though she lay hard over on her larboard side for what seemed like forever, her rudder quite ineffective, even if it had been attached to something. Alan whined with a brief terror as he looked down at the hungry ocean, at the image of course-sail yards dragging wakes in the sea! The ship creaked and moaned, with ominous sloshes and thuds echoing from below on the orlop deck. Round-shot tumbled from their nests along the hatch rims or the rope shot-garlands to bowl down alee and thonkl into bulwarks.

Then Cockerel rolled back upright, rebounding so quickly that she was flung hard up against the mizzen stays, even as she began to pay off the wind, at last. But she didn't come quite level after that; she was still alist to larboard. Cargo and ballast shifted, sure, Alan thought, as his feet at last found a place to stand, as he darted for the nettings overlooking the waist.

'Bosun!' he bawled, 'Get below and set relieving tackle to the tiller head! All hands, secure from Quarters! Mister Scott, take the foc's'le and foremast, set the sprit-s'l, fore-tops'l and forecourse for a run. Main-mast, mizzenmast, there! Topmen aloft! Trice up and lay out! Brail up all sail! Clew up now, Mister Porter, Mister Thorne. Clew up the mizzen t'gallant, main course, main tops'l and t'gallant! Spanish-reef 'em, for now! After-guard, mizzen tops'l braces!'

They'd have to have the foresails for drive, and a lifting effect, making the stern heavier for a repaired helm. The mizzen tops'l could serve for steering, of a rough and clumsy sort. The rest of her square sail would be drawn up by the clew lines towards the yards which hung them, baggy and bat-winged, towards the tips of the yardarms, close and snug inward towards the masts… Spanish-reefed.

He dared allow himself at last a deep, shaky breath and a look aloft. Well, that didn't help his nerves much, he thought, blaring his eyes in wonder-there were t'gallant and top-mast shrouds flying free as the commissioning pendant up yonder, and the light upper masts were swaying a lot more than normal as Cockerel wallowed from side to side, her untended lift lines allowing the yards to droop a-cock-bill.

'What in the name o' God d'ye think yer playing at, sir!' the captain fumed as he made his way amidships of the quarterdeck. 'Get the bloody hell outa my way, you brainless, cunny-thumbed…!' Captain Braxton screamed to all and sundry, shaking his fists as if he wished to bloody his knuckles on the quarter-deck gunners and after- guard.

'They're firing at us!' Midshipman Braxton shouted from aloft. 'The French are firing at us, sir!'

The 5th Rate had rounded up abeam the wind, about four or five miles alee of Cockerel. The roar of her upper-deck guns could not be heard, of course, but they could see the puffs of grey-tan gunpowder erupt from her sides as the forty-four-gunned vessel delivered a slow, timed salute-a most mocking and derisory salute to their 'seamanship'-before hauling her wind once more and loping away eastward to guard her convoy, which had used their entertaining diversion to sail away from harm, towards the Straits of Gibraltar.

Cackling their fool heads off, Alan thought miserably. 'Fowkner,' he called to a senior hand of the after-guard. 'Get aloft. Get a line on the spanker gaff-what's left of it- and haul it clear of the shrouds. Boat hooks, you men. Get the spanker sheets in-board, and ready to lower away. Mister Spendlove? Inform one of the bosun's mates to fetch out one of the stun'sl booms and 'fish' it to the broken spanker gaff.' 'Aye, aye, sir.'

'You, sir!' Braxton snarled, hatless, his fists balled for a fight still, as he came to his first lieutenant. 'Of all the stupid, inept-!'

'Steering tackle parted, sir,' Lewrie tried to explain. 'There wasn't much we could-'

'That you should have re-rove completely before, you-!' 'Captain, sir,' Lewrie replied, 'you were there when we overhauled it. You said yourself you were satisfied-'

'You disputatious dog, sir!' Braxton shot back. 'Think I can't see your game? Think I'm blind, do you? How convenient the hands, of a sudden, were struck-'

'Captain, sir,' Mister Dimmock interrupted from the other side, 'I think a little calm is in order, sir. 'Least said, soonest mended' and all that? The hands, ye know… won't do, in their hearing, sir.'

'I'll kindly thankee to keep out of this, sir,' Braxton sneered. 'I want your advice, I'll ask for it. Now, be silent.'

'No, sir,' Dimmock quailed, though determined to have his say, at last. 'Not this time. You're saying Mister Lewrie put the people up to it, is that your meaning, sir? And I say that is wrong, sir. Were it not for his quick wits, we'd have rolled the 'sticks' right out of her, sir. Frankly, Captain Braxton, Cockerel's damn' lucky somebody kept their wits about 'em when perfectly sound steering-tackle ropes snapped, at the worst possible moment. Tackle you did inspect, sir.'

Braxton seethed, turned red as turkey wattles, but realised he was in the wrong place to shout the dread word 'mutiny.' 'How dare you, sir, deign to interfere!' he hissed, in a much more private, though much more threatening voice.

'There may be trouble 'mongst our people, sir,' Dimmock told him in a mutter, 'but I may swear to you on a stack o' Bibles, 'tis none of Mister Lewrie's doing.'

Dimmock had such a way of canting his accents, of laying stress on innocuous words, that his meaning was quite clear at that moment; and quite accusatory, too. Though were his statements recalled at any court martial, verbatim, they could sound quite innocent. He'd as much as implied that the source of the crew's unrest lay solely with Captain Braxton. He'd further implied that when Cockerel had come nigh broaching, her captain had uttered no orders for her salvation.

'You, as well, sir?' Braxton sniffed, raring back with outrage.

'Sir, you can't believe that. We're all as-'

BOOM! From windward.

Windsor Castle had fired a forecastle chase gun to get Cockerel's attention. She and the rest of the squadron were completely hull-up to them, and had been flying 'Do You Require Assistance' for some minutes, until at last their admiral had become so exasperated at their lack of notice he'd ordered a gun touched off. The line-abreast warships were going to pass Cockerel close-aboard soon, as she staggered sou'east with the wind right up her stern, and they continued east-nor'east in chase of the French convoy. Some of them might have to alter course to avoid her, slowing that pursuit even more.

'From the flag, sir!' Midshipman Braxton screeched aloft. ' 'Do You Require Assistance,' it reads, sir!'

'We can see that from the deck, damn you!' Lewrie hailed upward. 'God help your slack arse, Mister Midshipman Braxton!' he vowed. He'd have the lad bent over a gun, should the Devil himself dare to cross him. 'What reply do you wish to send, sir?' he asked the captain, in a more civil tone.

'No!' Braxton thundered. 'We require no assistance!'

'Very well, sir. Mister Spendlove? You're free aft. Hoist a Negative.'

'Aye, aye, sir!'

'Might ease the starboard mizzen tops'l braces, Mister Lewrie,' Dimmock advised, in his proper role of sailing