H.M.S. COCKEREL

master. 'Haul taut on the larboard, and we may be able to pressure her 'round more east'rd.'

'Thankee, Mister Dimmock. Should I attend to that, sir?' Alan asked the captain.

Braxton's mouth worked in anger. To fly up as lubberly as some first-time lake sailor in a dinghy… to completely ignore a signal of their flagship…! His abiding wish that Cockerel distinguish herself as the best frigate in the Fleet was in shambles.

'I have the deck, sir,' Braxton snarled at last. 'Do you attend the purser below. We're alist, sir. Ballast has shifted, stores… I vow you've done quite enough for one day, sir.'

'Aye, aye, sir,' Lewrie replied as chearly as he might.

'Whoo, neck-or-nothin' there, for a moment, hey, sir?' Banbrook the Marine crowed, fanning himself with his hat as he and O'Neal came up from the waist.

'On your way, see what's taking Mister Fairclough so long to repair the steering tackle,' Braxton continued.

'I shall, sir,' Lewrie vowed, doffing his hat in salute.

'I say, Mister Lewrie, sir?' Banbrook nattered on, nearing their small gathering, completely unaware of any problems, now that the ship no longer appeared to be in danger of sinking.

'Might I suggest, Captain, sir, that the master-at-arms take a muster?' Lewrie dared to suggest. 'Hard as we were slung about, it'd be a miracle were no topmen dashed over the side, sir.'

'Umph!' the captain grunted, calling for his son to attend to it.

'Then I shall go below, sir,' Lewrie said in parting.

'Uhm, Mister Lewrie, sir… 'bout the whore-transport?' Lieutenant Banbrook inquired breezily. 'All these repairs and wot-not… does this mean we miss our turn with her, sir?'

Good God, Lewrie thought, appalled; not now, you blitherin'…!

Captain O'Neal took Banbrook's arm to jerk him out of earshot, coughing fit to die-much too late, of course.

'The what!' Captain Braxton roared, wheeling to look at Banbrook with a mixture of utter loathing and complete incomprehension on his phiz. 'The bloody what, sir?'

'The whore-transport, sir,' Lieutenant Banbrook began gaily. 'The one the wardroom told me about?'

A very tardy realisation struck the young Marine officer at last. 'The one with the… uhm…' he stammered, blushing beet red as he discovered himself the goat of their cruel jape. 'Well, the… whores aboard? Who come alongside and…?'

'Get off my deck! Get off my quarterdeck, you useless damn fool!' the captain screamed, again in full cry, and with a suitable target for his pent-up wrath. 'I want this… tailor's dummy… under close arrest, Captain O'Neal! Under close arrest, sir!'

Time to bolt, Lewrie thought.

He made his way down a quarter-deck ladder, down the midships companionway hatch, safely out of screeching range, as the full fury of the captain's storm broke.

The first people he met as he attained the orlop deck were the ship's carpenter, Mister Dallimore, and his carpenter's crew, all of whom were hugging carline posts, and each other, sniggering and chortling.

' 'Hore-ship, megawd!' one of them wheezed.

''Tain't funny, damn yer eyes,' Lewrie snapped. 'Look at this bloody mess, Mister Dallimore.'

Huge water butts, salt-rations barrels, beer kegs, piled ship's stores… half the well-ordered stowage on the orlop was now lumbered loose to larboard. They'd be half the watch shifting it, the waisters and idlers, such as Dallimore's people, and probably require Marines to pitch in, too, to shift ballast in the bilges.

'Aye, sir. Sorry, sir,' Dallimore tried to reply, though it was more like a strangling, sneezing sound.

'Get to work, there. Turn a hand, and stop that sniv'ling.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Lewrie stomped stiff-legged aft to the tiller head in the midshipmen's cockpit. The bosun and a few senior able seamen were finishing up the first vital part of the repairs, stringing a block-and-tackle series to the tiller head so Cockerel could be steered from the cockpit, with helm orders relayed down from the quarterdeck. Re-roving new rope and long-splicing old would take longer, before the wheel would serve.

'Whip-staff an' windlass, Mister Lewrie, sir,' Fairclough told him, 'but 'twill do f r now. We've our rudder back.'

'Herdson, go on deck and inform the captain,' Lewrie ordered.

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'Buggered, sir,' Fairclough grunted, shifting his quid.

'When? How?' Lewrie demanded.

'Lookee 'ere, sir,' Fairclough whispered, drawing his attention to a squarish hole in an overhead deck beam, hard by where one of the turning blocks for the tiller ropes would pass. 'Looks t'me, sir, if a rat-trail rasp'z drove in 'ere, it'd chafe th' steerin' tackle sore, Mister Lewrie, ever'time a spoke'r two was put over. There's frayin' on the lines, aye, but… ye can see where some'un couldn't wait, an' cut it.'

'Sometime after we went to Quarters, I suppose,' Lewrie sighed.

'Aye, sir, else the 'younkers'da seed it bein' done, and…' Fairclough shrugged heavily, lifting thick brows in studied perplexity.

'And I didn't think they'd found leaders yet,' Lewrie muttered softly. 'Looks like they have, though.'

'Aye, sir,' Fairclough agreed, sounding shifty and truculent.

Damme, Alan recalled suddenly-Dallimore and his crew-they had a tool box with 'em! Rasps, punches, hammers, saws… and draw-knives! And I'd wager it wasn't just Banbrook's lunatick gaff set 'em to laughing! The newcomers, the lubbers, the waisters… they'd never think of such a stunt. It was the experienced crewmen who'd know how to disable the ship, who'd know how to make the landsmen slip, fall, or look clumsy. Who'd know just how far they could go without really disabling Cockerel, or endangering her or themselves.

'A word to the wise, Mister Fairclough,' Lewrie said sternly, finding another conspirator in the way the bosun could not seem to meet his intent gaze. 'And I believe you might just have a very good idea of who those… wise… are, hey? There will be no more. Once was the limit, and there… will… be… no… morel Because if there is another occurrence, if things go farther, than it won't be floggings for the ones involved… it'll be courts-martial… and that means the noose for 'em. And if I'm forced to search out the man, or men, who hobbled our ship, I swear to God, I'll have their nutmegs off with a dull knife! Do you understand me plain, Mister Fairclough?'

'Aye, sir,' Fairclough nodded sadly.

'Signal sent, read and understood, I believe, then,' Alan said. 'The crew's… and mine.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'And a further word of warning, bosun. They'd best be the finest crew a captain could ask for from now on-else even he'll take notice and flay 'em to bloody rags, first, and 'scrag' 'em, second.'

'Aye, aye, sir,' Fairclough huffed, looking as if he wished to be anyplace but there at the moment, getting flayed himself. 'Best behaviour, sir.'

Lewrie went back amidships to find the purser, his Jack in the Breadroom, a working party of gangway idlers, the sail-maker, carpenter and their crews, with Marine help, heaving nigh to ruptures to set the shambles right. He slithered and scaled the piles forward to the cable tiers for a better view.

There, somewhat separated from the hands, and in delayed but shuddery relief that Cockerel hadn't been dismasted, hadn't broached or rolled completely keel-up and killed him, he began to snicker to himself. He put a hand to his mouth, looking as if he was about to 'cast his accounts' to Jonah, as an uncontrollable, lunatick fit of mirth quite took him. Lewrie was forced to duck deep into the cable tiers, amid the stinking mile of thigh-thick hawsers for privacy.

'Whore-transport!' he whispered to the darkness. And then he began to laugh himself sick, until his sides hurt.