H.M.S. COCKEREL

feel like a Levanter… I think, sir.'

'And you let me sleep twenty minutes past dawn, when I left orders to be summoned at that time, Mister Spendlove?' Lewrie glowered, still too testy to be approached.

'Uhm, sir… we tried to wake you, me and the, uhm… Mademoiselle Aretino both, sir,' Spendlove blushed.

Who the Hell's that, Alan wondered? Damme, never even took time to discover her last name! Oh, well.

'My apologies for biting your head off, then, Mister Spendlove,' Alan sighed. 'Bad as one of Hercules' Twelve Labours, was it?'

'No error, sir,' Spendlove grinned shyly.

'Where away, the other ships?' Lewrie asked, turning back to business.

'One ahead, sir, she's tops'ls down now. The horse transport down to loo'rd must have hauled her wind during the night, a point or so. She's about another two miles off, almost hull down. The pair astern are about where they were last night, sir. Might have lost some ground on us.'

'Very well, Mister Spendlove. I'll-'

'SAIL HO!'

'Christ!' he said instead, wishing his bladder wasn't full.

'Deck, there! Two sail astern! Two points off th' larb'rd quarter! Hull down! T'gallants, all I see!'

'You and the bosun have the deck, Mister Spendlove?' Lewrie inquired. 'Pray, do you keep it a few minutes longer.' He took a telescope and went aloft the mizzen shrouds as high as the cat-harpings, to peer astern.

'Three sail! Deck, there, three sail astern!' the main-mast lookout shouted down. 'Three sail, all three- masters! Two points off the larb'rd quarter!'

He could barely make them out, three sets of three t'gallants on the horizon, greyish-white sails bellied full of wind. Radical rose on a wave, giving him a slightly better view, then dipped once more, raising the horizon like a stage curtain. The strange ships rose and fell also. Too far off to determine their identity. But he could hazard a morbid guess. The ships around him had been at sea long enough for pale white canvas to go mildewed and tan. Royal Navy ships, wearing their working suit of sails, were usually amber or tan. These ships, though, had not been at sea much, hadn't exposed their t'gallants to the weather. They were nearly new, and pale. Weather nowhere near boisterous enough for the heavy-weather suit to be hoisted aloft, too gusty for the tropical suit… these were ships which hadn't been out of harbour in a while. And three, close together, travelling in a pack. Or a squadron.

He feared they were French.

'Bloody Hell,' he sighed to himself. 'Now what to do?'

He snapped the telescope shut, descended the ratlines, to land with a final short jump to the quarterdeck.

'Mister Spendlove, we'll err on the side of caution. Dig into the taffrail lockers and prepare a flag signal for the other ships,' he directed. 'First, Number Ten, followed by 'Make All Sail,' whatever that is, this month's book. There're Sea Officers aboard to read 'em.'

'Number Ten, sir?' Spendlove gasped, eyes wide.

'Aye, Mister Spendlove. 'Enemy-In-Sight.' '

* * *

Short, bluff-bowed, undersparred… and terrified, the merchantmen and transports tried to make more sail. More than likely, they had one poor, overworked Royal Navy officer aboard, assigned to a civilian master, who possessed as few crewmen as he could scrimp and still work his ship, under Admiralty contract. They had guns, of course; no ship put to sea unarmed. But to work them, to really fight back… always sailing in large convoys or under close escort, they were there merely as afterthoughts for most merchant ships in European water. Supposed to man to something close to Admiralty standards, paid to, yet…

A prudent man would have let fall every reef, let fall every top-gallant, and sail off and leave them to their own devices. Yet those ships were so jam-packed, elbow to elbow with helpless civilians. Alan could not abandon them. There was precious little he could do for them, either. He couldn't fight one enemy vessel, really, and certainly not three. Radical didn't have the well- drilled crew to allow him freedom of maneuver, to dance with the approaching foes. And, he observed most bitterly, even had he attempted to run away, he couldn't. Radical wallowed! She couldn't pass seven knots in a full gale. And the ships astern were gaining.

Within an hour the three ships had sailed their tops'ls above the horizon; within another hour, the first sight of their courses as well. Stuns'ls (which Radical lacked) spread snowy to either beam of their masts, stey'ls between topmasts glittered fresh as new-boiled bed sheets. The transports astern had caught up by perhaps no more'n a single mile, strain as they might, their own topmasts appearing to bend forward under the pressure of t'gallants and unreefed tops'ls. The horse transport down to leeward had made better progress, now head-reaching ahead of Radical's bows.

'Sail Ho!'

'God, not another one,' Alan groused. 'Where away?'

'Fine on th' starb'd bows!' came the wail. 'Three-master! 'Er t'gallants only, f r now!'

A fine trap they laid, Lewrie thought, massaging his brow in concentrated thought and fidgety frustration. Three to herd us, one downwind to beat back, and cut us off? Horse shit! Didn't even know where we were 'til dawn, when they spotted us ahead of 'em.

'Horse transport's hoistin' an ensign, sir!' Spendlove cried in wonder. 'And a private signal!'

'Of course, she's closer to the new'un. Maybe…'

'Deck, there! Strange ship t'loo'rd…' the lookout shouted with sudden glee. 'Answerin'… private signal…!' He called off a string of code flags, that month's secret recognition between ships of the Royal Navy! Lewrie flipped through his slim signals book. They were correct! 'Deck, there! White ensign! Royal Navy… frigate!'

White ensign… a ship of Admiral Lord Hood's fleet would show it, since he was a full admiral of the most senior squadron. Or a frigate on independent service would fly it, instead of the blue or the red of a lesser admiral.

'Mister Spendlove! Hoist our own ensign. And Number Ten,' he roared, filled with immense relief. Help was at hand. If the strange frigate's presence didn't cow the French, then at least, should he be forced to engage, he would have more even odds.

'Number Ten, two-blocked, yonder!' the lookout bellowed. 'She reads us, sir! D'ye hear, there?'

'Right, then,' Lewrie dared smile and clap Spendlove's shoulder, glance at de Crillart and the rest of the military men who'd gathered together on the quarterdeck. 'I think we're going to be fine.'

' 'Nother hoist, sir!' the lookout yelled, calling off a string of flags. 'Private signal!'

Spendlove opened his book, thumbing through the many entries. He had a short list of those vessels known to be in the Mediterranean, those further separated into Rates. Scanning 5th Rates took another fumbling moment to find the right hand-lettered page he'd diligently copied out.

'Cockerel, sir!' Spendlove informed them at last. 'H.M.S. Cockerel frigate. Come to save us, sirs!'

A cheer went up from Cockerel's detached tars when that news was quickly circulated along the gangways, down to the waist and magazines. And for once, it didn't sound the slightest bit derisive. Close-hauled though she laboured, within another hour, she could be up to them, with her thirty-two guns primed, loaded and run out. Just about the time the French squadron overhauled the fleeing merchantmen.

Lewrie began to consider coming about, then, to offer battle. He already flew a borrowed Royal Navy ensign, and Radical was a frigate, by God. At range-of-random-shot, who was to say that she