A Jester’s Fortune

'Should we lay out the surgery? In expectation of battle, Captain?'

How could a reasonable question rankle him so? Lewrie wondered. Howse always had a way of shading or inflecting even 'please pass the port' to sound like a retort, a challenge-a sneer!

'There'll be no need, 'til we beat to Quarters, Mister Howse,' Lewrie told him. 'We haven't identified our three strange sail yet.'

'Sharp scalpels, sir,' Buchanon interjected, frowning, pursing his lips in sadness. 'As a caution. 'Ey's blood- hunger on th' wind.'

'Smell it, did you, Mister Buchanon?' Howse puzzled, cocking his head and all but nudging LeGoff in the ribs to clue him to a jape. 'Or did your sea-god Lir speak to you directly?'

'Hands at stations, sir… ready to come about,' Lieutenant Knolles reported.

'Very well, Mister Knolles. Helm alee, at your discretion.'

'Aye aye, sir. Quartermasters…?'

'A man'd go through Life so cocksure, sir…' Mr. Buchanon was sputtering in frustration, not so educated as to be able to spar with Howse s droll disdain of what was, to him, a matter of fact and deadly-dangerous bit of sea- lore, 'wi' eyes t' see, an' ears t' hear, but-'

'I put my faith in Science, sir,' Howse declared. 'And, do I put stock in a god, He'd be the Great Jehovah… not some creaky old peasants' legend.'

'Enough, sir,' Lewrie snapped. 'This quarterdeck is not… my quarterdeck is not the proper place for philosophical disagreement. The both of you,' he was forced to add. 'Attention to duty, sirs.'

'But sir,' Howse deigned to protest, though with much humour, 'to render equal by comparison, in the guise of philosophy, a myth of pagan arising and-'

'Hard of hearing, Mr. Howse?' Lewrie boomed, feeling happy to have a valid reason to vent his spleen on the obstreperous, trimming bastard, who was never happy but when made unhappy, martyred once more by a witless world, an unappreciative Navy. 'Damn my eyes, Mr. Howse, get yourself below, if you can't take a hint and shut up!'

'Very good, sir,' Howse purred, bowing his way backwards, his hand on his heart, his dark eyes burning with righteous indignation. Lewrie was afraid he'd made the bloody man's day for him, given him a noble new scar, at which he would most happily pick for weeks!

'Bloody-minded man, sir,' Buchanon sighed. 'Thankee.'

'Didn't do it for you, Mr. Buchanon,' Lewrie told him.

'He's with us still, Cap'um, sir. Have no fear on 'at score. But, like I said, sir… he be hungry,' Buchanon stated slowly. 'A fight we'll have, 'is mornin'… do 'ey have th' stomach f r it.'

'Thankee for telling me, Mr. Buchanon,' Lewrie replied in slow gravity, not quite knowing what to think. Though he'd heard and seen stranger, this commission, aboard this ship.

This Fate-chosen ship, Lewrie added to himself, to hear Buchanon tell it! What sign'z he seen, what portent did he…?

It could have been the quartermasters on the helm, Spenser, and his fellow, the Hamburg-German, Mr. Brauer, easing Jester a half-point free, off the wind a touch, to gather speed to carry her through that difficult thoroughbred-leap of tacking 'cross the power of the winds.

It could have been a rising of the winds, too, that caused such an eerie keening in the rigging as she increased her pace, as Knolles waited for the perfect moment, the perfect combination of a wave from the quarter-sea under her bows, along with a tiny backing of the wind, to put her about. The deck thrust upward as she set her stiff shoulder to the sea, heeled a bit more and clove it with a dragonlike roar as she neared what felt like eleven knots.

'Helm alee!' Knolles bellowed at last, and her bows swung up toward the eye of the wind, and Lewrie knew it would be a clean'un. He eyed his hands on the deck below; well drilled-overdrilled-by now, as they leaned to take a strain on weather braces and sheets to cup that power until the very last moment, while others tailed on flaccid lee-side rigging to catch her, meet her, once she'd thundered through stays.

Fully roused, her upthrust jib-boom and bowsprit speared the horizon as Jester swept round, rising to another lifting wave, canted to the winds new direction as she tacked, barely losing a yard leeward or a single beat of her swift pace.

If there's to be a feast, he thought, half accepting the superstition as a talisman, she's ready for it! A good sign, that tack. A good sign, indeed… for starters.

CHAPTER 2

'Deck, there!' The foremast lookout shouted. 'Two Chases… go close-hauled! Larb'd tack!'

They'd seen Myrmidon and Jester first, back when they'd still been 'Strange Sail,' and had continued running South, perhaps bearing a bit more to windward as Jester had loomed up over the horizon. The sight, though, of two frigates looming up had settled the matter. A hoist of flags, answered by the strange ships, had shown them to be French. Now they were officially enemy vessels, 'Enemies Then Flying,' or Chases. Two of them, at least. The third, which looked to Lewrie like a large frigate, had maintained her Sutherly course, interposing herself between the squadron and the pair on the wing.

'Might even be one of their big forty-fours,' Lewrie commented after scrambling down the ratlines from the windward mizzen mast. He'd gone at least as high as the cat-harpings for a better view, without playing spider on the futtock-shrouds to gain the mizzen top platform.

'And that makes whoever she's escorting damn valuable, sir!' Mr. Knolles chortled with glee. 'They wouldn't waste one of their best for nothing.' Valuable, as in costly for the French to lose in battle. But also valuable as in worth a pretty penny at the Prize-Court, enriching the meagre purse of a lieutenant with large dreams for the future.

'Deck, there! Myrmidon! Tackin', sir!'

Hull-down by now, only five or six miles off, Lewrie could see her from the deck as she altered from a quarter- view to broadside-on.

'Now let's see what Monsieur Frog will do, Mister Knolles. A tack to

deal with Fillebrowne? Or stand on, to deal with us? Mister Hyde? Mister Spendlove?' Lewrie speculated, prompting his midshipmen to do some tactical thinking.

'I'd tack, sir,' Spendlove declared quickly. 'Force him to go about, to show us his stern and deal with Myrmidon.'

'Before our frigates come up, sir, aye,' Hyde stuck on, put out that he hadn't been the first to speak…

'Before those prizes get too far up to windward, sirs?' Lewrie japed, looking astern. Pylades was leading the two-ship column, closing to within nine miles. Beating to weather always took such a long time that a ship too far upwind was usually as safe as houses, with a hopelessly long lead against any pursuit. It was a mere five miles, perhaps, to those escorted vessels beyond, which had just gone hard on the wind; and it might take Jester the rest of the daylight to catch them up. The French frigate was boxed, and if she didn't shift herself and run in the wake of her two charges, soon she'd have Jester off her starboard bows, with Myrmidon off her larboard quarter.

Might have twenty-eight 18-Pounders on her gun-deck, Lewrie told himself; another ten 8-Pounders on the quarterdeck, and chase-guns at bow and stern-might even have some carronades to match ours. But she can't run the risk of fighting us too long. Her rigging gets cut up, and the frigates'll finish her, sure as Fate!

Much as he disliked the notion of facing I8-Pounder broadsides with Jester's frailer flanks, it might come to it. Mr. Buchanon might get his 'bloody' morning, after all. And Mr. Howse, one more reason to despair at the futility of war. As if death and dying were Lewrie s willful doing!

'Deck, there! Frigate's tackin'!'

'Stations for Stays, Mr. Knolles, quick as you can!' Alan snapped. 'So we don't lose a single yard on her!'

Once more, Jester came about, heading a touch east of Nor'East. Pointed almost