King`s Captain

us be going, even if it is a windward tide.'

They stiffened, ceased their whispered morning chatters, and the tin mugs of coffee were stashed away so they could be about the demanding business. Everyone looked so bloody keen and earnest, masking the fears they felt. Lewrie could almost (but not quite) sympathise.

'Would you recommend we tack or wear off the mooring, sir?' he asked of the river pilot. 'Bows to windward or alee?'

'Either'd suit just as well, Captain Lewrie,' the pilot replied, with a long, lazy yawn, as if it were no matter to him. 'Bows alee'd save a spot o' labour when we get to the bend. But there's bags of sea room alee, sir. Bows a'weather, you'd have to tack at the bend… and do you end up 'in-stays,' well…'

There was that, Lewrie thought; trying to tack in the narrow confines ofthe river bend, most-like with a dozen contrary vessels coming upriver and vying for sea room. Should they not get her bow 'round, she'd drift on the tidal current, right onto the far shore's mudflats! He'd been reading accounts of how to weather the Medway, had tried to recall his one-and-only downriver passage from so long before. That had been with a helpful beam wind from the West-Nor'west. He'd lain awake and schemed, played a tiny paper boat model down the river chart (when Toulon wasn't swatting it halfway to France or Peterborough!) in all imaginable weather conditions. This one, though, was the one he'd feared worst, almost as bad as a leeward tide, with wind and current flowing the same direction, which would have had them dragging anchors astern at the 'trip' to keep from being hared along quite out of all control and at a prodigious rate of knots! No, this crew's not well-drilled enough for a proper tack. Alan sighed, feeling his innards shriveling. We 'd muck it, sure Fate! It was bows alee for them, and all the sail-handling and helm commands he would give- arse backwards!

'Back and fill, then… bows alee,' Lewrie decided aloud.

'Nought t'fear, sir.' The pilot yawned again.

Easy for him t'say. Lewrie glowered. Think I'm fearful, do … ?

'Larboard bower's a'cock-bill by the ring-painter, sir,' Ludlow supplied, sounding much more agreeable and cooperative this day, now he had something nautical and challenging to do. Or delighting in goading his new captain into folly, Lewrie could also conjure! Taking joy from his dithering and delay. 'Shank- painter's free, and we've a stream-anchor prepared astern, as you ordered, sir. Just in case.'

'Very well, Mister Ludlow,' Lewrie snapped, steeling himself, and for a dread, blank moment trying to recall what commands to issue and in what order. He cast a glance aloft at the commissioning pendant to see how strong the wind was and whether it was steady or not. It was firmly out of the Nor'east, dead foul of the tide and river.

'Weil sheer her 'round first, gentlemen,' he pronounced with a nip to his voice. 'Helm hard-over to larboard… hard alee, Quartermasters.'

Streaming back from her mooring buoy by a single cable, Proteus already had steerageway, with that tide sluicing past her rudder and down her sides. With the helm hard-over to leeward, the tide forced her to turn, still tethered, bringing her stern up into the wind and her bows down towards the lee shores to the South.

She was held to the permanent mooring buoy by a single hawser up forrud, doubled from the starboard hawse hole to the metal ring atop the buoy and back to a belay, at fairly middling-stays. He'd placed Mr. Midshipman Adair, his best and brightest so far, all the way forrud in charge of letting slip.

'Mister Peacham,' Lewrie barked, wheeling to face his eldest of the middies, who stood with the afterguard in charge of the mizzenmast. 'Stand by to hoist spanker to get her stern 'round. Mister Ludlow… stand ready with the tops'ls and inner jib.'

Up her stern came, Proteus angling more across the tideway with her stern almost directly into the wind. Any further and she'd snub on that mooring cable, Lewrie knew, fail to wheel far enough Sutherly to set sail, yet… for good or ill… they had to let go, to trust in the wind and tide to take her and let her get a touch of way on so they could sail her off and not trip over the buoy-or drift helplessly to strand her on the south bank!

Soon… wait, she'll snub… now! Lewrie thought, drawing in a preparatory breath. 'Mister Adair… let slip!' he almost screamed. The wind… had it come almost due aft yet? A touch of veering on his left cheek? 'Man the captsan! Haul in! Smartly, now!'

She was free, untethered. Horny bare feet pounded the deck as the hands on the capstan thundered about in a circle, breasting to the bars, the pawls ratcheting as fast as a trotting horse's hooves, winding the messenger cable inboard about its drum, with the heavier hawser 'nippered' to it. That heavy cable groaned and grated through the eye of the hawse hole.

With no sails aloft, Proteus was taken by the out-flowing tide, adrift slowly astern, still so slowly turning with her helm hard-over, and her 740 tons of deadweight too much for the wind on her tall sides, her masts, and the maze of her rigging. There, the wind, a tiny touch on her larboard quarters!

'Hoist away aft, Mister Peacham! Sheet the spanker hard a'starboard! Mister Ludlow… let's begin with the foretops'l.'

'Aye, aye, sir,' Ludlow piped back, all enthusiasm, yet sounding dubious in spite of it. 'Hoy, there! Let fall the foretops'l! Brace starboard! Clews… halliards… jears, an' haul away!'

Up the yard went from its rest upon the foretop, with topmen out on the foot-ropes freeing the brails, the clews singing in the blocks to haul the lower corners down to bare them to the wind, the canvas rustling and shivering as it began to belly in fits and starts, loose-footed.

Proteus was now swinging, not quite under control yet, drifting and driven by the tideway, the spanker forcing her stern down and her bows up, so she lay Sou'easterly, almost abeam the river, and angling more and more windward.

'Mister Adair! Bare the inner jib, larboard tack!'

Just enough pressure on her bows to keep her from swinging up too far into the wind, and getting her foretops'l laid aback on the mast! And that muddy, dangerous lee shore about as far away as Lewrie could spit, it seemed!

'Main tops'l, Mister Ludlow, hoist away!' Lewrie pressed for more sail and more control. 'Mizzen tops'l too… but brace her all aback!'

Christ, he gloomed, just about ready to drop the larboard bower and surrender, admit he was a fraud, give up this nonsense, and slink off! She was now athwart the tideway, beam-onto the wind, hauled off by that shred of the inner jib's tack for the moment, but still making way mostly East, which would drift her onto the shore any second, did the tops'ls not fill and…!

Come on, lady, you can do it! he groaned to himself; God knows I'm not sure if I can, but you…!

Hmm, though…

The tops'ls were now fully alive, almost thundering as they were set wind-full. Slackly wind-full, but bellied out and drawing, braced 'round to be brushed by the wind, to shape it and cup it for an instant before it soughed past at an acute angle.

And Proteus began to steady, broadside to the wind, sailing into the wind, and making an awkward course to the Nor'east, still a bit too near that lee shore than Lewrie cared for, but…! She was going downriver with the tide, her fore and main tops'ls giving her lift, and the mizzen tops'l all aback to act as a brake as if she was cocked up to windward, fetched to! Turning a bit too much to windward, so…

'Mister Peacham, brail up the spanker to the gaff for a bit,' Lewrie called, after a long moment of thought. 'Mister Adair, douse the inner jib… for a bit!' he shouted forrud.

And without the wind's pressure on the spanker to act directly opposite of the usual effect, which would normally have swung her bow off, she steadied once more, a bit more broadside to the wind and the river. Got I it now, I think! he told himself; bows get too high, Ire-hoist the inner jib up forrud and that'll push her bows back down. Does she trend too far off the wind, Ire- hoist the spanker aft, makin' her stern-heavy. Rudder… well, hmm. What rudder? We're sailin' as fast as the tide, so we've no rudder control at all 'til we reach the river bend and try to haul our wind and