make prize of any enemy merchantman… and what the courts-martial might make of those engagements, and what the Prize Courts could demand as damages from unwitting captains was best not thought about!
At least Lewrie and HMS
So,
'Drogue is ready, sir,' Lt. Farley reported, looking half like a drowned rat in his sodden tarpaulins.
'See to its deploying, Mister Farley,' Lewrie ordered, even more of a drowned rat in a camphor-and-rotting-hide reek of his own, for it was so chilly he'd had to dig out some of his furs from the solo dash into the Baltic weeks before the Battle of Copenhagen.
The frigate had thrashed out fifteen miles to seaward from the shoals of the Dutch coast before the gale had turned into a shrieking Nor'westerly storm, against which
'The bare yards will act like sails,' Lt. Farley hopefully said, peering upward. ''Gainst a wind like this, well… '
'Quite so, Mister Farley,' Lewrie replied, though still wondering if Sir Evan Nepean, the long-time First Secretary to Admiralty (no fan of his) who had served the former First Lord, the Earl Spencer, and now served Admiral Lord St. Vincent, 'Old Jarvy,' might not
cropper; Nepean had despised him more than cold, boiled mutton for years, and Lewrie's acquittal at King's Bench for the crime of stealing a dozen Black Jamaican field slaves to man his old ship must have set Nepean's teeth grinding in frustration.
'Full 'trick' for the Quartermasters on the helm, sir,' Lewrie snapped as the buoyed sea-anchor was paid out over the bows. 'Trouble always seems t'come with inattention… when fresh hands take over.'
'Very good, sir.'
The sea-anchor was a modern one, a large canvas cone held open with an iron barrel hoop worthy of the largest water butt, weighted to keep it under the surface with a light iron boat anchor, at the end of an hundred- fathom cable of four-inch manila. As the cable was let out it felt ineffective for the longest time, 'til the painted buoy bobbed up about one hundred yards ahead of the bows, and the cable went taut, hauling
'Brace yards close-hauled to weather on the larboard tack, Mister Farley,' Lewrie ordered, his left hand shoved into the pocket of his fur parka… with his fingers secretly crossed. He had never in his naval career been reduced to using bare yards as substitutes for proper sails, so it was an experiment to him-a life-or-death experiment!
'That seems to ease her, sir,' Lt. Farley said at last, sounding as if he'd been holding his breath to see if the sea-anchor and braced bare yards would really work.
'How's her helm?' Lewrie asked Beasley, the Quartermaster of the Watch, and his Mate, Elgie, who stood braced wide-stanced either side of the double-wheel drum and spokes.
'Stiff, with th' relievin' tackle rigged, sir,' Beasley replied, shifting his quid of tobacco to leeward, 'but she's steadyin', aye.'
'Very well, thankee,' Lewrie said. 'Mister Furlow?' he called for the Midshipman. 'Pass word to my steward, Pettus, and Desmond, my Cox'n, and I'll have my deck-chair brought up.'
'Aye aye, sir,' Midshipman Furlow answered, then stepped to the break of the empty hammock nettings-the ship's people needed their dry bedding for their scant hours belowdecks between calls for All Hands-and bawled the summons to men in the waist.
Lewrie
Or, as much at ease as a man could appear as the frigate heaved her bows skyward with showers of salt spray cascading over her, then plunging like a seal with her jib-boom and bowsprit and beakhead rails under, and even larger bursts of white-out clouds of spray bursting to life, and the very fabric of the ship thundering, juddering, and groaning like a tormented ghost at each plunge or rise.
Lewrie tucked his chin down, slanted his hat firmly down atop his eyebrows, and even tried closing his eyes.
'Some hot broth, sir?' Pettus asked, looking as if the very idea of victuals would empty his stomach, too, but he had to offer.
'I'm fine for now, Pettus, but thankee for asking,' Lewrie let on with a forced smile.
'Amen to that, sir!' Farley shouted back, sounding pleased; as if he was truly one of those odd'uns who
'Aye, make it so, Mister Farley. Let 'em dry out and thaw out for a spell,' Lewrie decided. 'Hot broth for
'I will see to it directly, sir,' Farley agreed.
Lewrie doubted the roughness of the storm would allow fires to be lit below, but perhaps the offer might mollify