King, Ship, and Sword

CHAPTER FOUR

The Dog Watches came and went with no relenting of the storm; full dark, as black as a boot, and the Evening Watch was a roaring and soaking horror. So much spume, spray, and solid waves broke over the weather decks that the tar and oakum in the seams between the planking could not keep out a constant drizzle on sleeping off-watch men and their violently swaying hammocks. From the sick-berth and livestock manger under the forecastle right aft to the great-cabins, the decks bore puddles that were swept to either beam and fore and aft, so that the black- and-white enamel-painted chequered canvas deck covering in Lewrie's cabins became as slick as the marble tile design that it emulated, and the good Turkey or Axminster carpets had long been rolled up and stowed atop the transom settee.

It was only at Two Bells of the Middle Watch that the winds and seas seemed to ease, and the vast explosions of spray over the bows with each thundering, timber-cracking plunge diminished, allowing Lewrie to go below at last for a cold glass of tea, some cheese and a couple of soaked pieces of ship's biscuit… eaten in the gloom of a single candle, and the weevils in the biscuit considered 'out of sight and out of mind.' His bedding in the wide-enough- for-two hanging bed-cot was cold and damp despite an oiled canvas covering, so Lewrie, in all his clothes, tried to nap on the starboard-side collapsible settee for an hour or two.

It was hopeless, of course, for the settee was only long enough for two, only deep enough for sitting, and that in the proper mode of the age, which was to say erect, and mostly on the forward edge. He ended in a sprawl with one leg up, the other braced on the deck cover, and thought he'd wished his man Pettus a rest of his own, and to wake him should anyone need him before dropping off in a slouched, snoring bundle.

By Four Bells, though…

'Sir? Captain, sir? 'Tis Mister Privette, sir,' Pettus said. 'Mmph? Bugger 'im.'

'Mister Fox's duty, sir,' Privette piped up as Lewrie pried an eye open, blinking away grit. 'He wishes to make a tad more sail, sir.'

'Sail,' Lewrie said with an uncomprehending grunt, sitting up and rubbing his eyes with both hands.

'Aye, sir,' Privette added. 'Mister Fox believes we could bare stays'ls, spanker, and inner jibs, and begin to make a way, full and by.'

Lewrie was woozy with exhaustion and lack of sleep, despite his brief nap, so it took him a long moment to listen to his senses. The ship was no longer rising and plunging like a manic child on a hobbyhorse, and the sickening roll was less. The hiss and roar of the sea down the hull, and the thunder of her bows meeting hard, steep waves, no longer made it hard to hear, or speak.

'Aye,' Lewrie allowed at last, staggering to his feet. 'Tell Mister Fox I'll come up. May take a moment, but…,' he added, wincing as muscles and joints too-long tensioned against the motions of the frigate complained loudly, making him wonder if he had caught the long-time sailor's plaints of arthritis and rheumatism, both.

'Very well, sir,' Privette replied.

It was still cold, and icy spray still sheeted cross the deck as Lewrie attained the quarterdeck. The sea and sky were ink-black, and the only lights came from the two taffrail lanthorns, another by the foc's'le belfry, and the binnacle cabinet to illuminate the compass. Only now and then did the taffrail lanthorns glint off fleeting white-caps and sea-horses, mostly abeam the mizen mast or astern.

'Eased, has it, Mister Fox?' he asked.

'Aye, sir, or so I do believe,' the Second Officer told him as he raised a bent finger to the brim of his hat in casual salute. 'Her motion has most certainly eased, as has the velocity of the winds. I wish to replace storm trys'ls with stays'ls, hoist the spanker at two reefs, and hoist the inner jib.'

Lewrie looked into the binnacle to discover their present course: Nor'East. 'Wind still out of the Nor'West, Mister Fox?'

'Aye, sir. Though it does show sign of backing.'

'Aye, hoist away,' Lewrie decided, rubbing his chin and feeling two days' worth of stubble rasping. 'With any luck, full and by, we'll be able to steer Nor'east by North. And take in the sea-anchor, too,' he added, turning to look astern for the Dutch coast, as if the drift might have put them close to the shoals already. 'Rate of drift?'

'Nigh a mile each hour, sir,' Lt. Fox told him with a grimace.

'Then carry on, sir! Carry on, smartly!' Lewrie urged. They had set out the sea-anchor about Three in the previous afternoon, and if they'd drifted stemward a mile per hour since-it took Lewrie another long moment to do the simple math in his woozy head-that meant eleven hours of drifting, and they'd only been fifteen miles off Holland when they'd begun!

Mercifully for the weary and groggy hands, hoisting jibs and stays'ls, and baring the spanker at two reefs, could be done by the sailors of the current watch, not an 'All Hands' manoeuvre requiring men to go aloft at their peril. The off-watch people could sleep in as best they could under the circumstances, and be a tad fresher when the watch changed at 4 A.M. Hoisting was fairly easy; it was sheeting home to cup that still-boisterous wind that would cause the hernias.

Lewrie stood out of the way by the after-most shrouds of the mainmast, crossing his fingers as the Afterguard hoisted and reefed the spanker. With but a bit more sail exposed, Thermopylae was forced to heel a few more degrees to leeward, but after putting her shoulder to the sea, she felt stiffer and no longer rolled to larboard like a metronome; no, the ship came fully upright with each windward roll, and seemed steadier. He looked overside to the amber-tinted glimmers of lanthorn-light on the heaving wave crests. The wind drove them by as they chopped and broke upon themselves, making it seem as if the frigate was making way, but was she? Lewrie staggered aft towards the cross-deck hammock nettings at the forrud edge of the quarterdeck, peering out-board, hoping…

'Two and a quarter knots, sir!' Midshipman Plumb called out in a thin, piping voice from the taffrails.

'Bow lookouts!' Lewrie bellowed through a brass speaking-trumpet. 'Is the sea-anchor cable taut?'

'Slack, sir!' one shouted aft. 'Runnin' up on th' buoy, sir!' cried another.

'Just thankee Jesus!' Lewrie said under his breath, then turned to Lt. Fox. 'Take in the sea-anchor, sir, 'fore we run her under the forefoot.'

He uncrossed his fingers with a whoosh of pented breath, grinning for the first time since mid-day. Even at a bare two knots' good to windward, they could be eight miles clear of the Dutch shoals by the change of watch! 'Watch your luff, Mister Hook, Mister Slater!' Lt. Fox warned. 'Can't hold her head Nor'east, sir!' the Quartermaster shouted. 'Wind's veerin' on us.' He and his Mate, Slater, heaved on the spokes of the wheel, easing a full quarter turn of helm leeward. 'Steady on Nor'east by East, sir… best she'll manage.'

Sailin' parallel t'Holland, not makin' sea-room, then, Lewrie thought with a groan; we'll have t'tack, stiff as the winds are, and hope for the best! The winds were too stiff, and the spray too thick, to spread a chart on the traverse board in the dark. The best Lewrie could do was picture the chart in his mind, and groan again as he realised that, should they continue on this course, they'd encounter those islands East of the Texel, Vlieland and Terschelling, Nor'east of Den Helder and Harlingen, that jutted Northwards, smack on their bows!

'We'll have to tack, Mister Fox,' Lewrie said, about the same time that Lt. Fox opened his mouth to suggest the same thing, grimacing again. 'Loose another reef in the spanker, pipe All Hands,' and shake a reef from the main tops'l, as well, so we can build up enough speed t'get her round without gettin' caught 'in irons.''

'Aye aye, sir! Bosun! Pipe 'All Hands'!' Fox yelled. Five Bells chimed before all was ready, before Thermopylae had accelerated to five knots, and 'Stations for Stays' had been piped. Despite the heavy weather, and the continual shipping of seas over the bow, the larboard hawse buckler for the best bower had been removed, and the heavy-weather lashings on that anchor freed, with a cable of thigh-thick rope affixed to the anchor stock, and bound about the capstan. Men in hawse breeches swung lead lines from either channel of the foremast, just in case the Thermopylae could not cross the eye of the wind, and the sea-bottom might be close enough for them to anchor-to save the ship from drifting helplessly shoreward if unable to tack, or to try to box-haul her over to starboard tack so they could sail away, even if it meant