Wake regarded Rork’s expression and laughed. He spoke loudly for the crew’s benefit.
“And just imagine how much prize money that schooner will bring!”
“Aye, me Captain! Enough quid for me whole family to cross ta’ America an’ live like the nobles they should be! Short water now, an’ rich bastards later, sir!”
The men around them were grinning, for they had all been quietly adding up their own share from the future sale of the strange schooner at the Admiralty Court in Key West.
St. James, like a beautiful thoroughbred doing precisely what she was created for, kept up her race to the south into the deep waters of the Straits of Florida—and away from the pleasures of Key West.
***
The night should have seemed long, but the intensity of the chase and the constant evaluations of St. James’s speed made the watches go quickly. The wind backed to the east and held. The moon took its time to cross the sky, allowing the men of the St. James to watch their prey edge slightly to windward with each roll of the sea. Gradually, they changed position to windward until they were behind the mystery ship, keeping in her wake throughout the night.
Near the end of the last watch White, who was the petty officer of the deck, noticed that seas were changing. Though the wind was the same—from the east at a strong breeze—the waves started to get higher and steep sided.
It was a sure sign of their location. The schooner had entered the largest river in the world: the Gulf Stream. It stretched from North America to Europe and was deeper, longer, and wider than any other flow of water on earth. Misunderstood and feared for centuries, it was only recently that seamen had measured its current and temperature. Matthew Fontaine Maury, originally of the United States Navy, lately in the Confederate States Navy, had been one of the first to study the Stream and its effects upon ships and the sea. Such concepts were far from the minds of the watch on deck; all they knew or cared was that the schooner was no longer riding over the seas. Now she was fighting them.
St. James was no longer surging along, with water sluicing past the leeward starboard gunwale. The ship was now crashing into each wave and slowing with each collision. Both the pursuer and the prey were having the same difficulty, and the question soon became which one of them would shorten sail in order to reduce the strain on the hull and rig.
Rork and Wake conferred at the stern while holding onto the taut main sheet as the deck bucked beneath them. Wake raised his arm and gestured out over the crazed sea. He yelled above the sounds of the complaining wood and canvas.
“It’s the Stream!”
Rork’s face showed he didn’t understand.
“I said, it’s the Stream, Rork. We’re in the Gulf Stream!”
The bosun nodded and shrugged his shoulders. “It kicked up fast, sir. How much longer, do ye reckon?”
“It’s the opposing wind against the current. As long as the wind’s easterly it’ll stay this way. All the way to Cuba, or near to it!”
“She’ll not take this much longer, sir. The big stays’l ’ll have to come down. Look at the masts jerkin’ with each sea!”
Rork’s point was valid. The masts were jerking and grating at the deck. Sounds of wood creaking from the spars and hull were getting louder. The lookout aloft had long since been ordered down as the mast tops were whipsawing around wildly.
Two hours until dawn. The chess game of the chase had gotten more difficult with the added dimension of fatigue on ship and men. Wake had to hold on to the main backstay to keep upright. He looked again at the big fisherman stays’l bellying out from the fore and main masts and solidly full of the wind. He couldn’t wait any longer.
“Bosun, take that stays’l down!”
“Aye, sir. They’ll have to shorten too, sir.”
The crew turned out on deck with all hands working to douse the ungainly stays’l. Bringing it down to the deck in some sort of organized effort failed when most of the enraged and wild canvas escaped over the lee side and dragged in the water. Now soaked, torn, and twice as heavy, it fought all attempts to get it aboard for half an hour, until they finally managed to manhandle the sail onto the deck. A dozen men lay collapsed upon it, heaving their breaths while they passed furling lashings around it.
Wake went to the foredeck and watched the suspect ship until dawn. She had not shortened sail, and her motion was apparent even in the moonlight from this distance. St. James had calmed down a bit, and was not as violent or rapid in her bucking through the waves. But the other schooner was fighting the wind and the seas every foot of the way. Wake didn’t know how she kept her spars in her, but it soon was obvious that her over-canvassed masts were not pulling her away from the pursuing naval vessel. Wake leaned on the sampson post, holding on as his schooner plunged through the seas. He stared at the other ship, willing himself into the mind of her captain. Peering across three miles of moonlit water, for hours he watched every move of the other, trying to glean some clue as to who she was and what she was up to. One thing was certain; her commander was competent and strong willed. He would not surrender until the very last minute.
***
Dawn flooded the sky with a depressing gray light that diffused the silvery shades of the moonlight and made observation of the lead ship more difficult. The moon was faded but still overlooking the scene when the sun reappeared, coming up from the horizon and making the main and fore sails stand out in golden contrast to the dark gray western background. All hands on watch, except the helmsman, crowded the foredeck to see if
