The French Admiral

langridge instead of solid shot to repel any boat expeditions that might want to return the favor on her, and hoisted out the boarding nettings. The nets were hoisted loose and sloppy from the ends of the course yards and cro'jack yard on the mizzen to prevent easy entry over her bulwarks by enemy sailors intent on her capture, and draped in unseamanly bights so that no one scaling the nettings could count on any sort of firm foot or handhold before he was picked off or skewered by the men on Desperate's decks. Finally, the boats were led around from astern and the first lieutenant given parties of men for each boat to form a cutting-out expedition against the nearest French transport.

Lieutenant Peck, the marine officer, joined Railsford in the place of honor, along with half his platoon of marines, four to each of the boats. Cottle took charge of the captain's gig, with six hands and a steady quartermaster's mate in command. Railsford took the barge, Avery the cutter and Alan the jolly boat; only Carey remained aboard ship along with the older and less spry hands who could not be expected to scramble up a ship's side in the perfect darkness and continue on into unfamiliar rigging to put sail on a prize.

Railsford's barge led the short parade of four; the night was so black without even a sliver of moon that it was hard to see the boat next in line unless they were almost touching. The hands stroked as softly as they could, the rowports muffled with old tarpaulin or wornout sail scraps. The natty white-painted oar looms had been hastily daubed with tar to lessen their gleam. The stroke was slow to cut down on any splashes that might be seen as reflections from the enemy's riding lights, and to save the men's strength for battle. The making tide did as much to propel them forward as their efforts at the oars.

Alan sat on the sternmost thwart of the jolly boat, tiller bar under his arm, and peered intently into the blackness. The rumble and thump of the oars was maddeningly loud, and he licked his lips continually in concern and a little bit of fear as well. It was not merely the unseasonal chill of the night that made him shiver this time. It was the first time he ad ever been on a cutting-out, and he was on the water in the dark, remembering once more that he could not swim. Under the circumstances, he could not even cry out for aid if he fell into the water, but would most likely be expected to drown in perfect silence. Sitting in the open boat was bad enough, but worry about how he would gain the deck of a French ship in the night was uppermost. Once he reached the dubious safety of an enemy deck with steel in hand to fight whatever presented itself was almost a happy afterthought.

What if there are still troops aboard, like the Ephegenie? he wondered, gnawing his cheek unconsciously. We could end up tumbled back over the side at bayonet point. Given a choice of being skewered or shot, I'd take either one over drowning.

More to the point, had Desperate been spotted despite all their caution, and were they now rowing into a well-laid trap which would result in many deaths, most significantly his own?

He noticed that he had clamped his jaws so tightly shut to avoid chattering teeth that his mouth was beginning to ache, and though he was not exerting himself at an oar, he was breathing about as hard as the two men nearest him.

What the devil is the matter with me? he chid himself. It's not like me to be so skittish. Of course, it's my first time for this sort of expedition, but that don't signify. Mayhap it's because I've seen enough in the last two years to know there is something to fear. What if I get killed?

He felt the muscles of his back twitch at the thought and had to shake himself to settle down. I'll try to go game, of course, like a gentleman should. But not to tussle with a wench again, or lift a bottle or two—God, how hellish. Wonder what the world would be like without me?

Probably much better off, he decided after a moment of rueful cogitation, and smiled in spite of his feelings and the circumstances. Lucy Beauman would weep over him until some other swaggering buck came along, which might not be too long a period of mourning, if he knew anything about impressionable young tits like her. No one in London, certainly; he was already dead and gone to anyone he had known there, anyway. David Avery and little Carey might miss him, a few former shipmates from his first ship Ariadne, such as Keith Ashburn and… no, the rest of them had hated his overachieving guts, and it had been pretty much mutual. Treghues? The captain might do a short hornpipe of delight before he remembered what a fine Christian he was and put his solemn Sunday face back on.

A faint sound intruded on Lewrie's musings; the sound of one of his oarsmen moaning softly, a moan of the truly lost with each oar stroke.

'Just who is that ass who's fucking the manger goat?' he snapped, unsticking his tightly lashed jaw muscles.

There was a soft titter of relief from all his hands as their own fears were momentarily forgotten in disgust for some faceless and nameless shipmate more fearful even than they, someone they could despise most heartily because he could not control his fear like a stalwart English seaman, and they could.

'Ecstasy with the French camp followers will have to wait,' Alan said, shifting his numb posterior to a more comfortable position on the hard thwart.

'They'd bring women, sor?' someone asked from up forward with an interested gasp of surprise.

'Who knows,' Alan answered wryly. 'They're Frogs, ain't they? Do be quiet now, and mind your stroke.'

A few moments later, they almost went up the stern of the next boat in line, Avery's cutter. The thought of women carried aboard a French ship had indeed lengthened and strengthened their work at the oars.

'Damn you, Lewrie,' Avery hissed. 'Ease off, there!'

But they were almost at their destination. Out of the black night they could hear wavelets lapping, could hear the faint groan of ship timbers as a vessel rode to her anchors not far from them. This vessel's taffrail lanterns were not burning; only a faint glow from her binnacle by the unmanned wheel as lit and barely threw the loomhint above her bulwarks, as coastal navigation light or the glow of a coastal town will appear just below the horizon. All four boats drifted into an ungainly pod with upraised oars pointed skyward, trying to fend off with their hands quietly.

'Forrester, take the stern,' Railsford said in a whisper as they drifted closer together. 'Cut her stern cable and guard her watch.'

'Aye, sir,' Forrester piped.

'Silence, damn you! Avery, do you take the starboard main chains and go for the wheel. I shall go to larboard and send my people aloft to set sail. Lewrie, do you take the fo'c's'le and cut her bow cables. Do not any of you load a musket or pistol until you are on deck. Use cold steel if you have to put anyone down, and try to do it quietly.'

'Give way, gently,' Lewrie ordered after the other boats began to drift away far enough to re-employ the oars. He put the tiller bar over to steer alongside the French ship in Railsford's tiny wake. They both ducked under the jutting jib-boom and bowsprit, ghosted to a crawl in a tight turn just under the rails of the beakhead, eyeing the loose bights of line from the brailed up spritsail as a possible way up.

'Hook on,' Alan mouthed almost silently. 'Boat your oars.'

Railsford's boat faded out of view into the night and Alan waited, not sure exactly for what. The sound of Railsford scrambling up the side? Or would that be too late? A response from the sleeping French?

'Let's go,' he whispered finally, after the tension began to grow on him to almost unbearable proportion. His men sprang into action, going up hand over hand by the bight of line to the beakhead rails, using the bulge of the gunwale termination as a footstep. Alan had no choice but to try and follow clumsily. He was weighed down with a pair of those awfully inaccurate Sea Pattern pistols in his jacket pockets, a cutlass on a baldric over his shoulder, and his dirk hung by a belt frog from his waistband. If I fall in, I'll sink like a stone, he told himself fearfully.

He stepped on the bow of the jolly boat, hauled himself upward with both hands on the bight of spritsail brace until he could hook one claw over the lowest beakhead rail, which was slimy with night damp and the excreta left behind by French sailors. He almost lost his grip as he used the rails for a backward-leaning ladder, but there was a horny hand on his wrist and a great tug that pulled him up and over the rails with ease to the grated platform atop the cutwater.

'Las' shit that turd'll drop, sir,' a harsh voice whispered to him with great glee, indicating the Frenchman who was sprawled ungainly like a sack of scrap canvas at his feet. The man had his slop trousers down by his ankles and had obviously had his throat most efficiently and silently cut as he sat musing at his ease.

'Jesus!' Alan gaped in awe, feeling like a very green and unblooded cod's-head at the sight, which he had not expected. 'Any alarm yet?'

'No, sir. Caulkin' like lumber, sir.'

'Load your musket,' Alan ordered. 'Watch my back while I load my pistols.'