The French Admiral

secure the upper end of the yard. 'But, that up there…'

'Topmast is shattered halfway up, looks like,' Alan agreed.

'Might save it an' fish it. Topgallant mast, though. Don't know what's keepin' it aloft as it is. 'Bout ready ta let go.'

There was another broadside from Desperate, and a ragged cheer which made them turn to look. They had the French sloop of war at roughly musket shot now, half a cable away, and had just punched some holes into her, making her stagger in the water as though she had run aground on an uncharted reef. Her foremast leaned over drunkenly and she began to slow down, now unable to keep up with Desperate even on a parallel course.

'We'll need more men,' Alan said, removing his baldric and cutlass, unloading his pockets of the weight of the pistols, which were still at half cock. He eased the hammers forward for safety, laid everything in the top platform and gritted his teeth to make the ascent to the topmast to see how bad the damage was. It was expected of him, God help him.

There was a great groan of tortured pine, and the damaged masts leaned over to starboard even more, the topmast beginning to split down its length as the weight of the topgallant mast tore loose from whatever last shred had been holding it.

''Ware below!' Weems boomed.

Alan had no choice but to slide back down the topmast he had been scaling until he fetched up at the lower mast cap and the trestletrees, clinging for dear life to avoid being pitched out of the rigging or torn asunder if the mast split off at the cap. With a final shriek, the entire topgallant mast and half the topmast split off and went over the side to raise a great splash of water alongside, and Alan exclaimed in terror's standing rigging and trailing rigging slashed about him like coach whips.

'I'm sorry, I quit!' he shouted, not caring who heard him. 'I've done just about bloody enough tonight, thank you! if you want to kill me, you'll find me in my hammock below decks!'

'Damme, we've lost it!' Weems cried, in anguish at the hurt to his precious rigging and masts. He scrambled up to the cap with Lewrie and surveyed what little he could see in the night. 'Not a shred left of it. Ripped every stay, every shroud right out. We'll be the next week makin' repairs, an' where'll we get spare spars enough, I'm wonderin'.'

'I am well,' Alan told him, his voice dripping with sarcasm. 'Thank you very much for asking, Mister Weems!'

'Goddamn French bastards, the poxy snail-eatin' sons-abitches!' Weems continued to lament the scarred perfection of his masts, shaking an angry fist at the French sloop of war that was, as Alan finally noted, being pounded to pieces by Desperate's heavier fire. Her own damaged foremast went by the board over the farther side, and must have still been attached, for she stewed about as though snagged by an anchor cable, which threw such a shock to her remaining rigging that Lewrie saw for the first time a ship slung about so violently that she indeed had all 'the sticks' ripped right out of her, her other mast crashing down in ruin to cover her decks in timber, rope, and canvas.

'Serves ya right, ya duck-fuckers!' Weems howled.

'May I go down to the deck now, Mister Weems?' Alan asked, picking a rather large splinter out of his palm from the shattered topmast.

'Aye, nothin' left doin' aloft, not on this mast. Hurt yeself. did ya? Best let the surgeon see ta that. Might get a tot of rum outen it if ya talks sweet to him,' Weems said.

That's the best offer I've had all day, Alan decided.

CHAPTER 5

Until dawn Desperate made her way painfully to the anchorage at the mouth of the York River. There had been few men injured in the fight with the French sloop of war, even fewer in the abortive attempt to take the merchantman; even so, Mr. Dorne and his surgeon's mates had been busy until that time sewing up cuts and scrapes, taking off an arm here that had been shattered, amputating a leg above the knee on a young gunner who had had the bone smashed into permanent ruin by a musket ball. The low tide slacked and the sea breeze died just before first light, so that the frigate was for a time becalmed, drifting for a piece slowly sternward out to sea once more before she anchored. Once the land breeze sprang up, she could find enough steerage-way to work close-hauled up the York to join her sister ships already in the bay.

'Now, damme, will you look at that,' Railsford muttered as he stood by the taffrail, peering into Lynnhaven Bay with a telescope.

Alan was swaying by the binnacle and compass, ready to pass out with fatigue. He had been up all night, like all the hands, tending to what hurts to the ship could be put right immediately, and at that moment could have cheerfully murdered someone for hot tea or coffee. Railsford's words brought him out of his stupor enough to join him at the rail.

'There's that Frog transport we burned out last night. And look you at what the others were,' Railsford spat, almost beside himself.

Alan took the heavy tube in both hands and applied it to his right eye, the weight of the instrument making his weary limbs shudder.

'Coasters!' Alan exclaimed. 'Potty little oyster boats and such!'

'And not a full dozen of 'em,' Railsford moaned. 'We were tricked.'

'They looked like ships last night, sir. All lit up and chiming the watch bells.'

'At the least, we burned out the only decent ship they had and put the fear of God into a French sloop of war.' Railsford shrugged, taking the telescope back. 'They must have carried all those troops in the line-of-battle ships and larger frigates, crammed 'em in any old how. God, if we could have just caught 'em at sea before they landed, we could have done 'em into fried mutton. So many men aboard, in each other's way…'

'So, except for that sloop of war and a cutter or two, there are no French present as of yet, sir,' Alan said, wondering in his fogged mind what that might mean, if anything. The effort was almost beyond his power to reason any longer.

'If we had but known, we could have had all of those scows!'

'And I almost got killed for nothing,' Alan grumbled half aloud, a sentiment that Railsford either pretended to ignore at that ungodly early hour or actually did not hear from sheer exhaustion. The first lieutenant scratched his chin and Alan could hear his fingers rasping in his stubbly beard.

'Mister Monk, would you be so good, sir, to take charge of the deck for a moment while I apprise the captain of something urgent?' Railsford asked.

'Aye, sir,' Monk drawled, his face drawn with fatigue and looking a lot older than his 35-odd years.

Railsford left Alan the telescope, which he rested on the taffrail for a while, reminding himself that he must remember to stay awake enough to not drop it over the side from nerveless fingers.

The last time I was this exhausted, he thought, I'd walked ten miles before dawn, ridden cross-country with those damned county boys all day, partied and played balum-rancum with a pack of whores all that night, and had to ride home the next morning. And that was a whole lot more fun than last night!

He went to stand by Monk and used the telescope to check out the anchorage up the York. There was the frigate Charon, the sloop of war Guadeloupe, a smaller sloop of war—little more than a ketch, really—the Bonetta, and a small gaggle of gunboats. They looked as peaceful as Portsmouth Harbor on a Sunday morning, and he bitterly wondered what they had been doing while the French had been landing their armament.

The York peninsula between the York and the James was pretty low country, much of a piece with most of the American seaboard that he had seen in his few trips to the continent. The land was higher towards the narrows of the York, up where the little town was reputed to be, and the bluffs ended up being quite steep, but not particularly high. There was some high ground of much the same sort on the Gloucester side, which rapidly tapered off into salt marshes and low ground the further east one could go past the narrows.

'See that house yonder?' Monk said. 'Moore's House. Rather fine landmark.'

'Where is the town?' Alan asked.

'Around the bend from us, right at the narrows. Not much of a place, by my reckonin', ner anybody else's,'