The French Admiral

go back out to that farm on the Williamsburg road. There must be other farms that have been abandoned. I saw beans and potatoes going to waste in the fields, fodder for whatever stock that survived the looting around here. Must be orchards, too.'

'Then they may as well be the Golden Apples used to lure Diana,' Avery said, frowning. 'We will be at sea day after tomorrow after we refit. And I doubt if Captain Treghues would let us ashore for any more scavenging.'

'Not us, perhaps, but if I know anything about those Chiswick brothers and their men, they'll be scouting out there at first light for anything they can grab.' Alan laughed easily, now getting very tight in the middle and wondering if he had room for two more bites of the dowdy, even in such a noble effort as depriving Freeling of a single morsel. 'I could send a letter ashore at first light and let them know we would pay well for anything they could bring us. They did invite me to dine with them, too.'

'No large hopes for that with all the work we'll be doing,' Forrester said, scooping his spoon around his bowl for the last crumbs and streaks and licking the spoon thoroughly. 'But if they could provide us with some fresh fruit and vegetables I'd gladly go shares on it.'

'Might be dear. They're a famished lot,' Alan warned.

'What else do we have to spend our money on?' Forrester countered. 'What would they be worth—a peck or two of potatoes, some peas or beans and a keg of apples or something sweet? A pound altogether?'

'The thought is intriguing,' Avery said, 'else we'll be back at sea with Graves and Hood, and God knows when we put into a port, again. This might be our last chance for weeks.'

'I'd best write that letter now,' Lewrie said. 'Even if I can't accept their supper offer. Mind, now, I said I'd take them some wine. What do we have left?'

'Four bottles of red, one of claret, but we were saving that.'

'That's good enough for soldiers, provincial soldiers at that,' Forrester sneered. 'Let's send them a half gallon of Miss Taylor for their swill.'

'If we did that, we'd not survive our next reencounter with them,' Alan said. 'They'd kill us on sight after one glass!'

'Have to be the red, then.' Avery summed up: 'Two bottles of the red… and the claret, too.'

'Here, now,' Forrester protested.

'A good trade, don't you think? We could even get some meat on the hoof. Surely there is more where this livestock came from?'

'Freeling, bring me ink and paper,' Alan said. 'And some rum.'

CHAPTER 7

The next morning, the ninth of September, dawned with a light fog and a chill to the air, which none of the men were accustomed to after long service in the Indies. It was a welcome chill, though, for they would be put to very hard labor during the day, and under tropical conditions it would have wrung the sweat from them until they left as much water on the decks in their shadows as they could imbibe.

Alan's quickly penned letter went off with Weems, who wanted to secure some new cordage from the other ships in the anchorage, if there was some to spare. In his absence Toliver filled in, with Feather, the quartermaster's mate, who had done the chore a dozen times in his career.

First, the newly carved and formed trestletrees and cheek pieces were hoisted aloft into the maintop, to be lashed and bolted to the upper butt of the mainmast ready to receive the new topmast.

'Ahoy, there!' Coke bellowed. 'Ready ta tail on the yard purchase! Haul away handsomely, now! Mister Forrester, do ya ready yer people on the stay tackle as she leaves the deck.'

Slowly, the fresh new mast rose from the horizontal until the butt end was all that kept it on deck. A party of men took up tension on the stay tackles to either side and aft to keep it from rolling, swinging, or dashing forward to do hurt to the doublings of the lower mainmast.

'Haul away, my bully boys! Haul, boys, haul!' Coke ordered. 'Now walk yer stay tackles forrard, handsomely now!'

He was in his element and enjoying every minute of it, waving even Railsford and Treghues on the sidelines to keep silent and only jump in if something untoward happened.

'Up an' down, Mister Coke!' Toliver cried, leaning down to eye the alignment of the topmast with the lower mast and lubber's hole in the top.

'Snub ya well yer preventers! Hoist away all aloft!'

Up the new topmast went, one foot at a time until it threaded through the gap in the trestletrees and cheek pieces where it was to rest. The new foot piece was inserted, and the roving of the doubling bands was wrapped firmly about it, even as other hands began to set up the newly made upper shrouds. With everything torn away, it was a lot more labor to reset the topmast than the usual drill, for the fore and aft stays had also to be installed and then fiddled with until everyone in charge was satisfied with their tension and the upper mast's angles.

It was halfway into the forenoon watch before the old tops'l yard, now 'fished' with one of the precious, seasoned stuns'l booms and lashed about like a giant splinted bone for rigidity, could be rerigged with all the blocks, sheaves, and hardware for the braces, clew-lines, halyards, and jears. They rove it to the top tackles first to be hoisted aloft to the top platform, then secured it to the new halyards and jears to hoist it firmly into its proper position so it could be overhauled for complete trim and reef control. Once in place, the sailmaker and his crew fed the resewn and patched original tops'l up through the lubber's hole into the maintop where the sail handlers could bend it back onto the yard, apply new sheets to help draw it down to its full length, and then brail it up.

As the process was being repeated to begin swaying up the new topgallant and royal masts to their own trestletrees, cheek pieces, and waiting doubling bands, one of the men on the tops'l yard gave a shout and pointed out to seaward. Lewrie was higher than he at the topmast crosstrees, which had just been correctly cross- tensioned by the shrouds, and he turned carefully on his precarious and half-finished perch to see what the excitement had been about.

The morning haze had burned off with the heat of the autumn sun, though the day was still pleasantly cool, which made for almost ideal viewing conditions. As Alan shaded his eyes against the morning sun in the east, he could bareh make out an unnatural-looking cloud on the seaward horizon somewhere just inshore of the Middle Ground and the main ship channel into the bay, he suspected. Certainly it ould not be a ship in the passage—that was near forty miles off, below the horizon.

'Riyals an' t'gallants!' the impromptu lookout declared firmly.

'Looks to be only a cloud to me,' Alan said, with a shrug.

'Tis ships, Mister Lewrie, sir,' the man insisted.

'Might be Iris and Richmond, then,' Alan said. 'They were out to pick up all the buoys the Frogs left when they cut their cables a few days back.'

'Mebbe our fleet acomin' back fer us, sir,' the man went on, nodding his head with the rightness of that thought. 'See, sir, that gunboat of our'n out there is headin' out ta check on 'em.'

Alan looked closer in. Perhaps ten miles off, almost under the horizon herself, there was a ketch-rigged patrol craft that had come down from higher up the bay at dawn after taking or burning almost every boat or watercraft still on the upper reaches of the Chesapeake, so it would be impossible for the French over on the James to amass any shipping that could threaten the army on the York. Symonds's small flotilla had not left a rowing boat for the Rebels to use above their anchorage.

'Aloft there!' Coke's voice boomed. 'Stand by yer top tackles ta take the topgallant mast!'

''Old yer water, Norman, 'old yer water, damn ye,' the carpenter griped, still rasping that last little bit of smoothness between the assembled trestletrees which would receive and hold the butt of the topgallant.

'Go down and tell the captain there are unidentified ships in the bay, and that one of our gunboats is investigating,' Alan said to the seaman who had made the first sighting.

'Oh, Lor', Mister Lewrie, I couldn't do that, sir!' he pleaded.

Cool day or not, the work was hard enough, and with so few people aloft Alan had had to do some of it instead of merely supervising, so he turned on the man quickly. 'Damn you, go on deck and report to the captain as I instructed you, or the bosun'll have the hide off you tomorrow forenoon!'

'Aye, aye, sir,' the man replied, trying to hide his worries about how he might be received by their captain in whatever mood God had seen fit to give him at that moment. Just by trying to weasel out of going he had come