The French Admiral

below to their hammocks, and Desperate became once again merely one more ship on a dark sea, lit up at taffrail, binnacle, and belfry, but otherwise as black as a boot.

Alan and David were given the middle watch to stand together, from midnight to four, when the ship's usual day would begin, so they would get no rest until after the hands had scrubbed down the decks, stood dawn quarters, had brought up their hammocks, and been released to breakfast. Across the bar, the sea was as restless as Alan's nerves. The quick phosphorous flash of cat's-paws broke all about them, though the air was still as steady as a night wind could be and showed no evidence of kicking up. A visit to the master's chart cuddy showed that their barometer indicated peaceful weather. There was a slice of moon ghosting through scattered clouds thin as tobacco smoke, and far out beyond them the trough glinted silver-blue when the clouds did not partially occlude that distant orb. If there was chop enough for cat's-paws, it held no malevolence, for the horizon was ruler-straight instead of jagged by clashing rollers. The wind sighed in the miles of rigging, the sails and masts quivered to the hinted power of the breeze, vibrated down through the chain-wales, and set the hull to a soft quiver, as though an engine of some kind were operating below decks, an engine of the most benign aspect. Alan sometimes thought that the ship was breathing and purring like a contented cat by a warm hearth, rising and falling and slightly rolling with a deep and somnolent breath.

By God, that bastard hedge-priest can't take this away from me, Alan told himself, peeling off his short midshipman's coat and waistcoat. The day had been hot, and the area below decks before sailing had been stifling. He spread his arms to let the cool night wind explore every inch of his body that he could expose and still preserve modesty. He undid his neck-stock, unlaced his shirt and held it away from his skin for a moment. He felt a bit of breeze where one normally did not feel breezes and inspected his breeches.

My God, I came back aboard with my prick damn near hanging out, he groaned. After those men attacked us, I never did up all my buttons. No wonder Treghues was thundering at me like he was.

Bad as the captain's opinion of him was at that moment, bad as it could get in the future (and Alan wondered if such a thing were possible), he could not restrain a peal of laughter at the picture he must have made.

'If you have discovered a reason for glee, by God I'd appreciate you letting me share it,' David said from the darkness of the quarterdeck, almost invisible except for the whiteness of his breeches, shirt, and coat facings.

'Did you notice that I was a bit out of uniform when we were aft?'

'No.'

'Had my breeches up with one bloody button, that's what!'

David broke into a hearty laugh as well. 'You mean to tell me you went in there looking like something out of The Rake's Progress and you didn't know?'

'Me and my crotch exposed, you and your head bandaged—we must have seemed like the worst Jack Nasty- Faces Treghues had ever laid eyes on!'

They went forward to inspect the lookouts and to get away from their captain's open skylight, in case he was still awake and now busily inscribing their names in his book of the eternally damned.

'God, I am laughing so hard my ribs ache,' Alan said, stumbling about the deck over ring-bolts and gun tackle and damned near howling, which upset the watch since they weren't in on the joke.

'I have tears in my eyes, I swear I do,' David chimed in, pulling his bloody handkerchief out of his pocket and applying it to his face.

'Ah!' Alan heaved a great breath to calm down. He stopped laughing. 'I would suppose we had better savor this. It's the last laugh we shall have for a long time.'

'Worth it though, stap we if it wasn't. Here now, Lewrie, next leave is on me, my treat.'

'Good. And I shall let you go first in the morning. In the beginning, the…'

'No, no, you'd be so much better at the Bible than me,' David said, calming himself. 'You've probably already violated half of it. Besides, why get us into more trouble by a report of blaspheming?'

'You're right,' Alan agreed, leading them back aft.

'Um, Alan, what did the captain mean about you forcing yourself on your own blood back there?' David asked.

'Just raving, I expect. Think nothing on it.'

'Did that have anything to do with the way he turned against you so quickly after Commodore Sinclair took over the squadron?' David asked. 'I mean you've never been really all that forthcoming about your past before the Navy. As your friend, it would make no difference to me, but…'

'Sir George knows my father, and like me thinks about as much of him as cowshit on his best shoes. And there's Forrester sneaking behind our backs to his uncle Sir George,' Alan said quickly. 'Put those two together and you get Treghues trimming his sails to suit Sir George.'

'My father caught me with the cook's daughter,' David confessed in a soft voice. 'She was fourteen, I was eleven. I already knew I was down for the sea, but I thought I had another year before they sent me.'

'You precocious young bastard!' Alan laughed. 'Well, did you get into her mutton?'

'No, actually. Not for want of trying, though. And she was an amazingly obliging wench. So you see, I understand being sent off for something.'

And now I am supposed to tell you all because you have shared a confidence with me, Alan thought, feeling weary and old for his tender years. Well, you'll not get an admission from me, no matter how much I like you and trust you.

'My father wanted me gone, David. I'll not go into the reasons, but he never loved any of us, not once. To this day I am not sure what I did to finally displease him,' Alan lied glibly, 'but displease him I did. And he packed me off to Portsmouth with Captain Bevan, Sir George's flag captain, in the Impress Service then. I doubt I'm welcome back home.'

'But he supports you well enough. I know you have a yearly remittance, a pretty healthy one, near as good as mine,' David said. 'That doesn't sound too bad to me.'

'David, do you love me?' Alan asked.

'Aye, I do, Alan. You're the best friend I've ever had in the Navy, the best friend I've ever had, period.'

'Believe me that I hold the same fraternal regard for you as well, David,' Alan said, turning warm as he realized that he really did hold David Avery as his closest and merriest friend. 'But what happened back in London is dead and gone, and there's nothing to revive it. Nor do I care to. If you truly are my friend, please believe that it is nothing that I, or you, would be ashamed of, nothing to destroy a friendship.'

'But you don't want to talk of it?' David sighed, partly in disappointment. 'Well, there's an end to it, then. I shan't mention it again, or pry at you. And whatever passed between you and your father could never force me to lower my esteem for you.'

'God bless you, David. Perhaps in future, when it is truly of no consequence or I have sorted things out and made something of myself, I shall tell you one night.'

'Over a half-dozen of good claret and two towheaded wenches.'

'Done!'

At 4:00 A.M., the ship's day officially began. Bosun's pipes trilled the call for all hands, and the petty officers passed among the swaying hammocks, urging the men to wake and show a leg and form on deck. Pumps were rigged to draw up clean salt water to wash the decks, while the men rolled up their voluminous slop trousers above the knees and bent to the already pale timbers with holystones and 'bibles' to scrub, sanding off any graying of the decks dried by tropical suns, raising up the dirt of the day before and sluicing it off into the scuppers, slowly abrading the deck a tiny bit thinner than the day before. However, wood was cheap and eventually, before they could ever wear enough away to harm the ship, Desperate would have been hulked long since or had her bottom fall away from rot and teredo worms.

With the pumps stowed away once more, the men brought up their hammocks, each numbered and carried to its required place in the bulwark nettings, having been wrapped up tightly and passed through the ring measure so that all were as alike as milled dowels and would serve as a guard against splinters or musket shot during battle. The hands then stood to their guns, the eighteen 9-pounder cannon that were Desperate's main reason for existence, and the two short-ranged carronades on the fo'c's'le and the swivel guns on the quarterdeck. As dawn broke they were ready for action against any foe that appeared.

There was nothing in sight, not from the deck and not from aloft in the crosstrees of the masts. It might be