Two days of sailing South, past the Egadi Islands and Cape Boeo, west of Sicily, into the Straits of Sicily. Then another day beating East-Sou'east, South-about Malta, on the open sea. Then a fourth day, butting against an Easterly Levanter, heading Nor'east for the Ionian Sea. The squadron barely logged 150 sea-miles a day, in fretful winds that never quite seemed to make up their minds as to which point of the compass they cared to blow from one hour to the next. A slow passage, certainly-but a sure one, at least.
There'd been very little merchant traffick to be seen, beyond a few anonymous slivers of t'gallants on the hazy horizon every now and then, for most vessels preferred to stand closer inshore, north of Malta, or in the dubious safety of Neapolitan waters. As far as they could from the hostile Barbary Coasts to the far south, naturally, if they were legitimate. Some flotillas and fleets of scruffy fishermen had made their appearances when they were within sight of Sicilian or Maltese shores. But for them the sea seemed swept clean of the bigger game they were sent to seek.
The pair of frigates, Lionheart and Pylades, sailed in-company, a short column in line-ahead, about two miles apart. Jester and Myrmidon Charlton had flung out far ahead, another twelve miles or more; Myrmidon to the landward side, and Jester up to windward, to the Sou'east. Still within good signalling distance, however.
Four days, and a bit, at sea.
And, like the winds, Lewrie was still fretful. Going over his encounter with Fillebrowne, cringing with embarrassment or surging hot with a sullen rage, betimes, as a man will when reliving the chagrin of a hasty retort or stinging comment twenty years in the past. Or like running his tongue over an aching tooth. They both could still evoke the same quick hurt.
"And… time!" Mr. Buchanon rasped as the half hour and the hour glasses were turned, and the very last of the eight bells marking the end of the Forenoon, and the beginning of the Day Watch, chimed at the forrud belfry. The Sailing Master, Mr. Wheelock the Masters Mate, a pair of midshipmen, and Lieutenant Knolles all lowered their sextants to make their observations on slates or scrap paper. This was the daily ritual of the Noon Sights, when by chronometer, sextant and the height of the noon sun Jester reckoned her midday position to determine where she was and how far she'd run since the*past noon reckoning. Noon Sights was also the dividing line, that last chime of the ship's bell 'twixt the previous day and the beginning of a new one, no matter what a calendar, or a landsman's arising, said ashore.
"Thirty-eight degrees… twenty minutes north latitude, I make it, sir?" Midshipman Spendlove opined hesitantly.
" 'Tis or 'tisn't, sir," Buchanon grumbled. "Own up tit or hold yer peace."
"Thirty-eight degrees, twenty minutes North, sir," Spendlove declared more firmly, though Lewrie noted that he held one hand behind his back with a pair of fingers crossed.
"Thirty-eight degrees, uhm… nine minutes North, I make it," Knolles puzzled, holding his scrap of paper at arms length, as if he had misread it. He gave his sextant an experimentary shake, a tilt to either side, to chase the gremlins from it.
"Ten minutes, sir," Wheelock commented.
"Closer t'ten minute," Buchanon sighed. "Mister Hyde?"
"Oh, thirty-eight, ten, Mister Buchanon, sir," Hyde chirped in quick agreement.
"Toadyin' wretch," Buchanon groaned. "But, aye… ten's more like it. Now, longitude, sirs…"
"Eighteen degrees, ten minutes East," Lewrie snapped. "Which places us about a day's run South of the Straits of Otranto. Or one hundred twenty miles Sou'west of Corfu, the nearest Venetian-owned island. Do you concur, Mister Buchanon?"
"A moment, sir… a moment." Buchanon grinned, bending over the binnacle cabinet and the jury-rigged chart table. "Aye, sir. Or there'bouts. Slates, gentlemen. Let me see yer… conjurin' tricks," he said to the midshipmen. "You, specially, Mister Hyde."
Lewrie stowed his sextant in its velvet-lined teakwood case, careful with the latch. He gathered up his own cased chronometer as the others completed their reckonings, after a long glance to see if his was running even close to the Sailing Master's, the First Lieutenant's or the larger master, which was Admiralty-issue.
"Done, sir," Buchanon said at last, handing him the reckoning, scribbled on a slip of margin-paper scissored off a completed sheet of foolscap. "Thirty-eight, ten North; eighteen, eleven East." The Sailing Master whispered the last, with an apologetic shrug.
Lewrie shrugged, too, thankful that Buchanon covered his error. It wasn't a great one, that. But he'd been too distracted to reckon properly, had gotten sloppy with his sums. And was still too fretful to keep his guesstimate to himself.
"Sights completed, sir," Lieutenant Knolles reported officially.
"Very well, Mister Knolles. Dismiss the starboard watch, and set the larboard. Then pipe the hands to dinner."
"Aye aye, sir."
"I'll go below, sir," Lewrie told him, heading for the after companionway ladder by the taffrails. Andrews was there to take the sextant case, while Lewrie carried the chronometer box, handling them both as if they were eggshell-delicate, and not quite trusting to the brass carrying-handles.
He wrote in his personal log, noting the weather, the sea state, their position at Noon; that decks had been swept, washed and stoned in the pre-dawn, that the hands had exercised at gun-drill for an hour and a half in the Forenoon, followed by Secure, an inspection, then an hour of small-arms and cutlass drill before Clear-Decks-And-Up-Spirits. Two men on bread-and-water, no rum or tobacco, for malingering; two down ill and one ruptured, trussed and on light duties after trying to shift a wine keg for the Master-At-Arms, by himself.
Damn fool! he thought.
He threw down his pen and leaned back in his chair, restless and irritable as Jester bowled along, thrashing into the winds, and taking a quarter-sea on her starboard bows, which made her thrum and creak.
Did I read more into what Fillebrowne said than what was there? he asked himself for the hundredth time. He can't be that large a fool, to think he'd serve me sauce with impunity, can he? I have to work with him, dammit. Surely he knows better. He has to work with me! Does he think Captain Charlton will protect him? Greedy pig or no, he's competent. Runs a taut, trig ship. Patronage only goes so far; it can't make a complete fool of a commander, or a captain. Damme, his First Officer, Stroud, was so protective of him. Those Marines of his thought it was funny, but they seemed worried about him, too. Only been in charge of Myrmidon a dog-watch and has that sort of loyalty already, so…
'Less he's too idle, let's 'em get away with murder, that's why they cosset him. A stern captain'd ruin their lives! No…
"A sip o' somethin', sir?" Aspinall intruded on his thoughts from the doorway of his pantry across from the dining-coach.
"What?" Lewrie snapped irritably.
"Afore yer dinner, sir." Aspinall cringed. "Would ya wish a glass o' somethin' wet, 'fore yer dinner, sir?"
"Uhm, no." Lewrie sighed, sure that spirits-before the sun was well below the main-course yardarm-and his foul mood, would be a bad combination. "Don't think so, Aspinall. But thankee." Alan softened.
"Aye, sir," Aspinall replied, ducking back into his pantry.
Toulon padded to the desk after a good yawn and stretch, and a thorough tongue-wash on his favourite sofa cushion, to starboard. A prefacing Grr-murr! of effort to announce his arrival, and he was up on the desktop, to sniff at the quill pen and bat at it hopefully. Lewrie smiled for the first time that morning and teased him with it, holding it over his head. Toulon half reared on his hind legs to bat at it, turned excited pirouettes as Lewrie circled the quill, slashing with both paws at his "birdie."
"Deck, there!" came a faint, thin cry from high aloft. "Deck, there! Sign'l fum Myrmidon!"
Toulon caught his "birdie," crumpling the spine of the quill in his paws, and bore it to his mouth as Lewrie cocked his head to hear.
"Two…'strange… sail!" The lookout slowly read off the distant bunting. And Lewrie was out of his chair, shrugging into his coat and hat, halfway to the after ladder to the quarterdeck, before the man finished shrilling "… up… t'windward!" Toulon remained on the top of the desk, flopping onto his side to gnaw and claw his prey with his back feet, oblivious.
"Masthead!" Knolles was bellowing aloft through a brass deck-officer's trumpet. "Anything in sight?"
"Nossir!" the lookout bawled back, after a long moment to scan the weather horizon with his hands shading his eyes like a dray-horse's blinders. "Nothin' in sight!"
"Up to windward of Myrmidon," Lewrie grunted, joining Knolles by the wheel drum. "Due East, or up to her Nor'east, perhaps?"
"Aye, sir, I should think so." Knolles grinned, removing his cocked hat to run his fingers through his blond hair; a sign of joy or agitation, Lewrie had learned by then.
"Mister Spendlove?" Lewrie called over his shoulder. "Aye, sir?"
"Bend on 'Acknowledge' to Myrmidon, then repeat the hoist for Lionheart, astern," Lewrie instructed. "Aye aye, sir." "Mister Spendlove?" "Aye, sir?" The lad checked in mid-turn.
"Make sure you preface the hoist to the squadron commander with 'From Myrmidon,' so he doesn't think the two strange sail lie windward in sight oius, sir."
"Aye aye, sir!" Spendlove heartily agreed. It wouldn't be the first time that signals had been misread or missent between ships since he'd come aboard Jester.
"Two ships or more, sir!" Knolles enthused, almost clapping his hands together as he swung his arms at the prospect of action or easy prize-money. "Fine weather for a pair of ships to come running off-wind through the Straits of Otranto. French, perhaps, sir?"
"For Taranto or Calabria, if they're inshore of Myrmidon; for Malta, too, perhaps," Lewrie speculated. "Neapolitans, Maltese or God knows what, so far. Come on, Fillebrowne. Tell us a bit more!"
"Lionheart acknowledges our hoist, sir," Spendlove told him a moment later. "Nothing more, sir."
"Mister Knolles, I'd admire you eased us a point free." Alan frowned, fighting the urge to chew on a thumbnail. "That will let us sidle more northerly, towards Myrmidon. Within sight of whoever or whatever these strange sail are."
"Aye, sir. Quartermaster, ease your helm a'weather, a point free, no more," Knolles told the helmsman. He opened his mouth to call down to Bosun Cony in the waist, to alert the watch for a sail trim, but thought better of it, for the moment.
"Aye aye, sir!" Mr. Spenser parroted. "Helm a'weather, one point. Her head's now Nor'east by North, half East!"
"Deck, there!" the mainmast lookout shrilled. "Sign'l fum! Myrmidon! Three strange sail, t'th' East'rd!"
"Repeat again, Mister Spendlove." Lewrie fretted, pacing the deck plankings, head down and scuffing his shoes on the pounded oakum between the joins. "Aloft, there! Where, away… Lionheart?" "Lar'b'd quarter, sir! Crackin' on royals!"
"Sail ho!" the foremast lookout added. "Three sail, d'ye hear, there! One point off t'larboard bows!"
The day wasn't too hazy, Lewrie noted, laying hands on the top of the windward bulwark and gazing down at the creaming quarter-wave of Jesters wake; a lookout can see twelve, thirteen miles. Wind's just strong enough to tempt a body sailin' large, or broad-reachin', to hoist t'gallants, at the very least. Maybe royals, too. Put 'em hull-down… maybe another six miles off, he calculated deliberately. Seven miles, should we be seein' royals only? Twenty miles, say, up to windward of us and Myrmidon?
"Three strange sail, d'ye hear, there!" the foremast lookout added. "Turnin'l Hard'nin' up t'weather! T'gallants an' tops'ls!"
Lewrie smiled to himself, leaning back, gripping the cap-rail, and peering up to the Nor'east, where he imagined Myrmidon might be, though he couldn't see her from the deck. Three sail, who had just espied a strange ship-Myrmidon, thrashing full-and-by to windward, almost dead on their bows-and swinging further out to sea, turning more Sutherly, to give her a wide berth. Or to avoid being spotted? That didn't sound much like innocent merchantmen out on their "lawful occasions." There wasn't any fighting in the Ionian Sea, not yet. Why would three ships be sailing together, unless for mutual aid and defence? And bearing up to the wind, to slip round the seaward flank of a single strange sail?
"Mister Knolles?" Lewrie called, turning to face his second-in-command.
"Aye, sir."
"Pipe 'All Hands,' sir. 'Stations for Stays,' "Lewrie ordered. "Do they try to reach south on us, we might be able to cut them off. Put the ship about, on the larboard tack."
"Aye aye, sir! Mister Cony? Pipe 'All Hands on Deck'!"
As the bosuns' calls, the "Spithead Nightingales," sang their urgent song, Lewrie turned to gaze out to sea a little more Easterly of Jesters thrashing bows, riding spring-kneed to her motion, feeling the power in her, the thrum and dance of her-vibrant, alive and onrushing. And closing the distance with each loping, hobbyhorsing bound over the brine.
"Hungry 'is mornin', she is, sir," Mr. Buchanon said from his side, a little inboard in deference to a captain's sole right to the windward side of the quarterdeck. "He be, too, sir. Yer permission, sir?" At Lewrie's nod, Buchanon stepped up to the bulwarks, put his own hands on the cap-rail, and stared down into the rushing, creaming wake close-aboard-a wake that was already becoming a sibilant, impatient hissing roar, tumbling in snowfall whiteness. His lips moved, and he smiled.
Lewrie cocked a wary eye at Buchanon; the Sailing Master was becoming even more superstitious lately. He put it down to Jester being ordered into an alien sea, one Buchanon had never sailed, never studied.
Surgeon Mr. Howse, saturnine and laconic as ever, came on deck by the larboard ladder from the waist, his terrierlike Surgeon's Assistant, Mr. LeGoff, in tow, again as ever.
"Some bustle this morning, sir?" Howse enquired gloomily, as if fearing a justification for his presence aboard. "Should we lay out the surgery? In expectation of battle, Captain?"
How could a reasonable question rankle him so? Lewrie wondered. Howse always had a way of shading or inflecting even "please pass the port" to sound like a retort, a challenge-a sneer!
"There'll be no need, 'til we beat to Quarters, Mister Howse," Lewrie told him. "We haven't identified our three strange sail yet."
"Sharp scalpels, sir," Buchanon interjected, frowning, pursing his lips in sadness. "As a caution. 'Ey's blood-hunger on th' wind."
"Smell it, did you, Mister Buchanon?" Howse puzzled, cocking his head and all but nudging LeGoff in the ribs to clue him to a jape. "Or did your sea-god Lir speak to you directly?"
"Hands at stations, sir… ready to come about," Lieutenant Knolles reported.
"Very well, Mister Knolles. Helm alee, at your discretion."
"Aye aye, sir. Quartermasters…?"
"A man'd go through Life so cocksure, sir…" Mr. Buchanon was sputtering in frustration, not so educated as to be able to spar with Howse s droll disdain of what was, to him, a matter of fact and deadly-dangerous bit of sea-lore, "wi' eyes t' see, an' ears t' hear, but-"
"I put my faith in Science, sir," Howse declared. "And, do I put stock in a god, He'd be the Great Jehovah… not some creaky old peasants' legend."
"Enough, sir," Lewrie snapped. "This quarterdeck is not… my quarterdeck is not the proper place for philosophical disagreement. The both of you," he was forced to add. "Attention to duty, sirs."
"But sir," Howse deigned to protest, though with much humour, "to render equal by comparison, in the guise of philosophy, a myth of pagan arising and-"
"Hard of hearing, Mr. Howse?" Lewrie boomed, feeling happy to have a valid reason to vent his spleen on the obstreperous, trimming bastard, who was never happy but when made unhappy, martyred once more by a witless world, an unappreciative Navy. "Damn my eyes, Mr. Howse, get yourself below, if you can't take a hint and shut up!"
"Very good, sir," Howse purred, bowing his way backwards, his hand on his heart, his dark eyes burning with righteous indignation. Lewrie was afraid he'd made the bloody man's day for him, given him a noble new scar, at which he would most happily pick for weeks!
"Bloody-minded man, sir," Buchanon sighed. "Thankee."
"Didn't do it for you, Mr. Buchanon," Lewrie told him.
"He's with us still, Cap'um, sir. Have no fear on 'at score. But, like I said, sir… he be hungry," Buchanon stated slowly. "A fight we'll have, 'is mornin'… do 'ey have th' stomach f r it."
"Thankee for telling me, Mr. Buchanon," Lewrie replied in slow gravity, not quite knowing what to think. Though he'd heard and seen stranger, this commission, aboard this ship.
This Fate-chosen ship, Lewrie added to himself, to hear Buchanon tell it! What sign'z he seen, what portent did he…?
It could have been the quartermasters on the helm, Spenser, and his fellow, the Hamburg-German, Mr. Brauer, easing Jester a half-point free, off the wind a touch, to gather speed to carry her through that difficult thoroughbred-leap of tacking 'cross the power of the winds.
It could have been a rising of the winds, too, that caused such an eerie keening in the rigging as she increased her pace, as Knolles waited for the perfect moment, the perfect combination of a wave from the quarter-sea under her bows, along with a tiny backing of the wind, to put her about. The deck thrust upward as she set her stiff shoulder to the sea, heeled a bit more and clove it with a dragonlike roar as she neared what felt like eleven knots.
"Helm alee!" Knolles bellowed at last, and her bows swung up toward the eye of the wind, and Lewrie knew it would be a clean'un. He eyed his hands on the deck below; well drilled-overdrilled-by now, as they leaned to take a strain on weather braces and sheets to cup that power until the very last moment, while others tailed on flaccid lee-side rigging to catch her, meet her, once she'd thundered through stays.
Fully roused, her upthrust jib-boom and bowsprit speared the horizon as Jester swept round, rising to another lifting wave, canted to the winds new direction as she tacked, barely losing a yard leeward or a single beat of her swift pace.
If there's to be a feast, he thought, half accepting the superstition as a talisman, she's ready for it! A good sign, that tack. A good sign, indeed… for starters.