The difference that a couple of weeks made was amazing, running before the Nor'east Trades, sometimes with the winds large on the starboard quarter, sometimes right up the stern, and "both sheets aft." In what seemed a twinkling, the horizon expanded, the scudding gloom overhead lifted, parted, and turned cerulean blue, swept by mares' tails in faint, cloudy tracings. The seas no longer churned like washtub suds, but rolled in majestically long periods, spattered with choppy smaller waves that broke and parted against the hull with the sounds of elated sighs, no longer hammering or threatening.
And the sunrises, and sunsets!
Magnificent orange suns, presaged by a faint streak of grey on the horizon, burst like bombshells, painting the eastern skies amber, shading to dusty rose-red or the palest yellow for a brief minute or so, and one could feel the day coming, racing across the ocean faster than any frigate could ever swim, or wing-churning sparrow fly, as the warmth spread outward, westward, as if the doors to a lush garden had been flung open, and hands and officers and mates standing Quarters to greet any nasty surprises at dawn could smile with relief for Proteus to be alone once more, and with a small measure of delight at Nature's glories.
And the sunsets, at the end of a long day of work or gun drill, late enough now to fall in the Second Dog Watch after the crew's mess, brought off-watch hands on deck to peer forward, westward, to savour a sight that most, in their coal-smoked, foggy, and rainy towns, hamlets, or villages had rarely seen. Great, towering cumuli, shading off to pearly-grey or charcoal, were speared by sword-blades of golden light, the sun golden-red, surrounded by roses ahead; and a soft, blue-grey gloom astern, in which first stars could be made out, swept closer by the minute to overtake their ship as it surged over the sea with a sibilant hissing, the tops'ls painted gilt, or a gleaming parchment hue.
Shoes had been dispensed with, suffocating blue wool jackets so welcome in March were stowed away except for Sunday Divisions. Shirt sleeves were now rolled above the elbow, loose slop trousers gathered above the knees, collars spread wide and placket buttons undone for a breath of cooling air, or a greater exposure to the healing rays of a benign sun. Shirts were rarely worn at all, for many doffed them despite the Surgeon Mr. Shirley's warnings about sunburn and the cost of butter-based salves that would be deducted from their pay if they appeared lobster-red at Sick Call.
Officers and senior warrants, now… some dignity was demanded, though Lewrie did allow them to dispense with cocked hats and uniform coats. Proper breeches, clean shirts, and neck-stocks were de rigeur. And stockings and shoes. It was only during the Second Dog that they could undo their stocks, roll up their sleeves, and savour the cooling winds 'til full sundown, before heading aft and below to the gun-room for their own suppers, at the change of watch.
Pipes would glow on the darkening deck, as the smokers had the last taste before heading below, off-watch, or taking station for the eight-til-midnight. Fiddles, fifes, penny-whistles, and the soft hums of Desmond's uillean pipes would sound every sunset, unless it rained, and crewmen would dance hornpipes or slip-jigs, sometimes for competition between eight-man messes, sometimes between larboard or starboard watches, to see who was the best. Country-dance tunes would jerk and tootle more urgent paces, more exuberant turns on the decking, and the men might pair off by twos to practice for future shore leaves in the islands, or perhaps to whimsically recall better times before they'd taken the King's Shilling and gone to sea.
Bedding was dry now; clothing did not have to be wrung out to be donned. Every third day or so, there would come a mildish squall, with lashings of warm, welcome rain, creating a scurry for all hands to rig canvas sluices to catch it in empty casks, to trap enough for a cask to be scrubbed clean of the slick, brownish growth that eventually would infest them, turning reputedly fresh water pale brown and semi-opaque. Stubs of soap would appear, along with salt-stiff, sweat-stiff shirts and trousers to be spread on the deck, scrubbed furiously while the rain lasted (sometimes only minutes), then thrashed or slapped or wrung out, then hung up to dry after the rain had passed. A bit more than a few might strip naked and pound the smuts from the slop clothing they wore at that moment, or merely stand wide-armed, mouths open and turned up like hatchling birds waiting to be fed, to be showered cooler and cleaner. All in all, HMS Proteus was a happy ship. They had been paid, just before departing Sheerness, the usual six months of arrears made good, and the wonders of the West Indies were still to come, if they were allowed ashore to sample the foods, the ale-houses and taverns… and the women. Their days were filled from sunrise to sunset with the usual labours, such as re-roving the rigging, tautening the standing stays every other day, one side at a time after wearing from larboard to starboard tack off the wind, when the lee side would have a little more slack to work with; taking down the storm-canvas and stowing them below, after the sailmaker and his crew had patched, darned, and sewn frayed seams; hoisting aloft and bending on the lighter, everyday set of sails. And, of course, there were the unending drills during the Forenoon Watch; running-in, mock-loading, running-out, and firing the great-guns, carronades, and swivels, with a weekly live shoot at a jettisoned keg or chicken coop; cutlass drill and boarding pike drill to keep their skills sharp and give them some additional exercise; a turn at live musketry at over-side targets, even practice with horrid Sea Pattern pistols that were only considered accurate when jammed in a foeman's belly and triggered off; striking top-masts to the deck in quick order, then hoisting them back aloft, preparing for the day when a raging West Indies hurricane might overtake their ship, and the topmasts would have to be lowered for survival-or the day when enemy fire might dismast them, and victory or defeat might hinge upon how quickly spare top-masts and spars could be deployed.
And, when all that was done, there was grog, a turn at a water-butt, the galley funnel spuming a partly homesick aroma of wood smoke and
boiling meat: the smells of soups or pease puddings as the sun declined, as a country cottage or town worker's humble lodgings smelled at sundown, when the day's pay had been collected, an ale or two had been drunk at one's favourite local pub among fellow workers and neighbourhood friends, at the end of the loose-hipped, mellow stroll on the high street or side lane that led to family, wife… and home.
Weary, aye… mostly satisfied with their lot for the moment, some a trifle "groggy" as usual, each dusk they still had the spirit to open their voices in rough tune, revive the sentimental, lachrymose airs that sailors liked best of all… and sing the sun down.
" Toulon, don't leave yer mark on the hammock nettings! Sailors have t'sleep on those things!" Lewrie admonished his ram-cat, perched on the canvas-covered bulwark of tightly rolled hammocks, overlooking the ship's waist. He gave him a neck-tousling pet, then strolled up to the windward side, plucking at his shirt. One more sign that they were in the tropics; the day's heat that had been welcome at first, was now nigh punishing, more glaring, and the prismatic flashes of sunlight off the sea were now more like a field of too-bright snow that gave everyone a perpetual squint.
Lewrie turned to face inward, once he had taken hold of a mizen stay and given it a tug to test its tautness, taking note of Dowe, one of the quartermaster's mates serving his "trick" at the wheel. He was an American, the son of a long-dead Loyalist who had fled to Nova Scotia at the Revolution's end. Dowe lowered his gaze from the draw of the sails and eased his own squint, raising his brows for a moment, which made Lewrie smile. With a face at ease, Dowe showed white, untanned streaks round his eyes and on his forehead that squinting kept as pale as a lady's thighs… "them raccoon eyes, sir," Dowe had termed them, Lewrie recalled, making him chuckle, too. He thought he had seen one when HMS Desperate had put into Charleston back in '81, and he was sure he had eaten a raccoon when besieged and half-starved at Yorktown with Lord Cornwallis's doomed army. Either way, Lewrie thought the description apt.
"Sail ho!" the main-mast lookout screeched from the cross-trees.
"Where away?" Lt. Wyman yelled back, his hands cupped about his mouth, though that was little help for his thinnish voice.
"One point off th' larboard bows! Hull down! A schooner!"
"Well, about time, too!" Lewrie muttered, pleased.
They had proved that the ocean was a huge, empty place on their voyage, for even though they had steered Proteus Sou'westerly nigh to the latitude of Dominica, and across the most-used track for any merchant ships, this would only be the second ship they had encountered. Most merchant masters bore on South from Cape St. Vincent to Dominica's latitude, then ran it due West-they only had to solve their slight variation in latitude, daily, and calculate longitude by adding up the 24-hour sums from their knot-logs, by Dead Reckoning. And if all else failed them, the cloud-swept peaks of Dominica were the tallest marks in the Caribbean, damned hard to miss for even the most lubberly, cack-handed navigator-like the master of the only other ship that they had "spoken," a reeking Portugee "blackbirder" laden with a cargo of three-hundred-odd slaves fresh from Dahomey, and so creaky and slow it appeared that at least a quarter of those forlorn souls would die before arrival; the damned fool had actually asked Lewrie where, exactly, they were!
Here though, within two days' sail of English Harbour, Antigua, the presence of local shipping could be expected. English Harbour was a Royal Navy station, a safe place for overseas trade, as well. This schooner, Lewrie surmised, was most-like a local. Schooners were popular craft in the West Indies, fore-and-aft rigged to go like a witch to windward, and "point" at least ten-to-twelve degrees closer to the winds, a desirable trait did one desire to beat back eastward against the unvarying Nor'east Trades. Some adventurous types sailed schooners from as far north as Maine, in the Americas. And schooners made hellish good privateers, too, due to their speed and agility!
"Mister Elwes, aloft with a glass, sir. Tell us what you see," Lieutenant Wyman snapped.
"Aye aye, sir!" the eager young midshipman piped back, dashing to the rack by the binnacle cabinet to seize a telescope, then scampering up the weather mizen shrouds as spryly as a monkey.
"Should we clear for action, sir?" Wyman asked.
"Not quite yet, Mister Wyman," Lewrie demurred. "Hull-down, on such a clear day, means she's ten miles off or more. Plenty of time to 'smoak' her. Unless she runs, of course."
"Hoy, the deck!" Midshipman Elwes cried down. "Schooner rigged, and flying no flag! Sailing abeam the wind, to the Nor'Nor'west!"
"I do, however, desire that we harden up to the wind, sir, and cut the angle on her. Make our course… West by North. Shake out those first reefs in the t'gallants, and stand by, should we need the royals," Lewrie said, after a peek at the compass.
Lewrie took a telescope of his own and ambled back to the windward rail, braced himself on the mizen stays, and eyed their stranger. The merest sliver of her uppermost hull sometimes loomed up above the horizon as a distant swell lifted her; in another moment, she would be swallowed, leaving only the upper part of her sails visible.
Damme, is she foreshortening? he asked himself with a frown. "Deck, there!" Mr. Elwes called. "Chase is hauling her wind… turning West-Nor'west! Chase is hoisting gaff stays'ls!"
Foreshortening, aye; showing Proteus her sternquarters. Mr. Elwes might be presumptive in calling her a Chase, but that turn gave Lewrie a premonitory thrill.
"Has she shown any colours yet, Mister Elwes?" Lewrie queried. "None, sir!"
Lewrie rubbed his unshaven chin, ideas percolating. Even were she British, or neutral and innocent as anything, fear of the French privateers might make a ship run from a strange vessel, one that looked lean and fast like a ship of war, but…
Did the schooner continue West-Nor'west, she could just shave by the northern coast of Antigua, and would be on a perfect course to duck into "neutral" waters in the Danish Virgins, near St. Croix, though by sunset Proteus could surely run her down, with her longer waterline and her much larger sail area.
Or the schooner might try to come about, rounding Antigua, and head Sutherly for St. Kitts. In Antigua 's lee, schooners were two-a-penny, and by full dark she might hope to escape in the gloom, letting another similar schooner be the goat.
Proteus slowly swung onto her new course, her decks heeled over more to leeward as the press of wind on her reset sails made her start to race and surge. She was after a "Chase"; and like a staghound on a firm spoor, like a tiger pacing an Indian millet field after an addled goat, she strode out confidently, surely. Off-watch crewmen were drawn to the deck by the commotion, all but licking their chops in anticipation of a prize.
"This isn't a cockfight, lads!" Lewrie had to shout. "There's gun-drill to perform. Keep yer eyes in-board, and your minds on your evolutions… 'fore the Bosun and Master Gunner pass among you, with their… reminders?"
Even so, Lewrie knew, the hands would whisper among themselves, try peeking over the gangways or out the windward gun-ports; men aloft would find a way to send the latest observations down to their mateys, no matter what the Bosun, the Master Gunner, the Master At Arms and his Ships' Corporals threatened-it was simply too much of a novelty!
"Deck, there!" Midshipman Elwes cried. "Chase is hull-up, sirs! She now shows a flag! French colours!"
A hundred horny paws slapped together and rubbed with a sound like dry grit; a hundred voices muttered "good prize!" together, and a palpable frisson of delight and greed swept the decks, making mates, sailors, and officers alike beam with joy, and ships' boys jig-dance.
Lewrie clapped his hands behind his back, and pondered. If he hoisted the French Tricolour, as well, there was a chance that he might reel this schooner in like a fish, relieved to meet a fellow Frenchman so far from home. A privateer? Lewrie silently mused, more than glad t'see a National ship? Enough to haul her wind and fetch-to, waitin' on us?
There was the possibility that a Frog privateer would know the few confirmed French ships of war sailing out of Guadeloupe by sight.
"Mister Wyman," Lewrie said, with a sly grin, "do you hoist a French flag on the foremast… and run up a 'who are you?' where she can see it. Does she answer with a private signal, she's confirmed, and ours."
"Oh!" Lt. Wyman gawped for a, second. "My goodness gracious, I see, sir! Aye, sir! We know the Frog's 'qui va la' signal."
Moments later it was done, and they waited to see what signal would be hoisted in return. Despite his best intentions (like most of those, Lewrie could rarely keep 'em!) a smug grin creased his face, a "slyboots" look of cocky satisfaction.
"Deck, there!" Midshipman Elwes cried. "French colour's down… she's hoisted British!"
"Hah! Liar!" Lieutenant Wyman commented, all but hooting to his fellow officers, who had also come up to share the excitement.
Well, damme, Lewrie thought, deflated in an instant; Didn't think o' that! Could she really be?
He cupped his hands and bellowed aloft, "Mister Elwes, has she changed course? Reduced sail? Hoisted any signal at all?"
"No, sir! Still running! Same course, and no private signal!"
"Damn!" Lewrie griped softly. "Mister Wyman, get that Frog rag and signal down, then. Hoist our own colours, and this month's recognition signal. And ready a forecastle gun to fire to leeward."
"Aye, sir."
The Red Ensign went up the foremast, a string of code flags was bent on and hoisted, followed a minute or two later by a single cannon shot. The schooner was closer now, not over four miles off as Proteus swiftly strode up to her with a bone in her teeth.
"Deck, there! Chase now bears Nor'west by West! I think I see stuns'ls! No reply to signals!"
"Dammit, make our heading Nor'west by North, Mister Wyman, and hoist royals," Lewrie snapped, now irritated. "And once that's done, we'll beat to Quarters, and ready the larboard battery!"
"Aye aye, sir!"
Proteus heeled a bit more, her wake and bustle growing louder and more insistent. Three-quarters of an hour, and the schooner grew larger as they closed the range to three miles, no matter how swiftly the schooner scudded along in flight. She had lowered British colours long before, seeing that the ruse was fruitless. Hands stood swaying behind the great-guns, already loaded with the smoothest and roundest solid iron balls, charged with powder, and the newfangled flintlock strikers primed.
"Ease that quoin out even more, there, lads," Lt. Catterall told his larboard gunners. "We're heeled, and shooting to leeward, so keep the barrels aimed high. We'll adjust once we're close and the ports are open, so you can mark your target and gauge the range."
"Mile and a half, I make it, sir," Lt. Langlie volunteered from his place near Lewrie on the lee rails. "Almost Range-to-Random-Shot, for the six-pounder chase gun."
"We'll wait 'til the larboard battery can bear, Mister Langlie," Lewrie countered, slowly pacing, now dressed in his second-best uniform, with his sword at his side, and the sweat trickling down his back and itching icily on his spine. "I doubt yon schooner mounts anything heavier than a four-pounder… Once we're near abeam, with the guns run out, perhaps this 'M'sieur will gain some sense, and strike before we have to blow him out of the water."
" Antigua, to leeward, there… I think," Lewrie heard Lieutenant Devereux, their Marine officer, say. "And Barbuda, off our starboard bows?" he opined, jutting his chin towards a greyish hump on the horizon. "No, couldn't be… Sergeant Skipwith?" "Sure I don't know, sir," Skipwith commented. "Still an hundred miles to leeward, sir," Lt. Langlie took time to inform their senior "Lobsterback." "Well, a day's sail, by now. I expect you're mistaking squalls on the horizon for islands. Were Barbuda and Antigua this close, we'd see them plain. The channel between is only thirty-seven miles, d'ye see…"
"Half a day, in chase," Lewrie muttered. And he still had not gotten his chin shaved! The galley fires had been doused and dinner had been delayed, the crew's hunger only slightly eased with hardtack biscuit, water, and dry, crumbly Navy Issue cheese. Of course, the rum ration had been doled out; some customs were observed no matter what. "Three-quarters of a mile, now sir," Lt. Langlie pointed out. "Mister Wyman!" Lewrie called down to the Second Lieutenant by the foremast, now in charge of the starboard guns. "One chase gun to windward! Let her know our intentions!" "Aye, sir!"
A windward gun was a challenge to battle, and a threat. Strike your colours, haul up, and fetch-to… or else!
Bang! The foc'sle 6-pounder barked out a blank charge, billowing a sour cloud of maggot-pale gunsmoke that was quickly scudded off to larboard, across the forecastle, by the Trades that were now almost abeam Proteus's deck. Lewrie, along with every senior man allowed the liberty of the quarterdeck, lifted a telescope to see what answer was forthcoming.
Like most stern-chases, hours could pass before any noticeable progress was made, then all of a sudden, the Chase would leap within spitting distance in an eyeblink, no matter that her sails still drew, her wake still seethed, the mustachio under her bows still flung spray so busily about her… as if she'd grown weary of it all, and meant to surrender to her fate.
"Quarter-mile, I make it, now, sir," Lt. Langlie observed. "Open the larboard gun-ports and run out, Mister Langlie. Hull the bitch, when nicely abeam," Lewrie coldly replied, his eyes gone as grey as Arctic ice, as was his wont when angered or in action. "Sir!"
There was a puff of smoke upon the schooner's bows, then a tinny, flat bang from a lee-side gun, the sound masked by her sails and hull, muffled by the wind's roar and the onward rushing sshhuush of Proteus's hull. She had fired a leeward gun, in sign of peaceful intent… or to signify her surrender?
A second or two later, down came her patently false British colours, as if she had indeed struck, but… up went a "gridiron" flag, a busy banner of red and white horizontal stripes, with a canton of blue, splattered with stars, in one corner!
"An American? Mine arse on a band box!" Lewrie exclaimed. "Another sham!" Lt. Langlie all but spluttered at their gall. "No, sir, look!" Midshipman Adair cried, pointing. "Her hoist! That is this month's private signal, sir."
"You're sure, Mister Adair?" Lewrie gawped at those pennants, spinning to face the midshipman.
"Quite sure, sir. See, here in my copy book, it's…" "Dammit!"
"She's let fly her sheets, Captain," Lt. Langlie said, drawing Lewrie's attention back to the schooner.
She had freed her large gaff-hung fore and main sails, letting them flag and clatter almost abeam the wind, no longer cupping power from it, keeping the outer and inner flying jibs standing, but hauling down the foretopmast stays'l and those upper gaff stays'ls. Without those sails,
she was now slowing like a bowling coach being reined in and braked!
"Well… hoist the proper damn' reply, Mister Adair," Lewrie snapped. "The gun crews to stand easy, Mister Langlie."
"Aye, sir."
"Half the damned day we've chased this silly clown, and it is only now he has wit t'recall he's a Yankee, that we're almost allies?"
Proteus would pass within an hundred yards of the schooner, and would spurt past her rapidly, with all her top-hamper still drawing, t'gallants, royals, and stuns'ls rigged on the windward yards; all that sail blanketing what wind the schooner could receive in her lee.
"Christ, it'll take an hour t'work back to her!" he growled.
He took Langlie's brass speaking-trumpet and crossed to the lee rails to speak her whilst he could, before they left her in their dust!
"Who the hell are you?" Lewrie ungraciously bellowed.
"United States Treasury Department cutter, the Trumbull!" came the thin reply. "Lieutenant Gordon, master! And you?"
"You bloody idiot! This is His Brittanic Majesty's frigate, Proteus… Captain Lewrie, commanding. You'd think you could've-"
But they were past by then, surging along at better than ten or eleven knots.
"Mister Langlie, get way off her," Lewrie snarled, turning inboard. "Strip us down to all plain sail. Then we'll wear down below her, tack and round up windward of her. I've a bone t'pick with that… that…! Mister Wyman… Mister Catterall! Worm out your shot and charges, and secure from Quarters! Goddammit!"
He'd wasted most a day's sail chasing a pluperfect fool! Even worse, he'd been made to look the fool before his officers and men!
"And Mister Langlie?" Lewrie fumed, glowering.
"Aye, sir?"
"Whilst we perform all those evolutions in plain sight of that Yankee Doodle, I'll want everything done to a very salty Tee!"
"All hands! All hands!" Lieutenant Langlie bawled, accepting his trumpet back and turning away to hide in furious activity.
As topmen raced aloft to fist and fight canvas, to haul in and reduce sail, deflate the set of the stuns'ls, clew them to the booms and haul them in along the permanent yards, Proteus slowed and soughed into the brilliant tropic waters, sighing and groaning as her timbers resettled, like a racehorse taking a cool-down lap round the turf.
Minutes later, the royals were furled, gasketed, and the thin yards lowered to the cross-trees, the t'gallants two-reefed, and hands piped to Stations to Wear. The schooner was by then at least four or five miles astern, plodding along somewhat like an ignored hound under plain sail, as if unsure of following its master all the way to the end of the drive. She continued to plod while Proteus wore downwind, took the Trades on her larboard side for the first time in weeks, and began to "reach" back across the wind on an opposing course, about two cables below the schooner.
"Mister Adair, assumin' this slack-jawed Yankee can actually be able to read, do you hoist 'Take Station In My Lee,' " Lewrie sneered.
"Aye aye, sir."
"I'll put her off our larboard quarters before we tack, sir?" Lt. Langlie asked, hands behind his back, where, Lewrie strongly suspected, he still had his fingers crossed for luck.
"Too bad we can't shave his transom, Mister Langlie. By the by. A creditable showing for our erstwhile allies… so far, that is."
"Uhm, thankee kindly, sir," Langlie replied with a gladsome grin… though tempered with a First Officer's usual quick moue for all the things that could yet go "smash," and at the very worst possible time.
"At your discretion, Mister Langlie."
"She replies 'Affirmative,' sir," Midshipman Adair announced.
The schooner began to fall off the wind, all but pointing her bowsprit and jib-boom at Proteus's midships!
"Damn him, I didn't mean come under my lee right bloody now\" Lewrie barked. "Wait 'til she she's well off our larboard quarters before we tack, Mister Langlie. A longer board close-hauled before the tack, as well. Mister Adair, haul that signal down. Hoist 'Hold Course.' "
Aye, sir!
The schooner dithered, swinging back to abeam the Trades, while Proteus surged past once more, rapidly falling astern.
"Safe enough, now, I should think, Mister Langlie."
"Aye, sir. All hands… Stations for Stays!"
Proteus swung up onto the wind, close-hauled and heading to East Sou'east, her hands freeing braces, tacks, and sheets. Langlie left it for a long moment, rocking upward on the balls of his booted feet before opening his mouth to shout through the speaking-trumpet.
"Quartermaster, ease down the helm. Ready, ready!" Lt. Langlie cried, waiting, turning and swivelling about, eyes everywhere for this maneuevre. "Helm's alee… rise, tacks and sheets!"
HMS Proteus, for all her length and tonnage, was a lively one, and she came up to the wind briskly, jibs clattering, the spanker aft eased amidships and driving, the foretops'l flat a'back, swinging easily until… "Haul taut! Now, mains'l haul!" and she was across the eye of the wind, the deck swaying upright, then canting leeward, yards swinging, blocks clanging, and canvas rattling like musketry.
"Stars above, if he hasn't come up close-hauled!" the Sailing Master Mr. Winwood exclaimed, coming as close to blasphemy as that good man might ever dare.
Lewrie spun about to glare at the Yankee schooner, chilling, as the thought struck him that, were she truly a French privateer that had captured a set of private signals, now would be the very best time to fire, with Proteus and her crew still all sixes-and-sevens, everything in the running rigging still free, her guns unloaded, run in, and bowsed snug to the bulwarks! Even a puny broadside of pop-guns could confuse the crew, turn their tack into a bloody shambles, whilst a bold French privateersman could swing up to windward-like the schooner was doing!-and scamper full-and-by to weather, pointing higher than ever a square-rigged frigate could attain, into the open, empty seas east of Barbuda, giving them a Gallic horselaugh, and with a tale to gasconade about the entire Caribbean!
No, Lewrie took note; Proteus had completed her tack, and would block this so-called Treasury Department cutter on her present course. ' Course, does she hold her course, she'll ram us! he thought; I don't see more'n thirty hands, all told, and all o' them hangin' in her riggin' for agood look-see!
"Very good, Mister Langlie. Now, stand aloof of that hen-head, 'til we may cock up into the wind and fetch-to. Mister Adair?" Lewrie bawled.
Aye, sir?
"A second hoist, young sir. Tell that aimless bastard to 'Fetch To.' Leave 'Come Under My Lee' flyin'. Is God merciful, even he might get our intent. Then, should he actually fetch-to in our lee, I will wish you to lower both of those, and hoist 'Captain Repair On Board.' Smartly, now… go!"
Again, like a hound warned away from the promise of fresh meat when a hog was slaughtered in the barnyard, the schooner shied off the wind to roughly abeam, leaving a thankful gap between them and ending the imminent threat of collision, as Proteus began the evolution for fetching-to, with some sails still drawing on starboard tack, driving forward, and others backed to snub her progress.
"Gad, quite the quadrille we're dancin' with 'em, hey, Mister Winwood?" Lt. Catterall said as he ascended the lee ladder from below. "Thought we would do 'swing your lady,' the rest of the afternoon!"
"Mmmmmm!" Lewrie harumphed quite pointedly, though he felt like growling at him.
"Though, they aren't quite fetched-to, yet," Mr. Winwood noted.
"Save us a spot o' bother, that," Catterall breezed blithely on. "And give them a shorter row."
"And us with more rigging and sail aloft, with more freeboard, we'll drift right down aboard her, if this fellow don't…" Winwood began to fret.
"I'll skin the bastard, swear it! That cack-handed, whip-jack, cunny-thumbed sonofa… lubber! Damn him!" Lewrie swore, nigh to one of his rare foot-stomping rants or a helpless whimpering, flinging his arms up in appeal to Heaven at Trumbull's captain, and his ignorance, his clueless disregard for side-timbers, paint-work, or seamanship!
"Do we get under way once he's aboard, sir, perhaps our loo'rd drift will not be so great, before we, uhm…?" Lt. Langlie helpfully suggested, heaving a deep, speculative shrug.
"Ah, hummm… p'rhaps, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said. Helpless appeal to Heaven won over rage, as he sagged in philosphical defeat.
"Side-party for a mere lieutenant, or a putative captain, sir," Lt. Catterall casually enquired.
"Bu'ck?" Lewrie answered, with a "what can you do?" shrug, and an unintelligible little noise that sounded hellish-like a cluck.
"Very good, sir," Catterall replied, backing away with a wary look on his face.