The French Admiral by Dewey Lambdin Read Free Book Online Page A

water. The crew were summoned from below, where they had been napping, and began to let out on the bower cable to drift down on the kedge off the stern. Once at short stays, the kedge was tripped and brought in, the still night air having no chance to carry off the muddy tidal effluvia that the cable brought up as the damp thigh-thick cable was led below to the tiers to dry. They hauled back up to the bower and drew her in to short stays as well.
    â€œHove short, sir,” came the call from the blackness up forward.
    â€œTouch of land breeze, Mister Monk?” Treghues asked by the wheel, once more seemingly sane and rational, the very picture of an Officer of the King.
    â€œAye, sir, a light ’un, but it’s there,” Monk said.
    â€œHands aloft, then, Mister Monk. Hoist tops’ls, jibs, spanker, and forecourse.”
    â€œAye, aye, sir.”
    The first freed canvas began to fill from the softly soughing land breeze, heated during the day and now warmer than the sea breeze which had cooled to stillness. As that gentle wind found her, Desperate began to make a slight way, beginning to stir dark waters.
    â€œWeigh anchor, Mister Railsford.”
    The hands spit on their fists, breasted to the capstan bars and put a strain on them. The pawls began to clank as they marched about in a circle, and the anchor cable came in rapidly.
    â€œUp an’ down!” a bowman shouted. If the bower did not break free of the mud, if it was snagged on an old wreck or sucked deep into silt, a moment more could have the Desperate sailing over her own cable, bringing her to an inglorious halt, swinging her broadside and tearing the sticks right out of her.
    â€œAnchor’s free!” a bosun’s mate called as the capstan pawls clanked rapidly, like a drummer’s tattoo. In the feeble candles by the fo’c’s’le belfry, one could see the puddened ring and upper stock of the bower and hands already over the side to cat it down. Raving, certifiable and leaping mad Treghues could sometimes appear, but no one could ever find a fault with his ship-handling. It was certainly a pity that their departure had taken place so near midnight that the town could not have turned out to gawk and marvel.
    Steering carefully for the light, with the church spire squarely dead astern, they crossed the bar as the ebb began to gather strength but still had enough depth to carry them over in perfect safety. Once Railsford, the bosun and his mates, and the ship’s master-at-arms and corporal had made their rounds, the hands were allowed to go 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