The French Prize by James L. Nelson Read Free Book Online

factors in the geometric puzzle, nerves and seamanship the human aspects of the equation.
    Asquith sighed. “You make a point, Jack, you make a point. If we do nothing, we are taken, and it hardly matters how soon. Very well, we shall try this trick of yours.” He sounded resigned and not particularly hopeful. “It will be Mr. Tucker’s watch soon, but I’ll ask you to keep the deck,” he added. “I don’t think Mr. Tucker will object to having this cup taken from his hands.”
    â€œNo, sir,” Jack agreed. He bent over the chart, marked his course, walked the line to the compass rose with the parallel rule. By the time he looked up, Asquith was already gone, up the ladder to the quarterdeck. Jack followed behind.
    The sun was well up now, the sky a cloudless blue, the distant sail considerably less distant and clearly steering to intercept them. Maguire had replaced Lacey at the helm, and Jack gave the order, “Make your course west northwest, one half west.”
    There was just the slightest catch in Maguire’s response as he repeated the order back, an order that would turn Abigail ’s bow more toward the strange sail on the horizon rather than away from it, probably not the helm command Maguire was anticipating, or hoping for. His eyes shifted from sails to compass as he made the subtle adjustment of the helm. Jack called for sail trimmers to brace the yards around ever so slightly.
    â€œMr. Biddlecomb,” said Asquith, who had taken a place by the weather rail, “let’s call up all hands, set up some temporary backstays, and get the t’gan’sls back on her.”
    â€œYes, sir, of course,” Jack said, giving himself a mental kick for not having thought of that himself. He turned on his heel, called for all hands, called for light hawsers to be run aloft to the topgallant mastheads and set up well taut. With the temporary backstays taking the strain, the light poles would bear the topgallant sails in winds that would otherwise threaten to snap them off. Or so Jack hoped. Even with the backstays, he knew, they would be pushing their luck.
    It was here that the ship’s good reputation, and the concomitant ability to ship good men, paid dividends, as on fore-, main-, and mizzenmasts the hands swarmed aloft, sending the hawsers up on a girtline, bending them on, setting them up, with never an order given by Jack or the captain. Half an hour later, the topgallant sails, which an hour before had been stowed, were set again and straining in the twenty knots of wind blowing over the starboard quarter. Abigail heeled further over, her plunging and yawing more pronounced under the lofty canvas, but her speed was a good two knots greater.
    Jack looked across the impossibly blue water of the Caribbean. He could now see the brigantine clearly from the deck, hull up, driving hard on a starboard tack, as close hauled as she would lay. She was straining her very fabric to get at Abigail , a fat, lumbering merchantman, irresistible prey, and Abigail in turn was running for all she was worth. But not running away. And not running toward the Frenchman, either, but rather sailing for a point just beyond her bow.
    What must they think we’re about ? Jack wondered. Assuming this privateer had not guessed what Jack had in mind, then Abigail ’s actions would make no sense at all. Set topgallants in that wind, just so the two ships might converge even quicker? Jack hoped that his actions would sow confusion, and perhaps even suspicion or fear, in their frog-eating hearts.
    â€œDeck, there!” Lacey called from aloft. “She’s showing colors, sir, looks like the Stars and Stripes!”
    Jack put his glass to his eye. A spot of color was visible at the stranger’s gaff, and though it was not discernible in any great detail, Jack was all but certain it was the flag of the United States: fifteen stripes, a blue canton with fifteen white