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

read as a tavern sign, but with the whitecaps kicked up by the building wind and flashing across the surface of the ocean, they were not so obvious.
    Do you see that, Jean Crapeau? Jack wondered. The Frenchmen would only see it if they had a man aloft and he was keeping a bright lookout. Jack calculated the speed, the wind direction, the relative bearing of the eastern end of the sandbar. Another five minutes on this course and then they would swing around to starboard, bear up, full and by, and scrape past the sand with the Frenchie too far downwind to weather it.
    He looked back at the Frenchman, saw a jet of gray explode from the bow, which he took to be spray kicked up by the hull, and then two seconds later came the muffled thump of the gunfire, the scream of flying metal, and a ragged hole appeared in the fore topgallant sail, forty feet ahead and a little below where he stood.
    â€œDamn my eyes!” Jack shouted with surprise because he knew no one could hear him. He felt something in his bowels loosen up. He had been ready for the possibility of a few long shots from the Frenchman, but he had not thought they would get so close that their shot would be up among the topgallant gear.
    His eyes were still on the hole in the fore topgallant sail when the sound of the gun and the scream of the roundshot embraced him once again and then the whipping sound of the foretopsail brace parting. The fore topsail slewed around a bit, but it was mostly held in place by the fore yard and the fore topgallant. He looked down to the deck, mouth open to shout orders, but he could see figures already heaving spare cordage up from the boatswain’s locker to reeve off a new brace.
    â€œMr. Biddlecomb!” Asquith’s voice came up clear and strong from the quarterdeck. “Now would be a fine time to haul our wind!”
    Jack looked out toward the bank, and every bit of him, down to his kidneys and liver, wanted to turn the ship at that instant and run for safety. But it was not time.
    â€œFive minutes more, sir!” he shouted down, and that was greeted by silence at first, and then Asquith called up, saying, “Five minutes and not a second more, Mr. Biddlecomb!”
    It’s not some favor you’re doing me , Jack thought peevishly, but that thought was cut short by another shot, the ball making its noisy passage between fore- and mainmast but striking nothing. Jack’s father had described often enough the weird buzzing scream made by passing roundshot, and as a young boy Jack had always tried to imagine what it must sound like. He had often enough, in the younger days, pictured himself standing as brave and unmoving as his father on a quarterdeck with the iron flying freely. But those fantasies had fled long ago, and here was the reality at last, no longer welcome or looked for.
    Come along, come along  … Jack thought, wishing another half a knot from the Abigail so that she might reach that spot where he calculated that she must turn, and he could go back to the deck, the blessed deck.
    Another shot, so close Jack could feel the wind of its passing. The temporary backstay set up on the main topgallant parted, giving the mast a hard jerk like it was trying to fling him off, and the long rope fell down, down, doing a weird spiraling dance as it collapsed. Had it been the weather backstay, then the topgallant mast, the sail, the yard, and Jack Biddlecomb would have followed the cordage in its plunge to the deck, but as it was the leeward stay, the mast remained thankfully intact.
    Jack thought he might puke. He had never feared the height or the motion, but he had never been at risk of being shot out of the rigging, either. The dogs are aiming for the masts! he realized. But of course they would. They would have no interest in sinking a valuable merchantman. Bring down a topmast, bring her to, sail her to France, that was the plan.
    Oh, Dear Lord! Jack thought. So distracted was he by the near