A King's Commander

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Wind’s died out, sir,” Knolles reported, fighting a yawn himself. “The last five minutes, it went scant, then . . . nothing.”

  Jester was rocking and heaving, her timbers and yards groaning in protest and her sails slatting like flapping laundry amidst all the squeaking of parrel blocks and pulleys. Lewrie marveled that he could have slept so soundly through all that. “What’s the time?” he asked.

  “Two bells of the morning just went, sir,” Knolles informed him. “I make it about a quarter-hour to false dawn, sir. Sorry, sir, but as we kept both watches on deck all night, I held off on pumping and swabbing, and let the hands caulk for a bit. Do you wish me to . . .”

  “No no, you did quite right, Mister Knolles.” Lewrie shivered, wrapping himself in the boat cloak again. “Galley fires going? Soup’s the thing. Soup and gruel. Cold . . . but clear.”

  “Remarkably clear, sir.” Knolles grinned. Or fought a yawn, it was hard to tell. “The sea’s moderating, too.”

  “Just what I feared.” Lewrie groaned. “Good as stranded, much too far to seaward. Northerly, or a Levanter easterly to come, after sunrise proper. Beat for hours to get back inshore, against the land breeze. I s’pose there’s no sign of our Chase?”

  “Uhm . . . not yet, sir,” Knolles had to admit. “But we can see a bit better now.”

  The moon had set, but their world was a nebulous charcoal gray, disturbed only by an occasional whitecap. The coast was definable . . . just barely. About ten miles off, that solid blackness? he thought. Off which a morning’s land breeze would flow, dammit to hell. Maybe a nor’wester, to begin with, before the ocean heated and countered, from whatever capricious direction the Ligurian Sea had in mind today?

  “If the galley fires are going, I’d admire some coffee,” Lewrie said. “And an idea how far west we were blown during the night.”

  “I’ll send a messenger down to roust your steward, sir,” Lieutenant Knolles offered. But Aspinall clomped up the larboard ladder from the gun deck, having already made a trip to the galley. For a warm-up, if nothing else, Lewrie thought, uncharitable that early in the morning. He cradled a battered old lidded pot, and bore some tin mugs on a string.

  “Coffee, sir? Coffee, Mister Knolles, sir?” He beamed. “Got enough fer all, sir. Thought th’ gennlemen’d relish a spot o’ hot.”

  Toulon had gone with him on his errand, for a bite of something from the cooks, who ever would spoil him. Now he came prancing up the ladders to the quarterdeck, tail stiffly erect and “maiwee?” -ing for a good-morning rub. He leapt atop the hammock nettings to greet Lewrie with loud demands for attention. After a warming sip or two, Alan went to him to give at least a one-handed tussling and stroking.

  He stiffened suddenly, stopped his frantic purring, and turned to look to the north. His ears laid back, his back hairs and tail got bottled up, and he craned his neck, whiskers well forward.

  A faint whicker of wind came from there, the worst direction of all, to Lewrie’s lights, just as Knolles extracted his pocket watch to state that it was now time for false dawn.

  “Sail ho!” a forecastle lookout yelped. “ Four points off th’ star- b’d bows!”

  “Due north?” Lewrie gulped. “Due north of us?” He looked at the cat, wondering whether he’d sensed the wind’s arrival, or caught a scent of that ship . . . Toulon was now busy washing himself, intent on a paw, and the side of his face that Lewrie had tussled.

  “What sort o’ sail?” Knolles bellowed back.

  “Tartane , sir!” came the quick reply. “Close-hauled t’th’ nor-east! ’Tis her, d’ye hear, there!”

  “Get us underway on starboard tack, Mister Knolles. Sheet home and brace in. Full-and-by to weather,” Lewrie demanded. Coffee mug in one hand, telescope slung open in the other, and laid on the mizzen shrouds to starboard, he espied her. Aye, a two-masted tartane , about three miles off, showing them her stern as she ghosted against a faint land breeze, pointing higher than Jester ever could but riding so slow her decks were level, even with her bows as close to the wind’s eye as she could lie, with her lateen yards braced in almost fore-and-aft.

  Slowly, just as painfully slowly as the tartane crawled, Jester began to gather headway, to pinch up point at a time to the wind, her bows at last aimed west-nor’west, as close as she could lie. Two knots were reported, then three, when the log was cast astern.

  “Good mornin’, sir,” Buchanon reported to the quarterdeck. “I’m happy someone can find something good about it,” Alan said as he finished his coffee. “Do you give me a rough idea of position, I would be much obliged, Mister Buchanon.”

  “Aye, sir,” Buchanon replied, crisply cheerful as Aspinall gave him a mug as well. “But I make ’at cape off th’ larb’d bows t’be th’ one guardin’ Finale. ’At isle t’th’ north’rd, ’at’d be sou’-sou’west o’ Vado Bay, sir. ’Bout ten mile offshore, we are. Didn’t get blown half so far’z I’d thought, Cap’um. ’At our Chase, at last? Th’ poor bugger’s on th’ wrong tack, don’t ya think, sir?”

  “She’s three miles ahead, sir, that’s what I think,” Lewrie shot back. “Up to windward, safe as houses.”

  On a hugely diverging course, too. The tartane was beating to the nor’east, but had bags of room in which to tack, safely two miles out of gun range. She could turn nor’west for the coast between the island and the western headland, and there were inlets aplenty for a beaching, in shallow water where Jester could never dare go.

  “Four knots! Four knots t’this log!”

  The best Lewrie could hope was to stay on this starboard tack, gain speed as the wind rose, as it seemed to be wanting to, to deny her a shot at tacking further west. It wasn’t over yet . . . there might come a patrol from Vado Bay. But so far, though, they had the morning sea to themselves.

  “Five knots, sir!” Spendlove shouted.

  “We’ll tack, sir?” Knolles asked. “There’s wind enough.”

  “No, not yet, sir,” Lewrie decided, feeling an urge to chew on a thumbnail. “We’d lose ground on her, she’d tack once we were on a new course, and force us to do it all over again. We’d fall even more behind. Hands aloft, and shake out the night reefs. Let’s fill every sail bellyful.”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  Six knots, then seven at times; nothing to write home about with pleasure, but Jester was increasing her speed, two miles nearer to that coast pointed just east of Finale’s headland. Now and then the winds grew a tiny bit stronger, backing a little east of north, and Spenser and Brauer luffed her up into it to wring every inch of advantage from the puffs.

  “Deck, there!” a foremast lookout called down. Once the dawn had come, men could be posted aloft, once more. “Chase is tackin’!”

  “Had to, sir,” Buchanon opined. “She stood any more east’rd . . . she’d end up in Vado Bay. She was a’ready level with th’ island.”

  “We’re at west-nor’west, she’s making nor’west, two points higher to windward, though, Mister Buchanon.”

  “But closin’ th’ range, sir. Closin’ th’ range.”

  Lewrie eyed her again with his telescope. The tartane was hard on the wind, on starboard tack now. Her decks were still fairly level, though, which puzzled him. Jester was beginning to heel, as if being two miles farther out at sea they’d caught a stiffer wind than what it might be like closer inshore, under the shadow of the rugged coastal heights.

  “Run out the starboard battery, run-in larboard!” Lewrie barked.

  “Seven-and-a-half knots, sir!” Spendlove shrilled.

  Jester was really moving now, no matter how average the winds. With her longer waterline and greater weight, once she got a way on she tenaciously held it, in even the lightest winds, as the tartane could not. For once, she was the shorter vessel, the one more prone to fall off, to slough and slow. As she did, even as he watched! To sail as fast as she needed to, she’d have to fall away from close-hauled, let the wind cross her decks a little more abeam, on a close reach. Slow to gat
her way, and quick to lose it, beating to wind-ward could result in her crawling at a snail’s pace, cocked up but going nowhere.

  Was it his imagination, did she appear to be falling off? To the same compass heading as Jester, west-nor’west? And trending aft.

  Jester was outfooting her to the coastal shallows, which were now only five miles off!

  “Abeam,” Lewrie said with satisfaction a half hour later, now within two miles of that rocky shoreline. The Chase was almost abeam, and closer to Jester, as she’d pinched up and luffed to weather, every opportunity; at least a half mile nearer, though still tantalizingly a half mile outside the most optimistic shooting range. “She’ll not get to Finale, at this rate. If that’s where she was headed.”

  Had the tartane been on starboard tack when the wind came back, had she tacked immediately, she’d have been gone long since, but it’d still be a close-run thing. The closer Jester got under the lee of a tall range of coastal hills, the more fickle and weak the wind was for her, too. His telescope revealed no shelving beaches ahead, no inlets in which to flee. Behind the island, yes, there was a deep inlet, but they’d have to tack soon, if they wished to get back to it.

  “Deck, there! Chase is tacking!”

  “Reading my bloody mind,” Lewrie grumbled. Now, she’s able to steer nor’east by east, run along the coast to pick her spot . . . “Mister Knolles, we will—at last—tack ship!”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  Around Jester came, thrashing and flogging, carrying her way into the turn smoothly, pivoting, it seemed, almost in her own length, it was so quickly done by a well-drilled ship’s company. Slowing as sails were laid aback, of course, as fore-and-aft sails flagged and fluttered lift from themselves. But surging back to seven, almost eight knots within a scant couple of minutes. Now the Chase lay just one point off their larboard bows, and within a mile-and-a-quarter.

  “Run out larboard battery, run-in starboard to the centerline,” Lewrie shouted, once Jester was stable. That made a tiny difference, though the tartane still pointed about ten degrees higher to wind-ward, even sailing “a point free” of close-hauled for more speed.

  “Lookit th’ sea, Cap’um!” Buchanon shouted suddenly, pointing ahead. “Lookit th’ sea!”

  “Meet her, Spenser, meet her!” Lewrie warned, as the wind laid a brush on his left cheek. There was a rising zephyr, one which backed a point or more, with which they could luff up to claw at least a cable of advantage to windward.

  There were ripples on the slow-heaving wave tops around Jester ’s bows, out ahead and inshore of her. There were not, out where the Chase lay! There, the sea was oily-smooth, glittering with many small inshore chops, but the tops of the wavelets were undisturbed. Beyond, tempting but unreachable yet, the winds rippled the waters, but the tartane had staggered into a flat, limpid circular pool of calm.

  “I see it, Mister Buchanon!” Lewrie almost laughed with glee. The tartane would take a long minute to coast through the calm patch of water, slowing all the time, her shorter waterline shedding speed while Jester stood on through it. She could tack, but tacking might slow her even more. And did the winds return to that calm patch, they might be perverse and “head” her more westerly than she wished.

  “I make her no more’n a mile off now, Cap’um,” Buchanon said, after taking her measure with a sextant. “Almost gun range. An’ th’ shore, maybe a mile and a half off.”

  The tartane rode it out, coasting through the calm, with Jester marching up her stern relentlessly. Then caught the edge of the wind beyond, her sails luffing as it took her bows-on. “Headed, by God!” Knolles cried out with delight.

  She fell away, crossing to dead on Jester ’s bows, poised over a rhythmically rising bowsprit and jib boom, having lost at least a half-mile lead, and forced down more easterly. Unless she tacked, she’d be thrown below and east of the island, toward the western headland that marked Vado Bay. She’d shave the island, on her present course.

  “Mister Crewe?” Lewrie shouted. “Fetch Mister Rahl from the magazine, and try your eye with one of the foc’s’le carronades. Upwind of her, so she won’t tack inshore on us!”

  “Aye, sir!”

  “Wind’s veerin’ ahead, sir!” Spenser told him from the wheel. “’Ave t’ ease her a point.”

  “Very well, Mister Spenser.” Lewrie chuckled. “That’ll keep us honest. And from running ashore on the island, bows-on.”

  “’At it will, sir!” Spenser snickered, easing his spokes.

  Rahl marched almost stiff-backed like a Grenadier guard to the forecastle, still in his list slippers and powder yeoman’s apron, keenly aware of the crew’s eyes on him. He fiddled and fussed, weighing a charge, turning a ball to check how perfectly round it was. Tinkered with the elevation screw, the compressors.

  “Bloody hell!” Knolles groaned as he stood back at last, with the firing lanyard taut, awaiting the perfect moment.

  Sailing “a point free,” Rahl had a good portion of gun arcs to work with, instead of firing right over, or through, the fore-stays or jibs. Up Jester rose a trifle, then sagged bow-downward; then up once more, poised and . . .

  Boom! As Rahl jerked the lanyard. He stood ramrod straight to spot the fall-of-shot, one hand shading his brow. A pillar of ricochet spray leapt into the sky, tall and so prettily symmetrical it resembled the finest white goose feather. Within a short pistol shot of the tartane’s windward side! His fellow gun captains gave Rahl a lusty cheer as their Chase veered off the wind as if recoiling from that strike, to duck down to dead-ahead of Jester ’s bows, where no more round-shot could be hurled at her. But that forced her to leeward, just a little farther from shore and safety.

  “Well shot, Mister Rahl!” Lewrie shouted. “Man the starboard . . . the lee carronade! Spenser, back on the wind, close-hauled, quickly.”

  As Rahl and the forecastle gunners readied the other eighteen-pounder, Jester clawed back up to windward a full point, right on the razor-edge of luffing, to put the tartane almost two points alee of her. To claw Jester inshore of the Chase!

  Boom! Another shot soared out, raising a second feather of spray; again, close-aboard the tartane , which ducked back up to wind-ward, this time to escape, weaving an ess-shaped wake before Jester ’s bows. Boom! went the larboard carronade once the tartane had ducked upwind enough.

  “Ja!” Rahl shouted in triumph. “Eine schön Gott-damn hit!”

  I’m surrounded by fools! Choundas raged; incompetents! Filthy-arsed mongrel defectives! Goddamned . . . farmers, who haven’t a clue to the sea! Forced to remain silent, forced to depend on a leering cretin, who should have known a night wind off the land would fade, and stranded them too far from shore. Failed to tack once they saw that “Bloody” ship and didn’t seem to know that the heights would muffle what breeze there was. Chances for an escape looked rather bleak at the moment, but they had one shot left—to tack at once and run inshore, get into shallows where the “Bloodies” couldn’t go. Brave their guns, and flee.

  The impact of the shot took him by surprise, muffled in his boat cloak on the weather deck below the high-pinked quarterdeck. Cold made his ravaged leg throb with agony, but he was about to fight it back, as he’d done for years, mount the quarterdeck and take charge. The aching delayed him a fateful second as he rose to stand, to mount the ladder.

  The tartane shuddered, jerked and rolled as if she’d run aground. Men were screaming, even men on the weather deck around him who weren’t even in the line of fire! There was a frightful smash of shattered timber, the parroty Rrwawrk! as the taffrail and upper stern transom, and a portion of the larboard rails were ripped away in pieces, and whickerings as foot-long wood splinters of the transom and quarterdeck planks whirled in the air. Choundas forced himself up the first step, to peer over at nose height as the lateen above his head was quilled with splinters—and spattered with gore.

  Serves you right, he sneered! That boastful Araby-looking nasty of a captain had been slain, along with the helmsman
on the tiller, and the other two on the quarterdeck had been blown off their feet.

  “Silence!” he boomed, almost crying out at each step as he went to the quarterdeck. “Listen to me! I am captain now, and I will save you. Do what I say and you will live. Lose your heads, and you all are dead men! As dead as your fool of a captain is!”

  That stopped them in their tracks, as he took hold of the tiller sweep and began to force it leeward again, to hold them close-hauled on the wind.

  “Trim us in to beat, then hoist the rowboat over the side. The lee side, where the ‘Bloody’ ship cannot see it,” Choundas roared. He used his free hand to sweep back his boat cloak to reveal the pistols in his waist belt, the hilt of his sword. “Once around the island, we are out of its lee. There will be wind. There we will tack, and run into shore. Then we will get in the boat and row in, with this ship as our shield. They will not see us doing this, until it is too late. Do you understand me? Bien. Très bien. Now, do it!”

  Out of desperation, with no other option they could agree to in their fear of capture and death, they obeyed. Choundas forced himself to smile, which made him look malevolent, but competent enough to save them. Though some made the sign against the “evil eye” as they crossed themselves for luck. Feral, brutally ugly . . . but he looked like a real officer who knew what he was doing; they obeyed him.

  Too bad I didn’t have Hainaut with me, Choundas thought, leaning his hip against the long tiller bar; with four pistols, I’d have killed that idiot, and done this hours ago!

  C H A P T E R 8

  Helm a’weather, Mister Spenser,” Lewrie was forced to say. “Ease us two points off the wind.” The shore of the island was coming up fast, and he’d have to bear away to avoid its shoals. The tartane was only a half mile ahead of him now, but she was able to shave closer inshore . . . still hard on the wind, and brush Jester off, recapturing the windward advantage. He’d have to cede her the inshore route.