A King`s Commander - Dewey Lambdin

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 suffer 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 gather way, and quick to lose it, beating to windward 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 windward, 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'sle 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 forestays 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.