"Well, damn my eyes," Lewrie said with a weary disgust. There was no getting around the problem of manning the King's Ships. Seamen were always the rarity. One could bedazzle calf-heads at a rendezvous tavern to take the Joining Bounty with tales of far-off ports of call, and there were young lads aplenty who'd shun their farms to run off to the sea, boys enough with stars in their eyes to sign aboard as servants or powder monkeys. But, seamen…!
In peacetime, the Impress Service could not press by force ashore, even if the regulating officers could find a bribable magistrate who would sign a permission. Even in wartime, the press could not take a man outside the ports, could not (in theory) press-gang civilian landsmen-only recognizable sailors. Alacrity could, should the need be direful, board arriving merchant vessels in the Channel, or in legal "soundings" of the British Isles and press seamen. But such men were resentful and mutinous, and Alan didn't much care for that solution. Neither did he care for the scrapings from debtors' prisons, those who knew nothing of the sea and only took tops'l payment to get out of gaol for their debts of less than twenty pounds.
"We need twenty-nine more hands to make our rated sixty-five," Alan figured. "At least ten or twelve of those have to be able seamen. Let's be pessimistic and say ten. A dozen landsmen for waisters, and make what we may of them. Captain Palmer suggested a Mister Powlett' s Marine Society of London. Know much of it, Mister Ballard?"
"Aye, sir," Ballard nodded. "They take poor's rate tykes off the streets, scrub them up and teach mem some knots and pulley-hauley. I do believe they teach them letters and figures, after a fashion, too, sir. Some practical boat work on the Thames…"
"If they can read and write a little, they're miles better than most, then," Lewrie snorted. "He offered them in lieu of ordinary seamen. What think you of that idea?"
"If they're not too young, they may make topmen, sir. And God knows, we may lash and drive anyone to knowledge, given even a slight spark of common sense to begin with, sir."
"Damned right!" Lewrie chortled, having been driven and lashed himself to his lore. "Good Christ, what a brothel!"
His great-cabins were empty of furnishings except for a double bed (a hanging-cot for two) and a few partitions, and the chart room desk and shelves. The black and white checkered sailcloth deck cover yawned vast. But the cabins were painted a showy French blue, picked out with gold-leaf trim, with borders, overhead deck beams, transom settee and window frames all painted a gaudy pinkish red!
"Quite elegant, sir," Lieutenant Ballard said with a tiny smirk; just the slightest quirky lift of his mouth, and a crinkle to his eyes. "I am informed your predecessor Lieutenant Riggs adored his comforts more than most officers. You'll be wishing to repaint, of course, sir."
"Damned right I do," Alan growled. He knew what the Navy thought of "elegant"! Any officer, unless he was so senior he no longer had to cater to anyone's opinion, was thought unmanly should he aspire to any degree of comfort or sophistication beyond bare-bones Spartan, living as hand-to-mouth as a lone gypsy on the Scottish border. "In the meantime, I would admire if you would arrange for my personal furniture to be fetched offshore. I'll sleep ashore for the nonce, at the George, until we put this right. And the painter will have to work around my things."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"The books, Mister Ballard?"
"On the chart table, sir. I'll leave you to them, then."
"Thankee, Mister Ballard, that'll be all for now."
"Shall I have some coffee sent aft, sir? From the wardroom stores for now. As a welcome-aboard gesture, as it were, sir."
"Thankee, again, Mister Ballard, aye."
"Oh, whom should I ask for at the George, sir?" Ballard asked, pausing in his leave-taking.
"Uhm… with Mistress Lewrie, Mister Ballard," Alan blushed, making the removal of his hat, taking a seat on the one stool remaining, and opening one of the ledgers a suddenly all-engrossing activity.
"Aye, aye, sir!" Ballard replied, lifting his brows in wonder.
Damme, what have we here? Arthur Ballard asked himself after he gained the weather-decks. Mr. Fowles called him "Ram-Cat" Lewrie? Rare for an officer young as me to have a nickname already. Must be a holy terror! And married? Unless Mistress Lewrie is his mother… God no, who'd have his mother come to see him off! God in Heaven, a married officer, then?
"Whew!" he whistled softly. "Mister Harkin, boat party! Take the cutter!"
Chapter 2
"How long before you're ready to sail, Alan?" Caroline asked, once they were tucked companionably into the high bedstead, and the last candle had been snuffed for the night.
"Four days, I should think." He yawned. "She had at least a halfhearted refit before I got her. Coppering's good, hull's sound, and the bosun has most everything set to rights again. Once we're done loading stores. And our passengers."
"Oh, God, your… what did you call them… live-lumber?" She snickered in the dark as she snuggled to him, as he put out an arm to receive her head on his shoulder.
"More," he complained, putting his face to her sweet hair.
"More? How?" she asked.
"God knows, darling. There's that Trinity House master, Gatacre and his mapmaker. They're to swing hammocks in the wardroom. Six midshipmen in a draft for the Bahamas Squadron, and never one of them ever aboard a ship, hanging like bats from the overhead on the orlop, right-aft by the fishrooms. And this morning, the Port Admiral tells me I'm to transport a chaplain and his wife and servants to Nassau, in my cabins. That means I'd have to feed and water them, out of my own purse, damme. I'll end up in a hammock in the chart-space if they keep shoving bodies at me! Least they could do is put plate aboard."
"What's that?"
"If you carry coin for the treasury, or solid pay out to a foreign station, you get a small percentage. No hope of that, though." He sighed. "Some Reverend Townsley and his lawful blanket."
"Why, I met them, Alan!" Caroline exclaimed. "They're staying here at the George. Stiff company."
"Must be a poor sort of hedge-priest if he has to take chaplain pay," Alan chuckled. "You never see reverends in wartime. Too busy at saving civilian souls of a sudden, don't ya know! What were they like?"
"Snooty as earls." She shivered against him. "They're related to some captain… no, some comm-something…"
"Commodore?" Alan asked suspiciously. "That was it A Commodore Garvey, out in the West Indies."
"Oh, stap me, he's commanding the Bahamas Station!" Alan cried. "They could ruin me if I treat 'em less than royal. Gawddd!"
"We took tea together this afternoon," Caroline said. "He said your commodore already had his wife, son and daughter out there. The son's in the Navy, too. A midshipman, I think he told me. Or maybe he'd just made lieutenant. I forget. They're a formidable pair. And with two wagonloads of goods. So they couldn't have left a poor parish," she decided. "Unless they looted it on their way out."
"Two wagonloads, Lord," Alan groaned. "Where'll I stow it all? Maybe I should just give 'em my cabins for the entire voyage. And I'll leave 'em blue and rose, too. That ought to be grand enough for 'em."
"I think they're lovely."
"The Navy wouldn't. I should have painted earlier. Let them describe their quarters to Commodore Garvey once they get to Nassau, he'll think me a primping dancing-master."
"1 still say they looked elegant," Caroline decided aloud. "Found lodgings yet?" he inquired. "There's little time left."
"I know, my love!" She sighed as she burrowed deeper into him with sudden ardor. "I've seen several. I'll take care of it, never fear. Oh, God, this is going to be so hard, to watch you sail away, and here I am, in Portsmouth, where I don't know a soul! Four days?" She wailed softly.
"Four days we should make the most of," Alan muttered, running a hand over her hip and thigh, delighting in her shivers of expectation. That night in Petersfield, they'd left a candle burning in their eagerness, and she'd come to him with a robe on, not a bedgown. A robe which slid down her shoulders and parted to reveal a girlish slimness, a veritable feast of creamy skin andproud young, close-set breasts, a taut, flat belly trimmed by riding, and long, incredibly fine and tapering smooth legs. He still had not gotten over the wonder of being with anyone so delectable, of her being his to caress and stroke into passion at a whim.
Like Venus on the half-shell, he exulted silently, like Aphrodite rising from the waves… but even better!
"You don't think me gawky and spindle-shanked?" she teased him as he nuzzled her graceful neck. "You don't prefer more roundness?"
"God, Caroline, you're the loveliest woman ever I did see!" he told her truthfully. She rolled on top of him to kiss him, to receive his kisses as his hands slid down to her firm little buttocks to draw the bedgown higher.
She uttered a thrilling little laugh as he found her hips, as his fingertips brushed her bare flesh.
She sat up astride of him to lift the bedgown over her head, raising her arms high and inclining her head with her hair loose and long like a silvery shimmer in the almost-dark. His hands rose to take possession of her firm breasts and she leaned into his palms for support, and excitement.
"Rough hands," she whispered, taking one so she could kiss it. "A sailor's hands. Rough from all those ropes and things."
"Too rough on you?" he grunted in rising ardor.
"Never a bit of it, my love," she chuckled again, softer. "I know it's not seemly, but I want you to teach me something new, Alan."
"Wanton jade!" he teased, sitting up a little to nuzzle at her nipples, which had gone puckery-hard from his caresses.
"Your wanton jade!" she promised, going goose-pimply with rising delight. "Only yours, darling. Make me yours again."
He drew her down to him, enfolding her in his arms so they were drawn against each other, her knees up by his chest, and one hand of his stroking the softest, most intimate of her flesh.
"Oh, God, but making love is so…" she moaned, near to transport. Her hips were moving now against his hand, her upper body rocking slowly left and right. She began to slide off to draw him over, but he stopped her. "Come to me, now," she implored.
"Right where you are, love," he grinned.
"Oh, yes!" she sighed, gasping as she felt his member brushing her. She slid down just a trifle, rose up on her palms as he fitted himself to her and thrust upwards with gentle but insistent pressure.
Down a little more she slid, then gave out with an inarticulate groan of surprise and pleasure as he slid deep.
"Riding St. George," he exulted as she made more happy groaning sounds, each ending in a rising note.
"The dragon spitted, 'pon his lance below… ohh!" she laughed.
"Sit up, darling," he coaxed. "Sit up, Caroline!"
"Oh, it's so… oh, yes!" She bit her lip, rolled her head to either side. He took her hands and held them tight, their fingers entwined fiercely. Hips rocking, upper body swaying, her head far back and her throat bared to the ceiling in her ecstasy, she met his movements, anticipated and amplified them. "Oh, so completely… so deeply! Jesus, I'll surely die of more! Ahh-hahhh!"
"Then I think we'll die together," Alan panted, swooning, with the entire world reduced to the friction of moist flesh, and his own release building like the pressure from a powder charge in gun's barrel. Time slowed down, time had no meaning, the planet and its tawdry doings ended beyond what they could touch, feel, or hear. And then she broke, weeping with release, crying out as if given a tiny glimpse of paradise, and he took hold of her slim hips and firm little bottom, and drove upwards, reveling in the creaking of ropes that supported their mattress, the pump-washer sound of their two bodies fused, her astonished further cries as she collapsed on top of him with her breasts brushing his chest, and then the far-away groan he shouted to the night as his groin and his brain exploded into royal fireworks.
Neither of them had an ear for the irritated thumping of the lodgers next door. Not the first time that night, nor the second.
"It's so unfair," she whispered much later, after their third congress of the night, just before well-earned sleep.
"What is?" Alan mumbled, his mind reeling.
"That we, at last, know joy of each other for such a short time before we must part," she sighed, snuggling down inside his embrace, one thigh across his exhausted lap and her long hair draped over his chest. "I wish you could smuggle me aboard your ship and take me wherever you go. To know so much pleasure from your dear hands, Alan. And then to be deprived for three whole years!"
"It's a hellish wrench for me, too, darling girl," he admitted, eyes shut and almost glued together for want of sleep.
"If only we had longer, a year or more, so I might have grown accustomed," she wished. "Or does it ever cease to be such a wonder? Will making love with each other be forever this new and daring, dear?"With our enthusiasm, I'd wager deep on forever," he chuckled as he stroked her long, smooth back.
"Spinsters succumb to the green sickness," Caroline muttered.
"Now what would you know of that?" he chid her gently.
"Fall ill and die for lack of it!" she laughed. "And their only cure is… this. Now I know how marvelous it is, I'll be taken to my bed for want of more! We both will. You'll sail back from the West Indies and find me wasted away to nothing, from want of you, and nought a cure for me but your rapt… attentions! None but your kisses and caresses will save me."
"Then I wish us a very long recovery," he rejoined.
Several long minutes passed as Lewrie began to breathe deep on the verge of slumber, then:
"Alan?"
"Ahmm," he uttered.
"I can't go home to Anglesgreen."
"Uhmm, I know."
"And I don't know a soul in Portsmouth," she went on softly.
"Uhmmhmrn."
"Reverend Townsley is taking his wife out there. And your superior thinggummy in Nassau… he has his wife and daughter with him already. There're so many Loyalist families settling in the Bahamas. With their wives and children. We once considered Eleuthera, ourselves."
"Hmm?"
"Why could you not take me with you?" she queried hopefully.
"Oh, Caroline, it's heat and flies, bad as India," he grumbled, wakened enough to counter her. "Mosquitoes, roaches big as…"
"As if in North Carolina I'd never seen a palmetto bug," she scoffed. "That was a polite way of saying a 'cockroach' big as your thumb!"
"There's fever, Caroline. Yellow Jack and malaria. Cholera now and again. Poxes that no one even knows what to call by name!" he objected. "No, dear, dear as I desire you with me, I cannot. I love you too much to subject you to such risk!"
"I've been inoculated against smallpox. We had physicians good as London," she pressed, though in a soft, almost wheedling tone as she stirred her body against his. "I've seen Yellow Jack before. I might have had it when I was little. I can't remember."
"You don't know what you ask, Caroline," he groused, sitting up in bed, now arguably awake, though the hour was late and he had to rise at first light. "Caroline, believe me when I tell you that I love you to distraction. Frightened as I was of marriage, more than most bachelors, believe that, too… life with you is a joy beyond all imagining. And it will be in future. But if we're to have that future, you must be here for me to come home to. If I lost you out there, I'd… were I selfish enough to take you with me and something happened to you, I'd wish to die, too!"
"I've been inoculated against smallpox. We had physicians good as London," she pressed, though in a soft, almost wheedling tone as she stirred her body against his. "I've seen Yellow Jack before. I might have had it when I was little. I can't remember."
"You don't know what you ask, Caroline," he groused, sitting up in bed, now arguably awake, though the hour was late and he had to rise at first light. "Caroline, believe me when I tell you that I love you to distraction. Frightened as I was of marriage, more than most bachelors, believe that, too… life with you is a joy beyond all imagining. And it will be in future. But if we're to have that future, you must be here for me to come home to. If I lost you out there, I'd… were I selfish enough to take you with me and something happened to you, I'd wish to die, too!"
And damme if I don't mean every word of it, he realized; she's become as dear to me as… Christ, who'd have thought!
"I stand just as much chance losing you in the islands, Alan," she fretted, squeezing him tight. "What life do you think I'd care to live, with you gone in a shipwreck, or carried off by some fever! And I'd never have been a real wife to you but this single fortnight! Oh, Alan, take me with you, do! At least, when Alacrity puts into Nassau, we could have a week or two here and there together, in a snug little home of our own! Is Nassau such a terrible place, then?"
"Pirates, footpads, cut-purses," he described to her. "There're drunken sailors and their whores, reprobates and discourteous rabble; carousing and caterwauling 'til all hours…"
"Like Portsmouth, is it?" she asked, and even in the dark, Alan could almost espy her puckish grin. "Yet you entrust me to this town, half the world away from you. What would be worse about Nassau?"
"Caroline, it's so…" he sighed, his desire for her, and the lust for unknown adventures crossing swords with each other, just as they had before he'd become so quickly engaged.
"I know, I'm being so foolish and missish, Alan," she weakened. "Do but consider it, though, darling? Please, love?"
Her kisses stopped any further objections he could muster.
"Let's sleep on it," she urged sweetly, fluffing up his pillows and guiding him to recline again, so they could snuggle even closer to each other. "I do love you more than life itself, Alan. Goodnight, my dearest love. Goodnight, my darling."
Chapter 3
"We're making good progress, even so, sir," Lt. Arthur Ballard told him a few days later as they sat in Alan's now-furnished cabins, sharing their morning tea.
"Still four hands short, even with the West Indians, the debtor landsmen, and the volunteers," Alan sighed over the rim of his mug. "I s'pose it can't be helped. And damme if I'll make the Impress Service any richer than I already have. How are the Marine Society lads?"
"Quite pleasing, considering, sir," Ballard smiled. "They taught them knots, boat-handling, mast drills… they'll work out, sir," he said. "They're eager to please. More than one may say about the men from the debtors' prisons."
Lewrie was pleased with Ballard as well. Arthur Ballard was an inch shorter than he, just a few months younger, but had joined as a cabin servant at nine. He'd served as an Ordinary Seaman and a topman since his fourteenth year, had made midshipman at sixteen, so he was thoroughly seasoned. He'd been third officer in a frigate, rising to second officer before she paid off in late 1785.
He was a neat little fellow, though of a more serious bent than Alan was used to in officers so close to his own age. Ballard was regular and square; squarish head and regular features. His hair was wiry and wavy, set close to his head. His brows were a trifle heavy, thick and dark, shading intelligent brown eyes which regarded the world so soberly and adjudging. His nose was short, straight, and a bit broad. His face ended in a square chin, with a pronounced cleft.
But even at his young age, his mouth bore frown lines to either corner. Betraying his sobriety, though, evincing a passionate nature he wished to contain, were lips full and sensual in a broad mouth, the lower lip quite plump and slightly protruding.
Ballard dressed neatly, but in slightly worn uniforms, like an officer who actually lived on his pay and little else, pulling it off with his sobriety and great care for his person. Those uniforms draped a body neither very broad nor very slim, which gave him stolid solidity without true bulk. Yet within that body was a powerful set of lungs, a deep baritone voice which could carry forward without the use of a speaking trumpet, and a surprise to the unsuspecting person who might meet him and at first dismiss him.
Caged, Alan thought of his first lieutenant. He's like a beast in a cage. Not the pacing kind. He's the sort who sits and waits for his keeper to drop his caution someday before he flees.
"Sail drill in the forenoon," Alan announced at last. "Working parties after the midday meal. Livestock for the manger. And household goods for the Townsleys to be stowed."
"Their goods first, then, sir. No shite on their furniture."
"Aha, very good, Mister Ballard," Alan laughed. "Once loaded, one more day in port for last-minute items and then…" He sobered.
"Off for the Bahamas, sir," Ballard said with a trace of glee.
"All for now, Mister Ballard," Lewrie said, rising carefully so he did not smash his skull on the low overhead, which allowed him only three inches more than his full height, and only between the deck beams. "Oh, there's goods of mine as well to be stowed. Make them first in, last out. And I'll see the ship's carpenter, Mister Stock."
"Aye, aye, sir," Ballard said, mystified.
Alan put his hands in the small of his back and paced aft, ducking each threatening rosy-painted beam, to the sash windows for a view of the harbor as he pondered his most recent decision.
He had put this one off quite late; how to make room for both himself, the Townsleys and their servants, in his great-cabins, which would not make a decent set of rooms at the George.
Great, hah! He mused. Only to a mate in a dogbox below!
And make room for Caroline.
She hadn't nagged or harped upon it; yet she had kept the idea of going with him ever in his mind. Daily, she'd worn a little more of his resolve down. First with affection and passion, then with her clear-eyed discussions of Bahamian weather, living conditions, which winds blew all feverish miasmas to leeward to the real Fever Isles…
She'd marshaled support from other senior naval officers and wives staying at the George or other establishments nearby, never at all giving them the slightest hint that she was more than curious as to what her dear husband might face in that particular clime. Slowly, she'd changed his mind. As she had excited his tenderest affections for her that were only half-formed and ill conceived weeks before back in Anglesgreen. Had made herself dearer to him than he had ever hoped to imagine, until he could not picture himself without her for three whole years.
There were, too, his rising fears.
Being loved at all was, to put it mildly, just a tad outside his past experiences. And to be loved and adored so openly, so deeply and enthusiastically was such a blossoming wonder that he found himself waking in the middle of the nights to marvel at the stunning creature who shared his bed, and slept so trustingly and vulnerably in his arms. To watch her dress, brush her hair, enter the public rooms when he sat waiting for her, was a heart-lurching joy. And their converse over a weighty matter or a jest was an absolute delight.
What had he known as love before? Pretty much a spectral semblance-flattery and entendres which passed for wit and talk, followed by ogling, grappling, and frantic coupling on whatever fell to hand.
Never regard, never esteem, fellowship, never… some affection, of course, but nothing of a lasting nature.
On, off, and where the devil'd I drop me shoes, he scoffed!
Granted, it would be bad for his career. But had he not already blighted that by marrying at all so junior an officer? And, once this commission was ended in 1789, would he really shed a tear to spend his life ashore on half pay, no matter how much pride he had at last derived from his growing skill as a Sea Officer?
He could spend that life with Caroline, with enough money to buy land, to live off interest with Coutts Co., some investments in funds.
"Two weeks ago, the idea scared me witless, and now…" Lewrie puzzled, bemused by his eagerness to admit that he was married, and married most damnably well, too, to an absolute gem of a young woman!
Even if it had come about like an unintentional dismasting.
Yet…
Lewrie knew people; admittedly some thoroughly despicable ones. He knew the enthusiasms of "grass widows," and the sort of men who went baying like a pack of hounds in pursuit of abandoned and lonely women; God knows he 'd prospered on them. He could see how other officers and Portsmouth gentlemen regarded her so hungrily when he and Caroline were out and about the town already. Might she… even Caroline… succumb at last, missing lovemaking so much after a brief, glorious introduction, with him away for three years, might she…?
"Christ, I've rattled too many wives and widows," he muttered in gloom. "Ironic justice, that'd be. Maybe innocence and ignorance would be a blessing! God, surely not her!"
So when, the night preceding, Caroline had shyly confessed that she had not actively sought decent lodgings, and begged his forgiveness for scheming to go with him, he had been more than relieved of all his worries, and had surrendered to her will most ecstatically.
There was a rap on the cabin hatchway.
"Ship's carpenter Mister Stock, sir!" the lone seaman on guard called out, filling in for the Marine sentry Alacrity did not have.
"Enter!" Lewrie replied.
"Yew wanted t'see me, Captain, sir?" the youngish Mr. Stock said as he ducked his head to enter and removed his stocking cap.
"Aye, Mister Stock," Lewrie brightened. "I need your expertise to rearrange my cabins to accommodate our passengers. I'd thought you might be able to turn the starboard quarter-gallery into a second 'necessary closet,'/ give our passengers some canvas and deal partitions to provide privacy… oh, about here, say. And their maid needs sleeping space. The manservant will berth below in the stores room."
"Uhm…" Stock pondered. "Foldup pilot-berth here, sir, over the sideboard in the dinin' coach f r the maid. Double berth f r the married folks." Here Stock actually blushed! "We've partitions enough, sir. And yon double hanging-cot a'ready. Not a day's work, sir."
"Best build a double hanging-cot for them," Lewrie said. "Leave me equidistant room down the starboard side, and a passageway t'other side. I'm… ahumphh… partial to the existing double."
"Oh, aye, aye, sir," Stock agreed with a sad expression.
Chapter 4
"God, what a bloody pot-mess," Alan fumed on sailing day as he beheld his little command turn from a trig gun ketch to a bloody Ark, from a sane and rational construct to a barking shambles!
"Heave, and in sight!" Parham, one of his fourteen-year-old midshipmen, howled from up forward.
"Jib halyards, gaff halyards, peak halyards, Mister Ballard!" Alan snapped. The inexperienced landsmen and volunteers were being trampled by the ordinary and able seamen; the draft of midshipmen flitted about trying to appear useful, or to avoid a mob of hands who suddenly stampeded in their general direction. A yearling steer gave out a mournful bellow of annoyance, the pigs and sheep squealed or baaed in sudden terror, and ducks and geese in the fo'c's'le manger squawked and fluttered, so that Alacrity's foredecks were nigh awash in feathers. There was a deal of cursing from professionals, too.
The ship's boys served as nippermen, seizing the lighter line to the heavier anchor hawser, whilst inexperienced landsmen under the direction of the bosun's mate, a Portuguese named Odrado, tried to deal the stinking coils of salt-stiffened cable into manageable heaps, then down to the cable tiers to drape over the bitts to dry. And it was a truism that had Alacrity been a 1st Rate 100-gunned flagship, they would still not have had enough deck space for the nippers, the men on the cable, the hands heaving on the capstan, the sailhandlers or the sheetmen on the gangways ready to brace the jibs and gaff sails.
Blocks squealed, lignum vitae sheaves hummed, and gaffs cried as the sails were hoisted aloft.
"Payin' off t'larboard, no helm, sir," Neill said from the long tiller sweep with his fellow Burke standing by, ready to lend strength for when the wind gave enough way through the water to make the rudder function.
"Forrud!" Lewrie bawled. "Walk your jib sheets to larboard and haul away! Brace up the after course, there, lads! A luff, no more, foredeck!"
Alan spun to walk to larboard to peer over the side to see if there was even the slightest hint of a wake, and to gauge distances to other anchored ships. He almost collided with the Reverend Townsley and his wife who were gawking about like farts in a trance, cackling with amusement and treating the spectacle like a rare show.
"Your pardons," he said, not sounding much like he meant it as he brushed past them. He had advised Caroline to stay below and out of the way until he sent Cony for her, once the ship had gotten under way and things were a bit less disorganized.
"Brace on the capstan, well the cable!" Ballard called, tending to his chores. "Ready on the cat!"
Thank God for a first lieutenant, Lewrie thought. And thank God for a competent one. There, a wake, he exulted! He tossed a chip of scrap wood over and watched it bob astern, foot at a time.
"Bite t'the helm, sir," Neill cried.
"Larboard your helm, Mister Neill. Bring her up to weather on a soldier's wind for now. Forrud!" Alan called, once more stumbling over the Townsleys, who had moved to the forward left corner of the quarter-deck nettings. "Haul away on your larboard sheets!"
"Silly bugger!" Burke yelped as his way with the tiller sweep was impeded. Alan didn't have to turn around to see who it was that had gotten in the way.
"You might do better all the way aft by the taffrails, Reverend," Alan said, then shouted," 'Vast hauling! Luff enough! Now belay!"
Alacrity was free of the land, free of the bottom, and moving faster. The wind was from the west, with a touch of northing, giving them a clear shot down the western passage past the Isle of Wight, with enough strength to it to let them harden up to weather to keep off the coast to their lee, to go close-hauled if they had to without a tack. With luck and no traffic, they could get to sea in the Channel on one long board.
Lewrie heaved a slight sigh of relief. Comical as they might have looked to ships longer in commission and practice, Alacrity was on her way. He walked back up to starboard, along the narrow space inside the quarter-deck railings and the after capstan-head to starboard, the windward side, which was his by right as captain.
"Anchor's fished, catted and rung up, sir," Ballard told him, touching his hat with a finger. Those studious brown eyes held the slightest hint of glee. "Cable's below, hawse-bucklers fitted."