Dewey Lambdin - A King`s Commander

"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 leaped 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 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."