Dewey Lambdin: THE GUN KETCH

"Sail ho!" the lookout screamed at last from the cross-trees. "Where away?" Commander Rodgers shouted back, wakened from his nap in Alan's sybaritic canvas sling chair.

"Two points off the larboard bows! A little inshore! Nought but tops'ls an' royals!"

"What's to loo'rd?" Lewrie asked, rubbing sleep from his own eyes, his skin tingling from too long in the sun in a restless nod.

"Almost due west by now, sir, 'tis Savannah," Fellows reported. "Nor'west is Charleston. Little over an hundred mile to either."

"And we're to windward of her, whoever she is," Lewrie crowed, fully awake. "She carries on north, she'll ram herself into the sand shoals off Wilmington, but she'll not weather the Outer Banks, not if I have a say in it! Mister Ballard, you have the deck, I'm going to spy out our little mystery ship."

He slung a telescope over his shoulder, leapt for the shrouds and went aloft, aching to see for himself.

"There she be, sir," the lookout said, once he' d found a perch on the narrow slats of the cross-trees.

"Look like a lugger to you?" Alan demanded, extending the tube of his glass.

"Hard t'say from 'ere, sir. Jus' tops'ls, so far," the lookout opined. "Funny angle, though, Cap'n, sir. Like Levanter lateens, or some'n ain't got 'er lift-lines set proper to 'er royals."

Alacrity lifted on a swell as Lewrie laid the spyglass level on the tiny tan imperfections that marred the even horizon. Miles off, the other ship was lifted upwards as well for a long breath or two, but dropped almost from view as Alacrity settled in a deep trough.

"I'd almost…" he sighed, lowering the heavy tube for awhile. He stood, precariously, on the cross-tree braces, wrapping one arm to the upper mast, inside taut halyards and lift-lines. Braced securely, he raised the telescope again. The distant sails swam into focus.

"Three-masted," he grunted.

"Aye, like lateeners, or… Woooo" he whooped, loud enough to startle people on the decks below. "They're gaff top-mast stays'ls. She's a three-masted lugger!"

A lugger would mount small, oddly shaped sails between the tip of the upper masts and the gaff boom at the top of her mainsails, and that was what he had seen! It was a lugger, sure! But whose?

"Keep a sharp eye on her," he told his lookout. "Sing out, if she alters course or changes the slightest bit."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

Lewrie took a stay to the deck, tar and slush on his clothing be-damned, to join the curious on the quarter-deck.

"It's a lugger. Mister Neill, steer us a point free larboard. We'll close her, slow. I make her twelve miles off now. By the end of the first dog watch, we'll have her at less than ten miles, so we may figure out if she's the Car … if she's Finney's."

"If she wishes to keep to the Gulf Stream, she's going to have to harden up and go closer-hauled, sir," Fellows suggested. "Allow me to suggest we stand on north, sir, we'll close her even so. Another two hours, and we'll lose the current ourselves inshore."

"And so will she, if she can't get to windward of us," Alan said. "And she won't," he vowed.

"Chase is goin' close-hauled, sir!" the lookout hallooed.

"Belay, Mister Neill. Mister Ballard, lay us hard on the wind."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Whatever she was, whoever the lugger belonged to, she was trying to flee, to get up to windward, and keep the advantage of the current of the Gulf Stream to weather Cape Hatteras and the Outer Banks. One more confirming sign that it most likely was Jack Finney, awakened to the fact of a pursuit.

No longer a mystery, Lewrie thought with satisfaction; now she was a chase!

The afternoon wore on, with both vessels clawing up to windward. Alacrity was already the possessor of the wind gauge. Weatherly as a lugger was, she could attain perhaps a full point closer to the winds, but Alacrity was just the slightest bit faster. Making leeway as she did, she still head-reached her chase, and closed the range to eleven miles, to ten, to nine, bringing the lugger almost hull-up, as Alacrity sailed the shorter closing angle.

"We're gaining on her, by Christ!" Rodgers chortled with glee.

"The Caroline was New Providence-built, sir," Lieutenant Ballard told him coolly, blushing a bit as he pronounced her name."As flat-ran and shoal-draught as Alacrity. Perhaps more so. But she makes just as much leeway as we do, with so little below the waterline for the sea to bite on. Long as we hold the weather gauge…"

"And damme if we might just be half a knot faster," Lewrie added with joy. "A full knot off the wind in the Gulf Stream. She'll be within range of random shot in six hours."

"He'll try to slip away once it's dark," Rodgers snorted. "No lights showin', they could tack an' pass astern."

"We've moon enough to see that, sir," Lewrie countered. "And, to expect to beat against the Gulf Stream? No."

"Chase is 'aulin' 'er wind, there!" the lookout interrupted., "Turnin' west an' runnin' free, d'ye hear, there!"

"By God, here's another angle to cut short!" Lewrie laughed as he grabbed Ballard by the arm. "Arthur, haul our wind, now! We might gain a mile on him if we're quick enough! Come about to west-nor'west!"

"Aye, aye, sir. Mister Harkin, all hands! Ready to come about!" Rodgers and Lewrie got out of Ballard's way, taking a corner of the quarter-deck free of tumult to inspect their chase with telescopes.

"Runnin' for Charleston, it appears, into neutral waters," Com-. mander Rodgers decided. "Damn him."

"He has too much sail aloft," Lewrie stated. "Inshore, he'D pick up a land breeze later today. See how she heels, sir? That's too much heel for a flat-run hull, even off the wind as she is now. She's sailing on her shoulder, not her bottom. If he doesn't reef in those lateener topmast stays'ls, she's working too hard, bows-down."

"By God, he's no real sailor, is he, Lewrie?" Rodgers hooted. "Had you some champagne, I'd pop it now, to celebrate. We'll have him, by God, we'll have the bugger yet!"

"Many a slip, 'twixt the cup and the Up, sir," Lewrie smiled. "Aye, he may not be as tarry as he boasted. But he's running us one merry little chase. And, when it comes to it, he'll fight like some cornered rat. Now, to keep him out of American jurisdiction, we have to overtake him, take the lee position to block him."

"We'll have him," Rodgers insisted stubbornly. "We'll have him."

By sunset, Alacrity left the Gulf Stream, inshore into waters that chopped instead of rolled. Caroline was still an hour ahead at the least, out of the Stream first, and making a more direct course, with less leeway, even as the land breeze found her. Try as they might to counter the last of the powerful current, Alacrity ended up dead astern of the chase, beating against the land breeze, lumping and booming against the chop and the short rollers of the returning scend of waves breaking over the horizon against the Carolina coast.

"She still makes too much heel," Lewrie decided after pondering the dark spectre in his telescope. "So do we," he added, comparing the angle of his decks against the chase's.

"Nighttime land breezes will be gentler, sir, not as strong," Ballard speculated. "That'll ease her."

"Topmen of the watch aloft, Mister Ballard. We'll take first reef in the fore-tops'l," Lewrie ordered.

"Are ya daft, Lewrie?" Rodgers hissed from the gloom of sunset by his elbow. "I thought ya wanted t'catch the bastard?"

"I do, sir. But the fore-tops'l depresses the bows, and heels us too much, even going close-hauled as we are. Letting the fore-and-aft sails do the work lets us pinch up to windward half a point."

"You are captain, sir, but I'm your superior," Rodgers grunted.