"We're making a better way, sir," Lt. Langlie reported, with a sketchy salute tossed up to the brim of his cocked hat. "The coast is completely under the horizon, and Mister Winwood thinks we are nearly twenty miles to the good, East'rd, and about the same to seaward."
"Came up early, did you?" Lewrie asked.
"A bit fuggy, below, sir," Langlie allowed with a wry grin. "I was in need of fresh air, and…"
Eight bells chimed slowly, in pairs, from the foc'sle belfry as a ship's boy turned the watch glass: four in the afternoon, and an end to the Day Watch, and the beginning of the First Dog.
"Carry on, Mister Langlie," Lewrie bade, and his First Officer went through the ritual of relieving Lt. Adair and his watchstanders. The men of the larboard division shuffled up to take the place of the hands in the starboard division, the men going off watch lingering to savour fresh air, themselves.
"Very well, sir, I have the watch," Langlie intoned, saluting Adair with a doff of his hat. "All hands!" he bellowed not a moment later. "Mister Pendarves, Mister Towpenny, mast captains! Trice up and lay aloft to make sail to the second reefs!"
Lewrie paced up to the larboard, windward, quarterdeck bulwarks to watch things done, as spry topmen and older yard captains climbed the ratlines in the weather shrouds; out to the mast-tops' edges and for a time upside down on the futtock shrouds before some scampered up higher to the tops'l yards, whilst others scooted out the course yards, carefully balanced on the foot-ropes with their chests pressed to the canvas-bound main and foremast course yards.
Lewrie thought to remind Langlie to overhaul the spiral set of the yards once more sail had been made, but forebore; that would just be "gilding the lily," an unwanted intrusion on a competent officer's performance. Good and trustworthy lieutenants could almost make his job irrelevant, at times, which suited Lewrie's well-hidden lazy nature right down to his toes.
"Sails, ho!" the mainmast lookout cried, pointing up to larboard. "Deck, there! Ships in comp'ny… nine, ten, or more! Three points off th' larboard bows, an' hull-up!" he sang out as the clutch of ships appeared from the misty rains.
"Glass, please," Lewrie called over his shoulder, and thought of going aloft as high as the futtock shrouds, but decided not to; it was already too crowded aloft, and he'd just be in the topmen's way. Midshipman Larkin fetched him a day-glass, and he had himself a good and long look at them.
"Deck, there!" the lookout far aloft wailed. "Eight Indiamen, a frigate, two sloops o' war, and a Third Rate in the van!"
"Our 'John Company' trade, sir?" Lt. Langlie took time from his duties to enquire, with excitement in his voice.
"Unless they're running more than one a month, aye, sir," Lewrie told him. "And, on the leading seventy-four, I do b'lieve I can make out a flag with yellow-red-yellow stripes… East India convoy in the code book they gave us. Mister Larkin! ' East India ' flag to the foremast, the Union flag to the mainmast halliards, where they can see it, and know we're not a Frenchman. And hoist our number to the peak of the mizen signal halliards."
He counted off the massive East Indiamen, admiring their glossy and rich hulls and fresh canvas, so big and impressive that they could be mistaken for 74-gunned ships of the Third Rate, though the 74-gunner leading that "elephants' parade" was the genuine article, and could be discerned as such after close inspection, for her own sails were worn, mildewed, and parchment tan by comparison, and her hull did not glisten as the others did; too much wear, salt water, and not enough linseed oil or tar and paint, and that not refurbished lately. By comparison, his frigate, relatively fresh from the Halifax yard, gleamed like a bright, new-minted penny.
A flurry of flag signals from the lead 74 created an answering blizzard of bunting from the frigate on the forward Southern quarter of the convoy, was repeated by the trailing sloop of war to seaward of the trade's stern quarter, and answered by the other Third Rate that brought up the rear, which, after a long moment, made a new hoist that the lead frigate repeated as she wore a bit off her "soldier's wind" and started to come down nearer Proteus.
"Can't read 'em, sor… sir, sorry," Midshipman Larkin said as he stood atop the bulwarks by the mizen shrouds, a telescope to his own eye. "They're streamin' right at us, but I think she's askin' just who we are, I do! 'Tis in the private signals for this month… I think."
"Must believe we're a French fraud," Lewrie agreed. "Mine arse on a bandbox, we've our Number aloft, already. Can you read his?"
"Er, aye, sor… sir," Larkin, the Bog-Irish by-blow, replied, drifting back into brogue as he always did when flustered. "She's ah, HMS Stag.. . Fifth Rate, thirty-eight-gunner, Captain John Philpott," Larkin stammered, fumbling through his bundle of lists and almost losing both his telescope overside and his grip on the shrouds.
"Last Stag would know, we're still in the Caribbean, sir," Lt. Langlie commented by Lewrie's side. "A good ruse for a French raider."
"Aye, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said. "Mister Larkin, hoist that we are ordered to join the escort. Perhaps the latest signals book'll convince them. 'Tis only three weeks old, after all."
"Aye aye, sir."
A long minute or two passed as Larkin and his "bunting tossers" made their hoist, which was acknowledged by Stag; then, they had more minutes to wait 'til Stag made a reply, for she had to pass the message back to the repeating sloop of war, which passed it to the trailing 74-gunner, which was obviously the flagship. More time was taken for the flagship to hoist a new order, which had to come down the chain to the sloop, to the frigate, to Proteus.
And, all during that time, the convoy was plodding along under reduced plain sail, bound roughly West, Sou'west, while Proteus still was on larboard tack, heading about Sou'east by East and drawing apart slowly.
"Wear her about to West, Sou'west, Mister Langlie," Lewrie told his First Officer. "Nothing more convincing than showing leery people your arse. Like a dog rollin' over on his back."
"Aye, sir. All hands! Stations to wear, ready…!"
"What did they ask that time, Mister Larkin?" Lewrie asked.
"Order, sir. 'Come Under My Lee,' the flag said t'do," Larkin puzzled out at last. "HMS Grafton, seventy-four. Captain Sir Tobias… Trey… Gwees? Triggers?"
"Truh-Gewz," Lewrie corrected him. "An old captain of mine, me lad. Damme, they didn't do him too proud, did they? Grafton was commissioned in 1771. Why she hasn't been hulked… or rotted apart…"
"Ready to wear, sir," Langlie reported.
"Very well, Mister Langlie. Once about, reduce sail so we may fall astern of Grafton yonder, then come up under her lee. With winds full astern, I s'pose he means come alongside her inshore beam. Might be, either'd do," Lewrie said with a shrug. "Mister Larkin, alert yon suspicious frigate that we're wearing about. Try not to make it look like an order to Captain Wilkinson, hmm?"
"Aye aye, sor," Larkin sheepishly replied.
"Wear about, then, Mister Langlie."
"Aye aye, sir."
Perhaps half an hour later, HMS Proteus had fallen far enough towards the tail-end of the trade to make a bit more sail so she could angle in towards HMS Grafton. When she was close enough, it was an easy matter to duck under her high, old-fashioned stern and make a brief dash before the sails were reduced once more, so that she ended up off the 74-gun ship's starboard quarter, about half a cable inshore of her.