"Well, Israel, what became of him?" Wilson said, containing his exasperation.
"Don't know. We was on deck in the middle watch. It was blowing like snot, a real howler in the Bay of Biscay. Sun came up and no one knew where he was. Just sort of disappeared. Course we have our ideas what happened to him."
"Bleeding McDuff's too clever to let himself get shoved overboard in a blow. Might get Longbottom that way."
"You just stop that kind of talk, Bloody Wilson. When you've been in the navy as long as I have, you'll see there's no good ever comes of it.
"I've been around too and seen some things. You think no one's ever been in the navy as long as you, Israel. You think you're father bloody Neptune."
"I ain't that old, Wilson. I could still kick your arse," said Barrett, but there was humor, not anger, in his voice.
Wilson pulled his knife from its sheath and cut off the tail end of the seizing. As he slipped the knife back in its sheath, his eyes scanned the harbor and stopped on a small boat pulling for the Icarus.
"Is that Dibdin, coming back?" he asked, directing Barrett's glance toward the boat. "Ain't that the master there, in the stern sheets?"
Barrett scrutinized the boat, then shook his head. "No. Dibdin took the jolly boat over with the purser. That ain't the jolly boat."
"That's too bad," Wilson said. Dibdin was the Icarus's sailing master. He was almost sixty, the oldest man on the brig, and with his long gray hair and lined face and quick smile, he oftentimes seemed more like a benevolent grandfather than a warrant officer. He was the best disciplinarian aboard because the men liked and respected him and wanted him to be pleased with their work. "That's too bad," Wilson said again. "Dibdin would have set that bastard McDuff straight." The two men continued to watch the boat, which grew closer with each stroke of its oars.
"I believe," said Barrett a moment later, "that's the new captain, coming out to take command of our Icarus." The two men watched the boat draw nearer and considered the significance of this moment."
"Think we should sing out?" asked Wilson. They looked down at the deck below. Smeaton continued to clean his guns, and McDuff and Longbottom were concentrating their efforts on one unfortunate soul on the starboard side. No one had noticed the approaching boat.
"Ain't our watch," observed Barrett, and the two men returned silently to their work, glancing up now and again to catch the developing action below.
The boat disappeared from their sight behind the great stern section of the Boyne, then soon emerged from under her counter and pulled straight for the Icarus, with only blue water intervening.
"Wonder how long it'll be before someone sees them," said Barrett. The two men looked down again. Smeaton was wholly engrossed in adjusting the flint in the cock of one of the pistols, and McDuff and Longbottom had moved towards the bow and were inspecting the flemished train tackles on the bow chasers. The boat was just two hundred yards, a cable length, away. In half a minute there would be no time left to properly man the sides to receive a commander.
A half a minute passed, then a full minute, and the boat had drawn to within fifty yards before the oarsmen stopped, expecting a hail. When none came, the bowman in the boat hailed the brig.
"Icarus!" he shouted, indicating that he had on board the brig's commanding officer. Three heads, Smeaton's, McDuff's, and Longbottom's, snapped up at that cry, and all three began shouting at once. Aloft Wilson and Barrett tried to suppress their laughter, giggling like children at the chaos below.
McDuff was the first to move, running over to the forward scuttle and shouting down below. "Side boys!" he roared. "Side boys, man the sides!" He pushed Longbottom towards the gangway, still shouting for the ship's boy below.
On the quarterdeck Smeaton had overturned the sailmaker's bench in an effort to grab his coat and hat. He was on hands and knees collecting up the bits of the one still-disassembled gun and shoving them into the mahogany case that normally housed them. McDuff run up to the entry port and stood beside Longbottom just as the boat bumped alongside. Smeaton abandoned his attempt to collect the components of his gun and ran across the quarterdeck and down to the gangway, pulling on his coat as he ran.
Pendexter had already set one foot on the boarding steps when the four ship's boy emerged from the forward scuttle. They were all quite young, the oldest of them twelve years of age, and none of them were overly bright. To make matters worse they had been cleaning the limber holes in the bilges, a job for which their size made them well suited. Each of the boys was covered with the filth associated with a ship's bilge; they were black from head to foot and stunk horribly.
Pendexter's head appeared above the level of the deck, and McDuff and Longbottom began the traditional salute with their bosun's calls. This, the first lieutenant struggling with his coat, and four confused boys, stinking and squinting in the sun, was the sight that greeted the captain as he stepped aboard his new command. Wilson bit down hard on his fist to contain his laughter.
"Welcome aboard, sir," he heard Smeaton say on the deck below.
"How very kind of you to notice, Lieutenant Smeaton," said the new commander. Wilson and Barrett peeked through the slats of the main top, watching the action below. The new officer ran his eye over the ship, fore and aft, then looked aloft. He looked directly at the main top, but long experience told Wilson and Barrett that save for their legs they could not be seen.
"Assemble the men aft," the new commander said.
"Bosun, assemble the men aft," shouted Smeaton to McDuff, who was standing two yards away. McDuff and Longbottom put calls to their lips and blew like demons, interspersing the notes with shouted orders and curses.
The crew of the Icarus gathered quickly, and soon all that were aboard, sixty-four men, almost the entire company, stood gathered in the waist or clinging to the lower shrouds, staring at the new commander. After years under Captain Bleakney's command they had a new master whose whims would dictate every aspect of their lives. Wilson looked over the men, with their expectant gazes, and then over toward the quarterdeck.
The new commander was leaning on the rail that lined the forward edge of the quarterdeck. Behind him, Smeaton had regained his coat and hat and stood in a stiff approximation of attention. Just as the new commander straightened to speak, Mr Midshipman Appleby burst like a startled pheasant from the scuttle in the break of the quarterdeck, shoving his hat on his head as he jumped up the steps and took his place beside Smeaton. Appleby was fourteen and had the maturity of a boy that age. The new commander shot him a look that spoke ill of the midshipman's future, then turned and addressed the men.
"Hello, men. I am Comdr James Pendexter." He paused. "I shall read myself in," he said, as if he were speaking to himself. He broke the seal on his orders and held them before him like a town crier. "From Adm. Samuel Graves, commander in chief, North American Squadron, to Lt. James Pendexter, R.N. Sir: You are hereby requested and required to proceed on board..."
Wilson had heard it before, many times. The same tradition-bound phrases that each captain read as he took command of the ship. The younger men might be awestruck, or afraid, but Wilson regarded it with the fatalism that any man develops when he spends his life at sea. Any man who does not first go mad.
Pendexter came to the end of his orders and folded them again. This was Pendexter's first command, Wilson knew that without being told. He relaxed his stance and waited for the speech that would follow.
"Ahem," Pendexter cleared his throat. "Men, I am Captain Pendexter, your new captain. I look forward to a successful cruise aboard the Icarus, and I know that together we can confound the king's enemies."