"Yes, no doubt you're right, John. No doubt practice makes the difference," said Pendexter, though he did not sound mollified. Wilson had never had two officers on duty addressing one another by their first names. That this was the captain and first officer made it odder still.
"The practice is essential," Smeaton continued. "You know that I've been called out, or been forced to call others out, over half a dozen times in the five past years. Were I not a practiced shot, I should be dead long ago."
"Quite so. Still..." began Pendexter, but Dibdin was back on the quarterdeck. He approached the officers and saluted.
"Beg your pardon, sir, but I imagine you've noticed the glass this past hour?"
"Uh, yes, certainly, Mr Dibdin," Pendexter said. "And, uh, what do you make of it?"
"Well, it's fallen fast, sir, and still falling," Dibdin replied, as if no more needed saying.
"Yes, well..." Pendexter said, glancing around. It appeared to Wilson that Pendexter was not quite certain what to make of Dibdin's report, but he did not see how that could be possible.
"It's going to blow like a bastard, sir," Dibdin supplied.
"Oh. We had best get the topgallant gear off her, what?" Pendexter said brightly.
"I think," said Dibdin, "that would be a fine idea."
.
Chapter 11.
William B. Adams
IT WAS MUCH COLDER NOW, and the sun had not made more than a token appearance in several days. This was a notable change from the weather that the William B. Adams had seen in the three days since they had left Block Island over the horizon. During that time the skies had been crystalline blue, the wind cold out of the northwest, a steady fifteen knots of wind that pushed the Adams 130 miles during each twenty-four hours. The see came in long rollers, but only on those occasions when the Adams's blunt bow slammed headlong into a wave, and a veil of spray was flung aft along the deck, did it intrude upon the ship.
But that was past, and Isaac Biddlecomb did not need to look at the barometer to know that it was steady falling. The sky was a uniform dark gray with the sea reflected and mimicked that color. The long rollers were topped with a short, steep chop, and the ship regularly butted these waves, resulting in an almost constant spray raining down on the deck and soaking men and gear. The wind had hauled around to the southeast and built steadily, and Biddlecomb knew that it would continue to do so.
Rumstick and Biddlecomb paused in the main top and ran their eyes over the topsail that they and the combined watches had just reefed. "I fail to see why Fry waited until now to tuck the deep reef," Biddlecomb said. "If we'd done it two hours ago, it would have taken fifteen minutes, not an hour and a half."
"Fry's afraid to crack on sail, but once it's set, he's afraid to take it in. He ain't any kind of seaman."
"So why does Peabody ship him as mate?"
"He's family, I understand. Nephew or something. But I'll warrant Peabody's about had it with him."
"I would imagine."
"Come," said Rumstick, grabbing a topmast shroud and swinging outboard of the main top, his foot searching for the futtock shrouds, " let's lay to deck and see what's in store for us. Striking topgallant gear, if I don't miss my guess."
Rumstick did not miss his guess, and no sooner had the two men set foot on deck than Peabody called Rumstick aft and ordered him to roust out all hands and get the topgallant masts and yards down. Biddlecomb was not surprised, as the wind was still building, and there was no telling how hard it would blow. He personally would have waited another watch at least, but of course Peabody knew his ship best.
Twenty minutes later, John Haliburton, the acerbic ship's carpenter, stood in the waist, his arms folded, his face twisted in a triumphant gloat. "You won't find the damn top rope neither, on account of that thieving Rumstick went and sold it!" he announced to the men rummaging around the bosun's stores and the forepeak for the three-hundred-foot coil of rope used to send the topgallant masts down to the deck.
Haliburton was not a man who kept his opinions bottled up, whether they concerned Fry's upper lack of seamanship or Rumstick's treason against the king, to whom Haliburton remained obstinately loyal. He seemed to have no regard for what he said or whom he offended. Biddlecomb was not surprised to see that a feud between the bosun and the carpenter led to a certain amount of inefficiency in the ship's operations.
The topgallant yards had been struck without the top rope, thanks to Rumstick's system of using the halyards for striking the light spars. Biddlecomb had attended to the main topgallant yard, tossing around one hundred feet above the deck, his hands numbed to the point of being useless, while below him, and just audible over the wind, he could hear Rumstick and Haliburton argue over the length of the handspikes, the greasing of the windlass, the right of the British to tax Americans, and the lead of the yard rope.
An hour later Biddlecomb returned to the deck, chilled throughout, to be greeted by the carpenter's triumphant accusation.
"I did not steal the top rope, you infernal, whoreson British tool, so shut your bloody gob," said Rumstick, who was becoming increasingly irritated. "I'm going to stick—"
"The top rope is still in the tiller flat," Biddlecomb said, sick of the bickering and clasping his hands under his arms as he waited for the feeling to return. "It was never shifted back to the forepeak. Did either of you idiots look in the tiller flat before you began to hurl accusations?"
Forty-five minutes later, the top rope roused up and sent aloft, the snatch blocks located and moused in place, the windlass greased to Rumstick's satisfaction, and the virtue of the mother of every man who had joined the fray called into question.
"Sweet Jesus, Rumstick, are you still working on that fore topgallant mast?" asked Peabody, arriving on deck from the chart room.
"Aye, sir. And it's a crime. It's the carpenter, sir." Rumstick kept his voice low so that it was just barely audible to every man on deck. "I try to see he does his duty, I help him when I can, but he, well..." Rumstick made a gesture that suggested drinking.
"Why you lying, whore's son?" protested Haliburton, but Rumstick raised his hand to silence him.
"Mr Haliburton, please. We are ready to send this topgallant mast down and your constant arguing is holding us up."
Haliburton spluttered and turned red, the waiting seamen grinned, and Peabody stamped his foot in frustration.
"Damn you, Rumstick, you don't fool me!" Peabody yelled. I see what's going on here! The two of you work together, and damn your politics, and get that mast on deck now, or I'll send you both packing forward! Do you understand?"
Rumstick and Haliburton nodded and Peabody stamped aft to the quarterdeck, leaving the seamen grinning at each other.
"Fine, let's get to it," said Rumstick, casting around for friends of Haliburton's to send aloft in the frigid, howling wind. "Coggins, Pope, lay aloft!" he shouted, and the two crestfallen men climbed onto the shrouds and struggled upward.
It was another hour before the fore and main topgallant masts lay on the deck, securely lashed to fore and main fife rails. The rain had started even as Coggins and Pope were climbing aloft, a freezing, blinding rain, driven horizontal by the wind and mixing with the spray to form a continuous shower of icy, brakish water that soaked the men. As Biddlecomb toiled with the others in the growing gloom, he tried not to think of his oilskins, hanging dry and warm in the forecastle, which he did not have a moment to fetch.