"Sir, I am not!" Lewrie shot back. "I'm as ready as you, when it comes to fighting this ship. I wished to ask if you wanted to overhaul in her best gun range, sir, or lask down to her on a bow-and-quarter-line. Allow me to suggest we lask, sir, then haul our wind, cross her stern and rake her… sir."
Call me any kind of fool, or sham, he thought; but you never call me a coward, you bastard. Now you go too bloody far!
As if sensing that he had gone too far, Braxton stifled a belch-like flood of outrage which rose in his chest, and turned away.
"Close-hauled, aye, aye, sir," Lewrie parroted, going amidships. "Bosun, hands to the braces! Hard-sheets! Lay her full-and-by!"
He could see the French frigate from the deck by then, long and sleek, like a cut-down line-of-battle ship, a touch of poop, a bit of forecastle, with her courses well up over the horizon. She swung from dead on their bows to the starboard side, just forward of abeam as Cockerel turned nor'east They would slowly overhaul, and head-reach her on this course, though a couple of miles out of gunnery range. Or their own. Alan expected her to haul her wind any moment. Surely the French lookouts could see the squadron's threatening tops'ls by then.
What a bloody wasted effort, Lewrie thought, his senses acute and calculating. He felt they should be hauling their wind, going for the Frog 5th Rate like a terrier, then nipping past her stern at close range. Give her a well-timed broadside, then dash on past to get at the merchantmen. Every ship in sight would share in the prize-money if one or all of them were taken. But Cockerel was the only frigate present-the rest were too far to the south, or far to the north of the squadron. Their misfortune, he smirked! Out of sight, out of the running. And that was what frigates were for.
Cockerel barreled on, surging and slashing at the uncooperative sea, slowly head-reaching until the French warship was just a bit aft of abeam. They could turn now, go tearing down on her, and still pass within half a cable of her stern, if she held her course and did not shorten sail. Lewrie began to pat his foot in anxiety.
"Excuse me, sir," he asked, going back to windward to join his captain. "Should we not allow her four-points-free, so we may fall to loo'rd, onto her, sir?"
"It is my decision, sir. Now be still!" Braxton hissed, wheeling on him. "The squadron, sir, will daunt them. She'll haul wind, she can't trade fire with the liners. Attend to your duties, sir."
"Sir, should she haul her wind, there's still the Indiamen-"
"I gave you an order, Mister Lewrie!"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"There, d'ye see, hah?" Braxton hooted with scorn suddenly. "She's falling off, at last. Turning to run! Now, Mister Lewrie… now you may haul our wind. Gybe, and steer sou'east."
"Aye, aye, sir," he replied evenly.
Damme, another puzzle, he carped! Should be due east, by God; go right for 'em! This'U put us the same distance from the Indiamen, or the frigate. What's Braxton playing at?
"Bosun, prepare to wear to the starboard tack."
"Wear, sir?" Bosun Fairclough gaped from the waist below him.
"Aye, wear, Mister Fairclough," Lewrie repeated testily. "Stations for wearing ship! Main clew garnets… buntlines, there!" He called through the speaking trumpet. "Spanker brails, weather main and lee braces! Manned?"
Hands darted to the pin rails and fife rails to undo belays on the running rigging, to tail on and prepare to take a strain once the lines were free of all but the last over-under hitch on belaying pins.
"Come on, lads! Smartly, now!" he urged them. "Manned, damnyer eyes? Smartly, I said!"
"Drive 'em, bosun! Smartly!" Braxton interrupted. "Lay on yer starters!"
The hands were readying for a wear, but it was damn' slow work-handsome work-church work. Petty officers and midshipmen lathered the slow and the clumsy (and there were more than a few on the gangways who were suddenly struck clumsy, Lewrie noted!) with rope starters. The hands flinched, like flicked steers, as the starters cracked on their coats. But that didn't make them very much faster.
"Oh, Christ…" Lewrie whispered, seeing the game for what it was at once. "Come on, lads! There's a fortune in prize-money downwind, so let's be at it! All manned? Haul taut! Ready about? Up mains'l and spanker! Clear away after bowlines! Brace in the after yards!" Lewrie turned to the senior quartermaster, and in a softer voice cautioned, "Handsomely does it. New heading, sou'east. Right! Up-helm, quartermaster!" "Aye, aye, sir."
"Overhaul weather lifts! Man the weather braces! Rise fore-tack and sheet!"
Cockerel fell off the wind, heeling harder to starboard, laying her shoulder to the sea, sloughing and snuffling foam as she lost way, and the sea gripped her more firmly. With the wind swinging rapidly onto her larboard quarter, growing finer and finer, Lewrie looked to the commissioning pendant aloft, then aft, judging the best moment to anticipate a stern wind. There!
"Clear away head bowlines, lay the head-yards square! Shift over jib fore-sheets! Come on, smartly, now! Move!" he fumed at the crew, whose efforts had turned so ox-slow, so hen-headed awkward.
"Jaysis, bloody…!" the senior helmsman yelped suddenly, and Lewrie turned his head to see the huge double wheel's spokes spinning like a St. Catherine's wheel at a fair. The steering-tackle ropes bound 'round the wheel drum were sizzling and smoking as they unwound themselves! "No helm, sir, no helm!"
"Avast, there!" he called, trying to head off disaster. "Back the foresheets, flat 'em in! Lee braces, bosun, main and…"
Too late. Cockerel was across the eye of the wind, with her after and main yardarms angled to take a stern wind, the main and fore-courses smothered so far, but not for long. She carried a lot of weather-helm, and was going to round up. For a moment, her yards would luff ineffectually, then, as she swung her bows windward, they'll fill again-pressing against the masts and spars, snapping her upper masts like carrots, if they weren't quick about it!
This ought to be damned int'restin', Lewrie thought, with what felt like a stupefied calmness; we're going to broach this barge!
"Lee braces, damn you! Smartly! Let go weather braces!"
With a tremendous whooshing sound, much like a gargantuan bird, the spanker filled and flew across the quarterdeck overhead, dragging the men of the starboard after-guard, tailing on what was now a weather sheet, in a tug of war they could never win.
They let go, tumbling in a heap. They let go\ The spanker was a slightly older design, a loose-footed trapezoidal sail suspended from a light wooden gaff, with the after-most, lowermost corner, the clew, the attachment point for the sheets. With a sharp crack, the gaff yard met the much heavier mizzenmast cro'jack yard, which directed the set of the mizzen tops'l and spread its foot. The spanker gaff shattered, of course, dangling half the upper length of the spanker like a duck with a broken wing, which let it swing further out-board to tangle in the larboard mizzen stays! Taken by surprise, the larboard sheetmen of the after-guard stood slack-jawed, and slack-fingered, and let the larboard sheet snake over the side, along with the weather sheet!
Both sheets, Lewrie goggled: both the bloody sheets?
"Heavy-haul on the braces, fore, main and cro'jack!" he howled as Cockerel wallowed, now heeling to larboard. They could save their masts, if the bows could be got down. They could steer downwind without the rudder, for a time, if the hands were quick.
But the deck was already inclined over twenty degrees of heel, and the men were laid back almost parallel to the gangways. It wasn't clumsy, semi-mutinous theatrics now. They began to slip and fall, to go sprawling on their backs, to slide to leeward into the bulwarks as their bare feet lost purchase; or were dragged towards the pin rails as they tried to hold on to the braces, by the enormous pressure of wind on the sails which exerted tons of pull on the lines.