"Converted from a merchantman, she's fuller in her beam, too," Lt. Langlie pondered aloud, "so perhaps she sits more upright than we, just a few degrees stiffer, and sailing on a flatter bottom, with a pronounced shoulder… not as rounded as our chines, sir?"
"Mmhmm," Lewrie said again, and that only because he sensed the pregnant pause in their musings that required a response on his part.
"Merchantman or no, she's a swift sailer, I'll grant them," Mr. Winwood admitted with a hint of grumbling over any vessel that could rival a British-built, British-masted, and British-rigged ship, one set up to suit his experiences, and his captain's.
"Aye, swift," Lewrie mumbled. His arms tiring at last, he let the barrel of the strongest day-glass rest on the lee bulwarks of the quarterdeck for a bit. He peered about to windward, then aloft to the commissioning pendant's stiff-driven coach-whip, to the clouds on the horizon in search of dirty weather. There was none. The pendant was fully horizontal, its swallow-tail tip fluttering in concert with the lee edges of the jibs and courses. Even with the larboard battery run out and the starboard run in, Proteus was just a pinch slower than the Yankee man o' war, perhaps by as much as a quarter of a knot, and the cleanliness of her quickwork could not explain it. Americans simply built faster ships, Lewrie decided; just like the French did. Proteus had been based on a British interpretation of a captured French frigate whose lines had been taken off and copied, but… perhaps not copied closely enough.
"Puts me in mind of something from the Beatitudes, hey, Mister Winwood?" Lewrie asked the Sailing Master. "How does it go? That the 'first shall be last, and the last shall be first'? No matter if they out-foot us or point a degree or two more to windward, really. Proteus was made to dominate, not sprint… stay the course in all weathers, keep the seas, and then hammer the swifter when we finally corner 'em."
"Or simply chase 'em off, sir," Lt. Catterall said with a grunt of agreement. "Make 'em out-run us, in fear."
"Well said, sir," Lewrie told him with a brief grin, which drew growls of like sentiment from the rest as he turned back to leeward to raise his telescope once again, bracing the tube on the rat-lines of the mizen stays this time. He sobered quickly, though, dropping back into a brown study usually foreign to his nature, or his officers' experience with him. His statement had been his first utterance in the Past hour, other than a curt directive or two to improve their ship's handling. And, intent upon Sumter once more, he gave all indications of ignoring anything they said.
Lewrie was not studying Sumter in search of a weakness that he could use to keep Proteus ahead, though. In fact, the idea of sailing her hull-under was the last thing he wished to do, no matter how competitive he would usually act to maintain the honour of the Royal Navy, his ship, or his crew. He was not, in truth, peering so intently upon Sumter as he was keeping an eye on one of her midshipmen… his son.
His bastard son… who was at that moment perched aloft high in the Sumter?, main weather stays, just below her futtock shrouds, with a glass in his hands, too, which he lifted every now and again to caution his captain-uncle to Proteus'?, next race strategem. Two other boys of Sumter's cockpit were perched with him, all three hooting and cheering as the American armed ship gradually gained a few more yards on Proteus. They'd wave their tricorne hats and whoop and halloo, teeth-bared, and mouths open in perfect O's, like a pantomime's show against the thunder of the winds. They'd lean far out, with only a finger and a shoe heel gripping the rat-lines and stays, daring each other to greater follies of "tarry" derring-do, and each time Midshipman Desmond McGilliveray matched or bettered their feats, Lewrie sucked in his breath as if to shout and warn them to "belay all that." He could see a grizzled bosun atop the bulwarks at the base of the stays, fist shaking and mouth open to bawl caution at them, but with boys that age, what he shouted most-like went in one ear and out the other, and Lewrie still felt twinges of worry. A. father's worry.
Desmond lifted his glass, lowered it, then waved wide, beaming, looking directly into the lens of the powerful day-glass, as if he knew he was being watched so closely. He raised his glass again and Lewrie lowered his, knowing he was being eyed, and pantomimed a solid grip on the stays with both hands, and was much relieved to see the lad seem to obey, and loop an arm and a shin inside the rat-lines, round a rigid stay. Lewrie made a large gesture of swabbing a coat sleeve over a "worried" brow. "Don't do that!" he silently mouthed over the water.
"Boat ahoy!" Midshipman Larkin had challenged two days following that drunken supper, and the youthful voice shouting in reply had drawn Lewrie to the deck. The turn-out for a foreign midshipman was as thin as charity, so it was Larkin who led Mr. Midshipman McGilliveray to the quarterdeck from the entry-port with his sealed letter for Proteus's captain… who met them personally.
"Captain McGilliveray's sincerest respects to you, sir, and I'm charged to deliver to you this message, Captain Lewrie, sir," the lad had crisply stated, doffing his hat and making a courtly "leg" worthy of an English "mid" reporting to an Admiral-though no English "mid" would ever peer so intently or so openly. And perhaps only a famous man such as Jervis or Nelson would elicit such an awe-struck expression as Midshipman McGilliveray displayed.
"Thank you, Mister McGilliveray," Lewrie had replied, properly gruff and stoical, his hand out for the letter.
"I was instructed to wait upon your written reply, sir, and…" McGilliveray said, stumbling for the first time. He had shown none of the usual youthful curiosity one might expect of a fellow boarding one of King George's ships for the first time, not even craning his head about to see how other navies did things, rigged things, but kept his gaze wide-eyed upon Lewrie far more intently than any courtly book of gentlemanly behaviour could advise when dealing with one's superiors, or elders.
"Oi'll see ta him, sor, whilst… I shall, rather…?" Larkin offered, eyes almost crossed in concentration on "proper" speech.
"No, that won't be necessary, Mister Larkin, but thankee. I'll have Mister McGilliveray below to my quarters," Lewrie decided, which unexpected offer of hospitality confused one, but delighted the other.
"Aspinall, this is Mister McGilliveray, off the United States' Armed Ship Thomas Sumter," Lewrie told his cabin-steward as he seated himself behind his desk. "Mister McGilliveray, my man Aspinall, and a better 'aid and comfort' you'll rarely see. Keeps me minding my p's and q's, does Aspinall. Sit, lad, sit."
"Howdje do, sir," Aspinall had cheerfully said, knuckling his forehead.
"Draw us each a ginger beer, would you, Aspinall?" Lewrie bade as he tore open the wax seal of the letter, still faintly soft, still warm to the touch.
"Thank you kindly, sir," McGilliveray said, seated in an upholstered chair before the desk, hat in his lap, and almost squirming with some inner fretfulness, despite the half-smile he evinced. His curiosity did extend to looking about the great-cabins, finally. "Hello!"
Lewrie looked up to see Toulon, who had leaped atop the desk in curiosity of his own, perching himself on the very edge of the desk to crane his neck forward and bob, to study the newcomer.
"That's Toulon," Lewrie had told him. "Where I got him in '93 when he was a kitten. He was just about as huge as disaster, so that's how he got his name. He's almost out-grown his clumsiness, but he can still surprise you."