Josiah felt all this strongly. To think strategically was as much part of his ordinary processes as breathing was; but he was not a man of words — it was not easy for him to put these ideas into phrases which could be readily understood, and he knew it, although he was not conscious of the other disadvantage under which he labored: that of being a man of wildcat, fighting blood forced to play a cautious part. But at the same time some explanation must be made to Jonathan, so that the boy would appreciate what was going on. He fell back on a more homely argument.
"That fellow there," he said, with his thumb repeating Jonathan's gesture, "wants us to fight him. Nothing would please him better than to see us heave to and wait for him to come up. Look how he's cracking on to overtake us. D'ye see any sense in doing what your enemy wants you to do?"
"P'raps not," said Jonathan.
Josiah was glad to get even this grudging agreement, for Jonathan's good opinion meant much to him. He had grown fond of this youngest brother whom he had never known before. His first action on his promotion to captain and appointment to the Delaware had been to use his one bit of patronage in the boy's favor and nominate him as his clerk; to his mind it was a way of repaying Providence for Uncle Josiah's kindnesses to himself; and buying clothes for this brother and introducing him to naval life had somehow endeared the boy to Peabody.
The Delaware was leaping and lurching under his feet, and he could hear Crane beside the wheel shouting instructions through the grating to the men at the relieving tackles. He looked up at the straining rigging, but the Navy Yard at Brooklyn had done its work well. He looked aft. It was not on rare occasions now, but every time that the Delaware heaved her stern over a wave, that he could see that ominous little square of white on the horizon. The twodecker was still overtaking them, despite the aid of the mizzen topsail and the shaken-out reefs. He could set no more canvas — the Delaware would not bear another stitch without driving bodily under. He thought about knocking out the wedges in the steps of the masts to give the masts more play; sluggish sailers often benefited by that, but the Delaware would not. During the four weeks she was lying in the East River he had seen to it personally that everything had been done to give her every inch of speed. She was trimmed exactly right, he knew.
But she was low in the water. He had crammed her with all the stores she would hold, before setting out,in his determination to make her as independent as possible. There were six-months stores on board. There were fifty tons of shot and twenty of powder. There were fifteen tons of water — he could relieve the Delaware of that fifteen tons in a few minutes by merely starting the hogsheads and setting the hands to work at the pumps. On the spar deck there were eighteen carronades weighing a ton and a half each, and it would not be difficult with tackles to heave them over the side. But powder and shot, guns and drinking water, were what gave the Delaware her usefulness in war. Without them he would be forced into port as surely as if he had been crippled in action.
"Mr. Hubbard!"
"Sir!"
"Pig the tackles. I want the longboat and cutter hove overside."
"Aye aye, sir."
Longboat and cutter were on chocks amidships. Whips had to be rove at the fore and main yardarms at either side, and Peabody watched four hands running out along the yards to do so, bending to their work perched fifty feet up above the tormented sea. If any man of them lost his hold, that man was dead as surely as if he had been shot — the Delaware would not stop to pick him up even if he survived the fall into the icy sea. But the lines were passed without accident, and fifty men tailed onto them under the direction of Mr. Rodgers the boatswain. Tackles and boats were his particular province; even when boats were being thrown away it was his duty to attend to the matter at the first lieutenant's orders. At the last moment there was a hitch — young Midshipman Wallingford came running aft to his captain.
"What about the hogs, sir?" he asked breathlessly. "And the chickens — are they to go overside too?"
"I'll give Mr. Rodgers one minute to get them out," said Peabody, harshly.
Hogs and chickens lived in the longboat and cutter; they were the only source of fresh meat on board, and important in consequence. Peabody was annoyed with himself for having forgotten about them, with having let his head get full of advanced warlike ideas to the exclusion of matters like hogs and chickens. He watched the livestock being herded aft to where a temporary pen was hurriedly designed among the spare spars. The longboat rose, cradled in its slings, and hung half a dozen feet above the deck. Then the men began to heave in on the leeside tackles and let go on the weather side, and the longboat slowly swung towards the leeside bulwarks. The Delaware felt the very considerable transference of weight, listing in a manner which was a trifle dangerous in that gale. But the business was ticklish enough, for she still rolled and plunged, and the vast deadweight of the longboat swung about madly as far as the four suspensory ropes allowed. Peabody walked slowly forward; he had no intention of interfering with Rodgers' execution of his task — Rodgers' technical knowledge probably matched his own — but instinct drew him there.
Rodgers looked warily to windward and studied the send of the sea, watching for his moment.
"Heave!" he shouted to the leeside men.
The longboat went out with a run, hanging from the lee yardarms exclusively while the Delaware listed more sharply still.
"Let go!" shouted Rodgers to the men at the lee main-yardarm tackles. When they were let go the boat would hang vertically down in the slings until she slid down out of them, and the men obeyed promptly enough. But the line ran only for a second in the sheaves and then jammed. The longboat hung at too small an angle to slide out of the slings and remained dangling from the yardarms, imperiling the very life of the ship.
"God damn the thing to hell!" said Rodgers.
A couple of hands sprang into the rigging with the idea of getting out to the block and clearing it.
"Let go, there, you men!" roared Peabody suddenly, at the men holding the lee fore-yardarm line. With a start of surprise they did so. The other end of the boat fell; she tipped up more and more, and then fell from the slings into the sea while the Delaware righted herself. Rodgers had been caught off his guard by the jammed line. He had been intending all along to drop the longboat stern-first and did not possess the flexibility of mind to reverse his plans instantly when the hitch came.
"Let's see that line!" he said irritably. "Who made this long splice? God damn it, any soldier could make a better long splice than this. I'll find out if it takes me a month o' Sundays."
"Get the cutter overside, Mr. Rodgers," interrupted Peabody.
He walked aft again; the incident had made little impression on him save to confirm to him his already formed estimate of Rodgers' capacity. The gig which had been nested in the cutter was swayed out and deposited on the chocks of the longboat, and the cutter next rose in its slings from the Delaware's deck, traversed slowly across to leeward, and then fell into the sea. Peabody watched it as it went astern, broken-backed and full of water, white among the gray of the waves, a depressing sight, and he turned back again to study the Delaware's behavior now that she was relieved of six tons of deadweight. Peabody was not of the type to feel easy optimism. He approached the problem ready to see no appreciable difference, and yet, despite this discounting, he was forced to admit that the Delaware was moving a tiny bit more easily — the tiniest, tiniest bit. In that rough water it would give the Delaware no added speed, but it was the most he could do to ease her in her labors and still retain her efficiency. The deadweight had been taken from the point where it had most effect on the ship's behavior — from the upper deck, and forward. He glanced astern and saw the fateful topsail on the horizon again.