The wind was still howling round his ears — it certainly ought to moderate soon, now that the glass had begun to move upward. But there was no sign of it at present. On the contrary — or was he mistaken? — those topmasts were whipping badly. He was conscious as he stood that the wind had increased, and he felt in his bones that it was going to increase further. It was natural in a storm like this — he had seen the phenomenon a hundred times. The dying flurries of a storm were often more intense than anything that had preceded them. He felt a sudden wave of bitterness surge up within him. If he had to shorten sail the twodecker would come romping up to him, and the voyage of the Delaware would come to an end. This was his first command, and he had been at sea less than twenty-four hours. The flurry of the gale might last no more than half an hour, and then the wind might die away to a gentle breeze, but that half hour would be enough to do his business for him. God . . . He was on the point of stupid blasphemy when he mastered himself sternly.
A big gray wave hit the Delaware a shuddering blow, and she lurched uncertainly as the water creamed over the spar deck. The high-pitched note of the wind in the rigging screamed a warning to him, and Hubbard was looking round at him anxiously for orders.
"Get the mizzen tops in, Mr. Hubbard," said Peabody, "and the jib."
A dismasted ship would be of less use than a ship still under control, even if a twodecker were overhauling her. The hands raced aloft, shuffling along the footropes of the mizzen-topsail yard, and bending forward over the yard to wrestle with the obstinate canvas. The wind shrieked down at them all the harder — it was in the very nick of time that they had shortened sail, and there was a grim satisfaction in that. The men poured down the shrouds again, and one of them after he had leaped to the deck paused for a moment to examine his right forefinger. The nail had been torn almost completely off, and was hanging by a shred from the bloody finger-tip — some sudden jerk of the mad canvas aloft had done that for him. He took the dangling nail between his teeth and jerked it off, spat out the nail and shook the blood from his hand, and then ran forward after his fellows without a tremor. The crew was tough enough, thought Peabody grimly.
Murray was beside him, descended from his chilly post aloft.
"She's coming down on us fast, sir," he said. He had a notable tendency to gesticulate with his hands when he spoke.
Hubbard was at his captain's other shoulder now, tall and saturnine, a master of his profession, and yet in this unhappy moment feeling the need for company and conversation.
"Those damned twodeckers," he said. "They need a gale of wind to move 'em, and that one has it. Standing rigging like chain cable, sir, and canvas as thick as this pea jacket of mine."
The two of them looked sidelong at their captain, in need of reassurance. Hubbard was older than Peabody, Murray hardly younger, and yet he felt paternal towards them.
"D'you think he went through Plum Gut, sir?" asked Murray.
"No doubt about it," said Hubbard, but Murray still looked to his captain for confirmation.
"Yes," said Peabody.
The implications were manifold. A captain who had the nerve to take a twodecker through Plum Gut had nerve enough for anything else whatever, and he had brains as well, and the ability to use them.
"They've had two years to learn in," said Hubbard, his thin lips twisted into a bitter smile. For two years British ships had been studying American waters at first hand.
The wind shrieked down upon them with renewed force. The Delaware was laboring frightfully in the waves; even on deck, and despite the noise of the wind, they could hear the groans of the woodwork as she writhed in their grip.
"If you were down below, sir," said Murray, "and he wasn't behind us, I'd send down to you for permission to heave to, sir."
"And I'd give it," said Peabody. He could smile at that, just as he could always smile in the midst of a struggle.
"Can we lighten the ship any more, sir?" asked Hubbard, with the extreme deference necessary at a moment when he might be suspected of offering advice to his captain.
"No," said Peabody. Pitching the spar-deck carronades overside might ease her a little, but would give her no increase in speed in this rough water — only in smooth water with a faint wind would decrease in draft benefit them there, and he had already flung overboard the only weights which were not essential to the Delaware's efficiency as a fighting force. The nod which Hubbard gave indicated his agreement with Peabody's unvoiced argument, and as if with one mind they turned to look back at the twodecker. Something more than her topsails were in sight now — as the Delaware rose on a wave they could catch a glimpse of her black hull lifting menacingly above the horizon.
"She'll be within gunshot soon," said Murray with despair in his voice, and Peabody looked at him searchingly. He wanted no cowards in his ship, or men who would not fight a losing battle to the end. Yet Murray had come to him with the Commodore's enthusiastic recommendation, as the man who in command of a gunboat flotilla in the Rappahannock had beaten off the boats of the British fleet in the Chesapeake.
"Yes," said Peabody, "and I want these two twelve-pounders cleared for action. Rig double tackles on them, Mr. Murray, if you please, so that they won't come adrift."
"Aye aye, sir," said Murray. Peabody could see the change in him now that he had something to do — so that was the kind of man he was. Peabody had no definite labels for human beings, and no vocabulary with which to express his thoughts about them, but he could estimate a character pretty closely.
The Delaware's spar deck carried eighteen thirty-two-pounder carronades, nine a side, but forward and aft at the ends of each row was mounted a long twelve-pounder. The Commodore at the Navy Yard had argued with Peabody about those long guns, pointing out how carronades instead would give the ship an additional forty pounds of broadside, but Peabody had been sure of what he wanted. On this raiding voyage he would either be running away or pursuing, and he wanted long guns on her upper deck to aid him in either of those tasks. He had even had the aftermost and foremost ports enlarged so as to allow these long guns to be trained fully round.
"By George, sir!" said Hubbard, suddenly, as he watched the work. "Do you remember what the Commodore said about these guns? You were right, sir. You were right."
Peabody did not need Hubbard's approval; he needed no approval save his own.
Murray knew his business. He brought up a double crew — fourteen men — to each of the stern chasers. Cautious, they slacked away the breechings until the gun muzzles were free from the lintels of the ports, and even so, with the mad leaping of the Delaware, they careened up and down in the inch or two of slack in the breechings in a fashion which boded ill if they should take charge. Ten men tailed onto the tackles as the breechings were slacked away, keeping the guns steady against the breechings. As the ports were opened showers of spray came in through them, washing over the deck ankle-deep. The gun captains took out the tompions and tested with the rammers to see that the guns were loaded. One of them watched the spray bursting over the gun and shook his head. Despite its tarpaulin cover, the flintlock mechanism could not be expected to work in those conditions, at least not until the gun was thoroughly hot with use. The powder boys sped forward and came running aft again, each with a long coil of slow match in a tub, the ends smoldering and spluttering.