"With the wind on our beam like this, that'll give us an extra knot, setting the t'gallants," Nobbes said with satisfaction. He turned to the binnacle just forward of the wheel. "Eleven: eleven and a half knots."
Then he looked back over the fan-shaped rail at his ship's stern, over the tarpaulin-clad shape of the catapult crouching on its turntable.
"Odd running into another ship here," he said meditatively.
"Not so odd as all that. Southampton-Gibraltar is the busiest shipping route we have now-that Britain has now. Which isn't saying much, I grant you."
Nobbes grunted. "Bloody odd Gibraltar made it," he said.
"A combination of luck and geography," Sir Nigel said. "Though it took considerable ability to organize it all."
Nobbes brought up the heavy binoculars that hung around his neck.
"She's just hull-up now," he said. "Sailing with the wind abeam is the best point for a square-rigger, but even so she's very fast: she'll pass us in a day or two on this heading. There's not many ships could come up from behind on the Pride, if I do say so myself. They're cracking on, though. I wonder what their hurry is?"
A suspicion coiled in Nigel's stomach. "Hordle, step up here if you please," he said. The big man did. Nigel went on: "You were stationed in Southampton for a while, weren't you? At the dockyard, while I was off on that diplomatic mission to the Principality."
"That I was. Didn't envy you a trip to Ian's Rump, either, sir."
Nigel frowned slightly; in fact, he shared the opinion. The Principality of Ulster might loudly proclaim its loyalty to the king, and to his brother Prince Andrew-chance had stranded the latter there when the Change came-but he didn't particularly like the bloody-minded military-Orange Order-cum-Free Presbyterian junta that had ended up ruling the northeastern quarter of Britain's sister island-or what was left of it, between starvation and mutual pogrom.
"Take a look," he said, handing over his own binoculars. "Tell me if you recognize that ship."
Hordle looked for a moment, and pursed his lips. "No doubt about it, sir. Cutty Sark. I saw her in for repairs, after she shuttled in her last load of Icelanders, back in CY3."
Nigel whistled silently, and Nobbes went slightly pale. Partly, Nigel thought, because that might mean the king had decided to give chase regardless, and to hell with offending far-off Tasmania; the Cutty Sark was a Royal Navy vessel now. And partly because the ship was legendary, the last and greatest of the China tea clippers, brought back to sit in glory in drydock on the Thames after a career that had included record-breaking runs on every route she sailed.
"But sir?" Hordle went on. "They had us doing fetch-and-carry work there, and from what I heard of the dockyard maties talking, she wasn't what you'd call sound even then. Even for something a hundred and thirty years old."
Alleyne's regular-featured face was thoughtful as he nodded. "I read the report, Father. Her keel-the wooden keel-is waterlogged, and the corrosion on her frame: " He turned to Nobbes. "Captain, you know she's iron-framed, with plank sheathing?"
Nobbes snorted. "Yes," he said, in a tone that also meant And the sun comes up in the east too, my gracious Pommie-lad.
"Sorry, sir. Well, the frame's been corroding-not just weakening it, they could cure that with riveted patches, but the rust is pushing the stringers away. She needed to be stripped bare in drydock, chipped down to solid metal, and rebuilt from the keel up. Instead they just did what they could from the outside, pounded in more caulking, and kept putting the basic work off. Perhaps they thought it would be easier simply eventually to scrap her and build new."
"She's still almighty fast," Nobbes said thoughtfully.
"Not as fast as she was once," Alleyne said. "They also cut down her sail plan, to lessen the strain on the hull and the working of the planks. Not so many studding sails and such."
"What have they been doing with her?"
"Refugees at first, starting in March of 'ninety-nine. Then cargo on the Gibraltar run," Alleyne said. "Manufactured goods and settlers out, food and fiber back-sugar, cotton, wine, citrus, olive oil."
Nobbes grinned in a lopsided way. " England has an empire again, eh?"
"In a way," Nigel said; the irony of it had struck him too. "Interesting to see how that turns out: "
"It'll be interesting to see if the Sark 's loaded with troops and out to see us knackered," Hordle said bluntly, jerking his head northward. "Sir."
Nigel winced slightly, but there was no point in delaying further. "Perhaps it's rude of me to ask, but what will you do, Captain, if it is?"
Nobbes looked embarrassed, and spoke reluctantly: "I'll run like buggery, Sir Nigel. If they catch us up and it's just a matter of dodging, or trading catapult bolts at long range, I'll do that. But if it means saving my ship and crew, I'll have to hand you over, and that's the dinkie die."
"I appreciate your honesty, Captain Nobbes," Nigel said courteously.
And Hordle looks like he's thinking of ripping your head off in that event, and I think you're beginning to notice. Best defuse matters and change the subject.
He relaxed and smiled. "Let's hope we can avoid such a choice, eh? And that ship could just be running down to the Rock. We're: they're : resettling the choice bits of southern Spain and northern Morocco-the Gibraltarians and immigrants get farms, the realm gets trade, everyone's happy. Though the ghosts must be raining curses on us in Spanish and Arabic."
"Thought of moving there meself, sir, and taking up land," Hordle said, glad of a chance to break the momentary chill. "Nice climate and the brambles aren't as thick about the edges as back in old Blighty."
"Maybe God is an Englishman," Nobbes said. "The world drops dead, and the Poms get the whole of Western Europe out of it."
"Only if we breed very enthusiastically," Alleyne said. "Killing off all but one in every two hundred of us seems an odd way for the Supreme Being to show family-feeling, even if it does make many corners of foreign fields forever England in times to come. Though I think it's definite that He isn't French, what?"
Nigel nodded. "On the evidence, my boy, He seems to be Tasmanian."
"I thought Australia was bad, until I saw Europe," Nobbes said, with a gesture of half agreement. "And America 's worse if anything:
"
"Most of the parts we can reach are bones," Nigel said judiciously. "Some islands did well and we don't know anything about the interior or the western portion."
Alleyne put in: "There's quite a few Italians left, though-ten thousand in the Alps, fifty thousand in that clump in Umbria, two hundred thousand on Sicily. A fair number of Greeks farther east on Crete and Cyprus, and of course as you get east of central Poland: It will be interesting to see how things shape in the next couple of generations."
Nobbes nodded. "Right now we'll see if Cutty Sark really is chasing us. Clear for action!" he called. "Helm, come about-right ten degrees. Let's see how high that beaut can point."
"Damn my eyes, but she's fast," Nobbes said, standing by the wheel of his ship and watching the Cutty Sark in the double circles of his binoculars as she tacked, beating up into the wind.
For the Pride, that was easy-just put the helm over, let the fore-and-aft booms swing across the deck above head-height, and the ship was making another leg of its zigzag course upwind. A square-rigger couldn't point nearly as close to the wind, and it was much easier for her to be "caught in irons," left bobbing helplessly with her sails pressed back against the masts and yards. The Sark was crossing her bowsprit over the eye of the wind nearly as nimbly as the schooner.
"And: mainsail haul," Nobbes murmured, the command that would set the crew to pulling the big square sails round on the clipper.
I think our good skipper is envious, Nigel thought, amused despite the tension of the moment. But then, what sailing-ship captain wouldn't be?
As they watched, the tall sail pyramid of the pursuer passed through the vertical and lay over; the sails that had been clewed up to the yards dropped down again and her bow-wave grew taller, until white water raced from her knife-sharp prow down the long sleek sides and her mizzen chains were nearly buried in the foam.