"My oath, but she's fast," Nobbes said again. "If she weren't sailing four miles to our three, she'd have caught us by now. And she's got three times my displacement and a crew to match."
"Do you think there's much hope?" Alleyne Loring said.
At Woburn Abbey, Sir Nigel and his wife had been under administrative detention on vague allegations of sedition. If the Lorings and Hordle were recaptured, they would face court-martial on very specific charges: desertion, murder and levying war against the forces of the Crown for all three of them-a noose for Sergeant Hordle, and the gentleman's ax for the officers. Swords and armor weren't the only ancient things that had turned up resurgent in the aftermath of the Change, and the Emergency Powers regulations were still very much in force. That had been one of the matters Sir Nigel had objected to.
"Well," Nobbes said, then unexpectedly grinned. "Not much hope on a straight chase like this. What's more, a few hundred more miles and we hit the westerlies-and running before a wind, we wouldn't have a chance in hell of keeping ahead. But the glass is falling, and those clouds look dangerous."
"Ah," Nigel said. "And in a blow-"
"Right, sport. I've a solid welded steel hull under me arse, and steel lower masts and steel-cable running rigging. That beaut old lady has fragile bones. The worse the blow, the better for us. Let's see what the weather has in mind."
Be careful what you pray for, Sir Nigel thought six days later. You may get it.
The bowsprit of the Pride rose and rose, until the on-rushing wave seemed to tower above them like a mountain of steel-gray water, sliding down towards them with a ponderous inevitability. The top began to curl, collapsing under its own weight and the fury of the northerly gale. Long streamers of spray and foam flew out from its top, ghostly in the half-light through the dense cloud overhead. More surged down the slope ahead of the breaking wave: and struck.
White water leapt ahead of the surge as the bows went under, and the wave raced the length of the Pride's deck towards him. He braced himself, involuntarily flinging up an arm before his eyes, and then the water struck-first a foam like the head on a giant's glass of beer, then a solid smashing blow of cold sea. The cord that linked his belt to the safety line stretching fore and aft kept him from going over the taffrail as he was tumbled and pounded in the darkness, but when the wave passed he was on his knees, coughing the wrack out of his lungs as he blinked his eyes and checked that the two helmsmen were still on either side of the wheel.
They were; one of them was John Hordle, and he grinned under his dripping sou'wester. His mouth moved-he was probably shouting, but the keening wail of the wind through the rigging and the white roar of the water made it impossible to hear at all, much less to understand. One moment's error by either of them, and the Pride would broach to, tumble as the waves took her side-wise and sink like a rock with all hands in thirty seconds of terror.
Nigel scrambled up; the schooner was cresting the wave like a chip of wood washing onto a beach, and as she cleared the crest the force of the wind snatched the breath from his mouth and made the skin of his face burn. For an instant he could see for miles, across a seascape of waves three-quarters hidden by the white froth that tore from their tops, as if the ship was sailing through the storm clouds themselves rather than the ocean. Then the two scraps of staysail set forward to keep her nose into the wind caught the full force of the gale and jerked her forward with an acceleration that made his teeth snap together. She skidded down the steep north face of the wave like a skier down a mountainside, faster and faster, the high whine of the rigging turning to a deeper note as the walls of water gave a momentary protection from the storm. Another burst of seawater came over the bows and raced along the deck as they slid into the trough of the wave and dug in for an instant; this time the wave was only waist-high when it struck the quarterdeck, and he kept his feet easily enough.
As the Pride began the long slow climb up the next wave rain slashed down. At first Nigel didn't notice it-everything was thoroughly wet as it was-but soon it cut visibility noticeably. The cold chill that made his bones ache in the spots where they'd been broken and put knives in his joints was no worse, but it felt so. It took him a moment to realize that the two dim figures in their gray rain slickers were newly on deck.
"You are a good relief," he said semiformally to Al-leyne-or as formally as you could when you had to shout to be heard-and then smiled. "And a very welcome one! Is the galley fire lit?"
"It is, Father. And plenty of actual tea. I'm getting quite used to it again."
The other was Captain Nobbes. He shouted something, then repeated it as he came closer, snapping his safety cord onto the lifeline with practiced ease.
": you taste it?" he was asking. "The rain!"
Well, it's rain, Nigel thought, then concentrated; he knew better than to dismiss something an expert said about his own field. He took a mouthful of the downpour and ran it over his tongue-it was pleasant to get the salt taste out of his mouth anyway.
"Grit!" he shouted back. "There's grit in the rain!"
Nobbes grinned back under his sou'wester and came close enough to bellow into the Englishman's ear. "We're off the coast of northwest Africa, then-I thought so, from the way the wind was turning, and that clinches it. Read about the grit in an old book they dug out of a museum for us. It's Saharan sand. Means the storm will blow out soon."
"I hope God's listening-or Poseidon, Captain!" Nigel shouted back cheerfully.
And I actually feel cheerful, he thought in mild amazement, as he and Hordle went down the companionway. I rather thought that wouldn't happen again.
The bigger, younger man held the door open for him-no easy feat, with the wind this strong. The howl of it gave way to a low toaning moan as the rubber-edged steel shut behind them, and they hung their oilskins and sou'westers on a rack over a trough to catch the drips; a dim lantern behind thick glass lit the narrow corridor. Hordle hurried forward then, and while Loring was still struggling with his boots he came back with a great covered mug of tea and a small basket of the scone-like soda bread the Australians were fond of, buttered and spread with marmalade-Royal Cornish Reserve, probably a gift from someone at court to the Tasmanian emissaries.
"Thank you, Sergeant," he said, yawning. "You should go get some rest."
Hordle's face was still running with seawater. "Going to go chat up that cook's apprentice some more, sir," he said. "Sheila, her name is. I can see she fancies a well-set-up lad, and I can sleep when I'm dead."
Or when you're fifty-two, Nigel thought, as he toweled himself down in the tiny cabin.
Weariness struck despite the strong hot tea, despite the pitching and rolling. He barely had time to finish the last scone before his head hit the pillow.
"Sound as a bell," Captain Nobbes said happily. "Didn't even lose a sail."
The Pride's nose was west of south now, and the wind was behind them, on their starboard quarter. The sun was hot despite the fresh wind, and the ocean was a deep purple-blue frothed with lines of whitecaps; the schooner bucked almost playfully as they cut the swell. The deep iodine scent of the sea and the tarred rope of the running rigging went together well; Nigel found himself looking forward to lunch, which was to feature tunny steaks in cheese-the lines trolled overside had been productive this morning.
"That's La Palma?" he asked. The mountain was rising gradually from the sea ahead.
"Unless we're all worse navigators than we're likely to be, or the chronometer's gone for a Burton," Nobbes said. "We stood farther out to sea on our way up from the Cape, but we'll see about wood and water here this time. It's uninhabited now, eh?"