Sam and Will, on deck alone of all the Navy men, both strained their eyes to equal glum effect.
"Can he have slipped us?" Samuel mused. "But only if he'd charged by with all sail set."
"And if he did," said Will, 'he's likely at the bottom with the ships he hit!"
They both stared harder, up ahead and over the larboard bow. Gunning, they saw, had a spyglass, but Lieutenant Kaye was still below. Awaiting the call, or taking breakfast with his little toy, or maybe still asleep. Will had a flash of anger at Slack Dickie, irrational but sharp. How could his uncle put faith for the future in such a jackanapes?
"No," said Sam, finally. "She must be farther off. Oh Christ, it is a mean way to make a living, this. I wonder how far those men have come, just to be met by us? I should rather that we missed them, Will. Oh look, there's Eaton, to pipe the hands to breakfast."
The hands were as slack as their commander, although they had had naught but beer to drink the night before, and after breakfast Sam Holt made them work at musket drill and sword practice, to put some fire in their looks. Several were seasick, which Will saw as peculiar, although the leaden motion of the old coal ship did not a lot of good to his greasy breakfast, either. He sailed his yawl in any weather, nearly, and his guts were like cast iron in a lively sea, but liveliness was not in Biter's soul. It was with great relief three hours later that he heard the masthead shriek, and guessed that they, at last, had raised their quarry.
To his surprise it was a Navy man and not one of Biter's private people who had done the sighting. Stranger still, he found, was their reaction. Every man jack, from the captain down, seemed stirred by it, and men he had put down as lazy unto death sprang into the shrouds and climbed like squirrels to get a view. Kaye threw his head back, on the quarterdeck, and roared up to the lookout like a veritable deep-sea captain.
"Good man, good man, but where away! What ship is she, does she carry royals?"
It was the size and sort of ship that he wanted an answer on, for mostly from the north came colliers and coasting trade. Sam had already guessed the night before that Kaye's target might have come round the British islands north-about to try and avoid something, most probably the Press. In the southern west approaches, from the Scillies outwards, the tenders hovered almost constantly. His information must have come originally from a northern sighting by a fast ship that had come to shore.
"Aye, she is big, sir," came the reply from high aloft, then other voices joined in a chorus of happy speculation. Will watched Tom Tilley, a man who never smiled, hang on a backstay like a gigantic inflated sheep tick whooping and huzzahing as if someone had made him rich. Even John Behar, his long bones folded across the fore topsail yard, had lost his expression of sly affrontedness.
"Blood," said Will, 'it is like a carnival. I've never seen men change so much."
Gunning had joined Lieutenant Kaye on the weather side, and both were animated as they talked and pointed. Then Kaye waved a hand at them, imperiously, and they went across. His soft face was beaming.
"Well, Mr. Holt, well, Mr. Bentley! There's a sight indeed, and now we'll see some hot work at last. Have them recheck all primings and put their swords to hand, then break out a puncheon from the liquor store and give them rum or brandy, whichever comes to hand. Mr. Gunning here says an hour, and I want them keen, not drunk, so see to it!"
"If you get your monkeys down off my yards," said Gunning drily, "I'll shake out them reefs. If not it will be longer, or she'll scoot by us on the run."
"Aye, see to that, an' all said Kaye. "Bob! Come here, black villain! I want a bottle of madeira, and some cake! Holt! Bentley! Skip to it!"
"He's like a bloody potentate," Sam muttered, as the two of them went about their business and Gunning returned to the con to give his sailing orders. "No, he's like a bloody pirate captain, he gets them fuddled before they do the work and treats them like mere scum, not his only brain. Hey!" he yelled at the red-headed boatswain's mate. "Get those men out of Gunning's way and down on deck and ready. Brandy is the magic word. There'll be an issue."
With more canvas set and drawing, the Biter lost her lumpen attitude, which eased the sickness on the decks. She became wetter as she thumped the short steep seas, but the joviality, helped on by fiery liquor, diminished not a whit. Piratical was the word Sam used, with accuracy, Will thought. As they clawed up to the unsuspecting merchantman, both ship and people had a predatory air, while Kaye stood on the quarterdeck in a watch coat drinking madeira from a bottle that poor Black Bob kept balanced on a silver tray. Balanced expertly, it must be said, for he rode the motion like a natural sailor man.
"This is unexpected," Will told Sam. "I knew they liked a fight when we went on the Press ashore, but they seem positively bloodthirsty today. The plan is, though, to catch men, is it not, not kill them?"
"Aye, more than that, to make them volunteer," Sam laughed. "But either way, our lads get some tidy cash per head, and all the fun of breaking them to boot. This vessel by the look of her has been at sea a fair long time. Homeward-bound seamen would almost rather die, some of them, than get thrown in the Navy, however big the bribe. Our boys like a rumpus, as you know. This bids fair to be more like a bloody battle, but without the blade or bullet. You see the fun of it? To fight the French is handsome, but you can always catch a belly-opener. This way you can split heads, take a broken nose maybe, then clap the enemy in irons down below to show who's master, and get paid a bonus for pot luck! That's why they're smiling in their brandy, friend."
At some stage indefinable, the quarry must have realised what kind of ship the Biter was, or suspected her enough to want to sheer away. Although well canvased, she had not been hard-pressed as if racing for the tide. But when she showed more canvas, and trimmed in the rest to push her up to speed, they saw something that explained her slowness. As she eased round a point or so, another vessel detached itself from where it had been obscured from their view, and moved off from the quarry on divergent course. She was a small black lugger, only forty foot or so, with high sides like a West Country fisherman. She was not, though; not a bit of it.
"My Christ," said Samuel, "these boys get everywhere, don't they? Kaye will fear they've made away with all his bribes!"
The smuggler unbrailed as she dropped away, and soon was swooping down towards the Kentish coast at a considerable lick, pulling a creamy stern wave two feet high. Will watched almost enviously, so lovely did she look, although Kaye was visibly enraged.
"He'd take a shot at her if he knew he wouldn't fall a half-mile short," said Sam. "God, but they've got fine nerve round here, haven't they?"
"But what's the odds to Kaye?" asked William. "So Parliament loses a bit of revenue, but he shouldn't give a fig for that, surely? He's rich as Croesus, and smugglers aren't his job, he's told us that in no uncertain terms."
"Aye, true. It's they will have given us away as pr esters though, which extra time could make it hotter for us. Some ships take it very hard, you know. We do get fired on at times."
"What, fired on with ... You mean they'll fight?"
Sam laughed.