A King's Commander (49 page)

“Aye aye, sir,” Hyde agreed, though not sure what it was he was agreeing to.

“The captain of that corvette we fought, Mister Hyde, that's the bastard we want. He captured a commissary ship full of British gold . . . and he now thinks he'll slip away and go back home to crow about it,” Lewrie told his senior midshipman first, before he explained things to the rest of his crew before dark. “I want him, Mister Hyde. And with your help, I mean to have him, this time.”

A
hot supper, for which he had little appetite, almost uncivil a host to Mister Peel and Lieutenant Knolles who dined with him, talking “shop” for once. And so eager for news that most of what he heard wasn't an awkward conversation, but the loud ticking of his chronometer in the chart-space on the starboard side of the great-cabins.

Then back on deck, wondering if Choundas had made a total fool of him, of them all, no matter how cleverly they'd schemed. Alan had always come a cropper, whenever he'd thought himself especially sly—didn't matter at what, he'd always tripped over his own wits—hoping against hope that just this once, events would prove an exception. A gelatinous crawling of time, an
age
between the half-hour watch bells. Nine o'clock, then three bells at nine-thirty, four bells at ten . . .”

“Signal!”
a lookout screamed, as a tiny phosphorescent spark leapt into the inky night sky, trailing an amber train of embers. At a fifty-degree angle, Lewrie estimated. Pointing toward
Jester,
four miles offshore and ten miles down the coast, near Voltri. Pointing to the West!
“Got
'at bastid, sir! We'uns got 'im!” A cheer rose from the decks, the duty watch, and the gunners standing idle in the waist. Ferociously satisfied, their blood up for the hunt, a kill. Sure that
Jester
would avenge herself, prove herself a lucky ship once more.

By God, we'd better, Lewrie thought! But not a very good night for it. Perversely, the winds had risen a trifle, the sea was surging and creaming now and then in tiny whitecaps—cat's paws and horses. What there was of the moon was occluded by scudding clouds coming down from inland, some storm rushing downslope off the Alps. Their view of the coast was only a black smear against a cold-ashes evening, merely a matter of degree.

“Fetch-to, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie commanded. “We go galloping off east, he's sure to slip past us.”

“Aye, sir! Duty watch, hands to the braces and sheets!”

A quarter-hour later, riding cocked up into the wind, bows almost due north, the ship making no headway. Still nothing to be seen.

“Signal!”

Another fuzee skyrocketing into the night, pointing west, a bit closer to them, as Hyde sailed in pursuit of whatever had aroused him. No hope of catching his Chase, of course, whatever she turned out to be. Safe enough for Hyde and his men, Lewrie thought, relieved; Choundas did not have night enough to turn and make her pay for alerting the blockade he'd have to thread. Assuming that so-far unseen vessel was his; if it was, he'd gotten a late start, and lost a precious hour already.

“We'll begin to stand inshore, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie said with impatience, after another quarter-hour had passed. “Slowly, at first.”

“Aye, sir.”

Another half hour, Hyde's barge making no more than five knots at best, even with that stiff broad-reaching wind on her quarters. An hour, so five miles closer to us he's come, Lewrie plotted, almost frantic, but concealed by darkness on the quarterdeck, as
Jester
prowled without even a single glim burning. A tartane
,
la-teen-rigged, he thought; she'd go around seven knots off such a goodly wind . . . two miles closer to us than Hyde? Yet not a whiff of her, not hide nor hair?

Another fuzee, this time fired slantwise, as if Mister Hyde was firing a very long, up-the-stern shot, as a miniature comet arced up and down like the trail of a burning carcase shot from a mortar. Within two miles of
Jester
's
bows, so the Chase surely must be in smelling distance!

“Haul our wind, Mister Knolles! Time to stand in directly. Due north, Quartermaster!”

“Sail
ho!
” from a larboard forecastle lookout. “
One
point awrf th'
lar-
b'd bow! 'Gainst th' town's lights! D'ye
hear,
there?”

Lewrie dashed to the larboard side, leaned out over the bulwarks to peer into the gloom as
Jester
swung. The town of Voltri was three miles north, almost dead ahead, by then. They might have been holding a
festa
to celebrate the recent harvests, or some saint's day, for the waterfront and main streets were lit with torches, lant-horns, and a big bonfire, producing a pencil-thin smear of light. And suddenly, there was a ship; a quick, eye-blink glimpse of a ship atop the amber, scintillating fire-glade of the town's lights, stark and black in a second of silhouette—high-pinked stern, sharp bow, and three crescent moon sails, low to the deck; two large lateens, and a long lateen jib!

“Haul our wind, Mister Knolles, come about to west by north!” he howled. “A tartane
,
no error! And she's already west of us!”

Hellish-fast, too, Lewrie shivered, as the night wind went cold; fearing he'd left it too late. Seven knots mine arse, she had to be going eight or
nine,
or I'm a Turk in a turban! By the time we get turned in pursuit and settled down, she could have a mile lead on us.

Six bells of the Evening Watch chimed up forrud; eleven o'clock on a dark, filthy night.
Jester
was quick with the wind on her quarters, he knew, but this tartane
would be fast as a witch. He rolled his eyes, to peer without straining or staring, for a glimpse of her, but blackness had swallowed her up, once more.

He looked astern as
Jester
came around on her new course, the sea swashing down her flanks, the babble of water 'neath her fore-foot, under her transom an urgent mumbling. Hyde was to return on-station till daybreak then come west to safety in Vado Bay. Pray God there were no more signals from him! Had Choundas sent a first vessel out as a false lure, to test the waters and draw any watcher away, there was little he could do about it. For better or worse, he was now committed.

“We escape her,” the captain of the tartane
crowed to his crew, to his lone passenger the “Brutto Faccia” Francese huddled deep in his warm boat cloak. “Barge,
signore?
Pretty barge of a
capitano,
I say. I see her before. Ah-gah-mem-non,” he pronounced carefully in a poor French, mingled with quick native Italian. “She was only Britannici
I see off Genoa. And she is slow.
Big
and slow,
signore!
”

“You are quite certain?” his passenger demanded, unused to being an idle commodity to be carted about, fretful that he had not been given charge of the saucy yachtlike coaster by Pouzin's cabal of plotters, but was now at the mercy of this filthy, unshaven brute with his dark, liquid eyes, olive complexion, and harsh Arabic face. Mongrels, he thought them all, unwanted Persian, Turkish, Egyptian polluters of the ancient Etruscan, Celtic blood of the first Latins.

“Only
Britannici
we see, days and days,
signore,
”
the
tartane's commander insisted. “Barge, come in today then go back out. Watchers, in fishing boats see ship of this Nel-eh-son-ey go west, meet another, but do not return. We are safe now,
signore!
” he boasted, thumping his chest. “I sail
circle
around big, slow ship-of-line!
Ecco,
we go out to sea. Coast come down to us, at Vado there are
Britannici
patrol. We reduce sail, too. No one can catch us.”

“No, we should press on,” Guillaume Choundas curtly replied. He almost felt a mythic prickling in his thumbs, an unease that would not be stilled until he was ashore, or back aboard his ship. “I order . . .”

“No one order me,” the other barked. “I am
capitano,
you are the passenger. We reduce sail. It is blowing almost too good. We go out from the coast. We get to Finale before sunrise, we go so quick, and cannot land you on that coast in the dark. Lay still, off Finale, and wait till the dawn, we meet
Britannici
patrols, you see? If more wind comes, we are safe out at sea, not on rocky coast. You want to live,
signore?
We do what I say. Angle out, stand back in, go fast all the time. But not too fast,
si?
Shut up and drink some wine,
signore.
I am best
capitano
in all of Genoa, the
senatore,
he knows this. Why he hires me to carry his letters to you Francese. I command his
yacht
if he did not give me so many orders. I do not
like
orders.”

“Whether you like them or not,” Choundas protested, “your employer told you to get me to a French-held port. If we're making such good time, then it could be Loano, even Alassio. It doesn't have to be Finale. Stay inshore, keep up your speed, and land me at the port where dawn finds us.”

“Too far for us,” the captain objected, turning surly. “There is too much risk coming back to Genoa. I do not ever see ships of you Francese to protect me,
signore.
You are
capitano importante
in such a
little
navy. There are ten of us . . . one of you. You do not tell
us
what to do,
Capitano Grande.
”

With that, he turned away to shout orders to his crew, to reduce sail, and went to the tiller-bar aft, to direct the helmsman to wear out to sea. The tartane
slowed, began to slough and rock. Lateen rigs were horrid when it came to sailing so fine downwind. A square sail, off the wind, would belly full, strain equally from corner to corner, and reduce the excess wallowing motion, which robbed a ship of speed.

Shop clerks,
Choundas was forced to fume in silence! Eager for their own beds tomorrow evening, no stomach for a long voyage. Working for the gold, the excitement . . . but with no sense of discipline, purpose, or loyalty. Mongrels, he added to the list of their sins. Just as bad as those swaggering, cockscomb mercenary privateers; all bluster and brag. Once Genoa was theirs, Choundas vowed, and the guillotines came, to winnow out the “aristos,” the usurers, those opposed to the new regime, he would be sure that this captain's name was found in the book of the damned. Mongrels, he thought, squinting his eyes in fury; so dumb they cling to barbaric Arabian lateens, when even the most famous man of Genoa, Christopher Columbus, knew to change over to square rig! An ignorant, mongrel race!

“I'd not be pressin' closer ashore, sir,” Buchanon warned him. “Too dark t'see what we're about. Nor whether we're still chasin' yon tartane
.
”

“There's depth enough, Mister Buchanon?” Lewrie countered. “A nor'east wind to drive us offshore, for once? Not a lee shore . . .”

“But th' coast trend's southerly, sir,” Buchanon insisted. “I suggest we come t' west by south, Captain. E'en does our Chase stand inshore o' us durin' th' night, the coast'll shoulder her out.”

“It's the coast he
wants,
to land on, Mister Buchanon,” Lewrie spat, as two bells of the Middle Watch chimed at one a.m.

“Which he'd be a purblind fool t'do, with such a sea runnin',” Buchanon countered. “He can't close it till dawn, same'z us, sir.”

“Very well, Mister Buchanon. West by south it is. Mister Knolles, we'll haul our wind a mite more, to west by south. Hands aloft, take in sail. First reefs in the main course, mizzen and maintop'sls. I don't wish to shoot past her in the dark. Nor be blown too far loo'rd of the coast by sunrise . . . by this nor'east wind.”

Should there be a wind shift, which usually happened along such a coast, should it moderate or clock northerly, he'd be headed, robbed of power when he needed it most, and badly placed for pursuit.

Assumin' there's somethin' t'see at dawn, he sighed, frustrated.
Jester
had logged a steady eight knots since espying their Chase around Voltri. Three hours later, and they were almost level with Vado Bay, at that speed. And still had no further sighting of that spectral tartane
.
He had to admit that Buchanon was right to be cautious. Rocks aplenty inshore, the sea not so boisterous they'd be warned of risk by white foam breaking on them, the moonlight too weak to give them first sight to steer clear. Stout as the wind had blown, he'd expected some rain with it, such a pall of storm cloud overhead that what poor view the lookouts had would be blotted out entirely; but that hadn't come. The solid black of the shore could still be guessed at, if one didn't peer too long or hard at it; whitecaps could be espied all about, by the faint moon. But no sign of that damned tartane!

Jester
slowed as her sail was reduced, even with the wind fine on her starboard quarter. Purring now, as three bells chimed, solidly surefooted and ploughing. But to where?