Free False Colors by Alex Beecroft Page A

than others to heal, that’s all. But I can swear to you that none of the men will have cause to suspect anything wrong from my conduct.”
He was absolutely sure there was nothing but friendship behind the impulse which made John reach out and press his hand where it lay, palm up, on the table. The salt of John’s fingertips made the rope burn smart, and Alfie withdrew it and let it rest in his lap, treasuring the sting. “Maybe if we asked them they’d take Hall away for us, though I can’t imagine he’d fetch the price of a goat on the open market.”
John laughed. “Don’t tempt me.”
    By mid-morning the xebec’s sails were visible, even from the deck, as a shining white tree on the horizon. To port, Sardinia loomed in craggy cliffs and inlets of white rock, scrubbed over with dark pines. The water beneath the keel, glass-clear, showed the sandy bottom fathoms below and even the little crabs that lived in the dragging skirt of weed choking the Meteor ’s hull.
    The Meteor rounded Capo Ferro and sailed cautiously on into the Strait of Bonifacio. Immediately she seemed alone. The shadow of Sardinia’s cliffs swept over her, and all the sailors aboard could feel the shallowness of the seas, the loom of land to their lee. Here the ketch’s small size and excellent maneuverability were an advantage, allowing her to pass above or between submerged boulders that would puncture the hull of its pursuer. Alfie stood by the lead and listened to them call the depth of the water beneath them; “by the mark, five, sand and soft shale,” “by the mark three….” On the bow sprit the lookout lay gazing through the clear seas as they felt their way forward.
    The decks had been swept clear from fore to aft; John’s cabin had been disassembled and the pieces taken down to the hold, stacked next to the chickens and the goat. Slow match smoldered in tubs along the deck, and at a sound of whispered cursing Alfie strode swiftly down from the quarterdeck to find Captain Richardson of the Ordnance Corps berating the lever he was using to remount the mortar.
“All ready?” asked Alfie, ignoring Richardson’s purpling face and strangled cries of pain. “Just nod.”
    At the companionway, the head of one of the boys he had sent to help the doctor popped up, giving an excited signal to say all was ready below. Alfie passed him with a pat on the back and went down to the gun deck, where the rest of the Ordnance Corps were huddled around the fire-box of the galley range with sweating, intent faces and a red glow in their eyes.
    “All prepared?” Alfie swept a professional eye over the lines of cannon, run out and with their crews standing by, then peered with more curiosity at the cherry red metal of the galley, more customarily used for boiling stew than for heating cannon balls. He took note of the buckets of water and sand standing ready to throw over any accidental blaze, the long tongs poised in the ordnance officer’s hand, and the silent, awestruck sailors who attended on the corps’ attempt to heat the shot. “This isn’t going to set us aflame, is it?”
    “I can’t promise you that,” said the soldier in charge. “This operation is not designed to take place on ship. I could promise you perfect safety—within reason—if we were ashore on a stationary rock built fort, and we had the correct furnace for the job. As it is, well, we’ll have to take our chances.”
    “Understood.” Alfie cast a jaundiced eye over the men, who saw through his pose at once and grinned at him, already looking more like pirates than like Britons, with their scarves tied around their heads to soak up the sweat, and their shirts off. “Hear that? The teams I’ve picked to work the hot shot will be responsible for not setting the ship on fire—if you do, it comes out of your pay. Regular gun teams, you are responsible for getting the hell out of their way while they work.
    “Everyone remembers how we left Algiers, yes? So you