Free The Companion by Susan Squires Page A

he shouted. His words were echoed by at least two others, and men scurried up the rigging. Out to the sides like wings, sails flapped into place. The ship lurched ahead.
    Beth staggered to the rail as the sail behind them held its distance or even gained.
    “ ’E got the weather gauge,” a fearsome-looking man with a scarred cheek and a great long pigtail muttered.
    “Cain’t come up afore nightfall,” another, stouter, reassured him. “We’ll crack on.”
    “This bucket won’t make eight knots, and he don’t keep her rigged taut, neither.”
    This brought only a glum grunt from his partner. Beth searched the horizon again in the gloom to the east. The following ship was definitely closer. What kind of ship could it be? England was at peace with Spain and France. A privateer?
    “No doubt those buggers in the sloop will start lookin’ fer stragglers,” the first muttered.
    “Better hope.”
    The Captain gave incessant orders. Beth stood now on the starboard deck in the waist as discreetly as she could and tried to be small enough to be out of everyone’s way. She did not want to be stifled below deck in this hour of the ship’s need, though there was nothing she could do to help. She concentrated on the dark shape in the gathering gloom so hard she yelped when Mr. Rufford’s bass rumble sounded almost in her ear.
    “What’s toward?” he asked.
    “Oh my!” Beth held her palm to her breast. “It’s you.”
    He stared into the darkness astern. The chasing ship was hardly visible.
    “That boat appeared about an hour ago. The crew seemed quite concerned.” He glanced at her and lifted one brow. She chuffed in annoyance. “Very well. We lost a spar in the storm. Which you must have known, because who could ever sleep through such a din? We fell behind. And the convoy is scattered, so we’re entirely without protection at the moment.”
    “I can see,” he said, again peering aft.
    He couldn’t possibly see, since it was quite dark. “Well, you may not have noticed the confusion. Things are, as seamen say, all ahoo. No one seems to catch the Captain’s orders, and they don’t respect them, either. And the other ship quite clearly has the . . . the weather gauge.”
    “Our chaser is more organized.” He pointed at the shadow against the dark of the east.
    No one could make out anything there now, Beth thought.
    “Have they said what she is?”
    “No,” Beth said. “How could they?”
    “The Captain knows, for he has a glass and he is cracking on as best he can even after dark.” He looked up. “The damn fool hasn’t doused his running lights. Maybe he is waiting until right before he wears the ship.”
    “Wears?” Beth asked.
    “Turns it by setting it into the wind. It backs around instead of tacking. He’ll wait until after it is true dark, then set out in a new direction to see if he can lose our chaser.”
    “Could it not be a friendly boat?” Beth asked in a small voice.
    The tension in his body as he gripped the rail answered her even before he said, “She’s a xebec by the set of her sails, likely a Barbary ship, or a Turk.”
    Beth lost her assurance that he couldn’t see the vessel. “A pirate, then?”
    “Yes.” The words were torn from tight lips. He glanced up at the sails of their own frigate. “No foretopgallant, no royals. He could make more sail.”
    “Perhaps he thinks he’ll break another mast. . . .”
    “No time for caution.” Rufford whirled and stalked up the ladder right into the Captain’s sacred domain. Rough words ensued, ending in Rufford being escorted off the quarterdeck.
    “Keep yourself to yourself, sir,” the first mate muttered, “or you’ll be locked in irons.”
    “Fool!”
    “Aye, but ’e’s Captain nonetheless,” the first mate said, low, and retreated.
    “He means to try to outrun her, but he sets his sails timidly,” Rufford said in a flat voice. “He thinks he can make the protection of the sloop before she carries us.