Free Reefs and Shoals by Dewey Lambdin Page A

stuck with the Navy so long. Hmmm … we are in need of a backin’ wind. Does the current one veer into Due West, we’ll be on a good course for Spain.”
    From the moment that their frigate had cleared the Isle of Wight into the Channel, while they still had clearly visible sea-marks, the chip log had been cast each half-hour, and an officer of the watch had pencilled in the course and the rate of knots recorded. The skies had been solidly overcast when they departed England, and they hadn’t seen even a brief glimpse of the sun since, so their progress and position were pretty-much By Guess and By God, all by Dead Reckoning.
    The recorded course was a staggering, stuttering series of X’s strung along a jagged line, some close together, some X’s further off from each other where they’d had a good run and turn of speed.
    “Not to borrow trouble, sir,” Westcott glumly said, “but does the wind veer close to a Sou’wester, we may have to wear, even in this, else we fetch up somewhere East of Corunna and Cape Finisterre.”
    “It could go Sou’westerly, sir,” Caldwell cautioned. “So long as this Arctic gale rules, another day or so with any luck, we’re making ground West’rd, but does it blow out, a Sou’westerly’s not unknown in Biscay.”
    If that happened, Reliant would have no choice but to wear. A Sou’westerly would smack them right in the mouth, and paying off would drive them even deeper into the “sack” between the long right-angled trap of the French and Spanish coasts. Square-rigged ships could not sail closer than sixty-six degrees to the true wind.
    “We’re too far North at the moment to meet Sou’westerlies,” Lewrie said after a long moment, in which he used a ruler to measure from their latest cast of the log to the edge of the chart. “We’re still round the fourty-seventh latitude, so we’ve bags of sea-room, but it’s longitude that’s wanting. Now if…”
    Their frigate smacked into yet another wave with a deep hollow boom, and rolled back onto her larboard side, then rose up, shedding tons of seawater, and wriggling a bit more upright with a sickening twist, making them all cling to the flimsy chart table and shuffle their feet to keep upright.
    I won’t gag, or spew, Lewrie commanded himself, though he had a feeling that he was damned close to doing so. He tried to recall when it was that he had been in such foul weather, and in such a predicament, and realised that it had been years.
    I’m worried  … worried and scared, he admitted to himself, alone; I wouldn’t trust mine arse with a fart, right now. Nor a gag, either! Why didn’t Father shove me into the bloody Army, instead? Oh, aye  … ’ cause he was too cheap!
    Lewrie looked to his liquid barometer for inspiration, but the blue-dyed water in the fat lower flask was still rather high up the upper tube, about as high as his last peek at it an hour before, when he had made a chalk-mark slash upon it. The storm’s pressure was still low, allowing the fluid to creep upwards; no higher yet, thank God!
    “About all we may do for now, sir, is ride this out and hope for the best,” Mr. Caldwell concluded.
    “Even with bare yards and storm trys’ls,” Lt. Westcott added.
    “Midshipman Grainger, SAH!” the Marine sentry outside the door to the great-cabins shouted, his usual piercing cry almost swallowed by the din of wind, rain, and the working of the hull. With luck, he might have been allowed a tarred tarpaulin coat with which to tolerate the elements.
    “Enter!” Lewrie shouted back, louder than usual, too. He and the others staggered out from the tiny chart space, clinging to light deal-and-canvas partitions. Grainger entered, sopping wet and looking as miserable as a drowned rat.
    “Mister Merriman’s duty, sir, and I am to report that several of the fore and main-mast shrouds are slackening,” Grainger said.
    “Well, damn,” Lewrie spat. “It seems we must wear, after all.”
    There was