Free Dead Reckoning by Parkinson C. Northcote Page B

feet long, each with an outrigger and a float on the end of it.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œThe outrigger enabled each boat to carry a vast sail area inrelation to its size. They could sail at a remarkable speed. The officer who had seen this tried one of these boats against his six-oared cutter. Pulling their utmost, his men were outdistanced each time, and still outdistanced when they hoisted sail. He was surprised at the result of these trials and wondered whether the Malays ever built full-size boats of the same pattern. If they did, he thought, they would be just as fast. But the Malays he questioned could give him no sufficient answer to his queries on this point, probably because they did not understand him.”
    â€œMr Mather, I am obliged to you. I understand that there are boats at Madras with an outrigger, called catamarans and designed so as not to upset in the surf. But success with a model is not quite the same thing as success with an actual boat. For one thing, no one is drowned when a model capsizes!”
    â€œVery true, sir. But if there are small craft with an outrigger and a large sail area, they could be very fast indeed. They might not be suitable for the ocean but could work up a great speed in the Straits of Malacca. Should we see a craft of this kind we shall have the clue, perhaps, to the plan which Chatelard follows.”
    â€œI agree. We should learn nothing, however, from intercepting such a vessel. She would carry nothing in writing, of that we may be sure, but her mere presence would show us how the trick is done.”
    What further information they could obtain about catamarans in Far Eastern waters was contradictory and confused, some people having heard that such craft existed but none claiming to have seen them at sea. By one account they had once been common but had more recently gone out of fashion.
    While still refitting and shipping provisions at Penang, Delancey received the following letter from the Admiral:
    Sir—Captain Stavely of the Seahorse has recently been admitted to hospital with a serious illness, since when a medical board has reported that he must be invalided home. It is now my duty to appoint an acting captain to that ship and I have decided to promote Lieutenant Nicholas Mather into the vacancy in recognition of your success in the recent action against the French ships Tourville, Charente, and Romaine. You will accordingly direct Lieutenant Mather to assume command of the Seahorse, giving him the acting commission enclosed herewith. You will no doubt wish to promote one of your other officers as first lieutenant and one of your young gentlemen to the vacant lieutenancy. If you will submit the names for promotion I shall make out the acting commissions accordingly . . .
    With this letter before him, Delancey reflected that this moment had long since been inevitable. He could not have expected to keep Mather any longer and had been lucky indeed to have kept him for so long. Now he would have to make do with Fitzgerald as first lieutenant, a handsome, black-haired, thin-faced man much admired by the ladies, a man with an attractive Irish accent but a poor replacement for Mather, an officer who was good in battle but no pastmaster in day-to-day training and management. At this point the deterioration of his crew would begin. His acting-lieutenant would be the Hon. Stephen Northmore, over the head of Wayland, who had failed the examination, leaving Topley next in line. Northmore would make a good officer, of this there could be no doubt. But what if Fitzgerald were promoted or killed? Greenwell would be hopeless as first lieutenant and Northmore would lack the experience. Losses, moreover, had begun on the lower deck, a petty officerand three seamen invalided out (all members of the one boat’s crew), one seaman drowned, and one marine private deserted. So it would go on, with no replacements to be found. In the meanwhile, he must congratulate Mather and