Free The French Prize by James L. Nelson Page A

inverted triangle made by the yard, the yard tackle, and the winding tackle, the gun hanging from its lower corner. He considered the angle of the yard, the height the gun would need to clear the bulwark, and the distance it might be pulled inboard with the winding tackle. Jack could all but hear the calculations going on in his head. His brother was seeing the complex interplay of angles and tensions and weights not through any formal mathematical process but through pure instinct, in a manner that made Jack very proud in a paternal sort of way.
    â€œGo ahead,” Jack prompted.
    â€œHeave away the windlass!” Nathaniel shouted, his high voice even higher with the excitement of it all. The men at the windlass began heaving at the handspikes once more. The fall of the tackle groaned under the weight, the cannon rose higher and higher, and the yard dipped and pulled against the rolling tackles set up to counteract the weight. And just as Jack was about to whisper a hint to his brother, Nathaniel called, “Well, the windlass!” in a voice now straining to find a deeper pitch.
    Nathaniel took another look aloft and traced the lines with his eyes. “On the winding tackle, heave away, smartly now!” he called. He was not so much giving orders as imitating orders he had heard given many times, like a student painter who learns by copying the works of the masters. The men at the fall of the winding tackle hauled away with the coordinated ease of men who had hauled a thousand lines, and the great black gun swung in over the bulwark and hung above the deck and the waiting gun carriage.
    â€œWell the winding tackle! Belay that! Let’s check away that yard tackle, smartly, smartly!” The yard tackle was eased away, the winding tackle took up the strain, the gun swung inboard, and Nathaniel called, “Ease away the winding tackle!” The cannon came gently down and inboard, down and inboard until it hovered a few feet above the gun carriage. It was a neat bit of work, and while those able men of the Abigail ’s crew might have easily done it even if Nathaniel had not issued a single order, Jack supposed that Nathaniel did not realize as much, or, if he did, the thrill of being able to oversee such an operation quite trumped any suspicion that his oversight was not entirely necessary.
    â€œEase away, ease away,” Nathaniel called, and the cannon came down more, and just before Jack ordered them to do so, Maguire and Lacey leapt forward and adjusted the position of the gun carriage directly under the gun. The massive iron tube eased down those last few inches, the carriage groaned under the weight, and the yard tackle and winding tackle went slack as if they were settling down by a fire after a long day’s work.
    Jack looked at his brother and smiled. “Well done, young sir, well done,” he said, and Nathaniel gave a half smile and a nod of the head, as if to suggest that there was no need to compliment him on so routine a bit of shipboard business. Tucker came aft and echoed Jack’s words of praise and Nathaniel looked embarrassed.
    â€œWhat think you of these, Mr. Tucker?” Jack asked, nodding toward the gun that a dozen seamen were now manhandling out of the way so the next could be brought aboard.
    â€œWell, I’m not so sure, Captain,” Tucker said, hesitant to give his opinion when he did know where Jack stood on the issue.
    â€œI’m not sure, either,” Jack said. “Not sure at all.” Though in truth he was sure, quite sure, that he did not want them aboard. He did not, however, wish to impose his bad attitude on his mate, so instead he steered the conversation toward how and where the flour would be stowed down and the water brought on, the thousand details that were the purview of master and mate, and all the while, like a quintet playing softly at a grand dinner, the carpenters sawed and filed and drilled and hammered at the