Free Under Enemy Colors by Sean Thomas Russell, Sean Russell, S. Thomas Russell Page A

point, let us test this powder before I write to the Ordnance Board for more. Have a few cartridges made up for the carronades, if you please, Mr Landry.” Hayden went out and left the lieutenant to suffer his resentments alone. Wickham followed quickly behind.
    A few moments later they were on the quarterdeck, the tompion removed from a thirty-two-pounder carronade. The first cartridge did not fire at all and had to be drawn out with a worm—a long, corkscrew-like rod—a task no one relished for obvious reasons. The second made a dull thump, though much debris was left in the barrel. They managed to fire a ball after two more misfires, but as Mr Barthe observed, he could “throw it further himself.”
    Lieutenant Hayden would now have the unenviable task of requesting powder to replace that which had been spoiled. The quantities of powder in the magazines, however, did beg another question.
    “How often do you exercise the great guns, Mr Landry?” he asked after the final cartridge was drawn out, split, and its contents spilled over the side.
    “Never, Mr Hayden. At least not since I’ve been aboard. Gun drills are done without powder or shot.”
    Hayden felt his eyes close, and it took some effort to keep his face impassive. He turned quickly away. “Ready to raise the mast, Mr Franks?”
    Men placed at the capstan put their chests against the bars and pushed, drawing taut a line running through the leading block to the sheer pendant. It creaked like an old door as it stretched, and the mizzen lifted a few inches.
    “Stand clear!” Hayden ordered.
    When the mast was raised a little more, it slewed suddenly to one side, swinging heavily back and forth.
    The men at the capstan bars continued to turn until the mizzen attained an angle perhaps fifteen degrees shy of vertical. The back line, reeved through a block made fast to one of the sheer heads, was then hauled. It had been attached to the mast under the bibbs, and this brought the spar almost to vertical. Hayden and some of the larger men put their shoulders against it, and with the help of a tackle, wrestled the heel of the mast over the aperture where it would step through the deck. Slowly the great spar was lowered. It did not want to pass cleanly through the lower deck, but was finally coaxed and cajoled upright enough that it passed, the heel tenon seating neatly in the step beneath.
    “’Tis home, Mr Hayden!” came a call from below.
    “Well done!” Hayden said to the men around him, then the same to the men at the bars. “We shall make up the shrouds, Mr Franks,” Hayden ordered. “Perhaps Aldrich can assist you.” He was sure that Aldrich would soon have the job in hand, if Franks did not get too much in the way, but Franks surprised him. Despite the man’s obvious lack of proficiency in his trade, he exhibited a great capacity to learn, and was not embarrassed to do so, though many in his position would have attempted to bluster their way through, hoping to hide their defects. It raised Mr Franks considerably in Hayden’s opinion. A man willing to learn was never a cause lost.
    He assigned Stuckey another day of demeaning work, and set the bosun’s mate to chase him about. Such an act could backfire, Hayden well knew, if the crew sympathised with the offender, but it seemed that Stuckey had little sympathy from the others, though no one had the nerve to mock him either, a fact Hayden took note of.
    The shrouds were made up and the tops got over the mast. Attending to some job of work, Hayden lifted his head to glimpse something large plunging from above. A tumbling man grasped at the shrouds, his fall checked, lost his grip, fell, then caught hold of the still-slack shrouds once more, burning his hands as he slid too quickly the last thirty feet to the deck, landing with an awkward thump. Somehow on his feet, the boy—for it was a boy, despite his massive size—leaned against the rail a moment, shaken. Wickham approached him.
    “Are you