Free The Scent of Betrayal by David Donachie Page B

men who’d sailed her.
    The odd word could be exchanged with those beside him at the bottom of each trough, where the howling decreased just enough for a man to be heard by a close neighbour. There was little to say, barring the odd message of reassurance. Repetitive they might be, nevertheless Harry gave them constantly, since the least hint of despair in either man could produce a lapse in effort. Brissot, whose English was extremely limited, nodded every time Harry spoke, even if he barely understood what was being shouted into his well-wrapped ear.
    ‘Bring her head round to larboard again.’
    ‘How we doing, Capt’n?’ gasped Pender, through salt-encrusted lips.
    ‘I reckon the gale has eased just a fraction,’ Harry shouted, as he fought to turn the wheel. The party on the relieving tackles below, seeing what they were trying to do, would take some of the strain on the ropes that led to the rudder, helping to bring the ship round onto the course their Captain desired. Care had to be exercised, so that the instruction to belay as the bows began to rise was readily obeyed, ensuring that the control of the ship lay with those who could see the bowsprit and feel the weight of pressure this hurricane was exerting on the hull and the masts.
    ‘I dunno how you can tell that, your honour. But I’m minded to believe you out of hope alone.’
    ‘Stand by!’ screamed Harry for the hundredth time, his head back, eyes fixed firmly on the twin scraps of storm canvas. High enough to be above wave height they’d never lost the force of the wind, which gave him valuable steerage-way, putting sufficient speed on Bucephalas to ensure that as she breasted the next enormous cap, the slight forward motion of the ship, added to the pressure of the wind coming in abaft her larboard beam, would, by forcing her head round, carry her over into the next patch of relative safety. The flash of forked lightning, followed immediately by the deafening crack of thunder, made all three menduck involuntarily. But, even half-crouched, they strained as one to turn the ship’s head once more. Then as she rose they let the wheel slip slowly through their fingers as Bucephalas was forced to pay off on to her original course.
    ‘Listen hard the next time we crest,’ shouted Harry, patting his ear as he turned to repeat the message to the Frenchman. Brissot nodded, to say he understood. More of a sailor than Pender, he’d noticed the slight drop in the tempest’s angry note, the first sign that they might, at last, be steering into calmer waters. Not that he could be sure. He knew as well as Harry how deceptive a hurricane could be, that seeming diminution merely the prelude to a startling increase in wind power, the precursor of the tempest’s maximum strength, a wall of air blowing so hard that no seamanship, however cunning, no wooden vessel, however sound, could hope to survive. Harry held his breath as they crested the next wave, every nerve stretched to breaking point lest the wind had increased. The relief that this wasn’t so was compounded when he turned to look at Pender. Not much of his servant’s face showed, but those dark lively eyes were creased like a man smiling, evidence that he too had noticed how things had eased.
    ‘Are we safe now, your honour?’ he croaked, as Bucephalas spilt over the highest point of the wave, shipping tons of water, before careering like a dropped stone down into the well of the trough.
    ‘Not safe, Pender. But the danger has eased for the moment. If we’re lucky then we’re on the edge of the hurricane.’ He had to stop so that they could deal with the next rise of the bowsprit, but he continued as soon as they returned to the relative quiet. ‘Either that or we’re close to the eye, which means that we’ll have a short period of total calm then be forced to face the storm all over again.’
    ‘And I thought thieving had risks,’ Pender yelled, his eyes screwed up with effort as he hauled