Free In Gallant Company by Alexander Kent Page B

‘Lively there! Here comes the wind!’
    Bolitho saw his expression and called, ‘Stand by the fores’l!’ He waved to Balleine. ‘Ready with stays’l and jib!’ The schooner’s returning life seemed to affect him also. ‘A good hand at the wheel, Mr Frowd!’
    Frowd showed his teeth. He had picked a helmsman already, but understood Bolitho’s mood. He had been in the Navy as long as the fourth lieutenant had been on this earth.
    Every man had at least two jobs to do at once, but watched by the silent prisoners, they bustled about the confined deck as if they had been doing it for months.
    â€˜Sir! Mastheads to starboard!’
    Sparke spun round as Bolitho pointed towards the rolling bank of fog. Two masts were standing through above it, onewith a drooping pendant, but enough to show it was a larger vessel than the
Faithful
.
    The blocks clattered and squealed as the seamen hauled and panted while the foresail and then the big mainsail with its strange scarlet patch at its throat were set to the wind. The deck tilted, and the helmsman reported gruffly, ‘We ‘ave steerage way, sir!’
    Sparke peered at the misty compass bowl. ‘Wind seems as before, Mr Frowd. Let her fall off. We’ll try and hold the wind-gage from this other beauty, but we’ll run if needs be.’
    The two big sails swung out on their booms, shaking away the clinging moisture and yesterday’s rain like dogs emerging from a stream.
    Bolitho said, ‘Mr Couzens! Take three hands and help Balleine with the stays’I!’
    As he turned again he saw what Sparke had seen. With the fog rolling and unfolding downwind like smoke, the other vessel seemed to leap bodily from it. She was a brig, with the now-familiar striped Grand Union flag with its circle of stars set against the hoist already lifting and flapping from her peak.
    Something like a sigh came from the watching prisoners, and one called, ‘Now you’ll see some iron, before they bury you!’
    Sparke snapped, ‘Keep that man silent, or put a ball in his head, I don’t care which.’ He glanced at Frowd. ‘Fall off two points.’
    â€˜Steer nor’-east!’
    â€˜Will I have the six-pounders run out, sir?’
    Sparke had found a telescope and was training it on the brig.
    â€˜She’s the old
Mischief
.’ He steadied the glass. ‘Ah. I see her captain. Must be the other Tracy.’ He looked at Bolitho. ‘No. If we get close enough to use these little guns, the brig will reduce us to toothpicks within half an hour. Agility and speed is all we have.’
    He tugged out his watch and studied it. He did not even blink as a gun crashed out and a ball slapped through the foresail like an invisible fist.
    Spray lifted over the bows and pattered across the busy seamen there. The wind got stronger as the fog hurried aheadof the little schooner, as if afraid of being impaled on the jib boom.
    The brig had set her topsails and forecourse now and was in hot pursuit, trying to beat to windward and outsail the schooner in one unbroken tack. Her two bow-chasers were shooting gun by gun, the air cringing to the wild scream which could only mean chain-shot or langridge. Just one of those around a mast and it would be the start of the end.
    Another gun must have been trained round to bear on the elusive
Faithful
, and a moment later a ball ripped low over the poop, cutting rigging, and almost hitting one of the prisoners who had risen to watch.
    A seaman snarled at him, ‘Y’see, matey? Yankee iron is just as bloody for
you
this time!’
    Balleine hurried aft and asked, ‘Shall I cut the boats adrift, sir? We might gain half a knot without them.’
    Another ball slammed down almost alongside, hurling spray clean over the poop like tropical rain.
    A seaman yelled in disbelief, ‘The Yankee’s goin’ about, sir!’
    Sparke permitted himself a small smile