Free How Firm a Foundation by David Weber

thing you usually only get one opportunity to do wrong,” Yairley pointed out in a dry tone.
    “True enough, Sir,” Lathyk agreed cheerfully. “And now, if you’ll excuseme, I’ll go see about losing that longboat for you.”
    He touched his chest in salute and moved off across the pitching, rearing deck, and Yairley shook his head. Lathyk was one of those officers who grew increasingly informal and damnably cheerful as the situation grew more desperate. That wasn’t Sir Dunkyn Yairley’s style, yet he had to admit Lathyk’s optimism (which might even be genuine) madehim feel a little better.
    He turned back to the matter at hand, trying not to worry about the possibility that one or more of the longboat’s crew could still be crushed against Destiny ’s side or fall into the water to be sucked under the turn of the bilge and drowned. It helped that he had plenty of other things to worry about.
    The never-to-be-sufficiently-damned wind had decided to back stillfurther, and it had done so with appalling speed after holding almost steady for over four hours. It was almost as if it had deliberately set out to lull him into a sense of confidence just to make the final ambush more disconcerting. For four hours, Destiny had lain to her anchors, bucking and rolling but holding her ground despite his sailing notes’ warnings about the nature of Scrabble Sound’sbottom. But then, in less than twenty minutes, the wind had backed another five full points—almost sixty degrees—from southeast-by-south to due east, and the galleon had weathervaned, turning to keep her bow pointed into it, which meant her stern was now pointed directly at Ahna’s Point. The speed with which the wind had shifted also meant that the seas continued to roll in from the southeast,not the east, pounding her starboard bow, which had radically shifted the forces and stresses affecting her … and her anchors. Now the wind was driving her towards Ahna’s Point; the seas were driving her towards Scrabble Shoal; and her larboard anchor cable had parted completely.
    Must be even rockier than I was afraid of over there, Yairley thought now, looking at the bobbing buoy marking thelost anchor’s position. That was an almost new cable, and it was wormed, parceled, and served, to boot!
    “Worming” was the practice of working oakum into the contlines, the surface depressions between the strands of the cable. “Parceling” wrapped the entire cable in multi-ply strips of canvas, and the boatswain had served the entire “shot” of cable by covering the parceling, in turn, in tightlywrapped coils of one-inch rope. All of that was designed to protect the cable against fraying and chafing … and the rough-edged bottom had obviously chewed its way through all precautions anyway.
    Fortunately, the cables to the starboard bower anchor and the sheet anchor Aplyn-Ahrmahk and Mahlyk had laid out hadn’t snapped—yet, at least—but both of them were finally beginning to drag the way he’dbeen more than half afraid they would from the outset. It was a slow process, but it was also one which was gathering speed. At the present rate, Destiny would go ashore within the next two hours at the outside.
    At least the tide’s nearly full, he reminded himself. It’d be better if we had the ebb to work with, but at least the current’s slowed and we’ve got as much water under the keel as we’reever likely to have .
    He watched the longboat’s crew struggling one-by-one up and through the bulwark entry port. Aplyn-Ahrmahk, of course, came last, and Yairley felt at least one of his worries ease as the young ensign scrambled aboard.
    “Master Lathyk’s compliments, Sir,” Midshipman Zhones said, sliding to a stop in front of him and saluting, “and the boat crew’s been recovered. And all preparationsfor getting underway are completed.”
    “Thank you, Master Zhones,” Yairley said gravely. “In that case, I suppose we should make sail, don’t