Free Ship of Fire by Michael Cadnum Page A

harbor pilot arrived. I climbed on deck, blinking in the sunlight, as Captain Foxcroft gave out commands in an even voice, and a mate sang them out in turn. A chant accompanied much of the work as the ship turned, alive in the water, and we began to make our way.
    â€œIsn’t it a sight to bring joy, Tom?” said William.
    It was indeed. Sails followed us, the Golden Lion , with the rest of our fleet in her wake. William Borough, the vice-admiral, sailed on our sister warship, a man with a reputation for clever navigation and stubborn quarrels. Captain Foxcroft gazed back at the warship in our wake. Harbor collisions were common in every port, and tides sometimes shifted shoals that troubled the progress of vessels.
    But we were safely away.
    A crisp wind blew, and every man with a rope to knot or a gun to secure was hard at work—the swells were strong enough to loosen anything that was not fastened tightly. Spray lashed the air, and the masts and rigging groaned under the press of canvas.
    We were a trim fleet, but smaller than I would have expected: several warships, seven or eight merchant ships recently outfitted with guns, and a scattering of smaller vessels. Ale-drinking mariners had expressed the opinion in my hearing that as many as forty Spanish ships might crowd the harbor of Cadiz, with war galleys and armed galleons primed to defend them. Our own ship was fortified by a whiskery set of soldiers, who even now polished their breastplates and began to be seasick. It would not be a short journey. The Atlantic port of Cadiz was over one thousand English miles from home. We would skirt the western shores of France, and the coast of Portugal, as we sailed south, all the way to Spanish waters.
    The wind continued fresh. We soon began to leave the Golden Lion and the rest of the fleet far behind.
    We were a crowded ship, but every man had a task. The seamen in their plain gray slops—a mariner’s ill-fitting garments—contrasted with the brightly colored jerkins of the sergeants, and the plumes of a few gentlemen who had evidently joined the force.
    I kept a sharp eye on the quarterdeck where Captain Foxcroft was directing the crew. Surely soon, I thought, the famous sea-knight would make his appearance.
    But as yet I caught no glimpse of Admiral Drake.

Chapter 18
    To my surprise, Davy Wyott called an energetic greeting. He waved a heavily bandaged hand from a yard arm above, where he worked with his fellow sailors. I had heard that mariners were as tough as boxwood, and now I began to believe it.
    I gave a wave in return, and found Jack Flagg leaning into the spray, setting his feet with a practiced air against the liveliness of our ship. I staggered, unbalanced, and would have fallen if he had not held out a strong, callused hand. I would have asked my experienced new friend how such a small navy might weigh in against the best Spanish ships, but I was afraid of exposing some new ignorance in myself.
    Jack’s nose was scored across the ridge with a cut that might well leave a lasting scar, and one eye was swollen. “They teach young doctors how to use a sword,” said Jack, for the benefit of his mates.
    Jack’s master was a thick-set man called Ross Bagot, the gray-haired gunner I had seen the day before. “The rapier,” scoffed the master with a friendly dismissiveness. “It’s a pretty but trifling weapon.”
    My pride stirred, but I kept my silence.
    â€œLet’s show Tom here what our guns can do,” Jack implored his master.
    His gunner responded by turning down his mouth, an upside-down smile that indicated a decided negative. But at the same time the veteran’s eye twinkled. He cast his gaze upward, eyed the empty blue sky, and made his way aft to the place where Captain Foxcroft and my own master William were in conference, each gentleman eating a slice of white bread.
    It was easy to mark the progress of the conversation that followed, the