Between them, the three men heaved Neglectful and the dismasted lugger close enough to each other so that the castaways could scramble across their own swimming deck, take a purchase on Neglectful's jib-stay, and drop onto her bowsprit. The first man made it without incident, but the second missed his timing and went over the side with a shriek of despair, carrying Hoare's grapnel with him, into the widening strip of Channel between the vessels. He had kept a tight grip on the grapnel, however, and the other two men readily dragged him aboard Neglectful, spluttering but no wetter than he had been before his bath.
Especially in foul weather, the Channel hereabouts was a no-man's-land, so until now Hoare could not be sure whether he had saved French lives or English ones.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," the swimmer gasped, crawling after Hoare into the stern sheets, where Hoare could take the con once more. The sentiment might be Papist, Hoare thought, but the words were English. At least, then, he did not face the risk of being overpowered by ungrateful guests and carried off to some Breton port.
The first castaway looked back at the lugger, dwindling in the distance and wallowing visibly. "There goes me livelihood," he said bitterly through chattering teeth.
Hoare gestured to the two to go below and mimed eating, drinking, and dry clothing. They looked puzzled.
"Can't ye talk?" the first arrival shouted at him. Like so many people, he must assume that anyone who could not speak certainly could not hear. Hoare shook his head, smiled an apology, and repeated the motions. The swimmer went below, but the owner waited while his livelihood raised her weary bows into the air and disappeared behind a roller. She did not appear again. Thereupon, the owner joined his companion below.
Hoare kept his yacht's course easterly, scudding before the wind, even though wind and seas were far outpacing her. He knew Neglectful's cleverly formed transom would prevent her from being pooped.
The choking reek of coal smoke, sweeping horizontally from the little yacht's Charley Noble, was followed quickly enough by the more welcome smell of soup a-heating. The gale had not let up, but it had not strengthened, either, and Neglectful rode smoothly enough that Hoare's guests- probably as good seamen as he, if not better-had judged it safe to light her galley stove. Hoare had no spare oilskins, but he had several loose heavy garments that would fit any wet visitor well enough. It was no more than half a glass before the bereaved owner, clad in Hoare's thick Shetland sweater, stuck his head out Neglectful's cabin hatch and reached his host a cup of thick, hot soup, in one of his own thick, hot mugs. It was welcome; events had moved so fast that Hoare had not thought to breach his emergency cockpit supply.
In his other hand, the rescued owner held one of the Roman-style wax tablets that, together with numerous other devices, Hoare carried about for easy communication whenever his feeble whisper could not be understood.
"Name's Dunaway, your honor," he said, "Abel Dunaway. Owner of the Fancy lugger-though that means nowt this day."
Dunaway handed the tablets to his rescuer. His mournful, tanned face bore a week's growth of grizzled beard, and a shag of gray hair dropped into his eyes. He made himself comfortable in the cockpit, face-to-face with Hoare. In Neglectful's narrow cockpit, their knees all but touched.
"Just the same, sir, I owes you for me life, and Jamie below as well, though he must speak for himself. The boy Jethro Slee went overboard this morning, when a thicky murderous gale hit.
"I should never ha' sent him forward to reef the foresail; he went overboard. When I bore up to fish him out, we broached to, and her mainmast went by the board. 'Twere all my fault, my most grievous fault, and I don't know how I'm to break it to his da." Dunaway fell silent and studied his borrowed mug.
"May be lettin' up" he observed after a bit. "What d'ye think, sir?"
Hoare smiled into the growing darkness and shook his head. In point of fact, the moan of the wind in Neglectful's rigging had risen a half-tone. It was nigh time to heave to completely.
"Sorry, sir," Dunaway said. He handed Hoare the waxen tablets. "To whom do I owe my life, then?"
Hoare scribed his name in the wax, added "Lieutenant RN," then recollected himself, scratched the title out, and replaced it with "Commander, RN." He had been a Lieutenant for twenty-two years and still found it hard to remember that he now rated the courtesy address of "Captain."
"Captain," he said to himself. "Captain."
Dunaway managed a grin. "A new creation, I'll warrant, Captain," he said, as if he had been reading Hoare's mind. Hoare nodded again and returned the grin.
"Fancy?" he wrote. "Smuggler?" He knew very well she was no fisherman. There had been no sign of nets or trawls aboard the lugger, and her rig had been better suited to another calling.
"Fisherman," Dunaway said. Hoare shrugged.
A heavier sea came within a hair of breaking over Neglectful's stern. Cleverly formed or not, her stern sheets risked being overburdened within minutes.
"Sea anchor," he wrote. He tapped Dunaway's hand and pointed to the tiller with raised eyebrows. The other nodded.
"Aye aye," he said.
Hoare crawled forward once again, securing the idle grapnel as he went. Timing his moves to coincide with one of the periodic lees afforded him by the sea, he cracked the forward hatch, reached down, and dragged out Neglectful's seldom-used drogue. He hitched its pendant beside the useful grapnel, took in the scrap of storm jib, and signaled Dunaway to let the yacht work herself around into the wind. He gave the sea anchor ten fathoms or so of scope and cleated the line before crawling aft again.
Since she was no longer running with the wind, Neglectful's rigging began to shriek instead of merely moaning, but she rose willingly to the seas, now breasting them instead of fleeing them. Her trysail held her in place, so that once he had lashed the tiller again, she would do her duty as long as Hoare called on her to do so. He motioned Dunaway below and followed him, catching up his bag of sustenance as he went and securing the cuddy hatch behind him.
Neglectful's builder had not designed her to accommodate more than two. With three sizable men below, she was cramped. A man-o'-warsman, as used as any sardine to living bump-bottom with his shipmates, would have hardly been troubled, but Hoare had never gone to sea as less than a very junior mid. He saw that the proximity of two companions would become irksome in no time and resolved to set them ashore as soon as the weather permitted. Meanwhile, he accepted the fresh mug of his own pea soup that Jamie, the swimmer, offered him. Strangely, the rich smell of the soup blended cozily with the smell of wet wool that both his guests gave off as they began to warm up and the pervasive reek of Stockholm tar.
"Thank you," Hoare whispered, as much as to see if he could make himself heard above the muffled cacophony here below as to give the man a polite response.
"No; thank you, sir," Jamie said. His voice was unexpectedly cultured, but with a slight accent. French perhaps? His unweathered face was open and innocent. "Bose Mr. Dunaway and me 'ood be feedin' the fishes long since if it were not for you."
"A grand piece of seamanship," interjected Dunaway. "Both Jamie and I owe you our lives."
"Permit me, sir, to drink your healf in this most uncommon good soup," Jamie added.
"Permission granted," Hoare whispered with a smile. "If you'll steer your mugs this way, I'll even bless 'em with this." He wedged his own mug securely in his corner of the padded starboard locker, withdrew a jug from its bag, and, having drawn the cork with his teeth, poured a noggin of black rum into the others' extended mugs, remembering to christen his own before restoppering the jug.
"What brings you to sea, sir, alone, in such weather, if I might be so bold?" Dunaway asked.
"Pure foolishness Mr. Dunaway. I am about to take command of one of His Majesty's ships"-here he must take a breath-"and I knew that from that moment my time will no longer be even as much my own as the Port Admiral's office has allowed me these past years.
"As… a man who makes his living from these waters, you may f
ind it hard to credit that there are some of us who fish almost as much pleasure out of them as you do cod."
More, almost certainly, Mr. Dunaway, Hoare thought, considering your real calling.
"And the name of your vessel, sir?" Dunaway inquired.
"Neglectful, Mr. Dunaway. Today, that is." With this, Hoare steered the conversation into very familiar waters.
"Today?"
"Today. Lift up one of the floorboards under your feet, if you will, and look at its underside. Any one of them will do."
Dunaway did as directed. He snorted with surprise.
"'Inconceivable'" he read.
"Yes. I also call her Insupportable, or Molly J, or Dryad, or Serene, or Unspeakable. I change her name according to my mood of the moment-most often at the outset of a voyage, but sometimes, if the luck is bad, in midpassage as well. As you see, I keep several trail boards below, and face the spares into the bilges for a cabin sole. It makes no difference to her; she answers to none of them. She just answers her helm, and very well, too, at that."
He knew these lines by heart.
Dunaway gave a bark of laughter.
"I recognize you now, Mr. Hoare. I should ha' done so earlier. You're the sharp cove as caught that Frog Moreau and his gang."
Dunaway and the man Jamie exchanged a glance. The stuffy, warm air in Neglectful's cuddy grew a trifle ominous.
"Do not be foolish, gentlemen," Hoare whispered. "I know who you are, and you know I know it…"
He interrupted himself to take a breath, as he must from time to time whenever venturing more than a short sentence or two.
"… Pray do not make war on me; it would not be worth your while."
He displayed a small pistol he had won from the mate of an American brig only a year ago.
"As long as your trade does not diminish His Majesty or his Navy, and as long… as long as I am not under orders to suppress smuggling, your trade is no concern of mine.
"I would like your word of honor, both of you, that you will permit me to land you both, unharmed and secure… at the first landfall we make where a landing can be made without risk to my little Neglectful.
"Failing that, I shall be forced to shoot one of you and require the other to leave this little patch of dryness in the middle of a very wet Channel."
With this, Neglectful gave a little extra lurch, as though she agreed with Hoare.
The two guests exchanged another look; Jamie shrugged.
"You have our word, sir," Dunaway said.
"Will this do, or shall I beat back up into Weymouth?" Hoare asked his passengers the next morning. The gale had gone its way, yielding to an easy westerly breeze. The tiny harbor of West Lulworth lay a mile on the larboard beam, next to its landmark, the Durdle Door.
"Don't trouble yourself for us, Captain Hoare, sir," Dunaway said. "What with this and that, we'd as lief not even pass through Weymouth. No, Lulworth will do just fine. Fact is, I've folk in Lulworth.
"Now, by your leave, Jamie here and I will shift out of the clothing you so kindly lent us and be on our way."
Without too much difficulty, Hoare persuaded the two men to keep their borrowed gear for the time being, carry their own still-soggy garments, and send Hoare's clothing to him in Portsmouth.
"It will reach me at the Swallowed Anchor," he told them. To tell the truth, he wanted to see if they were as trustworthy as he hoped, for he could see the opportunity of putting their apparent skills to use in the future. But then he remembered.
"At Royal Duke, I mean after she enters port," he said. He was no longer to lodge ashore. He had a ship, or would have, soon.
Hoare dropped Neglectful's useful grapnel again and let out its line while swinging her inshore, driven by the still-heavy breakers. He had Dunaway raise her sliding keel into the trunk that split her cuddy fore and aft, so she was able to grind none too gently onto the shingle. Her passengers could now step ashore all but dry-shod.
"Our thanks again, Captain," said the owner, gripping Hoare's hand with both his own before he disembarked. "Call on Abel Dunaway of Langton Herring, by Weymouth, whenever you have the need."
The man Jamie followed suit. "Thenkee, sir," he said now, in no unfriendly tone, knuckling his forehead awkwardly. He followed his skipper ashore, leaving Hoare to heave Neglectful up to her grapnel through the surf. He took reefs in mainsail and jib and fell off before the wind toward Portsmouth and home.
Chapter II
Francis Delancey, the Port Admiral's Flag Lieutenant, smirked at Hoare. Delancey wasted no time but ushered him into his master's presence.
"You take your God-damned good time, sir, in obeying the orders of your superior officer," the Admiral declared. "I've cautioned you before: I will have no man loiter about at his ease while I await his attending me at whatever hour it pleases his slovenly self."
The heaps of paper on Sir George's desk did not appear to have changed in the ten days since Hoare had last seen it, nor did the Admiral look any less restless. Delancey gave Hoare a sour look and departed.
"Man's in a temper," Sir George said of his aide, sailing out of his own little squall as easily as he had sailed into it. "Your friend Gladden took my Felicia aside the night before Frolic weighed anchor, having received my permission to pay her his addresses. As if the slyboots hadn't been 'payin' his addresses' to the poor fat thing this year and more! Puts Delancey quite in the shade, just when he thought he was about to have a free run at my little girl. Ha!
"Anyhow, as I told you the other day, I'd thought to put young Gladden into Royal Duke as your Lieutenant, but the incumbent brought her in yesterday, as I suppose you noticed, and when he reported here, I had second thoughts. What would I do with him, after all?"
This was ominous. If Sir George felt he must ask the question, even if only rhetorically, what else he could do with Royal Duke's present Lieutenant if he were to put Gladden there in his stead; what sort of monster awaited him?
"Here are your orders. Now, take yourself off and read yourself in. I'm busy."
Back in the anteroom of the Port Admiral's office, Hoare must eat 'umble pie and ask Delancey where his command might lie. The Flag Lieutenant replaced his sour look with a sneer.
"Look yonder," he said, pointing.
Admiral Hardcastle had assigned Royal Duke to a mooring a mere cable's length offshore, a mooring that could have taken Victory through a hurricane with ease. The little brig dangled from it like a fierce mouse with its teeth clenched in a tomcat's tail. Hoare left Admiralty House, his precious orders in his hand, and once on the Hard hailed a wherry, with an ear-piercing whistle through his fingers, to take him out to his tiny command.
The wherry man first looked him askance, as if to ask, "Wouldn't it be quicker to swim out to her?" But, after all, every one of His Majesty's ships that was fit to sail had been shoveled out of Spithead to back up Nelson's fleet, and the roadstead was all but empty. Empty as the Admiralty's cupboard. These days, the pickings for watermen must be thin, indeed. An occasional light, spitting sprinkle, moistened them on the way.
"Royal Duke!" the wherry man cried at the end of the perilous voyage, in answer to the hail from the yacht's watch signifying that he had her Commander aboard. The man treated Hoare as if he carried two swabs instead of one-and that one on the inferior larboard shoulder-and offered him a hand to help him aboard. But to reach Royal Duke's flush deck would involve no climb at all; the boarding port that was opened for him in her bulwark was below his chin. Hoare handed the man the customary shilling and reached his portmanteau up to a hand on deck.
After pausing for a heartbeat to savor what was to come, Hoare hoisted himself aboard his command-his command! — with a single heave of his arms. The thin skirl of a boatswain's call sounded, followed by a thunder of booted feet as all hands formed to receive him. He could easily have out-tweetled the piper with his own silver whistle, the one he used to signal those persons he had trained to its calls.
But where was his Lieutenan
t, that mysterious, unemployable monster whom Sir George must perforce leave in place for lack of anything else to do with him? The person facing him was a mere midshipman.
"Welcome aboard, sir," said the boy in a surprisingly big voice, raising his round hat in salute. Wishing he had only half as much voice, Hoare looked at the speaker more sharply. This was no mid, as he had first thought, but a Lieutenant. Moreover, he was no lad, either, but a man of at least thirty. He was less than five feet tall.
"Permit me to introduce myself, sir," said the minikin.
"Harvey Clay, at your service. I look forward to serving under you, sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Clay," Hoare whispered. He felt unutterably pompous as he continued, "It is, indeed, a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and I am happy to have you under my command.
"I shall inspect the ship's company."
In a double rank facing him, Hoare's second surprise now presented arms-no fewer than six strangely uniformed men.
"Who the hell are these? Or what?"
"Our Marines, sir."
Hoare had never seen a Marine in any uniform other than the regulation bright red coat and white breeches. These men's coats and overalls were a dull green. Instead of pipeclay and twinkling brass, their accouterments were finished in lusterless black. Their Sergeant presented his gleaming halberd as smartly, nevertheless, and the men presented arms as crisply, as any other contingent of Jollies he had encountered. Hoare passed on to the crew.
He had long since decided that eye-to-eye contact was his best way to make an instant appraisal of another's character. The first one or two seamen offered no surprises, being the kind of cheerful grinning horny-footed creatures Hoare had known since he was twelve. But here he left familiarity behind. He was stopped by the appearance of the third hand. Cheerful and grinning like the others he might be, but this man had the longest, hairiest arms Hoare had ever seen on a human being.
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