Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars Read Online Free Page B

sentry stuck his head through the doorway. “Begging your pardon, zur. You’re wanted topside.”
    “Thank you, I’ll be there directly.” He quickly pulled on an old sou’wester, covering himself as much as he could.
    Abovedecks, he saw that the sky was more like night than day, with low, roiling clouds racing toward the southeast. The rain lashed at them in curtains. White-topped swells heaved masses of windblown scud across the decks at regular intervals. He found Eliot and four of his men by the wheel, in addition to Lieutenant Talmage and a miserable-looking Midshipman Beechum, all covered in their bulky wet-weather gear. A glance upward told him that the double-reefed fore and main topsails were straining dangerously, and their yards bowed. Talmage crossed from the weather rail as Charles appeared.
    “Wind’s increasing. I thought it best we reduce sail, sir,” Talmage shouted above the gale.
    “I should have thought it best to do it before now,” Charles replied crisply. He cast a glance at Eliot and received an irritated shrug in response. He guessed that there had been a disagreement between the two men, and wished that his lieutenant would have just followed the sailing master’s advice.
    “Didn’t want to disturb you before it was necessary,” Talmage explained.
    “Better sooner than too late,” Charles answered. “Call the hands.”
    While Talmage turned to call the orders through his speaking trumpet, Charles made his way up the deck toward Eliot. “What do you think?” he shouted next to the master’s ear.
    “The wind keeps picking up. We should have taken the topsails off this quarter hour past. Something’s bound to carry away.”
    “Yes,” Charles said. “We’ll heave to and put her under a storm jib and the maintop staysail.
    “Mr. Beechum!” he yelled, gesturing at the young midshipman.
    “Yes, sir?” Beechum said as he arrived skidding down the deck.
    “Get below and inquire as to the cook’s plans for supper. Ask him how much prepared food he has on hand and how long it will last.” The galley fires would have been extinguished as soon as the storm hit, for fear of the embers spilling out, so dinner would have to consist of cold boiled beef and whatever else the cook had the foresight to have on hand.
    “Aye-aye, sir,” the boy said, and turned to leave.
    “Beechum,” Charles called him back.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Has anyone seen anything of the rest of the squadron?”
    “We saw one, sir,” Beechum answered. “About one bell ago, maybe two miles awindward during a clearing in the squall. Can’t be sure, but Eliot thinks it was
Emerald.
Looked like she’d lost her foremast. Don’t know where she is now, though.”
    “And
Pylades
?” Charles asked carefully.
    “No, sir, not a thing. Not since it began to blow.”
    “Thank you,” Charles said. “Now, report back to me what the cook says.”
    Charles stayed at his place by the lee rail for several hours, through the first dog watch and into the second. While it was light enough to see them, he anxiously watched the few sails the ship carried, and studied the relentless procession of ever growing waves, blown white at their crests, passing angrily under
Louisa
’s bow quarter. He felt the heave and tremble of his ship’s frame through the deck as she fought the elements. Beechum relieved one worry by reporting that the cook had enough prepared beef and pork on hand to last “two, maybe two and a half days if we go easy.” Charles sent back an order that the portions be cut to three in four.
    He could feel through his shoes the rattle of the chain pumps as the hundreds of gallons of water that had seeped in through the hatches, decks, and hull were laboriously forced up out of the bilge and back into the sea. Mostly, he tried to guess where the wind and current were taking them. How much leeway was
Louisa
making? With the weather off the starboard bow, she was pointed more or less westerly, but her actual