Winds of Folly Read Online Free Page B

business with the fishing fleet off Savona and picked up a large blue-fin tuna which one hoped would not prove too much of a challenge for the ship’s cook. Nathan would have had it cut into steaks, griddled, and served up with a pease pudding, but he had not thus far been summoned to the galley for his opinion on the matter. Notwithstanding, he would contribute six bottles of his best white wine, which had been brought down from the Alps packed in ice and straw and were now residing in the darkest, deepest part of the orlop deck.
    But there was still over an hour to go; he must think of something else to ease his torment. The cry from the foremast lookout supplied a welcome distraction.
    â€˜Sail ho! Two points on the starboard bow.’
    Nathan crossed to the starboard rail and peered forward, but could see nothing from so low a vantage – and nor did he expect to, not if the masthead men were as alert as they should have been.
    â€˜Mr Holroyd, I am going aloft,’ Nathan informed the officer of the watch, in case he should notice his Captain’s absence from the quarterdeck and wonder if he had jumped overboard out of a sense of his own inconsequence.
    He made his way forward and climbed rapidly up into the rigging, his Dollond glass tucked firmly under his arm. He made a point of going aloft whenever he had an excuse to do so – in part to reassure himself and the crew that he was as capable as any of swinging like an ape 120 feet above the deck – but he knew he was a mere sloth among the accomplished simians who normally resided here, while the midshipmen, he had no doubt, would be watching his progress from the deck with amused tolerance.
    He paused for breath at the crosstrees and the nearest lookout considerately swung down to him and knuckled hisforehead, before using the same arm to point in the direction he had so recently communicated to the deck, as if his Captain needed special guidance in the points of the compass. Hanson, Nathan recalled – a Dane, taken off a Bristol slaver in the Caribbean.
    From his present vantage Nathan spotted the sail almost immediately, even without the Dane’s thoughtful assistance, hull down and on the larboard tack. She must be an outward bounder from Genoa or one of the ports to the east: a merchant man most likely, for though there were several French privateers lurking thereabouts, on such a day as this they could scarcely have evaded the British blockade – and for the same reason she was almost certainly a neutral, unless she was part of the blockade herself, sent westward on some mission for the Commodore.
    Nathan hooked one arm through the topgallant shrouds and lifted the glass to his eye. With its assistance the individual sails became more distinct and he could see at once that she was no man-o’-war. But even as he began to lose interest, he saw that she was changing course, and now heading directly towards the
Unicorn
, or as directly as the wind would allow. This was strange, for even a neutral would be wary of encounter with a British man-o’-war, eager for trained seamen to supplement her crew. He rested his eye for a moment and when next he looked he saw the small puffball of smoke blossom from her bow and heard the distant report of the signal gun carried across the still waters towards him. Closing the telescope with a brisk snap, he tucked it down the front of his coat and slid down to the deck by the backstay as nimbly, he flattered himself, as any young gentleman, or ape.
    â€˜Hands to the braces, Mr Holroyd,’ he called out, and to the quartermaster at the helm, ‘Bring her two points to leeward. Ah, here you are, Mr Perry …’ catching sight of the sailingmaster who had emerged from below and was already frowning up at the sails as if they had been perfectly all right as they were and no one but he had any business to be fooling around with them in his absence. ‘There is a packet to leeward