Wright flushed. 'I'm sorry, sir. This heat -'
'Quite.' Sinclair waited until a ship's boy had been sent below for the hat and remarked, 'Deuced if I know how much longer I can waste time like this.'
The wretched man on the gundeck gave another groan. It sounded as if he was choking on his tongue.
Sinclair snapped, 'Keep that man silent! God damn his eyes, I'll have him seized up and put to the lash here and now if I hear another squeak from him!' He looked aft. 'Bosun's mate! See to it! I'll have no bleatings from that bloody thief!'
Wright wiped his lips with his wrist. They felt dry and raw.
'It is five days, sir.'
'I too keep a log, Mr Wright.' He moved to the opposite side and peered down at the water as it glided past. 'It may help others to think twice before they follow his miserable example!'
Sinclair added suddenly, 'My orders are to rendezvous with the squadron.' He shrugged, the dying seaman apparently forgotten. 'The meeting is overdue, thanks to this damnable weather. Doubtless Rear-Admiral Herrick will send someone to seek us out.'
Wright saw the boatswain's mate merge with the swirling mist as he hurried towards the naked man. It made him feel sick just to imagine what it must be like. Sinclair was wrong about one thing. The anger of the ship's company had already swung to sympathy. The torture was bad enough. But Sinclair had stripped McNa-mara of any small dignity he might have held. Had left him in his own excrement like a chained animal, humiliated before his own messmates.
The captain was saying, 'I'm not at all sure that our gallant admiral knows what he is about.' He moved restlessly along the rail. 'Too damn cautious by half, if you ask me.'
'Sir Richard Bolitho will have his own ideas, sir.'
'I wonder.' Sinclair sounded faraway. 'He will combine the squadrons, that is my opinion, and then -' He looked up, frowning at the interruption as a voice called, 'Mist's clearin', sir!'
'God damn it, make a proper report!' Sinclair turned to his first lieutenant. 'If the wind gets up, I want every stitch of canvas on her. So call all hands. Those idlers need work to keep their fingers busy!'
Sinclair could not restrain his impatience and strode along the starboard gangway, which ran above a battery of cannon and joined quarterdeck to forecastle. He paused amidships and looked across at the naked man. McNamara's head was hanging down. He could be dead.
Sinclair called, 'Rouse that scum! You, use your starter, man!'
The boatswain's mate stared up at him, shocked at the captain's brutality.
Sinclair put his hands on his hips and eyed him with contempt.
'Do it, or by God you'll change places with him!"
Wright was thankful as the hands came running to halliards and braces. The muffled stamp of bare feet at least covered the sound of the rattan across McNamara's shoulders.
The second lieutenant came hurrying aft and said to the master, 'Lively, into the chartroom. We shall be expected to fix our position as soon as we sight land!"
Wright pursed his lips as the master's mate of the watch reported the hands ready to make more sail.
If there was no land in sight, God help them all, he thought despairingly.
He watched some weak sunshine probing through the mist and reaching along the topsail yards, then down into the milky water alongside.
The leadsman cried out again, 'No bottom, sir!'
Wright found that he was clenching his ringers so tightly that he had cramp in both hands. He watched the captain at the forward end of the gangway, one hand resting on the packed hammock nettings. A man without a care in the world, anyone might think.
'Deck there! Sail on the weather bow!'
Sinclair strode aft again, his mouth in a thin line.
Wright ran his finger round his neckcloth. 'We'll soon know, sir.' Of course, the lookout would be able to see the other ship now, if only her topgallant yards above the creeping mist.
The lookout shouted again, 'She's English, sir! Man-o'-war!'
'Who is that fool up there?' Sinclair glared into the swirling mist.
Wright answered, 'Tully, sir. A reliable seaman:'
'Hmph. He had better be.'
More sunlight exposed the two batteries of guns, the neatly flaked lines, the pikes in their rack around the mainmast, perfectly matched like soldiers on parade. No wonder the admiral had been impressed, Wright thought.
Sinclair said sharply, 'Make sure our number is bent on and ready to hoist, Mr Wright. I'll have no snooty post-captain finding fault with my signals.'
But the signals midshipman, an anxious-looking youth, was already there with his men. You never fell below the captain's standards more than once.
The foretopsail bellied out from its yard and the master exclaimed, 'Here it comes at last!'
'Man the braces there!' Sinclair pointed over the rail. 'Take that man's name, Mr Cox! God damn it, they are like cripples today!'
The wind tilted the hull, and Wright saw spray lift above the beakhead. Already the mist was floating ahead, shredding through the shrouds and stays, laying bare the water on either beam.
The naked seaman threw back his head and stared, half-blinded, at the sails above, his wrists and ankles rubbed raw by the irons.
'Stand by on the quarterdeck!' Sinclair glared. 'Ready with our number. I don't want to be mistaken for a Frenchie!'
Wright had to admit it was a wise precaution. Another ship new to the station might easily recognise La Mouette as French-built. Act first, think later, was the rule in sea warfare.
The lookout called, 'She's a frigate, sir! Runnin' with the wind!'
Sinclair grunted, 'Converging tack.' He peered up to seek out the masthead pendant, but it was still hidden above a last banner of mist. Then like a curtain rising the sea became bright and clear, and Sinclair gestured as the other ship seemed to rise from the water itself.
She was a big frigate, and Sinclair glanced above at the gaff to make certain his own ensign was clearly displayed.
'She's hoisting a signal, sir!'
Sinclair watched as La Mouette's number broke from the yard.
'You see, Mr Wright, if you train the people to respond as they should -'
His words were lost as somebody yelled, 'Christ! She's runnin' out!'
All down the other frigate's side the gunports had opened as one, and now, shining in the bright sunshine, her whole larboard battery trundled into view.
Wright ran to the rail and shouted, 'Belay that! Beat to quarters!'
Then the world exploded into a shrieking din of flame and whirling splinters. Men and pieces of men painted the deck in vivid scarlet patterns. But Wright was on his knees, and some of the screams he knew were his own.
His reeling mind held on to the horrific picture for only seconds. The naked man tied to the gun, but no longer complaining. He had no head. The foremast going over the side, the signals midshipman rolling and whimpering like a sick dog.
The picture froze and faded. He was dead.
Commander Alfred Dunstan sat cross-legged at the table in Phaedra's cramped cabin and studied the chart in silence.
Opposite him, his first lieutenant Joshua Meheux waited for a decision, his ear pitched to the creak and clatter of rigging. Astern through the open windows he could see the thick mist following the sloop-of-war, heard the second lieutenant calling another change of masthead lookouts. In any fog or mist even the best lookout was subject to false sightings. After an hour or so he would see only what he expected to see. A darker patch of fog would become a lee shore, or the topsail of another vessel about to collide. He watched his cousin. It was incredible how Dunstan was able to make his ship's company understand exactly what he needed from them.
He glanced round the small cabin, where they had had so many discussions, made plans, celebrated battles and birthdays with equal enthusiasm. He looked at the great tubs of oranges and lemons which filled most of the available space. Phaedra had run down on a Genoese trader just before the sea-mist had enveloped them.