"Aye, sir," Midshipman Warburton said, scribbling it down with a pencil stub on a scrap of paper, then turning to his signalmen and the flag lockers.
Some of that only took one or two flags in the Popham Code, but the rest took a long time to spell out, letter by letter. It was nigh to Noon Sights before Modeste replied, and that was a laconic set of flags for "Acknowledged." After that, nothing.
And it was mid-afternoon, after Lewrie's mid-day meal, before Modeste sent up hoists, first a General for all ships, prefaced by one gun to get their attention.
"'Alter Course West-Nor'west, Half North,' sir," Midshipman Mr. Entwhistle spelled out.
At least he'll compromise, halfway between, Lewrie thought.
"Then, uhm…," Entwhistle continued, thumbing through his book to interpret the rest. "'Form Line-Abreast… Order of Sailing… Northernmost Number Three.'"
"Pylades" Lewrie said aloud.
"Number Two, that's us, sir… Number Four, then One. Distance Between Ships… Ten Miles Day… Five Miles Night," Entwhistle read off haltingly. "The Preparative is up, sir."
"Very well. Mister Westcott? All Hands! Ready to haul up to windward and form line-abreast," Lewrie ordered.
At the drop of the Preparative, Modeste surged on West-Nor'west while Cockerel wheeled off to her starboard side, and Reliant and Pylades swung onto a beam reach, bound Due North, headed for the horizon. Though it was hard on Captain Blanding to change his mind or take heed of a suggestion, Lewrie was learning, he wasn't entirely pig-headed.
Modeste could scan the seas out to twelve miles to larboard and ahead, and have Cockerel ten miles North of her, looking ahead another twelve miles, as would Reliant ten miles North of her; lastly, Pylades could see twelve miles ahead and to the North, making a scouting line that could search a swath of ocean fifty-four miles across during the daylight hours.
"Signal from Cockerel, sir… a repeat from Modeste. For all ships, all private numbers Midshipman Warburton puzzled out once they were ten miles North of Cockerel, and steady on West-Nor'west, Half North. "'Make All Sail Conformable With The Weather,' sir!"
"But of course he did!" Lewrie hooted. "I trust the ship is in your good hands, Mister Merriman?"
"Well, aye, sir!" the Third Officer answered, not knowing quite what to say to such a statement; or was it a question of his ability?
"Good," Lewrie said, plumping down into his sling-chair. "Wake me at the start of the First Dog. Here, laddies!" he beckoned, patting his chest to attract his cats, Toulon and Chalky, who had been sunning themselves atop the tarpaulin cover of the hammock nettings. Both got to their paws, stretched, yawned, then hopped down to swarm up his legs to his chest for a spell of "wubbies."
As soon as the cats tired of that, Lewrie actually pulled down his hat over his eyes, crossed his arms, sprawled out his legs, and gave the impression that he really had fallen into a nod.
Lt. Westcott came back to the quarterdeck after an hour or so of paper-shuffling and stopped dead at the top of the starboard companion-way ladder from the waist, cocking a brow at Lt. Merriman before going to join him.
"The captain seems in rare takings, sir," Merriman whispered to the First Officer, with a boyishly shy grin. "Higher spirits than he's been."
"Is he really napping?" Westcott wondered aloud. Sure enough, Lewrie's head was over to one side, his mouth slightly open, and there came a nasally sleep sound. "Good," Lt. Westcott decided. "It's been a year since the French… He's mourned enough. Dare I speak of it, mind."
"He's a ship to command, I expect that helps," Merriman opined. "And the chance for action… and revenge?"
"Back where he belongs, in familiar waters, to boot," Westcott added. "He might even be… happy. Better for us, to serve a happy captain, 'stead of a gloomer. Is that a word? Who cares?"
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Lewrie cheated a bit, of course, by edging out North'rd 'til the masthead lookouts could barely spot Cockerel, and covertly signalling Parham to take his Pylades out away from Reliant to the limits of her lookouts' vision as well. Four more miles could make all the difference was his main thought-if the French had shied as far away from any patrolling vessels out of Jamaica as they could.
Another day passed, full of boresome ship's routine and gunnery practice; decks were scoured, meals were served, rum was issued twice a day, hammocks and bedding came up from below at 4 a.m. for stowing in stanchions and nettings, then taken below at sundown, after the Reliant stood Evening Quarters. Watches were set and rotated; Noon Sights were taken and their position reckoned by the height of the sun and by the half-hour casts of the chip-log aft. With stuns'ls set, the squadron reeled off an average of nine or ten knots during the daylight hours, much less in the darkness, but still managed runs of nearly 195-215 miles from one noon to the next. And they were running out of ocean. Another day, and they would be off the approaches to Lake Borgne and the first passes through the low-lying Mississippi Delta.
Lewrie paced his quarterdeck, from taffrail flag lockers and lanthorns to the companionway ladder and back again, head down, hands in the small of his back, all his recent good humour gone; fretting he had been wrong, horribly wrong; fearing that the French had kept their two-day lead and had made good time, and were even now anchored at the Head of Passes off Fort Balise, ready to sail up the river to New Orleans… as safe and unassailable as babes in their mother's arms!
As he paced forrud towards the bows, the lowering sun was harsh in his eyes, still yellow, though in the next half-hour it would go red and amber as it neared the Western horizon. Already, the seas astern were beginning to be lost in dusk, and the seas ahead were a sheet of wrinkled copper fresh from the forge, with the wavetops tinged a coral red atop their fleeting blue-grey shadows.
"Lovely sunset in a bit, sir," Lt. Spendlove commented.
"Mine arse on a band-box!" Lewrie all but snarled back.
At the end of the First Dog Watch, which was due in a few minutes (dammit!), they would have to put over the helm and slink back to the South to take station five miles off Cockerel, shrinking the line to fifteen miles North-to-South, and the lookouts' vision shrunk down to five miles or less, depending on cloud cover or the lack of moon.
"Deck, there!" a lookout called down. "Pylades is haulin' her wind an' comin' down t'us! Signalling'!"
Lewrie looked about for one of the Midshipmen of the Watch and found Grainger first. "Aloft with you, Mister Grainger, with a glass and your signals book! Mister Rossyngton, make ready to answer with flag signals! Hop to it!"
He watched Grainger scale the windward shrouds and rat-lines to the cat-harpings, go out the futtock shrouds to the main-top, then get up the narrower top-mast shrouds to the cross-trees to join the sailor posted there as a lookout; glared, rather, urging haste before the evening got too dark to see!
"Deck, there!" the lookout bawled, relaying what Grainger told him, phrase by phrase. "Four… Strange… Ships! Night… Lights… on th' Horizon! Chase! In Sight! Enemy In Sight!"