With the dawn came a shift in wind, at last, starting to back round 3 A.M., an hour before All Hands was piped to wake the ship for another day of seafaring, of stowing hammocks topside, sweeping and mopping decks, and going to Quarters to guard against any foe revealed by the dawning sun. It changed to Nor'westerly, then quickly Westerly, and by Four Bells of the Morning Watch, had swung round to Sou'westerly. By the time Lewrie came to the quarterdeck for the third time of a sleepless night, so swathed in fur and undergarments that he resembled an Greenland Eskimo, it was from South by West, sweeping over the coastal plains of Prussia that lay to the South… and it felt just a tad warm, though none too strong.
"We'll not be able to pass between Sweden and the Danish island of Bornholm, sir," Mr. Lyle reported as they pored over the chart upon the traverse board. "By my reckoning, we've made twenty-five nautical miles since weathering Falsterbo last night, and-"
"No chance of sun-sights, of course," Capt. Harcastle stuck in.
"No. Of course not, not in this eternal overcast," Mr. Lyle agreed, though through clenched teeth to be interrupted. "I'd suggest we alter course to the Sou'east, and leave Bornholm broad to larboard."
"Sheltered waters, 'twixt Sweden and Bornholm, d'ye see, sir?" Hardcastle continued between sips of hot tea from his battered old pewter mug. "Calmer waters, more chances for ice floes to form. No one chances that passage, past November. Ye've seen the drift ice that we encountered during the night, Captain Lewrie?"
"Not really," Lewrie replied. "It was reported to me, but…"
"Rotten," Capt. Hardcastle declared. "Thin, and looking as if rats had been gnawing at the few pieces I saw, close enough aboard for me to judge. Damned near soft as pie crust, I'd imagine. Do we espy more this morning, it might not be a bad idea to put down a boat, and row out to give it a closer look-see."
"The thaw's set in for certain, then," Lewrie said, wondering how soon it might be that Thermopylae encountered Swedish or Russian warships at sea… or Danish, had they despatched one or two in chase of them.
"Oh, 'tis still too early for Karlskrona or the other Swedish ports to have clear passage," Hardcastle assured him with a smile and a wink. "And the Russian ports up the Gulf of Finland, well… they're weeks behind the Swedes. But we're getting there, sir, believe you me. And with this warm wind outta the mainland…," he said, turning his face to it for a second before shrugging his inability to give an exact estimate, "mayhap the thaw will come even earlier this season. Were I back in England, I'd be loaded and stowed, just waiting for a favourable wind to start the first trading voyage of the Spring."
"Oh joy," Lewrie griped, looking up from the chart to peer over the bows, and the hobby-horsing jib-boom and bow sprit for the island of Bornholm, still lost in the overcast and winter haze. By Mr. Lyle's reckoning, it lay perhaps twenty sea-miles East. He was tempted to go as close as he dared to the passage between the isle and Sweden, but there were his passengers, and their diplomatic mission, to consider. Hardcastle's assurance that the passage would not be usable for a few more weeks would have to do, for now.
"Very well," he reluctantly said, looking about for the officer of the watch, then trying to determine which of the swathed and muffled individuals that might be. "Mister Fox, sir?"
"Aye, sir?" the wool-covered figure in a bright red muffler and knit wool cap replied, lowering the scarf to ba B A scarf tore all his face.
"We will alter course to Sou'east, and make more sail," Lewrie directed. "All plain sail, first, then 'all to the royals,' perhaps."
"Directly, Captain," Lt. Fox crisply replied. "Bosun, pipe 'All Hands,' then 'Stations To Come About.' "
By mid-day, as the last of Eight Bells chimed, they stood with sextants and slates ready, hoping for a peek at the sun, but that orb refused to appear clearly, veiling itself as a bright, vague smudge in a sky solidly clouded over. The best they could do was agree that the various chronometers still kept the same time, within half a minute of each other, and that it was Noon, indeed, when the day officially began aboard a ship at sea; not at Midnight, but at Noon Sights.
"At least we see Bornholm, sir," Lt. Farley said, lowering his telescope after a peek over the larboard beam, "and can reckon by its presence just where we are. Its southernmost tip, yonder, 'twixt… ah, Aakirkeby and, ah… Nekso? And who picks the names for foreign towns, I ask you? Can't pronounce the half of 'em," he muttered.
"Do you concur, Captain Hardcastle?" Lewrie asked the civilian merchant master.
"That it be, sir," Hardcastle told them, chuckling. "Bless me, sirs, but you think they're hard to say, you ought to see how they're spelled in Swedish or Danish! All sorts of umlauts and hyphen strokes through the odd vowels. In Russian waters, it's even worse, for they use the Cyrillic alphabet… the old Greek, and thank God for Anglicised British charts."
"Ice!" cried a main-mast lookout from the cross-trees. "Do ye hear, there? Broken ice, two points off the larboard bows! A mile or more off!"
"You still wish to examine the ice, Captain Hardcastle?" Lewrie asked him.
"We must, sir," Hardcastle assured him.
"Mister Fox, we'll fetch-to, and lower a boat for Captain Hardcastle. Pass word for my Cox'n and boat crew," Lewrie ordered.
Thermopylae had been able to post about six or seven knots on the Sutherly winds, but now it was tossed away as the helm was put over and the sails trimmed to turn the frigate's bows about, into the wind, with squares'ls backed to check her forward motion, and with fore-and-aft sails cupping and drawing wind to counter any sternward drive. A rowing boat, the cutter, was seized up, and, with the employment of the main course yard for a crane, hoisted off the cross-deck boat-tier beams and carefully lowered overside, then manned below the starboard entry-port. Captain Hardcastle and Midshipman Tillyard joined the boat crew and began to row off towards the ice floes, now clearly visible from the decks. Lewrie paced the quarterdeck, from taffrail to the hammock nettings, and back again, stopping now and then to peer out and drum impatient mittened fingers on the cap-rails, knowing that such was as slow as "church work," as the saying went.
"Pardons, sir," Midshipman Plumb said by his side.
"What?" Lewrie impatiently snapped.
"Uhm… your man, Pettus, begs tell you that your dinner is ready, sir," the boy reported, looking a tad daunted.
"My pardons, Mister Plumb," Lewrie apologised, "but the state of the ice in the Baltic matters a great deal for Admiral Parker, and Admiral Nelson, and I'm anxious t'know what they discover," he added, jutting an arm at the slowly moving cutter. "Dinner, d'ye say? Hmm."
Proper Post-Captains did not fret; not where people could see them, they didn't. They were to show the world glacial serenity, even in hurricanes, he chid himself.
"Mister Fox, you have the deck," Lewrie called out over his shoulder as he tramped for the larboard gangway. "I will be dining in my cabins, 'til the boat returns. Send word when it does."
"Aye-aye, sir."
"A nice slab of last night's sea-pie, sir," Pettus told him as he helped him disrobe his winter garb. "Pity the Russian gentlemen didn't fancy it much, but more for you, there is. A scalding-hot soup… beef broth, diced onion, melted cheese and crumbled biscuit, and Nettles fried you some lovely potato patties, with lots of crumbled bacon. The cats have got their share of that, sir, no fear." Pettus cheerfully chattered away as Lewrie sat down at the table. A moment later, and there was a rum-laced, sweetened, and milked mug of coffee before him; even if it was goat's milk. "Wine, too, sir?"