Lewrie took it from his jaws, even if it did stink like so many badgers and was greasy and wet with saliva, got the dog dancing right and left, then threw it back to the flag lockers. Bisquit chased it down, gave it a shake, and brought it back, to do it all again. That went on for a full five minutes before a lookout high atop the mizen mast cried out, “Sail ho!”
“Carry on, Mister Fywell,” Lewrie said, tossing the toy to one of the youngest Midshipmen who had been practising his mathematics on a slate. “Just don’t toss it overboard by accident. Bisquit’d be heartbroken.”
“Where away?” Lt. Elmes shouted aloft with a speaking trumpet.
“Two points off the larboard quarter!” was the bellowed reply. “Two-masted, and hull down!”
Lewrie took his telescope aft to stand atop the flag lockers, clinging to the larboard taffrail lanthorn to steady himself. He had just the slightest hint of two wee parchment-tan ellipses on the horizon, like the upper halves of two close-set commas.
“Eight or nine miles off?” he muttered under his breath, “and how’d she get this close without the lookouts spottin’ her?”
He would have to have a sharp word with his watch officers, so that sort of inattention didn’t happen again! Let Westcott, Harcourt, and Elmes pass the grief along to those deserving.
His perch was rather precarious, so after a minute or so, he clambered down and depended on the shouts between Lt. Elmes and the lookouts aloft.
The strange sail was two-masted, proceeding on a mostly Easterly course, and appeared to be about eight miles astern of Sapphire, though almost keeping up with the much larger ship because she was on a bee-line, whilst the two-decker was angling inshore.
“Whatever she is, she appears to be coasting from either Estepona, Puerto Banús, or Marbella, on a direct course for Fuengirola or Málaga, sir,” the Sailing Master said after Lewrie returned to the quarterdeck. “Blind as bats, or un-caring, for she’s surely spotted us by now, sir.”
“Thankee, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie replied. “How far offshore d’ye reckon her to be?”
“Five or six miles, sir,” Yelland guessed.
“Very well,” Lewrie said, looking up and aft.
When Lewrie had taken command of Sapphire, she had been a part of a squadron commanded by a Rear-Admiral of The Blue, and had flown that ensign, and she had kept that colour when escorting her convoy to Gibraltar. Once there, though, Lewrie and Sapphire operated under Admiralty Orders as an independent ship, and now flew the Red Ensign, which stood out more distinctly at greater distances.
Bisquit’s toy came bumping down the starboard ladder from the poop deck, followed by the dog a moment later. Midshipman Fywell, at the head of the ladder, looked sheepish and embarrassed.
“Mister Fywell, instruct Mister Spears to strike our colours, and hoist those of the Spanish Navy,” Lewrie told him of a sudden.
“Spanish, sir?” Fywell gawped.
“The one with the crowned oval with all the shit in it, mind,” Lewrie said with a grin. He looked aloft to the commissioning pendant to judge the direction of the winds, and made another decision.
“Mister Elmes, I wish t’close that sail, and take her if she’s worth it. Alter course two points to larboard, and make her head Nor’-Nor’east.”
“Nor’-Nor’east, aye, sir,” Elmes replied, turning to shout directions to the brace tenders and sheetmen. That change of course and the sighting of a strange sail several minutes before drew the attention of the on-watch hands, and those off-watch who had come up from below in anticipation of the first daily rum issue at Seven Bells of the Forenoon. Chuckles and murmurs could be heard as Sapphire’s men contemplated even more prize money in their pockets.
“Sir,” Lt. Harcourt reported himself on deck and ready for any duty, though Quarters had not been called for.
“Sir,” Lt. Westcott performed the same duty a moment later. “A possible prize?”
“Perhaps,” Lewrie told him.
Westcott had a quick look about, spotted the Spanish Navy Ensign flying in place of their own, and could not help chuckling.
“Should we have Carpenter Acfield fashion a crucifix and hoist it onto the face of the main tops’l, sir?” he teased.
“A crucifix?” Lt. Harcourt asked.
“Last year off the Plate Estuary, when we fought the San Fermin frigate, she had a big one on the front of her fore tops’l,” Westcott explained. “Didn’t do the Dons much good, though, for some of our bar-shot decapitated Jesus, and she burned to the waterline, poor devils.”
“Now we are ze grandees of Espagna,” Lewrie played along with a bad attempt at a Castilian lisp accent, “we do not do battle weez zose heretical Engleesh, we do weezout ze Holy Presence.”
For the first time, Lt. Harcourt looked as if he was amused, and honestly so, instead of giving an impression of smirking.
“Deck, there!” a lookout alerted them as Sapphire completed her alteration of course and settled down on Nor’-Nor’east, picking up speed on a broad reach and a leading wind. “The Chase is bearing off for shore! Six points off the larboard bows!”
“Or one point ahead of abeam,” Westcott grumbled.
Lewrie went to the laboard bulwarks to take another look with his telescope. Their strange sail was not quite hull-up yet, but he could determine that her two masts sported large lugsails suspended from gaff booms, with what looked to be a single jib sail up forward. The scend from one of the sea’s long rollers lifted Sapphire a few feet, another far off lifted the stranger a few feet, and he got the impression of a sliver of hull. They were closing on her!
“If she’s a Spaniard, and we’re flyin’ Spanish colours, then why the Devil is she tryin’ to run?” he grumbled.
“General distrust, sir?” Lt. Elmes, who was within ear-shot and assumed that he was being addressed, piped up. “After three years of war, and so many ships taken by our Navy, her master must be wary of any other ship that heaves up in sight.”
“No matter,” Lewrie decided. “We’ve a much longer waterline and scads more sail. Unless she tries t’put about, into the wind, or run herself aground, I think we’ve a good chance of taking her.”
“Hull-up, sir!” Midshipman Carey, in charge of the signalmen on the poop deck, cried, forcing Lewrie to lift his glass once more for another look at her.
No more than five miles off, now, he told himself, juggling the odds of interception; And I still can’t make out the coastline, which means she can’t get into shoal water before we fetch her up. And she’s slow. Wallowing!
“Mister Elmes, beat to Quarters,” he snapped at the officer of the watch. “The upper-deck guns, the bow chasers, and the larboard twelve-pounders only.”
“Aye, sir!”
A Marine drummer began the long roll, petty officers began to bellow orders, and Lieutenant Westcott took over for Elmes, freeing him to go below. Harcourt departed to take charge of the upper gun deck 12-pounders, and Marine Lieutenant Keane turned up with Lt. Roe in tow, hastily chivvying their men into full kit of waist-coats and red coats and crossbelts, which were only worn when standing sentry duty or for battle when at sea.
“We’ve a Spanish speaker aboard?” Lewrie asked the people on the quarterdeck.
“I do, sir,” Lt. Roe said.
“Should I have need to hail her, do you stand by here on the quarterdeck ’til she’s struck, Mister Roe,” Lewrie said to him, “then I’d admire did you go over to her with the boarding party.”
“Very good, sir!” Roe replied, looking eager for any fight.
“If she strikes, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie went on, “I wish my boat crew to bring the launch up from towing, and ferry the boarding party over to her.”
Bisquit knew what the long roll meant, by now, and recognised the loud noises associated with battle, and the roar of the guns. He came down from the poop deck in a rush, scampered down to the waist, and disappeared down a hatchway, bound for the safety of the orlop.