On a Lee Shore (12 page)

“Look out!” O’Neill was at his elbow, and they both grabbed onto the shrouds as a wave washed over the deck. The flickering of lightning was continuous, and now they were beginning to hear the first faint rumbles over the sound of wind and sea.

“Dear God,” Kit swore, shaking spray from his eyes and O’Neill laughed.

“You know any good prayers, son, you’d better say them. It’ll get worse before it gets better. Ah, fuck, here comes the rain.”

Kit turned to reply to O’Neill, and a wall of rain dashed into his face, choking him. He coughed and spat, then followed O’Neill to the tiller.

The discussion was ending with the captain slapping Valliere on the shoulder. He turned to Kit and pointed to the compass then gripped his collar to put his mouth close to his ear.

“We’ll do it turn and about,” he shouted. “O’Neill and I, and you and Val. Try to keep her heading but don’t force it. This should blow through. It’s early for a bad storm.”

Early it may have been, but it was bad enough. They had split the watches, and the men who were on deck could do little more than trim the remaining sail when instructed and hang on for dear life.

Valliere and Kit clung to the tiller, leaning on it to keep Africa’s head into the huge seas. They couldn’t speak but communicated with shouts and gestures to the compass and sent runners to pass along orders to the men. It was exhausting, but Kit could feel how the little ship answered to her helm and knew that she would weather the storm.

Unless, of course, there was something out there he didn’t know about. He recalled with misgiving the little Isabella, part of the great flotilla of ships heading home in the wake of the flagship, Association. Kit had overheard the anxious discussion of the captain with his first lieutenant as they compared their readings with that of the sailing master.

“But surely they realize,” Lt. Payton had been saying.

“Maybe my calculations are wrong?” Captain Redall said, his tone hopeful and his face worried. “The fleet sailing master signals we’re off Ushant, and I have to trust his judgment.”

And that of the admiral, they all thought but didn’t say as they watched the flagship flying down the wind to where, Redall had calculated, Scilly’s ferocious rocks and shoals lay waiting.

Later, Kit had seen the spouts of spray that marked the sharp teeth waiting to rip the heart out of Isabella and had joined with every hand aboard in cramming on what sail they could and praying that it would be enough to carry them round the Western Rocks.

They had made it, but others hadn’t, and Kit remembered Redall sitting in his shattered cabin with his head in his hands as he tried to find the words to express what had happened.

“By the grace of God,” Redall had written in the logbook.

“By the grace of God,” Kit murmured now, his shoulder hard against Valliere’s as the Africa reared up, bowsprit to the sky, then plunged over the crest of another huge wave.

After a while—it felt like half the night but was probably no more than two hours—he was told to go below, and the captain took his place. Kit didn’t go far but took off his oilskins and wrung the water from his hair and shirt. He sat on the stairs, closed his eyes for a moment…then Wigram was kicking him awake. “You’ve had your time, so get your arse back on duty,” he said. “Curse this game leg o’ mine.”

Kit wasn’t sure where it was worse, on deck in the driving rain straining every muscle to keep the ship and her crew safe, or below where it pitched and rolled, and he had to trust that others would save him. Eventually he gave up thinking and just did what had to be done.

A subtle graying of the eastern sky held a promise of dawn before the strength of the wind began to abate. Kit had been below, and Saunders had provided him with a drink hot with rum and spices. It warmed Kit from the inside, and when it was his turn to go back up to the exposed position in the stern of the ship, he took a measure for the man on duty. When he arrived, one of the two swathed figures grunted a word of gratitude and went below. He offered the cup to the other.

“Drink,” he said and took over the tiller.

“Thank you, Kit,” the other man said, and he saw the captain’s profile against the growing light as he raised the cup to his lips and drank.

A narrow flush of ugly yellow was spreading to the east. Now Kit could see the seas they were weathering, he was filled with awe for the gallantry of the little ship, and of her captain and crew, because without their strength applied to tiller and sheets she would have gone down in the first hour.

He checked the compass and made a little adjustment to the tiller. Someone was waving and calling from the hatch. Hands converged on it, and after a moment Davy Forrest came running, clinging to the safety lines as another sea swept across the planking.

“O’Neill fell down the stair,” he said. “The last pitch shook him loose.”

“Is he hurt?” Kit asked, his voice chiming alongside the captain’s deeper enquiry.

“Knocked hisself silly,” Davy replied, sparing a hand to wipe the rain from his face. “But he landed on Val. We think Val’s wrist might be broke. Saunders’s seeing to ’em now.”

“Damnation,” the captain said. “Well, Penrose, can we do it, do you think?”

Kit looked at the yellow tinged waves and the cloud overhead. “I’m rested,” he said then grinned. “No choice is there? Of course we can do it.”

And so they did, taking brief turns to warm chilled hands and drink more of Saunders’s throat-searing grog before returning to their posts.

At noon by the clock, for the sun had not been seen since that faint yellow glow at dawn, the seas had subsided to the point that they rarely wet the deck with more than spray, and the wind, while strong, was no longer so strong they didn’t dare risk a little more canvas.

By then Kit was back in his ‘doing what must be done’ state, and the captain had spoken to him three times before he looked round and apologized.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I didn’t hear.”

“I said I think we’re done,” the captain said, adding, “Kit—Kit, you can go below.”

“Who’s taking over?” Kit asked, frowning as he tried to remember being warm, oh and sleeping!

“Wigram,” the captain said. “And O’Neill is with us again, though he has a bit of a headache.”

“I’ll wait until they are here,” Kit said quietly, and his lips twitched as he heard a growl.

“Insubordinate. Do you really want a thrashing?”

“The sea’s done that, sir,” Kit said then sighed with relief as O’Neill approached followed by Wigram, who was exaggerating a limp.

“Come, Kit,” the captain said and gave him a shove to start him in the right direction.

On the stairs Kit stumbled. “Sorry,” he said as he felt a hand fasten on his collar, but the captain was no steadier on his feet as they lurched to the cabin door and inside. Saunders was waiting to push another cup into his hands urging him to drink. When he had drained the cup, Saunders helped him strip off his oilskins and shirt and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. Heavy-eyed, Kit looked across to see Denny doing the same for the captain.

“Lie down before you fall down,” the captain advised, and Kit took a step to where more blankets had been laid out and lowered himself to the floor.

“Thank you, captain…” he began then snorted. “God’s cods—what is your name? Nobody will tell me.” His eyes were closing, but he could just make out the captain getting into his cot, the skin of his bare chest and shoulders looking as blue and chilled as Kit felt his own to be.

The captain lay back with a sigh before replying. “Major Yestin Griffin, late of the Honorable Artillery Company, temporarily a prisoner of the French brigantine Garonne, now Garnet, more recently captain of the sloop Aphrodite.”

“Africa Ditty,” Denny corrected him.

“Africa Ditty,” the captain repeated, his voice almost inaudible yet Kit could still hear the smile in it.

“Thank you, Major Griffin,” Kit murmured, then a thought struck him and his eyes opened. “Griffin. You’re La Griffe!” He began to laugh.

“Half of him,” Captain Griffin said. “The better looking half. The half with the brains. Kit, if you don’t stop laughing I’ll maim you. Go to sleep.”

“With a good will, sir,” Kit replied, and honestly he couldn’t have kept his eyes open any longer.

Chapter Seven

From the even swing of his hammock when he awoke, Kit had supposed he was in his usual place in the fo’c’sle, until he opened his eyes and saw white painted boards swimming with reflected light a couple of feet above his head. Kit frowned. He remembered lying down on a damp blanket on the floor and seeing the captain slumping back into his cot looking exhausted and beaten. Denny had been holding their drenched oilskins away from his body with an expression of disgust on his wizened face, while Saunders was busy pouring a measure from a bottle into a small glass.

Now the room was empty. The cot was neatly made, the floor clean and dry. The Africa was heeling over a little, rising and falling evenly over the swells. Other than that he was in a hammock rather than on the floor, there was no sound or sign that should cause any alarm, but Kit was uneasy. There was something wrong. He yawned. He’d work out what it was in just a few moments. He stretched, groaned as strained muscles protested, and dropped his hand to rub ribs bruised by the tiller.

Ah—so that was the problem. He had gone to sleep at least partially dressed. Now his breeches were gone. He scowled, feeling that it was a little intrusive to have removed them while he slept, lifted the blanket and stared. He was wearing drawers that he didn’t recognize, the waist tie done in a firm and seamanlike bowline.

Kit gulped, hating the idea of having been exposed and vulnerable and having known nothing about it. There was only one thing to do—get up and dressed as quickly as possible.

The hammock creaked as he swung down from it, and he stood on the oilcloth and looked for his clothes. They were nowhere to be seen but neatly folded on the table was a shirt and the kind of breeches that the captain favored. Kit went to look out of the window. Another shock. Unless they had gotten horribly turned around it was morning, not long after dawn—a clear bright one too, with a sky filled with racing clouds.

Behind him the latch clicked, and he looked around.

“Oh!” Denny was staring at him. “Get your breeches on you ’orrible soldier!”

Kit grinned at him. “My breeches are gone,” he said. “Where did they go, Denny? They can’t have walked off by themselves.”

“Put them on,” Denny gestured to the clothes on the table. “An’ you’re late. ’E’s not ’appy.”

No need to ask who “he” was. Kit hurried himself to dress, wincing at the feel of clean linen on his salt-stiffened skin. But washing would have to wait if a captain wasn’t ’appy.

“Where are we, Denny?” he asked. “Do you know what the readings were?”

“On the Africa, still,” Denny said and rolled his eyes as though Kit had asked the most stupid question in the world.

The breeches fit well enough once Kit adjusted the falls, but the shirt was long on him. He rolled up the sleeves to the elbow and tucked the shirt into his waistband then followed Denny on deck barefoot.

The flesh around O’Neill’s eye was stormy in hue and badly swollen, but the man gave him a smile as sunny as the day. “Thank Christ,” he said. “I’m dying for a piss. We thought you’d died, ’cept you were breathing. You didn’t even stir when they put you in your hammock.”

“Why did you let me sleep so long?” Kit demanded, stepping into O’Neill’s place.

“Because you needed to,” O’Neill replied. “Keep on this heading.”

Kit watched him go a bit wistfully. He could have done with the heads himself.

The Africa was speeding along across the wind, heading southwest, which suggested that they had been driven north during the storm. Kit leaned on the tiller, wincing as it fretted already bruised ribs, and looked up at the great spread of white sails. Africa was one of the most beautiful craft he had even seen, gracefully proportioned, with the great spear of her bowsprit balancing her raked mast and her sails cupped like wings to catch the light of the sun and throw it back at the men on deck. Men were aloft making even more sail. As he watched, one broad shouldered figure raised a hand and began to descend.

“Thank you, Kit.” O’Neill was back. “Damn that was a blow yesterday. You look better than you did. You were gray.”

“You look better than you did as well,” Kit responded with a grin. “Did Saunders put that stitch over your eye?”

“He did and I swore at him,” O’Neill admitted. “So—you haven’t missed much. Let me see—the storm was blowing itself out when you went down. Somewhere farther north had a horrible night of it I shouldn’t wonder, but we were all right. We got some sail on and began to beat our way back south. When the old man got up, not far short of midnight, that was, there was enough sky showing for us to get some idea of where we were.”

“And that is?” Kit asked.

“Northeast of Barbuda somewhere,” O’Neill replied. “And I hope we find out where soon because that’s one lee shore you don’t want to get driven onto. There’s this reef—so many ships have gone down there.”

“Any sign of the Garnet?” Kit asked. “And any casualties?”

“Not a sign,” O’Neill said. “Val’s back on his feet with his wrist strapped, Wigram’s claiming his back got hurt and he twisted his ankle but seems to be able to stoop to pick up his rum all right. Other than that, bumps and scrapes. I don’t think anyone, apart from Denny, came through it unscathed. Saunders is complaining we’ve used almost all of his medicinal brandy. He reckons medicinal gin isn’t the same.”

“I think I had too much medicinal brandy,” Kit said. “I don’t normally sleep like that.”

“As one dead, you mean?” Captain Griffin arrived beside them and took the tiller. He looked rested and his expression was relaxed. He looked Kit over and nodded. “I decided that you were better in your hammock than underfoot. You may return the clothes when they have been laundered.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kit said watching as the bowsprit eased off its tack, nosing more to the east. “Um, why are we—”