eye skyward. “On to it, then.”
He stepped to the break of the forecastle to shout, “Mr. Hodder. Mr. MacQuarrie. Pass the word to your men. You know what’s to be done.”
It was a fascination to witness the next while: a delicate operation executed with the precision and ease gained only through practice. MacQuarrie readied his crews and guns, the port lids still closed, as did the Valor, as observed and reported by the eagle-eyed Damerell at the crosstrees. In the meantime, Hodder readied men and ship.
Closer…closer…The vessels bore down on each other.
The Valor was now close enough that her individual faces could be made out, peering over her rail. The next bit happened so fast, Cate wasn’t sure if she had imagined it. The painted canvas fell away from the Valor’s side and her foremost guns fired, but too soon for effect. The Morganse’s port lids flew open, the guns rammed home and the bow-chaser fired. The smoke had yet to clear the forecastle, before the Morganse had pirouetted—with a great deal of bellowing by those hauling on the braces, tacks, and sheets—and sped away into her own wake. The Union Jack and a commodore’s streamer broke out from the Valor’s peak, and the race was on.
The Morganse settled in like a steeplechaser, the water rushing past her sides at an ever-increasing rate. Leaning far out over the windward rail, Cate could see the Valor’s new press of sails and the increase of white foam at her cutwater.
“You have something in mind?” she asked Nathan.
He stood leaned against the binnacle, his arms casually crossed. His cheeks rounded with a square-toothed grin. “A man without a plan is a man what plans to fail, or die as the case would likely be. We got their attention; now let’s see what Ol’ Prichard is made of. All I require is a few hours of staying ahead—not too far, mind—the night’s new moon and a steady glass, which shows every sign of being so.”
It was a steady glass, but the seas cut up rough, with a heavy swell. The Morganse leaned into the waves—“close-hauled on a larboard tack, ’n the wind five points off ’er nose”—flinging a steady curl of water to leeward. She ducked her head to take an occasional wave over her bow, the spindrift flying nearly to the afterdeck.
No log line was necessary. That Morganse outdistanced Valor was clear enough, so much so an old jib was rigged over the side—to leeward, hence out of the Valor’s sight—as a sea anchor, intentionally slowing her. It meant it would appear to the Valor that the Morganse was sailing her heart out to escape. Cate wondered what Nathan was playing at, but he seemed disinclined to elaborate. The hands exchanged knowing looks and nods. They knew, and so would she, in time.
Their course led down a near mile-wide channel between two strings of islands. Those to leeward varied, from steep-sided and sizeable, to barely more than a dry spot in the water. Those to windward, considerably further away, were no more than monotonous low strips of white beach, fringed with palms.
A joyous whoop drew Cate’s attention to the bow. The decks were at a shocking pitch. In spite of the manropes rigged from fore to aft, every step needed to be planned. A couple of times, she was snagged by the nearest seaman to keep from taking a hazardous tumble. Reaching the forecastle finally, she looked further forward to see Nathan nearly to the tip of the jib-boom, nearly half the ship’s length out over the water, standing as casually as he had next to the binnacle. He braced an arm against a stay as he rode the rise and fall of the boom like a Roman rider. He threw his head back and let out another whoop, similar to what that same rider might have given.
“Won’t he fall?” she heard herself say.
Mr. Fox, the captain of the forecastle jacks, looked from supervising his men to Nathan with mild interest. “Nay, the Morganse would never allow it. Wet as Neptune he’ll be and never notice.”
He shook his head in wonderment. “’Tis the likes ain’t never seen.”
“Him standing out there?”
“Nay. Him ’n this ship. ’Tis but one soul a’tween them. Best step aft, sir, or you’ll be as wet as a whale yerself.”
A wave breaking high just then, its plumes sheeting across the deck, made his point.
The ship’s people went about their routine as they would any other day. There was no worry,