Artemis(5)

Symonds and his crew laughed cruelly. Spershott stepped over, scandalised. 'Crown property! This will be stopped from your pay, you rascal.'

Powlett held up a hand. 'No. Royal Billys will carry on with their exercise. And the rest of you may secure and stand down.' He spared just one glance for the furious Stirk and returned up the ladder.

Liberated from duty, the Artemis hands gathered for the entertainment, and for the rest of the dog-watch the red-faced Stirk drove his crew mercilessly to the jeers and laughter of the others.

The days that followed were not easy for the Royal Billys. Things moved faster in a frigate. It needed agile feet to get out on a slender yard and back, and her speed of response at the helm took even Stirk by surprise. It was sailoring on a different and more challenging plane, but stung by the element of competition they responded nimbly.

It was six weeks he had been in Artemis, and Kydd now felt he had found his feet. The middle watch was going slowly. As lookout, Kydd could not pass the time companionably with Renzi, and must occupy himself for an hour staring out into the night. Kydd drew his grego closer about him, the coarse wadmerel material warm and quite up to keeping out the keen night winds. The fitful moon was mostly hidden in cloud, leaving an impenetrable gloom that made it difficult even to discern the nearby helmsman. Kydd gazed out again over the hurrying seas, fighting a comfortable drowsiness.

Something caught his eye, far out into the night. A blink of paleness, suddenly apparent at the extremity of his vision then gone. He stared hard, but could not catch it again. There it was once more! A momentary pallid blob appearing and disappearing in one place.

'Officer o' the watch, sir!' Kydd called. A voice replied from the other side of the deck, and a dark figure loomed next to him.

'Kydd, sir, larb'd after lookout. Saw something way to loo'ard, flash o' white or so.'

'Where away?' It was Parry's hard voice.

The pale object obliged by winking into existence in the general direction Kydd indicated, remaining for a brief space before it disappeared.

Party had his night glass up instantly, searching. 'Damn it - yes, I have it.' He snapped the glass down. 'Pass the word—my duty to the Captain, and a sail is sighted.' With a captain like Powlett there could only be one response. They would close on the sail, and take their chances.

In the short time before Powlett hastened on deck Artemis had braced around and begun bearing down on the strange sail. 'I'll trouble you to take in the topsails, Mr Parry — no point in alarming them unnecessarily.' The pale blob steadied and remained. 'We keep to windward. Stand off and on until dawn.'

After an hour it became clear that the stranger had sighted them and changed course towards them. Artemis followed suit to retain her windward position. The stranger soon tired of this and eased away off the wind, and the two ships spent the remaining hours of darkness running parallel under easy sail.

The stirring rattle of the drums died away, and with every man closed up at his post, they waited for the darkness to lift. Artemis always met a new day with guns run out and men at quarters: they would never be caught out by the light of day revealing an enemy alongside ready to blow them out of the water.

* * *

The stranger was still there at daybreak five miles under their lee, the summer dawn languorously painting in the colours of the day — darkling sea to a vivid cobalt, lilac sky to a perfect cerulean with vast towers of pure white clouds to the south. It also revealed the sleek low black and yellow lines of a frigate, quite as big as they, and in the process of shortening sail.

Artemis bore down on the vessel, every glass trained on her. The quarterdeck grew tense. 'She does not throw out her private signal, dammit!' grunted Powlett. If this were a Royal Navy ship there was a need to establish the relative seniority of their respective captains. But on the other hand she might well have thought that Artemis^ end on, could be a French ship and feel reluctant to deter the approach by showing her true colours too soon.

The sailing master, Mr Prewse, took off his hat to scratch at his sparse hair. 'Don't know as I recognises her as a King's ship at all.'

The boatswain took a telescope and stared at the stranger for a long time. 'Could be a Swede, but my money's on her bein' a Frenchy.'

Powlett's response was quick. 'Why so?'

"Cos, sir, she has squared-off hances, much less of a sheer, an' as you can see, sir, the fo'c'sle rail is never carried forrard of the cathead — she's French-built right enough.'

'Thank you, Mr Merrydew,' Powlett said quietly.

'If you please, sir.' Parry stood patiently before Powlett, his expression as uncompromising as ever.

'Mr Parry?'

The second lieutenant motioned forward a sailor. 'What is it, Boyden?'

'Sir, that there's the Sit-oy-en’ he said definitively. 'The what?'