13 - A King's Trade by Dewey Lambdin

Author:Dewey Lambdin [Dewey Lambdin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Lewrie; Alan (Fictitious Character), Action & Adventure, Fiction, Great Britain, Suspense, Sea Stories, Historical, Great Britain - History; Naval - 18th Century, Derelicts, Naval Convoys
ISBN: 9780312378646
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2006-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

The fortuitous winds abated, at last, shifting back to Sou'east, forcing the trade to steer wider to the Sou'west, but they had logged nearly six hundred nautical miles, mostly at Due South, more than a quarter of the total passage, placing the convoy and its escorts more Easterly to Africa, and even sailing six points off the wind they would only skirt the edge of the Doldrums, not get becalmed in it.

For a much shorter time, the Trades and the Equatorial Current that flowed the same direction in concert with each other would impede them, then . . . though the Sou'east Trade might still rule, an Eastward-Rowing current that girded the southern rim of the Doldrums, parent to the one they now fought, would kiss them on their starboard, lee, bows to counter the leeway lost to the winds. A few slogging degrees more of latitude, and the winds would shift to out of the West, in concert with that current, and they'd all be be there!

And, so it was, one mid-afternoon in March, that HMS Stag, far ahead of the convoy, hoisted a string of signal flags in the private code that Capt. Treghues had invented that read:

"Land—Four Points—Larboard Bow."

"Table Mountain, that'd be, most-like, sir," the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, carefully opined. "Visible from seaward on a clear day as far as fifteen leagues ... or, so my book of pilotage tells us."

Almost over! Lewrie quietly exulted; This part, at least.

"We'll not enter harbour tonight, sir, beg pardon," Winwood said. "I'd expect we'll stand off-and-on 'til morning, so we may be able to spot the rocks and such. A poor set of anchorages, even so, sir, this Table Bay or Simon's Bay. Bad holding ground, the both of them, both subject to sudden and contrary afternoon clear-weather gales, it says."

"Cape Town, or Simon's Town," Lewrie said with a shrug of resignation. "With any luck, we'll not be in either, very long, sir. In point of fact, 'twill require a great deal of luck should we come to anchor, at all!"

"The, ah . . . results of our sailors' deeds at Saint Helena, I should think, Captain?" Winwood, ever the sombre Christian, whispered.

"Exactly so, Mister Winwood," Lewrie agreed. "There's odds we might just sail right on by, do Captain Treghues and Captain Cowles, as Commodore of the Indiamen, concur."

"Might be just as well, sir," Winwood commented, though with a slightly disappointed sigh. "I've never really been ashore, here."

"The 'tavern of the seas,' Mister Winwood," Lewrie told him with a chuckle. "An infamous sink of sin, no matter the stiffness of the Protestant Dutch."

"Even so, though, sir . . ." Winwood said most wistfully.

"I wonder if they have corn-whisky?" Lewrie wondered aloud.

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