Gentleman Captain by J. D. Davies

Author:J. D. Davies [Davies, J. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Chapter Twelve

The breeze came up again in the middle of the night. I was awake in my sea-bed as the last of my candles died, thinking on Francis Gale's story and the ruin of his life, when I felt the motion of the ship begin again. It must have lulled me to sleep, for some time beyond dawn I heard the distant tolling of our bell and woke to see from my cabin windows the coast of Antrim to larboard, that of Kintyre to starboard. Ireland and Scotland, but a few miles apart and clearly visible. Musk arrived to shave me, and said that our pilot had come aboard in the night, and had taken on his duty of advising Landon in our navigation. After narrowly avoiding having my throat slit by Musk's efforts with the razor, I dressed and climbed impatiently up on deck.

I scanned the sea around us and saw Royal Martyr, in the distance, steering for the cape of Kintyre. Judge was following our orders to the letter. He would go under the walls of Dunaverty Castle, where the king maintained a signal station, and there hoist a flag: this was the prearranged signal for a regiment to be dispatched from the royal fortress at Dumbarton. There was no need for us to anchor or back our sails, Judge had told me; the Jupiter was to sail on and begin the task of showing herself and the king's ensign along the shores of Kintyre, Islay and Jura. We had a rendezvous appointed at Craignish, at the head of the Sound of Jura, and Malachi Landon was dismissively confident, declaring it an easy course in all but the strongest northerlies or southerlies. Our pilot concurred. He was a little, pungent man with a lazy right eyelid, who spelled his name Ruthven and yet pronounced it Rivven, if for no reason other than to confuse the English it seemed to me. But he knew his trade, and agreed that in the light westerlies that now prevailed, our passage to Craignish would be the easiest of sails.

It was a glorious morning. To the north, I could see mountains shrouded in low cloud, and Ruthven announced these to be the heights of Islay, beyond Ardbeg and Ardmore. I stood at the rail taking in the view and filling my chest with the uncommonly fresh air, then went over to the master's open waggoner and studied the chart. I now knew what many of the numbers scattered across the sea meant; they were soundings, and they told me we had ample deep water, almost up to all the shores we could see.

Kit Farrell came on deck at that moment, to Malachi Landon's evident annoyance. Just then some whim, some strange conceit, took hold of me. I still remember the feeling: it was like the need to impress old Mervyn, my schoolmaster, with a correct answer; or to please Uncle Tristram by demonstrating that I had listened properly to his latest tale. Cornelia

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