Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH

"Misick's and Frith's," Alan nodded in agreement.

"How did you know where I market, Alan? Have their bills at the end of the month bothered you?" she teased.

"I heard they're a little higher than Finney's, but not so dear as to rival Bay Street," Alan stumbled, feeling a flush of color as he wondered just how Jack Finney had known the exact stores she favored.

Damme, has the man been following her? he shuddered.

"I have a surprise for you, dear," Caroline blushed. "Two, to be truthful. Sit right there and close your eyes."

Hope 'tis a better surprise than the ones I've had this morning, Alan thought, going back over his long conversation with Finney.

"I know Christmas is supposed to be a time of sober reflection, and in England, people spend it with their noses in the prayer book," she said as she came back to the front porch. "No, keep your eyes shut for a space longer!"

She bent down to kiss him for a moment, giggling at his temporary helplessness, and mistaking his agitation for impatience.

"But the Klausknitzers, that German couple, have the most wonderful traditions. That carpenter fellow who made these chairs? They exchange gifts such as the Magi brought the infant Jesus, Alan, and I thought it a grand idea. And the perfect season for mine to you."

"May I look now?" he grinned.

"Now."

First he beheld a shiny tube that she held out to him.

"A flageolet," she said proudly. "Made from tin. You always said you wished you could play a musical instrument, and I thought it the perfect one. There's a little chapbook of tunes and instructions in how to read musical notes."

Now there's reason for a crew to mutiny, Alan thought, though smiling happily! I'll make a bloody nuisance of myself, bad as some noisome Welsh harpist!

"Darling, it's wonderful, I had no idea…!" he said instead.

"And this," she said, sweeping a drop-cloth away from something that was leaned on one of the support posts.

"Gawd!" he could but exclaim in awe.

What he beheld was Caroline's portrait, an oval-framed oil of her from the waist up. She was depicted standing in her flower garden by the front gate, dressed in a gauzy white off-shoulder sack gown and flowered straw hat. Potter's Cay and Hog Island were hinted in the background behind overhanging tropical flowers and palmettos in a hazy spring morning.

"Damme, that's Alacrity anchored there!" he gasped out first, as he recognized the ketch in the far background which flew the Red Ensign and streamed a red-white-blue commissioning pendant.

Bloody hell, wrong thing to say, he winced within himself!

"My God, Caroline, the artist has captured you to the life, I swear," he added quickly, kneeling down to look closer. "Why, he did you so true I'd expect your eyes here to blink any moment. And he caught your smile perfectly! 'Tis like having you looking at me from your mirror scantwise, as you do of a morning. When you're looking pleased and full of ginger!"

"I told you Augustus Hedley was a wonderful artist."

Alan rose and took her in his arms, lifting her off her feet to swing her about as he kissed her.

"I take back everything I ever said about him, darling," Alan laughed heartily. "You're right, as always. He is damned good!"

Alan had been married long enough to know to forbear mention that the waters east of Potter's Cay were too shallow for anchoring a warship, or that Alacrity did not sport t'gallant yards above her tops'ls.

"Darling Alan, do you really like it?" she teased.

"Like it, God yes, what a magnificent gift!" he assured her. "Now, every time I look up from my desk, or dine in my cabins, I'll have you there, so fresh and lovely I'll ache for want of you."

"Mmm, having you ache, and miss me when you're at sea wasmy main idea, darling," she murmured coyly in his ear. "Do you still begrudge giving up your awful old harem picture, hmm?"

"Not one whit."

"Augustus'd done so many island scenes, he practically gave our Sunset Over Nassau Harbour away in trade," she boasted, pleased with herself, and with his enthusiastic reaction to her gift. "And he did my portrait for only five pounds, and a dozen crocks of my pineapple marmalade. Now, am I not economical, my love?"

"Uncle Phineas would be proud of you," Alan snickered as he let her down to her feet again, though still draped against him. "I am, too. There's only one place I know you to be spendthrift. And thank God for it!"

"You don't have to go aboard ship until after dinner?" Caroline whispered with a suggestive smile. "Then why do we not go and be spendthrift for the rest of the morning?"

"That's my lass!" he beamed, lifting her off her feet again to carry her inside.

"Bring the portrait," she said between long, seductive kisses. "We'll stand it up against my dressing table mirror and see if I look as full of ginger as you think."

Chapter 5

"Oh, poor little fellow," Midshipman Parham said to himself as William Pitt escaped the great-cabins by the quarter-deck ladder and sat on the deck to scratch at his good ear. The sound of their captain practicing the scale on his tin flageolet came stumbling to their ears through the open skylights aft. "Sound like another ram-cat to you, does it, poor puss? Poor afterguard. Poor me!"

"And I thought you would appreciate music, Mister Parham," Lieutenant Ballard said, hands behind his back and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as Alacrity rolled along.

"Music, aye, sir, but…" Parham shrugged as he grimaced his opinion. Below, Lewrie broke off doing scales and started a halting attempt at the chorus from "The Jacobite Lass," which prompted their surgeon's mate Mr. Maclntyre to sing along, equally badly.

1 gi'ed ma love, the white white rose, that's growin' at ma father's wa. It is the bonniest flow V that grows where ilka flow 'r is braw. There's but ae bonnier than I ken, fae Perth unto the main, an' that's the flow'ro' Scotland's men that's fetchin 'for his ain.

"Oh, don't encourage him, Mister Maclntyre," Parham tittered. "Lord, Mister Ballard, sir. The captain cannot play, and Mister Maclntyre can neither sing, nor speak the King's English of a sudden. A proper shambles, that is."

"That's enough, that is, Mister Parham," Ballard smirked.

"And a Jacobite tune, too, sir," Parham continued. "Disloyal to King George, is it not, Mister Maclntyre?"

"Next time ye hae a boil on yer bum, Mister Parham," Maclntyre warned, " 'twill be ma dullest lancet, an' I'll nae be gentle!"

"Masthead, Mister Parham?" Ballard intoned with a cock of his head and frown enough to let him know his antics had best stop.

There was another verse, without vocal accompaniment this time, before the music ended with an embarrassed cough. Lewrie emerged on deck moments later in breeches and shirt, and looked around as the afterguard and watch-standers suddenly found something vital to do, or something fascinating to see over the side.

"Sea's getting up," Lewrie stated, scanning the horizon about them. "She swims a mite more boisterous than in the forenoon."

"Aye, sir," Lieutenant Ballard replied primly. "Winds are yet steady from the nor'east. Some backing in the gusts to east. Might be half a gale, no more, sir. The weather horizon's clear, for now, though we are getting whitecaps now and again."

The rigging whined with a sudden gust of wind that came more from the east, with perhaps a touch of southing. Alacrity rolled a bit more as the winds picked up from astem, and the normally lumpy waters of the Northwest Providence Channel were now long sets of rollers, windward faces rippled like hides by the gusts, and capped with white spume where a borning chop collided with itself.

"Smell rain, Mister Fellows?" Lewrie asked, twitching his noseaweather as the gust faded and the winds clocked back to the expected nor'east of the Trades.

"Sweet water somewhere, Captain," Fellows agreed. "Just a hint now and again. I'd wager squalls by seven bells."

"Have the hands eat?" Lewrie inquired.

"Aye, sir," Ballard reported.

"Topmen aloft, then. Take in the tops'ls and brail up secure. Then we'll have gun-drill as we planned. But no more than one hour," Lewrie ordered, face wrinkled wary. "We'll practice wearing ship to either beam and firing broadsides at a chase."

"Aye, aye, sir," Ballard agreed. "Bosun, pipe 'All Hands!' Do you send topmen aloft! Trice up, lay out, and brail up tops'ls!"

"If this is a late cyclone, Mister Fellows, could we shelter in a hurricane hole on Grand Bahama north of us?" Lewrie asked as the men thundered up from the mess deck. "What about Hawk's Bill Creek?"

"Hmm," Fellows squinted, taking off his cocked hat to scratch at his gingery scalp. "Do we stand on west-nor'west the rest of the day, sir, we'd be too far to loo'rd of Hawk's Bill Creek, and would have to beat back to it, with Grand Bahama a lee shore to larboard. And Grand Bahama's a graveyard for an hundred ships caught such. Nasty coast in a southerly wind. But… Cross Bay on the western tip should be abeam by late afternoon, sir. 'Round behind Settlement Point in Cross Bay, there's a good holding ground. Low-lying land, with nothing to break a gale, but much calmer waters behind the breakers and mangrove swamps."

"Keep that in mind, if this isn't your regular gale. We could ride a gale out, reaching south. After gun-drill, we'll lay out four anchor cables, just to be safe," Lewrie decided.

"Very well, sir," Fellows agreed.

By six bells of the Day Watch, three in the afternoon, it was clear that this was no average tropic squall line. The horizon astern had darkened to a deep slate gray, shot through widi ragged sizzles of distant lightning at the base. The high-piled white clouds of morning had turned gray and lowering, and raced themselves overhead to loo'rd. They took in the outer jibs, reefed the gaff courses once, then for a second time, before wearing ship north for shelter, with Alacrity laid over on her larboard side, the wake creaming within arm's reach of the deck as she swooped and bounded fast as a Cambridge Coach, darting for safety like a low-flying tern. It was one thing to trust their stout little vessel in deep water in a full gale, but this had the smell of a bad 'un… an out-of-season hurricane.

The first sprinkles of rain hit them as they beat into harbour around Settlement Point, short-tacking easterly, and the wind gusted from the east-sou'east hard enough to make it difficult to breathe.

"About here, sir!" Fellows had to shout in Lewrie's ear. "Best bower, then second bower out there, to south'rd of the first!"

"Ready, forrud!" Lewrie yelled through a speaking trumpet "Mister Neill, be ready to tack her. Ready, Mister Harkin? Helm up and meet her 'midships! Jesus, let go forrud!"

Alacrity rounded up, everything lashing and flogging, and came to a stop in her own length against the winds as the best bower anchor splashed into the harbour.

"Larboard your helm! Let go main course halyards! Back forrud sheets!" Lewrie called. Alacrity almost spun like a fallen leaf over to the opposite tack, and began to sail away to starboard, driven by a triple-reefed after-course and an inner jib reduced to little more than a storm trys'l, the best bower hawser paying off abeam, howling through the hawsehole! "Round up, Mister Neill! Meet her! Let go second bower!"