A Shot Rolling Ship Read Online Free PDF Page A

dear, given that we have something for you to look at.’
    Everyone wanted to observe this event, for this was a gentler Ralph Barclay than they knew, but only Lutyens, with no notion of the discipline required on board a ship of war, had the ignorance to openly stare as Barclay put his arms over his wife’s shoulders, and admonished her to steady herself against him and his well-spread legs to master the roll of the ship.
    ‘Now put this to your eye, so, and your hand to the front part, then twist and extend it till the image becomes clear.’
    ‘Sea and sky, husband, is all I can manage.’
    Ralph Barclay put his head very close to that of Emily, so as to point the telescope in the direction of the chase, delighted with the squeal of pleasure that told him, however briefly, that it had appeared in view. He could smell his wife’s musk, the odour of her body as a sliver of warmair escaped from under her cloak to fill his nostrils, and leaning against him as she was, with her body resting on his, induced a natural tumescence. He was aware of the attention their joint posture engendered and took pleasure in the jealousy of those surreptitiously watching them.
    ‘We shall have him before nightfall my dear, especially if Captain Gould brings Firefly into play.’
    The anxieties which had assailed Ralph Barclay in his cabin faded: the problem had not disappeared, but luck had presented him with an opportunity to palliate his second in command, the man who, barring the wounded Roscoe, could most threaten his position. Situations where lieutenants like Roscoe fell out with their captains were endemic, and a bane that the Navy suffered with reluctance, given that it was usually one man’s word against a superior officer, with courts of fellow captains inclined to support the senior man. That was not the case with a man who ran his own ship, even if he too was only a lieutenant. The word of a Master and Commander would count as near-equal; in short he would be listened to with great attention.
    Gould would hear the cannon fire – nothing carried at sea so much as that booming sound. He would come about to investigate and together they would snap up this fellow trying to run from them. A share in a prize, a bit of hard coin in the purse, was just the thing to persuade another officer that whatever actions had previously been undertaken by Ralph Barclay, however questionable they had seemed at the time, could be justified. For a man whoheld that fate had, throughout his life, been less than kind to him, Ralph Barclay, with a wife seventeen years his junior in his arms, on the deck of his own vessel, envied by all aboard and in pursuit of an enemy he was certain to catch, felt just for once like the luckiest fellow in creation.
    There was little drama in the capture; it took time for the fellow kept running, tack upon tack, as far as he could. Collins brought HMS Brilliant around and into the wind with something approaching efficiency, which pleased a captain who harboured ambitions to be in command of a crack vessel. Quiet suggestions from Ralph Barclay adjusted the sail plan in minor ways that made the frigate sail easier, if not perceptibly faster. The wind now coming in over the bows blew back his wife’s hood, ruffling her long, loose-worn hair, and all the while her husband clutched her close and helped her fiddle with the telescope.
    The Frenchman, judging by the streaming jets, had started his water barrels and was pumping like mad to get it over the side and lighten his ship. Well aware that he was at the apex of a losing triangle, other ship’s stores followed and finally the small cannon, trunnions and all – popguns really, designed to threaten rather than destroy, but telling in their weight nevertheless. But there was one thing he could not chuck over the side; the numerous crewmen any close-to-shore privateer must carry on board to take and sail into harbour a number of enemy merchant vessels. The idea that he