The Continental Risque Read Online Free PDF

they would sink before reaching land, and if he headed for shore under topsails alone, then the frigate would catch them before they were halfway there. His only option was to keep running directly away from their pursuit. But that in itself would not save them, it would only mean freedom for an additional hour or so.
    â€˜I have no doubt,’ Virginia was saying, ‘that the captain has some scheme to keep us from capture.’
    The captain in question stared at the frigate astern, pretending not to listen to the conversation on the leeward side, and wondered if Virginia really believed that. He couldn’t imagine that she did. She was an insightful woman, startlingly so at times, and he doubted that she could believe with certainty something of which he himself was entirely unsure. His hand moved to the hilt of his sword, the beautiful sword that he had liberated from its last owner, a lieutenant in the British navy, and grasped the handle as if it were a talisman.
    â€˜Understand,’ Adams said to the Stantons, ‘that I am not without some knowledge of maritime affairs. I have spent a considerable part of my time, in the course of my profession, upon the seacoasts of Massachusetts. I have conversed much with the gentlemen who conduct our fisheries, as well as the other navigation of the country …’
    As Adams continued to explain his intimacy with shipping, Biddlecomb stared absently aloft. Men in each top were folding the studdingsails that had been pulled in, and men on the topgallant yards and the foreyard were stowing sail.
    A month before, this evolution would have been done twice as quickly. But a month before, the
Charlemagne
carried a much different crew, both in terms of numbers and experience. Naval stores were not the only things that were going first to the privateers. With the promise of easier discipline, shorter enlistments, and vastly greater profits, all of the best seamen in the Colonies were opting for the private men-of-war.
    Biddlecomb had a few holdouts; his officers and petty officers had stayed with him, as had a core of men: Woodberry, Ferguson, and a few others who had been with him since his days as a merchant captain. But many of the Charlemagnes had melted away and, he imagined, were even now seeking out rich prizes aboard the fast, heavily manned privateers.
    More than twenty minutes later Sprout announced the sail properly fothered over the hole, and in that twenty minutes the frigate had gone from being a distant concern to being a genuine and growing menace. She was, by Biddlecomb’s estimate, now two miles astern and visibly closing the gap.
    â€˜I imagine that patch won’t hold if we set studdingsails,’ Biddlecomb said to Sprout, who was now aft on the quarterdeck. ‘But we must set plain sail at the very least, or we might as well let her sink.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t place a wager on the patch holding even with just plain sail set, sir,’ Sprout said. ‘There wasn’t the time for me to do it the way I’d have liked—’
    â€˜I understand, Mr Sprout,’ Biddlecomb said, then called out for topgallants and foresail to be set once again. It was a game of chance, one that they had to play. The increased pressure brought on the patch by their increased speed could tear the fothered sail clean away. But if they did not sail faster, then they would be overtaken. As it was, their chances of staying ahead of the frigate until nightfall did not look promising. Not promising at all.
    â€˜Mr Rumstick, we’ll clear for action, if you please,’ Biddlecomb said, and one shouted order brought men swarming over the deck, casting off the great guns, laying out rammers and swabs and tubs of smoldering match.
    The
Charlemagne
’s gunner was new to his post. Biddlecomb had innocently introduced the former gunner, William Jaeger, a veteran artillery officer of the Prussian army, to an old acquaintance of his, Henry