How Firm a Foundation (5 page)

Yairley gave the canvas one more look, then swiped water from his own eyes and beckoned to Garaith Symkee,
Destiny
’s second lieutenant.

“Aye, Sir?” Lieutenant Symkee shouted, leaning close enough to Yairley to be heard through the tumult.

“I think she’ll do well enough
for now, Master Symkee!” Yairley shouted back. “Keep her as close to an easterly heading as you can! Don’t forget Garfish Bank’s waiting for us up yonder!” He pointed north, over the larboard bulwark. “I’d just as soon it go on waiting, if you take my meaning!”

Symkee grinned hugely, nodding his head in enthusiastic agreement, and Yairley grinned back.

“I’m going below to see if Raigly can’t
find me something to eat! If the cooks can manage it, I’ll see to it there’s at least hot tea—and hopefully something a bit better, as well—for the watch on deck!”

“Thank you, Sir!”

Yairley nodded and started working his way hand-over-hand along the lifeline towards the hatch. It was going to be an extraordinarily long night, he expected, and he was going to need his rest. And hot food, come
to that. Every man aboard the ship was going to need all the energy he could lay hands on, but
Destiny
’s captain was responsible for the decisions by which they might all live or die.

Well
, he thought wryly as he reached the hatch and started down the steep ladder towards his cabin and Sylvyst Raigly, his valet and steward,
I suppose it sounds better put that way than to think of it as the captain
being spoiled and pampered. Not that I have any
objection
to being spoiled or pampered, now that I think of it
.

And not that it was any less true, however he put it.

.III.

HMS
Destiny
, 54, Off Sand Shoal, Scrabble Sound, Grand Duchy of Silkiah

“Master Zhones!”

The miserable midshipman, hunched down in his oilskins and trying as hard as he could not to throw up—again—looked up as Lieutenant Symkee bellowed his name. Ahrlee Zhones was twelve years old, more horribly seasick than he’d ever been in his young life, and scared to death. But he was also an officer
in training in the Imperial Charisian Navy, and he dragged himself fully upright.

“Aye, Sir?!” he shouted back through the howl and shriek of the wind.

“Fetch the Captain!” Zhones and Symkee were no more than five feet apart, but the midshipman could barely hear the second lieutenant through the tumult of the storm. “My compliments, and the wind is backing! Inform him it—”

“Belay that, Master
Zhones!” another voice shouted, and Zhones and Symkee both wheeled around to see Sir Dunkyn Yairley. The captain had somehow magically materialized on the quarterdeck, his oilskins already shining with rain and spray, and his eyes were on the straining staysails. Despite the need to shout to make himself heard, his tone was almost calm—or so it seemed to Zhones, at any rate.

As the midshipman
watched, the captain took a turn of rope around his chest and attached it to one of the standing lifelines, lashing himself into place almost absently while his attention remained focused on the sails and the barely visible weathervane at the mainmast head. Then he glanced at the illuminated compass card in the binnacle and turned to Symkee.

“I make it south-by-west, Master Symkee? Would you
concur?”

“Perhaps another quarter point to the south, Sir,” Symkee replied, with what struck Zhones as maddening deliberation, and the captain smiled slightly.

“Very well, Master Symkee, that will do well enough.” He turned his attention back to the sails and frowned.

“Any orders, Sir?” Symkee shouted after a moment, and the captain turned to raise one eyebrow at him.

“When any occur to me,
Master Symkee, you’ll be the first to know!” It was, of course, impossible for anyone to shout in a tone of cool reprimand, but the captain managed it anyway, Zhones thought.

“Aye, Sir!” Symkee touched his chest in salute and carefully turned his attention elsewhere.

*   *   *

Despite his calm demeanor and deflating tone, Sir Dunkyn Yairley’s brain was working overtime as he considered his
ship’s geometry. The wind had grown so powerful that he’d had no choice but to put
Destiny
directly before it some hours earlier. Now the galleon scudded along with huge, white-bearded waves rolling up from astern, their crests ripped apart by the wind. As the wind shifted round towards the east, the ship was being slowly forced from a northeasterly to a more and more northerly course, while the
seas—which hadn’t yet adjusted to the shift in wind—still coming in from the south-southwest pounded her more and more from the quarter rather than directly aft, imparting an ugly corkscrew motion. That probably explained young Zhones’ white-faced misery the captain thought with a sort of detached sympathy. The youngster was game enough, but he was definitely prone to seasickness.

More to the
point, the change in motion had alerted Yairley to the change in wind direction and brought him back on deck, and if the wind continued to back, they could be in serious trouble.

It was impossible even for a seaman of his experience to know exactly how far east he’d managed to get, but he strongly suspected it hadn’t been far enough. If his estimate was correct, they were almost directly due
south of the Garfish Bank, the hundred and fifty-mile-long barrier of rock and sand which formed the eastern bound of Scrabble Sound. Langhorne only knew how many ships had come to grief on the bank, and the speed with which the wind had backed was frightening. If it continued at the present rate, it would be setting directly towards the bank within the hour, and if that happened.…

*   *   *

The wind did continue to swing towards the east, and its rate of change actually increased. It might—possibly—have dropped in strength, but the malice of its new direction more than compensated for that minor dispensation, Yairley thought grimly. The rapid change in direction hadn’t done a thing for the ship’s motion, either;
Destiny
was corkscrewing more violently than ever as the waves rolled
in now from broad on her larboard quarter, and the pumps were clanking for five minutes every hour as the ship labored. The intake didn’t concern him particularly—every ship’s seams leaked a little as her limber hull worked and flexed in weather like this, and some water always found its way in through gunports and hatches, however tightly they were sealed—but the wild vista of the storm-threshed
night’s spray and foam was even more confused and bewildering than it had been before.

And unless he missed his guess, his ship’s bowsprit was now pointed directly at Garfish Bank.

We’re not going to get far enough to the east no matter what we do,
he thought grimly.
That only leaves
west.
Of course, there are problems with that, too, aren’t there?

He considered it for a moment more, looking
at the sails, considering the sea state and the strength of the howling wind, and made his decision.

“Call the hands, Master Symkee! We’ll put her on the larboard tack, if you please!”

*   *   *

Sir Dunkyn Yairley stood gazing into the dark and found himself wishing the earlier, continuous displays of lightning hadn’t decided to take themselves elsewhere. He could see very little, although
with the amount and density of the wind-driven spray, it probably wouldn’t have mattered if he’d had better light, he admitted. But what he couldn’t see, he could still feel, and he laid one hand on
Destiny
’s bulwark, closed his eyes, and concentrated on the shock-like impacts of the towering waves.

Timing,
a small corner of his brain thought distantly.
It’s always a matter of timing
.

He was
unaware of the white-faced, nauseated twelve-year-old midshipman who stood watching his closed eyes and thoughtful expression with something very like awe. And he was only distantly aware of the seamen crouching ready at the staysails’ tacks and sheets in the lee of the bulwarks and hammock nettings, taking what shelter they could while they kept their eyes fixed on their officers. What he needed
to accomplish was a straightforward maneuver, but under these conditions of wind and weather even a small error could lead to disaster.

The waves rolled in, and he felt their rhythm settling into his own flesh and sinew. The moment would come, he thought. It would come and—

“Starboard your helm!” he heard himself bark. His own order came almost as a surprise, the product of instinct and subliminal
timing at least as much as of conscious thought. “Lay her on the larboard tack—as close to south-by-west as you can!”

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

Destiny
’s double wheel turned to the left as all four helmsmen heaved their weight on the spokes. The tiller ropes wrapped around the wheel’s barrel turned the tiller to the right in response, which kicked the
rudder
to the left, and the galleon began turning
to larboard. The turn brought her broadside on to the seas still pounding in from the south-southwest, but Yairley’s seaman’s sense had served him well. Even as she began her turn, one of the crashing seas rolled up under her larboard quarter at almost the perfect moment, lifting her stern and helping to force her around before the next wave could strike.

“Off sheets and tacks!” It was Lathyk’s
voice from forward.

Yairley opened his eyes once more, watching as his ship fought around through the maelstrom of warring wind and wave in a thunder of canvas and water and a groan of timbers. The next mighty sea came surging in, taking her hard on the larboard beam, bursting over the hammock nettings in green and white fury, and the galleon rolled wildly, tobogganing down into the wave’s trough
while her mastheads spiraled in dizzying circles against the storm-sick heavens. Yairley felt the lifeline hammering at his chest, heard the sound of young Zhones’ retching even through all that mad tumult, but she was coming round, settling on her new heading.

“Meet her!” he shouted.

“Sheet home!” Lathyk bellowed through his speaking trumpet.

Destiny
’s bow buried itself in the next wave. White
water exploded over the forecastle and came sluicing aft in a gray-green wall. Two or three seamen went down, kicking and spluttering as they lost their footing and were washed into the scuppers before their lifelines came up taut, but the sheets were hardened in as the ship came fully round on her new heading. Her bowsprit climbed against the sky, rising higher and higher as her bows came clear
of the smother of foam and gray-green water, and Yairley breathed a sigh of relief as she reached the top of the wave and then went driving down its back with an almost exuberant violence.

Showing only her fore-and-aft staysails, she could actually come a full two points closer to the wind than she could have under square sails, and Yairley watched the swaying compass card as the helmsmen eased
the wheel. It gimbaled back and forth as the men on the wheel picked their way through the tumult of wind and wave, balancing the thrust and set of her canvas against the force of the seas.

“South-sou’west’s as near as she’ll come, Sir!” the senior man told him after a minute or two, and he nodded.

“Keep her so!” he shouted back.

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

The ship’s plunging motion was more violent
than it had been running before the wind. He heard the explosive impact as her bow met each succeeding wave, and the shocks were harder and more jarring, but the corkscrew roll had been greatly reduced as she headed more nearly into the seas. Spray and green water fountained up over her bow again and again, yet she seemed to be taking it well, and Yairley nodded again in satisfaction then turned
to look out over the tumbling waste of water once more.

Now to see how accurate his position estimate had been.

*   *   *

The day which had turned into night dragged on towards day once more, and the wind continued to howl. Its force had lessened considerably, but it was still blowing at gale force, with wind speeds above forty miles per hour. The seas showed less moderation, although with
the falling wind that had to come eventually, and Yairley peered about as the midnight murk turned slowly, slowly into a hard pewter dawn under purple-black clouds. The rain had all but ceased, and he allowed himself a cautious, unobtrusive breath of optimism as visibility ever so gradually increased. He considered making more sail—with the current wind he could probably get double- or triple-reefed
topsails and courses on her—but he’d already added the main topgallant staysail, the main topmast staysail, and the mizzen staysail. The fore-and-aft sails provided less driving power than the square sails would have, but they let him stay enough closer to the wind to make good a heading of roughly south-southwest. The further south—and west, of course, but especially
south—
he could get, the better,
and—

“Breakers!” The shout came down from above, thin and lost through the wail of wind. “Breakers on the starboard quarter!”

Yairley wheeled in the indicated direction, staring intently, but the breakers were not yet visible from deck level. He looked around and raised his voice.

“Main topmast, Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk! Take a glass. Smartly, now!”

“Aye, Sir!”

The youthful ensign leapt into
the weather shrouds and went scampering up the ratlines to the topmast crosstrees with the spyglass slung across his back. He reached his destination swiftly, and Yairley looked up, watching with deliberate calm as Aplyn-Ahrmahk raised the glass and peered to the north. He stayed that way for several seconds, then reslung the glass, reached for a back stay, wrapped his legs around it, and slid down
it to the deck, braking his velocity with his hands. He hit the deck with a thump and came trotting aft to the captain.

“I believe Master Lathyk will have something to say to you about the proper manner of descending to the deck, Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk!” Yairley observed tartly.