Man Of War

It was an old-fashioned locution, but it seemed apt: they stood on the quarterdeck of a first-rate, within hailing of that brave Rock, as if waiting to step onto the stage – and a great stage at that. The wind was freshening; Peto clasped his hands decisively behind his back, and gave the order to begin the great undertaking: ‘Weigh anchor; make sail!’

Lambe smiled with that knowing pride that properly passed between a lieutenant and his captain. ‘Ay-ay, sir!’

It was six bells of the afternoon watch, one hour before the supper time. Hands knew they must be doubly sharp about it, and the officers that their new captain would be watching like a hawk. Peto adjusted his watch to the ship’s time – three o’clock – clasped his hands more tightly behind his back and affected all the detachment he could. He would hope to speak not at all until sail was set (and here he would learn what sort of a sailing-master he had in Shand, a warrant officer he had not before encountered), and then he would tell Lambe to set a course for Syracuse.

At once the little boats – the girls and ‘Jews’ – were all of a bob as the trade were bustled off ship unceremoniously, with or without their earnings, and the merchants with or without their credit. Boatswain’s mates did the bustling, while the officers did their best at placating. But this was one of His Majesty’s ships of war, and there was no room for argument once the captain had given an order: everywhere was activity, and all directed to the execution of that command.

On the middle gun-deck eight dozen men, marines mainly, began bearing on the capstan bars – donkey work if ever there was – while on the lower deck, the ship’s boys stood ready to lash the messenger rope, which the capstan turned, to the anchor cable as it came through the hawse hole, and then to follow it aft to the hatchway and unclip the ‘nipper’ so that the cable passed down to the orlop deck, where as many men again stood by to stow it. Weighing anchor was the least popular of all the dangerous and gruelling work of a ship’s routine, as noisome on the orlop (the cable was invariably rank after any time in the water) as it was backbreaking at the capstan. Only the nippers enjoyed it, as well they might, for they had to be agile and dextrous rather than mere substitutes for horsepower.

Had he been aboard Nisus, Peto could have observed this work; from Rupert’s quarterdeck he would see only the forecastle gang, mustered ready to cat and fish the anchor. They would be all he saw of the industry required to raise it (or them if the current required more than one anchor: there were two at the bow, eighty hundredweight apiece, and the burden of the sodden cable on top of that). He could not judge with what effort and skill the crew worked, only by the result – which, in the end, was all that must concern him.

Meanwhile, all hands not bent to weighing anchor – the starboard watch and the idlers – fell in to their stations, the topmen confidently climbing the shrouds and edging along the yards, ready. The master had ordered all sail set. Peto approved. The wind was quite decidedly freshening, but it would be as well to get decent steerage-way to round the point of the Rock without having to stand too much out to sea. They would have to get the topgallants in once they were in open water if the wind continued to blow up like this, but in all probability that would be a couple of hours more – time at least for the larboard watch to have something hot inside them.

‘Signal to Archer: Take station to windward.’

‘Ay-ay, sir!’ The signal midshipman scuttled off to the poop deck and his flag lockers. An easy signal: Peto noted that he had it run up in under the minute.

‘Anchor aweigh, sir!’ came the call from the hawse hole not long after, repeated up the hatchways until the quarterdeck had it.

Peto nodded, if barely perceptibly. An efficient signal officer, and the anchor off the seabed sharply: it was as it should be, but he had known it otherwise. The master made no move, however. Peto wondered, but then thought him right: with a full set of sail and a lee anchor there was every chance of fouling. Better to wait until the ring broke surface and the hook of the cat tackle had been put through.

In a few minutes more, ‘Hooked!’ came the cry, and at once the master raised his speaking-trumpet: ‘Halyards!’

Peto checked his watch. Fifteen minutes: not too bad in twenty fathoms. But it was the topmen he wanted to see. They had gone up the shrouds smartly enough – but a ship at anchor and nothing but a breeze . . .