King of the Sea

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

He needed every minute of it to prepare phoenix for getting under way, what with a stiff "soldier's" wind on her port beam, pressing her to the quay, and an adverse tide that would have her fouling a naval cutter astern within minutes. A less skilled captain, faced with such a tight departure, would warp her between the quay and two of the buoys in the tideway, but not Troy. He knew he could take her out under shivering canvas to open water, and the crew would expect no less of him.

phoenix was the very latest design for a fast merchantman, with five masts and split sails all the way to the top; and even her topsails could be reefed from the deck. Shaw & Eggar, owners of the line, had put Troy in charge because no other captain would test a ship to the limits without hazarding a single life much less the ship and her cargo. On this run that cargo consisted almost entirely of cheap, machine carved furniture for the American West, so she was heavily ballasted with casks of ale, sent round the world to age and mellow. "All set, Cap'n." Boris waited for the command

Troy ran an eye over the sails. Every yard was braced abox, sharp up, and every square foot that could safely be set was carried. She was now moored only by her head rope and after spring. He grunted approvingly. "Let go forr'ard."

The order went forward. They had to wind in double-quick time to get enough slack to slip the rope off the bollard on the quay. The moment she felt herself free she tried to run aback, but the after-spring hawser held her and the tiderace got in against her starboard quarter and swung her closer to the wind. Soon she was facing the Queenstown roads. Her canvas shivered as the wind began to spill from a sharper angle. "Set jib and spanker," Troy order ed. "Let go aft." To the quartermaster he added, "Keep her helm alee."

From the calm of his voice and the quiet, measured response of the men, the casual onlooker might have assumed this was the easiest routine in the world for getting under way. One would have needed to look very closely to see that half the crew was either holding its collective breath or mouthing a prayer in silent unison. For one long agonizing moment an equal battle waged between wind, water, and the Captain's will. The sails quivered, the tidal rip curled against her starboard timbers like softwood passing beneath a planing machine, and Troy stared out, down the estuary, looking for a contradiction in the wind that might yet upset all his fine calculations.

"By the mark five!" sang the leadsman.

It was almost as if phoenix had been waiting for some such news depth beneath her that there was a good enough for she now answered to the wind. She nosed forward so that her stern, no longer pinned to the quay, began to dip and slew.

 At once the bow moved off the wind. "Starboard your helm," Troy barked, but Abe Rogers, the quartermaster, was already there, bringing her alee again; having steered phoenix through her trials in the Solent and then most of the way to Ireland, he now knew how she would respond even before she herself had quite made up her mind. 

She cleared the quay by inches. He checked her when she was still a point or two off her true course and she steadied perfectly. And then she really began to move. "By the deep six!" sang the leadsman, now from the starboard bow.

"Brace round the head yards," Troy command ed. And again he was anticipated, with both watches ready to haul on the sheets the moment the command came. "Port your helm, Mister Quartermaster. What's her bearing?"

"South-east by south, Cap'n."

"Steady at that!"

For a moment she was taken aback but as the head yards swelled she leaped forward once more, eager to clear the point of Haulbowline Island and race for the ocean again, her one true element. Her masts strain ed, the timbers lifted beneath their feet ... she was like a mighty horse, her namesake, galloping in strides a mile long. The thought was on Boris's mind as he relaxed and said, "She was well named, Cap'n."

"Who?" Troy grunted, staring hard at the pas sengers; they were being allowed back on deck now that the sailing was plain.

"phoenix." Boris was embarrassed at needing to explain.

To be sure." The Captain's tone of voice was absent minded.

"Leave to stand down the starboard watch, sir?" the bosun asked; that, too, should not have been necessary.

"To be sure," Troy repeated, never for one moment taking his eyes off the emerging stream of passengers.

LIFE HILDA Troy now enjoyed was Texactly the life she had planned from the moment when, sometime in her fifteenth year, she had been capable of planning anything beyond her immediate future. Its elements included: an adoring husband who was away most of the year, three dutiful children, two sons and a daughter, a decent house in one of those delightful, leafy, urban villages that surround London; half a dozen loyal and trust worthy servants; and a goodly circle of respectable and amiable friends. And now she had it all. Why, therefore, did she so often sit at her boudoir window these days, gazing out at the houses opposite, feeling herself possessed by the notion that the lives they enshrined was in some indefinable way richer than hers? What ingredient, if any, had she failed to incorporate into her wonderful scheme of things?

None that she could think of; on the contrary, time had fleshed out its elements in a most satisfactory manner.

The adoring husband was a sea captain and not just any old sea captain, either. In fact, she had been told on more than one occasion, and by more than one who should know, that Francis Troy (she did not like the bluff "Frank") was probably the finest captain in the entire British mercantile fleet (which automatically made him the finest in the world, of course). Even twenty years ago, as a mere second officer, he was already talked about on "the Baltic" as a man to mark; otherwise, to be sure, her father would never have invited him to dinner. How flattered she had been when he began paying her court. 

Never mind her friends' sneers that any young officer - who failed to court the daughter of the chairman of the Baltic Exchange would be a fool - she knew, from the tremor in his voice, the anguish in his eye, the utter awkwardness that replaced his normally brusque and jaunty manner when in her presence. she knew that a bewitchment more ancient than ambition bound Francis to her.