Under Enemy Colors by Sean Thomas Russell, Sean Russell, S. Thomas Russell

came to anchor in the mostly open sound and hoped the wind would not veer south.
    Hayden walked slowly around the deck, inspecting the ship. He had been up the masts and over every inch of the rigging. With her new paint she all but gleamed in the sun.
    The master, Mr Barthe, descended the main shrouds and stopped when he reached the rail to examine the deadeyes and lanyards critically. Noticing the first lieutenant standing nearby he tipped his hat, his manner most deferential, almost fawning. Hayden suspected it was from feelings of guilt—from refusing to admit he knew of the petition.
    “She looks very well, Mr Hayden,” the master ventured. “Your efforts have not been in vain.”
    Hayden pressed down the desire to confront the man with his duplicity, realizing it would do no good. The officers had made their decision and would not change it now.
    “I think she’s up to whatever chance might send, Mr Barthe. Are we up to it? that is what I wonder.”
    The master glanced quickly away. “She’ll take all the weather Biscay can send us, I should think.”
    “On deck!” came a call from aloft. “Captain approaching.”
    Barthe called for his glass, and peering through the brass cylinder, he nodded. “Captain Hart,” he said, lowering the glass, and then, beneath his breath, “Damn my eyes.”

Eight
    C aptain Hart came over the rail, wheezing heavily from the effort. Corpulent, florid, choleric—these were Lieutenant Hayden’s first impressions. Hart’s small boots settled on the deck and he looked around angrily, as though searching for some offender. Hayden glanced at Landry, who stood frozen in place, pale as a cloud, his gaze fixed straight ahead. Realizing the second lieutenant would not introduce him, Hayden stepped forward.
    “Lieutenant Charles Hayden, Captain Hart, at your service.”
    Hart stared at him as though he had offered some insult, the man’s jowls quivering with barely suppressed anger.
    “So you’re the Admiralty’s beached lieutenant,” he spat out, “undeserving of even a brig-sloop. Well, you can hardly be worse than the last.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “Damn his eyes…”
    Hart turned away from the startled lieutenant and glanced up at the masts. “Landry?”
    “Sir,” the little lieutenant said, taking half a step forward.
    “Who got the masts in? You?”
    “Lieutenant Hayden, Captain Hart.” Landry’s gaze dropped to the deck like a fumbled twelve-pound ball.
    Hart turned back to the still-shocked Hayden. “How is it, sir, that you passed for lieutenant without learning even the rudiments of rigging?”
    “I can’t imagine what you mean, sir,” Hayden said through clenched jaw, all his considerable anger thrown against its restraints. “Perhaps the captain would be so kind as to explain…”
    “I’m sure you don’t, sir.” Hart pointed at the shrouds. “Are they not cable-laid?”
    “They are—”
    “Did no one ever explain that the tails of the shrouds on the larboard side should lie forward?”
    Hayden could not believe what he’d just heard. “I believe they should lie aft, Captain Hart…as they do on every ship in His Majesty’s Navy.”
    “Damn your insolence, sir!” Hart thundered, spraying the deck with phlegm. “Bring me a glass,” he ordered, and in a moment a running midshipman placed a glass in his hand. Hart thrust it at Hayden and pointed at a nearby frigate. “Do me the honour, sir, of inspecting that ship’s rigging.”
    Hayden raised the glass to his eye, forcing his hands, which trembled with anger, to be still.
    “Do you see? The tails of shrouds on her larboard side lie forward,” Hart stated.
    “You will pardon me, sir, but they lie aft. I can see it plainly—”
    The glass was snatched from his hands. “Are you blind as well as simple?”
    “Sir! I protest—”
    Hart, who had begun to turn away, spun back toward him, his face now crimson, jowls ashiver. He waved the glass in the air as though he might