“Addles the brains, eventually,” Lewrie japed. “Will you stand off-and-on with me ’til morning?”

“Yes, I thought I might,” Donnelly said, “then, with a decent slant of wind, I can fall down near the Fourtieth Latitude and catch the Westerlies, straight on to Cape Town.”

“Did the Commodore advise you on our mysterious sightings of a visitor offshore?” Lewrie asked.

Hard as it was to get a despatch boat up to Buenos Aires, all three ships posted to cruise the mouth of the estuary had sent reports of those strange sails on the horizon, but this was the first that Captain Donnelly had heard of them. Lewrie quickly filled him in.

“Hmm, in that case, it might be best did we cut our supper short,” Donnelly pondered, looking concerned, “and I make my offing in the dark … lights extinguished. From nine P.M., say, ’til dawn tomorrow, does this stern wind hold, I could be seventy miles out to sea by six A.M.”

“The last sighting was late this afternoon, twenty miles or more off Cape Saint Mary, up to the Nor’east,” Lewrie advised. “We don’t know what she is, but she is persistent. With any luck, she’ll pop up round mid-channel, leagues from where you intend to be.”

“Excuse me, sirs, but supper is ready to be laid,” Pettus announced, and Yeovill came bustling in with his metal food barge.

“You’ve broached my anker of Bordeaux, have you?” Donnelly asked Pettus. “Good ho, then! Let’s sup, for I am famished!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

“Sighted her again, sir,” Lt. Merriman reported as Lewrie came to the quarterdeck, spurred by the lookouts’ cries of “Sail Ho!” days after Narcissus had departed with her precious cargo. “Her royals or t’gallants only. Can’t spot her from the deck, so she’s over fifteen miles seawards.”

Lewrie extended his telescope anyway, looking not towards their mysterious stalker, but at HMS Diomede, the old 50-gunner, several miles to the North.

“I’m growing tired o’ that bastard,” Lewrie spat. “What does her captain think he’s playin’ at? If she’s a Spanish warship, there is nothing t’be gained by hangin’ about this long after we conquered the bloody place. She should be scuttlin’ off t’warn the other Spanish colonies … go find other men o’ war and come back t’take us on.”

“Unless she’s been left to keep an eye on us whilst the other ships are preparing to come to the Plate, sir,” Lt. Merriman speculated. “Perhaps the word has already been passed?”

“Where are we this morning, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie asked the Sailing Master, going over to peer at his charts.

“About ten sea miles East of Lobos Island, sir,” Caldwell offered, “and our lurker would be about fifteen miles further seawards of that, is Mister Merriman’s estimate correct.”

Lewrie concentrated on the much-thumbed and pencil-marked sea-chart, looking for inspiration, or a single clue, for long moments. From the port of Maldonado and Cape St. Mary to Cape Norte on the South, the Plate Estuary was over 120 miles wide, narrowing between Montevideo and Point Piedras. It was an impossible distance to cover with three warships, even sailing independently of each other, and their stranger could pop up just temptingly out of reach each dawn and dusk wherever she willed along that line, coming up as near as Point Piedras sometimes, without any risk of interception. Did Diomede, Raisonnable, or Reliant attempt to beat up to her, she would go about and run over the horizon, but, a day or two later, there she would be again, sniffing round the mouth of the estuary.

“Here,” Lewrie muttered, jabbing a finger at the chart, “off Cape Saint Mary, then … here, round mid-entrance, then the next day or so later, she pops up down to the South, like she’s standing on sentry-go, same as us. North, in the middle, in the South … hmm. Not always, though. Her captain must have a pattern to his madness, but I don’t see it. Clues, anyone?” he asked his officers.

“Well, sir, there have been times when she appears in the South at dawn, then comes back within sight not too far away from there at sundown,” Lt. Westcott pointed out. “The next dawn she might be near the middle of the estuary’s mouth, and appear in the North by dusk. At other times, she will make her probes off Cape Saint Mary at dawn and dusk, then pop up to the South. I’m not all that sure that there is a discernible pattern.”

“Perhaps her captain is trying to avoid showing us a pattern, sir,” Lt. Merriman said with a shrug, “but, he seems to have but three places where he closes the coast for a look-see … Cape Saint Mary, Cape Norte, and the middle of the estuary mouth.”

“She was off the middle yesterday?” Lewrie asked. “Then, it may be good odds she’ll either be off Cape Saint Mary just before sundown tonight, or round the middle. Hah!” he barked. “Let’s gamble! We will stay near Cape Saint Mary and Lobos Island the rest of the day, standin’ off-and-on, but slowly make our way seaward a few more miles. Not enough t’frighten her off. Whether she appears off the Cape, or further down towards the middle of the estuary mouth, I intend that we dash out once it’s full dark.…” He paused, looking aft at the taffrail lanthorns either side of the stern. “We won’t light the lanthorns but replace ’em with small hand-held lamps. That’ll make us look as if we’re further off from her. Once she’s had her evening look-see, we’ll douse ’em, one at a time, as she makes her way back seaward for the night, then douse the last ’un, show no lights at all, and chase after her, get seaward of her, and catch her on a lee shore! Pin her ’twixt us and the other ships!”

“Even if we don’t bring her to action, we might give her such a scare that her captain tosses in his cards and sails away,” Lieutenant Westcott chortled.

“Mister Merriman, I’d be much obliged did you alter course to seaward, nothing too drastic … perhaps no more than two points. We have all day,” Lewrie ordered. “Diomede is bound South, the same as us, and I wish t’stay within signalling distance of her, perhaps no more than six or seven miles off ’til sundown.”

“Very good, sir! Bosun! Pipe all hands to the braces, and be ready to alter course!” Lt. Merriman shouted down to the waist of the ship.

“Hah!” Lewrie exulted, clapping his hands together. “I will be below, Mister Merriman, finishin’ my breakfast. Carry on. Drill on the great-guns in the Forenoon, finishin’ with live fire.”

“Aye, sir.”

Damme, I feel like a feagued horse! he thought as he trotted down the ladderway to the waist, stopping to pet Bisquit and let him stand on his hind legs with his paws on his chest, ruffling fur and telling him what a good dog he was.

Days on end of boredom and frustration, with very little news of what was transpiring round Buenos Aires, denied any part in the landings at Point Quilmes, left to cruise fruitlessly … now, all of that was swept away by the prospect of discovering just who, or what, had been lurking just out of reach, by the possibility of a sea-fight, broadside-to-broadside … or the imagined shock they might cause when they appeared to seaward of their mysterious lurker, and cutting off her escape!

Very much like an aged horse, dosed by shrewd traders with a plug of ginger up the rump to appear young and lively, Lewrie felt as if he’d suddenly shed ten years and could prance in circles!

“A warm-up of your coffee, sir?” Pettus offered as Lewrie swept the tails of his coat back and sat himself down at the dining table once more, tucking his napkin into his shirt collar, then rubbing his hands in delight.

“I’d much admire it, thankee kindly, Pettus!” Lewrie happily replied, so loud that Chalky, at the other end of the table, started and crouched behind his food bowl. “Oh, don’t be such a scaredy-cat, puss. It’s only me, in high takings for once.”