“Perhaps,” suggested Higgs, the boatswain, “we’ll meet up with another Company ship.”
“Aye,” Richardson scoffed sarcastically. “We’ll pull right alongside and say ‘Pray, neighbor, might ye lend us five hundredweight of coal till Thursday next?’ And they’ll be happy to do so, as they will through sheer happenstance be loaded down with twice the amount required for their own landing.”
The boatswain’s face darkened. “No need to come it ironical.”
Richardson sighed. “I suppose we’ll have to burn the cargo, then.”
“All them fine linens?” moaned Quinn, the purser. “And the furniture and rugs, up in smoke just to fill the balloons?”
“They tried that in Earl of Wessex, remember?” the master cried. “Fat lot of good it did ’em! Burned up every stick of cargo they did, and half the decking too, and still scattered themselves all over the Juno Plain.” He sighed. “No, lads, it’s coal we need, five hundredweight at least, or else half a ton of fresh charcoal.”
“Might as well wish for a flying pony!” the boatswain shouted. “H—l, a flying coach-and-six!”
In reply the master growled and clenched his fist. Richardson’s eyes darted, all in a panic, from one angry officer to another, but only a series of ineffectual blubbing sounds emerged from his lips.
And then Arabella burst out one word: “Drogues!”
All at once the officers’ argument cut off. They stared at her as though she’d appeared from nowhere.
Arabella clapped her hands across her mouth.
She hadn’t meant to speak. She had not even realized at first that she had spoken aloud. It had only been the suddenness of the realization that had forced the word from her mouth.
“How long have you been hiding there?” Richardson snapped, straightening in the air, his expression cold. The other officers skewered Arabella with their gazes, pinning her to the spot where she floated. “What’s your name?”
This was Arabella’s worst nightmare. “I—I’m Ashby, sir. I’m, I’m tending to the captain, sir.” As she spoke, she realized that she had positioned herself between the captain and the quarreling officers, as though to protect him from the knowledge of his crew’s disarray. “Surgeon’s orders, sir.”
“Surgeon’s orders or no, you are not to intrude upon my private conferences with—”
“Just a moment, sir,” Stross interrupted. Richardson fixed him with a hard glance, but he stood his ground, glaring back just as hard for a moment before turning his attention to Arabella. “Did you say ‘drogues,’ lad?”
Arabella swallowed. “Aye, sir, I did.”
Stross licked his lips, staring upward in concentration, then peered down at the chart. “Mr. Quinn, did you mention linens?”
The purser stammered for a moment before replying. “W-we’ve fifteen crates of fine linens, yes, bound for Fort Augusta.”
“Tablecloths, that sort of thing? Good sturdy Ulster linen?”
“What the d—l does—?” cried Richardson.
Stross held up a hand in Richardson’s face, quite rudely. “Tablecloths!” he demanded of the purser. “Do we have some? At least ten or twenty?”
“Yes!” the purser squeaked. “Sixty, in fact, I think.”
Stross nodded slowly, scratching his chin, contemplating the chart. He reached out one finger and tapped the cross-current Arabella had spotted, then took the calipers and measured the distance from there to the pin representing Diana. “Drogues,” he repeated, and looked Arabella right in the eye.
“We’d have to start right away, sir,” Arabella said.
“Aye,” Stross said. “And the calculations will be tricky. Very tricky indeed, without the navigator.”
In for a penny, thought Arabella. “I can work the navigator, sir. A bit.”
All the officers looked at her.
“The captain was teaching me, sirs. Before the French attacked.”
Richardson’s glance darted from Arabella to Stross and back again. “What in blue blazes are you contemplating?”
Stross glared balefully at the acting captain. “You do know what a drogue is, don’t you, sir?”
For a long moment Richardson blinked rapidly, lips pressed together, jaw set hard. “Refresh my memory,” he spat at last.