"Eased, has it, Mister Fox?" he asked.

"Aye, sir, or so I do believe," the Second Officer told him as he raised a bent finger to the brim of his hat in casual salute. "Her motion has most certainly eased, as has the velocity of the winds. I wish to replace storm trys'ls with stays'ls, hoist the spanker at two reefs, and hoist the inner jib."

Lewrie looked into the binnacle to discover their present course: Nor'East. "Wind still out of the Nor'West, Mister Fox?"

"Aye, sir. Though it does show sign of backing."

"Aye, hoist away," Lewrie decided, rubbing his chin and feeling two days' worth of stubble rasping. "With any luck, full and by, we'll be able to steer Nor'east by North. And take in the sea-anchor, too," he added, turning to look astern for the Dutch coast, as if the drift might have put them close to the shoals already. "Rate of drift?"

"Nigh a mile each hour, sir," Lt. Fox told him with a grimace.

"Then carry on, sir! Carry on, smartly!" Lewrie urged. They had set out the sea-anchor about Three in the previous afternoon, and if they'd drifted stemward a mile per hour since-it took Lewrie another long moment to do the simple math in his woozy head-that meant eleven hours of drifting, and they'd only been fifteen miles off Holland when they'd begun!

Mercifully for the weary and groggy hands, hoisting jibs and stays'ls, and baring the spanker at two reefs, could be done by the sailors of the current watch, not an "All Hands" manoeuvre requiring men to go aloft at their peril. The off-watch people could sleep in as best they could under the circumstances, and be a tad fresher when the watch changed at 4 A.M. Hoisting was fairly easy; it was sheeting home to cup that still-boisterous wind that would cause the hernias.

Lewrie stood out of the way by the after-most shrouds of the mainmast, crossing his fingers as the Afterguard hoisted and reefed the spanker.