"Aloft with you, Mister Pannabaker," Lt. Farley ordered one of the younger Midshipmen of the Forenoon Watch, "and mind you don't drop the glass."

"Aye, sir!" young Pannabaker, Thermopylae's cockiest "younker," piped up in reply, scrambling for a long telescope, then hopping atop the weather bulwarks for the mizer-mast shrouds. Quick as a cat, and as agile as an ape, he was at the mizen top, then to its cross-trees in a dozen eye-blinks.

"Come to spell us, one'd hope," Lewrie said with a yawn, rocking impatiently on the balls of his booted feet.

"She's the Osprey, sir!" Pannabaker shouted down in his thin and high voice. "This month's private signal, and 'Have Despatches,' sir!"

"Mister Tillyard, do you hoist Acknowledged' to Osprey, and I s'pose we'll just loaf along… as we're already doing… 'til she's close aboard." "Aye aye, sir."

"Hmm, sir," Lt. Farley commented, drawing Lewrie's attention to his First Lieutenant, whose face bore a pensive, wolfish grin. It was not the done thing to speculate, but…

"I'd not get my hopes up, Mister Farley," Lewrie had to say to him.

"The Baltic powers've had quite enough of us… The Dutch can't put a rowing boat regatta to sea… and, are the French out, I doubt they've business in the North Sea. One'd wish, but…," he concluded with a shrug.

"They also serve, who only stand and wait, I suppose, sir," Lt. Farley replied, seeming to slump into his tarpaulin coat. "Indeed," Lewrie said with a very bored grimace.

CHAPTER TWO

HMS Osprey was a saucy-looking little thing, a single-masted cutter that could spread a lone tops'l yard above her gaff mainsail if the wind was right. By the number of her closed gun-ports, she mounted no more than eight 4-pounders and was a Lieutenant's command.