"Lee braces there! Hands wear ship! "
"Tops'1 sheets! " Seamen strained back on braces and halliards. A boatswain's mate pushed two extra hands to add their strength as Unrivalled continued toward her allotted anchorage.
"Helm a-lee! " The slightest hesitation, and the big double wheel began to swing over, helmsmen moving like a single body.
Adam Bolitho shaded his eyes as the sunlight lanced between the shrouds and flapping canvas, as the ship, his ship, turned steadily into the wind.
He saw his coxswain watching across the busy deck, waiting to call away the gig, ready for the unexpected.
"Let go! "
The great anchor dropped from the cathead, spray bursting up and over the beautiful figurehead.
After all the miles, the pain and the triumph, for better or worse, Unrivalled had come home.
Lieutenant Leigh Galbraith looked aloft to make certain that the excitement of returning to England had not allowed slackness to mar the sail drill.
Each sail was neatly furled, the masthead pendant curling in the offshore wind, the ensign streaming above the taffrail, bright against the land, hoisted to replace a well-worn and ragged one before the dawn had broken. Marine sentries were posted to prevent unlawful visitors, traders, even some of the local whores, coming aboard when they realized that Unrivalled's company had had little to spend their pay on over the past months. And there was talk of slave bounty, and prize money, too.
He watched the guard boat approaching, an officer standing in the stern sheets shading his eyes. Their first contact with authority since leaving the Rock. Unrivalled would probably be invaded now by riggers and carpenters, some of whom might have helped to build her more than two years ago.
He shivered again. But it was not the bite of the March wind.
He had seen the ranks of laid-up ships, large and small, as Unrivalled had tacked slowly toward the anchorage. Proud ships, famous names. Some had already been here when they had last left Plymouth for the Mediterranean and Algiers, eight months ago.