4
“Martha’s lookout is either blind or asleep.” Robinson appeared to be attached to the tiller. “She’s not altered her course towards us.”
Mansfield nodded. “Steer for her. We won’t survive another day without water.”
Martha sailed on, heeling to starboard, and then larboard as the wind caught her, with her sails flapping, filling, and emptying, and a line trailing over her stern into the sea.
“It’s not like the French to be such poor seamen,” Robinson observed. “Where the devil is the officer on watch?”
“Go alongside,” Mansfield ordered. “They haven’t noticed us yet.”
Robinson eased the longboat alongside Martha, with a lanky mate named Kelly attaching them with a boathook. They remained in that situation for two minutes, with Martha limping through the dark seas and the longboat at
