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Two bells in the first dog, and the gunner and armorer returned, meek as mice. Holley and Kinskey returned as well, reasonably jolly. They worked steadily for an hour, when Jack released the midshipmen for the night. Morretti and Mister Veidt he released at the end of the second dog. The men left quietly, and Jack was alone at last. He stood over the arms lockers and stared.
The armorer was perhaps three-quarters of the way through when the French appeared. Jack awoke to the insistent shaking of his cot and his name, absurdly whispered as if the speaker was afraid of waking him. “Yes,” he said. “What is it?”
“Mister Henreid’s compliments sir and there is a vessel off the starboard bow, French, he thinks,” said a voice. “Shall he beat to quarters?”
“Yes,” said Jack, swinging from his cot, “and rig for silent running.”
“Quarters and silent running, yes, sir,” said the voice, a midshipman by its sound. Jack heard the patter of feet and made out the boy’s silhouette when he opened the door to the companion. Hurried footsteps scampered up the stairs and by the time Jack had grabbed his pistols and sword and made it to the companion himself he only saw a pair of feet disappearing into the bridge.
The klaxons blared out for quarters once, then cut out in the middle of their second shriek. “Who the devil set off that alarm,” asked Jack, buckling his sword and pistol belt around his nightshirt as he stepped onto the bridge. “If the French didn’t know we were here before then they certainly do now. How far away are they?”
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