The mid-morning sun shone on every arshin of canvas Fletch could spread and beat down through the skylight on the stokers. Each man shoveled as quick as he could until, at the point of collapse, another replaced him, like post horses ridden to exhaustion. Tess was a dot on the horizon off her stern and the liner was roughly the same size off her fore.

“Has she changed heading or speed?” Granger asked, sipping coffee.

“No sir, nothing to show that she sees us,” the helmsman replied.

“Very good.”

A party of sailors, joined by Bethany, Farley, and Threlfall, stood behind the bowsprit, leering at the target. Most looked with their naked eyes or passed about a tarnished spyglass while the three officers shared a finer one.

“Two buff funnels, black hull,” Threlfall observed.

“That’s the Bexar Imperial Steam Navigation Company,” a sailor piped up, proudly.

“How do you know?” Farley inquired.

“Three years back I went over there to gamble and had to work my passage back, if you catch my meaning, sir. I didn’t speak the language worth a damn but I begged until they made me a deckhand on the Hund for one crossing.”

“Is that Hund?” Threlfall indicated the distant ship.

“No sir, no, she was a four piper, if this one’s only two she’s liable to be a Rex class. They built a lot of those, fast mail ships for their colonies down here. Passenger accommodations too but that’s gravy really.”

Farley leaned in, “Were you ever aboard a Rex? Could you draw a deck plan? Even a rough one could help my boys greatly.”

“Can’t say I was sir, only saw a few alongside the quay.”

“What would they be using one for now?” Threlfall interrogated.

“She’d make a fine commerce raider, plenty fast as you see, but running like this, perhaps she’s just the same glorified mail packet as before.”

Dinner was eaten on the fantail, with directionless conversations conducted between long looks forward. The liner was growing in their view. A sailor bearing a slip of paper interrupted an anecdote from Farley about a pistol duel he had witnessed as a youth. The slip was handed to Granger, who unfolded it.

The sailor pointed to a number on the paper: “The outcome’s at the bottom there sir but he left his work so you can see it’s accurate.”

“Thank you, you are dismissed,” Granger replied, then, studying the paper he announced, “Helm estimates the liner has increased speed by half a knot and her course has changed twice in the last hour.”

“She knows we are going after her,” Farley observed.

“Almost certainly yes. Her first course change was 46 minutes ago by the chronometers. If we assume she also went to full ahead then she has only gained half a knot in that time. She must have been full away on passage and close to her top speed already.”

A look of approval appeared on the men at the table. Bethany asked: “Is she too fast for us now?”

“We may cease gaining on her but we can keep up,” Granger answered.

“To what end?”

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“She cannot countenance us following her to port, where she will have to slow and we could take her. She will either turn to fight or turn to run for the safety of a friendly warship or fort. When she does we will have her, for turning means slowing.”

“What if both of those can be found ahead of her?” Bethany wondered.

“In that case we will have to hope her stoker’s hearts give out.”

The next morning saw the liner still running and now growing smaller. Without warning, however, she slowed dramatically while keeping on the same course.

“That’s an engineering casualty, she’s thrown a propeller blade or lost an engine,” Badrine pronounced, his oily hands gripping a spyglass. His watch was over and he would normally be sleeping but he and half of the others meant to be in hammocks were instead viewing the chase.

“Pass the word to Mr. Granger, she’s broken something and is slowing,” The Chief Engineer instructed.

Moments later, Granger emerged from his cabin and strode, as best he could with the aid of his stick, to Farley: “Ready the launches and stand by to beat to quarters, we may be on her soon depending on the damage.”

“Aye, sir,” the Marine assented.

It was the creak of rope against davits that drew Bethany’s attention. The unfinished portrait of Clotilde stood before her, she was making every effort to complete it from memory. Some features remained indistinct however, and so she added more to the background while she devised ways to return to Tess or bring Clotilde to Fletch. She foresaw few scenarios in which Mr. Luft would send his daughter into the midst of a largely unfamiliar crew alone but, then again, he had exposed his entire family to far worse by taking them to sea. She supposed the father really did not care but, as she had told Threlfall, was merely relaying his wife’s protest.

Bethany opened her door onto the deck and was nearly bowled over by two sailors rushing to man a boat. “Have we caught them?”

One sailor turned, “not yet love but she’s slowing now.”

Bethany went forward to the clutch of watchers at Fletch’s prow.

“We’re closing, by god,” Badrine murmured, still looking through his glass.

“May I see?” Bethany inquired.

Threlfall handed her his spyglass. She raised it just in time to see a large black shape tumble over the liner’s side.

“What was that?” Bethany wondered aloud.

“A piano!” Badrine laughed, “they’re trying to lighten the ship and gain a knot or two, they know we’re tightening the noose.”

“Will it work?”

“Probably not.”

The liner’s coaling hatches opened and wheelbarrow-loads of fuel began to go into the water as well.

“We’re about to find out if she’s any hidden deck guns, for she’ll shed those too,” Badrine mused, “wait... damn.”

The engineer looked long at the stern of the liner.

“Her starboard screw’s turning again. If it was her engine they got it running and if she threw a blade they’ve decided to suffer the vibration damage to keep up speed.”

The sailors around the prow muttered disapproval and few walked off to get some sleep. Granger approached. “She’s moving off now, what’s the matter?”

“They either repaired the engine or are willing to run on a crippled screw - we might still catch her but it’s no longer a certainty,” Badrine replied.

Granger nodded gravely, “go below, you will be on watch again in a few hours.”

As the engineer complied, Granger addressed the helm: “Make regular speed calculations, theirs and ours. If they begin to pull away I want to know immediately.”

To Bethany and Threlfall he explained, “Unless we catch them in the next 12 hours I am going to call this off, I cannot justify the coal burn for a pointless lark.”

At six bells in the dog watch the helmsman handed a slip of paper down to Granger who read it with solemnity.

“Stop engine. We will wait for Tess here,” he instructed.

As the helmsman relayed the order the sailors within earshot went slack with disappointment.

Granger spoke to them, loud enough to ensure all on deck heard it “She’s making 20 knots, we are making 18. One can out-sail many things but not mathematics.”

As Granger removed his hat to clear the narrow door of his cabin the wind shifted. For several days it had been relatively low and blowing southward, putting Fletch on a run and providing her prey with a tailwind. Now, though, it was blowing east to west and far faster.

The master stopped dead and turned around, walking to the gunnel. He raised his old straw hat into the air and felt the wind buffet it, divining its direction.

“Helm, belay the stop order and go full ahead again. Mr. Boyle we have the wind for a beam reach and we shall use it.”

The bosun set his sailors to work and procured more from below deck. Quickly, Fletch’s sails moved from wing-on-wing, perpendicular to hull, to roughly in line with it, their spars turned out at 30 degrees. This was a more efficient configuration for the sails and good for a precious knot or so.

Shellfire rocked Fletch. Bethany found herself awake on the floor of her cabin, having been thrown from her bunk, with the light of dawn prying at her eyes. She heard another shell whistle overhead followed by Fletch’s rebuttal in the form of rifle fire. A drum roll sounded and tens of feet beat their way onto deck or to their fighting stations. Sheepishly, Bethany rose and peered out her cabin window. Somehow, in the night, they had caught up with the liner. It was less than a verst away. A deck gun at her stern was responsible for all the commotion.

Bethany weighed staying in her cabin but she felt she knew by the plaster and tar filled bullet holes in the door and bulkhead that it would protect her from nothing. Still in her nightclothes she stepped onto the deck. As it had been for the last several days, the action was concentrated at Fletch’s prow. Nock and his gunners were standing ready at the fantail but could do nothing while their target was still ahead of them. Farley knelt near the bowsprit with his carbine braced against the rail. He fired, evidently aiming at the enemy gun crew. A marine next to him with a spyglass reported “miss, low and to starboard.”

“Get me a sandbag!” Farley ordered. A sailor bolted from the prow and went below deck, returning with a sandbag in hand. Farley placed it on the rail and put his carbine atop it.

“It’s to stop the fore-end rattling around, makes his shots easier,” Threlfall whispered. He had come up behind Bethany and either noticed or presumed her bewilderment at the odd request.

Farley called for quiet and made careful adjustments to his stance, then squeezed the carbine’s trigger.

“Hit,” the marine with the glass announced.

The sailors whooped approval. On the liner one of the gunners slumped over and was hauled off by his compatriots.

Fletch was still gaining on the enemy. Farley took another shot: “hit.”

A few rifle shots emanated from the liner’s deck but they were ill aimed.

“She’s slowing!” a sailor rejoiced. She was, the liner’s wake grew calmer as her screws halted.

“Has she struck?” Granger asked, moving toward the prow.

“No, sir,” answered several sailors and marines in tandem from behind spyglasses.

“Man the boats!” Granger ordered.