Lewrie and the Hogsheads Read online

  “Well, ’twixt Long Island and the Turks and Caicos, there’s the Crooked Island, Mayaguana, and the Caicos passages,” Lewrie replied, “and the Turks Passage South o’ there. All prime entries and exits from the West Indies or the Atlantic, with a fair amount of traffick even in wartime—most ships sailin’ alone, not in an escorted convoy. They’re grand hunting grounds, and with Cuba not all that far off, this Caca Fuego, this ‘Spit Fire,’ wouldn’t have far t’run, should he cross hawses with one of our warships. Perfect for ’em, really. If the French do come and take the Bahamas, as we fear, they could close all those passages, the Florida Straits included, and there goes our British West Indies trade, ’til someone puts a stout expedition together t’take ’em back.”

  “Pray God we are re-enforced soon, then, sir,” Lt. Darling said.

  “Indeed,” Lewrie heartily agreed. “I’d not like t’be known as the fellow who lost the Bahamas,” he added with an uneasy laugh. “I’d be ‘Yellow Squadroned’ faster than you can say ‘knife’!”

  “So,” Darling said, head down as he sliced off a morsel of fish from his plate, “it’s good odds that our Spaniard is still prowling, and we stand a fair chance to discover him. But,” he said, looking up with his fork poised at mid-chin, “with Cuba so close, as you say, sir, it’s equally good odds that their prize is already anchored at Havana, and never to be recovered. That won’t make the Americans happy.”

  “The Yankee Doodles are unhappy enough already,” Lewrie scoffed. “Their Consul, Mister Alexander Stafford, a most annoying Boston ‘Bow-wow’ with the oddest accent ever I did hear, gave me chapter and verse—from Revelation’s apocalypse—over the matter, strongly hinting that he’d be writing his government and London to complain of our callous disregard for the rights and protection of neutrals. I felt like a footman who’d lost his employer’s best shoes, by the time I left!”

  Lewrie shrugged and made a grimace. “At least I got a chance to question Captain Martin some more before being tongue-lashed.”

  “Was he any more forthcoming, sir?” Darling asked, whilst buttering a slice of bread.

  “Not all that much, no,” Lewrie told him. “He stuck to his tale, pretty much. At least he did relate that this Caca Fuego is a small brig—not the ‘big bastard’ he first described—and that he was able to count five gun-ports down her starboard side, the only side he saw, and that her guns looked t’be 6-pounders. The Spanish captain is called Reyes, or Ramos—or maybe her First Mate was named Reyes, or Ramos—and he guessed that she had eighty or ninety men in her crew. It was all just so horrid an experience that he might have become confused.” Lewrie rolled his eyes as he related that.

  “It all sounds odder and odder, sir,” Darling said, shaking his head in leeriness.

  “The American crew still weren’t sayin’ much, either,” Lewrie groused. “They were all ‘aye, sir’ or ‘no, sir’ or ‘don’t know nothin’ ’bout that, sir.’ I might as well have been talkin’ to clams.”

  “Here now, sir!” Lt. Darling perked up with a sly look. “What if this Martin was in league with the Spanish privateers working out of Havana? Perhaps they had a falling out over something and lost their ship because the sums didn’t come out right. We just settled much the same sort of collusion with that Treadwell bastard and his Tybee Roads Trading Company. Perhaps Treadwell wasn’t the only one in Georgia or South Carolina aiding enemy privateers, after all.”

  “Hmm, that would make a sordid sort of sense, would it not?” Lewrie mused, drumming fingers on his wine glass. “One hopes that killing Treadwell and putting his company out of business would warn the others off, for a while at least.”

  “Or leave an opening for someone new to take up the slack, sir,” Darling said, pursing his mouth to one side and raising one eyebrow.

  “Christ, I hope not!” Lewrie barked, chuckling. “Eliminating privateers is like killin’ cockroaches. There’s hundreds more back behind the baseboards for every dozen ye squash!

  “No matter,” Lewrie went on after a cooling sip of wine. “The Spaniard we seek, for whatever reason, took a neutral American ship. Whether Santee was innocent or not, this Don’s either too ruthless to stick to the rules or he’s desperate for any sort of prize-money, and none too scrupulous t’care where it comes from. We’ll just have t’see.”

  A palate-cleansing salad with oil and vinegar came next, then Darling’s steward set out the second course of baked ham with apple sauce, roast potatoes liberally garnished with grated cheese and bits of bacon, with green beans in fresh butter. Lewrie’s claret was set out to wash it down, and there were sweet bisquits and port to polish the meal off. All quite filling, though Lewrie found that Darling’s personal cook could not hold a candle to his own man, Yeovill, when it came to saucing and seasoning.

  * * *

  Leaving Darling to his cigar and brandy, Lewrie took a long turn on deck, then returned to the lee corner of the taffrails to muse and savour the coolness of the night and look up and marvel over the myriad of stars to be seen on such a clear evening. He found himself smiling, breathing in the fresh scents of the ocean.

  For a time, at least, he was free, and happy.

  At last, he bade the watch good night and went below, poured himself a goodly measure of whisky, and sat at the dining table as he slowly sipped it. In his absence, Darling’s steward had rigged the hammock in which he would sleep, though to clear the tabletop, it had been hung rather high. Lewrie undressed after his whisky was gone, stood on the rickety dining table, and carefully rolled himself into the hammock. He hadn’t slept in one since his Midshipman days long ago, and the entry, and the strangeness, kept him awake longer than he wished.

  Darling turned in, too, dousing the last wee glim to plunge the cabins in darkness, and the gentle, regular swaying of the hammock gradually lulled Lewrie to sleep.

  Except for one minor, niggling thing: Lt. Peter Darling snored. Loudly!

  Chapter 4

  Lieutenant Bury and HMS Lizard departed for Crooked Island and the Bight of Acklins to make enquiries, with orders to meet up with HMS Thorn either in the Mayaguana Passage entrance, or Nor’east of the isle of Mayaguana, where Lewrie hoped to be after a quick dash down as far as the Turks Island Passage in search of their Spaniard.

  Lieutenant Darling spent half his waking hours on deck, pacing duck-like, which left his cramped cabins to Lewrie, who could awaken later than his normal wont, breakfast alone after Darling had finished his, and undertake the heavier burden of a senior officer—to wit, pondering where the foe could be found, and what to make of the tale that Captain Martin had spun. As Lt. Darling’s cabin steward did his daily putterings, Lewrie mused long and hard over the most recent charts of the lower Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos charts. He was delighted to find the notice that the chart was printed by “R. Sayer & J. Bennett, No. 53 Fleet St., as the Act directs from survey done by HMS Alacrity, 1787”!

  So long ago, when the world was new and young, Lewrie recalled with a long sigh, when he and his bride, Caroline, had come to the Bahamas, before the first of their three children had been born, their eldest son, Sewallis, birthed at Nassau. Life seemed so much simpler then. Now Caroline was three years gone, and Sewallis had forged his way into a Midshipman’s berth aboard an old family friend’s two-decker seventy-four.

  Lewrie shook himself to shed those thoughts, then used a spoon to show the direction of the steady Nor-east Trades, and did some more pondering.

  Crooked Island Passage, Mayaguana Passage, the Caicos Passage, and Turks Passage all faced directly into the teeth of those Trades for vessels leaving the West Indies, requiring them to make a series of long boards to weather to reach the open Atlantic. It would make perfect sense for an enemy privateer to lurk high up to windward near the mouths of those passages—well, Crooked Island Passage was too narrow to allow much room for tacking to windward, or the commonest civilian manner of going to weather, wearing about in circles to get to the opposite tack. The other passage
s, on the other hand, were much wider and had bags of room for either tacking or wearing about. Crooked Island Passage was best for entering the West Indies waters. Lewrie was tempted to write off close surveillance of that’un and concentrate on the rest.

  “Ships leavin’ Jamaica would…” Lewrie muttered to himself, then cocked his head in puzzlement. British ships departing Jamaica likely choose a way round Spanish Cuba to the Florida Straits, under escort in wartime, or use the Windward Passage ’twixt Cuba and what had been Saint-Domingue, now the independent Black slave Republic of Haiti, in times of peace. Then they’d opt for the Turks, Caicos, or Mayaguana passages to reach the open ocean for England! The rest of British “sugar” colonies in the Leeward and Windward island chains would have direct access to the Atlantic already. Merchant vessels bound for Jamaica would enter the Caribbean much farther South, then shape course to strike Jamaica from the South, avoiding enemy privateers and any reason for nearing enemy coasts, so…

  “So what’s a Spanish privateer doin’ in the lower Bahamas?” he grumbled, half to himself and rubbing his unshaven chin. “Sugar, rum, and molasses—the Dons already have those for export. There’s easier pickin’s nearer the Windward Passage, if they want more.”

  Once seized, raw British exports, except for the distilled rum, wouldn’t fetch decent prices for a privateer; only the value of the captured ships would put a privateer’s books in the black. Oh, was there a cabal like the late and un-lamented Treadwell’s Tybee Roads Trading Company still doing business, America would be the best market for looted goods, delivered in re-registered Yankee bottoms, but…

  “Damme, it ain’t the exports that’re worth the effort, it’s the imports!” Lewrie realised with a sharp, inward breath, rapping a fist on the dining table.

  “Need somethin’, sir?” Darling’s cabin steward asked, startled.

  “No, no, I’m fine,” Lewrie told him. “Just thinkin’ out loud.”

  In wartime, Spanish colonies, and the few remaining French ones, would be dying for carriages, clocks, chinaware, harpsichords and the new pianofortes, for wines, brandies and liqueurs, bolts of cloth for new suitings and ladies’ gowns, medicines, scented soaps and perfumes, buttons, laces, packets of pins and sewing needles, razor sets, new hats, and God only knew what-all imported to British colonies to be intercepted, stolen, and flogged on sellers’ markets! And, if the goods could be landed in the United States, priced below legitimate British imports, the privateers could earn a perishin’ pile of “tin” as well.

  We might be lookin’ for this Spaniard in the wrong place, he thought. He might be lurkin’ to the lee of the passages!

  Referring to the chart again, he looked for a convenient place to lie in wait were he the hunter, and found an area that looked promising. Sou’-Sou’west of Mayaguana Island and to windward of Little Inagua, one could cover both the Mayaguana Passage and the Caicos Passage, and beam-reach cross the Trades from within landfall of Acklins Cay to un-inhabited West Caicos Island, and not a hundred miles from one end of that stalking line to the other, easily done in two days to each leg! Yes, civilian merchant masters could enter through the narrow Crooked Island Passage, but most of them were a cautious lot and would prefer the wider, deeper, and safer passages. The Spanish privateer might even loiter alee of Great Inagua, where all courses through the passages led towards the Windward Passage, and well to windward of his competition!

  Lewrie felt like dashing on deck that instant to convey his discovery to Lieutenant Darling, but only half-rose from the chair before plunking back down.

  He couldn’t order HMS Thorn to dash down to leeward in search of this “Spit Fire” privateer, not right away. He must wait ’til HMS Lizard returned from her enquiries on Crooked Island! A privateer confronted by both Thorn and Lizard—Darling’s ship was only armed with 18-pounder carronades, good for close-range smashing, but useless much beyond a cable, a mere 240 yards.

  “Cheap-arsed shits,” Lewrie groused under his breath, damning all the pinch-pennies at Admiralty who’d substitute carronades for long-ranged artillery just because carronades were cheaper!

  Chapter 5

  HMS Thorn had been down to peek into the Turks Passage and had come back to within four leagues to windward of Mayaguana before Lizard hove up over the horizon on the third day of searching, just after Noon Sights were made at mid-day. An hour later of sailing to meet her, and Lt. Bury could take his gig over to come aboard the larger hermaphrodite brig.

  “And what did you discover on Crooked Island, Mister Bury? Has Captain Martin traded there in the past?” Lewrie eagerly asked.

  “No one on either Crooked Island or Acklins Cay have ever heard of him or his ship, Santee, sir,” Lt. Bury gravely replied, as was his wont; he could be a sober-sided fellow, most of the time. “I was told that some of the failed traders and merchants might have dealt with American vessels in the past, but most of those have sold up and moved away, so there is no way of telling. The isles are rather gloomy and desolate, really. Less than half the plantations are still growing a crop, and most are played out and fallow. I saw many very fine plantation houses, as fine as country mansions back home, abandoned, falling to ruin. The grandees sold up and moved away, too, leaving the oldest or youngest of their slaves on the land, and sold off the rest to Jamaica, to make their passage money, most-like, sir.”

  “Hah, the callous bastards,” Lt. Darling harrumphed. “That’s a backhanded form of manumission, and the abolition of slavery!”

  “I was told that small merchantmen put in there, now and then, sir,” Lt. Bury went on, “perhaps every two months or so, and most of those are from Nassau—food and the very basics for what few bales of cotton are still grown.”

  “Tradin’ at Crooked Island’s not the only thing I suspect our Captain Martin was lyin’ about,” Lewrie scoffed. “See how this seems more plausible. I think Martin’s ship was taken on her way out, not when enterin’ one of the passages.”

  He laid out his ideas about their suspect privateer preying on imported goods, not exports, and that the Spaniard would have lurked closer to the Inaguas, to leeward of the passages, where an intercepted merchantman would be unable to wheel about and beat back to weather to make her escape, and why and where—looted import goods would fetch greater profits than anything the “sugar isles” could export.

  “The Santee still could have been on her way into the passages, sir,” Lt. Bury commented, after pursing his thin lips and frowning. “An American-flagged vessel could have been bringing in desirable imports to sell at Havana, Cap Francois on Haiti, or somewhere on Santo Domingo or Puerto Rico. Americans, as neutrals, trade openly with our enemies. Perhaps it was just Captain Martin’s bad luck to run afoul of a Spaniard who didn’t give a toss for her neutrality.”

  “Still, I doubt if Santee was taken this side of Mayaguana,” Lewrie countered, clinging to his original theory. “I think we will come across our Spaniard alee of the Inaguas and the Caicos Islands.”

  “Hmm,” Bury studiously opined, “where traffick from each of the passages converge, aye, sir, making for the Windward Passage. That is the most probable place to search.”

  “Good enough for me!” Lt. Darling exclaimed, clapping his hands. “Now we’re together once more, shall we set off at once, sir?”

  “Aye, let’s do,” Lewrie agreed. “We’ll double back and take the Caicos Passage, sail down to West Caicos Island, then begin a patrol line to the West-Nor’west and back, skirtin’ close to Little Inagua, for starters. Hmm, I will wish you to lead, Mister Bury, about ten miles ahead of Thorn, within easy signaling distance. And…

  “We’ll hoist false colours,” Lewrie ordered with a sly grin. “If our Spaniard’s already taken one Yankee Doodle ship, then perhaps he’s developed a taste for ’em. We’ll pretend t’be American merchant vessels! When, and if, the Don shows up, we’ll playact as lubberly and cunny-thumbed as village idiots! Act and look completely unlike British men o’ war!”

  “T
hen, does this Spaniard close us from leeward, and we begin to flee back to windward, we can close up with each other,” Darling eagerly added. “Lizard will be the first to run, and I, and Thorn, will pretend to be deaf, dumb, and blind ’til we take fright, and he’ll think he’s caught himself a feast, not a meal, ha ha!”

  “If that’s the way he finds us, aye, Mister Darling,” Lewrie happily agreed. “If we stumble upon him under other circumstances, then we’ll have to improvise. Let’s let Mister Bury return to his ship, then we’ll come about to the East-Sou’east-Half-East, under all plain sail. No need to rush, for once.”

  And if our Spaniard finds us another way? Lewrie had to ask himself; Lord help us, then. I hope one of us is clever!

  * * *

  Near the middle of the First Dog Watch, after the second issue of rum had been doled out, and after the belfry, binnacle, and taff-rail lanthorns had been lit for the night, Lewrie found Lt. Darling peering up at the unfamiliar American flag, which now flew from the peak of the spanker boom. He was frowning quizzically.

  “I wonder, sir,” Darling muttered with a shrug, “just how many stars we’re supposed to have on that flag?”

  “Hmm?” Lewrie asked.

  “Well, sir, are there only the original thirteen states in their United States, or more, I mean to say?”

  “Well, I know for certain that they added Louisiana two years ago,” Lewrie puzzled, looking up at the flag more intently himself. “Before that, they added Tennessee and Kentucky, and I think that I read that they’d carved off part of Maine—or was it Vermont—to make either Maine or Vermont. I haven’t heard if Mississippi and Alabama are still territories, or have been made states. Why, sir?”

  “If our Don gets close enough to count the stars, sir, what if he knows how many should be displayed and is put on the alert if the count’s wrong?” Darling fretted.