Reefs and Shoals Page 29

  I’m an idiot, Lewrie chid himself; a cack-hand, droolin’…!

  “Then, there is the problem of how often, and when, the barges are to meet with a privateer, sir,” Lt. Westcott added. “A schooner or small brig with a crew large enough to man her and fight her, and carry extra hands and mates for prize-parties, might be able to keep the sea for two or three months, whether they take any prizes or not. Is that the arrangement, since communications ’twixt their source of supply and their ship are impossible? Every two or three months for a ‘rondy’, sir, or do the barges cache supplies for them on shore and sail away?”

  “Fairy stuff,” Lewrie said with a sniff. “Leave bisquits and milk on the stoop at night, and find a purse of gold coins come daybreak? Like hell! Who knows who could pilfer the goods in the meantime, or make off with the payment before the barges could return to pick it up?”

  “Just a thought, sir,” Westcott said, with a shrug and a laugh. “No, it would make more sense if they had arrangements for face-to-face meetings, but when, or where, and how often are the mysteries. And, do they vary, I wonder.”

  I could learn to loathe him, Lewrie quietly fumed.

  “One could be in the Saint John’s River, safe as houses even if caught in Spanish territory,” Westcott relentlessly schemed on, “and the next set for the Saint Mary’s, the third behind Cumberland Island, then back to the Saint John’s and etcetera and etcetera.”

  “Might be a tad too complicated,” Lewrie countered.

  “True, sir,” Westcott allowed, nodding his head toward Lewrie. “Though, were I in the looting trade, I would make such arrangements, to keep anyone hunting me in the dark for as long as I could. I fear, though, sir, that catching our privateers and their abettors red-handed is almost impossible. As you say, we can’t lurk off Savannah, and chase after any barges heading South of Jekyll or Cumberland Islands, not with a frigate … not with any of the ships in our squadron, either. They could spot us a dozen miles off on a good day, and put into Brunswick and lay up ’til we have to sail on, playing innocently dumb, then finish their voyage, laughing at our haplessness.”

  “And, we can’t leave a picket line of ship’s boats as watchers, either,” Lewrie fumed. “They’d be able to shadow them, perhaps, but they’d have to signal us that the game’s afoot, and that puts Reliant or the others within sight from the barges. Well, shit.”

  “Finally, sir…,” Lt. Westcott said with a mournful, sigh.

  Dammit, just hammer it home, do! Lewrie thought.

  “… even if we could stand into the sounds and the rivers as if they were all enemy waters,” Westcott pointed out, “the odds are that we would do it at the wrong time, and there would be nothing there, even if we did know the exact spot where they meet, every time.”

  Lewrie came to a halt near the larboard taffrail and the flag lockers, his mouth wryly pursed, with his hands in the small of his back. He spent a long time studying the toes of his boots, then the seaward horizon. At last he hitched a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh, sourly wondering if one’s body could deflate as completely as one’s high-flown hopes and schemes!

  “I might’ve over-thought this whole problem, Mister Westcott,” he told his patient First Officer. “The straight-forward thing for us to do is to trail our colours up and down the Florida coast, from just below Saint Augustine to the Cumberland Sound. Thorn, Lizard, or Firefly can stand in much closer than Reliant, and, when we do reach the Northern end of our patrolling, we can send one or two of ’em in within three miles before we put about.”

  “Aye, sir,” Westcott said, nodding.

  “Nice, and slow under reduced sail, so we linger for a while off the entrance to the Saint Mary’s River,” Lewrie said on, “perhaps fetch-to for an hour or so, without violating anyone’s neutrality. Whather it’s that Treadwell fellow, a Sea Island planter with a ship of his own, or a trader in Brunswick supplyin’ the privateers, we’ll put the wind up him, and make him think twice about doing anything as long as we’re there often enough.

  “You recall that damned convoy we escorted last Spring, sir?” Lewrie asked with more energy.

  “Unfortunately, I do, sir,” Westcott said with a wince.

  “Once the privateers, at least two of ’em, maybe three, caught their prizes, they hared off Sou’west, which would’ve put ’em off the coast of Georgia, if they held course.” Lewrie sketched out. “There was no place for them to sell their prizes but Saint Augustine, or at Havana, and the shortest way home was to the Sou’west, against the Gulf Stream current, which don’t make for a fast getaway unless they had shelter, and sure replenishment, somewhere round the border with Florida and Georgia … a place to lay up for a spell and victual for a voyage to the nearest Prize-Court! Back yonder is still the right place!” he said, gesturing at their wake, to where they had been.

  “So, if we haunt the area below Savannah as often as possible, sir, sooner or later we’ll snare something?” Westcott said, looking hungry and eager to be at it.

  “Fairly sure, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie assured him. “And even if we don’t, our continual presence will deny any privateers the hope of using their hiding places. Sooner or later, they’ll see that the game is up and look for another source of shelter and re-supply, and whoever it is that aids ’em will have t’give up the business, too.”

  “Simple and straight-forward it will be, then, sir,” Westcott said with a laugh, baring his teeth in one of his quick and savage grins, “and a chore that doesn’t keep me up nights in a perpetual fret over who, what, where, and when.”

  “Mind, now, I still would dearly like to nab whichever Yankee Doodle is in on it,” Lewrie admitted with a laugh of his own, “wrap the whole business up in ribbon, and toss it into their President Jefferson’s soup, and force him to pay more attention to maintaining neutrality. Maybe even see the bastard hung, or ruined.”

  “Deck there!” the main-mast lookout on the cross-trees cried. “Sail ho! Strange sail, two points off the starboard bows!”

  “Shall we beat to Quarters, sir?” Westcott eagerly asked.

  “Not just yet,” Lewrie decided. “She’s still on the horizon, and most-like, she’s one of ours blockadin’ Saint Augustine. We have time to determine her identity. Mister Caldwell assures me that we are at least six miles off Florida at present, and the strange sail is inshore of us. For now, I’d admire did you make a slight alteration of course towards her. Carry on, Mister Westcott.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Westcott replied, briefly doffing his hat and turning to go to the middle of the quarterdeck.

  Simple and straight-forward, is it? Lewrie scoffed to himself; So simple that even a fool like me can perform it? So much for me to try and be clever, Logic and reason really are bastards!

  “Just a simple sailor, me,” Lewrie sang under his breath, then did a few dance steps. “Simple’s all I’ll ever be … rovin’ round a dilberry tree,” he extemporised on the spot, “Sailin’ all year for one pen-ney … arrh!”

  I could play that on my penny-whistle, he told himself with a laugh; come up with a whole tune, and sell it all over England!

  * * *

  Within half an hour Reliant had fetched the strange sail hull-up over the horizon. Even though miles still separated them, lookouts aloft could espy British colours, then, just to be certain, a reply of flag hoists in that month’s private signals. She was little HMS Lizard and Lt. Tristam Bury’s command.

  “I wonder if he’s found a new sort of fish,” Lewrie said with a laugh as Lizard jogged up to join, about two cables off the frigate’s starboard side.

  “Darling, Bury Lovett,” Lt. Westcott japed; “there’s a good fellow. Or, you’ll Bury Darling? I’d Lovett.”

  That made Lewrie turn his head to peer at his First Officer.

  “We’re not boring you that badly, are we, Mister Westcott?” he asked with an eyebrow up.

  “Well, sir, since fetching Bermuda, it has been ‘all claret and cruising’,” Westcott
said with a shrug, and a rare sheepish grin, “We had one brief morning’s action at Mayami Bay, and I must admit that I am desirous of something … definitive concerning privateers.”

  “Or pleasureable?” Lewrie hinted.

  Westcott’s answer was a smile and a nod.

  “Ye never can tell what’ll fall out before the year’s out, sir,” Lewrie told him. “If nothing else, we might be able to cross hawses with that bastard Frenchman, Mollien, and put paid to him.”

  “You would take him and his ship to Nassau, and not burn her, sir?” Westcott asked. “Hang what the Prize-Court costs us in the long run in Proctor’s fees. Some brief time ashore would be nice.”

  Lewrie knew exactly what was ailing the First Lieutenant, and it was not the lack of combat. He’s gone so long without a chance to “top” a woman, the Crack o’ Dawn ain’t safe! he thought.

  “I’ll see what I can do, sir,” Lewrie promised. “But … your little play on names’d be best kept to yourself. There’s no need for the ‘younkers’ t’hear ’em.”

  “Of course, sir,” Westcott vowed with a wee bow of his head.

  Lizard was rounding up, pointing her bows at Reliant as she performed a wide arc to lay herself within hailing distance alongside the frigate’s starboard side, Once she was within musket-shot, and her sheets had been belayed, Lizard’s crew began cheering and waving their hats as if the frigate had just come to her rescue, or they had won a victory.

  “Hallo, Captain Lewrie!” Lt. Bury shouted over the short distance between them, with a brass speaking-trumpet to his mouth. “It is good to have you back with us!”

  “Glad to be back, sir!” Lewrie responded in kind. “What have you been up to in my absence?”

  “We have been making a grand nuisance of ourselves, along the coast, as you desired, sir!” Lt. Bury hailed back. “It has been the most delightful fun!”

  By God, it must’ve been, for Bury t’sound enthusiastic, Lewrie thought, recalling how sombre and grave the fellow had struck him at their first meeting.

  “We have taken and burned five fishing boats, sir!” Lt. Bury happily went on, with an actual smile on his lean and scholarly face, “and captured two more we thought useful! We made prize of one small Spanish vessel attempting to land military goods at Saint Augustine—she is under Thorn’s lee at present, South of here—and we took and burned a Spanish privateer that took shelter from us in Mosquito Inlet”

  “Well done!” Lewrie cheered him.

  “Oh, buggery,” was Lt. Westcott’s glum, muttered assessment.

  “We have made amphibious raids ashore, too, sir!” Bury boasted. “Near Saint Augustine! Would you care for a fat boar or two, sir? We brought off what livestock we could find!”

  Lt. Bury looked as if he would burst from pride of their accomplishments, spin in a circle and snap his fingers, or shoot out his arms and spin some St. Catherine’s Wheels in delight!

  “Where away are Thorn and Firefly?” Lewrie asked, feeling a bit jealous that he had missed out on all that excitement, himself.

  “They are South of Saint Augustine, at present, sir, prowling in concert, sir!” Bury informed him.

  “Very well, Mister Bury!” Lewrie shouted over. “Take station ahead of me and lead me to them … within, three miles of Saint Augustine on the way!”

  “Gladly, sir!” Bury shouted back and waved his speaking-trumpet over his head in glee.

  Lizard cracked on sail while Reliant had to take in her tops’ls to the first reef and brail up her main course to match the speed of the smaller sloop.

  “Lucky fellows,” Lt. Westcott growled, once done with the reduction of sail aloft.

  “Enterprising fellows,” Lewrie amended, looking past the bowsprit and jib-boom, and the feet of the heads’ls, to appreciate the sight of Lizard heeling over slightly to starboard and slowly hobby-horsing along, spreading a clean, white wake astern. “For which enterprise, I will dine them aboard this evening, t’hear their tales and celebrate. You will join me, sir?”

  “Aye, sir … even do I grind my teeth in envy,” Lt. Westcott said.

  “That promised fat boar’s better exercise for your teeth,” Lewrie said with a laugh as he looked aloft to the commissioning pendant. “Let’s give the Dons at Saint Augustine something to think on, Mister Westcott. Hoist my broad pendant, and let ’em know that we are back, and ready to bedevil ’em even worse!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “We decided to emulate your example at Mayami Bay, sir,” Lieutenant Darling of Thorn jovially said as he paused in slicing himself a bite of roast pork, “and set the crew of the privateer ashore on their own soil … minus their sea-going kits, of course, even closer to Saint Augustine than the crews of the two privateers we took earlier. They should have no trouble finding shelter. Of course, we kept all of her papers, her muster book, and Letters of Marque.”

  “And, it was Bury’s turn to carry them to Nassau,” Lt. Lovett of Firefly was happy to add. “There and back again, weren’t you, Tristam? In record time, too!”

  “Well, I didn’t want to miss anything,” Lt. Bury shyly agreed.

  “And how was Nassau?” Lewrie asked, smirking.

  “The port did strike me as much busier than Saint George’s, on Bermuda, sir,” Bury answered rather sombrely and cautiously.

  “And Captain Forrester?” Lewrie pressed.

  “Ehm … I got the impression that he was impatient over something, sir,” Bury said, ducking his head as if loath to speak ill of a senior officer, or speculate aloud. “When I reported aboard Mersey, sir, he did ask of you and your doings, and when he may expect you to return to the Bahamas.”

  “It was all I could do to wrest myself and my sloop free to rejoin,” Lt. Lovett griped. “Since your Lizard is larger, I’m sure that he wished to keep you for his squadron, too.”

  “Just so long as you don’t send me with the proof of our next successes, sir,” Darling pled with a laugh. “Thorn is the largest, and the best-armed. Damme if I do not sense lust from here!”

  “You haven’t told me how you nabbed the privateer. Pray do,” Lewrie bade as Pettus refilled his wine glass.

  “Oh, it was priceless, sir!” Darling hooted in glee. “Just at sunset, we were off Mosquito Inlet and about to put-about Northerly and gain some sea-room for the night, when out she darted from shoreward. Tried to take Lovett on.”

  “I was leading, do you see, sir, and Bury and his Lizard was astern of me by about seven or eight miles,” Lt. Lovett said, taking up his part of the tale. “She flew no flag, and seemed to come on most aggressively, so we lowered our own, tacked about in a panic, and hared out to sea, to lure her on. Bury evidently saw what was taking place, and stood on, closer inshore.”

  “I signalled Thorn, sir, got shoreward a bit of her, then went about in chase,” Lt. Bury contributed. Lewrie expected him to elaborate, but Bury lifted his wine and took a sip, as if done.

  “She strode up to us and called for us to strike, sir,” Lovett went on, “so we hoisted colours and served her a broadside at about a half a cable. When Señor saw that, they broke off, but there was the Lizard ’twixt her and her lair, so she was caught between us. And not a quarter-hour later, just at sunset, Lieutenant Darling and Thorn hove up and she struck without firing a return shot!”

  “She was the Torbellino—the “Whirlwind”—out of Havana, sir,” Lt. Darling gleefully said. “Fifty men, eight six-pounders, and a pair of six-pounder carronades. A two-masted lateener, like an Ottoman xebec, of all things, sir, of about an hundred tons!”

  “Handy on a beat to weather, though,” Lt. Lovett opined. “The Spanish found them useful back in European waters, so it’s no wonder that they’d employ them out here.”

  “Carronades?” Lewrie asked, shifting in his chair in un-ease. “I’m not aware that anyone but Great Britain mounts carronades on their warships. God help us do the French copy ’em.”

  “Well sir, they are British,” Lt. Darling told him, “from
the Carron Iron Works, with proof marks to match. The Dons were using them for chase guns.”

  “But, where in Hell did the Spanish get ’em?” Lewrie pondered, twiddling with the stem of his wine glass. “Could an American chandler or merchant order the bloody things, and pass ’em on to just anyone with enough ’tin’?”

  “Perhaps to a Spanish … or a French … privateer that shows up at one of the ‘rondys’ which you suspect take place somewhere along the lower Georgia coast, sir?” Lt. Bury gravely suggested, after dabbing grease and sauce from his thin lips. “If, as you already suspect, French privateers are being supported and aided, who is to say if the Spanish do not avail themselves of the same aid? That would save them a long voyage back to Havana to re-victual, and their solid coin is just as good as French specie, sir.”

  “Matanzas Inlet, Saint Augustine, and the Saint Mary’s and the Saint John’s Rivers, would be close enough to Savannah for scheduled meetings,” Lt. Lovett added. “It is a crying shame that we allowed the Dons to land ashore before we could put the question to them, sir … but we did not know at that time of your suspicions anent Savannah.”

  “Just as we let the Spanish go free at Mayami Bay without any questions, either,” Lewrie gloomed, drumming fingers on the tablecloth, “for lack of suspicions at the time. Damn! That is a shame, sirs. What of the Spanish merchantman, then? Have any of you asked her master and crew if they know anything about privateers being based upon this coast? Perhaps she was bringing them supplies.”

  “It doesn’t appear that she was, sir, from her cargo manifest,” Lt. Darling said. “She carried rice, flour, and cornmeal, on order to the commanding officer of Castillo de San Marcos, to feed his garrison, and powder and heavy shot for the fortress’s guns, sir, along with over one thousand flannel cartridge bags for twenty-four- and thirty-two-pounder cannon. But nothing small enough to mount on a privateer.”

  “Well, at least we have a prize that won’t end up costing us,” Lewrie said with a sigh. He noted that Lt. Darling was looking a tad cutty-eyed. “Don’t we?” he further asked.