The brig, still flying an American flag, was hugging closer to the shore of Saint John, as if to shave Ram Head by a boat-hook’s reach. Urgent signals were now flying from her lee main-mast.
“She’ll pass inside the shoal, Mister Winwood?” Lewrie queried.
“The brig, aye, sir. The schooner, though …” Winwood replied with a wince, as if watching an imminent coach accident.
“Schooner’s bearing away,” Langlie noted. “Ready, down there?”
Gun-captains waved their hands clear of the guns; Catterall had his sword poised on high, nodding eagerly. “On the up-roll …fire!”
“She’s standing directly onto the shoal, sir!” Winwood said.
“The brig displays this month’s coded signals, sir!” Midshipman Elwes suddenly cautioned, with some alarm.
“He’s a lying dog, then,” Lewrie snapped, between explosions from their guns.
“But, sir! Really, they’re this month’s signals!” Elwes protested, eyes wide in fear of error.
“We ain’t firin’ on her, Mister Elwes,” Lewrie took the patience to say to him, direct. “Do you recall our first encounter with Yankee merchantmen? If she’s innocent, what’s she doin’ in company with that Frog privateer? Once our smoke clears, hoist a signal for her to heave to and prepare to be boarded. If she obeys, fine. If she doesn’t … then we will fire into her.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Elwes said, doffing his hat before dashing off aft to his flag lockers and halliards.
Once again, both the schooner and HMS Proteus had mounded the sea with ragged thunderheads of smoke and fog-roil from their guns. A moment later, the schooner sailed clear of hers, presenting her lines sideon, her hull pocked with 12-pounder impacts, and the upper gaff of her foresail hanging limp and the sail bagged out alee.
Then she struck the shoal, jerking to a complete stop, her mastheads swaying forward, gaffs and booms swinging forward abruptly. Running rigging snapped, heavy lower booms ploughed through shrouds and ripped them loose from the dead-eyes, ripped dead-eyes from the chain platforms! Her bow rose up as if cresting a boisterous wave … but remained at that angle, her bow sprit and jib-boom almost vertical.
Proteus’s crew groaned aloud, making “Ooohh!” sounds as if in fellow sailors’ sympathy, before recalling that the ship over there was French, after all, and began to jeer and cat-call.
“Someone send for Mister Durant!” Lewrie chortled loudly. “And ask him how one says ‘Oops, oh shit’ in French!”
“Do you still wish her boarded, sir?” Langlie asked, after the hilarity had faded and the quarterdeck people had returned to duties.
“Aye, I do, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie decided after a long moment to think it over, weighing risk to his sailors against the need for a confirming document as a privateer. “Send two boats with Mister Catterall, and a larger boarding party. He’s to capture her captain or a mate, if possible, with her Letter of Marque and Reprisal. Does the rest of the crew get ashore, so be it, and let ’em be the Danes’ problem. Do they not fire her as they abandon, have our people do it. Instruct him to menace them, but not get into a melee. Do you think he may manage that, Mister Langlie?”
“He’s an energetic, simple-minded brute, sir, so I expect that he may,” Langlie chirped back with a wry grin on his features.
“Very well,” Lewrie announced. “Let’s fetch-to and despatch our boarding party, quick as we can. Mister Elwes, what answer did we get from the brig?”
“Can’t really make it out, sir, it’s all higgledy-piggledy,” the boy replied, dashing from aft to a skidding stop at his summons.
“He’s a liar and a conspirator, as I suspected, then. Thankee, Mister Elwes. Keep ‘Fetch-To’ aloft, and think of a way to make that ‘Insistent.’ Carry on, sir.”
Proteus didn’t wish to drown any of her boarders by proceeding at full tilt when they scrambled down into the boats, surfing along at the end of short painters, barely held in check by straining coxswains and bow-men with boat-hooks. She would have to slow down and take in sail, steering more for Ram Head with the wind abeam to “make a lee” so the sailors and Marines could disembark down her larboard side.
“Let’s make it fast, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie said. “Scandalise her and clew up sail in ‘Spanish reefs.’ Brace in yards, abeam.”
“Aye aye, sir!”
Lewrie swung his telescope up and extended the tubes. The brig was almost to the tip of Ram Head, standing off not a cable’s distance from the shoals.
“How much water would she have, that close inshore?” Lewrie asked his Sailing Master.
“I make it about fifteen fathom, sir, near the point,” Winwood answered as Proteus swung her bows Nor’Nor’west, and the yard parrels cried as they were swung about to point the weather arms directly into the wind, the sails now flogging helplessly as they were clewed up at the centres, leaving untidy, thrashing bags suspended like ancient teats at the outer ends, with only jibs, stays’ls and the spanker still keeping way on her.
“Damn!” Lewrie griped. “She’ll get a lead on us.”
“Ah … sunrise, sir,” Winwood pointed out, pulling his watch from a waistcoat pocket, as if to confirm dawn’s predicted timeliness and heaving a smug, satisfied sigh of approval.
“Very good, sir,” Lewrie said with a grateful smile, thinking, though; Such an easy man to please. Just give him exactitude!
Scant minutes later, Proteus was once more under full sail and under way, thrashing back toward her previous speed in pursuit of the American brig, which was now flying stuns’ls in addition to her royals and t’gallants. Lewrie and Winwood stood close together by the double wheel and binnacle cabinet, ticking off landmarks on a chart as the seamarks almost raced past to starboard as the Chase spun out westward for the shelter of Charlotte Amalie.
Cabrithorn Point, Lameshur Bay, and White Point, then the wide, shallow expanse of Reef Bay. Dittlif Point rose up along the southern shore of St. John, then Rendezvous Bay beyond that long, arrowing peninsula, and Bovocoap Point looming up, with the brig dashing along as close as she could inshore, with Proteus standing further out to seaward, just a tantalising bit out of gun-range from her 6-pounder bow-chasers; almost, but not quite yet … .
“She is steering dead-on for passage below the Dog Rocks, and Little Saint James Island, it seems, sir,” Winwood cautiously opined, toying with his waistcoat buttons. “There is a long shoal, parallel to the shore, below Dog Rocks, with a narrow pass of thirteen fathom between, however. Her captain knows these waters well, we must infer.”
“Wants t’brush us off,” Lewrie sourly grunted.
“Aye, sir. Once beyond Dog Rocks, though, does she intend the direct route inside of Buck Island before taking a slant into harbour, there are even more shoals.”
“Which would force us out alee of yonder Buck Island, and out of any hope of overtaking, if we continue on this course?”
“Aye, sir,” Winwood gloomily reiterated, “though I cannot find any indications that the shoals are particularly shallow. The charts show some soundings of six or seven fathom. Deep-laden ships would go well clear of the shoals, but that may be sign of too much caution on their captains’ parts. With our maximum laden draught of three fathom aft by the keel and rudder skeg … it makes no sense for him to think that we’d be completely daunted. Perhaps he knows more than our chart may tell us, the location of an old wreck …”
“Perhaps he learned his lore of the local waters in very large, deep-draught ships, Mister Winwood,” Lewrie said, trying to put a good face on it despite his qualms of running aground, “under one of those cautious captains of yours. She’s down to her draught waterline, same as us, and she can’t draw more than twelve or fourteen feet. Show me your rocks and shoals, let’s—”
“Deck, there!” a lookout screeched. “Chase is changin’ course! Turnin’ away Nor’west!”
“She’s only a bit beyond Bovocoap Point,” Mr. Winwood protested in a splutter. “That’d take her …”
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“Into Pillsbury Sound, Mister Winwood,” Lewrie snapped. “Maybe this ‘Jonathon’ captain doesn’t think he’d keep enough lead on us to enter Charlotte Amalie before we caught him. If he really knows these waters, he must think he holds a high card over us.”
“But there’s no way out of the Sound, sir. The wind’s wrong to weather the Middle Passage, leaving that Leeward Passage past Thatch Cay!” Winwood gawped. “Narrow as a town creek, it is, the soundings uncertain …”
“We’ll follow her, Mister Winwood,” Lewrie told him. “We will not let her get away that easily. Once past the point yonder, shape course Nor’Nor’west, and follow her … wherever she goes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Sir, I’m bound to point out that this is risky,” Winwood said in a mortified whisper as they bent over the chart pinned to the traverse board, once Proteus had come about and was now dead-astern from the American brig, perhaps a mile-and-a-half behind.”My duty as—”
“I know, Mister Winwood,” Lewrie said, cutting him off quickly, eyes intent on the chart, and the pair of brass dividers in his hand. “Pillsbury Sound’s deep, sir! Twelve to eighteen fathoms all the way to the islets and cays. And nice and wide for the most part ’til you are forced to choose a passage out of it. The Windward Passage is out, and does she try the Middle Passage, she’ll be full-and-by, sailing at the ragged edge of this morning’s wind … without her stuns‘ls spread, thankee Jesus, which means we’ll drive right up her transom long before she can get to it. Your Leeward Passage is narrow, but not more than a quarter of a sea-mile …’bout two cables wide, ’twixt Thatch Cay and the north shore of Saint Thomas. Bags of room!”
Mr. Winwood uttered a soft complaint that sounded mightily like a cross between a moan and a well-muffled belch.
“Does she wish t‘keep her stuns’ls rigged out for speed, she’ll have t’use the Leeward Passage, Mister Winwood.” Lewrie chuckled.
“The narrows, though, sir, here …”
About three-quarters of a mile due North of Cabes Point, halfway between Coki Point and the southeastern tip of Thatch Cay, there lay an indistinct indication of a shoal, stippled to show sand, which meant extremely shallow. On the scale chart they were perusing, a man could have mistaken it for a thumb smudge of ink, a tea stain from previous use. The vague extent of the shoal didn’t leave much north of it, and there was another fan-like shoal round Thatch Cay’s extremest tip, and that did have a sounding—one—half fathom—a scant three feet!
“He’ll go south of the shoal, Mister Winwood, where there are soundings of seven to ten fathoms between the shoal and Coki Point,” Lewrie insisted, “keeping well off the wind, under stuns‘ls, hugging Thatch Cay a tad, once round your shoal, and giving little to loo’rd.”
“Does he get past the shoal, sir, but—”
“Then it’s his bottom that’s ripped open, not ours. And we’ll do all we can to save her people … obeying the law of the sea.”
“Does he know of a wreck in there, though, sir …”
“The sun’s barely up behind us, sir,” Lewrie countered quickly. “The very best time of the day to see underwater obstacles ahead, long before we run afoul of ‘em. And with the extreme clarity of the seas hereabouts … really, Mister Winwood! One could read a newspaper at six fathoms down. Does our Yankee captain yonder know of a wreck in the channel, then let him use his forefoot to dredge for it. Save us a deal o’ gunpowder, it would! Wrecks shift, over time.”
“Very well, sir,” Mr. Winwood finally agreed, though not without a premonitory shiver. “Though I have expressed my reservations …”
“The fault will be mine, sir,” Lewrie told him with a grim nod of his head before laying down the dividers and standing back up. “I will so note it in the log. Speaking of … Mister Elwes? Cast the log, if you please. Mister Pendarves? Hands to the fore-chains with the short leads, and two hands on the bowsprit to keep watch for any shoals or obstructions!”
Lewrie walked back to the stern and raised his glass. The privateer, and their boats, were now out of sight, and there was no smoke visible, had either the French or their own people set her afire. He pursed his mouth and chewed at its lining in worry of all that could have gone wrong. Even alee of the stranded schooner, they were too far away to hear the pops of muskets and pistols; only cannon on the schooner’s decks might rumble over the sound of the wind, which would be a bad sign.
No news is good news, Lewrie told himself, turning forward.
Spotting the three other midshipmen standing idle without duty, he put Grace, Larkin, and Burns to work, taking bearings on sea-marks to either hand, and employing their scant knowledge of trigonometry for a range to them.
“Eight and three-quarter knots, sir,” Midshipman Elwes reported.
“Thankee, Mister Elwes. I see you’ve hoisted ‘Immediate’ above ‘Fetch-To’—very good. I doubt she’ll respond any time soon, so keep at it with the knot-log, about every ten minutes or so,” Lewrie bade him. “I do believe we’ve gained a touch on that brig, already.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Elwes yelped with joy, dashing aft again, full of importance over his assigned task.
From the windward rails, it looked as if they had drawn closer to the Chase; more details could be made out that were indistinct before … or maybe it was simply full daylight that made him wish it so. Proteus was surging along, her wake bone-white atop the light green sea of Pillsbury Sound, heeling a bit to larboard and leeward, masts raked forward a touch, and groaning over it. Sailing almost downwind, the pace wasn’t as apparent as it would be working closer to weather. The ship was sailing just as fast as the wind could blow, so there was no exhilarating rush and bustle that plucked at hats, clothing, and flesh, no bursting showers of salt-spray booming over the fore rails, but Proteus was moving quite well, gracefully and almost effortlessly. A touch on her lee “shoulder,” Lewrie deemed her, but …
“Mister Langlie, run out the starboard battery, and run in the larboard to the recoil ring-bolts. Let’s get her flatter on her keel,” he decided of a sudden. “There’s just enough wind for that to make a difference. A quarter-knot more, perhaps?”
“At once, sir,” Langlie agreed, pacing forward to the quarter-deck railings with his brass speaking-trumpet in his hands.
On very light winds sometimes doing the opposite helped, Lewrie had learned from better men than he; force the lee hull downward, off of upright, and a ship would angle her masts and sails more horizontal and “ghost” on a scant breeze that would leave her luffing and boxing the compass, else. Especially along a near shore.
“Eight-and-a-half knots, sir!” Elwes shouted from the taff-rail.
“Very good, Mister Elwes!” Lewrie shouted back, allowing himself a small grin. Damme, he thought; but they beat it into you, you hang about ships long enough, you’re bound t’learn a little something! Even are you a lazy toad, and half a fraud!
“I do believe we’re within Range To Random Shot, sir,” Langlie said as they drew level with Cabrita Point on St. Thomas. “Shall we pester her with the bow-chasers?” he asked, eager for action.
“No, not yet, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie finally decided. “Do we open on her at extreme range, we’ll appear desperate. Make them think they’re ahead of the game, d‘ye see, and we’re firing before we haul our wind and let ’em escape? Now, do we hold fire ‘til we’re right up her stern … when she’s nervous about getting round the shoal in the middle of the channel, that’s something else. Keeps ’em lookin’ aft and chewin’ their nails. We look … implacable. That’ll give ’em a pause or two. Then they’re half-beaten.”
“Oh, I see, sir!” Langlie puzzled, frowning over it. “We are Nemesis, the inescapable old Greek god. And them, mere prey!”
“More like a dangerous duellist, whose fearsome reputation precedes him, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie snickered back, always one to prefer a cruder simile. “One smirky grin at his opponent cross the grass, and the other poor bastard collapses wit
h the farting faints!”
Onward they stood, pressing closer and closer to the brig; now at three-quarters of a mile range, well past Cabrita Point and nearing Coki Point, the brig now committed to the Leeward Passage, too far down to the West to tack and stand for the Middle Passage. For a time, the frigate had the best of the winds from the Nor’east, beginning to post nine knots at the last casts. Two-thirds of a sea-mile …
“Deck, there! Chase bears off to loo‘rd! Spreadin’ stuns’ls, again!” a foremast lookout cried.
“She’s nearing the narrows,” Mr. Winwood said. “Bearing off to the south channel before the shoals.”
“Open upon her now, sir?” Langlie pressed.
“Aye, Mister Langlie. Keep ’em busy,” Lewrie assented.
The 6-pounders up forward barked and recoiled, the spent powder smoke winging off westward as a solid blot, again. Far off, one ball raised a great splash near the brig’s larboard quarters, the other one whipping cross her decks and deflating her spanker for a moment as it tore a neat hole right through it.
“Mark you well, where she turned, Mister Winwood,” Lewrie bade. “Where our first shot struck short? Surely there’s deep water there.”
“Aye, sir,” Winwood mournfully fretted.
Lewrie raised his glass again as the 6-pounders heaved back in from their second tries. The brig’s spanker now seemed to be in twain, as if a major seam had split wide open, leaving the upper half hanging properly from the gaff-boom, but with the loose-footed bottom forced open and flagging, as if ripped from one bolt-rope edge to the other, and that wouldn’t help her steering!
Another 6-pounder roundshot struck quite near her larboard quarter again, caroming far enough this time to raise a tiny smudge of engrained dirt and splinters from her, just a’fore her quarter galleries. The second was too high, but it clipped her right in the starboard main-stays and futtock shrouds below the main-top platform, sending a visible shiver up her upper masts like a tuning fork. Those shrouds would be weak, that mast in danger of falling sooner or later.
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