Reefs and Shoals

by Dewey Lambdin

  “A rough guess below,” Lewrie said, nodding in agreement with his First Officer. “I placed us about on the same latitude as Lisbon, or thereabouts. We might’ve made enough Southing to pick up a hint of the Nor’east Trades.”

  “And if the weather continues to moderate, sir, we may even light the galley fires and have a hot meal!” Westcott enthused.

  “Keep yer fingers crossed, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said as he paced over to the starboard side of the quarterdeck, hooked an arm through the shrouds, and leaned out for a better look at the sea. He saw hopeful signs. Though it was still blustery, the waves no longer towered over the ship. They were still steep, but spaced further apart in long rollers, cross-fretted and dappled with large white caps and white horses, and in the pre-dawn greyness, no longer seemed quite as green as they had the day before. The reek of storm-wrack and the smell of fresh fish was not as noticeable, either. The raw wind was tinged with iodine and salt.

  Reliant battered along “full and by”, but her motion was less tortured, her decks less canted to leeward, and her shoulder set more firmly without that sickening deep rolling or twisting. Aloft, what remained of the commissioning pendant shivered and fluttered less frantically, too.

  Damme, it’s muggy! Lewrie realised, taking off his tarpaulin hat and opening the tarred coat to let the wind in; It’s becomin’ warmer, at last! He had not looked at the thermometer in his cabins, but it felt like it might even be near sixty degrees, or so.

  “Dawn Quarters, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked.

  “Aye, carry on, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie agreed.

  It was a habit long-engrained in him, in emulation of former captains more cautious than most, to go to Quarters before the false dawn ended, and the risen sun might reveal an enemy ship, or a possible prize, above the horizon.

  A drummer began the Long Roll, the Bosun’s calls started the pipe to Quarters, and the off-watch crew came scrambling up from the mess deck. Lewrie passed the keys to the arms chests to one of the Midshipmen, should muskets, pistols, boarding pikes, and axes need to be issued. The on-deck lookouts quit their posts to go aloft to the fighting tops and the cross-trees for the furthest view as the guns were cast loose and the ports opened, the tompions in the muzzles removed, the flintlock strikers fitted above the touch-holes, powder charges fetched up from the magazines, and roundshot from the shot racks and rope shot-garlands selected by gun-captains.

  “Sunrise should be when, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie asked the Sailing Master, once the bustle quieted.

  “My best guess would be twenty minutes past six A.M., sir,” Mr. Caldwell crisply answered, “though without a firm position of latitude and longitude, all I may swear to will be … soon.”

  Lewrie smiled at him, then pulled out his pocket-watch to see the minutes tick by; eighteen minutes past, then the estimated twenty, then twenty-five. The false dawn grew lighter, revealing more of the ship from bow to stern, the night-softness more stark. The horizon that could be seen from the deck expanded from a mile or two to five or six miles, and the sea began to take colour, the white caps and white horses, and the foaming wavecrests turned paler, rather than a dish-water grey. The sea became a steely blue-grey, almost a normal hue for deep ocean, and the line of the horizon was no longer the heaving, rolling waves close aboard, but a real, far-off line.

  “Damn my eyes!” someone whispered loud enough to be heard, for there off the frigate’s larboard quarter, in the East, the sun burst like a bombshell above the horizon. It was weak, watery, and hazed by clouds, but the first up-most loom of the sun shone yellowish in promise of a clearing day! Everyone with a pocket-watch snatched it out quickly, to note the minute of the sun’s rising; Mr. Caldwell’s ephemeris had tables which could give them a clearer idea of their position.

  With much hemming, hawing, and throat-clearing, the Sailing Master played “shaman” for a bit, consulting his ephemeris, scribbling with chalk on a small slate, uttering a “damn” or two when the damp slate and damp chalk refused to co-operate, then ordained that they were a full fifteen minutes of a degree further West than they had initially reckoned. “Now, perhaps the discrepancy is due to being further South than our Dead-Reckoning guesses, sirs,” Caldwell went on. “A decent shot at the sun at Noon Sights should reveal all,” he concluded as he made an X mark on the chart a tad West of their first estimate. It was only a few miles, but …

  The rippling horizons were clear, and the disturbed seas were empty of threat. “Secure the hands from Quarters, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered at last. “Have the galley fires be lit, and pipe the hands below to breakfast. I may dare to shave this morning.”

  “Aye, sir.” Westcott replied. “And I must say, sir, that you would decently resemble a pirate, do you give the stubble another day or two more.”

  “Arrh,” Lewrie sham-growled, returning to the starboard side, daring also to smile for the first time in days.

  * * *

  Conditions did not prove quite as hopeful as they might have wished, though. By the middle of the Forenoon Watch, fresh banks of grey clouds loomed up from the Nor’east, destroying any hope of a sun-sight. They were feeling the fringes of the benign, the dependable Nor’east Trade Wind, yet it only brought more gusts, and a raw and chill rain! The winds settled on Reliant’s starboard quarter as she was driven South by West, ploughing and hobby-horsing through the swells. Lewrie at least had enough rainwater with which to sponge-bathe, for a rare once, and a ship steady enough under him to lather up and shave!

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was two more wary days of scudding South by West ’til the sky showed even a hint of blue, still mostly lost in blankets of clouds—clouds paler and whiter than any they had seen since leaving Portsmouth, which at least were promising. Gradually, ragged holes and clear-sky streaks appeared in those clouds, like ripped and torn curtains, or an old blanket that the rats and moths had been feeding upon. Shadows appeared, and here and there round the ship, in large patches, waves glittered in actual sunlight!

  Lewrie was aft in his great-cabins, as the Forenoon of the third day of their South by Westing wore on, pacing to peek out the transom sash windows, then go forward to the door to the weather deck to stick his head out and scan the sky. The ship’s drummer and fifers began to “play” the rum cask up at Seven Bells, and it began to look promising, at last. His sextant and Harrison’s chronometer were safely stowed in their protective boxes in the chart-space, and he gave them an intent look. Hoping for the best, he clapped his hat on his head and picked the boxes up by their brass carrying handles.

  “Cap’m’s on…!” the Marine sentry cried, for the tenth time since Lewrie’s first peek, turning his head to see if Lewrie would appear for real this time. “Cap’um’s on deck!” he cried in full.

  Lewrie trotted up the windward ladderway to the quarterdeck, to discover that the Sailing Master, his officers, and Mids had brought up their own sextants, slates, and paper scraps for reckoning.

  “Damned nice,” Lewrie said, after a good look about and a sniff of the wind. The Trades no longer gusted, but were steady, and this late morning’s temperature, while still nippy, was pleasant enough to be stood without shivering. “Good Lord, what’s that in the sky?” he japed. “What should we name it? Should we worship it, d’ye wonder?”

  “There’s still thin clouds and haze, sir, but … we’ll soon see,” Lt. Merriman said.

  “Close enough for naval work,” Lt. Westcott snickered.

  They compared chronometers, then waited for the last grains of sand to trickle through the hour, half-hour, and quarter-hour glasses at the forecastle belfry, bringing their sextants up to their eyes as ship’s boys turned those glasses, and chimed the first stroke upon the ship’s bell. Then, as Lt. Spendlove relieved Lt. Merriman, they wrote down their sights and began their calculations. A few minutes later, the officers covened to compare, results, which caused smiles all round, and a communal gathering by the now-ragged chart.

  “Twenty-five
degrees, twenty minutes West,” Mr. Caldwell summed up with un-accustomed glee, “which places us about … here. Five hundred miles Sou’west of Cape Saint Vincent, and only a few minutes North of the thirty-third latitude,” he said, making a tentative X upon the chart.

  “Do we stand on this course a few days more, we could fetch the Madeiras,” Lt. Westcott pointed out. “Anyone thirsty for some wine?”

  “Or, we stand on West-Sou’west a bit longer ’til we strike the thirty-second latitude, then follow it the lubberly way, right across the Atlantic to Bermuda,” Lewrie countered. “Perhaps thirty-two degrees twenty minutes, just in case.”

  He and the Sailing Master had pored over another chart of Bermudan waters for hours, the night before, and both of them had gloomed in unison to note how quickly the Atlantic’s abyssal depths shallowed and shoaled, the nearer one got to shore. Even more fearful were the many and great expanses of rocks, shoals, flats, and banks indicated all round the North, Northwest, and West of the chain of islets that made up the wee archipelago … and the ovals that marked the wrecks of ships that had gone down on those myriad underwater perils. It was not a place to approach unwarily; Bermuda’s old name among sailormen was “The Isle of the Devils”!

  “Now your results, young gentlemen,” the Sailing Master asked of the Midshipmen. Some showed blasé calm, one or two even beamed in confidence, whilst the two youngest, Munsell and Rossyngton, displayed more trepidation.

  “Uhm-hmm, very good, Mister Eldridge,” Mr. Caldwell droned on as he studied each slate or sheet of foolscap. “A few minutes out, Mister Warburton, but close. Uhm-hmm, Mister Entwhistle, Mister Grainger. Well, well, Mister Rossyngton, despite the First Lieutenant’s jape, we are not as close to the Madeiras as you make us. Now then, Mister Munsell,” Caldwell said, expecting the worst, as usual, with a grave phyz on, and a demanding hand out for the lad’s slate. “Well, my word. My word, indeed!” the Sailing Master marvelled, glancing quickly from Munsell to his slate and back again, so “all-aback” that he looked as if he would inspect the backside of the slate, or turn it upside down.

  “Mister Eldridge has been tutoring us, sir,” Munsell said with joy. “Me in particular, really,” the lad confessed.

  “Not half a degree out, either in longitude or latitude!” Mr. Caldwell exclaimed, holding Munsell’s slate for all to see, to prove it. Even Lewrie, who had struggled for ages with the formula, and admittedly still not a dab-hand navigator, could see that Munsell had worked it properly, with very few side-scribbles, and had not cribbed it from the others. He was all but gape-jawed in amazement, too; Midshipman Munsell could usually place them on the far side of the ocean from where they really were, or somewhere in the jungles of the Amazon when in West Indies waters!

  “Congratulations, Mister Munsell,” Lewrie said in praise.

  “Well, there’s always tomorrow,” Rossyngton teased.

  “Perhaps Mister Eldridge should now concentrate upon tutoring you, Mister Rossyngton,” Lewrie suggested, pulling a face. “It’s rare t’have an experienced Mid for the others to learn from, but … that’s what a congenial and co-operative Midshipmen’s mess should be, hey? Very good, Mister Eldridge.”

  “Uh, thank you, sir,” Eldridge replied, a tad embarrassed to be pointed out. Lewrie gave him a reassuring nod and a smile, also taking note of Eldridge’s kit, and wondered how he was fitting in in the orlop cockpit. Eldridge normally wore slop-trousers (did he have a pair of breeches? Lewrie wondered) or a snugger pair of dark blue trousers, linen or cotton shirts, a waist-coat that had gone a light tan from age, black neck-stock, and a plain uniform coat with dull brass buttons, and the white collar patches of his rank. If he had a cocked hat, no one had seen it; his headgear day in and day out was a black felt civilian topper with a narrow brim and a tapering crown.

  His fellow Mids ranged from fifteen to twenty-one years of age, whilst he was in his mid-to-late twenties when suddenly promoted into their compact little world, with all its lame jests, pranks, and general ignorance, shoulder-to-shoulder with Entwhistle, an “Honourable”, and the rest who had been reared in the comfort of the landed gentry, and the “squirearchy”, whilst Eldridge’s father was a Bristol chandler, a man in “trade”; a lot in life usually scorned by “the better sorts”.

  Lewrie had been too busy with the last-minute lading, the alteration of muster lists, the sailing from Portsmouth, and then the weeks of foul and threatening weather, with not a minute to spare for thought over the matter.

  Have t’get Westcott t’look into it, Lewrie told himself; That’s what First Officers’re for, ain’t it? The weather relents, start dinin’ officers and warrants in, again … with Eldridge in the rotation.

  “One more thing, young sirs,” Lewrie said. “Mister Munsell, do you know the longitude and latitude of Bermuda?”

  “Ehm … sixty-four degrees, fourty minutes West, sir,” Munsell piped up quickly before the others could open their mouths, “and Saint George’s Harbour is at thirty-two degrees twenty-three minutes North.”

  “The highest sea-mark visible from offshore?” Lewrie posed to them. That made them share quick looks of worry, and took the wind from their sails; there were several dumb shrugs.

  “The Sailing Master has the pertinent charts,” Lewrie said with a wry moue over their lack of knowledge. “I’d suggest ye all take a good, long gander at it, and familarise yourselves with the island and its waters … and all the cautions, right, Mister Caldwell?”

  “Aye, sir,” Caldwell replied, back to gruffness.

  And damned right, so shall I! Lewrie vowed to himself.

  “The off-watch lads are dismissed,” Lewrie ordered, turning to secure his chronometer and sextant in their cases. “Carry on, Mister Spendlove.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HMS Reliant’s landfall at Bermuda was hardly an auspicious occasion. The lookouts aloft, and the watch officers, spotted a few dim lights from far offshore, in the wee hours near the end of the Middle Watch, Unfortunately, those few low-on-the-horizon lights were spread to either side of the bows. A quick peek at the chart, and a hidden gasp later, and Lewrie ordered an immediate turn-about to stand away Sou’east, into deeper water; there to stand off-and-on ’til daylight.

  “What I feared,” he told Lt. Merriman and the Sailing Master, “that we’d fetch the bloody place too far North of it, and end up on the reefs and rocks. Once we can see where we’re going, we’ll come to anchor in Five Fathom Hole … assumin’ we can find it without rippin’ her bottom out.”

  The previous day’s Noon Sights had placed their position close to Bermuda, close enough for Lewrie to order the t’gallants to be reefed and gasketed, the tops’1s reduced to the second reefs, and the fore and main courses shortened down to first reefs. After a light supper, a most informal one with Lt. Westcott, the Sailing Master, and a chart spread over the dining table, Lewrie had taken a three-hour nap, then had gone on deck at the beginning of the Middle Watch, at midnight, to slouch in his collapsible canvas deck chair, pace the deck, and fret for the first cry of “land ho”, hoping that their navigation was accurate enough, their course correct, so that they would fetch the islands to their Sou’east, well clear of Kitchen Shoals, Mill Breakers, Great Breaker Ledge Flat, the Nor’east Breakers, and Sea Venture Shoals, so named for the Sea Venture, which had wrecked upon them, setting the first English colonists on Bermuda … whether they wanted to be, or not. They had been bound for Virginia, but, once succoured with fresh victuals, most had stayed to make the best of a dangerous serendipity!

  “I daresay we’ve been bitten by the mysterious magnetic variations hereabouts, sir,” Mr. Caldwell said with a scowl. “Bermuda’s infamous for them, sometimes up to six degrees or so, and no explaining why. They’re not seasonal, nor tied to the phases of the moon, tides, or weather.” Caldwell shrugged and gloomed in perplexity.

  “Sounds spooky,” Lt. Merriman commented.

  “Let’s not let the ship’s peopl
e hear any of that, hey?” Lewrie muttered to Merriman, laying a finger upon his lips for a moment. “We have enough superstitions amongst ’em already. Carry on Mister Merriman. Now we believe we’re in deeper, safer waters, I’ll take a short ‘caulk’ in my deck chair.”

  “Very good, sir, aye,” Merriman replied.

  * * *

  The dawn did not bring an auspicious landfall, either. As the Forenoon Watch began at 8 A.M., the winds began to freshen once more, and the inshore waters fretted and chopped in white caps and white horses, with ruffling cat’s paws over the surface. There was a heavy, scudding overcast that made the early morning shadowless and gloomy, and there was a strong smell of rain in the offing, to boot.

  Oddly, though, Bermuda could not have been a more welcome sight if they had stood in in bright daylight, for, as their frigate cautiously neared St. David’s Head, the shoal waters turned lighter and clearer blue, the shores fringed in aqua green with pure white waves breaking upon almost pinkish-tan beaches, beneath the ruddy limestone headlands. And the island was so brightly green! There were trees, some fronded or spiky like palms or palmettos, flowering bushes, and open grassy spaces, perhaps lawns or croplands, and all the flora lush and verdant in an entire palette of green. Quite unlike some islands in the West Indies that could look brown and shrivelled in the sun and talced with dust, Bermuda appeared as if everything had been freshly watered and washed for their arrival.

  The Sailing Master, his Mates, and the trusted senior Midshipmen busily plied their sextants to take the measurements of the known heights and prominent sea-marks, working out the distances from shore, and the known dangers of the shallows and submerged reefs noted on the charts.

  “Do we stand on as we are, sir,” the Sailing Master said after a long, grim musing over the chart pinned to the traverse board, “we will enter Five Fathom Hole. There is an anchorage area just North of there, where we can find six or seven fathoms, and firm sand and rock holding ground … or so the chart promises.”