Reefs and Shoals

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Clear for the sweets, sir?” Yeovill asked, taking note of the empty plates and crossed tableware. “’Tis a key-lime jumble, though I fear the meringue’s a failure.” Yeovill gave Pettus and Jessop the nod to begin serving the light white wine to accompany dessert.

  “Thankee, Yeovill, aye,” Lewrie agreed, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “Now we’ve come t’know a bit about each other, gentlemen, I think it’s time to fill you in on what we’re to do together. One hopes ye’ll find it more exciting than patrolling the Bahamas.”

  “Anything would be, sir,” Lt. Lovett exclaimed.

  “Come across many French or Spanish privateers among the islands, do you?” Lewrie asked.

  “Uhm, hardly any, sir,” Lt. Darling said, “for there’s not all that much to prey upon, with the bulk of the shipping American or neutral.”

  “Not much in the way of really valuable cargoes, either, sir,” Lovett added.

  “There’s not much prize-money in hunting privateers, but somebody’s got t’do it,” Lewrie said, after a sip of his wine. “Head or Gun Money on crew and armament, and perhaps, if a vessel’s big enough and in good shape, she might be bought in after surveying, to do the sort of duties you’re performing, but … there’s little profit in it. Which explains why our Navy doesn’t put much effort into chasing them,” Lewrie said with a faint grimace.

  “More glory in close broadsides, frigate to frigate,” Lt. Bury almost gloomily agreed with a slow nod.

  “Why even stir out of, port, if there’s not fame in the offing?” Lt. Darling cynically asked, and Lewrie noted the secret grins shared between Darling and Lovett, and their junior officers.

  Can’t abide Forrester either, can you? Lewrie thought; It’s no wonder!

  “Unless one guards something precious?” Lewrie posed, tongue-in-cheek. “Protection being the greater duty than seeking battle, and letting the foe come to you?”

  Lt. Lovett could not hide a wry snicker.

  “Yayss, one never can tell when a mighty Spanish armada comes up over the horizon,” Lewrie derisively said, dismissive of Forrester’s dread of invasion. “But, perhaps do we go nip at the invaders’ heels, stir up a spot o’ bother, the Spanish’d be too busy with us to try it on. Mister Caldwell, you’ve brought the chart I requested?”

  “I did, sir,” his Sailing Master said.

  “Then, soon as we’ve had seconds of this marvellous jumble, we will spread it on the table top and get down to business,” Lewrie said with a grin.

  * * *

  They had to stand to gather round the dining table and the sea-chart, taking their sweet biscuits and shelled nuts from bowls on the sideboard, and passing the port bottle hand-to-hand for top-ups in a larboardly direction.

  “Do we sail directly from Nassau to Spanish Florida, past the Berry Islands and Bimini, it’s good odds the Gulf Stream’d sweep all of us as far North as Saint Augustine,” Lewrie sketched out, using a dessert fork for a pointer. “Better we head South, down the Tongue of the Ocean past Andros, and prowl our way down close to Cuba to see what we can see, before heading West up the Old Bahama Channel, into the Florida Straits, where our large trade convoys pass.”

  “Ehm, where Spanish merchantmen pass, too, I’ve heard, sir,” Lt. Lovett stuck in with a wolfish, expectant look. “Then, do we just happen to come across one…?”

  “I’d think that Spanish trade would’ve dried up,” Lewrie said with a frown. “We shall keep our eyes on the main chance, of course, Mister Lovett, but the reason we’ll be going the long way round is so we may scout the Florida Keys,” he went on, tapping the tines of the fork on the string of cays. “I lost a prize to Creole pirates out of New Orleans a few years ago, and it always struck me that the Keys’d be a capital place for pirates or privateers t’lurk … like Blackbeard did behind Topsail Island in the Carolinas, waitin’ for passin’ ships. We’ll probe into the bays behind the Keys, from Key West up to this ’un called Islamorada, then into this great bay … the Tamiami, or something like that. The chart shows a huge natural harbour. Have any of you ever been there, or had a look inside to see if there were settlements?”

  None of them had; once ordered to the Bahamas, their duties had leashed them to the island chain’s inner waters.

  “If I may be allowed to opine, sir,” Lt. Bury said in his usual solemn mien, “I was given to understand that the Spanish settlement system of encomiendas, the awarding of land grants to the original conquistadors, required their farms, mines, or rancheros to be profitable, and the native populations to be their slaves. Yet … from what I’ve read of Florida, it does not appear there’s anything worth settlement South of Saint Augustine. No mines, no riches, no gold and silver as there are in New Spain, or Mexico, or whatever one may call it. And, no natives to enslave, either.”

  “Hence, no settlements?” Lewrie asked. “Damme, we know that the Dons are a lazy race, but that lazy?”

  “During the brief time I was allowed ashore, sir,” Lt. Westcott spoke up, “I asked the locals of what they knew of Florida. Despite the strict rules the Spanish have about trading only with Spain, only in Spanish bottoms, and very little inter-colonial trade, there was an illicit trade ’twixt Bahamian merchants and Florida, so long as Spain was neutral.”

  What I should’ve done, Lewrie chid himself; but I was sunk deep in the Blue-Devils, lookin’ up the past!

  “In the twenty years that we owned East and West Florida after the Seven Years’ War,” Lt. Westcott went on, “most of the aristocrats and wealthy landholders moved out, to Cuba or other Spanish colonies, leaving only the poor to remain. And, even after Spain got it back at the end of the American Revolution, not all that many returned. What remains are gathered round Pensacola, Mobile, perhaps a few in Tampa Bay, and Saint Augustine and San Marcos. If you will note this great swamp on the chart, sir? There’s a huge shallow lake, the … Okeechobee,” Westcott had to lean close to read the name, then made a stab at its pronunciation. “Below that, is the Everglades. The local Bahamians told me there’s not ten Spanish to the square mile above the lake, and but one or two along the coast. A Catholic mission, a pig farm, and a few wild cattle or so, and all of them as poor as church mice. Spanish trade monopolies’d support them, did the system really work. Traders from here ship over shoddy goods, and the Spanish settlers in Florida are glad to get them, for they’ve little else.

  “Now, down here along the coast, sir, behind the barrier isles and perhaps in the Tamiami Bay,” Westcott continued, running a finger down the Sou’east shore, “there are very small, and incredibly poor, fishing rancheros. Portuguese, Spanish, runaway Black slaves from up in American Georgia, even some half-breed Indians, living day-to-day off what they catch or truck-garden. All they have to trade is fish, and they can’t do that without smoking them … or curing them with Bahamian salt. The locals said some Cubans have set up shop in the Keys, but they don’t know if their settlements are permanent or just seasonal.”

  “The sort of people who’d leap at a chance to go privateering, or turn outright pirate if they had decent vessels?” Lt. Darling said with a laugh.

  “All the more reason to go have a look,” Lewrie agreed. “And obtain ourselves a few more boats … by hook or by crook. Between us, we’ve only jolly boats, gigs, and a pair of launches. Last year in the Channel, I got some cutters and barges for work close inshore to France, and the dockyards didn’t get ’em all back, but not enough to go round. You’ll each need something larger to tow astern ’til needed, if we have to land armed parties. We’ll keep an eye out for them. Now … once we’ve done that, my orders require me to sail on Northwards and go into supposedly neutral American ports … show the flag, all that, to the people who might be victualling enemy privateers, or even arming them, and buying their prizes on the sly.

  “Once we’ve made our sweep up the coast as far as Saint Augustine, which of you is senior?” he asked. “What are the dates of your commissions?”

  It tur
ned out that Lt. Darling of Thorn pre-dated Lovett by seven months, and Bury by more than a year.

  Hope you’re worth yer salt, Lewrie thought, while putting on a gladsome face as he named Lt. Darling to temporary command of the rest in his absence, while wondering if the portly, idly-aired fellow would prove suitable; he still put Lewrie too much in mind of Forrester!

  “Victualling and last-minute supplies, tomorrow, then, weather permitting, we sail the day after,” Lewrie told them. “Hopefully, we are off on a grand and successful adventure.”

  “Amen, sir!” Lt. Lovett exclaimed.

  “Port, pass the port, and top-ups all round!” Lt. Darling cried.

  “A toast, aye!” Lt. Westcott eagerly proposed.

  “Ahem … if I may, Captain Lewrie?” Darling asked. He held up his glass at Lewrie’s nodded assent. “Confusion and death to the foes!”

  “Confusion and death!” they chorused before tossing back their drinks.

  “Here, I’ve another!” Lt. Lovett insisted as the bottle made its way round again. “To close broadsides, blood, and prize-money!”

  “Broadsides, blood, and prize-money!” they roared.

  “And here’s mine,” Lewrie said. He topped up his glass and let the bottle go past him, then held his glass chin-high, as the others looked to him expectantly; Darling with his smug, easy smile, and his face flushed; Lovett with his dark eyes agleam and showing a crooked grin, so piratical-looking that he might roar “Arrh!”; and Bury with a prim and grave expression.

  “Here’s to us, none like us, a band of bold British sea-rovers!” Lewrie intoned. He would have said English, but wasn’t sure where his junior officers sprang from.

  “To us!”

  * * *

  Lewrie saw them off into their respective boats, then took the night air on the quarterdeck.

  “They sound an eager lot, sir,” Westcott commented.

  “And, hopefully, a young but ferocious and canny lot, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with an easy smile; though he did cross the fingers of his right hand along the seam of his breeches.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Once at sea on-passage towards the Old Bahama Channel, Lewrie put his small squadron to exercises. He placed Reliant at the rear of a column in-line-ahead, then signalled them to take stations in a column ahead and to windward or leeward of the frigate, close aboard with only two cables’ separation, as if they were entering an inlet or back-of-the-island bay and expecting action, with the ships with shallower draughts making the attack, backed up by his heavier guns.

  In the event that the squadron stumbled across a proper enemy warship, they practiced sheering off from that formation on a bow-and-quarter-line, the lighter ships altering course together while Reliant surged ahead to offer battle, and Thorn, Firefly, and Lizard could take the foe on from her un-engaged side.

  He made them practice wearing about in order of succession and letting Reliant cover a withdrawal, if the need arose to flee from a much stronger enemy squadron.

  A special signal not in the Popham Code book could shake them out into a Vee formation ahead of Reliant’s bows for general chase, and they practiced that. Half of each morning, besides the time for small-arms drill or exercising with the great guns, was spent on manoeuvring, before Lewrie would allow yet another signal to be hoisted; which would free them to dash ahead and to either beam out toward the horizons, but still within decent signalling distance, on the hunt.

  “I’m sure they’re gettin’ tired o’ this,” Lewrie told Westcott as the “Release” soared aloft, and he cocked his head back to watch as it was two-blocked—below his broad pendant.

  Damme, but that bit o’ bunting looks hellish-fine, he thought; I could almost get used to it! Until Spanish Florida was scoured free of privateering, or Reliant was ordered to other duties, he was his own man, “on his own bottom”. His next orders from Admiralty might put him back under a real Commodore, or in some Rear-Admiral’s squadron or fleet, and Reliant would be chained to a column of Third Rates to plod along like a dutiful elephant calf!

  “I think not, sir,” Westcott assured him, bestowing one of his savagely brief grins. “They’re doing something useful, for once, and acting like real man o’ war’smen. I’d imagine they’re revelling in it. Getting a shot at serving under an officer with a reputation for fighting, made Knight and Baronet for courage?”

  “Well … hmm,” Lewrie grudgingly allowed. It was not the false modesty that he usually felt necessary, but real, for a rare once.

  “Serving a man with a broad pendant … other than their former Commodore, too, hmm?” Westcott slyly added.

  “Now now, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie gently chid him. “We cannot disparage our seniors or fellow officers. Even if one of them is the laziest, most useless sod in all Creation, with the wits of a flea and the manners of a boar hog. It just ain’t on!” he laughed, savouring the hour of sailing when he had at last hoisted his broad pendant, and had wondered what Francis Forrester was spluttering at the sight. Had he gone puce in the face? Cursed and stamped his feet in rage?

  Lewrie certainly hoped that he had!

  He strolled to the binnacle cabinet to fetch his own telescope and peered forward past the spread of the inner, outer, and flying jibs to watch his three small ships scuttling away, now free of manoeuvring exercises, and allowed free chase ’til sundown. No wonder the pirates of old had prized the Jamaican or Bermudan sloops, for they were fast and weatherly; Thorn, Firefly, and Lizard had spread more sail and were already more than a mile off in the short time since he had released them. By Noon Sights, they could be out on the horizon, with only top-sails showing!

  “I’ll be below for a bit, before Noon Sights, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told the First Officer.

  He barely made it to the bottom of the windward ladderway when he heard a series of yips and barks, and spotted a shaggy tan-and-white dog dashing for him, its long-haired tail whipping.

  “Where did that come from?” Lewrie snapped. “Mister Westcott?”

  “Don’t know, sir!” Lt. Westcott answered, looking down to the ship’s waist from the quarterdeck nettings.

  The dog whined and circled round Lewrie, tongue lolling, with what could be deemed a grin on its face, bounding up on its hind legs as if to encourage petting.

  “Well, he wasn’t aboard when we left England, nor Bermuda,” Lewrie snapped. The dog was sniffing at his boots and knee buttons. It barked once more, then sat on its haunches for a brief moment before leaping once more. “Silly bastard,” Lewrie growled; “where the Devil did you spring from, hey?”

  He was answered with a whiny “yah-yeow” and another bound. He put out a hand to pat it on its head, and the next second, the hound had both paws on his chest, as high as it could reach, grinning fit to bust, and squirming with joy to be petted.

  “Oh! Ah…!”

  Lewrie looked forward to the hatchway to the gun-deck and saw Midshipmen Munsell and Rossyngton, looking extremely sheepish.

  “Did you bring this dog aboard, young sirs?” Lewrie snapped.

  “Sir, he’s ahh … the mascot of our mess, sir,” Rossyngton answered, after a gulp or two. “Get down, Bisquit! Here, boy!”

  The dog looked up adoringly at Lewrie’s face, gave him a look as if to say “see you later”, and bounded off to the Midshipmen.

  “You two snuck this dog aboard?” Lewrie asked, putting on his “stern” face. “Without permission? Found it starving on the streets of Nassau, did you; and took pity?”

  “Oh no, sir!” Rossyngton corrected. “He came off the Mersey, sir. It was her Midshipmen that found him first, but their captain and officers ordered him gone. They’ve a pack of hunting dogs aboard, well … half a dozen or so … and didn’t want a cur mounting their bitches when they came in heat.”

  “Put him back ashore twice, sir, but Mersey’s Mids always found a way to sneak him back aboard,” Munsell breathlessly added. “Honest to God, sir, their captain was so angry they’d done so
that he ordered Bisquit drowned in a sack, sir, and … it was take him as our mascot or see him killed!”

  That sounds like Forrester! Lewrie thought in sudden anger; He always was a cruel bastard!

  “He and his officers hunt on shore a lot, do they?” Lewrie asked.

  “It would seem so, sir,” Rossyngton told him, petting the dog which was pressing and nuzzling at his free hand for attention.

  “We’ll feed him from our rations, sir; he’ll be no bother,” Midshipman Munsell assured.

  “That’ll be the day!” Lewrie scoffed. “The Midshipmen’s mess’d eat hay, and kindling wood, to get their fill! Even double rations are not enough for growing lads. That’s why you purchase ‘millers’ from the Jack-In-The-Breadroom.”

  Nothin’ more satisfyin’ than roast rat that’s fed on bisquit, oatmeal and flour! Lewrie recalled from his own younger days, and just how much meat there was on one, as good as squirrel any day, once the hide, dusted as white as a grist mill worker or baker, was removed.

  “The Purser, nor the Cook, either, will issue you a mouthful more than your proper due,” Lewrie warned them. “You couldn’t keep body and soul together for yourselves, much less support … him.”

  “Bisquit, sir,” Rossyngton reiterated.

  “We were going to name him Bandit, for his mask and muzzle, sir, but…” Munsell stuck in.

  Was it possible that the dog somehow knew that its fate was being decided? It came forward from the Mids to sit at Lewrie’s feet and peer up, its stand-and-fall cocked ears perked. Lewrie could see why they’d almost named it Bandit, for its muzzle was much darker fur, approaching black, and there was a dark streak across its forehead and eyes, with the eyes themselves outlined in white fur. It whined and lifted one paw to touch Lewrie’s knee.