Reefs and Shoals

by Dewey Lambdin

  Beyond the shattered sloops there were several rowing boats, all pulling madly for the far shore or the long strip of barrier islands, like a gaggle of panicked ducks.

  “Ye might have to spell this out, Mister Eldridge, but make to Lizard and Firefly, their numbers, and ‘Take Prisoners’.”

  Oh, eager lads! he thought a moment later, even as the signal was being assembled, for Lt. Bury in Lizard was already leading her consort in pursuit, sailing much faster than the boats could be rowed, heading them off from escape.

  “Belay, Mister Eldridge. It seems it’s bein’ done.” Lewrie said, turning to share a grin with Lt. Westcott, then crossing over to the other side of the deck to see what Thorn was up to.

  Lt. Darling had taken his ship past the encampment, almost to the mouth of the river before coming about to fire with her larboard battery, near the eyes of the wind for a bit, sails shivering or laid aback, before paying off Sutherly. When she was done, there was little sign that the camp had been there, but for the burning, smouldering ruin of the shacks and tents, and a new clearing littered with felled trees and up-rooted bushes.

  “Mister Westcott, I’d admire did ye bring our head round into the wind and fetch-to, and have all the boats manned. Marines, too, to take possession of the prizes, and scout the camp.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Then, we’ll find out just who, and what, we’ve captured,” Lewrie said with a broad grin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The engagement had been great fun, but a short delight. After came a myriad of details and reports, questions, and tasks to be seen to, which took all the joy of it for Lewrie.

  Lt. Simcock returned with half of his forty-man Marine complement from the encampment to report that he, his Marines, and sailors from Thorn had tallied up the dead, set fire to the last of the foodstuff and supplies ashore, then come away before suffering any casualties of their own. “It looked as if there might have been fifty or sixty or so ashore when we attacked, sir. We found about fifteen dead, but the rest ran off into the forests, and it appeared that they did so under arms … pistols and muskets and such. We scavenged what weapons left behind, but…” he ended with a shrug.

  “There’s nothing left of any worth to the survivors, sir,” Lt. Darling proudly related. “I and my people saw to that. They’ll not have a single drop of rum, wine, or beer, either. We, ah … appropriated a few kegs, and scuttled the rest, sir.”

  “You didn’t find any American corn whisky, did you?” Lewrie took time to ask. “No? Pity.”

  Then it was Lt. Merriman, Midshipmen Entwhistle and Warburton, and the Bosun, Mr. Sprague, and his Mate, Mr. Wheeler, who came back aboard from the captured prizes with their reports.

  “They are both Spanish, sir,” Lt. Merriman told the assembled officers. “That’un yonder, is the Escorpion,” he said, pointing to the first sloop, “and the second is named the Santa Doratea. Both are from Havana, each armed with ten guns. Most of the guns bear proof marks from Cuba, some from Cadiz, though there are some odds-and-sods … a few French, Dutch, or even one British.”

  “Tell me they’re privateers,” Lewrie urged with the fingers of his right hand crossed behind his thigh.

  “Oh, privateers right enough, sir!” Lt. Merriman said with a beamish grin. “We found their registries, and their Letters of Marque and Reprisal, signed by the Captain-General of Cuba, along with their muster books. All told, there were nigh an hundred and eighty men and officers, though not all were aboard when we engaged them.”

  “I’ve their papers and muster books, sir,” Lewrie’s clerk, Mr. James Faulkes, interrupted. “Shall I stow them in your cabins, sir?”

  “Aye, atop the desk, for now, thankee, Faulkes,” Lewrie said. “Are they worth salvaging, Mister Sprague?” he asked the Bosun.

  “Pish, sir!” Sprague scoffed, begging pardon long enough to go to the nearest spit-kid and hock up his worn-out bite of chew-tobacco. “They’re both hulled clean through, aloft and alow, dis-masted, and what little spare spars and such the Dons had aboard are smashed, to boot. We got ’em re-anchored so they don’t drift ashore, but sure as Fate, they’ll both be on the bottom in a few hours, and fothering’d be a waste o’ time, sir, and that’d be a cryin’ pity, for one of ’em is made o’ Cuban mahogany, and do ye maintain her proper, she’d last for ages.”

  “Kept nigh Bristol-fashion abovedecks, sir,” Wheeler added, “but all Donnish below, all trash and filth. Damned idle Spaniards.”

  “Mister Mainwaring said to inform you, sir, that he counted four dead and two badly wounded aboard Escorpion, and six dead and five wounded aboard the Santa Doratea. He and the Surgeon’s Mates are tending to them, but he suspects that three of the wounded will pass before dusk. He asks whether you wished the wounded be brought aboard Reliant, sir.”

  “Aye, before both ships sink out from under them,” Lewrie decided. “You lads, row over to the prizes and help the Surgeon and his Mates fetch the wounded Spaniards off,” he said to the Mids. “If they’re not worth tuppence as prizes, we might as well scuttle them. Mister Sprague, I’d admire did ye see to speeding their destruction along. Pile up flammables, lay trains to their powder magazines, all that. How many hands will you need for that?”

  “No more than the boat’s crews t’take us over, sir,” the Bosun reckoned. “We can start right away.”

  “Once their wounded are off the prizes, see to it,” Lewrie told him, “and I’ll let you know when to set them alight.”

  “Oh, well, sir,” Lt. Darling of Thorn said with a resigned sigh. “It seems all we’ll reap will be Head and Gun Money, with nought from their condemnations and sales.”

  “But that would have t’be done at the Admiralty Prize Court at Nassau, sir,” Lewrie countered, grinning wryly, “where we’d most-like end up owing money to the Proctors, even if they were scrupulously honest, which I very much doubt. And besides … do ye really wish to be back at Nassau, for any reason?”

  “A point well taken, Captain Lewrie, sir,” Lt. Darling smirked.

  “Hoy, the boat!” Midshipman Grainger hailed to a new arrival.

  Now bloody what? Lewrie grumbled to himself, thinking that, did victory have an hundred parents, why was he the only one home to deal with the minutiae, and clean up the mess? He was missing breakfast!

  “Permission to come aboard!” was the reply.

  It was Lt. Bury from Lizard. Lewrie crossed to the starboard side to peer down at him, and waved him a welcome.

  “Good Lord, Mister Bury, wherever did ye find that ugly barge?” Lewrie gawped. Bury was not in his usual smartly painted gig, but in a thirty-foot … something, which, by the fact that it floated, could be loosely construed to be a boat; slab-sided without the sweet curves of a proper boatwright, with a vertical stem post and bow, no sweep to its sheerline or gunn’ls, and appeared to be hard-chined aft and shallow-draught, perhaps even flat-bottomed. The stern was a vertical slab, and, all in all, put Lewrie in mind of a slice of “wooden” pie. Worst of all, someone had once painted it sky-blue, but that paint had peeled and blistered and chalked to the point that its colour was dingy grey.

  “I shall not stand upon my dignity, sir,” Bury called up from the bottom of the boarding battens as his bow man hooked onto the main channel. “Though, you might extend honours to my prisoner. He claims to be the captain of the Escorpion.”

  All gilt and be-shit compliments to the loser, Lewrie thought.

  “Side party, Mister Grainger,” Lewrie ordered, as he stared at the stranger beside Bury, a fellow with long and lank black hair tied back into a loose queue, a swarthy complexion, and a neatly trimmed mustachio and beard.

  “I do not claim … I am!” the fellow snapped.

  Thank Christ he’s some English, Lewrie thought; I doubt we’ve no more than five Spanish speakers in the entire squadron.

  There was a snag to the welcome-aboard rite, though; both the Bosun and Bosun’s Mate had already departed in the cutters, and only Ma
rine Lt. Simcock was wearing a sword, and his boots were caked with sand and mud. Lewrie’s Cox’n, Liam Desmond, who traditionally wore a silver call as his badge of office, hastily stepped in to pipe their prisoner aboard. That worthy ably scrambled up the battens to stand in the entry-port and brusquely doff his wide-brimmed straw hat with what seemed proud contempt.

  “Welcome aboard His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Reliant, sir, and my condolences upon your loss,” Lewrie said, doffing his own hat with a bit more graciousness than the prisoner evinced.

  “Sir, may I name to you Captain Alexandro Calderon, captain of the privateer sloop Le Escorpion,” Lt. Bury gravely intoned, managing to make it “Alehandro”, with an Iberian flourish to the ship’s name. “Captain Calderon, the commanding officer of our squadron, Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, and Captain of the Reliant frigate.”

  Black eyes flashed at him, and the Spaniard tossed his head to jerk up his chin, as if impatient with such honourable formalities.

  “Eet ees my regret, Señor Capitano … Loo … Loo-ree, that I am weethout a sword to offer to j’ou een surrender. Eef j’ou do not mind? But, eef I was at sea, j’ou would never have catch me. None of j’our leetle sloops, certainly not j’our beeg frigata. Le Escorpion ees as fast as the wind.”

  “Then I suppose I should be grateful that we caught you and your consort at anchor, and asleep, Señor Calderon,” Lewrie drolly replied, bestowing upon the Spaniard his best “shit-eating” grin.

  Irksome bastard! he thought; And can any bloody foreigner say my name right?

  “I see by your papers that your homeport is Havana, señor,” Lewrie continued. “As was the Santa Doratea? The name of her captain escapes me.”

  “Don Juan Emilio Narvaez, si,” Calderon said, looking as if he wished to spit on the deck to cleanse his mouth of foulness.

  “Then, may I assume that it was he who decided to anchor here in the bay?” Lewrie asked, “That this Narvaez was in charge?”

  “Si,” Calderon snapped, scowling, “J’ou say j’ou have my papers? My Letters of Marque prove that we are legitimate corsarios, so j’ou must respect that, and treat us weeth the rules of war.”

  Insist, will ye? Lewrie griped to himself.

  “Corsarios? Like corsairs? Is that not another word for pirates?” Lewrie posed with one brow up.

  “No no, señor! Corsario ees not pirata!” Calderon countered, sounding more impatient with a hen-headed poor linguist than in fear of being hanged. “There are many corsarios who sail from Havana, from Cuba, but no pirata.”

  “Despite our blockade,” Lewrie said, sounding dubious.

  “Blockade? Blockade ees joke! J’ou ingleses do not rule the seas, señor!” Calderon sneered. “No matter what j’ou do, merchants enter and leave Cuba, the West Indies, every day, by the hundreds, and j’our navy do not take one een ten! Blockade? Hah!

  “So … j’ou weel now accept our parole and take us to Nassau.” Calderon went on, in much calmer, but arrogant, takings. “And allow us to bury our dead?”

  “Well, not right off, señor,” Lewrie told him. The very last thing he wanted was a return to Nassau, within reach of Francis Forrester. For that matter, he was also loath to delay the execution of the rest of his orders, even by a day. “Is Captain Narvaez one of our prisoners, Mister Bury?”

  “If he is, sir, he has not announced his presence,” Bury said.

  “Narvaez was ashore wheen j’ou attack us,” Calderon sullenly said. “Weeth hees woman!”

  “Hey?” Lt. Westcott, who had been idling nearby, commented. “A woman, did he say?” Men of the Afterguard, some of the Midshipmen, and the other officers suppressed their snickers.

  “Most-like a trull, Mister Westcott, not worth your trouble,” Lewrie japed.

  “No no, she ees puta, but muy hermosa,” Calderon insisted, all but lifting his fingers to his lips to kiss them in appreciation.

  “My pardons, Señor Calderon, but you must be as dry as dust,” Lewrie said; “how remiss of me not to offer you any refreshment.”

  “I’ve a … some champagne in my boat, sir,” Lt. Darling piped up, a tad sheepishly, for such would have been looted from the encampment. “A whole case of bottles … French, to boot.”

  “Well, fetch one up, Mister Darling, and I’ll send down to my cabins for glasses!” Lewrie enthused, clapping his hands in glee. “I expect the champagne will be Señor Narvaez’s, but … In point of fact, Mister Darling, I’d admire a second bottle for a victory feast this evening.”

  “Ehm … I’ll have the entire case fetched up, sir. There are two cases, really.” Darling confessed, ready to wring his hands.

  “Do so, sir! Do so!” Lewrie urged, then turned to his captive once more. “Had you been set up here in Mayami Bay for long, Señor Calderon? Much better for your purposes than the waterless islands in the Keys, hey? More game? Though, I would have thought that you might have preferred any of the inlets closer to Saint Augustine and its fort, and shore batteries. That’s where I thought to find you.”

  “J’ou look for me, for Narvaez, especialmente?” It was his turn to gawp in astonishment, fearing betrayal by someone in Havana.

  “No no, nothing like that,” Lewrie cajoled. “My orders sent me to look for French or Spanish privateers in general.”

  The case of champagne in question arrived on deck, and Darling did the honours with the wire basket and cork. Pettus came up from the great-cabins with clean glasses, and Lewrie poured Calderon’s full. It was warm, but Calderon tossed half of the glass back at once,

  “Gracias, señor, I was thirsty,” Calderon admitted.

  “Ah! A very good French champagne,” Lewrie commented, once he’d taken a deep sip himself. “Your compatriot has good taste, at least. A refill, sir? Here you go. I suppose, do so many of your merchant ships elude our blockade back in Europe, and here, that Cuba should be awash in champagne and fine French wines. Mean t’say, señor, you must get something in return for becoming a French ally.”

  “Damn the French!” Calderon snarled, well into his second glass. “And, damn all the ateo traidores back een Spain who take hands weeth France! So een love weeth a república, they turn their backs on king, on the Holy Church, on God! Idiotas who think they so smart, who geef part of our Navy to France, geef them millions in silver and gold, on the sly!

  “Damn all j’ou inglés heretics, too!” Calderon ranted on, “for declaring war on Spain.”

  “Well, given the aid that Spain was handing over to our enemy, on the sly as you admit, England had no choice,” Lewrie told him. “A great pity, but there it is. A refill, sir?”

  Calderon was very agreeable to a third glass.

  “The French are a rapacious race, Señor Calderon,” Lewrie told him, striving for “chummy” and “sympathetic”. “A greedy lot, indeed. Be the ruin of your home country, and of your colonies in the Indies, in the end, do your ministers like that Godoy fellow not come to their senses. And then, the French have the gall to send their privateers into your waters, your harbours, to compete with men such as you. Are there many French privateers working out of Cuba?”

  “Are a few, si, but the Captain-General, the reech men of power, make things hard on them,” Calderon admitted, offhandedly. “Such men, the dons, hidalgos, and grandees weeth money to make syndicates for our corsarios keep the shot, powder, and stores for themselves, so French bastardos have to beg in Havana. Florida … Florida ees, how j’ou say, ‘out of sight, out of mind’?”

  Damn my eyes! Has he gotten that drunk, this quickly? Lewrie wondered; Or, did I just get hellish-lucky?

  “Ah, but how much support could a French privateer expect from Saint Augustine?” Lewrie hinted. “Hard to send supplies from Havana to there.”

  “Not from Havana,” Calderon said with a sly, cock-eyed grin, as if he knew a secret. Warm champagne taken standing upright in the open on the quarterdeck, with the morning progressing, and the bay’s heat rising, was doing wonders. Calderon jerked his chin North
wards in a silent hint, snickering.

  “From the Americans, aye,” Lewrie said, and Calderon’s bitter laugh assured him that he, and Admiralty, were on the right track.

  “A glass with you, sir!” Lewrie proposed, being liberal with the champagne. “To … His Majesty, the King of Spain!”

  He wasn’t quite sure who that was by name, but …

  “Viva la rey!” Calderon cried, clinking glasses with him and tossing back a goodly gulp.

  “I wish you better luck in future, Captain Calderon,” Lewrie offered. “Though, it might be best did you work out of the ‘pocket’ harbours on Cuba’s North coast, or Havana, next time.”

  “J’ou advise me how to cor … privateer, señor?” Calderon said, finding that highly amusing.

  Somebody should, for ye’ve made a botch of this’un! Lewrie told himself.

  “Hoy, the ship!”

  “You will excuse me for a moment, Captain Calderon? Something I must see to,” Lewrie explained, then went to the starboard rails.

  It was the Ship’s Surgeon and his Mates, returning aboard with the Spanish wounded. “There’s nought I can do for their dead, sir, but we’ve fetched their wounded, and I took the liberty of bringing the prizes’ surgeons’ chests. Ready to hoist aboard, sir,” their burly Surgeon, Mr. Mainwaring, reported from his boat.

  “Captain Calderon, could you come join me for a moment?” Lewrie asked.

  “Si, señor.”

  “There are ten dead Spanish sailors still aboard the prizes,” Lewrie explained to him. “I was thinking that you might wish to bury them ashore, instead of me conducting a Protestant service. I’m told that three of your wounded are in a very bad way, as well, and won’t be with us much longer. Do you give me your parole, so I may land them ashore, too?”

  “J’ou have eet, Señor Capitano!” Calderon firmly declared.

  “You have surgeons aboard your ships? Perhaps they could tend to the other wounded ashore, as well,” Lewrie further offered.