Reefs and Shoals

by Dewey Lambdin

  The privateer’s graceful wide transom was punched clean through, leaving a star-shaped hole of shattered planking and a cascade of glittery glass shards!

  If that don’t wake ’em all up, the damned birds did! Lewrie told himself as both of Reliant’s boats went alongside the schooner, grapnelled to her, and Midshipmen Entwhistle and Grainger led their boat crews and Marines up to her low bulwarks, cheering like mad!

  “Come on, come on!” Lewrie exhorted, going to the gunboat’s lone mast once more to take hold of the larboard stays, ready to board her himself. “Lay her alongside her quarterdeck, Spendlove!” Pistols were popping aboard the schooner, and British cutlasses were clashing tinnily with French ones. Feet were thundering as Otarie’s sleeping crew came boiling up from below, ready to fight for their lives.

  There! There was the schooner’s main-mast chain platform, and handholds by which to scramble up. Three of the gunboat’s sailors and two bellowing Marines preceded him before he could reach out and grab hold. He got his feet on the platform, and a Marine reached back to hoist him up and over. He was greeted by a shot, and the bumblebee drone of a musket ball singing past his ear!

  Lewrie spotted the shooter, drew one of his pistols, and cocked both locks, raised it, and fired. One of Mollien’s escorts ashore at Charleston, a large “side of beef”, dropped his musket from nerveless hands and clutched his chest before thudding to the deck on his back!

  There were three French sailors who had just emerged from the fore hatchway to their belowdecks quarters. One was shot, one was spitted on a Marine’s bayonet, and the third took a cutlass swing on the side of his neck that halfway decapitated him, raising a fountain of blood and a hopeless scream before he tumbled back down below to block others trying to rush to the deck.

  “Vous!” Captain Mollien cried, coming to his quarterdeck from an after hatchway, sword in his hand and ready to fight, rushing at Lewrie at once with his small-sword levelled for a thrust.

  “You!” Lewrie shouted back, shooting him in the middle of his chest with the second charge in his pistol. Mollien’s charge veered off to Lewrie’s right as the Frenchman stumbled, tripped over his own feet, and fell to his knees by the helm, the hilt of his sword held in limp, twitching fingers. Lewrie stowed his first pistol in a pocket of his coat and drew the second, cocking the right-hand barrel.

  “I told you we’d nab you ’fore the year’s out, ye little turd,” Lewrie gloated as he stood nearby. “Clumsy try, that.”

  Mollien keeled over to lay on his side, mouth gulping for air like a landed fish, his teeth stained red with his own gore. “Vous.… Anglais … pédale, you cannot…” More blood from a punctured lung gushed, and his eyes glazed over, unseeing.

  Damme, but that felt hellish good! Lewrie thought, turning to face the schooner’s bows in search of a new threat, but it appeared that their boarding action had been successful. There were over one dozen bodies on the deck, un-moving, and several more propped up on gun-carriages or mast trunks, badly wounded. Even more stood crouched with their arms over their head and their hands empty of weapons.

  “There’s more of them below, still under arms, sir,” Midshipman Grainger reported, pointing at the hatchway with a bloodied dirk.

  “Sergeant Trickett?” Lewrie called for the senior Marine. “I’d admire did you and your men go down the aft hatchway and work your way forrud. Root ’em out. Mister Grainger, how’s your French?”

  “Passably good, sir,” Grainger replied.

  “Shout down to the hold-outs that we’ll be setting this ship afire in fifteen minutes,” Lewrie instructed him to say, “and if they don’t wish t’burn, they’ll come on deck, un-armed, and quickly.”

  There was a great cheer coming from somewhere, and Lewrie turned to find that Lizard was passing the privateer schooner close-aboard, her long sweep-oars now stowed away and ghosting along on a very faint breeze. Her crew stood by the bulwarks and rails, waving their hats.

  “We will be taking the brig beyond, sir, if you do not object!” Lt. Bury shouted over, waving his own hat on high.

  “Aye, Bury, take her and, welcome to her!” Lewrie shouted back, laughing and doffing his own hat. “Go get her, Lizards!”

  As Lizard wafted by, Lewrie could look across the river and see Lt. Westcott’s boats approaching the prize brig that was surrounded by sailing barges. There were French sailors aboard the brig, a harbour watch; it was a bit too far for him to see if they were armed or not. He was already so laden with weapons that he had not brought his telescope. There were some American sailors aboard her, too, possibly the crew that would have taken her to Havana or other Prize-Court ports. They were not waiting around to be captured. They were scrambling to board their barges, cut loose, and make sail up-river, out of reach of the British raid. Others were going over the brig’s starboard side to some rowboats to make a quick dash to neutral ground.

  Below his feet, boots were thundering on the schooner’s lower deck, doors were being smashed open, men were shouting, and there was a sharp volley of musketry, and a scream or two, as Trickett and his Marines made their way forward through the mates’ wardroom and into a series of storerooms, bound for the foc’s’le. Lewrie took time to re-load his first pistol and re-prime the pans. By the time that he was through, Lt. Lovett’s Firefly was almost up to the prize brig on the American side of the river, and Westcott’s men were swarming the brig and the remaining barges. There were only a few shots fired, and the deck and gangways of the brig looked to be populated only with British tars.

  With nothing better to do, Lewrie descended the steep ladder to Mollien’s small cabins. The smell of spent gunpowder was strong, but could not overpower the stench of sweat and soiled and mildewing clothing and bedding.

  “Man lived like a pig,” Lewrie muttered. “Did he ever bathe?”

  He poked around in the wee desk, into a sea-chest, and under the transom settee to the storage lockers. He found the ship’s muster book, Mollien’s accounts ledgers, logs, and a heap of letters, along with the precious Letter of Marque issued by the senior officer commanding at Basse-Terre on Guadeloupe; proof positive that the schooner Otarie was “Good Prize” for the Court at Nassau.

  All that he stuffed into a pillow case. Lastly, there was one of those boxes that looked like a thick book; when opened, he found heaps of receipts, all from the Tybee Roads Trading Company!

  “That Treadwell shit’d better hope he’s powerful friends, or he’s a goner,” Lewrie muttered again, quite pleased with himself as he made his way back to the deck. Even if Treadwell was not here, there was solid proof that he had aided at least two French privateers over a year or more, and when the evidence was presented at Savannah, there was a good chance he would pay for it.

  His own hands were cheering and jeering as the last French hold-outs came up from below, tossing aside their muskets, pistols, swords, and cutlasses, even personal knives, onto a loose pile of weaponry. A lone Marine emerged from the forward hatchway, his uniform and his kit still in Sunday Divisions best, with his musket slung over his shoulder and a bundle of abandoned weapons in his arms to add to the pile.

  Lewrie went forward as Sgt. Trickett appeared from the hatch.

  “Beg t’report, Cap’m sir,” Trickett said, stamping and stiffening in parade-ground fashion, “all the lower decks’re clear o’ enemies. No weapons remainin’, no spirits looted, and guards on their run and such. The Frogs did put up a wee fight, up forrud, but we ended that right quick. There’s two dead and five wounded still below. None o’ our lads, though, sir!”

  “Very well, Sergeant Trickett,” Lewrie replied, looking over to his Mids, Entwhistle and Grainger. “Any of our people hurt, sirs?”

  “Some nicks, cuts, and bruises, sir, that’s all,” Mr. Entwhistle reported.

  “Well done, lads!” Lewrie congratulated them all, “Damned well, and briskly, carried! Do you be free with the French’s scuttle-butts and drink some water. There’s more work up-river. Fun’s not ove
r!”

  “Sir! Sir!” Lt. Rainey from Lizard cried, once he and his men had boarded and secured their boats to take charge of the prize. “The other privateer is cutting her cable and making sail! She and her prize! I do believe they’re trying to escape us, further up-river!”

  “Right, then! Drink up, lads, and we’ll get back in our boats. Mister Rainey?” Lewrie said. “The prize is yours. I will leave you five of my Marines to help guard the prisoners. Be sure that no one gets into the rum, and all those weapons get moved aft of the helm.”

  “Aye, sir, I have charge of the prize,” Rainery agreed.

  Reliant’s cutter and barge refilled with men and shoved off as Lewrie waited by the entry-port. The gunboat was brought alongside, and sailors and Marines tumbled down into her, Lewrie going last.

  “Shove off, and get a way on!” Lewrie snapped to Spendlove once seated aft by the tiller on a thwart. “Take us close-aboard Lizard, if ye please, sir. I wish t’speak to Bury as we pass.”

  “Aye, sir,” Spendlove said.

  Lizard had gone alongside the prize brig up-river of Mollien’s schooner, and British sailors were swarming her bulwarks and the sail-tending gangways. Bury stood aft, evidently waiting for Lewrie. He leaned far out to shout his news.

  “The French guards took a boat and rowed to the Spanish side, sir!” Lt. Bury told him. “But the prize’s master, mates, and crew are here on board. We’ve freed them!”

  “Let them work her out to mid-river short of the entrance channel, Mister Bury, and anchor!” Lewrie directed, standing in the boat. “We’ll need their testimony before we let ’em sail off! I have need of your ship up-river!”

  “I see, sir, and I shall follow you, directly!” Bury promised, pointing up the St. Mary’s to the fleeing privateer and prize brig, and the gaggle of barges that were trying to escape. Two of them had men at the rails tossing goods overboard to lighten them to reduce their draughts, and improve their speed. “We will have those soon!”

  “There’s enough wind, it seems, sir,” Lt. Spendlove told him. “Should we hoist sail?”

  “Aye, let’s give it a try,” Lewrie agreed. “It’s a lovely morning for a race.” The oarsmen aboard heartily agreed with that as well, and raised a brief cheer as the jib and gaff lugs’l were hauled aloft, the halliards cleated, and the sheets drawn in. It was not a good wind they found, but the gunboat did begin to move forward, breasting the river current and heeling over a few degrees.

  It’s a river, so it must be fresh, Lewrie thought. He hadn’t taken his own advice to drink from the freshwater scuttle-butts aboard the privateer. He dipped a hand over-side, took a tentative taste of the river, then scooped up several handfulls to slake his thirst. It was fresh, with a silty, leaf-mouldy taste.

  “Hmph,” Lt. Spendlove commented, looking off the gunboat’s starboard quarter. “That’s expedient.”

  “What?” Lewrie asked, turning to see what he was talking about.

  “Mister Westcott’s cut the last barges free, and is letting the river current take them out into the Cumberland Sound, sir. I think he’s getting the brig under way … but I don’t see many hands aboard.” Spendlove pointed out.

  “If the harbour watch and guards have abandoned her, she’d not need many t’work her out,” Lewrie speculated. “Some of Thorn’s hands, perhaps.”

  “None of her own still aboard her, then, sir?” Spendlove asked with a worried frown. “Already marched, off, or … slain?”

  “God knows, Mister Spendlove,” Lewrie said with a sigh.

  All of Westcott’s Marines and most of his sailors were getting back into their boats, leaving not over a dozen on board. Lovett’s sloop, Firefly, had not waited for them to complete their work and had continued sailing on, her sails limply filling and flagging as she left the North side of the river for mid-channel and began to slant nearer to Lewrie’s gunboat.

  “Hoy, Captain Lewrie!” Lovett bellowed through a speaking-trumpet. “Do you wish me to pursue, or should I board the three-master to see if she can be worked out of the river?”

  Lewrie looked at the three-masted ship that was slowly looming up on the Spanish side. He could not see anyone aboard her above her bulwarks, or on her gangways or quarterdeck. No one was working on her forecastle to cut her anchor cable, and no one had laid aloft to free any sail. She might have already been abandoned by the French sailors who formed her harbour watch.

  If Lovett fetches alongside her, it’ll take him half an hour t’work back to the speed he’s already got, Lewrie thought, scheming an answer as quickly as he could; He’s best left to pursue.

  “View, halloo, Lovett! Go after them!” Lewrie shouted to him, and even from two hundred yards away, Lewrie could see how much that order pleased the fellow. “Tally ho!”

  What about the three-master? Lewrie asked himself.

  “Mister Entwhistle!” he called forward to Reliant’s barge. “I fear that you and Mister Grainger must go aboard this prize, here. Spendlove and I will continue on with the gunboat!”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Entwhistle replied, looking crestfallen.

  “Once the river’s clear astern of you, you may try to get her anchor up and work her out, and anchor short of the entrance,” Lewrie added, more as a sop to their disappointment than anything else. The excitement of the day was over for those lads.

  Lewrie looked round again. There was Firefly, slowly stepping away ahead by about an hundred yards. Lizard was astern of his boat by about two hundred yards, standing away from the freed brig. Lt. Westcott and his gunboat, cutter, and barge formed a short column on the American side of the river, astern of them all but making sail.

  “Still have that chart with you, Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie asked.

  “Aye, sir.” Spendlove said, pulling it from the breast pocket of his coat and handing it over. Lewrie spread it out on his knees. They were past a possible escape route, the very shallow Point Peter Creek on the American side, and there was marsh on either hand for at least a mile on the Spanish side and the North, so …

  There came a series of distant bangs from astern. Lewrie saw puffs of powder smoke rising from the marshes on the North bank, and return fire from Westcott’s boats.

  “Some of these that ran off must have poled their boats into the marshes, and are firing from cover of the reeds,” Spendlove guessed aloud.

  “Yes, well it won’t do ’em—” Lewrie began to say, when the hum of a musket ball sang past, and some shots were fired at them by someone hiding in the marshes on the South bank! Puffs of smoke rose as if by magic, and a ball caromed off the gunboat’s gunn’l, taking a divot of painted wood.

  “Warnt us t’shoot back, sir?” a nervous Marine private asked.

  “Waste o’ shot and powder,” Lewrie told him. “We can’t see ’em ’til they pop up just long enough t’fire. They’re wastin’ powder, too, if that’s any comfort.”

  Lt. Lovett obviously was not quite as sanguine. Firefly’s larboard 6-pounders erupted one at a time, each evidently loaded with a charge of grape, musket balls, or langridge, for the marshes twitched and shivered in wide swathes. Lovett had turned those four cannon into shotguns. A minute or so later, there were two musket shots from the marshes, another broadside from Firefly that must have been carefully aimed at roughly the same point, another great parting of reeds and marsh grasses like a full gale, and after, that … nothing.

  There was still some sniping going on against Westcott’s boats. The boat carronade at his gunboat’s bows erupted, and his Marines and sailors let off a volley of musketry.

  It was Lt. Darling’s Thorn that settled the matter. She had slowly worked her way past where the first privateer and the prizes had been anchored and turned her much heavier guns, the six 18-pounder carronades of her starboard battery, loose on the sharpshooters with much the same results that Lovett had. There were no more shots fired at Westcott’s boats!

  “They’re almost at the narrows, the bend of the river, sir,” Lt. Spendlove p
ointed out, holding up a length of spun-wool to judge the wind’s strength and direction, and tautening the main sheet just a bit snugger.

  The prize brig was showing her larboard side as she made the turn that led South, with her captor, the other privateer brig, in her wake. As the privateer began her turn, her sails shivering, she let loose with a stern chase gun and the after-most of her larboard battery. The round shot passed so close to the few fleeing barges that two of them shied away off course for a moment, and one sheered North to run for the marshes. Lewrie did a quick estimate of where it might run aground and found that there was a spit of dry land behind all the marsh, perhaps only a tenth of a mile for her small crew to scramble before reaching some woods. Ahead, Firefly was running out her starboard battery in hopes of smashing her to kindling once level with the grounded barge!

  Firefly was beginning to make good progress in her chase, closing the distance on the remaining sailing barges and the bend in the river. Astern, Lewrie could see that Lizard had a wee mustachio of foam under her forefoot as well; the wind was freshening just a bit. All of Westcott’s boats were now under sail, the thirty-two-foot barge with two lugs’ls footing away from the single-masted cutter and the gunboat. As Lewrie watched, Westcott put his oarsmen to work once more for just a bit more speed!

  The two fleeing brigs might have gotten round the bend, but were still in plain sight above the grasses of the marshes, showing themselves in profile. The privateer opened fire with her larboard guns and roundshot howled overhead, mostly aimed at Firefly, which had little in the way of bow-chasers with which to reply. The wind was on their beams, whilst the pursuing vessels had the winds astern in a sudden shift. The sun was not quite risen, but the East horizon showed a lighter blue-grey streak of clearing behind the darker gloom of the night’s overcast.

  “Try a shot with the carronade, sir?” Spendlove asked, eager to be doing something other than tending the sheets.

  “Still too far for a light carronade,” Lewrie decided as Lovett opened fire on the barge which had indeed grounded on the North bank, near that long narrow spit of dryer land. Firefly’s four 6-pounders on her starboard side raised great splashes all round the barge, scoring at least one hit that tore her transom open; the range was not one hundred yards from mid-channel to the marshes. Two or three sailors on the barge had been going over her bows to wade through the clinging mud and silt, but two of them whirled and fell, likely splintered by the shards from the shattered transom. The barge began to sink.