“Captain, sir,” Rossyngton glibly said, making the introduction, “allow me to name to you Commander Isaac Gilpin of the Delight sloop. Commander Gilpin, allow me to name to you Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of the Reliant frigate.”
“Your servant, Sir Alan,” Gilpin said with a slight bow as he doffed his hat once more.
“Good t’make your acquaintance, Commander Gilpin,” Lewrie said in turn. “At long last, that is, since your ship was out on patrol whenever I came in to Nassau, and our paths never crossed ’til now.”
“It is my honour to make yours, Sir Alan,” Gilpin declared.
“Join me in my cabins, sir,” Lewrie invited, “for a glass of something cool.”
“Sounds grand, sir,” Gilpin agreed.
* * *
“Rhenish, Commander Gilpin, or cool tea?” Lewrie offered once they were seated on the starboard side. “Mind the cats, they’re just curious,” he cautioned as Toulon and Chalky came slinking.
“Tea, sir, if you please,” Gilpin decided, wary of the cats, who found any new visitor worthy of sniffs and inspection. Gilpin had on his best-dress uniform, and the blue coat (so far) was pristine.
“You were down South with Captain Forrester, I take it? Just before he departed, he sent me a letter about it,” Lewrie said. “He wished me t’join him, but I had other orders. They’re finished now, at last. Did you manage t’catch up with Villeneuve and his fleet?”
“We never did, sorry to say, sir,” Gilpin told him as he was presented with lemon juice and turbinado sugar to stir into his tea. “We got as far as Antigua and English Harbour, put in to speak with the officer commanding, and found that the first arrival, that French Admiral Missiessy, had already hared back to France, and there was no clear information as to Villeneuve’s whereabouts, so that was as far as we went.”
“Then it was best that I kept Reliant here, or off Saint Augustine and Spanish Florida,” Lewrie said.
Commander Gilpin was a pleasant-looking fellow in his middle thirties, trim and fit, and well-uniformed, with a blunt and honest face. He took a sip of tea, smiled in pleasant appreciation, and gave out a sigh. “Quite refreshing, sir, thank you. Sir Alan, I—”
Lewrie waved the formality off.
“Ehm … I noted quite a few prizes in port, sir,” Gilpin said. “Are they your doing?”
“Three French privateers, and a ship and two brigs awaiting return to their owners,” Lewrie happily told him, laying a brief sketch of their recent doings.
“And you command a squadron of your own, sir?” Gilpin further enquired. “I note that you fly a ‘white-balled’ broad pendant.”
“A wee one,” Lewrie replied. “I brought a sloop with me from Bermuda, and borrowed Lieutenants Lovett and Darling from your Captain Forrester when I arrived. Damned fine men, full of daring. I shall be sorry to lose them.”
Gilpin cocked a brow at that.
“We’ve fulfilled my orders,” Lewrie explained. “The criminal enterprise is broken up, the French and Spanish are on warning that the Georgia coast can’t be used for privateering any longer, so I’ve nothing left to fulfill, but for the minor task of making new charts of the reefs of Bermuda, so, Lizard and I, and her captain, Lieutenant Bury, will soon depart. Before hurricane season, hopefully, and the climes at Bermuda aren’t as sickly as the West Indies, or the Bahamas.
“In point of fact, my First Lieutenant and Lieutenant Bury wish to do a survey of North Ireland Island, and Grassy Bay, with an eye towards its possible use as a naval dockyard. Ever been up to Bermuda, Commander? The one harbour, Saint George’s, is close to the sea, but it’s bad holding-ground in a blow, and a tight fit did one of our fleets put in there. Whereas Grassy Bay and the Great Sound are hard to get to, for us and any foe, but huge and deep, with what looks t’be a completely impassible set of reefs all round. Only a rowboat could get through, assumin’ they didn’t get lost in the dead-end channels and the maze of coral heads. Soon as Forrester brings Mersey back to Nassau, I’m off.”
“Captain Forrester will not be coming back, sir,” Gilpin said with a quirky look of surpise. Or was it well-hidden glee?
“Oh?” Lewrie rejoined, hoping for the worst. “Why is that?”
“Well sir, once we put into English Harbour, he went ashore to confer with the Admiral commanding, and while I do not know what was said, he returned in some … discomforture,” Gilpin related.
“Chalky!” Lewrie snapped. “Leave his boot tassels alone! Go on, sir, pray do. Here, puss. Pester me, instead!”
“Soon after, Captain Forrester summoned us aboard the flagship and told us we’d be returning to Nassau, that our services had been deemed un-necessary, and we weighed the next morning,” Gilpin went on, “even though there wasn’t a breath of wind, and we had to put down our boats to tow us from one warping post to the next out to the channel.”
“Well I remember leavin’ English Harbour,” Lewrie said with a rueful grin. Chalky had come to Lewrie’s lap to sniff at the star on his chest whilst Toulon was still on the settee by Gilpin, seated with his tail curled over his paws and staring in curiosity. “Toulon there is safe t’pet, d’ye care for it.”
“Ehm … thank you, sir,” Gilpin said, though making no move to do so. Lewrie gestured him to go on; with his story, he meant, but his guest took it for an order to pet Toulon, so he gave him a tentative pat on the head.
“You were sayin’…” Lewrie pleasantly urged, sure that that fubsy toad, Forrester, had come some sort of cropper.
“Aye, sir,” Gilpin began again. “The other brig-sloop led out, and found a faint breeze, with a harbour pilot aboard, and I followed in her wake. When Mersey got past the last warping post and took her boats back aboard, though, the tide began to carry her astern, and a fluke of wind laid her aback. Before they could cast an anchor free she was driven on the coral and rocks, despite the best efforts of the other harbour pilot and her officers.”
Come a real cropper, has he? Lewrie thought, feeling like he could laugh out loud like a lunatick; How bloody wonderful!
“How awful for him,” he said, though, pretending sorrow quite well, if he did say so, himself! “Badly damaged, was she?”
“They finally got her off and fothered the holes in the hull, well enough to tow her back into harbour, sir,” Gilpin continued his tale, “but it took half the crew on the pumps and the other half at getting her lightened. They took her down to a gant-line and landed all her guns and carriages ashore, along with all her stores, before getting her into the docks. Whether she is repaired and taken on as a receiving or store ship, or condemned and burned for her fittings, had not been decided when Fulmar and Delight were ordered to return to Nassau, sir. They were, however, assembling the sufficient number of Post-Captains for a Court-Martial for her loss, and the charge of Captain Forrester abandoning his area of responsibility, sir.”
Yes, there is a God, and He’s just, t’boot! Lewrie gleefully told himself; They’ll “Yellow Squadron” the fool, at long last!
“Well, hmm,” was Lewrie’s comment. “Hah! Damn my eyes.”
“The Admiral at Antigua sent you a letter, sir,” Gilpin went on, reaching into a side-pocket of his coat. “Sorry for being remiss. Evidently, Captain Forrester must have made mention that you and your frigate were on station, or somewhere nearby, under Admiralty orders.”
“And a complaint that I refused t’join him,” Lewrie freely admitted, recalling the wording of Forrester’s last attempt to order him under his flag.
“So … both I and Commander Richie of Fulmar were ordered to seek you out at once and relay the Admiral’s request,” Gilpin said as he handed the letter over. “For so long as the strength and the whereabouts of the French fleet under Villeneuve is discovered, and their objective is determined, his verbal orders to me were to tell you that he cannot spare any ships of his squadron to take Mersey’s place, but … as soon as he may safely do so, he will send a ship, or several, to defend the Bahamas. Until then, tho
ugh, sir, you are in command of the largest ship on-station. Which makes you the temporary Senior Naval Officer Commanding the Bahamas.”
“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie gawped, a reaction that Commander Gilpin did not expect from a Post-Captain, especially one of Lewrie’s repute in the Navy; wasn’t he the aggressive “Ram-Cat”, the bane of the French?
“Well, hmm,” Lewrie said after a long moment. “I suppose that Bermuda’s out for a good while. I’m glad that I’ll have you with me, Commander Gilpin … and Commander Richie, is it, of Fulmar? I don’t know what else we’ll have, beyond the two ships of the squadron that I borrowed when I arrived. If Villeneuve comes this way, there’s not much we can do to face him, but … we can give it a good try.”
I s’pose this’ll make Bury, Darling, and Lovett happy, Lewrie whimsically thought. They had all dined ashore together a few nights before, and his junior captains had all expressed glum regrets that he would be turning them over to Forrester’s control, or for Lt. Bury to sail back to the boring patrols round Bermuda. At least still in his squadron, they could look forward to exciting doings they had assured him!
“Where’s Fulmar?” Lewrie asked.
“Richie thought to seek you off Spanish Florida, sir,” Gilpin said.
“We need t’keep a partial blockade of Saint Augustine. Once you’ve re-victualled, I’ll send a sloop to find him and let him do that for a while,” Lewrie decided. “Establish a patrol line down near the Turks and Caicos on the lookout for the French, too.”
“I quite look forward to serving under you, sir,” Gilpin said with an eager grin.
* * *
Once Gilpin had returned to his own ship, Lewrie laid aside his finery and changed back to comfortable clothes once more, ready for a mid-day meal. Yeovill and Cooke had run across a Free Black woman in the Bay Street markets who had been brought as a cook to the islands by a refugee Tory family at the end of the American Revolution. She had been freed years later, and swore that she possessed the best receipt for both pecan pie and peach pie, ones that had been her mother’s back in Colonial Georgia, and this time (perhaps!) they would bake one as good as those he’d tasted in Charleston and Savannah!
Lewrie propped his feet up on the brass tray-table with a fresh glass of tea handy, and mused over, his new duties … and over what a well-deserved disaster had befallen Francis Forrester. If he knew the current locations of those few former Midshipmen of old Desperate’s cockpit with whom he had served, he would have written them that very instant, sure that all would gloat and shout Hosannahs at the news!
He could “caulk” for half an hour or so; though the windows in the transom were open, and the smaller ones in the coach-top overhead were open, too, it was a warmish day with little breeze reaching him.
Play a little horn-pipe of commiseration? he thought, fingering the holes of his penny-whistle, and putting it to his mouth. He got started on one, but there came a howl and singing wail from above.
“Deck, there!” he bellowed to the Midshipmen who stood harbour watch in lieu of the Commission Officers. “Is Bisquit on the quarterdeck?”
“Ehm … aye, sir,” Rossyngton called down, kneeling down by the coach-top to show his face in one of the windows. The dog’s head appeared in another. “Sorry, sir. I’ll shoo him off, directly.”
“Oh … never mind,” Lewrie said with a sigh, laying his musical instrument aside. “Just make sure he doesn’t shit on the deck.”
“Really, sir?” Rossyngton yelped in surprise. “I mean, aye aye, sir. We’ll keep an eye on him. Come on, boy!”
For a moment, Bisquit gazed down at Lewrie, matching eyes with him, panting and grinning with what looked like glee, and his triumph of the forbidden territory, at last. Then, he answered to Midshipman Rossyngton’s summoning whistles and scampered off.
It’s official, and unanimous, Lewrie thought with a shake of his head; there’s nobody who cares for my music!
AFTERWORD
Before privateering was banned by international treaty in 1856, and merchant ships no longer had to be defensively armed, every fresh war between seafaring nations brought hundreds of aspiring rovers from the woodwork with hopes of great profits, and adventure. Near at hand are the examples of the American Revolution and the War of 1812, which saw British trade attacked from the Grand Banks to the West Indies to the Irish Sea and the English Channel by an “auxiliary fleet” larger by far than the nascent Continental Navy or the U.S. Navy.
Privateering companies were formed overnight, investors bought in in anticipation of rich, quick returns, and the fastest and handiest ships were purchased, or offered by their owners as their investment share. Bold and canny sea-captains with good reputations were hired, or promoted themselves, men who could attract sailors on the strength of their reputations and the soundness of their vessels, and younger, fitter, bolder sailors eagerly responded.
Mariners’ lives from the times of Sir Francis Drake and those “Bowld English Sea Rovers” of Elizabethan years to the end of the Great Age of Sail were dismal, and consisted of low pay, foul rations, back-breaking physical labour, tyrannical and miserly officers, and a good chance of being cheated at the end of each voyage. Whenever war broke out, common sailors faced the added risk of being ’pressed into a warship, where Navy pay was even lower, and discipline and good order were enforced with physical punishment, and shore liberty was quite out of the question for years on end to prevent desertion.
It was no wonder then that sailors would rather sign articles aboard a privateer and go a’roving in search of riches, loot from any captured ship, and a “lay”, or share, in a voyage’s profits. In port, they could leave the ship for a good drunk or two, some fresh air away from the typical ship’s reek, find “elbow room” and some precious privacy away from their shipmates, and have a run at the whores. To be a privateersman put a swagger in their step, and made seafaring a grand adventure, not a thankless chore.
When captains of any nation at war held recruiting “rondies”, they found themselves out-shone by the blandishments of privateers. In those days, there were no organised recruiting establishments, no basic training camps, and no Admiralty department responsible for assigning draughts of men to ships fitting out, or replacing men who had been killed, crippled, discharged, or lost to desertion. A Royal Navy captain had only a limited time to attract trained, experienced hands, wide-eyed young volunteers who would be deemed Landsmen, and scour the dregs offered by the Impress Service to complete his ship’s complement. If he couldn’t, he lost his precious active commission and another officer took his ship, and his place. Some warships had to sail with just enough people aboard to work the ship to sea, perhaps hundreds of men short, to save the captain’s full-pay job! God forbid that a warship and a privateer were fitting out in the same port at the same time, for it would be the privateer that would always win!
Privateers operated in every corner of the world where ships of an enemy nation traded, and no seas were immune. Some French privateer captains, mostly from St.-Malo, were spectacularly successful in the Indian Ocean against convoys of the British East India Company, which bore rich cargoes to and from China, India, and the Far East. Some even dared to engage warships, and win, though that was usually the last thing a privateer would risk. If the privateer lost, it was all up, and even if they escaped with damage, that had to be repaired in port, resulting in long down-times with no profit, and a loss of money to pay for the repairs. A fast-sailing privateer’s speed was her best defence.
As Falconer noted in his dictionary, privateers sorta-kinda agreed to follow Navy rules when applying for their Letters of Marque and Reprisals, but once at sea it was “Katy bar the door”. Or, as it was said in Pirates of The Caribbean, the Pirates’ Code was not like real rules, but more like … guidelines, and so was a privateer’s behaviour. Indeed, some of the really successful privateers were ex-pirates temporarily made legitimate; conversely, once a war was over, the most successful privateers turned pi
rate. They swung both ways!
* * *
Bermuda, and its mysterious magnetic variations—there is no good explanation for them that I’ve heard of. I don’t know if there really is a Bermuda Triangle, but the latest Admiralty charts I used when writing this book note the swings of several degrees from Magnetic North that are not seasonal, have nothing to do with sunspots, and aren’t caused by phases of the moon. They caution all mariners to be excrutiatingly cautious when navigating Bermudan waters.
Basil Hall, a Midshipman aboard HMS Leander working out of Bermuda during the Peace of Amiens, related several accounts of his time there in Every Man Will Do His Duty: An Anthology of Firsthand Accounts from the Age of Nelson (edited by Dean King et al., Owl Books, Henry Holt and Co.), which I found useful. Hall had little good to say of Bermudan pilots, citing a captain who found himself trapped in a maze of reefs and coral heads when putting out to sea. For a huge sum, a pilot offered to conn him free, which the captain paid. The pilot led him and his ship into an even worse spot, then demanded a second large payment. The captain paid again, but once safely free and in deep water, the captain got his own back by threatening to take the pilot to Charleston and sell him for a slave if he didn’t get all his money back!
From Basil Hall, we also get Bisquit the dog.
Leander’s captain and officers had pure-bred hounds aboard for hunting ashore, and the Midshipman’s mess found themselves a dog for their own hunts, an incredibly ugly mutt they named Shakings, a term for scrap rope ends and ravellings. Shakings was too friendly, too playful, especially with the officers’ pack, and was put ashore several times, but he always mysteriously turned up aboard again after a few days. Shakings sealed his own fate by putting his shore-mudded paws on the First Officer’s snow-white breeches. The next day, he was gone forever, drowned by the ship’s cook at the officers’ behest, dumped overboard tied up in a bread-bag with a 24-pounder shot. That will most definitely not be Bisquit’s fate!
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