Reefs and Shoals l-18

by Dewey Lambdin

  * * *

  Supper with Benjamin Rodgers went much better; at least he had kept an open mind, and when Lydia, who had been studying and reading every book she could find on seamanship, ships, and their handling since being dined aboard Reliant at Sheerness the previous Spring, could converse somewhat knowledgeably with two senior naval officers, Rodgers had become the soul of geniality and jollity. He’d listened with glee to tales of Percy’s amazing luck at gambling, and the doings of the rich and titled. He’d almost sounded as if he did devour the “Tattler” columns in the papers, despite what he’d said about them.

  “Reading and Henley?” Rodgers had exclaimed. “Why, that’s in my bailiwick! My father’s an attorney in Reading, and I grew up there. Punting on the Thames is what led me to the Navy. Good Lord, yes, now I recall your father, too. Big, tall, rangy fellow… Your pardons, Mistress Stangbourne, but we children used to dread the Viscount for how fearsome-featured he was. Not the handsomest man in England, he was, Alan. Splendid rider, though, and a grand sportsman. We used to ride by Stangbourne Park quite often, though, on the way to a day of shooting at my uncle’s… an estate he called The Hermitage?”

  “Gabriel Rodgers, of course!” Lydia had gushed quite animatedly. “I knew him well when I was a girl.”

  They were “neighbourly”, knew the same people, no matter their class, and Lydia had met Rodgers’s new wife, too. All in all, they’d gotten on like a house afire.

  “Quite like her, Alan,” Rodgers had said on the long cold walk back to the boat landing. “And, if the war ever ends, I’d be delighted to have a chance to shoot over their fields. Matter of fact, it’s good odds the house Susannah and I bought in Reading got run up with Stangbourne money and labour. The old Viscount dabbled in rents and real estate in a huge way!”

  Lewrie had been delighted that Benjamin had sounded approving, too, if Sewallis didn’t. And the sea-change in Lydia’s manner with Rodgers had been a fine thing to see. He knew how guarded and leery Lydia was about how people took her, and to have seen her at ease and open, how “chirpy” and quick to laugh, had been a marvel.

  Unless Benjamin had put on a complete sham, of course! Lewrie didn’t think him capable of such duplicity, but… oh, surely not! Lewrie had never detected a speck of guile in bluff, hearty Benjamin Rodgers!

  * * *

  That next morning had dawned cold, but clear. The thermometer in the great-cabins stood at fourty degrees by the end of breakfast, and the liquid barometer’s pale blue fluid had sunk down the long tube neck to indicate a coming high-pressure spell. One more cup of creamed and sugared coffee, and Lewrie would make an inspection of the ship in slop-trousers and his oldest coat, then change to go ashore for another delightful dinner, and a long afternoon with Lydia in her lodgings at the George. But…

  “Midshipman Warburton, SAH!” the Marine sentry loudly cried.

  “Enter,” Lewrie bade.

  “Pardon, Captain, but there is a boat approaching,” Warburton reported. “And there appears to be an official fellow aboard her.”

  “Admiralty pouch?” Lewrie asked, peering at the Mid, who had sprouted much like his son had, in the two years he’d been aboard the frigate; Warburton had been a cheeky sixteen-year-old when fitting out in 1803, and was now a slyly cheeky eighteen.

  “I could not see one, sir,” Warburton replied, “But…!” The fingers of his right hand were held up crossed for luck.

  “Very well, Mister Warburton. Show the visitor aft when he’s come aboard,” Lewrie ordered.

  Sailin’ orders, at long last? Lewrie mused while he waited for the caller to show his face; But orders for where?

  Mid-January was a miserable time to be ordered to sea, and if it was their fate to join the blockade of the French or Spanish coasts and harbours, even the most-Sutherly latitudes would make little difference. Gales and storms off Cadiz or Ferrol would be as fierce as those found off Brest. Lewrie found that he’d involuntarily crossed his own fingers for luck… of a different kind of hope than Warburton’s!

  He fought the urge to gulp down his coffee and rush to the deck with impatient curiosity, but there were times to act like a captain in the Royal Navy; he forced himself to sit and sip slowly.

  “Admiralty messenger, SAH!” his Marine sentry cried.

  “Enter,” Lewrie answered, striving for a bored drawl.

  And won’t that perk up the ship’s people’s ears! he thought.

  “Captain Lewrie, sir,” the newcomer, a youngish and ill-featured fellow in dark blue “ditto” suitings began, “Daniel Gower, from Admiralty, with orders for you and the Reliant frigate.”

  “Thank you, Mister Gower,” Lewrie said, rising to accept them in a sealed envelope. “Are they ‘Eyes Only’, or ‘To Be Opened Upon Attaining a particular Latitude’?” Lewrie japed, rolling his eyes.

  “Why, no, sir. Quite straightforward, I assume,” the man said with one brow up in puzzlement.

  “Hmph,” was Lewrie’s comment. “We’ve had our share of ‘cloak and dagger’,” he explained. “Thank you, Mister Gower. May I offer you anything? Coffee or tea?”

  “No thank you, sir, but I’ve others to see,” the clerk said, tapping the large leather pouch slung at his side.

  “Very well, sir.”

  “Good day, Captain Lewrie.”

  S’pose I can rip it open, right here and now, Lewrie thought, and did so. He sat back down at his dining table to read them over, just as soon as that Gower fellow had left his cabins.

  “Good God,” Lewrie muttered. “Privateers? No profit in that.”

  Making the best of your way, you are to take HMS Reliant, sailing under Independent Orders, to the Bahamas and Bermuda, there to conduct operations against Spanish and French privateers engaged in predations upon convoys bound from the West Indies to Home Waters, specifically directing your efforts upon the Eastern coasts of Spanish Florida, where said privateers are believed to base themselves since the Declaration of a State of War by the Kingdom of Spain on December 12th of last year.

  Upon arrival at Bermuda and the Bahamas, you are further authorised to take under your command any and all naval vessels Below the Rates which you deem suitable for such operations, and for this purpose you are granted the right to display the inferior Broad Pendant for the duration of the expedition.

  “Pick and choose, lead me own little squadron? Whew!” Lewrie muttered, louder this time, and wondering what sort of minor warships could be had at Bermuda or in the Bahamas.

  He would not be promoted to Commodore, nor would he be assigned a Flag-Captain to run Reliant for him whilst he mused, schemed and plotted the ruin of Frogs and Dons. His red broad pendant would bear the large white ball in the centre which would mark his frigate as a squadron flagship. But, to cover the Spanish port of St. Augustine, along with the many smaller settlements from the St. Mary’s River, the Northern boundary of Spanish Florida, to the great Tamiami Bay and the Keys to the South, Lewrie rather doubted that the little vessels of his putative squadron would ever be sailing in formal trail formation behind him, and that flying broad pendant would be more a sop to his ego, did he bother to look up and gawk.

  In the course of your operations, you will not consider yourself strictly limited to Spanish Florida. You will also make a diligent effort to ascertain whether privateers of those nations now at war with Great Britain exploit the neutrality of the United States of America, and whether the authorities of the several states, and the authorities of the ports of Savannah, Beaufort and Port Royal, Charleston and Georgetown, Wilmington and the Cape Fear River, and the ports of New Bern and Beaufort round Cape Lookout shelter privateers, or may succour and support them in violation of neutrality laws.

  “Christ, I don’t need a squadron, I need a fleet!” he gawped.

  There was also some blather about calling upon the Consular officials who represented Great Britain to get their informations, to use their good offices to make the acquaintance of local American officials responsible
for the enforcement of strict neutrality regarding the visits of belligerents, the frequency of said visits, and how long they could remain at anchor before being shooed out to sea.

  … in this regard, you will do your very best to diplomatically impress upon said American officials the importance of a strict observance of neutrality laws between two nations now in amity…

  “Now I know they’ve lost their wits in London,” Lewrie said with a long sigh, and a wee yap of dis-belief. “Diplomatic? Me? Do they even know the first thing about me? Bull in a bloody china shop!”

  Finally, there was a paragraph or two about taking soundings and up-dating the charts of the approaches to Bermuda, and marking the entrance channels to St. George’s Harbour, Castle Harbour, the navigable limits of the Great Sound and Grassy Bay, and the approaches to the settlement of Hamilton… so long as he had nothing else going!

  To aid him in his diplomatic endeavours, and to snag himself a few small warships, enclosed was a thick packet of letters of introduction to the various British Consuls, and orders directed to “Whom It May Concern”. And, if he did discover gross violations of American neutrality, included was the name and address of His Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador in Washington, the District of Columbia, who, upon receiving an information from Lewrie, would make the strongest remonstrances to the United States government on His Majesty’s behalf!

  “At least Hercules got t’take on his twelve labours one at a bloody time!” Lewrie fumed, sagging lower in his dining chair.

  One bell was struck by a ship’s boy up forward at the belfry; half past eight in the Forenoon Watch, and the time that Lewrie had appointed for his officers and senior mates to muster in the waist for his inspection. He rose and placed the thick packet of orders in his day-cabin desk, then shrugged into a well-worn grogram overcoat to go out on deck.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said to one and all.

  “Good morning, sir,” was returned in a rough chorus, punctuated by yawns from some who had been up since the 4 A.M. change of watch which roused all hands to lash up and stow, swab and sweep decks, and partake in breakfast. Reliant ’s three Lieutenants, Geoffrey Westcott, Clarence Spendlove, and George Merriman, looked blearier than most; officers stood no watches when anchored in port, and they’d most-like returned aboard the evening before just in time for their supper, then shared a bowl of hot punch, liberally laced with spirits, before a late retiring, sitting up in the dark after Lights Out at 9 P.M. to “fathom” the bowl’s depths.

  “Damn my eyes, no one’s curious?” Lewrie teased.

  “Well, sir…” Lt. Merriman said, sharing a glace with the rest, and making a speculative grin.

  “We’re bound for warmer weather,” Lewrie told them. “If we survive the winter voyage to get there, that is. It’s the Bahamas, for us, Bermuda, and the coast of Spanish Florida.”

  “Bermuda,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Caldwell, said. “Brr!”

  “It’s in the mid-Atlantic,” Lt. Spendlove pointed out. “It cannot be a cold place, can it?”

  “Ah, but Bermuda is surrounded by miles and miles of banks and shoals, coral reefs, and submerged rocks, sir,” Harold Caldwell contradicted with a gloomy look. “There’s been ships wrecked twenty miles or more from there, in what they took for deep, open water. Captain, sir, I’ll be needing the use of a boat to go ashore to obtain charts, for I have none but the sketchiest and oldest at present. In point of fact, I’ve never been to Bermuda, but I’ve heard tales. Brr, I say, for good reason.”

  Who at Admiralty hates me that damned bad? Lewrie asked himself.

  “Neither have I, Mister Caldwell,” Lewrie admitted. “When you do seek the latest charts, pray obtain a set for me. Part of our new orders directs us to survey and make soundings while we’re there, do we have time to spare for it. They mention the principal harbours and a bay or two, not the distant approaches, but…” He ended with a shrug.

  “My mates, Nightingale and Eldridge, could stay aboard for your inspection, sir,” Caldwell said, “whilst I could go ashore now.”

  “Very well, Mister Caldwell. Mister Warburton?” Lewrie called out to the senior Mid on the quarterdeck above them. “A boat for the Sailing Master.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  “Well, shall we begin, sirs?” Lewrie posed to them. “And, as we look things over, let’s make lists of anything needful before sailing. Start at the bows, shall we?”

  “Aye, sir,” the Bosun, Mr. Sprague, agreed with a firm nod. “I think you’ll find the ship in top form and well-stocked for sea, so far as my department goes.”

  “But not your private rum cache, hey, Mister Sprague?” Lieutenant Westcott, the First Officer japed.

  “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Mister Westcott, sir,” Sprague replied with a twinkle in his eyes, “when ev’rybody knows it’s Mister Cooke what hides rum in his galley.”

  “Then we’ll look over the galley damned close,” Lewrie quipped. “ And the nooks and crannies in the carpenter’s walks.”

  That made the Bosun swallow hard, and look a tad guilty!

  CHAPTER SIX

  “The other side of the ocean?” Lydia sadly mused once Lewrie told her of his orders. “Oh, God.”

  “We both knew it was bound t’come,” Lewrie said, taking her by the hands as they sat together on a settee in her lodgings.

  “I’d hoped…” she said, looking down for a moment. “Foolish me. I did know you’d have to sail away sooner or later, but I hoped…” She shrugged and seemed to be biting the lining of her cheek for a second as she looked back up. “I’d hoped that you’d be assigned to the blockade, like your friend Captain Rodgers. Somewhere closer, and come back every few months to… what do you call it? Re-victual? I should have known better,” she sighed, slumping.

  “I don’t like it any more than you do, believe me,” Lewrie said, putting an arm round her shoulders. “You’ve quite spoiled me.”

  “Have I?” Lydia skeptically asked, bracing back from him.

  “Utterly and completely,” Lewrie assured her. “I should have known better, myself. Just as soon as I begin t’feel pleased, old Dame Fortune will kick me up the arse. She always has.”

  Lydia relaxed her arms and sank into his comforting embrace.

  “You may not be the only one that Dame Fortune picks on, Alan. Here I finally meet a man whom I think I can trust, and the Navy will send him halfway round the world, for years on end,” she mourned. “I will feel so alone, again, with you gone.”

  “I’ve grown hellish fond of you, too,” Lewrie whispered in her sweet-smelling hair. “But, t’wish me on the blockade, after all that Benjamin Rodgers told us of it, well…!”

  “It will be warmer, where you’re going?” she asked.

  “Much warmer, even in January,” Lewrie told her. “The Bahamas and Bermuda, I expect, are vivid green and surrounded by blue-green seas. In the old days, we sailed little Alacrity over waters so gin-clear, or the palest blue, and could see the bottom and fish swimming, ten fathoms down, as clear as day.”

  “It sounds like the fabled Land of the Lotus Eaters,” Lydia commented, chuckling,

  “Isles of the dead-drunk rum-pots, more like,” Lewrie japed.

  “Even so, they sound heavenly,” Lydia said, then looked up at him sharply. “Take me with you.”

  “What?” Lewrie gawped.

  “I’ve learned enough of the Navy and ships to know that some captains take their wives with them, even in wartime,” Lydia animatedly said. “God knows, I brought half a year’s worth of gowns and such when I came down to Portsmouth. I could be packed and aboard by the end of the day!”

  “Lydia, I can’t,” Lewrie told her, though wishing he could.

  “Did not your wife sail with you to the Bahamas when you were first there?” she pointed out, cocking her head to one side.

  “To be settled in a house ashore, in peacetime,” Lewrie said. “We’ll be up against French and Spanish privateers, might even cr
oss hawses with some of their frigates, and I can’t put you at such risk. Besides, there’s…”

  “If I accept the risks, then why not?” she pressed.

  “There’s the matter of Reliant ’s people, Lydia,” Lewrie continued in a sombre but soothing tone. “They can’t take their wives and sweethearts with them, and for them to see their captain enjoying the privilege they can’t… rubbing it in their faces everytime you took the air on the quarterdeck? The Navy won’t even give them shore liberty, unless it’s a damned small island, and there’s an Army garrison t’help round ’em up do they run… take ‘leg-bail’. The best we can do for ’em is to put the ship Out of Discipline for a few days in port and let the… women of the town come aboard. Some of ’em might even really be wives, but that’s a rare ease. You wouldn’t wish to see it. When you toured Reliant last summer, she was in full discipline.”

  “Whores, do you mean,” Lydia said with a scoffing smirk.

  “Aye, whores,” Lewrie admitted. “And, finally… there are some captains who’d take their wives to sea, even in wartime, but… they’re wives, not lovers. Admiralty has a ‘down’ on that.”

  “Hmmm,” was Lydia’s comment to that. She put one brow up in quizzical thought, eying him over quite carefully.

  “What?” Lewrie asked, wondering if she was contemplating…! “What are you thinking?”

  “Well, in the first instance, I was wondering what poor Percy would say, did I dash off with you, married or not,” Lydia confessed, a grin spreading. “Secondly, I was wondering if I were brazen enough to propose to you, and lastly… I asked myself what I might say did you propose to me!”

  Oh, shit! Here we go again! Lewrie told himself, hoping that his phyz didn’t mirror the stricken feeling inside him. He’d been in “Cream-pot Love” with his late wife, Caroline, and had admitted “there’s a girl worth marrying… someday, perhaps, maybe!” before circumstances anent her future had dragooned him into proposing, to give her an out from the beastly attentions of her neighbour Harry Embleton, or her only other options: marry a much older tenant farmer, or take a position as governess to someone’s children, far from family.