Reefs and Shoals (43 page)

The big sugar trades!
Lewrie thought, getting a leap of his stomach in his chest, and a touch of cold chill. If the French took Nassau and New Providence, Bimini and the Berry Islands, perhaps even Grand Bahama and the Abacos, they could dominate the Florida Straits! No convoy, no matter how well-escorted, would survive, and it would not be the odd privateer preying on them, but frigates, too! There would go a large portion of British trade.

“
Guerre de course
,” Lewrie muttered, recalling the French concept of commerce raiding to disperse the strength of the Royal Navy, which would give their fleet an even chance to sail out and fight on more-equal terms, even weaken Channel Fleet to the point that their Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s vast invasion armada could succeed in landing that two-hundred-thousand-man army of his in England and destroying the last opponent between Napoleon and world domination!

If I were “Bony”, that’s what
I’d
do,
Lewrie told himself;
but
,
Christ, we’ve at least twenty ships in the West Indies, and the Frogs are still over one thousand miles from here. It’s no use borrowin’ trouble. Or, jumpin’ at shadows
.

“Mister Warburton?” Lewrie said, shaking himself free of his fretting, and returning to the here-and-now. “Pass the word for my clerk, Mister Faulkes, to attend me in my cabins, instanter.”

“Aye, sir.”

He dashed below and sat down at his desk in the day-cabin with no mind for the cats, who were glad to see him, but disappointed by his inattention. He opened the ink-well, dipped a pen, and began to write the gist of Forrester’s note for each of his subordinate captains.

“You sent for me, sir?” Faulkes said a few moments later.

“Aye, Faulkes. Will you make three copies of this at once,” Lewrie said, “and they are to go to
Lizard
,
Thorn
, and
Firefly
with the Mids who come to collect the mail. There’s already one of
Thorn
’s Mids on deck. Make sure that Mister Bracegirdle gets her copy.”

Faulkes blew on the hastily written note to dry the ink, reading it as he did so, and hitched an audible breath at its contents.

“A French squadron on the loose, sir?” Faulkes asked wide-eyed. “Might they come here, do you imagine?”

“Not all that likely,” Lewrie told him after a moment more to mull it over. He got back to his feet and headed for the deck again, leaving a puzzled Faulkes and two frustrated cats in his wake.

He got back to the quarterdeck just as HMS
Thorn
’s temporary “Sub-Lieutenant” was regaling the watch officers with his tale of woe at Nassau.

“… thought we would be slung into irons and kept as replacements ’til next Epiphany,” Bracegirdle was chortling, “As for my part, I was allowed liberty on the town, but our poor hands were sent aboard
Mersey,
in lieu of a proper receiving ship. It was only when Commodore Forrester announced that he would be sailing that her First Officer said that
Mersey
was at full complement, and released them as supernumary, and it was only the kindness of Lieutenant Richmond of
Squirrel
who thought to fetch us back to the squadron, ha ha! We would have
stayed
at Nassau, kicking our heels, else!”

“Ah, Captain sir!” Lt. Merriman said, noting Lewrie’s arrival on deck. “It appears that
Squirrel
’s captain, Lieutenant Richmond, did us good service in delivering Mister Bracegirdle back, and further good service by sorting out the despatches and mail into packets for each ship, beforehand.”

“Capital!” Lewrie said. “We will distribute ours, at once, at the start of the First Dog.
Mersey
has sailed, Mister Bracegirdle?” he asked the Midshipman, who appeared to be a cheerful and competent fellow in his early twenties.

“Aye, sir,” Bracegirdle replied, “though I thought I’d never see the day,” he added with a hint of amusement.

“Ripped herself free of the coral under her keel?” Lewrie asked, tongue-in-cheek. “Or was it a reef o’ salt-meat bones?”

“A bit of both I would expect, sir,” Bracegirdle said, grinning.

“The French squadron,” Lewrie posed, “is it rumour or were there definite sightings?”

“Rumours at first, sir,” Bracegirdle informed him, “then it was mentioned in the latest newspapers from home. It is certain that they sent a
small
squadron under an Admiral Missiessy to the Windwards back in the
winter,
and there’s quite a stir that an Admiral Villeneuve has escaped Toulon with a larger squadron. The London Exchange suffered a huge fall in the price of consols at the news, and that the blame was put on Admiral
Nelson
for not blockading Toulon as closely as demanded, if you can imagine, sir!”

For anyone in government, the newspapers, or English Society to cast any aspersions on Horatio Nelson by then was un-thinkable, especially in the closer society of the Navy, after his many crushing victories, and everyone on the quarterdeck growled objections.

“But the papers also say that Nelson has gone after them with the entire Mediterranean Fleet, so God help the French when he catches up with them!” Bracegirdle confidently declared. “Even if Villeneuve comes to the West Indies to join the other fellow, Nelson will settle their business!” That was greeted by agreeing growls and cheers.

That’s
a diff’rent kettle o’ fish!
Lewrie thought;
If Nelson’s on his way
,
he
will
lash into ’em
 …
if only to shut his detractors up, and win himself
more
glory and praise! The preenin’ wee coxcomb! No worries, then. Forrester’s off on a goose-chase
.

“My quick note to Lieutenant Darling did not contain that information. Pray do deliver it verbally to your captain once aboard
Thorn
, Mister Bracegirdle,” Lewrie bade him.

“Hoy the boat!” Warburton shouted to the first approaching boat.

“From
Firefly,
as ordered!” her lone Midshipman shouted back.

Faulkes came on deck at that moment with his freshly penned notes and Lewrie handed Bracegirdle one. “More scribblin’, Mister Faulkes. Sorry,” he said to his clerk. “Something I just learned. Oh, Hell, it is faster t’just tell it to the other ships’ Mids. Never mind.”

I’m babblin’,
Lewrie chid himself; Stop
that!

As each sloop’s boat came alongside, Lewrie handed over their packets of mail and newspapers, and had a word with the Midshipmen from
Firefly
and
Lizard
, stressing that there might be upwards of ten or more French ships far down in the Windwards, but that Nelson would be chasing after them with a powerful fleet of his own, and that for the moment, the squadron would continue its patrolling off Spanish Florida.

Once that was done, and the boat from
Thorn
had arrived and departed with her lost seamen, he turned to look seaward, and there little
Squirrel
still was, loafing along one hundred yards off his frigate’s starboard beam.

S’pose I should invite him aboard for a drink, at the least,
Lewrie thought;
I might even dine him in.

He went to the binnacle cabinet, took up a speaking-trumpet, and went to the rails to shout an invitation over. Lt. Richmond was happy to accept a supper.

“We will be standing out to deeper waters at the start of the First Dog, Richmond!” Lewrie called over. “If you will take station astern of me, that will save you a long row in the dark!”

“Most welcome, Captain Lewrie!” Richmond replied. “At any rate, I hoped to remain in company ’til dawn before returning to Nassau. We are being plagued by reports of a French privateer in our waters, and I do not relish making my little ship an appetiser!”

“A French privateer?” Lewrie bellowed back, “Have any ships been lost?”

“No way to know, sir!” Richmond responded. “Settlers on Grand Bahama and the Abacos have sent word to Nassau that they saw her, and one of our local merchantmen came in and said that she’d been pursued, and only made her escape by reaching shoal waters!”

Richmond was right; there was no way to know if any ships had been taken. Once a merchant ship dropped below the horizon from New Providence, out-bound, it was just
assumed
that she would complete her voyage. If a merchantman left England, Boston, or Charleston for the Bahamas, no one there could know she was coming, or when she was expected to make port … or if she had ever existed! It would only be the owners and investors, the “ship’s husbands”, who would mourn her inexplicable loss, months or
years
later.

Lewrie suggested that Richmond come aboard at the beginning of the Second Dog, at 6
P.M.
, gave him a cheery wave, then returned to the binnacle cabinet to stow the speaking-trumpet, then peer into the compass bowl, up at the commissioning pendant and the sails to judge the strength and direction of the wind, and ponder.

Forrester had word that a privateer or two might be loose in his “patch”, but he sailed off, anyway?
Lewrie thought with admitted wry amusement over the failings of a long-ago, none-too-loved shipmate;
He always
was
a damned fool! With
Mersey
and the brig-sloops gone with him, there’s nothing of worth left t’guard Nassau and adjacent waters. He’s off for glory, his name in the newspapers, and a pat on the back from Admiralty for his boldness
.

Lewrie reached into a side pocket of his uniform coat to draw out Forrester’s note to re-read it. Once he’d done so, he began to grin in delight, seeing the possibilities. Forrester had snidely asked him to take his place while he was gone, a request that Lewrie was sure was already a complaint in Forrester’s report to London that would be a black mark against him. But two could play that game, Lewrie thought with a rising excitement.

There was a French privateer prowling the Bahamas. Could it be Mollien and his
Otarie
? Catching him would be sweet! From Charleston, where he had first seen that schooner, to the Bahamas was close to the suspected aid and comfort of the lower Georgia coast.

Lewrie looked cross the quarterdeck to the shore. The coast of Spanish Florida was a thin green streak, and of late, not a very productive one. He contemplated leaving Bury in
Lizard,
and Lovett in
Firefly,
to continue the patrolling and partial blockading of St. Augustine, but … if he
did
run across a privateer in Bahamian waters, he would need them and their shoal draughts to chase the foe where his frigate could not dare go. Besides, if he did manage to find a real enemy, it would be unfair to deprive them of the excitement!

Long ago, he in
Alacrity
and his old friend Benjamin Rodgers in Sloop of War
Whippet
had raided on Walker’s Cay to suppress piracy, and it was
Alacrity
that had to strike from the West at dawn. “Lewrie, I dasn’t risk the Banks,” Rodgers had said of the treacherously shoal Bahama Banks. There was shelter for a privateer up yonder, and only a sloop of shoal draught, and the new gunboats, would be able to get at it.

Might he leave HMS
Thorn
? No, he rejected that, too, for there might be need of her heavier firepower closer to the shoals that ever
Reliant
could get.
Hang it, I’ll take ’em all!
Lewrie thought.

“Mister Warburton,” Lewrie said of a sudden, “pass word for my cook, Yeoviil, and hoist a signal to all ships. ‘Captains To Supper,’ at the start of the Second Dog Watch. Then, ‘Alter Course’ to Seaward.”

“Aye, sir.”

This was the sort of thing that he would have to impart to all of them, face-to-face, this change of their area of operations, and a new mission.

Now in much surer takings, Lewrie began to pace from the head of the starboard gangway to the taffrails and back again, working up his appetite for supper, and pondering just what he should serve, and what Yeoviil could come up with on short notice.

“Look at that!” Midshipman Warburton whispered to Midshipman Munsell, who shared the watch with him. Both slyly grinned, and then caught Lt. Merriman’s attention, jerking their heads in Lewrie’s direction, bringing a grin to Merriman’s face, too. “I wager he doesn’t even notice!”

The ship’s dog, Bisquit, had slunk up the ladderway to the quarterdeck, that tempting forbidden territory, had hidden by the binnacle cabinet ’til Lewrie’s back was turned, and had then begun to pace along a few steps behind Lewrie’s shins, mouth wide open in what could be construed as a grin as he looked up with his ears perked, and darting ahead of him whenever Lewrie turned about to continue his slow pacing, then “take station” off his quarter once more, and with Lewrie so lost in his thoughts that he was all un-knowing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Reliant
’s little squadron, augmented for a while by Lt. Richmond and
Squirrel
, quartered the seas as they beat their way Eastwards into the Northwest Providence Channel, with the smaller ships ranging back and forth to peek in at Bimini and the Isaacs, into Cross Bay on Grand Bahama and the hurricane hole that Lewrie had used ’tween the wars, as if the frigate was the Master of The Hunt and the sloops were the fox hounds. They stopped and inspected a few schooners and small brigs in case they were French or Spanish privateers flying false colours, and “spoke” to many local fishing boats which might have seen any sign of an aggressive strange sail, or seen any British vessel being pursued by one. They poked into the Berry Islands, then dropped
Squirrel
off to make her way to Nassau with Lewrie’s latest reports and replies to the newly received mail, and steered for the Northeast Providence Channel and the Abacos.