Sea of Grey

by Dewey Lambdin

  And the Jamaican bow-man chimed “Amen, sah!” to that.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The coffee was rich and savoury, hot as the hinges of Hell, and laced with first-pressing sugar, lacking only milk to make it perfect; but then HMS Proteus did not run to nursing cows, and Lewrie had never cared for sheep or goat’s milk, and that was all they had up forrud in the manger. One lean bullock, due for slaughter in a day or two for a taste of fresh beef; a sow with six piglets, one bedraggled and shorn sheep, and a nanny goat, along with about a dozen egg-laying chickens and their few hatchlings were all the ship could boast.

  It was a grand morning to lean against the after-most windward bulwarks of the quarterdeck, right aft near the taff-rail and the flag lockers, and greet the day with the first pewter mug of coffee, relishing the brisk coolness of post-dawn, the beginning of what promised to be another of those sparkling days at sea. There was just enough wind to make the ship lively, and bedew even the quarterdeck with bursts of spray, with the slightly choppy wavetops curling and creaming with catspaws and seahorses.

  Frankly, every morning since Proteus had departed Port-Au-Prince had been delightful; the coffee and cocoa beans, and sugar bought from Cashman’s friends was a piquant spice to early rising. Not one of Lewrie’s favourite things about being in the Navy, this standing to dawn Quarters, but the habit had been drilled into him long before as a prudent precaution in peace or war, no matter which sea one sailed, or how rare the encounter with an enemy warship was reputed to be.

  “Beg to report, sir,” little Midshipman Grace piped up, doffing his hat, “the First Lieutenant’s duty, and there are no sails within sight, sir.”

  “Very well, Mister Grace,” Lewrie said with a nod and a final sip of his strong coffee, “my compliments to Mister Langlie, and he’s free to stand the hands down from Quarters and pipe them to breakfast.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” little Grace replied, eager to be the conduit between Commission Officers. Lewrie thought he was shaping well, for a lad who’d come aboard with his father and grandfather “before the mast” at Sheerness, just before the Nore Mutiny. Though small, he was lithe, quick-witted, and eager to learn, to excel at the rare opportunity for a shoeless lad from the fisheries and mud-bank dredgings of the Nore to become a midshipman, some day a Royal Navy officer with a commission of his own. Lewrie had been shorthanded after he had to cull the crew of mutineers, was grateful for the Graces’ support while re-taking the ship, and there had been a mid’s berth open. The Graces had lost their own fishing boat, and had scraped by on charity and the odd daylabourer berth aboard a friend’s boat before taking the King’s Shilling out of penury and desperation. So far, Lewrie had no reason to doubt his hasty decision.

  He idled over to the helm, sat his mug down on the binnacle cabinet, and studied the chart with the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood. The Sailing Master squinted, muttered under his breath as he counted, then bent over to place a tiny X on the chart.

  “’Bout mid-way ’twixt Cuba, Great Inagua island in the Bahamas, and Mole Saint Nicholas on Saint Domingue, sir,” Winwood speculated in an offhanded way. “Two hour’s run off-wind, and we’ll be well in the Windward Passage. Isle of Tortuga is about six hours Sou’Sou’east, on this morning’s wind, Captain.”

  “Once the hands have eat, Mister Winwood, we’ll tack and charge down toward Tortuga, ‘til midday, say,” Lewrie decided. “The wind’s a touch more Northing to it, today. Does it hold, we may tack again, and reach almost North towards Great Inagua. Cover a goodly portion of the area, and take a peek into the Caicos Passage, as well. And I am of the mind to see into the Mouchoir and Silver Bank Passages, too. ’Tis one thing, to stand off-and-on on close blockade, but it may be more productive to roam a tad farther afield.”

  “Aye, sir … leave the small craft to our luggers and cutters, but the large ships will be ours,” Mr. Winwood said, the brightness of his eyes the only sign of amusement or joy the laconic older man ever evinced to others. “Fair winds and deep water, then, for most of the day, sir. I will, for the space of it, breathe much easier.”

  “Perhaps even caulk a bit, Mister Winwood?” Lewrie pretended to scoff. “Heavens, where is your famed industry flown, then?”

  “Held in reserve, sir, for more trying circumstances,” Winwood insisted. “I assure you, sir, I do not flag in my zeal for accuracy or—”

  “Never mind, Mister Winwood,” Lewrie said with a sigh, expecting that, should they be in active commission together for ten years, “jest” and Winwood would never be mentioned in the same breath.

  “Mister Catterall, you have the deck,” Lewrie said, turning to their Third Lieutenant. He took one last look at the gun-deck as the artillery was tompioned and bowsed snug to the bulwarks, a final peek aloft at the commissioning pendant for the wind direction, then went aft and below to his own breakfast.

  Shore bread, butter and jam, a proper two-egg omelette with two strips of bacon and some grated cheese—done firmer and fluffier to his liking, not the runny Frog fashion—and Lewrie was sated. Once the tack to the Sou’Sou’east was completed, he thought, there would be bags of time to idle, with a cup of hot chocolate, and a new chapter in one of his books. Perhaps even one of Mr. Winwood’s naps, he speculated, ’twixt then and “Clear Decks And Up-Spirits” at Seven Bells of the Forenoon, then Noon Sights?

  “Deck, there!” the faint cry came wafting down. “Sail ho! Off th’ larboard quarters!”

  Boxing the compass in his mind, Lewrie frowned in puzzlement at that news, only slowly rising from the table to don one of his cotton coats; the wind was more Nor‘east by North, and Proteus was now close-hauled on the starboard tack, steering Nor’west by North. For a ship to be sighted astern of her, off the larboard quarter, would put her down to the Sou’west of them.

  How could they have missed her earlier, unless she was bound North from the Windward Passage, astern of them at dawn? Or, he also supposed, beginning to smile in anticipation, she had rounded Cuba by way of the Old Bahama Passage, south of Great Inagua, and was sailing Sutherly.

  “Deck, there! Two sail off th’ larboard quarters!”

  Thud went the Marine sentry’s musket butt on the deck. “Midshipman o’ th’ watch, sah!”

  “Come.”

  “Mister Catterall’s duty, sir, and …” Midshipman Grace began to say.

  “I heard it, too, Mister Grace. Run tell Mister Catterall that I’ll be on deck directly, and he is to ready the ship about.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Grace yelped with excitement, scuttling out in a twinkling to scamper up to the quarterdeck and relay his orders.

  Before Lewrie could get to the quarterdeck, the bosun’s calls were shrilling, and Proteus thundered to the drum of feet as the crew came up from below. Officers and mates were calling for order, readying them to wear off the wind and head Sou’west.

  Leaving the evolution in capable hands, Lewrie took a telescope from the binnacle rack and went aloft, up the larboard mizen shrouds to just below the cat-harpings to “weave” his limbs about the stays and rat-lines for a quick peek.

  He saw what he thought were two schooner-rigged vessels, close together, the rake of their masts and the slant of their bat-wing fore and aft sails putting him in mind of American-built schooners; heading Sutherly, for certain, according to the “arrow” of their jibs and main sails pointing in that direction. They were well hull-down, with only the upper parts of their sails showing, so far. Schooners were wicked-fast, but …

  He grinned once more. Off the wind, though, unless they hoisted crossed yards, a frigate with its acres of sail and a long waterline could run them down, once it got a bone in its teeth. Placed as they were, with Proteus to windward, the schooners had nowhere to run, or beamreach, where they could use their famous speed. Beating up near the eye of the wind was out, for Proteus was already there!

  He shut the glass and scampered down as Lt. Langlie issued the final orders to wear. The after-guard who tended the mizen had little
need of an officer in the rigging, to daunt their work.

  “It couldn’t be that Yankee Doodle revenue clown, d’ye think?” Lt. Catterall whispered, once they had fetched the schooners hull-up, after a hard hour of sailing off-wind. “One schooner, chasing another? He might’ve gotten lucky. Sooner or later, anyone may.”

  “All cats are grey in the dark, old son,” Lt. Wyman softly replied. “Diff’rent colour scheme to these … I think.”

  “Do they part …” Catterall continued.

  “Don’t go borrowing trouble,” Wyman countered, looking shocked at the notion of two disparate Chases to run down.

  Lewrie paced away from them, out of earshot. The dread of the schooners haring off on widely different courses had already occurred to him, and he didn’t wish to hear such, either; the word was the sire to the deed … like causing the worst to happen just by saying it out loud. Or wishing on the wrong star!

  The schooners had hardened up on the wind a bit, to use all the power of it they could; now they bore just a bit East of South, but on that course, they’d ram aground near Mole Saint Nicholas on the north arm of Saint Domingue’s bay, did they stand on. That, or run into one more British blockader, and have to shy away.

  Were they smart, Lewrie fretted, one might bear away Sou’west, angling for the Jamaica Channel, and the other, to put about and sail for Cuba’s eastern tip. Why they were still together, he could not fathom, for it was the obvious ploy. He could only catch one of them, and had already determined that the Cuba-bound one would be the easier prey; he could cut the corner on her and fetch her up, whilst the other stood a poor chance of sailing past Saint Domingue without being taken by another Royal Navy patroller. But here they both were, clinging to each other as if glued or chained, the one astern slightly slower than her consort. There were about two miles between them now, and Proteus was within two miles of the nearest.

  And God help ’em, if they’re more Yankees, Lewrie thought, still rankled by the wild goose chase that Trumbull had run them. The idea of wasting an entire day in pursuit of a brace of idiots would be galling.

  Maybe I’ll flog me one, Lewrie imagined, rather happily; for an example to the others!

  He began to pace, head down and his hands clutched in the small of his back, unable to stand and wait any longer. Forrud along the larboard gangway, all the way to the forecastle and back, as if by pacing he could walk Proteus closer to them.

  “Floggin’!” a seaman called, making Lewrie wonder if they were of the same mind, did these schooners turn out to be callow Americans.

  “Summat carried away, there! ’Er mains’l’s floggin’!”

  Lewrie raised his head and peered at the far Chase; sure enough, her mains’l was now winged out and flapping like laundry, and she sat flatter on her bottom, instead of being heeled over so far, and in his quickly hoisted telescope he could barely espy a scurry of activity on her small quarterdeck, even a pair of ant-like figures ascending the shrouds to rerove either her throat or peak halliard. He swung to see what the trailing schooner was doing, and found her standing on, still on course—no, by God! She was falling off the wind a bit, to run nearer her consort, as if she would come alongside and aid her!

  “What in the world?” he muttered, puzzled even more.

  Proteus now loped nearer the pair of them, almost within a long gun-range, and Lewrie quickly strode aft to his proper place among his officers on the quarterdeck.

  “Mister Langlie, we’ll try a ranging shot from the fore chases,” he snapped, once there, at the centre of the hammock nettings. “If anything else, we’ll put the wind up ’em.”

  “Aye, sir! Mister Catterall … a ranging shot!”

  “Aye aye!”

  Moments later, after much fiddling, the starboard 6-pounder gave out a sharp bark, flinging a ball with the quoin completely out from underneath the breach to stretch the gun’s reach. Lewrie could see that roundshot as it slowed at the apogee of its flight, then dash into invisibility once more as it descended. There was a splash, a slim tower of water that rose from the waves as the shot struck about two cables short of the trailing schooner.

  “Oh, damme,” Lt. Langlie cried, “not again!”

  The schooner had hoisted an American flag!

  “I’ll not believe it ’til I stand on his damned decks!” Lewrie vowed. “Stand on, and reload.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  “Mis’rable, pus-gutted, poxy sonofa—” Lewrie grumbled.

  The 6-pounder yapped again, and this time the roundshot struck within a cable of the trailing schooner. A third try, with the quoin in this time, and six pounds of iron struck short and skipped several times, like a flat rock being shied across a pond, to slam home with a thud, flinging a small burst of dust, paint chips, and splinters!

  “Huzzah! Pound her ’til she strikes, no matter who she is!”

  The far schooner was still sloughing along, her mains’l bagged out and flogging, even with the mainsheet drawn snug. She, too, hoisted an American flag, making Lewrie wonder if he should continue firing into them; surely, this would be a nasty diplomatic incident, if they truly were Yankee Doodle ships, but … why had they run so long, even after Proteus had hoisted her own colours an hour before? Could an entire people, a whole race, be quite that stupid?

  There came a fourth shot from the bow chaser, and another strike ’twixt wind and water, smashing in part of her low larboard bulwarks, and caroming through a rowboat stowed amidships in a cloud of splinters. Lewrie eyed her through the telescope once more.

  “Mine arse on a band-box … they’re havin’ a melee, yonder!” he gasped. “Take a look … they’re fighting ’mongst themselves.”

  “Those that’d strike, and those that’d fight, sir?” Lt. Langlie wondered aloud. “Ah! There go her main and fore sheets … and their flag halliard! She’s struck!”

  “Cease fire, there! Cease fire!” Lewrie bellowed. “Sir, do you close on the far one, and take her under fire when in range. Chasers only. Rest of the gun crews are to ready a boat for lowering.”

  “Aye, sir,” Langlie responded. “Mister Sevier, keep your eyes on this’un. Sing out, does she renege and try to escape.”

  The near schooner quickly flashed down the starboard side, and the far one, still not repaired, quickly neared. The bow chaser fired once more, finding the range almost at once, and dropping a ball close-aboard her waterline. And down came her American flag, too! Briefly replaced with the French Tricolour that had barely been two-blocked at the peak of the halliard before being quickly lowered, and allowed to trail over the schooner’s taffrails in sign of surrender!

  “We’ll definitely lower boats for this’un, Mister Langlie. And a Marine boarding party,” Lewrie instructed, feeling his chest swell in triumph. Still puzzled, it must be said, but triumphant.

  “The schooner astern is underway again, Mister Langlie, sir!” Midshipman Sevier cried, attracting their attention. “She’s following us, with her flag re-hoisted.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Lewrie muttered, rubbing his chin. “Fetch us to, Mister Langlie …’ fore we end up in Port-de-Paix. Do you keep this‘un under our quarterdeck six-pounders and carronades … just t’keep ’em honest.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  For long minutes, the frigate and schooner wallowed together, a cable’s distance between them, as the labourious process of hoisting up, swinging out, and lowering ship’s boats off the cross-deck timbers was carried out. Men from the larboard guns and gangways were ticked off for a boarding party, along with half the Marines, all under arms.

  “Hoy!” Lewrie called across with speaking-trumpet. “What ship are you?”

  “Comment?” was the reply; and a rather snippy one, too.

  “Oh … Frog,” Lewrie groused. “Quel navire!”

  “Ici c’est L’Oiseau! Un marchand!”

  “The Songbird,” Lewrie translated aloud. “But a merchant ship, mine arse! There must be an hundred crew aboard her. Her sides are p
ierced for at least eight guns! Vous êtes le menteur sanglant! Vous êtes un privateer!” he bellowed across. “Vous êtes le prix, a moi!”

  He could feel the Surgeon’s Mate, the French exile Mr. Durant, wince near his side.

  “Your French is … remarkable, Capitaine,” Durant all but tittered.

  “Good enough t’call him a bloody liar,” Lewrie said with a grin and a shrug of haplessness outside his native English. “What’s ‘privateer’ in French?”

  “Privateer, sir,” Durant informed him, unable to hide his mirth. “I believe zat is where it came from, ze French.”

  “Capital! He caught my drift, then.” Lewrie chuckled before he turned back to watch more warily as his boats thumped into the Songbird and his boarding party began to clamber over her rails.

  “Yankee schooner’s passing to windward of us, sir!” Midshipman Sevier pointed out, drawing Lewrie to larboard with his trumpet.

  “Hoy, the frigate! Thankee, sir!” a man in a master’s coat said as the schooner let fly her sheets to slow and luff up. “This is the Bantam … ten days outta Savannah. Yon French bastard took us off the Berry Islands two days ago. Who do I owe thanks to?”

  “End vis ze preposition, tsk tsk,” Durant muttered.

  “HMS Proteus … Captain Lewrie, commanding!” Lewrie shouted over, then turned to Durant. “My French, his English, it seems. But, what can you expect from our recently departed Colonials?”

  “Stood up to us, bold as a dog in a doublet, he did!” Bantam’s master was shouting. “Flyin’ our flag, with an American doin’ all the talking for ’em! I’m Machias Wilder, by the by! Soon as you can hog-tie or chain up yon French bastards, I’d be that proud to stand ye to a stiff drink, Captain Lewrie!”

  “And I would be more than happy to accept, Captain Wilder!”