“Good morning, sir,” Lewrie said, answering his salute with a slight doff of his own hat. “Anything that caught your eye ashore?”
“Not all that much, sir,” Simcock said with a cocky grimace of dismissal. “Unless you wished a new iron cook pot, or a painted clay one. Whoever the poor people are who live there, I pity them. Seems a shame, really… the natural beauty of these isles puts one in mind of the Greek tales about the land of the Lotus Eaters, yet… there’s nothing there to live on.”
“There’s those little gardens,” Merriman pointed out.
“Little bigger than Irish ‘lazy beds’, though, and the soil is too thin and sandy,” Lt. Simcock countered. “Oh! One thing that I did notice, sir, is the lack of water wells. I can’t recall seeing a one on any of the islands we’ve scouted.”
“Aye, come to think on it, I can’t say that I saw any wells at all, either,” Lt. Merriman quickly agreed, brightening. “Sir,” he said to Lewrie, “we’ve found barrels and large clay pots round the houses, with hollowed-out half-round sluices… to catch rainwater! Run-off from the planked rooves! There are no freshwater springs or wells!”
“Haven’t seen any, yet, sir,” Lt. Simcock added. “That’s not to say that there aren’t some on the larger isles closer to the mainland, but…,” he said, heaving off a large shrug. “Yes, hello, Bisquit! I’m back safely! Good fellow! Want a pig bone?”
Bisquit leaped, wagged his tail and his hindquarters in rapture, and pranced round the weather deck to show off his new one.
“No wells, no springs… no privateerin’ lairs, then,” Lewrie speculated. “A decent-sized ship could lurk round here for a time, with full water casks, but they’d have to go somewhere else to replenish. The only thing they could find here would be firewood and a hog or two.”
“So searching the Keys would be a waste of time, sir?” Merriman asked, sounding a tad disappointed. Lt. Simcock looked downcast, too, as if the both of them had been having fun ashore and would hate to see their excursions end.
“From what I saw during the Revolution,” Lewrie told them, “and what I’ve read of Florida, the mainland is rich with lakes, rivers, and streams. Privateers could base themselves on the far side of Florida Bay, but that’s too far from the Straits for quick springs upon merchant ships.”
And, did French or Spanish privateers base themselves on the mainland side of Florida Bay, they would have a long passage out round Key West and the Marquesas Keys to get to their cruising grounds, and a long passage back with prizes, Lewrie realised.
Damme, I might’ve been right the first time, he congratulated himself; Florida Bay’s a sack, a place where a privateer’d be trapped, if a force like ours came along! They’re a greedy lot, but no one ever said privateers are stupid.
“No, we’ll be thorough,” Lewrie said at last to his officers. “A few days more, and we’ll reach the end of the Keys and strike the mainland. Damme, no springs or wells? Then, what does the wildlife do for water… the wild hogs, deer, birds, and such? Even sea -birds need to drink, now and again.”
“Wait for a downpour, sir?” Lt. Merriman posed. “So far, we’ve seen goodly showers each afternoon, and there would be shallow puddles left behind them, for a while. As for the wild people who dwell here, I suppose they can dance for rain, like the Indians, and catch them a barrel or two of run-off. There are clouds gathering on the horizon even as we speak, sir.”
“Seems a horrid waste, really,” Lt. Simcock commented. “These wee isles appear idyllic, but one would have to be pretty desperate to live here for long. Alluring and all, but not worth a tuppenny shit for white men.”
“Who knows, though, Arnold,” Merriman said. “Did one dig a deep well and strike fresh water, one could go as native as a Tahitian in the Great South Seas!”
“Though it don’t look promising for bare-breasted dancing girls in grass skirts,” Simcock quipped, fanning himself with his hat.
“Invite Mister Westcott to go native with you,” Merriman chirped, “and he’ll turn them up in a Dog Watch. It comes to women, he’s your boy!”
“Carry on, sirs,” Lewrie said, hiding a smirk, and returning to the quarterdeck to fetch his telescope. He peered at Lizard, Firefly, and Thorn which lay to anchor close by. Their boats were also coming offshore, empty-handed it appeared. Well, Lt. Bury was studying something that might have been a horseshoe crab with a large magnifying glass. No, he’d call it a trilobite, Lewrie thought.
Lewrie lowered his telescope and turned to gaze out to sea. A bank of darker clouds was gathering as the heat of the day grew, threatening yet another afternoon shower or two. Four or five miles out from their anchorage, a slim glass-white waterspout was slowly snaking down to thrash the bright green waters to a froth; yet another nigh-daily occurrence since they had entered the Florida Straits and had begun their slow inspection of the Keys.
“Mister Grainger?” Lewrie called, after turning to note which lad was the Midshipman of the Watch on the quarterdeck. “Hoist ‘Captains Repair On Board’.”
Grand places t’lurk, but not to base, Lewrie thought; unless ye fetch along all that’s needful. Might as well be at sea!
He went to the compass binnacle cabinet afore the helm to roll open one of the Sailing Master’s dubious charts of the area, to look closely at the great bay at the North end of the Keys. Yes, it was as he remembered it from a first perusal… there were rios feeding into the bay, and rivers meant fresh water in abundance.
Time for a conference, Lewrie determined; and time for a change of plans. Some midnight boat-work, to scout the bay out before we go barging’ in.
CHAPTER TWENTY
False dawn had broadened the circle of visibility from the decks and the mast-heads, revealing low shorelands and forests, and the broad bay into which the squadron crept under reduced sail. The winds were light but steady, bringing the scents of sand flats and marsh, of woods and growing things, and the faintest hint of flowers ready to open to the first rays of the sun when the actual dawn came. The waters of the great bay at the end of the Keys were very calm, with no chop or white-caps, and slack-water waves no more than one or two feet high, so the bow waves and wakes of the four warships barely whitened to foam, and they all rode upright, with only a slight angle of heel to the winds.
The smaller three preceded Reliant by only half a mile, spread in line-abreast, with Thorn and her short-ranged carronades closest to the larboard shore, weaker 8-gunned Firefly in the centre, and Lizard on the starboard corner.
“Trust to the leadsmen in the chains,” Reliant ’s Sailing Master, Mr. Caldwell, said in a low voice as those sailors called back a depth of six fathoms, “If not completely in these ancient Spanish charts. I doubt the Dons ever contemplated a proper settlement this far South of Saint Augustine, sir, so how meticulous the first, perhaps the only, surveyors were… in such a malarial place, right on the edge of a great swamp, well…”
“Neither did British surveyors in the twenty-odd years we held Florida, Mister Caldwell,” Lewrie pointed out.
The latest charts of the bay, and the shallow passage between a string of long barrier islands and the mainland, or the mouth of the river which fed into the bay, were an amalgam of old Spanish work and some sketchy surveys done between 1763 and 1783, though both doubted if much had been done to update them once the American Revolution had begun in 1775. Before, there had been no urgency, and once England was at war, there had been no need to correct maps done of such a minor, insignificant colony so far from the main scenes of action.
“Mayami… Tamiami?” Lt. Westcott posed with a brow up in puzzlement. “I suppose we should call it something, sir.”
“Mayami, perhaps… for the local tribe,” Lewrie speculated.
“Signal from Lizard, sir!” Midshipman Warburton called down to the deck from his perch at the top of the starboard main-mast shrouds, almost to the futtocks of the-main top. “Two vessels to starboard and ahead! Anchored! ”
“And, there’s the
settlement, dead ahead, sir,” Lt. Westcott pointed out, “the cook-fires we saw last night are still burning.”
“Right where the river joins the bay, aye,” Lewrie said. “Just heave a net, dip a bucket, and there’s your breakfast and tea-water! Damme, do they look as asleep as I think they look? Two signals, Mister Eldridge!” he barked in rising excitement. “The first to Thorn. Make, her number, and engage shore. By the larboard halliards.”
“Aye, sir!” Eldridge replied, turning to the ratings of the Afterguard who stood by the transom flag lockers, and fumbling with his illustrated lists of signals to call out the right numerals.
“Might be hard to read in this light, sir,” Westcott warned.
“But streamin’ to loo’rd in plain sight,” Lewrie countered, “and if Darling kens the half of it, he may get my intent. For now, crack on a bit more sail, Mister Westcott, and let’s close up within hailing distance, just in case. Let fall the fore course, and hoist the foretopmast stays’1 and outer flying jib.”
Lewrie turned to see Eldridge and the signalmen just then bending on the last code flag to the halliard. They were slow, or Eldridge was not yet familiar with the duty, but he could not goad him to haste… yet. Eldridge seemed to blush, and sped his men to hoist away. Lewrie lifted his gaze to watch the signal soar aloft, then took a few steps aft to tell Eldridge, “Once Thorn shows the ‘Affirmative,’ or the ‘Repeat,’ strike that’un, and the second signal will be to Firefly and Lizard. Their numbers, ‘General Chase,’ and ‘Engage The Enemy More Closely’… on the starboard halliards, if ye please.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Eldridge replied very formally, as if expecting criticism.
“Damme, we’ve finally something t’shoot at!” Lewrie chortled, putting Eldridge at ease, and raising a smile.
The light winds were just abaft of abeam, so the string of code flags to Thorn stood out a bit limply to larboard; legible, if the sky brightened a bit more. After a long moment’s wait…
“From Thorn, sir!” Warburton shouted. “The ‘Affirmative’!”
“Strike larboard for the ‘Execute’,” Eldridge ordered his signalmen. “New hoist ready to starboard… Ready? Hoist away, smartly!”
Lt. Bury in Lizard, and Lt. Lovett in Firefly, must have been expecting such an order, perhaps longing for one, for each rapidly put up the single flag for “Affirmative” and began to spread more sail, angling off to starboard to close the suspicious anchored ships almost before Reliant ’s hoist had been two-blocked.
“We’ll fall in trail position aft of Firefly, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie snapped. “Mister Spendlove?” he called down to the waist.
“Aye, sir?”
“Open the starboard gun-ports and run out!” Lewrie gleefully told him. “And stand by to engage at close range!”
The gun crews gave out a loud, inarticulate growl of approval as the port lids were raised, and the gun-captains summoned the boy powder monkeys from amidships with the first charges of propellant.
A minute or two later, the sun burst above the Eastern horizon, and all that had been murky and ill-defined stood out starkly. Forests and beach-trimmed shores, the meagre clutch of shacks and large canvas tents ashore near the mouth of the river, and the anchored ships now could be seen in detail.
“No flags showing on the anchored ships, yet, sir,” Lt. Westcott noted.
Both of them were two-masted, either topsail schooners or Bermudan or Jamaican sloops, neither much longer than Lizard or Firefly, with their jib-booms and bow-sprits steeved closer to the horizontal than was the usual fashion in merchant ships or purpose-built warships. Their hulls were so dark that they were almost black, with narrow hull stripes; on the nearest was a dark blue stripe, and on the furthest an odd blue-grey. Their masts were raked aft a bit more than usual, as if they followed the American shipbuilding fashion.
“Aha! Wakey-wakey!” Lewrie snickered after he lifted his telescope, and spotted men popping up on their decks, dashing about in confusion, as if ordered to man their guns, make sail, and cut their anchor cables, all at the same time. But they had no time.
Just bloody beautiful! Lewrie exulted; Them, the bay, everything! The bay was an artist’s palette of dark greens, aquas, and jade, sparkling in the dawn light like a field of gems. And the trap he’d sprung…!
“Note in the log, Mister Caldwell,” Lewrie called over to the Sailing Master, “that Lizard and Firefly opened upon the near vessel at… a quarter ’til six A.M.,”
Damme, that’s well done, Lewrie appreciatively thought as Lizard, the slightly stronger ship in weight of metal, stood up to the nearest sloop and wheeled to lay abeam of her at a range of a single cable before she opened fire off the sloop’s starboard bows, sails reduced and making a slow steerage way so Lt. Bury’s gunners might be able to get off a second or third broadside in passing. Firefly followed in her wake, wheeling abeam in succession to add her four starboard 6-pounders a bit later.
At such close range, it was almost impossible to miss. Shot-splashes rose close-aboard the sloop’s waterline, and roundshot punched holes below the sloop’s row of gun-ports, and smashed chunks from her bulwarks, staggering her masts.
A few of the first sloop’s gun-ports swung up, and stubby gun muzzles appeared as some were run out, but only two fired, aimlessly, before a scramble began to her un-engaged side as her crew abandoned the fight, leaping over the larboard rails for their boats, or a long swim to the beach.
“Carry on, Bury, carry on!” Lewrie yelled as if his voice would reach that far, hoping that the little two-ship column could engage the second sloop before she could prepare herself for battle.
“We’re almost at a cable’s range of the first, sir,” Westcott judged aloud.
“My compliments to Mister Spendlove, and he’s to open upon her the instant he deems it feasible, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered, quite looking forward to the thunder and clouds of powder smoke.
“Aye aye, sir!” Westcott replied. “Hoy, Mister Spendlove!”
The second sloop had managed to cut her single anchor cable and was paying off leeward as her crew got up a jib, and her main fore-and-aft gaff sail, very slowly sagging and swinging her bows towards the leading British ship, Lizard. Bad luck for her, for all that was doing was presenting her weak bow scantlings to a rake, and closing the range to her own mauling.
“ As you bear… by broadside… fire!” Lt. Spendlove shouted, waiting for the decks to pause on the faint scend and the up-roll, when it was level and still.
The range was about a quarter-mile to the first sloop when the first of Reliant ’s broadsides lit off, 12-pounder bow chase gun, all the starboard 18-pounders, the quarterdeck 9-pounders, even the 32-pounder carronades with their elevating screws fully down and their muzzles lifted to the fullest safe elevation.
The 6-pounders of the smaller ships had nipped and bitten the anchored sloop, but Reliant ’s broadside was an iron avalanche. Just before the thick bank of spent powder smoke blotted out their view, Lewrie got a quick glimpse of bulwarks and upper planking shattering in dusty clouds of splinters and chunks, of large, irregular holes blossoming in her sides, and of both masts and tops’l yards coming apart in darting zig-zags of jagged ruin.
As the guns were swabbed, and the recoil and run-out tackle overhauled, the light winds wafted the reeking powder smoke alee to larboard, giving Lewrie a clearer view with his day-glass.
“I don’t think she’ll be needin’ another broadside,” Lewrie said, chuckling. The target was dis-masted, almost level with where the tops of her bulwarks had been, if they hadn’t been blown to kindling. There were several holes in her upper and lower hull planking, and a large one just by her waterline. If anyone was still aboard her, they were out of sight.
Lizard and Firefly were engaging the further sloop, which by then was helplessly bows-on to their fire. Bury and Lovett had closed the range to the point that even their swivel guns were yapping like terriers. That sloop was being sieved with shot!
What’s Thorn doing? Lewrie wondered, stepping over to the lee rails to get a better look. The smoke from his ship’s guns, and the guns of the smaller ships, had mingled and accumulated rapidly, held together, perhaps, by the early-morning humidity, making a thick and drifting haze ahead and to larboard, but he could make out Thorn as she stood in close to the shore and the river mouth, and that encampment, beam onto Reliant. She was wreathed in smoke from her stubby but powerful carronades. Beyond her, trees and bushes writhed, the large tents and shelters were being whipped away, and Thorn must have hit something explosive, for there was a burst of flame and a thick cloud of dark smoke, and a shower of hot sparks that set even more of the camp afire.
“Ehm, captain, sir,” Mr. Caldwell cautioned. “It’s getting a tad shallow for us. Perhaps…”
“Aye, Mister Caldwell,” Lewrie replied. “Mister Westcott, lay us two points alee, into the deeper water to loo’rd. Mister Spendlove? We’re falling off alee. Serve that second sloop as best you can!”
“Quoins out a bit,” Lt. Spendlove instructed his gun-captains. “And aim small, lads. Ready, the battery? On the up-roll by broadside… fire!”
The second sloop was almost bows-on to Reliant, with Firefly and Lizard standing well clear beyond her by then. The range would be closer to half a mile, and the target narrow, but the broadside roared out. Already damaged, that sloop shivered like a stand of saplings to the weight and fury of the frigate’s hail of roundshot. Her jib-boom, bow-sprit, and foremast were scythed away, and misses frothed the waters close aboard her.
“Drop it, Mister Spendlove! Dead’un!” Lewrie shouted down to the waist, jeering in the vernacular of the rat-pit to urge a terrier to go kill another. “Cease fire, and secure!”
Beyond the shattered sloops there were several rowing boats, all pulling madly for the far shore or the long strip of barrier islands, like a gaggle of panicked ducks.
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