Reefs and Shoals l-18

by Dewey Lambdin

  “I sent her master and crew ashore, too, sir,” Darling admitted. “With a load of gunpowder aboard, I didn’t wish to risk any of them remaining aboard and creating mischief. I also had it in mind that fifty or more penniless mouths to feed would cause the Spaniards more trouble than it be worth to keep them ourselves. In your absence, sir, you left me in temporary command, so…”

  “Quite so, Mister Darling,” Lewrie had to say after a moment to stifle his frustration; those Spaniards might have known something! “I see the sense of your reasoning. No use cryin’ over spilt milk, hey? She must be sent in to Nassau to be adjudged. I can’t send you…”

  More’s the pity! Lewrie thought.

  “Thank God, sir!” Darling exclaimed with a whoosh of relief.

  “She might not need escort, either, for such a short voyage,” Lewrie mused aloud. “One of your Mids, and enough hands to man her?”

  “So long as I may expect to get them back, sir,” Lt. Darling said, a bit worried. “I am already two hands short of full complement, and my senior Mid, Mister Bracegirdle, is rated Passed Midshipman, and quite valuable to my ship.”

  “For a day or so, he may style himself Sub -Lieutenant, then,” Lovett said with a laugh.

  There were so many small vessels in the Royal Navy like those in Lewrie’s little squadron that were Lieutenants’ commands, that they had, since 1804, been allowed a second Sailing Master to serve as an additional watch-standing officer, and one seasoned Passed Midshipman who would hold the temporary rating of Sub-Lieutenant for as long as he was aboard that particular ship, returning to his Midshipman’s rank when re-assigned. Most of the Navy thought that the term sounded a trifle silly and pretentious.

  “You want him back, sir, he’d best not claim bein’ one,’” Lewrie hooted, “else Forrester’d poach him off you, quick as a wink! Why, with enough hands, and a Sub-Lieutenant, he might be tempted to arm and fit out a jolly boat to protect New Providence from the Dons! That’d be a fine addition to his squadron!”

  “That is, indeed, what I most fear, sir!” Darling said with a mock shiver.

  The rest of their doings along the Florida coast had been just as eventful, and Lewrie’s young officers were more than happy to tell him all. With the use of the larger boats they had seized at Mayami Bay-scrofulous enough to appear civilian, and harmless-they’d sailed or rowed into every inlet they could find, into every river’s mouth, in search of trouble. The few small clusters of huts they had encountered-far too small to even be called hamlets-they had raided and burned to the ground, rounding up what livestock they could catch and sailing off with it. Settlements were few, and the number of settlers even fewer, an amalgam of dirt-poor Spaniards, half-breed survivors of the original Indian tribes, and runaway Black slaves from plantations in Georgia, and the results of inter-breeding of all these who’d come to eke out a living in Spanish Florida. Only twice had they met any resistance to one of their pre-dawn landings; they had raided Matanzas Inlet, cutting out a large thirty-two-foot fishing boat, and had landed armed sailors near the mouth of the shallow Matanzas River, where they had found a ruined earthen fort, a small settlement, and little else. The inhabitants had run off, there was little to loot, and they were just about to return to their boats when a small troop of Spanish cavalry had shown up from St. Augustine, about twenty or so, who had charged them. With a low berm to raise them above the ground, and the remains of the fort’s wall, even sailors could face the terrors of a cavalry charge, and they had skirmished with them, killing two of the soldiers, wounding a few others who had reeled in their saddles, and had run the rest off back to the town.

  “A hellish-scruffy lot, sir, even for soldiers!” Lt. Darling boasted. “Being Spanish, though, what could one expect? The Indians were better at it.”

  During another pre-dawn landing, at Amelia Island, North of St. Augustine, and the burning of what few buildings were there, they had been hailed by an Indian in deer-hide breechclout and vest, his head swathed in what looked like a Hindoo turban with feathers… hailed and cursed out in good English, and told to bugger off if they knew what was good for them! Lt. Lovett had led the shore party, and had laughed him off… ’til the arrows had started flying and several muskets had been fired in their direction.

  “I think their first volleys were more dire warnings than any real attempt to kill us, sir,” the piratical Lovett imparted. “He just popped out of the brush, about a long musket-shot off, said that he and his people were Seminoli, and that we were scaring off the deer, and we should go away, for there was nothing of value to loot, sir. We never got a clean shot at any of them, the way they only stayed in sight long enough to shoot at us, then disappear again. I considered that discretion the better part of valour, and ordered the men to make their way back to the boats, in parties of ten. When they saw that we were going to leave, they stopped shooting, and it was only once we were headed out to the ships that they stood up and showed themselves.”

  “ Met some Seminoli, long ago,” Lewrie was happy to reminisce. “During the Revolution, when we went up the Apalachicola River in West Florida to treat with the Muskogee. The Seminoli are Muskogee, and the new tribe’s name means ‘Wanderers’. With the original tribes wiped out by the Spanish long ago, I s’pose this land’s empty enough t’suit ’em. They let you off easy, Lovett. I once saw a Muskogee bowman take down half a dozen Spanish soldiers and their local Indian allies in half a minute. Notch an arrow, draw, aim, shout ‘ Yuuu! ’ and down they went! Flick, flick, flick! ”

  “Bows and arrows seem so… crude and ancient, though, sir,” Lovett pooh-poohed, raising a laugh among the other supper guests. “Damned near in-elegant!”

  “You’d think so, ’til skewered by one,” Lewrie drolly rejoined.

  “There hangs a grand tale, I should think, sir,” Lt. Westcott, who had been listening to the derring-do of the others, and, most-like grinding his teeth in envy, spoke up at last. “What you were doing in Florida regarding Indian tribes… I believe that you made brief mention at Charleston that you had first made the acquaintance of that gentleman, Mister McGilliveray, with whom you dined ashore, during the Revolution? Something to do with the what-ye-call-’ems, the Muskogee?”

  “A kinsman of his, a younger fellow, was the family firm’s agent to the Muskogee… half-Indian, himself, though educated at Oxford,” Lewrie told them all. “He and a Foreign Office fellow went with us to get them to agree to raiding Rebel lands, with the weapons and powder we brought along. It didn’t turn out well. And, it may be a better tale for another night. Don’t wish to turn into one of those maundering old bores who talk yer legs off over brandy; bad as a soused uncle, hey? What I wonder about, sirs, is what sort of boats did you decide to keep? And, what did you do with those captured carronades?”

  “Well, I got a better, sir,” Lt. Bury said with a shy smile.

  “A hollowed-out log canoe would have been better than that old ark you took, Bury!” Lovett declared with a laugh. “Never saw a worse excuse of a boat, or such a sorry splotch of paint! Bury gave it the ‘deep six’, soon as he snatched up a proper cutter, sir!”

  “It was a tad sick-making, to look upon,” Lt. Bury agreed.

  “Hammered together by a poorly-skilled house carpenter, with not a clue beyond right angles!” Lt. Darling further teased.

  “It was ‘an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own’,” Bury quoted the Bard, showing a faint hint of amusement at their camaraderie and japing.

  “To Bury’s sadly departed boat!” Lovett cried, raising his wine glass in toast. “Long may it frighten bottom-feeding fish!”

  “Seriously, though,” Lewrie said after they had toasted that ugly old scow, “we did keep the carronades? And two larger boats?”

  “One is a thirty-two-footer, about the size of an eight-oared barge, sir, fitted with but one mast,” Lt. Darling told him. “T’other is a about twenty-eight feet, rigged the same. Both are very beamy and of shoal draught. Quite roomy. Before we burned the pr
ivateer, we took off her guns and parcelled them out between us as ballast in our holds. We still do have the carronades, and their swivel mounts, along with all her two-pounder swivel guns and iron stanchions.”

  “Hmm… sounds to me as if they might make passable gunboats for future shore landings,” Lewrie decided. He sopped the last bite of his fresh-baked cornbread through the spicy juices of roast pork, popped it into his mouth, and chewed as he mulled things over. “They were usin’ the carronades as swivel guns as well as bow chasers?”

  “The wooden slide mounts were mounted on swivelling platforms to either bow, sir,” Darling said. “That might have made the privateer a tad bow-heavy, but all in all, it was a rather neat arrangement.”

  “We could mount one in each bow of the captured boats,” Lewrie sketched out. “Mount the captured two-pounder swivels on either beam, perhaps put ten Marines in each as well, and we’d have decent-sized gunboats that could go up the rivers further than our sloops. Do we find a reason, we could put together a whole flotilla of armed boats, and get at any privateers, or supply vessels, no matter haw far up-river they’re anchored. Sail ’em as far as we can, fire the carronades just a few degrees either side of the forestays, then lower the masts and row ’em like they did galleys in the Mediterranean in the old days.”

  “When we do, sir, I implore you, allow me command of one!” Lt. Westcott exclaimed in some heat. “These fellows have been having too much fun. Surely, they could share it round!”

  “‘Who shall have this’un, then?’” Lt. Lovett bellowed, imitating the ritual of the lower deck. “Give it ol’ Westcott; ’e’s deservin’!”

  “Gentlemen, I give you Mister Geoffrey Westcott,” Lt. Darling quickly proposed, making Pettus and Jessop scramble to top up their glasses, “a fire-eater of the first order, ha ha!”

  “‘For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow!’” Lovett sang out, and they tossed their fresh wines back to “heel-taps”.

  “’Deed he is,” Lewrie said once the song was done, “And the very fellow to whip up some drawings of how the carronades are to be mounted on swivelling platforms. A dab-hand artist, I have found.”

  “You draw, sir?” Lt. Bury asked, blinking in surprise. “You must show me your work.”

  “Aye, I’m told by Captain Lewrie that he found your artwork a wonder, as well, Bury,” Westcott replied, “though I must own that it is rare that I attempt sketches in colour. More black-and-white are mine, with passable use of chiaroscuro. ” he said with a modest shrug.

  “I should be delighted,” Bury responded quickly, glad to find a fellow who shared his artistic bent. The others at table shared a few secret amused looks, for they had already heard of Bury’s fishes, and the lengths he went to for accuracy in form and colouring.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” Pettus asked at Lewrie’s shoulder. “Should I clear, and set out the port and bisquit?”

  “Aye, Pettus, so long as ye don’t include the dog,” Lewrie told him with a snicker.

  “Once the new gunboats are made suitable, sir, might we essay further raids ashore… even closer to Saint Augustine?” Lt. Lovett asked with a sly and hungry loot.

  “Yes, now you’re back with us, sir, we could use Reliant ’s Marines,” Lt. Darling enthused. “Let’s see any scruffy Spanish cavalry charge us, then!”

  “Gentlemen, I am delighted with all you’ve accomplished in my absence,” Lewrie told them. “ Damme, but you’re all possessed of such bottom, daring, and cleverly applied energy that I’m fair-amazed by you. Now I’m back, I fully intend to keep the Dons on the hop, just as you did. We shall poke round further North, to see if any French privateers lurk along the lower Georgia coast, as I strongly suspect. Catch one, and frighten the rest off, perhaps? Or, nab a criminal Yankee Doodle who has truck with them, into the bargain, as I hope. It may be that our continued presence up yonder will scare the privateers off to safer hideaways. Blockade them in, and save our commerce? Drivin’ ’em off might have to suit, if we can’t bring ’em to action. But, in the meantime, bedevillin’ the Dons will suit, too!”

  “Confusion to the Spanish!” Lt. Westcott proposed.

  “Confusion to the King’s enemies!” Lovett proposed, next.

  “Really, sir… you spent time among Red Indians?” Darling asked once the din had subsided from their vociferous shouts of agreement with the toasts’ sentiments. “Do the… Muskogee really practice cannibalism, as I heard?”

  ‹IMG style="WIDTH: 32; HEIGHT: 32" src="›

  ‹IMG style="WIDTH: 32; HEIGHT: 32" src="›

  “Not cannibalism, no,” Lewrie said with a chuckle; “I saw no sign of that. No heaps of skulls, either, though there was the odd scalp hung up here and there, but even their principal war chief, a fellow by name of Man-Killer-truly!-of the White Clan, and one of the fearsomest fellows ever I did see… said that it was Whites who started scalping, so they could have proof of payment from the old royal governors. He was a senior war chief, though they didn’t make war all that often. After we got back to the coast and had our set-to with the Dons and their Indian allies, after I got accepted as anhissi, ‘of their fire’, they named me imata or ‘Little Warrior’… though I don’t know if it was said in jest or not.”

  “Ehm… my word,” Lt. Bury said with a gulp.

  “Man-Killer thought it a grand jape t’marry me to a Cherokee girl they’d captured on one of their raids, too,” Lewrie added, chuckling. “I had to pay him a good pistol for the privilege!”

  “You married her, sir?” Lt. Westcott marvelled.

  “Had to,” Lewrie told him, grinning. “She was ‘ankled’, and it was my doing. Think of a ‘sword-point’ wedding, with tomahawks.” He had not intended to, but, since there were no impressionable and innocent Midshipman at-table this evening, he elaborated on the story.

  “Her name was Soft Rabbit. I don’t know t’this day if that was her Cherokee name, or one the Muskogee gave her, but it suited her,” he told them. “First time I saw her was at sundown, when we were bathing at the shore of a lake. Wore nothing but a breechclout, she did, the wee-est, loveliest young woman ever I clipped eyes on, with hair as black as a raven’s wing, and the biggest deer-doe eyes…”

  Lt. Geoffrey Westcott, ever the ship’s Casanova, shifted about on his chair, making it squeak as if to ease himself, too taken by the image to top up his glass of port or pass the bottle larboardly to the next officer.

  Lewrie had no fear that he would be deemed a maundering old bore, for once he began, everyone sat rapt.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  No matter Lewrie’s vow for further amphibious landings, he had to take the little squadron South, again, to peek round Cape Florida into Mayami Bay once more to assure himself that that grand anchorage was not being used. They probed round Cape Canaveral and into the Banana River, then each inlet they found on their way back North to re-commence the loose blockade of St. Augustine. In the main, they found nothing of value to loot or burn, and no sign of privateers from any nation.

  Reliant and Thorn lay at anchor a mile offshore of the Matanzas Inlet once more, whilst Lizard and Firefly were anchored in shallower waters closer in. The two new gunboats, along with a gaggle of ship’s boats, had staged another raid, strong enough to go deeper inland. If they found no enemy, they could forage.

  After the first hour, with no sounds of combat coming from shore, and no tell-tale plumes of smoke from gunpowder discharges or burning huts, Lewrie gave up pacing the shore-side of the quarterdeck, and had his collapsible wood-and-canvas deck chair fetched up, along with his penny-whistle, for a good sit-down and a tootle or two. For a bit, he considered having the quarterdeck awnings rigged, for it was a hot day with light sea winds and a blistering mid-June sun.

  Toulon and Chalky were spraddled out atop the cross-deck hammock nettings like sleeping leopards, and did not even open one slitted eye as he began to work his way through “The Rakes of Mallow.” He was into a second rendition when Bisquit bega
n to howl from beneath the starboard ladderway. Lewrie stopped and the dog stopped. He started again, and Bisquit bayed and yipped like a lonely wolf’s keening. The watch-standers and the hands on deck found it highly amusing.

  “We’ve a singing dog!” Midshipman Grainger hooted to his mates.

  As many nights as possible during the Second Dog Watch, there was music and singing on deck, even some dancing of hornpipe competitions, to mellow the ship’s crew. That was what the posted notices had promised back in Portsmouth when Reliant was recruiting: “music and dancing nightly!” Lewrie would now and then lounge on the quarterdeck to listen or to watch-but he couldn’t recall a time when sailors’ music had set the dog to howling.

  Lewrie got to his feet and looked down into the ship’s waist to eye the dog. Bisquit was out of his wee cobbled-together shelter, or dog-house, and was on his feet, tail wagging, with his head cocked over as if waiting for more. Lewrie fweeped a few random notes, and damned if the dog didn’t throw his head back and bay once more!

  “Ehm, Bisquit does the same, when the Marine fifer plays the rum keg up on deck, sir,” Grainger helpfully offered. “And when the Bosun pipes a salute at the entry-port, he howls then, as well. It must be something about fifes and whistles that excites him, like the horn will stir up the fox hounds.”

  “Have ye noticed if he bays when I play when I’m aft?” Lewrie asked, skeptical.

  “No, sir, not then,” Grainger told him with a grin. “I imagine the sound doesn’t carry far enough, even though his dog-house is right up against the bulkhead to your great-cabins.”

  “D’ye mean t’say, I can only play my bloody whistle when I’m out of ear-shot, Mister Grainger?” Lewrie harrumphed.

  “Ehm, it would appear so, sir,” Midshipman Grainger said, with his eyes alight with mischief, about to break out in titters. Lewrie had never mastered even the penny-whistle, much less proper musical instruments, and his attempts had become a running joke after a while aboard every ship he had commanded.