The Invasion Year

by Dewey Lambdin

  “And the ones bound for Charleston get in sight of the coast, then turn North ’til they find it?” Lt. Simcock further asked. He was not one of those clever fellows who were quick with figures. That was why his family had purchased him a Marine officer’s commission, and discouraged his wish to attend Woolwich and earn a commission in the Royal Artillery. At least aboard a warship, Lt. Simcock could still indulge in his enthusiasm for cannon and loud bangs.

  “Oh, I’d suppose some of the least-skilled may grope their way to port in such fashion, but the experienced mariner would shape his course directly.”

  “There’s many a master in the coasting trade back home who find their way from one seamark to the next,” Lt. Spendlove contributed to the conversation. “People in the fisheries? They go out quite a ways to the good grounds, but all they require is a compass and a chip-log for Dead Reckoning.”

  “There’s many a merchant captain who navigates that way!” Lewrie spoke up from his collapsible chair, with a snort of displeasure. “We have met a fair parcel of them, the last weeks.”

  That raised another round of agreeable laughter.

  Lewrie rose from his chair as the last of the sunset guttered out, and only a top sliver of the sun lingered above the clear horizon.

  “You have the ship, Mister Spendlove,” he told his Second Lieutenant. “I’m bound below for supper. Send for me, should any more of those Yankee ships turn up to terrify our charges.”

  “Aye, sir … though Modeste may alert us, first, should one of them lurch up,” Spendlove said in parting.

  * * *

  “Just in time, sir,” Pettus told him as Lewrie walked over to his dining table to take a seat, pausing to pet Toulon and Chalky, who were already atop it, waiting for their evening meal to arrive from the galley. “A drop of something, sir? A claret? It will be rabbit, tonight, Yeovill tells me.”

  “Aye, thankee, Pettus,” Lewrie agreed, noting that a bottle of claret already stood in the tall fiddles of the side-board, breathing.

  “Yeovill feels un-appreciated, sir … the nights you don’t invite others in,” Pettus rambled on as he inspected a short-stemmed glass for smuts for the third time before pouring Lewrie a measure. “Likes to show off his culinary skills, he does.”

  “Sorry that I disappoint him,” Lewrie said after a first sip of his wine. “I’d best have four or five guests tomorrow night, else he goes pettish. Hungry, are ye, lads? Lookin’ forward to … rabbit?” he teased the cats. That set them off to quivery delight; they knew a few sounds or words like “sausage” or “jerky” and “treats,” that would presage food, as well as they recognised their own names, and would come running (well, some of the time) when called.

  Rabbit in particular; when fitting out and victualling in Portsmouth the year before, Captain Blanding had suggested that rabbits and quail, pigeons, and guinea fowl made a tasty alternative to salt-meats. Even before, in Anglesgreen, there were several large rabbit warrens on Lewrie’s rented farm, so many that they’d get into the truck gardens and eat themselves silly in a single night. It was not allowed to hunt or snare them, for the land belonged to Uncle Phineas Chiswick, Lewrie’s late wife’s relative, but Patrick Furfy was a hellish-clever poacher, and somehow the rabbit population was reduced to a manageable level, and grilled rabbit or jugged hare turned up on Lewrie’s table, and in the cats’ bowls, with regularity. Oh, yes! They knew “rabbit” when they heard it.

  “Cap’m’s cook, SAH!” the Marine sentry outside the doors to the great-cabins bellowed, stamping his boots and musket butt on the decks.

  In breezed Yeovill with the large oval metal barge in his hands. “Good evening, sir,” Yeovill said; perfunctory, that, and equally sketchy was his greeting smile.

  No, he ain’t happy, Lewrie thought.

  “Good evening, Yeovill!” Lewrie replied with forced enthusiasm. “Something smells delightful, I’m bound.”

  “Rabbit, sir,” Yeovill answered, sounding a tad glum as he took the lid off the barge and began setting out smaller pots. “A one big enough for you and the kitties. First off, though, sir … a hearty bean soup.”

  Toulon and Chalky were teetering on the edge of the table, whiskers laid far forward, and their tails twitching. As Yeovill got within pawing distance as he served from the side-board, they stretched paws out to remind him that they were famished, too.

  “Excellent!” Lewrie exclaimed as he sat down and whipped his napkin over his lap, though thinking the old saw “There’ll be foul winds from astern by morning”!

  “A lot of pepper sauce, the way you like it, sir,” Yeovill added as he set a bowl of soup before him.

  From Toulon and Chalky came hungry trills and outright wails of demand.

  “If you’ll pardon me, sir, I’ll see to the eats whilst you eat your soup?” Yeovill asked, and lifted out a small pot from which he spooned shredded rabbit, rice, and un-seasoned beans into their bowls.

  “Aye, go right ahead, Yeovill. They’re starving,” Lewrie said between spoonfuls. “Always glad t’see you, they are.”

  “Er, thankee, sir,” Yeovill replied, with a tad more warmth than before, and a slightly broader grin. “The rabbit, sir, I roasted with salt, pepper, and a dash of Jamaican seasonings, then topped off with a large dollop of red plum jam, as you might with venison. There’s sweet potato with butter, boiled peas and … baked cornmeal pones, to boot, sir!” Yeovill boasted. “What Mister Cooke showed me how to make without milk or eggs. One would go handsomely with the soup, this minute.”

  “Aye, it would,” Lewrie agreed as Yeovill took the cloth cover off the separate bread barge and placed one on the side of his plate by the soup bowl. “Uhm! Hot and fresh! You’re a wonder, Yeovill.”

  Christ, he’s worse than dealin’ with a wife! Lewrie thought as he bit into the pone; what the ship’s freed slave Black cook called a hot-water-drop pone. It was good, though!

  “Thankee for saying so, sir,” Yeovill replied, pleased that his efforts had garnered praise. Yeovill had come aboard from an inn that had burned down, losing his position, and fancied himself a chef in the French restaurateur style; he’d even come with a large chest containing his own pots, pans, knives, and an host of sauces and seasonings.

  For a man who knew his way with victuals, Yeovill was a thin’un, with a rough complexion and a shock of light brown hair so curly that it looked like friz … especially so since he had let it grow out into a seaman’s queue; the hair bound back at the nape of his neck stood out like a bottle brush, or a frightened cat’s tail.

  “Oh, I’ll be having five supper guests tomorrow night, Yeovill,” Lewrie told him. “First Officer, Purser, Lieutenant Simcock, and two Mids. Thought I’d warn ye now, not wait ’til breakfast.”

  “Supper for six, sir?” Yeovill said, perking up devilish-glad. “Depend on me, sir!”

  “Excellent!” Lewrie rejoined. “I knew I could.”

  “Well, I will leave you to it, sir,” Yeovill said with a satisfied sniff, and a slight bow from the waist. “If Jessop can return the servers to the galley when you’re done? Oh! Forgot to mention, but there’s a wee apple turnover to go with your port and cheese, sir!”

  “You spoil me, Yeovill, ’deed ye do,” Lewrie praised further. Once Yeovill had left, Lewrie cast a wry grin at Pettus, who was filling a plate with his entrée.

  “Aye, sir,” Pettus agreed with a roll of his eyes. “But, he is a wonder, even so, sir.”

  * * *

  Lewrie had dined later than usual, later than his officers, as was the custom. Barely had he finished a single glass of port and a meagre slice of cheddar that had not gone red-wormy yet, than the ship’s Master At Arms, Mr. Appleby, and the Ship’s Corporals, Scammell and Keetch, began their rounds to assure that all lanthorns and glim candles were doused for the night at 9 P.M., as soon as Two Bells of the Evening Watch were struck. He took himself on deck for one last turn, with his coat on this time against the cool wind and damp.

  “Captain’s o
n deck,” Midshipman Houghton warned the others.

  Lt. Spendlove shifted from the windward bulwarks to amidships of the quarterdeck to accommodate Lewrie’s presence. “Evening, sir,” he said.

  “All’s quiet, Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie asked, once settled by the main-mast shrouds.

  “Mostly, sir, though … I was about to send for you to ask if I might post a lookout aloft,” Spendlove hesitantly said. “The lookouts on deck … we’ve spotted several lights, the last few hours, sir. Ships passing Sutherly inshore of the convoy, at least three for sure. And, there was one ship bound South on the windward horizon.”

  “More American merchantmen?” Lewrie asked with a scowl, and one lifted brow. “How far off, the inshore ones?”

  “Very possibly, sir,” Spendlove replied, shrugging. “As to the ones to leeward of us, they seemed to be at least ten or twelve miles off, right on the horizon. The one up to windward, sir…,” Spendlove added, sweeping an arm out to starboard.

  “Aye,” Lewrie said, stepping up onto the slide of a carronade carriage, then atop the barrel to the top of the bulwarks, clinging to the thick tarry cables of the shrouds, and of half a mind to go out-board and clamber up the rat-lines for a better view.

  For that mysterious set of ship’s lights was still visible from the quarterdeck, and a higher vantage point might tell them more about the strange ship that displayed them.

  “No signal from Modeste?” Lewrie asked, chiding himself for the uselessness of his question at once. If the flagship had been worried, there would have been blue-light fusees burning in her main tops, and signal rockets whooshing skywards by the dozen; alerting guns would be roaring and ruining his supper!

  “None so far, sir,” Lt. Spendlove told him in a neutral voice.

  Most-like he’s bitin’ his cheek not t’laugh at such a hen-head question, Lewrie thought.

  Coming down was harder than going up, in the dark; Lewrie went at it gingerly, so he didn’t crack an ankle by jumping down. He was not as spry as he’d been in his Midshipman days.

  “Aye, post lookouts aloft, in the fore and mizen tops,” Lewrie directed, rubbing his hands with a cheap calico handkerchief to remove the cold tar that had stuck to him from the shrouds. “Have we night-glasses to spare?”

  “Do I lend mine, sir, aye,” Spendlove volunteered.

  “Mister Westcott will be taking the Middle for Mister Merriman tonight,” Lewrie remembered. “When he relieves you, my compliments to him, and he’s to post lookouts aloft as well.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  “Carry on, Mister Spendlove. Pay me no mind,” Lewrie bade him. “I only came for the air.” He paced aft down the starboard bulwarks, right to Reliant’s own glowing taffrail lanthorns, shielding his eyes from the brightness to peer seaward at the strange set of lights, with his hands cupped to either side of his brows.

  Those lights were faint, and very far off, and about four or five points abaft of amidships. It was too dark to spot her sails to determine if the strange vessel was bound South, or was idling under reduced sail on a course matching their own … waiting for a chance to crack on and dash up to the convoy during the dull hours of the Midle Watch.

  Still shielding his eyes, Lewrie crossed over to larboard and peered out at the other lights. From the height of the quarterdeck above the ebony-black sea, all he could determine of them was that one set of lights was only a point or two abaft, and the two South of her were even further astern of Reliant, and far astern of the bulk of the convoy. The newly-posted lookouts aloft might be able to see more of them, but only a little more.

  As Lewrie watched, the Sutherly-most set of lights winked out, making him stiffen. Had she doused them? No, they winked to life one deep breath later—both that distant vessel and Reliant had sloughed into wave troughs at the same time, he realised—then winked out again, and did not re-appear, even as the frigate rose atop the waves.

  Hopefully over the horizon, and innocent as a baby chick, Lewrie thought … with fingers crossed; Damme, forget a decent hour or three o’ sleep! I’ll be up half the night in fret!

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Oh, dear Lord, what a bloody…!” Lt. Westcott began to shout, then thought better of it. “They’re all a pack of ninnies and…!”

  “All I ask is you don’t let us be rammed or trampled, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said, with his fingers crossed again, and a look of sheer stupefaction on his phyz.

  A quarter-hour before the start of the Forenoon Watch at 8 A.M., Modeste had put up a flag hoist that would release the merchant vessels bound for Georgian or Carolinian ports. Unfortunately …

  Civilian shipmasters were, in the main, not used to the customs of the Royal Navy. The flag signal, two-blocked at the peak of the halliards, should have been taken as the Preparative, put up early enough for even the dullest, sleepiest lookouts or mates of the watch aboard the trading vessels to have time to, One; See it. Two; Look up what it meant in their signals book and read it. Three; grasp what the Devil it meant. And Four; Act upon it when it was struck down, not before!

  As soon as the signal went aloft, however, and two guns were fired to direct all ships’ attention to it, some of the Americas-bound vessels hauled their wind that instant, going broader on the breeze; some with the winds fine on their starboard quarters, some others settling on a “soldier’s wind” to the Nor’west with the breeze square on their sterns, and “both sheets aft.” Yet a few others wore about to take the Sou’easterly wind on their larboard quarters, bound Due West for Savannah, Port Royal, and Beaufort.

  “Two bloody hours to herd them back together … for this!” Lt. Westcott grumbled some more, astounded by the chaos that that Preparative hoist had engendered.

  “Just fire into the most threatening, sir,” Lewrie told him with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, as the somewhat orderly nature of the convoy shredded in an eyeblink.

  It was regrettable that those Americas-bound merchantmen weren’t all in the landward columns; they were scattered throughout the convoy like raisins in a duff. To obey that signal, assuming they had seen it or paid the slightest bit of attention, they had to wheel about onto a new course, whilst the bulk of the ships bound for ports further North or for England stood on to the Nor’-Nor’east.

  Well, they did ’til the ship that was waddling along two cables to windward decided to haul her wind and come down, or the ship wallowing ahead altered course, forcing the vessel down for the long voyage to wheel about to avoid a collision, too! Which wheel-about frightened the ship astern or to starboard to duck away as well, which laid her on a collision course with one of those departing ships that had come swanning leeward in dumb—very dumb!—obedience to that signal.

  “Harden up windward two points, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie snapped as that idiotic, half-rotten Turtledove, which had been lagging astern all through the night, put her helm over to wear to Due West; as slow as she was, she would be beam-on to Reliant in another minute, as good as shouting, “Hit me amidships, I dare you!”

  “Another two points!” Lewrie ordered half a minute later as the Turtledove’s sorry collection of gammers and clueless teens took an age to complete their wear-about to larboard tack, and was making as much a rate of knots as a drifting log.

  “Thankee for the escort, Reliant!” her aged captain whinnied as the frigate shaved past her at long musket-shot. “We will take it from here!”

  “I hope ye bloo…!” Lewrie began to shout back through a brass speaking-trumpet, but forebore. “I hope you have a safe passage!” he said instead. “You cunny-thumbed, cack-handed clown!” he muttered to himself.

  “Oh God, I can’t stand it!” Lt. Merriman said, holding his arms round his middle and wheezing with laughter. “What an idiot!”

  “I say now, don’t the columns look rather … queer?” Marine Lt. Simcock, on the quarterdeck to take the morning air, pointed out. “One would think they’d seen a privateer, or something. Normal, is it?”

  Reli
ant indeed had a fine view of sheer terror; after-most of the escorts, at the tail-end of those four long columns which were now haring off in penny-packets no larger than two or three, and all on disparate courses, they could witness it all.

  “Modeste has struck her signal, sir,” Midshipman Munsell reported. “The Execute is ordered.”

  “About bloody time!” Lewrie snorted. “Mister Westcott? We’ll ‘Spanish reef’ the main course and tops’l for a bit, and get a way off her, else we’ll tangle with the after-most ship of the windward column.”

  She was a large three-master, nigh the size of an Indiaman, and had ended up at the end of her column due to her lack of speed, and was looming up quickly. Her master and mates on her quarterdeck were peering astern with their eyes so blared open that Lewrie fancied that he could see the whites of their eyes at a full cable.

  Hands aloft quickly clewed up Reliant’s main course and main tops’l to reduce the spread of canvas, and her own speed, turning the wind-full sails into lubberly bags, even as the merchantman’s sailors scrambled aloft to shake reefs from her own sails and get a way on. It would make her fast enough to avoid collision with the frigate, but it would also push her along a knot faster than the ship ahead of her in column, which would “put the wind up” that one, forcing her to spread more canvas or turn alee, threatening whichever vessel lay ahead or to leeward of her, and…! It was like watching an overly hopeful child’s stack of wooden blocks come crashing down!

  “Ehm … should someone have planned for…?” Lt. Simcock hesitantly asked, looking about completely clueless. “Isn’t there anything to be done?”

  “Cross your fingers, Arnold,” Lt. Merriman said, tittering with now-subdued amusement. “Say a prayer, if you like.”

  “Cross your legs and guard your ‘nut-megs,’ too, sir,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Caldwell, guffawed. “Gawd, I haven’t seen the like in all my born days! Like a pack of headless chickens!”