Reefs and Shoals (20 page)

Strange fruits came back aboard the ships, now and then a small deer or wild hog, or some domestic chickens abandoned at a tumbledown collection of shacks.

And they did find settlements, of a sort. From the few who did not flee in fear, they found ragged remnants of the once-feared Calusa Indians, some Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Englishmen “gone native”, along with runaway Black slaves, even some few Muskogee Indians with “itchy feet”, driven from Georgia and Alabama by hordes of American settlers. The Muskogee had a name for those who would not stay in one place for long; they called them Seminoli—“wanderers”.

They lived on fish, on squash and beans and maize corn, and had chickens and pigs. They had some muskets, but were always short of lead and powder, and depended on the bow and arrow. Their homes were little more than lean-tos or raised, roofed, sleeping platforms in the native style, and their boats were hollowed-out mahogany logs A few who could actually speak a little English said that they feared the Spaniards who came up from Cuba to fish, for they were not above slave-catching. Privateers? Big boats? None of them could say. Further up to the East, perhaps, there might be, closer to what was left of the old Mayami tribe? They might know.

*   *   *

“Any luck ashore, Mister Merriman?” Lewrie asked as the Third Officer stepped through the entry-port after a scramble up the boarding battens.

“Same song, a different verse, sir, sorry to say,” Merriman reported, knuckling the brim of his hat in casual salute. “The few we saw are poor as church-mice. Their settlement’s on the bay side, so it took a while to row round to it. Hello, Bisquit! Happy to see me back? Here, boy! I brought you a pig bone!”

The dog seemingly adored every Man Jack in the crew, whining in longing whenever the Marine parties and boat crews, some of the Mids or one of the officers, manned the boats and rowed off, then went into paroxyms of joy at their return.

“The settlement?” Lewrie prompted.

“A
bit
fancier than most, sir,” Merriman replied, beaming at the sight of the dog trotting round the ship’s waist to show his bone off to everybody. “About a dozen huts, but made from sawn planks for floors and walls … roofed with palmetto, though. The flats were so shallow that we had some trouble finding a way to the bay side, so by the time we arrived, they’d all scampered into the bush, but for a few of the oldest, and not one of them knew a word of English or French or my poor Spanish, sir. And the bay, as far as we could see, was empty.”

“Good morning, sir!” Marine Lieutenant Simcock happily said as his boat came alongside, and he made the climb to the deck. Simcock was turned out in Sunday Divisions best, as if ready for inspection, right down to the highly polished silver gorget hung on a chain high on his chest; though his boots looked muddy and caked with sand.

“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.