Reefs and Shoals (39 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

His dreaded come-down, that “kick in the fundament” came not a day later as HMS
Reliant
butted her way South against the currents of the Gulf Stream to meet with the small consorts of the squadron. It came from the First Officer, Lt. Westcott.

“Seems to me, though, sir, that strongly suspecting where the privateers are being victualled by this Treadwell fellow, if indeed it is he who is in collusion with them, and nabbing them in the act, are two different things entirely, sorry to say,” Lt. Westcott mused as he and Lewrie strolled the quarterdeck from the taffrails to the nettings at the fore end, and back again, with Lewrie next to the windward rail and Westcott in-board.

“There is that,” Lewrie gloomily agreed as they halted and turned to face each other before headed aft once more. “If we keep close watch on the area, they won’t ever show up, like watchin’ a boilin’ pot, which never does ’til ye leave it be. And a close watch is sure t’raise the ire of our American ‘cousins’.”

“Well, it may be worse than that, sir,” Westcott went on. “We haven’t a single clue as to which barge, or barges, that leave Savannah are sailing on innocent passages, and which are engaged in dealing with privateers. We can’t be certain if the ones that put into Cumberland Sound or either of the river mouths
are
aiding enemy raiders, or just making a tidy profit by selling neutral American goods to the Dons in Spanish Florida, which is perfectly legal. Bothersome to us, but still legal, since the United States and Spain are not at war.”

“Good God, d’ye mean that this Treadwell is makin’ money on the sly by landin’ goods with the Dons, who can sell it or give it later to privateers, and there’s nothing we could do about it?” Lewrie exclaimed. “Mine arse on a band-box!”

He hadn’t thought of that, and it irked to hear of it.

“It would be a clever dodge, sir,” Westcott said with a brief, sour grin, “with no real risk to his purse, his hide, or his repute in Savannah Society. Even if caught at it, he could thumb his nose at us and just sail away.”

I’m an idiot,
Lewrie chid himself;
a cack-hand, droolin’
…!

“Then, there is the problem of how often, and when, the barges are to meet with a privateer, sir,” Lt. Westcott added. “A schooner or small brig with a crew large enough to man her and fight her, and carry extra hands and mates for prize-parties, might be able to keep the sea for two or three months, whether they take any prizes or not. Is that the arrangement, since communications ’twixt their source of supply and their ship are impossible? Every two or three months for a ‘rondy’, sir, or do the barges cache supplies for them on shore and sail away?”

“Fairy stuff,” Lewrie said with a sniff. “Leave bisquits and milk on the stoop at night, and find a purse of gold coins come daybreak? Like hell! Who knows
who
could pilfer the goods in the meantime, or make off with the payment before the barges could return to pick it up?”

“Just a thought, sir,” Westcott said, with a shrug and a laugh. “No, it would make more sense if they had arrangements for face-to-face meetings, but when, or where, and how often are the mysteries. And, do they vary, I wonder.”

I could learn to loathe him,
Lewrie quietly fumed.

“One could be in the Saint John’s River, safe as houses even if caught in Spanish territory,” Westcott relentlessly schemed on, “and the next set for the Saint Mary’s, the third behind Cumberland Island, then back to the Saint John’s and
etcetera
and
etcetera.
”

“Might be a tad too complicated,” Lewrie countered.

“True, sir,” Westcott allowed, nodding his head toward Lewrie. “Though, were I in the looting trade, I would make such arrangements, to keep anyone hunting me in the dark for as long as I could. I fear, though, sir, that catching our privateers and their abettors red-handed is almost impossible. As you say, we can’t lurk off Savannah, and chase after any barges heading South of Jekyll or Cumberland Islands, not with a frigate … not with any of the ships in our squadron, either. They could spot us a dozen miles off on a good day, and put into Brunswick and lay up ’til we have to sail on, playing innocently dumb, then finish their voyage, laughing at our haplessness.”

“And, we can’t leave a picket line of ship’s boats as watchers, either,” Lewrie fumed. “They’d be able to shadow them, perhaps, but they’d have to signal us that the game’s afoot, and that puts
Reliant
or the others within sight from the barges. Well, shit.”

“Finally, sir…,” Lt. Westcott said with a mournful, sigh.

Dammit, just hammer it home,
do! Lewrie thought.

“… even if we could stand into the sounds and the rivers as if they were all enemy waters,” Westcott pointed out, “the odds are that we would do it at the wrong time, and there would be nothing there, even if we
did
know the exact spot where they meet, every time.”

Lewrie came to a halt near the larboard taffrail and the flag lockers, his mouth wryly pursed, with his hands in the small of his back. He spent a long time studying the toes of his boots, then the seaward horizon. At last he hitched a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh, sourly wondering if one’s body could deflate as completely as one’s high-flown hopes and schemes!

“I might’ve over-thought this whole problem, Mister Westcott,” he told his patient First Officer. “The straight-forward thing for us to do is to trail our colours up and down the Florida coast, from just below Saint Augustine to the Cumberland Sound.
Thorn
,
Lizard
, or
Firefly
can stand in much closer than
Reliant,
and, when we
do
reach the Northern end of our patrolling, we can send one or two of ’em in within three miles before we put about.”

“Aye, sir,” Westcott said, nodding.

“Nice, and slow under reduced sail, so we linger for a while off the entrance to the Saint Mary’s River,” Lewrie said on, “perhaps fetch-to for an hour or so, without violating anyone’s neutrality. Whather it’s that Treadwell fellow, a Sea Island planter with a ship of his own, or a trader in Brunswick supplyin’ the privateers, we’ll put the wind up him, and make him think twice about doing anything as long as we’re there often enough.

“You recall that damned convoy we escorted last Spring, sir?” Lewrie asked with more energy.

“Unfortunately, I do, sir,” Westcott said with a wince.

“Once the privateers, at least two of ’em, maybe three, caught their prizes, they hared off Sou’west, which would’ve put ’em off the coast of Georgia, if they held course.” Lewrie sketched out. “There was no place for them to sell their prizes but Saint Augustine, or at Havana, and the shortest way home
was
to the Sou’west,
against
the Gulf Stream current, which don’t make for a fast getaway unless they had shelter, and sure replenishment, somewhere round the border with Florida and Georgia … a place to lay up for a spell and victual for a voyage
to
the nearest Prize-Court! Back yonder is still the right place!” he said, gesturing at their wake, to where they had been.

“So, if we haunt the area below Savannah as often as possible, sir, sooner or later we’ll snare something?” Westcott said, looking hungry and eager to be at it.

“
Fairly
sure, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie assured him. “And even if we don’t, our continual presence will deny any privateers the hope of using their hiding places. Sooner or later, they’ll see that the game is up and look for another source of shelter and re-supply, and whoever it is that aids ’em will have t’give up the business, too.”

“Simple and straight-forward it will be, then, sir,” Westcott said with a laugh, baring his teeth in one of his quick and savage grins, “and a chore that doesn’t keep me up nights in a perpetual fret over who, what, where, and when.”

“Mind, now, I still would dearly like to nab whichever Yankee Doodle is in on it,” Lewrie admitted with a laugh of his own, “wrap the whole business up in ribbon, and toss it into their President Jefferson’s soup, and force him to pay more attention to maintaining neutrality. Maybe even see the bastard hung, or ruined.”

“Deck there!” the main-mast lookout on the cross-trees cried. “Sail
ho
! Strange sail,
two
points off the
starboard
bows!”

“Shall we beat to Quarters, sir?” Westcott eagerly asked.

“Not just yet,” Lewrie decided. “She’s still on the horizon, and most-like, she’s one of ours blockadin’ Saint Augustine. We have time to determine her identity. Mister Caldwell assures me that we are at least six miles off Florida at present, and the strange sail is inshore of us. For now, I’d admire did you make a slight alteration of course towards her. Carry on, Mister Westcott.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Westcott replied, briefly doffing his hat and turning to go to the middle of the quarterdeck.

Simple and straight-forward, is it?
Lewrie scoffed to himself;
So simple that even a fool like
me
can perform it? So much for me to try and be clever
,
Logic and reason really
are
bastards!

“Just a simple
sailor,
me,” Lewrie sang under his breath, then did a few dance steps. “Simple’s all I’ll
ever
be … rovin’ round a
dilberry
tree,” he extemporised on the spot, “Sailin’ all
year
for one
pen
-ney …
arrh
!”

I could play that on my penny-whistle,
he told himself with a laugh;
come up with a whole tune, and sell it all over England!

*   *   *

Within half an hour
Reliant
had fetched the strange sail hull-up over the horizon. Even though miles still separated them, lookouts aloft could espy British colours, then, just to be certain, a reply of flag hoists in that month’s private signals. She was little HMS
Lizard
and Lt. Tristam Bury’s command.

“I wonder if he’s found a new sort of fish,” Lewrie said with a laugh as
Lizard
jogged up to join, about two cables off the frigate’s starboard side.

“Darling, Bury Lovett,” Lt. Westcott japed; “there’s a good fellow. Or, you’ll Bury Darling? I’d Lovett.”

That made Lewrie turn his head to peer at his First Officer.

“We’re not boring you that badly, are we, Mister Westcott?” he asked with an eyebrow up.

“Well, sir, since fetching Bermuda, it has been ‘all claret and cruising’,” Westcott said with a shrug, and a rare sheepish grin, “We had one brief morning’s action at Mayami Bay, and I must admit that I
am
desirous of something … definitive concerning privateers.”

“Or pleasureable?” Lewrie hinted.

Westcott’s answer was a smile and a nod.

“Ye never can tell what’ll fall out before the year’s out, sir,” Lewrie told him. “If nothing else, we might be able to cross hawses with that bastard Frenchman, Mollien, and put paid to
him.
”

“You would take him and his ship to Nassau, and not burn her, sir?” Westcott asked. “Hang what the Prize-Court costs us in the long run in Proctor’s fees. Some brief time ashore would be nice.”

Lewrie knew exactly what was ailing the First Lieutenant, and it was not the lack of combat.
He’s gone so long without a chance to “top” a woman, the Crack o’ Dawn ain’t safe!
he thought.

“I’ll see what I can do, sir,” Lewrie promised. “But … your little play on names’d be best kept to yourself. There’s no need for the ‘younkers’ t’hear ’em.”

“Of course, sir,” Westcott vowed with a wee bow of his head.

Lizard
was rounding up, pointing her bows at
Reliant
as she performed a wide arc to lay herself within hailing distance alongside the frigate’s starboard side, Once she was within musket-shot, and her sheets had been belayed,
Lizard
’s crew began cheering and waving their hats as if the frigate had just come to her rescue, or they had won a victory.

“Hallo, Captain Lewrie!” Lt. Bury shouted over the short distance between them, with a brass speaking-trumpet to his mouth. “It is good to have you back with us!”

“Glad to be back, sir!” Lewrie responded in kind. “What have you been up to in my absence?”

“We have been making a grand nuisance of ourselves, along the coast, as you desired, sir!” Lt. Bury hailed back. “It has been the most delightful
fun
!”

By God, it
must’ve
been, for
Bury
t’sound enthusiastic,
Lewrie thought, recalling how sombre and grave the fellow had struck him at their first meeting.

“We have taken and burned five fishing boats, sir!” Lt. Bury happily went on, with an actual smile on his lean and scholarly face, “and captured two more we thought useful! We made prize of one small Spanish vessel attempting to land military goods at Saint Augustine—she is under
Thorn
’s lee at present, South of here—and we took and burned a Spanish privateer that took shelter from us in Mosquito Inlet”

“Well done!” Lewrie cheered him.

“Oh, buggery,” was Lt. Westcott’s glum, muttered assessment.

“We have made amphibious raids ashore, too, sir!” Bury boasted. “
Near
Saint Augustine! Would you care for a fat boar or two, sir? We brought off what livestock we could find!”