Reefs and Shoals (41 page)

“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 privateer, 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?”

“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 began 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.”