Reefs and Shoals (49 page)

“Ehm … Merriman will command our ship, sir?” Westcott asked. “Where will you be?”

“I think I’ll go in aboard one of the gunboats,” Lewrie said, “either yours, or Spendlove’s.”

“You will, sir?” Westcott gawped.

“Spendlove’s,” Lewrie announced. “I’d not wish t’crimp your style, Mister Westcott.”

“Ehm, well … thank you, sir,” Westcott said, grinning.

“I’ve been bored shitless, I’ve been insulted, demeaned, and I’ve been rebuffed and dismissed at every port we’ve called at,” Lewrie went on. “Not to mention discumbobulated and mystified, and, now that there is a good chance the privateers, their prizes, and this blood-thirsty Treadwell bastard might be there with some of his damned barges, damme if I’ll miss a shot at settlin’ their business for good and all!”

He paused a moment to look up at the commissioning pendant and the top-masts, rocking on the balls of his booted feet.

“Besides, Mister Westcott, even if they
ain’t
there, and we hit an empty bag, at least we’ll be
doin’
something!”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

“Anchored by best bower and kedge, sir, with springs on the cables, and the guns will be manned and loaded once all our boats are clear,” Lt. Merriman reported. The night was so dark without a moon, and the usual lights at forecastle belfry, binnacle cabinet, and the taffrail lanthorns extinguished, that Lewrie could not see that officer’s glum expression, though he could hear the disappointment in his voice.

“Very well, Mister Merriman, you have charge of the ship until our return,” Lewrie told him. “Mister Spendlove, Mister Westcott, are the gunboats alongside?”

“One to either beam, sir,” Spendlove reported, “and the barges and cutters waiting astern of them for boarding.”

“Let’s get on with it, then,” Lewrie ordered, resisting an urge to pull out his pocket watch. It was so dark that that would be bootless, for the night’s gloom did not allow even the faintest hint of starlight by which to read it; there had been a warm and steady rain offshore that afternoon, and the skies were solidly overcast after its ending.

Sailors and gunners descended the man-ropes and battens to the gunboats, followed by files of Marines with muskets. Lewrie waited ’til the last had left the ship before clumsily descending, himself, burdened with both his double-barrelled pistols and a cartridge pouch and brass priming flask, his rifled breech-loading Ferguson musket and a second cartridge pouch and priming flask for that, as well, along with his hanger on his left hip.

“There is a hooded lanthorn under a scrap of canvas aft, sir,” Spendlove offered, “do you wish to determine the time.”

“Good. You have your copy of the river chart?” Lewrie asked.

“Right here, sir,” Spendlove assured him, patting his chest coat pocket, “though it may be some time before we may refer to it,”

Before
Thorn
had returned from Nassau to rejoin the squadron, Lt. Westcott with his draughting skills, and Bury with his artistic talents, and Lewrie’s clerk, Faulkes, had made free-hand copies of the chart for all officers and Mids in charge of the boats, distributed to all captains at a planning conference aboard
Reliant
the day before they departed the Northwest Providence Channel for the Georgia coast. Once the slightly brighter pre-dawn greyness came, they might prove useful.

“Shove off, there, bow man,” Spendlove ordered in a theatrical loud whisper. “Ship oars … and give way.”

The converted fishing boat moved off only a long musket shot before the hands rested on their oars, and let her lie rocking on the tide and current, making room at the entry-ports for the cutters and barges to be manned and rowed off to join her.

As Lewrie waited, he peered out to either beam, searching for
Lizard
and
Firefly
to see how they were coping with disembarkation. Clear of the ship, he could barely make out the faintest ruffles of slightly whiter water breaking along their waterlines, and further off, the hint of lazy lake-like waves breaking on the shores of Cumberland Island and Amelia Island. Ahead of his gunboat, the river was as black as his boots!

He sat himself down on a damp thwart near the tiller, fighting the urge to duck under the canvas to check his watch by the light of that hooded lanthorn. The less of that, the better, but … this sort of complicated operation could not be done in
complete
darkness.

The final plan that they had threshed out at the conference in
Reliant
’s great-cabins made allowance for
some
signal lights during the darkest part of the night and the wee hours of the morning. Once all the various boats were manned and on the water, bobbing about like so many sleeping ducks, Lewrie would order two flashes from that lanthorn to the rowing boats to head up the entrance channel. A second series of
three
flashes to Lt. Westcott’s gunboat and he would begin to row after the boats in his division. Four flashes would be directed to
Lizard, Firefly,
and
Thorn
to begin to make way in their rear, with the two smaller sloops employing their rarely used sweep oars, and
Thorn
doing her best against the current and ebbing tide under sail.

What sort of shambles, what sort of pot-mess that several hours could produce almost could not be contemplated! If
Thorn
could not breast the current, she and her heavy guns might end up too far back when dawn broke, and might end up using her original ship’s boats and more of her reduced crew to
towing
her into action!

The longer that Lewrie sat and pondered, fretting and squirming, the dafter his plan became, and he began to feel sure that when dawn did come, he began to feel torn as to which would make him look even more foolish—how badly it had fallen apart, or that they had stumbled in to find no sign of privateer, prize, or criminals!

“I’ll take a peek at the time,” he whispered to Spendlove, at last, ducking under the canvas, opening the shutter of the lanthorn, and discovering that it was almost 4
A.M.

If Caldwell’s right about the tides,
he thought, dredging up one lean scrap of hope,
slack-water’s over, and it’s beginning to make.

“I think that I can make out two of our boats astern, sir,” Spendlove said, his whisper muffled by the canvas, “and there are two more off the starboard beam.
Lizard
’s, I think.”

“Are they sparking?” Lewrie asked, emerging from the cover of the suffocating canvas, glad for the sudden rush of cool night air.

“They are, sir!” Spendlove said, sounding not only relieved, but amazed that the boats from
Lizard
assigned to his division would be able to find them in the dark and link up. He drew out an un-loaded Sea Pattern pistol—a heavy and clumsy weapon of such poor accuracy that it was best when fired against a foe’s chest or belly—blew on the pan just to make sure that there was no priming powder, and drew it to full cock. Holding it aloft he pulled the trigger, and the flint created a brief but bright shower of sparks as it scraped down the raspy face of the frisson. That was another necessary violation of complete black-out, but a useful one suggested by Lt. Lovett. “All our boats answer, sir!”

Lewrie stood, resting a steadying hand on Spendlove’s shoulder, and peered far out into the North, looking for a matching set of sparks between Lt. Westcott’s gunboat and his assigned rowing boats.

“Yes, I think I see them!” Lewrie eagerly hissed. “Three … four. They’re all assembled, too. Show two flashes from the lanthorn, Mister Spendlove, and let’s get this procession under way.”

The plan laid out was for assorted rowing boats to lead, with a gunboat close astern of each group. Once past the entrance channel Westcott’s group would take the centre of the river, whilst the boats under Spendlove would press towards the shore of Amelia Island, and the mouth of that river, in case any privateers or prizes were moored there, closest to a quick exit from Cumberland Sound.

Astern of the two boat groups,
Lizard
and
Firefly
would try to row in abreast using their longer, greater sweep-oars, with Lovett’s
Firefly
stationed near the North Bank, and Bury’s
Lizard
, with more 6-pounders, would provide support for Spendlove’s group should they run into awake and well-armed resistance.

At least it looked good on paper,
Lewrie miserably thought as he recalled the last briefing to his officers, his over-sized sketch of the entrance channel, the rivers, and their bends, with pecan shells to represent the major vessels, all moving along in parallel columns abreast, with
Thorn
trailing closely. What it looked like now in the dark, what it would look like when false dawn greyed the sky, would be a sloppy other matter.

Silence was essential, yet the oars still creaked as they were hauled despite the rags over the thole-pins to muffle the
skreak!
of wood-on-wood. Oarsmen had to breathe hard, and sometimes cough. The Marines had to fidget and rattle their weapons and accoutrements, and the gun crew of the 6-pounder carronade now and then created wee rumbling noises as they swivelled the slide platform about. The rush of the river seemed a loud rush-gurgle as the boat ploughed through it, the bow lifting at each rhythmic stroke of the oars.

“I think I can make out our boats, sir,” Lt. Spendlove whispered close to Lewrie’s ear, almost making him jump out of his skin.

It was true. Ahead, Lewrie could barely see the white-painted transoms of the two boats from
Reliant,
and the four others off the sloops! He looked astern and
thought
he made out the foresails and fore gaff sail of
Lizard,
too. A quick duck under the canvas, again, and a furtive slit opening of the hooded, lanthorn showed him that it was almost five in the morning; false dawn would come a quarter-hour later. He closed the lanthorn and came back to the cooler air, looking North to see if he could spot Westcott’s division, but they were still invisible; he didn’t even try to hunt for
Thorn.
To the South, there was nothing to be seen in the mouth of the Amelia River. There were no ship’s riding lights one might expect to see aboard a ship at safe anchorage.

“We’ll have to steer larboard, Mister Spendlove, just to make sure there’s no one in there,” Lewrie said.

“Ehm … how do we tell the other boats to do that, sir?” Lt, Spendlove asked.

It was still thankfully dark enough to hide the stupefied look on Lewrie’s face. He had planned for them to be off the river mouth with just enough light to see up it, and had made no contingency plan for supplemental signals!

“Let the other boats proceed,” Lewrie snapped. “We’ll go a few hundred yards or so up the Amelia on our own, and catch up later.”

“Aye, sir,” Spendlove said with nary a dubious note, and whispered to the helmsman to put the tiller over. The boats ahead rapidly melted back into the gloom, and they were alone, steering South into the river mouth. Lewrie stumbled forward to the boat’s single mast to cling to it and peer ahead.

“Easy all,” Lewrie ordered. “Rest on yer oars for a bit.”

He got the sense that they were further West than the middle channel. There was a strong hint of the bulk of Amelia Island to his left, and a smell of marsh to his right, as if they were nearer to the West bank. What he
could
see was a faint mist beginning to rise and cling to the surface of the water. There were no ships in sight.

“Let’s put about, Mister Spendlove, and catch up our boats,” he ordered after making his way back to the stern.

The larboard oarsmen backed water, the starboard oarsmen pulled, and the gunboat slowly swung about to row Nor’west. As they did so, a spark loomed up off the starboard bows. A moment later there came a second shower of sparks.

“Best answer that, Mister Spendlove,” Lewrie said.

“Hoy, there!” a voice called. “Who are you?”

“Spendlove!” Lewrie replied as loud as he dared.

“
Lizard
, here!” Lt. Bury called back. “For a minute, we almost fired into you! Did you get lost, Spendlove?”

Sure enough, the sloop loomed up in the dark, her sails rustling and her sweep oars groaning.

“We detatched, to look into the river,” Lewrie told him. “My idea. If you swear not t’run us over, we’ll be catching up our boats.”

“I will veer off Nor’west, sir, to avoid that!” Bury promised.

“Let’s get a goodly way on,” Lewrie told Spendlove.

He pulled out his pocket watch once more to duck under the canvas, but found that he could almost make out its white face, and barely identify the hour marks! Turning about, he saw Spendlove referring to his boat-compass without the use of the lanthorn! It was false dawn at last! Without straining he could spot the gaggle of rowing boats that had gone on without him, far off, see the splashes of each oar as they bit the water, and the low, swirling mist they passed through. To the North, he could finally see Lt. Westcott’s division, and
Firefly
astern of them! They looked to be in good order, for a wonder!

The gunboats stroke-oar set a hot pace, and the oarsmen gasped and grunted as they rowed, but they began to close the distance to the other boats, which had swung Nor’-Nor’west for the mouth of the Saint Mary’s River. The Midshipmen in charge of the largest boats from the frigate spotted them, and slowed their stroke to allow them to rejoin.

But, when the gunboat was slightly less than a cable off, there came spark signals from Entwhistle and Grainger, and all of the boats laid on their oars, slowly coasting to a stop.