Reefs and Shoals (50 page)

Mr. Entwhistle was standing and waving his arms over his head to get their attention, then pointing towards the river’s mouth. Two minutes longer on, and the gunboat was within hailing distance.

“Lights, sir!” Entwhistle called out with his hands cupped by his mouth. “Riding lights in the river!”

“By God, they
are
there!” Lewrie crowed, immensely relieved to know that they had not punched an empty bag, that
this
new moon was a rendezvous for a privateer and his supplier. “We’re about to catch
somebody,
Mister Spendlove. Lay on yer oars for a bit, lads. Sorry about the long row. Load your weapons. Load and prime the carronade!”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Once all weapons were loaded, and the oarsmen took up the stroke again, a slower and more cautious one this time, the confluence of the Jolly and the St. Mary’s Rivers spread wide before them, revealing not just one or two ships, but half a dozen anchored up the St. Mary’s. A schooner lay closest to the South bank, stem-on to them as it streamed to the river current. A French Tricolour lazily flew over her transom!

“That’s Mollien’s schooner, by God!” Lewrie said with a laugh. “That snail-eatin’ bastard we saw at Charleston!”

Beyond her lay a larger brig with no flag flying. Up-river on the American side lay yet another brig, with several masted barges at her larboard side. Even further up-river yet another vessel could be seen, this one a full-rigged ship with a few more barges alongside her. And beyond Mollien’s schooner lay a brig that flew a French flag, and another brig with a French flag strung above a British merchant ensign in sign that she was a prize!

“It’s as crowded as the Pool of London!” Lt, Spendlove rejoiced. “Which do we take on, first, sir?”

“The
Otarie
 … the schooner!” Lewrie quickly decided. “She’s the strongest opposition.” He looked round his gaggle of boats, sorting out the best for the task. He would need the Marines, and most of them were in his gunboat and
Reliant
’s two boats. “Mister Rainey?” he called to
Lizard
’s Lieutenant. “We’re taking that’un yonder! Once we do, I wish you and your men to guard any prisoners and take charge of her. Work her out to the middle of the Cumberland if you can. Once that’s done, I’ll take the gunboat and my two boats from
Reliant
and press on to the prize anchored above her. Sergeant Trickett, you and your Marines fix bayonets and be ready to board!”

Please stay sleepin’, just a bit longer!
Lewrie prayed as the boats crept into the St. Mary’s. The men aboard the privateer would be sleeping, snugly anchored. They weren’t Navy men, so they might not keep a strict watch if they weren’t at sea. They might have been carousing the night before, contemplating the value of their prize and might already have money in their pockets from previous captures, and lashings of celebratory drink. If only…!

No lights glowed behind the sash-windows in the schooner’s transom, so her captain might still be abed. Lewrie could not see any men walking her decks. They were only one hundred yards off from her when a hesitant and reedy voice called out
“Qui vive?”
A sailor, no more than a ship’s boy, stood by the schooner’s taffrails in a wool stocking cap over thick blond hair, peering at them wide-eyed with a gaping mouth. The next instant, the lad ran forward with a wordless, shrill or of alarm. The next instant, the schooner’s watch-bell was being rung! “
Garde à vous! Aux armes! Les Anglais, mon Dieu
!”

“Well, shit!” Lewrie spat. So much for stealth. “Gun-captain, d’ye have a clear shot? Then put one right through her transom! Wake her captain up! Go, go, go!” Lewrie shouted to the rest of the boats.

The carronade was swivelled to the proper angle and the round platform was pegged in place. The gun-captain drew the trigger line taut, bent to assure his aim one last time, then leaned away and gave the line a hard jerk, and the carronade squealed back on its slide carriage as it went off with a very loud bang. Sleeping shore birds, sea birds, and a flock of white egrets and blue herons cried in alarm and rose from the marshes and woods in swirling clouds.

The privateer’s graceful wide transom was punched clean through, leaving a star-shaped hole of shattered planking and a cascade of glittery glass shards!

If that don’t wake ’em all up, the damned birds did!
Lewrie told himself as both of
Reliant
’s boats went alongside the schooner, grapnelled to her, and Midshipmen Entwhistle and Grainger led their boat crews and Marines up to her low bulwarks, cheering like mad!

“Come on, come on!” Lewrie exhorted, going to the gunboat’s lone mast once more to take hold of the larboard stays, ready to board her himself. “Lay her alongside her quarterdeck, Spendlove!” Pistols were popping aboard the schooner, and British cutlasses were clashing tinnily with French ones. Feet were thundering as
Otarie
’s sleeping crew came boiling up from below, ready to fight for their lives.

There! There was the schooner’s main-mast chain platform, and handholds by which to scramble up. Three of the gunboat’s sailors and two bellowing Marines preceded him before he could reach out and grab hold. He got his feet on the platform, and a Marine reached back to hoist him up and over. He was greeted by a shot, and the bumblebee drone of a musket ball singing past his ear!

Lewrie spotted the shooter, drew one of his pistols, and cocked both locks, raised it, and fired. One of Mollien’s escorts ashore at Charleston, a large “side of beef”, dropped his musket from nerveless hands and clutched his chest before thudding to the deck on his back!

There were three French sailors who had just emerged from the fore hatchway to their belowdecks quarters. One was shot, one was spitted on a Marine’s bayonet, and the third took a cutlass swing on the side of his neck that halfway decapitated him, raising a fountain of blood and a hopeless scream before he tumbled back down below to block others trying to rush to the deck.

“
Vous!
” Captain Mollien cried, coming to his quarterdeck from an after hatchway, sword in his hand and ready to fight, rushing at Lewrie at once with his small-sword levelled for a thrust.

“You!” Lewrie shouted back, shooting him in the middle of his chest with the second charge in his pistol. Mollien’s charge veered off to Lewrie’s right as the Frenchman stumbled, tripped over his own feet, and fell to his knees by the helm, the hilt of his sword held in limp, twitching fingers. Lewrie stowed his first pistol in a pocket of his coat and drew the second, cocking the right-hand barrel.

“I
told
you we’d nab you ’fore the year’s out, ye little turd,” Lewrie gloated as he stood nearby. “Clumsy try, that.”

Mollien keeled over to lay on his side, mouth gulping for air like a landed fish, his teeth stained red with his own gore. “
Vous.
…
Anglais
 …
pédale
, you cannot…” More blood from a punctured lung gushed, and his eyes glazed over, unseeing.

Damme,
but that felt
hellish
good!
Lewrie thought, turning to face the schooner’s bows in search of a new threat, but it appeared that their boarding action had been successful. There were over one dozen bodies on the deck, un-moving, and several more propped up on gun-carriages or mast trunks, badly wounded. Even more stood crouched with their arms over their head and their hands empty of weapons.

“There’s more of them below, still under arms, sir,” Midshipman Grainger reported, pointing at the hatchway with a bloodied dirk.

“Sergeant Trickett?” Lewrie called for the senior Marine. “I’d admire did you and your men go down the aft hatchway and work your way forrud. Root ’em out. Mister Grainger, how’s your French?”

“Passably good, sir,” Grainger replied.

“Shout down to the hold-outs that we’ll be setting this ship afire in fifteen minutes,” Lewrie instructed him to say, “and if they don’t wish t’burn, they’ll come on deck, un-armed, and quickly.”

There was a great cheer coming from somewhere, and Lewrie turned to find that
Lizard
was passing the privateer schooner close-aboard, her long sweep-oars now stowed away and ghosting along on a very faint breeze. Her crew stood by the bulwarks and rails, waving their hats.

“We will be taking the brig beyond, sir, if you do not object!” Lt. Bury shouted over, waving his own hat on high.

“Aye, Bury, take her and, welcome to her!” Lewrie shouted back, laughing and doffing his own hat. “Go get her, Lizards!”

As
Lizard
wafted by, Lewrie could look across the river and see Lt. Westcott’s boats approaching the prize brig that was surrounded by sailing barges. There were French sailors aboard the brig, a harbour watch; it was a bit too far for him to see if they were armed or not. He was already so laden with weapons that he had not brought his telescope. There were some American sailors aboard her, too, possibly the crew that would have taken her to Havana or other Prize-Court ports.
They
were not waiting around to be captured. They were scrambling to board their barges, cut loose, and make sail up-river, out of reach of the British raid. Others were going over the brig’s starboard side to some rowboats to make a quick dash to neutral ground.

Below his feet, boots were thundering on the schooner’s lower deck, doors were being smashed open, men were shouting, and there was a sharp volley of musketry, and a scream or two, as Trickett and his Marines made their way forward through the mates’ wardroom and into a series of storerooms, bound for the foc’s’le. Lewrie took time to re-load his first pistol and re-prime the pans. By the time that he was through, Lt. Lovett’s
Firefly
was almost up to the prize brig on the American side of the river, and Westcott’s men were swarming the brig and the remaining barges. There were only a few shots fired, and the deck and gangways of the brig looked to be populated only with British tars.

With nothing better to do, Lewrie descended the steep ladder to Mollien’s small cabins. The smell of spent gunpowder was strong, but could not overpower the stench of sweat and soiled and mildewing clothing and bedding.

“Man lived like a pig,” Lewrie muttered. “Did he
ever
bathe?”

He poked around in the wee desk, into a sea-chest, and under the transom settee to the storage lockers. He found the ship’s muster book, Mollien’s accounts ledgers, logs, and a heap of letters, along with the precious Letter of Marque issued by the senior officer commanding at Basse-Terre on Guadeloupe; proof positive that the schooner
Otarie
was “Good Prize” for the Court at Nassau.

All that he stuffed into a pillow case. Lastly, there was one of those boxes that looked like a thick book; when opened, he found heaps of receipts, all from the Tybee Roads Trading Company!

“That Treadwell shit’d better hope he’s powerful friends, or he’s a goner,” Lewrie muttered again, quite pleased with himself as he made his way back to the deck. Even if Treadwell was not here, there was solid proof that he had aided at least two French privateers over a year or more, and when the evidence was presented at Savannah, there was a good chance he would pay for it.

His own hands were cheering and jeering as the last French hold-outs came up from below, tossing aside their muskets, pistols, swords, and cutlasses, even personal knives, onto a loose pile of weaponry. A lone Marine emerged from the forward hatchway, his uniform and his kit still in Sunday Divisions best, with his musket slung over his shoulder and a bundle of abandoned weapons in his arms to add to the pile.

Lewrie went forward as Sgt. Trickett appeared from the hatch.

“Beg t’report, Cap’m sir,” Trickett said, stamping and stiffening in parade-ground fashion, “all the lower decks’re clear o’ enemies. No weapons remainin’, no spirits looted, and guards on their run and such. The Frogs did put up a wee fight, up forrud, but we ended that right quick. There’s two dead and five wounded still below. None o’ our lads, though, sir!”

“Very well, Sergeant Trickett,” Lewrie replied, looking over to his Mids, Entwhistle and Grainger. “Any of our people hurt, sirs?”

“Some nicks, cuts, and bruises, sir, that’s all,” Mr. Entwhistle reported.

“Well done, lads!” Lewrie congratulated them all, “Damned well, and briskly, carried! Do you be free with the French’s scuttle-butts and drink some water. There’s more work up-river. Fun’s not over!”

“Sir! Sir!” Lt. Rainey from
Lizard
cried, once he and his men had boarded and secured their boats to take charge of the prize. “The other privateer is cutting her cable and making sail! She and her prize! I do believe they’re trying to escape us, further up-river!”

“Right, then! Drink up, lads, and we’ll get back in our boats. Mister Rainey?” Lewrie said. “The prize is yours. I will leave you five of my Marines to help guard the prisoners. Be sure that no one gets into the rum, and all those weapons get moved aft of the helm.”

“Aye, sir, I have charge of the prize,” Rainery agreed.

Reliant
’s cutter and barge refilled with men and shoved off as Lewrie waited by the entry-port. The gunboat was brought alongside, and sailors and Marines tumbled down into her, Lewrie going last.

“Shove off, and get a way on!” Lewrie snapped to Spendlove once seated aft by the tiller on a thwart. “Take us close-aboard
Lizard,
if ye please, sir. I wish t’speak to Bury as we pass.”

“Aye, sir,” Spendlove said.

Lizard
had gone alongside the prize brig up-river of Mollien’s schooner, and British sailors were swarming her bulwarks and the sail-tending gangways. Bury stood aft, evidently waiting for Lewrie. He leaned far out to shout his news.