Reefs and Shoals (51 page)

“The French guards took a boat and rowed to the Spanish side, sir!” Lt. Bury told him. “But the prize’s master, mates, and crew are here on board. We’ve freed them!”

“Let
them
work her out to mid-river short of the entrance channel, Mister Bury, and anchor!” Lewrie directed, standing in the boat. “We’ll need their testimony before we let ’em sail off! I have need of your ship up-river!”

“I
see,
sir, and I shall follow you, directly!” Bury promised, pointing up the St. Mary’s to the fleeing privateer and prize brig, and the gaggle of barges that were trying to escape. Two of them had men at the rails tossing goods overboard to lighten them to reduce their draughts, and improve their speed. “We will have
those
soon!”

“There’s enough wind, it seems, sir,” Lt. Spendlove told him. “Should we hoist sail?”

“Aye, let’s give it a try,” Lewrie agreed. “It’s a lovely morning for a race.” The oarsmen aboard heartily agreed with that as well, and raised a brief cheer as the jib and gaff lugs’l were hauled aloft, the halliards cleated, and the sheets drawn in. It was not a good wind they found, but the gunboat did begin to move forward, breasting the river current and heeling over a few degrees.

It’s a river, so it must be fresh,
Lewrie thought. He hadn’t taken his own advice to drink from the freshwater scuttle-butts aboard the privateer. He dipped a hand over-side, took a tentative taste of the river, then scooped up several handfulls to slake his thirst. It was fresh, with a silty, leaf-mouldy taste.

“
Hmph,
” Lt. Spendlove commented, looking off the gunboat’s starboard quarter. “That’s expedient.”

“What?” Lewrie asked, turning to see what he was talking about.

“Mister Westcott’s cut the last barges free, and is letting the river current take them out into the Cumberland Sound, sir. I think he’s getting the brig under way … but I don’t see many hands aboard.” Spendlove pointed out.

“If the harbour watch and guards have abandoned her, she’d not need many t’work her out,” Lewrie speculated. “Some of
Thorn
’s hands, perhaps.”

“None of her own still aboard her, then, sir?” Spendlove asked with a worried frown. “Already marched, off, or … slain?”

“God knows, Mister Spendlove,” Lewrie said with a sigh.

All of Westcott’s Marines and most of his sailors were getting back into their boats, leaving not over a dozen on board. Lovett’s sloop,
Firefly
, had not waited for them to complete their work and had continued sailing on, her sails limply filling and flagging as she left the North side of the river for mid-channel and began to slant nearer to Lewrie’s gunboat.

“Hoy, Captain Lewrie!” Lovett bellowed through a speaking-trumpet. “Do you wish me to pursue, or should I board the three-master to see if she can be worked out of the river?”

Lewrie looked at the three-masted ship that was slowly looming up on the Spanish side. He could not see anyone aboard her above her bulwarks, or on her gangways or quarterdeck. No one was working on her forecastle to cut her anchor cable, and no one had laid aloft to free any sail. She might have already been abandoned by the French sailors who formed her harbour watch.

If Lovett fetches alongside her, it’ll take him half an hour t’work back to the speed he’s already got,
Lewrie thought, scheming an answer as quickly as he could;
He’s best left to pursue.

“View, halloo, Lovett! Go after them!” Lewrie shouted to him, and even from two hundred yards away, Lewrie could see how much that order pleased the fellow. “Tally ho!”

What
about
the three-master?
Lewrie asked himself.

“Mister Entwhistle!” he called forward to
Reliant
’s barge. “I fear that you and Mister Grainger must go aboard this prize, here. Spendlove and I will continue on with the gunboat!”

“Aye aye, sir!” Entwhistle replied, looking crestfallen.

“Once the river’s clear astern of you, you may try to get her anchor up and work her out, and anchor short of the entrance,” Lewrie added, more as a sop to their disappointment than anything else. The excitement of the day was over for those lads.

Lewrie looked round again. There was
Firefly
, slowly stepping away ahead by about an hundred yards.
Lizard
was astern of his boat by about two hundred yards, standing away from the freed brig. Lt. Westcott and his gunboat, cutter, and barge formed a short column on the American side of the river, astern of them all but making sail.

“Still have that chart with you, Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie asked.

“Aye, sir.” Spendlove said, pulling it from the breast pocket of his coat and handing it over. Lewrie spread it out on his knees. They were past a possible escape route, the very shallow Point Peter Creek on the American side, and there was marsh on either hand for at least a mile on the Spanish side and the North, so …

There came a series of distant bangs from astern. Lewrie saw puffs of powder smoke rising from the marshes on the North bank, and return fire from Westcott’s boats.

“Some of these that ran off must have poled their boats into the marshes, and are firing from cover of the reeds,” Spendlove guessed aloud.

“Yes, well it won’t do ’em—” Lewrie began to say, when the hum of a musket ball sang past, and some shots were fired at them by someone hiding in the marshes on the South bank! Puffs of smoke rose as if by magic, and a ball caromed off the gunboat’s gunn’l, taking a divot of painted wood.

“Warnt us t’shoot back, sir?” a nervous Marine private asked.

“Waste o’ shot and powder,” Lewrie told him. “We can’t see ’em ’til they pop up just long enough t’fire. They’re wastin’ powder, too, if that’s any comfort.”

Lt. Lovett obviously was not quite as sanguine.
Firefly
’s larboard 6-pounders erupted one at a time, each evidently loaded with a charge of grape, musket balls, or langridge, for the marshes twitched and shivered in wide swathes. Lovett had turned those four cannon into shotguns. A minute or so later, there were two musket shots from the marshes, another broadside from
Firefly
that must have been carefully aimed at roughly the same point, another great parting of reeds and marsh grasses like a full gale, and after, that … nothing.

There was still some sniping going on against Westcott’s boats. The boat carronade at his gunboat’s bows erupted, and his Marines and sailors let off a volley of musketry.

It was Lt. Darling’s
Thorn
that settled the matter. She had slowly worked her way past where the first privateer and the prizes had been anchored and turned her much heavier guns, the six 18-pounder carronades of her starboard battery, loose on the sharpshooters with much the same results that Lovett had. There were no more shots fired at Westcott’s boats!

“They’re almost at the narrows, the bend of the river, sir,” Lt. Spendlove pointed out, holding up a length of spun-wool to judge the wind’s strength and direction, and tautening the main sheet just a bit snugger.

The prize brig was showing her larboard side as she made the turn that led South, with her captor, the other privateer brig, in her wake. As the privateer began her turn, her sails shivering, she let loose with a stern chase gun and the after-most of her larboard battery. The round shot passed so close to the few fleeing barges that two of them shied away off course for a moment, and one sheered North to run for the marshes. Lewrie did a quick estimate of where it might run aground and found that there was a spit of dry land behind all the marsh, perhaps only a tenth of a mile for her small crew to scramble before reaching some woods. Ahead,
Firefly
was running out her starboard battery in hopes of smashing her to kindling once level with the grounded barge!

Firefly
was beginning to make good progress in her chase, closing the distance on the remaining sailing barges and the bend in the river. Astern, Lewrie could see that
Lizard
had a wee mustachio of foam under her forefoot as well; the wind was freshening just a bit. All of Westcott’s boats were now under sail, the thirty-two-foot barge with two lugs’ls footing away from the single-masted cutter and the gunboat. As Lewrie watched, Westcott put his oarsmen to work once more for just a bit more speed!

The two fleeing brigs might have gotten round the bend, but were still in plain sight above the grasses of the marshes, showing themselves in profile. The privateer opened fire with her larboard guns and roundshot howled overhead, mostly aimed at
Firefly,
which had little in the way of bow-chasers with which to reply. The wind was on their beams, whilst the pursuing vessels had the winds astern in a sudden shift. The sun was not
quite
risen, but the East horizon showed a lighter blue-grey streak of clearing behind the darker gloom of the night’s overcast.

“Try a shot with the carronade, sir?” Spendlove asked, eager to be doing something other than tending the sheets.

“Still too far for a light carronade,” Lewrie decided as Lovett opened fire on the barge which had indeed grounded on the North bank, near that long narrow spit of dryer land.
Firefly
’s four 6-pounders on her starboard side raised great splashes all round the barge, scoring at least one hit that tore her transom open; the range was not one hundred yards from mid-channel to the marshes. Two or three sailors on the barge had been going over her bows to wade through the clinging mud and silt, but two of them whirled and fell, likely splintered by the shards from the shattered transom. The barge began to sink.

A minute later and
Firefly
was at the bend of the river, with
Lizard
striding up to join her, passing both gunboats, much to the frustration of Lewrie, Spendlove, and, obviously Westcott, who held up a fist and shook it at the sloops, shouting something best not heard by gentlemen.

Firefly
quickly went about, her sails luffing and re-filling on a new course, with
Lizard
nipping at her heels.

“Should we continue, sir?” Spendlove asked, sounding weary.

“As long as we can, sir,” Lewrie told him. “I want t’see how it ends. Be in at the kill, even if we can’t contribute much to it.”

Two minutes more and their gunboat was at the bend, too, and going about. Lewrie consulted the hand-drawn chart once more, noting how short this leg was to the South, just over half a mile, with the best channel nearest the Spanish bank, and a long, narrow, and shallow shoal in mid-channel that widened and shoaled further where the river made a turn to the Nor’west for a bit, then bent again to the West. Lewrie saw what they might be driving for; on the North bank there was dry and neutral ground on the American side of the St. Mary’s, right down to the river, with over twenty feet of depth! They hoped to ground there!

“Whoa, that’s a close’un!” One of the gunboat’s sailors cried, snapping Lewrie’s attention ahead once more.

The privateer was nearest to them, still firing, slowly overlapping her prize brig, stealing her wind. It looked as if the two of them were abreast, and close enough to scrape hull paint!

“She’s run t’other’un aground!” the sailor exclaimed a moment later.

“There’s no room for both in the channel!” Lewrie crowed. “It’s not an hundred feet wide! We’ve got the prize, at least!”

“We will board her, sir?” Spendlove asked.

“No, she’s a dead’un. Leave it,” Lewrie laughed aloud. “We’re after the privateer.”

Lovett and Bury were ahead of their gunboat, by then, and when they came level with the prize, they veered East of her. Lovett could not resist the urge to hear loud bangs, it appeared, for he fired his starboard battery into her to make sure that she would not be worked off the shoal. The range was almost hull-to-hull, and the brig flung parts of herself into the air when struck. A minute later and damned if the phlegmatic Lt. Bury didn’t do the same thing!

First
Firefly,
then
Lizard,
reached the deep channel that led round to the Nor’west in pursuit of the privateer, slewing far to the South to follow the deep channel, then wearing to take the wind on the other quarter and hardening up a bit to claw over to the North shore to follow the channel to the American side. As each wore, they fired a full broadside at the privateer, which was stern-on to them.

“Got ’er, they did! They ’it ’er ’twixt wind an’ warter!” the garrulous sailor cheered. “Huzzah,
Firefly,
huzzah
Lizard,
ha ha!”

The privateer’s main tops’l’s yard was shattered, and her top-mast swung a full 180 degrees to hang inverted. Across the marshes all could see her stern chewed up, with gouts of old paint, dirt, and shattered planking flung out in clouds.

“I don’t think she’s turning,” Lewrie said, quickly looking at the chart on his lap, excitement rising. “There’s over fourty feet o’ water yonder, then one foot or less, right by the bank of the—”

“She’s aground!” Spendlove shouted, waving his hat in joy.

“We’ve
got
her,” Lewrie said in delight. “A clean sweep!”

“Do you think we could put up a broom at the main top, like the Dutch did ages ago, sir?” Spendlove chortled.

“Hoy, there’s boats puttin’ out from the grounded brig,” the gun-captain of the carronade pointed out. “Can I try my eye on ’em, Cap’m?”

“Blaze away,” Lewrie was happy to allow. The boats had been towed astern of the brig before she grounded, and people had tumbled into them on her larboard side as soon as they were hauled up by the towing lines.

“Damme, is it him?” Lewrie muttered as he saw a tall man with white hair making his way down the battens to the second boat with a musket slung over his shoulder and a red-leather pouch on his hip.