Reefs and Shoals

before you could use it in a cold punch. Had the Alacrity sloop in the Bahamas, from ’86 to ’89. Ketch-rigged sloop, once a bomb vessel, really, but it was fine duty in those days.”

“The Bahamas?” Forrester scoffed, looking up with the orders in one hand and a wine glass in the other. “Well, perhaps you would appreciate it, but I find the islands a dreary, boresome place, lacking the basic rudiments of proper civilisation. Barely a cut above a Cornish fishing village. Or a smuggler’s inlet,” he added.

“Best place t’shop for the rudiments of civilised life, the smugglers’ dens,” Lewrie japed. “Like ‘Calico’ Jack Finney’s emporium that used t’be on Bay Street.”

“Yes, I heard of him,” Forrester said.

“I’m the one who chased him to Charleston, South Carolina, and killed him,” Lewrie told Forrester with a tight little grin.

And what’ve you done since we were Mids t’gether? Lewrie asked himself; All ’claret, cruisin’, and bum-kissin’?

“Ahem! As I said, Lewrie, this request from Admiralty is just impossible for me to fulfill,” Forrester, fussily announced, re-directing the conversation. “I’ve but two brig-sloops on station, and eight small sloops. Given the fact that Spain has been an enemy since the first of the year, I cannot spare a one. Their colonies in Florida and Cuba, just South of here on Hispaniola, on Puerto Rico? The risk of invasion is too high to despatch even the smallest to you.

“Hmmm…” Forrester pondered, a sly smile blossoming on his face. “Given that threat, it might make more sense did you and your frigate come under my command. Then, when I may spare you, you may prowl round Florida to your heart’s content. The presence of a two-decker sixty-four, and a Fifth Rate frigate would surely give ambitious Dons pause, hey?”

“Hmm,” Lewrie replied in kind, taking his own sweet time with his wine glass, as if really considering the proposal. “Actually, I fancy that our ships at Antigua, Barbados, Trinidad, and Jamaica are keeping the Dons awake at night, so the risk of invasion from Spain is negligible, sir. The Spanish are at more risk.

“Secondly,” Lewrie drolly went on, quite enjoying himself, “Admiralty did not request, but ordered you to supply me with a few shoal-draught sloops or cutters. Thirdly…,” Lewrie said, pausing to let that sink in, “a refusal on your part would hamper the fulfillment of my original orders. And, lastly…”

Stick it up his bum-hole, yes! Lewrie thought, feeling like he could barely keep from chortling out loud, and delighting in the puce colour of Forrester’s full face; Here it comes, ye gotch- gut!

“Lastly, am I shackled to the Bahamas under your command, I’d not be able to execute the rest of my duties of surveying Bermudan waters, or calling upon our consuls in neutral American ports to see if enemy privateers may be operating from them covertly.”

“As I recall, you were made ‘Post’ in the spring of ninety-seven, whilst I…” Forrester shot back, eyes as lidded as a cobra.

“That don’t signify,” Lewrie quickly dismissed with a wave of one hand. “I’ve ‘independent orders’ to form a punitive squadron and root out privateers… from Admiralty, sir.”

“I will consider your requ – the matter, Captain Lewrie,” Forrester sputtered, as “sulled up” as a bullfrog, “and will send you my decision by letter… when I’ve completed my deliberations upon it.”

“Oh, when you do,” Lewrie quickly rejoined, “ye might add Baronet t’the heading.” Well… I shall take my leave,” he added, finishing his wine, and rising.

He knew that would gall the man even worse! Francis Forrester was an “Honourable”, but so were all his brothers and sisters as sons or daughters of a baron or viscount, and he was not the eldest son due to inherit… else he’d not have gone to sea in the first place, and made a career of the Navy!

“Good day to you, Captain Lewrie,” Forrester was forced to say, not rising from his seat behind his grand desk, and not offering his hand, most un-graciously and sulkily.

“Good day to you, yer servant, sir,” Lewrie replied, making a sketchy, polite bow from the waist before departing.

Damn my eyes, but maybe bein’ a Knight and Baronet comes in handy, now and again! Lewrie told himself as he gained the deck and the open air.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lewrie was back aboard Reliant just long enough to remove the sash and star, warn his cook, Yeovill, that he’d take his dinner on shore, and ordered the Purser, Mr. Cadbury, to take a ship’s boat to seek out fresh victuals. Then, he was off in a whistled-up bum-boat for the docks of Nassau.

Captain Francis Forrester might not care for New Providence Island, or the Bahamas, but Lewrie still liked it… somewhat. Nassau was a raw and rowdy place, sleepier than grander ports he’d visited, and might lack the refinements of the symphonies, opera houses, or theatrical halls of London, and yes, its miniscule attempts at Cultured Society might be provincial and “chaw-bacon”, but Nassau had a bustle to it. The shoreside streets teemed with push-carts and waggons and vendors. The piers were lined with merchant ships, and thronged with stevedores landing and carting off cargoes, or lading exports. Lewrie found a Free Black with a push- cart from which he sold ginger beer by the pint and half-pint, right off, and savoured the sweetness and the sprightliness, along with the sharp bite of the ginger.

And there was the chop-house where he and Caroline had dined so many years ago, where he’d first met his friend and fellow officer, Benjamin Rodgers. Where they had politely declined the clumsy invitations of “Calico” Jack Finney, the rag-seller turned privateer, then local hero, then rich entrepeneur, and secretly, pirate. He popped into its coolness and dined on jerked pork and crisp-fried, breaded grouper, with white wine and a fresh salad, finished with the very same key-lime pudding he’d relished in his early days.

On a tour of remembrance, he later idly strolled Bay Street, noting the new houses and stores that had sprung up over the years. Where he’d first “bearded” Finney, in his massive, sprawling emporium, nigh a whole corner block once, with all the various shops opened to each other and to the streets through grand doorways, Lewrie found it changed, the interior pass-throughs now walled back up and divided into at least a dozen new concerns.

He made a courtesy call on the island governor at Government House, spent about twenty minutes there, then made his way back East towards the piers, beyond Fort Fincastle that loomed above them, and, on a sudden whim, hitched a ride on a passing empty waggon further to the East out towards Fort Montagu, on East Bay Street.

He alit by the gate house to the old Boudreau plantation that had been his and Caroline’s shore residence once. And, from the first moment, he was sorry that he’d come. It had had a tight cedar shingle roof once, but that had gone to seed, and was littered with reddish-tan detritus blown off the many pines and palmettos. Their little cottage had been an ambitious stab at grandeur, an un-needed stables or overseer’s cottage, all of stone or coral “tabby”. There had been the main section with two bedrooms, a parlour, and space for dining to one side, then a breezeway-Caroline had called it a “dog run”, he sorrowfully recalled-separating the main house from the smaller kitchen, pantries, and storerooms, the bathing facility, and “jakes”. His late wife had had the exterior painted a startling but cool mint green whilst he had been away on his first patrol down the island chain to the Turks and Caicos; his teasing about the colour had lit their first real argument!

Now, though… it had been painted and re-painted, then neglected for so long that it was hard to choose which pastel colour it was now. The deep front and back porches, and the dog-run breezeway held rickety tables and mis-matched chairs, occupied by off-duty soldiers from Fort Montagu, jaded doxies, and scruffy, ill-clad civilian topers, all of whom peered cutty-eyed at him, or found the presence of a naval officer amusing.

He looked past their old house up the drive towards the manse that had once been a sedate and solid home; even if it had been painted the colour of boiled shrimp with glaring white trim. It, and the rental houses, the wood “salt boxes” that the Boudreaus had run up had gone to seed as badly as the gate house, the wooden houses reduced to greying, weathered, tumbledown shacks.