Reefs and Shoals

the coast. A Catholic mission, a pig farm, and a few wild cattle or so, and all of them as poor as church mice. Spanish trade monopolies’d support them, did the system really work. Traders from here ship over shoddy goods, and the Spanish settlers in Florida are glad to get them, for they’ve little else.

“Now, down here along the coast, sir, behind the barrier isles and perhaps in the Tamiami Bay,” Westcott continued, running a finger down the Sou’east shore, “there are very small, and incredibly poor, fishing rancheros. Portuguese, Spanish, runaway Black slaves from up in American Georgia, even some half-breed Indians, living day-to-day off what they catch or truck-garden. All they have to trade is fish, and they can’t do that without smoking them… or curing them with Bahamian salt. The locals said some Cubans have set up shop in the Keys, but they don’t know if their settlements are permanent or just seasonal.”

“The sort of people who’d leap at a chance to go privateering, or turn outright pirate if they had decent vessels?” Lt. Darling said with a laugh.

“All the more reason to go have a look,” Lewrie agreed. “And obtain ourselves a few more boats… by hook or by crook. Between us, we’ve only jolly boats, gigs, and a pair of launches. Last year in the Channel, I got some cutters and barges for work close inshore to France, and the dockyards didn’t get ’em all back, but not enough to go round. You’ll each need something larger to tow astern ’til needed, if we have to land armed parties. We’ll keep an eye out for them. Now… once we’ve done that, my orders require me to sail on Northwards and go into supposedly neutral American ports… show the flag, all that, to the people who might be victualling enemy privateers, or even arming them, and buying their prizes on the sly.

“Once we’ve made our sweep up the coast as far as Saint Augustine, which of you is senior?” he asked. “What are the dates of your commissions?”

It turned out that Lt. Darling of Thorn pre-dated Lovett by seven months, and Bury by more than a year.

Hope you’re worth yer salt, Lewrie thought, while putting on a gladsome face as he named Lt. Darling to temporary command of the rest in his absence, while wondering if the portly, idly-aired fellow would prove suitable; he still put Lewrie too much in mind of Forrester!

“Victualling and last-minute supplies, tomorrow, then, weather permitting, we sail the day after,” Lewrie told them. “Hopefully, we are off on a grand and successful adventure.”

“Amen, sir!” Lt. Lovett exclaimed.

“Port, pass the port, and top-ups all round!” Lt. Darling cried.

“A toast, aye!” Lt. Westcott eagerly proposed.

“Ahem… if I may, Captain Lewrie?” Darling asked. He held up his glass at Lewrie’s nodded assent. “Confusion and death to the foes!”

“Confusion and death!” they chorused before tossing back their drinks.

“Here, I’ve another!” Lt. Lovett insisted as the bottle made its way round again. “To close broadsides, blood, and prize-money!”

“Broadsides, blood, and prize-money!” they roared.

“And here’s mine,” Lewrie said. He topped up his glass and let the bottle go past him, then held his glass chin- high, as the others looked to him expectantly; Darling with his smug, easy smile, and his face flushed; Lovett with his dark eyes agleam and showing a crooked grin, so piratical-looking that he might roar “Arrh!”; and Bury with a prim and grave expression.

“Here’s to us, none like us, a band of bold British sea-rovers!” Lewrie intoned. He would have said English, but wasn’t sure where his junior officers sprang from.

“To us!”

* * *

Lewrie saw them off into their respective boats, then took the night air on the quarterdeck.

“They sound an eager lot, sir,” Westcott commented.

“And, hopefully, a young but ferocious and canny lot, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with an easy smile; though he did cross the fingers of his right hand along the seam of his breeches.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Once at sea on-passage towards the Old Bahama Channel, Lewrie put his small squadron to exercises. He placed Reliant at the rear of a column in-line-ahead, then signalled them to take stations in a column ahead and to windward or leeward of the frigate, close aboard with only two cables’ separation, as if they were entering an inlet or back-of-the-island bay and expecting action, with the ships with shallower draughts making the attack, backed up by his heavier guns.

In the event that the squadron stumbled across a proper enemy warship, they practiced sheering off from that formation on a bow-and-quarter-line, the lighter ships altering course together while Reliant surged ahead to offer battle, and Thorn, Firefly, and Lizard could take the foe on from her un-engaged side.

He made them practice wearing about in order of succession and letting Reliant cover a withdrawal, if the need arose to flee from a much stronger enemy squadron.

A special signal not in the Popham Code book could shake them out into a Vee formation ahead of Reliant ’s bows for general chase, and they practiced that. Half of each morning, besides the time for small-arms drill or exercising with the great guns, was spent on manoeuvring, before Lewrie would allow yet another signal to be hoisted; which would free them to dash ahead and to either beam out toward the horizons, but still within decent signalling distance, on the hunt.

“I’m sure they’re gettin’ tired o’ this,” Lewrie told Westcott as the “Release” soared aloft, and he cocked his head back to watch as it was two-blocked-below his broad pendant.

Damme, but that bit o’ bunting looks hellish-fine, he thought; I could almost get used to it! Until Spanish Florida was scoured free of privateering, or Reliant was ordered to other duties, he was his own man, “on his own bottom”. His next orders from Admiralty might put him back under a real Commodore, or in some Rear- Admiral’s squadron or fleet, and Reliant would be chained to a column of Third Rates to plod along like a dutiful elephant calf!

“I think not, sir,” Westcott assured him, bestowing one of his savagely brief grins. “They’re doing something useful, for once, and acting like real man o’ war’smen. I’d imagine they’re revelling in it. Getting a shot at serving under an officer with a reputation for fighting, made Knight and Baronet for courage?”

“Well… hmm,” Lewrie grudgingly allowed. It was not the false modesty that he usually felt necessary, but real, for a rare once.

“Serving a man with a broad pendant… other than their former Commodore, too, hmm?” Westcott slyly added.

“Now now, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie gently chid him. “We cannot disparage our seniors or fellow officers. Even if one of them is the laziest, most useless sod in all Creation, with the wits of a flea and the manners of a boar hog. It just ain’t on!” he laughed, savouring the hour of sailing when he had at last hoisted his broad pendant, and had wondered what Francis Forrester was spluttering at the sight. Had he gone puce in the face? Cursed and stamped his feet in rage?

Lewrie certainly hoped that he had!

He strolled to the binnacle cabinet to fetch his own telescope and peered forward past the spread of the inner, outer, and flying jibs to watch his three small ships scuttling away, now free of manoeuvring exercises, and allowed free chase ’til sundown. No wonder the pirates of old had prized the Jamaican or Bermudan sloops, for they were fast and weatherly; Thorn, Firefly, and Lizard had spread more sail and were already more than a mile off in the short time since he had released them. By Noon Sights, they could be out on the horizon, with only top-sails showing!