Reefs and Shoals

“Sir?” Right timid, that.

“Now there are no signals to be made for the moment, I wish you to see this…,” Lewrie began. The dog made a last playful leap at the hammock nettings, then turned to trot to Lewrie, nuzzling under a hand for attention. “Ahem! I wish you t’see this dog off the quarterdeck. Ask the Bosun for a length of line to make a leash or tether for him, so he can’t romp up the ladderways again.”

“Aye, sir!” Rossyngton replied.

The dog was licking his hand! Grinning upwards playfully and licking Lewrie’s hand. Despite the sternness he’d intended, Lewrie found himself scratching him behind the ears, which elicited another goofy, tongue-lolling grin.

“Go on, now, ye daft thing,” Lewrie growled. “Get below, and stay there. Hear me?”

Midshipman Rossyngton took the dog by the collar and led him to the top of the ladderway, then down to the ship’s waist. A whine or two of complaint, and a longing look or two at the cats on top of the hammock nettings, perhaps at Lewrie, or the denied expanse of the quarterdeck, and Bisquit suffered to be led forward, his tail held low.

“It appears he likes you, sir,” Lt. Westcott commented.

“Damn what he likes,” Lewrie rejoined, going to the nettings to placate his cats. “There there, lads,” he cooed. “Threat’s over, and ye won’t be eaten.” He reached out to stroke them, but both Chalky and Toulon spat and hissed at him! They would not settle down and flatten their tail fur ’til they’d seen the dog securely tethered to the bottom of the boarding pikes stored upright round the main mast. Only then did they allow Lewrie to stroke them and pet them.

The cats seemed to gloat whilst the dog lay down with his head on his forepaws, looking up at them. One last hiss to get their message across, and the cats sat up and began to groom themselves.

“I’ll uh… be below in my cabins for a bit Mister Westcott. You have the watch,” Lewrie said, clearing his throat and hoping that his ears weren’t turning red in embarassment.

“Aye aye, sir,” Westcott answered, sounding as if there was a slight smirk deeply hidden.

As Lewrie reached the foot of the ladderway, the dog perked up in hopes, but Bosun Sprague was by his side, kneeling down to stroke and knead. “An’ ain’t ye a fine dog, now? Ain’t ye, Bisquit?” the Bosun was cooing in a very un-characteristic voice, one which made sailors turn and gawp; Sprague was more used to bellowing at them than he was to speak softly.

Christ, now Sprague ’s dotin’ on the silly beast? Lewrie thought; This ship’s turnin’ into a schoolyard full o’ boys!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A great many of the islets in the Keys were little more than hammocks of dry land a few feet above the sea, some as small as tennis courts, and covered so thickly with mangroves that it was hard to tell where the sand ended and the sea began, and birds were the only inhabitants. They were easy for the little squadron to pass by on their slow jog up the archipelago. The larger isles, though… despite the urge to rush on, Lewrie felt it necessary to land shore parties to inspect them if anything that resembled a settlement appeared; a clearing, the sight of farm crops, or the presence of domestic animals near the beaches. The landings pleased Reliant ’s Marine Officer, Lt. Simcock, right down to his toes, since they gave him a splendid excuse to exercise his men away from the ship, and relieve the boredom of the daily routine. Frankly, the frigate’s sailors, and the hands aboard the smaller ships, relished it, too, for it was a change of pace, with the prospect of discovering something useful, or edible, married with the hint of danger and action.

Strange fruits came back aboard the ships, now and then a small deer or wild hog, or some domestic chickens abandoned at a tumbledown collection of shacks.

And they did find settlements, of a sort. From the few who did not flee in fear, they found ragged remnants of the once-feared Calusa Indians, some Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Englishmen “gone native”, along with runaway Black slaves, even some few Muskogee Indians with “itchy feet”, driven from Georgia and Alabama by hordes of American settlers. The Muskogee had a name for those who would not stay in one place for long; they called them Seminoli-“wanderers”.

They lived on fish, on squash and beans and maize corn, and had chickens and pigs. They had some muskets, but were always short of lead and powder, and depended on the bow and arrow. Their homes were little more than lean-tos or raised, roofed, sleeping platforms in the native style, and their boats were hollowed-out mahogany logs A few who could actually speak a little English said that they feared the Spaniards who came up from Cuba to fish, for they were not above slave-catching. Privateers? Big boats? None of them could say. Further up to the East, perhaps, there might be, closer to what was left of the old Mayami tribe? They might know.

* * *

“Any luck ashore, Mister Merriman?” Lewrie asked as the Third Officer stepped through the entry-port after a scramble up the boarding battens.

“Same song, a different verse, sir, sorry to say,” Merriman reported, knuckling the brim of his hat in casual salute. “The few we saw are poor as church-mice. Their settlement’s on the bay side, so it took a while to row round to it. Hello, Bisquit! Happy to see me back? Here, boy! I brought you a pig bone!”

The dog seemingly adored every Man Jack in the crew, whining in longing whenever the Marine parties and boat crews, some of the Mids or one of the officers, manned the boats and rowed off, then went into paroxyms of joy at their return.

“The settlement?” Lewrie prompted.

“A bit fancier than most, sir,” Merriman replied, beaming at the sight of the dog trotting round the ship’s waist to show his bone off to everybody. “About a dozen huts, but made from sawn planks for floors and walls… roofed with palmetto, though. The flats were so shallow that we had some trouble finding a way to the bay side, so by the time we arrived, they’d all scampered into the bush, but for a few of the oldest, and not one of them knew a word of English or French or my poor Spanish, sir. And the bay, as far as we could see, was empty.”

“Good morning, sir!” Marine Lieutenant Simcock happily said as his boat came alongside, and he made the climb to the deck. Simcock was turned out in Sunday Divisions best, as if ready for inspection, right down to the highly polished silver gorget hung on a chain high on his chest; though his boots looked muddy and caked with sand.

“Good morning, sir,” Lewrie said, answering his salute with a slight doff of his own hat. “Anything that caught your eye ashore?”

“Not all that much, sir,” Simcock said with a cocky grimace of dismissal. “Unless you wished a new iron cook pot, or a painted clay one. Whoever the poor people are who live there, I pity them. Seems a shame, really… the natural beauty of these isles puts one in mind of the Greek tales about the land of the Lotus Eaters, yet… there’s nothing there to live on.”

“There’s those little gardens,” Merriman pointed out.

“Little bigger than Irish ‘lazy beds’, though, and the soil is too thin and sandy,” Lt. Simcock countered. “Oh! One thing that I did notice, sir, is the lack of water wells. I can’t recall seeing a one on any of the islands we’ve scouted.”

“Aye, come to think on it, I can’t say that I saw any wells at all, either,” Lt. Merriman quickly agreed, brightening. “Sir,” he said to Lewrie, “we’ve found barrels and large clay pots round the houses, with hollowed-out half-round sluices… to catch rainwater! Run-off from the planked rooves! There are no freshwater springs or wells!”

“Haven’t seen any, yet, sir,” Lt. Simcock added. “That’s not to say that there aren’t some on the larger isles closer to the mainland, but…,” he said, heaving off a large shrug. “Yes, hello, Bisquit! I’m back safely! Good fellow! Want a pig bone?”

Bisquit leaped, wagged his tail and his hindquarters in rapture, and pranced round the weather deck to show off