Reefs and Shoals

“Good, sir! Good!”

“Well, I didn’t go that far,” Lewrie confessed. “The recapitulation’s harsher than the original, but… let’s say that the supper party did not end with music, parlour games, or ecarte. ”

The Chiswick ladies had departed in a huff, before the dessert, and the Seabrights soon after, Lewrie related. Poor Mister Cadbury had been relegated to an embarassed companion to Mrs. Cashman and Mrs. Moore for some moody three-handed cards, whilst Lewrie, Cashman, and Moore had remained at-table with port and tobacco, getting the King’s Business settled anent French or Spanish privateers, and an agreement that Cashman and Moore would keep their eyes peeled for any merchants who might be aiding them. If discovered, Moore would lodge protests with the local courts, with the state government, and alert the British Ambassador in Washington City.

“Cashman and I sat up and downed a few,” Lewrie said, sighing, and easing his position on the settee. “He had a crock o’ Kentucky aged whisky, thank God, and I tottered up to bed quite late. Damme, but it’s been a while since I slept in a soft feather bed… a bed that doesn’t sway back and forth like a hanging bed-cot, and I don’t think I got three hours’ sleep. Cadbury snores, by the way.

“Then, to put the icing on the cake, who accosts me on my way back to the piers t’take our leave but a scurrilous little pest from the town newspaper!” Lewrie growled. He took a deep sip of his ale before going on. “ Demandin’, mind, when Great Britain was going to stop inspectin’ American ships for contraband, making prize of those bound for enemy ports… violations on free trade, and uppermost, when were we going to stop pressing American-born sailors to man our ships! Wished I could’ve strangled him on the spot. Wished I had strangled those two Chiswick bitches. Now there’s my kind of tactful diplomacy!”

“Ever read Machiavelli, sir?” Lt. Westcott asked.

“Who the Hell’s he when he’s up and dressed?” Lewrie growled.

“An Italian writer of long ago, sir. Wrote a book of instructions for rulers, called The Prince,” Westcott said, with a sly smile. “One of his pieces of advice was that a ruler should be more feared than loved. Since you obviously created little love in Wilmington, it might have been better for you to have spread a little fear.”

“Hmm… doubt it’d do any good t’go back, with guns run out and matches lit,” Lewrie said, sounding weary. “What’s done is done.”

Lewrie sat up and finished his ale.

“First thing in the morning, Mister Westcott, make Stations for Weighing. Fire a gun, and make hoist for a pilot to see us safely out to sea. All purchased supplies loaded, I take it?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Good,” Lewrie replied, sounding and looking more alert. “Dine with me this evening, Mister Westcott. You, Mister Cadbury, who can contribute to the tale of my embarassment, and some others. I’ll have Midshipman Eldridge in, as well. I haven’t dined him in, yet.”

“And, will you tell us the tale of how you escaped Yorktown, sir?” Westcott asked as he set his empty ale mug aside and stood.

“Well… if I must,” Lewrie promised, grinning.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

HMS Reliant swanned a leisurely way from Wilmington to Charleston on a steady but light tops’l breeze, twelve or fifteen miles offshore, making no more than seven or eight knots, slow enough to trawl a large net astern to see what sort of fresh fish would turn up when hauled in. But for a brief rain squall in late afternoon, the jaunt was all blue skies and fine white clouds, over a steel-blue sea that glittered with white caps.

For the benefit of any fishermen or passing American merchantmen, Lewrie had the crew exercised on the great guns all through the Forenoon, with live firing, and ordered a fresh, large Union Jack to be flown aft, so that everyone who espied her, even from shore, would know that the Royal Navy was cruising American waters, and, perhaps not for any idle purpose, as Lt. Westcott had suggested, to inspire more fear than love.

By mid-morning of the next day, she was off Charleston Bar and calling for a pilot. There were several channels she could use through the Bar; the Sullivan’s Island Channel to the North, which ran close under the guns of Fort Moultrie, the North Channel below Sullivan’s, the Swash Channel which was only suitable for small vessels at high tide, and the Main Ship Channel, which lay closest to the lighthouse and beacon. Lewrie was taking no chances-he would use the Main Ship Channel. His old Atlantic Neptune still held true: Hold North- West, place the spire of St. Michael’s Church square on the bows, and the lighthouse square off the stern once past it, into Five Fathom Hole, and there was deep water all the way to the Battery at the foot of the city, with good holding ground a bit west towards the mouth of the Ashley River.

“Like goin’ to China, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said, rocking on the balls of his fresh-blacked boots as the pilot cutter approached. “South Carolinians eat a lot of rice, and worship their ancestors.”

Hell, he hasn’t heard it yet, and it’s true enough t’be funny, Lewrie told himself.

“From that, one could construe that both the ship’s cook, and yours, are South Carolinians, sir… when it comes to frequency with which rice accompanies our victuals,” Westcott japed back, after he’d had a brief laugh at his captain’s jest.

Three days a week, on Banyan Days, no meat was issued, and the rations were oatmeal, cheese, ship’s bisquit, with nary a morsel of salt-meat, but with rice so cheap, the ex-slave cook, Mr. Cooke, and Yeovill boiled up enough to make the ship’s people feel full. Even Lewrie’s cats had gotten used to some rice with their sausages, pemmican, and jerky, or table scraps.

“Aye, and after Mister Cadbury makes a purchasing run ashore, there’ll be even more of it,” Lewrie told him. “Unless the officers of the wardroom wish to buy something else for their mess?”

“Potatoes, sir,” Westcott idly said. “Mashed, baked, hashed with cheese, diced and fried… ah, an humble but regal dish in all its manifestations!”

“The pilot boat is coming alongside, sir,” Midshipman Rossyngton warned.

“Very well… side-party, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered.

The harbour pilot turned out to be a cheery fellow in his mid-thirties, and, once the introductions were done, gaily announced “Welcome to Charleston, Captain Lewrie… the very place where the Ashley and the Cooper Rivers come together to form the Atlantic! I presume you wish a good anchorage, not too close to shore, to make it too hard for any of your sailors of a mind to run?”

“That’d be most welcome, sir, thankee,” Lewrie replied.

The pilot pointed off the larboard bows to the open waters to the left of Charleston’s Southernmost tip, the Battery, more towards the Ashley. “There’s good ground there, sir, well clear of any ship bound for the piers along the Cooper, well clear of the Middle Ground, and Shute’s Folly. Bad for desertion, but a short row to town.”

“There is a long tongue of shallows to starboard, from the city’s tip to the deeper channel of the Cooper,” Mr. Caldwell, their Sailing Master, said, pointing to his chart pinned to the traverse board of the compass binnacle cabinet.

“Sure is, and I’ll conn you well West of it, sir,” the pilot vowed. “With your permission, Captain Lewrie, I’ll take charge of the deck?”

“Proceed, sir,” Lewrie allowed with a smile.

The First Officer, Lt. Westcott, and Mr. Caldwell stood close by the pilot, as if ready, to second-guess the fellow, but not close enough to discomfort him.

“Topsl’s, reefed spanker, and the inner and outer jibs will be enough, I think, on this breeze,” the pilot said, peering about at his own set of harbour marks, the slant of the commissioning pendant high aloft, and the rippling of the sails. “Oh, one thing, sir. Hope you don’t mind, but… would it kill your soul to be anchored within two or three cables of a French ship?”