Reefs and Shoals

most barges, like the one alongside, only draw seven or eight feet if fully burthened, and they’re built with very stout bottoms and ‘quick-work’ so if they do touch a shoal, they can usually work off, without much damage.

“But, when I got round to asking about Cumberland Sound and the Saint Mary’s River, the master rounded on us and ordered him to get back to work, and went ‘cutty-eyed’ on me, sir,” Rossyngton exclaimed. “Glared daggers at me, he did, and asked me flat-out what my interest was in where they went!”

“And how did you finesse that, Mister Rossyngton?” Lewrie said, feeling a rising excitement, but crossing the fingers of his right hand under the desk, in hopes that young Rossyngton had a deal more cleverness than he had.

“Well, sir,” Midshipman Rossyngton replied with a sly grin, “I told him that I’d heard some of the older hands speak of seeing alligators as big as cutters, white dolphins and sea cows that can walk out on land at night when they were on this coast, and how I wanted to go and have a look round, and meet the blue-eyed Red Indians said to live in the woods… and how their young women… welcome sailors.”

Rossyngton had the good grace to blush a bit.

Lewrie cocked his head to one side and chuckled.

“He told me I was a damn-fool ‘younker’, sir, and should not be listening to old sailors’ yarns, or put any stock in them. After that, he wasn’t talkative, but I don’t think he took my questions as prying, but, who knows, sir?” Rossyngton concluded with a hapless shrug.

“Loath to let on whether he’s been in Cumberland Sound, or up the Saint Mary’s, was he?” Lewrie responded with a hopeful smile. “On his employer’s secret business? Perhaps because he has, and that business is to stay a guarded secret. Damn my eyes, Mister Rossyngton, but, unless that master did tumble to your ploy, that was well done on your part! Well done, indeed!” Lewrie thumped a fist on his desk.

“Thank you, sir!”

“We might not yet know just what is goin’ on South of here, but, it sounds suspicious enough to warrant further inspection. Now we have a name, this Treadwell, one shipping company to suspect, and we might’ve narrowed our area to search to something manageable,” he told Rossyngton, who was all but polishing his fingernails on his uniform coat’s lapels in self-congratulation.

“Most happy to have been of service, sir,” Rossyngton said.

“Thank you, sir, and you may go,” Lewrie said, rising. “I have some scheming to do.”

He went to the sideboard in the dining coach and poured himself a tall glass of cool tea, then entered the wee chart space to peruse the American-made chart that spanned from Savannah to the St. John’s River in Spanish Florida, looking for “hidey-holes” off the channels into the sounds, and places with sufficient depth where a privateer that drew ten-to-fourteen feet could find shelter, either a schooner or a small brig. A raider, and a prize or two that she’d taken? Any merchant ship cut out of one of the big trade convoys might draw as much water as his own frigate, fully laden, so he had to widen his search, and reject the shallow channels behind the many islands.

Thank God for cheeky, “sauce-pot” Midshipmen! Lewrie thought, humming to himself; I can bring the squadron back here and stop that Treadwell’s business. Is he the guilty one? Must be! In league with that arse Hereford? Damme, but I wish! This could be wrapped up and done by mid-Summer.

Lewrie felt a sudden daunting moment, though, wryly recalling that whenever he’d thought he had all the answers in the past, Dame Fortune had always found a way to kick him in the fundament.

But, what can go wrong with this’un, this time? he asked the aether; Or, is that askin’ too damned much?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

His dreaded come-down, that “kick in the fundament” came not a day later as HMS Reliant butted her way South against the currents of the Gulf Stream to meet with the small consorts of the squadron. It came from the First Officer, Lt. Westcott.

“Seems to me, though, sir, that strongly suspecting where the privateers are being victualled by this Treadwell fellow, if indeed it is he who is in collusion with them, and nabbing them in the act, are two different things entirely, sorry to say,” Lt. Westcott mused as he and Lewrie strolled the quarterdeck from the taffrails to the nettings at the fore end, and back again, with Lewrie next to the windward rail and Westcott in-board.

“There is that,” Lewrie gloomily agreed as they halted and turned to face each other before headed aft once more. “If we keep close watch on the area, they won’t ever show up, like watchin’ a boilin’ pot, which never does ’til ye leave it be. And a close watch is sure t’raise the ire of our American ‘cousins’.”

“Well, it may be worse than that, sir,” Westcott went on. “We haven’t a single clue as to which barge, or barges, that leave Savannah are sailing on innocent passages, and which are engaged in dealing with privateers. We can’t be certain if the ones that put into Cumberland Sound or either of the river mouths are aiding enemy raiders, or just making a tidy profit by selling neutral American goods to the Dons in Spanish Florida, which is perfectly legal. Bothersome to us, but still legal, since the United States and Spain are not at war.”

“Good God, d’ye mean that this Treadwell is makin’ money on the sly by landin’ goods with the Dons, who can sell it or give it later to privateers, and there’s nothing we could do about it?” Lewrie exclaimed. “Mine arse on a band-box!”

He hadn’t thought of that, and it irked to hear of it.

“It would be a clever dodge, sir,” Westcott said with a brief, sour grin, “with no real risk to his purse, his hide, or his repute in Savannah Society. Even if caught at it, he could thumb his nose at us and just sail away.”

I’m an idiot, Lewrie chid himself; a cack-hand, droolin’…!

“Then, there is the problem of how often, and when, the barges are to meet with a privateer, sir,” Lt. Westcott added. “A schooner or small brig with a crew large enough to man her and fight her, and carry extra hands and mates for prize-parties, might be able to keep the sea for two or three months, whether they take any prizes or not. Is that the arrangement, since communications ’twixt their source of supply and their ship are impossible? Every two or three months for a ‘rondy’, sir, or do the barges cache supplies for them on shore and sail away?”

“Fairy stuff,” Lewrie said with a sniff. “Leave bisquits and milk on the stoop at night, and find a purse of gold coins come daybreak? Like hell! Who knows who could pilfer the goods in the meantime, or make off with the payment before the barges could return to pick it up?”

“Just a thought, sir,” Westcott said, with a shrug and a laugh. “No, it would make more sense if they had arrangements for face-to-face meetings, but when, or where, and how often are the mysteries. And, do they vary, I wonder.”

I could learn to loathe him, Lewrie quietly fumed.

“One could be in the Saint John’s River, safe as houses even if caught in Spanish territory,” Westcott relentlessly schemed on, “and the next set for the Saint Mary’s, the third behind Cumberland Island, then back to the Saint John’s and etcetera and etcetera. ”

“Might be a tad too complicated,” Lewrie countered.

“True, sir,” Westcott allowed, nodding his head toward Lewrie. “Though, were I in the looting trade, I would make such arrangements, to keep anyone hunting me in the dark for as long as I could. I fear, though, sir, that catching our privateers and their abettors red-handed is almost impossible. As you say, we can’t lurk off Savannah, and chase after any barges heading South of Jekyll or Cumberland Islands, not with a frigate… not with any of the ships in our squadron, either. They could spot us a dozen miles off on a good day, and put into Brunswick and lay up ’til we have to sail on, playing innocently dumb, then finish their voyage, laughing at our haplessness.”

“And, we can’t leave a picket line of ship’s boats as watchers, either,” Lewrie fumed. “They’d be able to shadow them, perhaps, but they’d have to signal us that the game’s afoot, and that puts Reliant or the others within sight from the barges. Well, shit.”

“Finally, sir…,” Lt. Westcott said with a mournful, sigh.