Reefs and Shoals

“You sent for me, sir?” Faulkes said a few moments later.

“Aye, Faulkes. Will you make three copies of this at once,” Lewrie said, “and they are to go to Lizard, Thorn, and Firefly with the Mids who come to collect the mail. There’s already one of Thorn ’s Mids on deck. Make sure that Mister Bracegirdle gets her copy.”

Faulkes blew on the hastily written note to dry the ink, reading it as he did so, and hitched an audible breath at its contents.

“A French squadron on the loose, sir?” Faulkes asked wide-eyed. “Might they come here, do you imagine?”

“Not all that likely,” Lewrie told him after a moment more to mull it over. He got back to his feet and headed for the deck again, leaving a puzzled Faulkes and two frustrated cats in his wake.

He got back to the quarterdeck just as HMS Thorn ’s temporary “Sub-Lieutenant” was regaling the watch officers with his tale of woe at Nassau.

“… thought we would be slung into irons and kept as replacements ’til next Epiphany,” Bracegirdle was chortling, “As for my part, I was allowed liberty on the town, but our poor hands were sent aboard Mersey, in lieu of a proper receiving ship. It was only when Commodore Forrester announced that he would be sailing that her First Officer said that Mersey was at full complement, and released them as supernumary, and it was only the kindness of Lieutenant Richmond of Squirrel who thought to fetch us back to the squadron, ha ha! We would have stayed at Nassau, kicking our heels, else!”

“Ah, Captain sir!” Lt. Merriman said, noting Lewrie’s arrival on deck. “It appears that Squirrel ’s captain, Lieutenant Richmond, did us good service in delivering Mister Bracegirdle back, and further good service by sorting out the despatches and mail into packets for each ship, beforehand.”

“Capital!” Lewrie said. “We will distribute ours, at once, at the start of the First Dog. Mersey has sailed, Mister Bracegirdle?” he asked the Midshipman, who appeared to be a cheerful and competent fellow in his early twenties.

“Aye, sir,” Bracegirdle replied, “though I thought I’d never see the day,” he added with a hint of amusement.

“Ripped herself free of the coral under her keel?” Lewrie asked, tongue-in-cheek. “Or was it a reef o’ salt-meat bones?”

“A bit of both I would expect, sir,” Bracegirdle said, grinning.

“The French squadron,” Lewrie posed, “is it rumour or were there definite sightings?”

“Rumours at first, sir,” Bracegirdle informed him, “then it was mentioned in the latest newspapers from home. It is certain that they sent a small squadron under an Admiral Missiessy to the Windwards back in the winter, and there’s quite a stir that an Admiral Villeneuve has escaped Toulon with a larger squadron. The London Exchange suffered a huge fall in the price of consols at the news, and that the blame was put on Admiral Nelson for not blockading Toulon as closely as demanded, if you can imagine, sir!”

For anyone in government, the newspapers, or English Society to cast any aspersions on Horatio Nelson by then was un-thinkable, especially in the closer society of the Navy, after his many crushing victories, and everyone on the quarterdeck growled objections.

“But the papers also say that Nelson has gone after them with the entire Mediterranean Fleet, so God help the French when he catches up with them!” Bracegirdle confidently declared. “Even if Villeneuve comes to the West Indies to join the other fellow, Nelson will settle their business!” That was greeted by agreeing growls and cheers.

That’s a diff’rent kettle o’ fish! Lewrie thought; If Nelson’s on his way, he will lash into ’em… if only to shut his detractors up, and win himself more glory and praise! The preenin’ wee coxcomb! No worries, then. Forrester’s off on a goose-chase.

“My quick note to Lieutenant Darling did not contain that information. Pray do deliver it verbally to your captain once aboard Thorn, Mister Bracegirdle,” Lewrie bade him.

“Hoy the boat!” Warburton shouted to the first approaching boat.

“From Firefly, as ordered!” her lone Midshipman shouted back.

Faulkes came on deck at that moment with his freshly penned notes and Lewrie handed Bracegirdle one. “More scribblin’, Mister Faulkes. Sorry,” he said to his clerk. “Something I just learned. Oh, Hell, it is faster t’just tell it to the other ships’ Mids. Never mind.”

I’m babblin’, Lewrie chid himself; Stop that!

As each sloop’s boat came alongside, Lewrie handed over their packets of mail and newspapers, and had a word with the Midshipmen from Firefly and Lizard, stressing that there might be upwards of ten or more French ships far down in the Windwards, but that Nelson would be chasing after them with a powerful fleet of his own, and that for the moment, the squadron would continue its patrolling off Spanish Florida.

Once that was done, and the boat from Thorn had arrived and departed with her lost seamen, he turned to look seaward, and there little Squirrel still was, loafing along one hundred yards off his frigate’s starboard beam.

S’pose I should invite him aboard for a drink, at the least, Lewrie thought; I might even dine him in.

He went to the binnacle cabinet, took up a speaking-trumpet, and went to the rails to shout an invitation over. Lt. Richmond was happy to accept a supper.

“We will be standing out to deeper waters at the start of the First Dog, Richmond!” Lewrie called over. “If you will take station astern of me, that will save you a long row in the dark!”

“Most welcome, Captain Lewrie!” Richmond replied. “At any rate, I hoped to remain in company ’til dawn before returning to Nassau. We are being plagued by reports of a French privateer in our waters, and I do not relish making my little ship an appetiser!”

“A French privateer?” Lewrie bellowed back, “Have any ships been lost?”

“No way to know, sir!” Richmond responded. “Settlers on Grand Bahama and the Abacos have sent word to Nassau that they saw her, and one of our local merchantmen came in and said that she’d been pursued, and only made her escape by reaching shoal waters!”

Richmond was right; there was no way to know if any ships had been taken. Once a merchant ship dropped below the horizon from New Providence, out-bound, it was just assumed that she would complete her voyage. If a merchantman left England, Boston, or Charleston for the Bahamas, no one there could know she was coming, or when she was expected to make port… or if she had ever existed! It would only be the owners and investors, the “ship’s husbands”, who would mourn her inexplicable loss, months or years later.

Lewrie suggested that Richmond come aboard at the beginning of the Second Dog, at 6 P.M., gave him a cheery wave, then returned to the binnacle cabinet to stow the speaking-trumpet, then peer into the compass bowl, up at the commissioning pendant and the sails to judge the strength and direction of the wind, and ponder.

Forrester had word that a privateer or two might be loose in his “patch”, but he sailed off, anyway? Lewrie thought with admitted wry amusement over the failings of a long-ago, none-too-loved shipmate; He always was a damned fool! With Mersey and the brig-sloops gone with him, there’s nothing of worth left t’guard Nassau and adjacent waters. He’s off for glory, his name in the newspapers, and a pat on the back from Admiralty for his boldness.

Lewrie reached into a side pocket of his uniform coat to draw out Forrester’s note to re-read it. Once he’d done so, he began to grin in delight, seeing the possibilities. Forrester had snidely asked him to take his place while he was gone, a request that Lewrie was sure was already a complaint in Forrester’s report to London that would be a black mark against him. But two could play that game, Lewrie thought with a rising excitement.

There was a French privateer prowling the Bahamas. Could it be Mollien and his