chosen, had he been a privateer in search of prey, but… perhaps the French didn’t think like him, he was beginning to doubt.
They had seen several American ships bound for New Providence, or returning to home ports from the island, and had stopped and taken a look at them to ask if they had seen any privateers. Despite his cautions to treat the Yankee Doodles and “Brother Johnathans” with respect, and to eschew the urge to check the bona fides of their crewmen to determine if any of them were British, none of them had departed from those encounters happily, even if none of their sailors had been press-ganged. Stopping them for what seemed no cause was irritating enough! Some of the boarding parties reported that they had been accosted with shouts for “Free Trade, and Seamen’s Rights!” no matter how politely they had been handled.
Should he give up this search and head South? he speculated. The pickings for a privateer further down the island chain would be leaner, the prizes almost too small to be worth the effort, if the Prize Courts which served the enemy were as parsimonious as the ones he’d dealt with. Or, by late afternoon, they might put about and go Nor’east round the top of the Little Bahama Bank to do it all over again.
Reliant was at the North end of a line-abreast patrol line with only four or five miles between ships, with little Firefly the closest to the pale green waters of the Bank. The weather was clear and the winds a touch lively, strong enough to mellow the heat. The seas were sparkling, glittering in medium-length waves not over three or four feet in height. All in all, it was a pretty morning, but it didn’t appear as if it would be an eventful one. Lewrie was just about to decide to send down for his deck chair when a lookout shouted down to the deck.
“Signal from Thorn, sir!” Midshipman Grainger added from his perch halfway up the larboard shrouds of the main mast.
Lewrie fetched his telescope and peered outward, trying to read it for himself. There was Thorn four miles off the larboard beam with a hint of Lizard four miles further off, almost hull-down and perched off Thorn ’s stern, almost masked. She, too, flew the same signal. The Firefly was only a tops’l over the horizon, completely masked by HMS Thorn, the originator of the alert relayed up the patrol line.
“The hoist is ‘Enemy In Sight’, sir!” Grainger shouted.
Lieutenant Lovett was not the skittish sort; if he said that he could see an enemy ship, then an enemy there was in the offing.
“Mister Spendlove,” Lewrie ordered the officer of the watch, “Beat to Quarters”
“Another signal, sir!” Grainger shouted once more. “Enemy Is A Brig’, and ‘Enemy Is Flying… South’!”
“Mister Eldridge?” Lewrie said, turning to the older Midshipman aft by the taffrail signal-flag lockers. “You’re fluent and fast by now, I trust?”
“I will try, sir,” Eldridge replied.
“This is going t’be complicated,” Lewrie told him, taking one quick look at the chart on the traverse board. “First, a hoist for Firefly and Lizard, their numbers, for ‘General Chase’, adding ‘Inshore’.” He wished his smaller ships to pursue, slanting toward the Little Bahama Bank to deny that brig a chance to get into shoal water. He hoped that “Inshore”, would convey that desire, and had to trust to Lovett and Bury to want to cut her off.
“Second hoist will be to Thorn, ” Lewrie explained, waiting impatiently as Eldridge scribbled it down on a scrap of paper. “Her number, and ‘General Chase’, adding ‘Seaward’.”
“I relieve you, sir,” Lt. Westcott told Lt. Spendlove as he gained the quarterdeck in a rush, still fumbling with his coat, sword belt, and hat. He knuckled the brim of his hat in salute, Spendlove replying as casually, before dashing to the waist where the gunners were assembling by their pieces. “We’ve found something, sir?”
“It appears we have, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told him. “Do you wait ’til the hoists are completed, then shape course Due South to pursue. The Chase is a brig that Lovett deems a foe.”
Lewrie looked aft as the signal halliard blocks squealed. The first signal was soaring aloft to be two-blocked. While Lewrie was waiting for it to be repeated, Pettus came up with the keys to the arms lockers, which Lewrie passed on to Lt. Merriman, and his sword belt, and his pair of double-barreled Manton pistols.
“I’ll see your cats to the orlop, sir,” Pettus promised.
“Have Jessop see to the damned dog, too,” Lewrie ordered.
Thorn hoisted a repeat of the first signal, and then there was a long wait ’til the mast-head lookouts could report that Lizard had made the hoist to Firefly, and an even longer wait ’til Lizard made a single-flag hoist for “Affirmative” back to Thorn and then to the frigate.
This is one hellish-poor way t’speak with each other, Lewrie thought, regretting that he had spaced his patrol line so far apart; This command of a squadron, and sendin’ orders and hopin’ for the best, is enough t’tear my hair out! But, if Firefly hadn’t been down South so far, we might’ve missed the Chase altogether.
The blocks were squealing again as the first signal was lowered and the second was hurriedly bent on to the halliards. With commendable despatch, Eldridge got the second one to Thorn two-blocked not a minute later. With only four miles between them, Lt. Darling’s ship was quicker to respond with the “Repeat,” and no “Query” or “Submit” to delay the process.
“Strike it, Mister Eldridge,” Lewrie ordered, which was the order for Thorn to execute. As soon as Thorn whisked her Repeat down, her helm was put over and she wheeled Sutherly, hardening up her gaff sails and bracing round her tops’l and wee royal for drive.
“Alter course, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie snapped.
“Aye aye, sir!”
Reliant spread more sail aloft, too, braced her square sails and yards for more speed, and hoisted the outer flying jib and both the fore and main topmast stays’ls. She leaned her starboard shoulder to the sea and began to lope South, her forefoot smashing and parting the sea, her hull and masts humming and trembling in haste.
“We might be up level with Thorn in an hour,” Lt. Westcott speculated aloud, “though I doubt either of us will be of much help to Lovett and Bury’.”
“The important thing is for us to be seen, West of the Banks, so the Chase can’t hope to hare off that way,” Lewrie said, feeling a need to cross his fingers; what he hoped to occur could still turn to shambles. “The wee sloops can deny the Chase an escape into the Banks, and Thorn can loom up in a stern-chase. So long as she’s a brig of average size, Lizard and Firefly, can catch her up and take her. We’ll be ‘In Sight’ of her taking. Think there’s a penny or two per hand in that, Mister Westcott?” he said with a grin.
“Only if she’s full of solid coin, sir,” Westcott disparaged.
* * * The enemy brig loomed up over the horizon after an hour or two of pursuit, with Lizard and Firefly visible to the East of her, and closing fast. Lt. Darling was getting a good turn of speed from his brigantine, too, and was several miles ahead of Reliant, standing out to the brig’s West, and within what looked to be two miles of her.
“Deck there!” all the mast-head lookouts cried, almost in chorus. “Gunfire! Lizard and Firefly are engaged!”
Lewrie was so fretful that he slung his telescope over his shoulder and scaled the shrouds of the mizen mast to see what he could see, which wasn’t all that revealing. By then, the enemy and his two smaller sloops were almost hull-up to him, merged together and almost impossible to demarcate one from the other. The sounds of their engagement could not reach his ears, but there was a growing pall of spent gunpowder smoke down yonder. He swung the lens to the West and there was Thorn, rapidly closing aslant, still with an eye towards closing the door to any escape towards open water and the inlets of far-off Florida. She had yet to commence fire.
“Deck, there!” the main-mast lookout shouted down. “Chase is bein’ doubled! Bound Sou’west!”
