THE GUN KETCH

'Little Bahama Bank, sir!' Fellow shouted back. 'What the Dons called 'The Great Shallows'! Miles and miles of coral heads and reefs!'

Alacrity was whirled by a gust, drove forward, and snubbed on a stern cable hard enough to make them stumble before paying back to jerk on best bower, then second bower, making the cables groan on the bitts!

Hellish sunset became black night, blue black with lightning frying iron gray rain clouds that brushed the mast- trucks, with the winds moaning all about like a witches' coven. But it was not a cyclone, not a hurricane-just a terrifying winter storm, and it finally blew out by four bells of the evening watch. The rain drummed vertical and with less punishing force, thinned at last, then ceased. The clouds parted to the east, revealing a late moon and a few kindly stars, even though Cross Bay still tossed and churned, and Alacrity continued to quiver.

Soon, the winds eased to half a gale, with lulls between gusts. They could see the storm astern now, a spectral sea battle raging on the leeward horizon as it tore across the Gulf Stream and the Florida Channel, a wall of blackness supported by a thousand legs of flaring lightning strokes, like blue fires on dark velvet.

'Not a millpond yet, sir,' Ballard commented, grunting with a weariness brought on by tension and fear. 'But it's over, praise God.'

'Calm enough to suit me, Arthur,' Lewrie muttered. 'You turn in and get some rest. Set regular anchor watches and a harbour watch. I think our people have earned some sleep at last.'

'And you, sir?' Ballard inquired.

'Dry clothes, and a boat cloak, and I'll doss down in my deck chair. I'll take the middle watch,' Lewrie offered, aching though he was with exhaustion, and the blessed release of being spared disaster.

'No, sir, you turn in,' Ballard objected almost truculently. 'I normally stand the middle.'

'Damme, Arthur, you're silly enough to offer, I'll give you no arguments,' Lewrie smiled for the first time since midday. 'Call me at eight bells, my 'normal' time, then.'

'Aye, aye, Alan. Our normal routine,' Ballard said shyly.

'And damned glad of it!' Lewrie commented as he went below.

Chapter 6

There were, for once, lashings of fresh water aboard, sluiced into barrels from all the rain, and Lewrie, after waking from gummy-eyed sleep, was enjoying the pleasure of a bath from a lavish five-gallon bucket, when he heard a lookout cry that a ship was entering harbour.

He dressed quickly in clean clothing and dashed to the deck.

'Warship, sir,' Lieutenant Ballard informed him as he lowered his telescope. 'A sloop of war. Whippet, I do avow.'

Lewrie borrowed the telescope to eye her himself. Yes, it was Commander Benjamin Rodgers's Whippet, of the bright redgunwales and a lower-steeved jib boom than the older sloop of war on station. A recognition signal flew from her main yard.

'Mister Mayhew, hoist this month's private signal in reply,' Lewrie ordered. He gave Ballard his telescope back and scratched his chin, which still wanted shaving. 'Cony, we'll breakfast Commander Rodgers, more'n like. And where's my coffee?'

' Tis a'comin' this minute, sir,' Cony assured him.

' 'Nother hoist, sir!' Mayhew piped from the bulwarks, clinging to the starboard stays. 'She's flying 'Make Sail,' sir. And here is a third, sir! 'Take Station on Me'!'

'Then we won't have breakfast ourselves,' Lewrie spat. 'Mister Ballard, pipe 'All Hands' and prepare to single up to the best bower. Mister Mayhew? Hoist 'Anchor,' then numeral Four, and hope he gets our sense.'

Whippet prowled north and south off the coast, with 'Make Haste' flying continually, until Alacrity had taken in all her anchors, made sail, and joined her. Once out of harbour, Whippet hoisted 'Captain Repair On Board' and left it flying until Lewrie was in his gig, and being rowed across to her.

'Took you long enough,' Rodgers commented sourly, so unlike his usual merry style.

'Your pardons, sir, but I had four anchors to get up after we took refuge from the storm last night. I trust our signals…'

'What, you no-sailor, you!' Rodgers laughed suddenly, becoming his charming self again. 'Runnin' into a hurricane hole at the first half-gale? What's the Navy comin' to, I ask you?'

'You rode it out, I see, sir,' Lewrie said, peering about the deck at the sailmaker and his crew who were stitching madly, at the hands aloft still reeving new stays and halyards.

'Had to lay-to with a single trys'l jib, a Spanish-reefed main tops'l, and the spanker at three reefs,' Rodgers boasted. 'Put out a sea anchor, and I was just about ready to spill ev'ry drop of oil we had, 'fore the storm passed. Nasty one. Had I been closer inshore, I'd have been tempted. Damaged, are you?'

'No, sir. Small stuff, mostly, easily set right.'

'Good!' Rodgers exulted, cracking his palms together. 'Damned good! There's work afoot, Lewrie! More bloody pirates!'

'Didn't know there was winter traffic enough to prey on, sir.'

'Ran across a Spanish three-master yesterday off Great Isaac at the mouth of the Providence Channel. Thought it suspicious that she was makin' nor-nor'east close-hauled, as if she were goin' to put in for Grand Bahama, when there's not much here. Smugglers or banned traders, I thought at first. But when we got her hull-up, We saw a schooner with her, and then she flies up in-irons and ail-aback, and the schooner scoots off north fast as her little legs'd carry her. She'd been pirated, by God! Chased them until the storm came up, and then it was 'save y'rself!'

'Might have gone down in the storm, sir,' Lewrie suggested.

'Only port on their course was here by Settlement Point, where they could strip their prize in private,' Rodgers went on. 'That's why I peeked in here, t'see if they'd sheltered an' hadn't cleared harbour yet. You saw no other vessel at all?'

'Once we got the anchors set, I couldn't see farther than the end of my arm, for all the rain, sir,' Lewrie had to admit. 'No.'

'Damn!' Rodgers spat, all but stamping his foot on the deck in frustration. 'Damn!' he reiterated. 'She was too small to ride out a storm like that Smaller'n your little Alacrity. I was so sure…'

'Might have sheltered 'round north of us, sir, nearer the Bank, and we'd never have known it,' Lewrie commiserated. 'By Indian Cay.'

Damme, all this folderol for nothing, then, he griped to himself? And I still haven't had me breakfast! Hmm… still…!

'Ah, sir,' Lewrie added. 'You took their prize back, and they were running here.'

'The storm, dammit!' Rodgers groused.

'Not in the morning, sir,' Lewrie said slyly. 'And once they were aware a storm was building, they still ran for a lee shore during the afternoon? Doesn't make sense. Unless they had someplace specific in mind. Some hidey-hole. An uninhabited cay somewhere in the Little Bahama Bank where they felt snug. And a place to ride out a storm.'

'Damme, but you're a knacky 'un, Lewrie! Of course!' Rodgers realized with a grin. 'Where they thought Whippet couldn't follow 'em! You were right about Doyle's hideout, you may be right in this. Now look you here, sir.'

'Aye, sir?'

'I draw twelve feet forrud, so I dasn't risk the Banks, but I could cruise offshore. You draw…?'

'Eight and a half, sir,' Lewrie replied, getting a sudden onset of nerves. Damme, here we go again, tiptoeing through coral!

'North of Memory Rock yonder, there's a ten-fathom pass,' Commander Rodgers schemed, oblivious to the