Sea of Grey

The brig, still flying an American flag, was hugging closer to the shore of Saint John, as if to shave Ram Head by a boat-hook's reach. Urgent signals were now flying from her lee main-mast.

'She'll pass inside the shoal, Mister Winwood?' Lewrie queried.

'The brig, aye, sir. The schooner, though…' Winwood replied with a wince, as if watching an imminent coach accident.

'Schooner's bearing away,' Langlie noted. 'Ready, down there?'

Gun-captains waved their hands clear of the guns; Catterall had his sword poised on high, nodding eagerly. 'On the up-roll… fire!'

'She's standing directly onto the shoal, sir!' Winwood said.

'The brig displays this month's coded signals, sir!' Midshipman Elwes suddenly cautioned, with some alarm.

'He's a lying dog, then,' Lewrie snapped, between explosions from their guns.

'But, sir! Really, they're this month's signals!' Elwes protested, eyes wide in fear of error.

'We ain't firin' on her, Mister Elwes,' Lewrie took the patience to say to him, direct. 'Do you recall our first encounter with Yankee merchantmen? If she's innocent, what's she doin' in company with that Frog privateer? Once our smoke clears, hoist a signal for her to heave to and prepare to be boarded. If she obeys, fine. If she doesn't… then we will fire into her.'

'Aye, aye, sir,' Elwes said, doffing his hat before dashing off aft to his flag lockers and halliards.

Once again, both the schooner and HMS Proteus had mounded the sea with ragged thunderheads of smoke and fog-roil from their guns. A moment later, the schooner sailed clear of hers, presenting her lines side-on, her hull pocked with 12-pounder impacts, and the upper gaff of her foresail hanging limp and the sail bagged out alee.

Then she struck the shoal, jerking to a complete stop, her mastheads swaying forward, gaffs and booms swinging forward abruptly. Running rigging snapped, heavy lower booms ploughed through shrouds and ripped them loose from the dead-eyes, ripped dead-eyes from the chain platforms! Her bow rose up as if cresting a boisterous wave… but remained at that angle, her bow sprit and jib-boom almost vertical.

Proteus's crew groaned aloud, making 'Ooohh!' sounds as if in fellow sailors' sympathy, before recalling that the ship over there was French, after all, and began to jeer and cat-call.

'Someone send for Mister Durant!' Lewrie chortled loudly. 'And ask him how one says 'Oops, oh shit' in French).'

'Do you still wish her boarded, sir?' Langlie asked, after the hilarity had faded and the quarterdeck people had returned to duties.

'Aye, I do, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie decided after a long moment to think it over, weighing risk to his sailors against the need for a confirming document as a privateer. 'Send two boats with Mister Catterall, and a larger boarding party. He's to capture her captain or a mate, if possible, with her Letter of Marque and Reprisal. Does the rest of the crew get ashore, so be it, and let 'em be the Danes' problem. Do they not fire her as they abandon, have our people do it. Instruct him to menace them, but not get into a melee. Do you think he may manage that, Mister Langlie?'

'He's an energetic, simple-minded brute, sir, so I expect that he may,' Langlie chirped back with a wry grin on his features.

'Very well,' Lewrie announced. 'Let's fetch-to and despatch our boarding party, quick as we can. Mister Elwes, what answer did we get from the brig?'

'Can't really make it out, sir, it's all higgledy-piggledy,' the boy replied, dashing from aft to a skidding stop at his summons.

'He's a liar and a conspirator, as I suspected, then. Thankee, Mister Elwes. Keep 'Fetch-To' aloft, and think of a way to make that 'Insistent.' Carry on, sir.'

Proteus didn't wish to drown any of her boarders by proceeding at full tilt when they scrambled down into the boats, surfing along at the end of short painters, barely held in check by straining coxswains and bow-men with boat-hooks. She would have to slow down and take in sail, steering more for Ram Head with the wind abeam to 'make a lee' so the sailors and Marines could disembark down her larboard side.

'Let's make it fast, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie said. 'Scandalise her and clew up sail in 'Spanish reefs.' Brace in yards, abeam.'

'Aye aye, sir!'

Lewrie swung his telescope up and extended the tubes. The brig was almost to the tip of Ram Head, standing off not a cable's distance from the shoals.

'How much water would she have, that close inshore?' Lewrie asked his Sailing Master.

'I make it about fifteen fathom, sir, near the point,' Winwood answered as Proteus swung her bows Nor'Nor'west, and the yard parrels cried as they were swung about to point the weather arms directly into the wind, the sails now flogging helplessly as they were clewed up at the centres, leaving untidy, thrashing bags suspended like ancient teats at the outer ends, with only jibs, stays'ls and the spanker still keeping way on her.

'Damn!' Lewrie griped. 'She'll get a lead on us.' 'Ah… sunrise, sir,' Win wood pointed out, pulling his watch from a waistcoat pocket, as if to confirm dawn's predicted timeliness and heaving a smug, satisfied sigh of approval.

'Very good, sir,' Lewrie said with a grateful smile, thinking, though; Such an easy man to please. Just give him exactitude!

Scant minutes later, Proteus was once more under full sail and under way, thrashing back toward her previous speed in pursuit of the American brig, which was now flying stuns'ls in addition to her royals and t'gallants. Lewrie and Winwood stood close together by the double wheel and binnacle cabinet, ticking off landmarks on a chart as the seamarks almost raced past to starboard as the Chase spun out westward for the shelter of Charlotte Amafie.

Cabrithorn Point, Lameshur Bay, and White Point, then the wide, shallow expanse of Reef Bay. Dittlif Point rose up along the southern shore of St. John, then Rendezvous Bay beyond that long, arrowing peninsula, and Bovocoap Point looming up, with the brig dashing along as close as she could inshore, with Proteus standing further out to seaward, just a tantalising bit out of gun-range from her 6-pounder bow- chasers; almost, but not quite yet…

'She is steering dead-on for passage below the Dog Rocks, and Little Saint James Island, it seems, sir,' Winwood cautiously opined, toying with his waistcoat buttons. 'There is a long shoal, parallel to the shore, below Dog Rocks, with a narrow pass of thirteen fathom between, however. Her captain knows these waters well, we must infer.'

'Wants t'brush us off,' Lewrie sourly grunted.

'Aye, sir. Once beyond Dog Rocks, though, does she intend the direct route inside of Buck Island before taking a slant into harbour, there are even more shoals.'

'Which would force us out alee of yonder Buck Island, and out of any hope of overtaking, if we continue on this course?'

'Aye, sir,' Winwood gloomily reiterated, 'though I cannot find any indications that the shoals are particularly shallow. The charts show some soundings of six or seven fathom. Deep-laden ships would go well clear of the shoals, but that may be sign of too much caution on their captains' parts. With our maximum laden draught of three fathom aft by the keel and rudder skeg… it makes no sense for him to think that we'd be completely daunted. Perhaps he knows more than our chart may tell us, the location of an old wreck…'

'Perhaps he learned his lore of the local waters in very large, deep-draught ships, Mister Winwood,' Lewrie said, trying to put a good face on it despite his qualms of running aground, 'under one of those cautious captains of yours. She's down to her draught waterline, same as us, and she can't draw more than twelve or fourteen feet. Show me your rocks and shoals, let's-'

'Deck, there!' a lookout screeched. 'Chase is changin' course! Tur-nin' away Nor'west!'

'She's only a bit beyond Bovocoap Point,' Mr. Winwood protested in a splutter. 'That'd take her…'