Reefs and Shoals

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

No matter Lewrie’s vow for further amphibious landings, he had to take the little squadron South, again, to peek round Cape Florida into Mayami Bay once more to assure himself that that grand anchorage was not being used. They probed round Cape Canaveral and into the Banana River, then each inlet they found on their way back North to re-commence the loose blockade of St. Augustine. In the main, they found nothing of value to loot or burn, and no sign of privateers from any nation.

Reliant and Thorn lay at anchor a mile offshore of the Matanzas Inlet once more, whilst Lizard and Firefly were anchored in shallower waters closer in. The two new gunboats, along with a gaggle of ship’s boats, had staged another raid, strong enough to go deeper inland. If they found no enemy, they could forage.

After the first hour, with no sounds of combat coming from shore, and no tell-tale plumes of smoke from gunpowder discharges or burning huts, Lewrie gave up pacing the shore-side of the quarterdeck, and had his collapsible wood-and-canvas deck chair fetched up, along with his penny-whistle, for a good sit-down and a tootle or two. For a bit, he considered having the quarterdeck awnings rigged, for it was a hot day with light sea winds and a blistering mid-June sun.

Toulon and Chalky were spraddled out atop the cross-deck hammock nettings like sleeping leopards, and did not even open one slitted eye as he began to work his way through “The Rakes of Mallow.” He was into a second rendition when Bisquit began to howl from beneath the starboard ladderway. Lewrie stopped and the dog stopped. He started again, and Bisquit bayed and yipped like a lonely wolf’s keening. The watch-standers and the hands on deck found it highly amusing.

“We’ve a singing dog!” Midshipman Grainger hooted to his mates.

As many nights as possible during the Second Dog Watch, there was music and singing on deck, even some dancing of hornpipe competitions, to mellow the ship’s crew. That was what the posted notices had promised back in Portsmouth when Reliant was recruiting: “music and dancing nightly!” Lewrie would now and then lounge on the quarterdeck to listen or to watch-but he couldn’t recall a time when sailors’ music had set the dog to howling.

Lewrie got to his feet and looked down into the ship’s waist to eye the dog. Bisquit was out of his wee cobbled-together shelter, or dog-house, and was on his feet, tail wagging, with his head cocked over as if waiting for more. Lewrie fweeped a few random notes, and damned if the dog didn’t throw his head back and bay once more!

“Ehm, Bisquit does the same, when the Marine fifer plays the rum keg up on deck, sir,” Grainger helpfully offered. “And when the Bosun pipes a salute at the entry-port, he howls then, as well. It must be something about fifes and whistles that excites him, like the horn will stir up the fox hounds.”

“Have ye noticed if he bays when I play when I’m aft?” Lewrie asked, skeptical.

“No, sir, not then,” Grainger told him with a grin. “I imagine the sound doesn’t carry far enough, even though his dog-house is right up against the bulkhead to your great-cabins.”

“D’ye mean t’say, I can only play my bloody whistle when I’m out of ear-shot, Mister Grainger?” Lewrie harrumphed.

“Ehm, it would appear so, sir,” Midshipman Grainger said, with his eyes alight with mischief, about to break out in titters. Lewrie had never mastered even the penny-whistle, much less proper musical instruments, and his attempts had become a running joke after a while aboard every ship he had commanded.

“Mine arse on a band-box,” Lewrie said with a put-upon sigh. “Very well! I can take a hint.” He stuck his head over the hammock nettings to look at the dog. “And thankee for the compliment!”

“Deck, there!” the mast-head lookout called down. “Our boats is comin’ off shore!”

Lewrie traded his penny-whistle for a telescope and went back to the bulwarks to look them over for clues, counting them for losses, despite the complete lack of battle sounds. Once out of the shallow inlet, the boats broke off to return to their respective ships; all were there, and rowing in good order. The two new gunboats were closing on Reliant, with red-painted tompions in the muzzles of the commandeered carronades, and a file of red-coated and white cross-belted Marines seated in-board of the oarsmen. He could see Lieutenant Merriman and Midshipman Eldridge in one, with Marine Officer Simcock, and Lt. Westcott and Midshipman Warburton in the other. God knows where he’d found it, but Westcott had a wide-brimmed straw hat on his head, which he took off and waved once the gunboat met the first sea waves and began to hobby-horse.

“The dog and I are glad to see you back aboard, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie japed once the First Lieutenant had come through the entry-port and had gained the quarterdeck. True to Grainger’s statement, the dog had “sung along” with Bosun Sprague’s calls to welcome the officers aboard. “Accomplish anything?”

“Not a blessed thing, sir, sorry to say,” Westcott said with a scowl on his face. He took off his straw hat and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “After our last raid into the inlet, the Dons learned their lesson. The civilians hereabout seemed to have moved away and abandoned what settlements they had. Into the safety of Saint Augustine, most likely. We did spot a few Spanish infantry lurking in the woods, far off, but as soon as Simcock sent a file of Marines in their direction, they scampered, and gave us no problems. Arnold is piqued, I must warn you, sir. His Marines got their boots muddy and their kits soiled for nothing. He’ll be in the ‘Blue Devils’ for two days.”

“At least you got yourself a new hat,” Lewrie pointed out.

“There was an abandoned cornfield, sir, with a scarecrow stood up in it,” Westcott told him, displaying his hat. “The hat is almost new. So was the maize… too green to pick, so that was a bust, too.”

Westcott appeared crest-fallen and weary. After his initial excitement of arming and fitting the gunboats-and sharing his drawings with Lt. Bury during the process-he had been panting for the opportunity to use them against the Spanish, and Lewrie had sent him off on almost every landing… with little to show for it, and not a single chance of action, since.

“Sorry you found no fun,” Lewrie said, more sincerely.

“Well, sir, there was some excitement,” Westcott said. “One of Lizard ’s sailors almost got bitten by a snake, a coral snake, Lieutenant Bury said it was. Pretty as anything, but deadly. It took a good dozen very scared sailors to club it to death with their musket butts, and after that, everyone was skittish of where they stepped.”

“Let me guess,” Lewrie japed. “Bury claimed it, and is even how painting a picture of it.”

“If not this instant, he will be soon, sir,” Westcott said, with a brief show of good humour. “Some of our sailors thought to tangle with an alligator… a young one, no more than six feet long,” the First Officer went on. “That wasn’t a fair fight, either, and the alligator won. No one got hurt,” he quietly assured Lewrie, “just some feelings. Oh, Lovett’s men found a dead cow that the locals had left behind, but it was gone over in the heat. So much for hung beef, too.”

“I always said that Florida isn’t worth a tuppenny shit,” Lewrie said, “and I can’t imagine how desperate ye have t’be t’live here.”

“Aye, sir… all biting flies, gnats, sand fleas, and mosquitoes and such,” Westcott firmly agreed. “Once one is in off the beach, it is hellish-warm without a whiff of wind, too. The Spanish are welcome to the place!”

“Fetch anything offshore for the dog, Mister Westcott?” Lewrie asked. “Ye noted how fond was his greeting to ye, second fiddle with the Bosun?”

“Not a single thing, this time, no,” Westcott said. “He does sound fond of me, Simcock, and Merriman, doesn’t he?”

You’ll tumble to it, sooner or later, Lewrie thought.

“Let’s give the shore party a quarter-hour to get settled, and time at the scuttle-butts for water, then we’ll hoist signal for all ships to weigh,” Lewrie decided. “Time enough to sponge yourself off?”

“Thank you, sir,” Westcott said with a brief grin. “I do allow that after a morning in that stifling heat, I am a bit ‘high’. Shall we sail as far as the rivers, or Cumberland Sound, sir?”

“I think a loaf off Saint Augustine is in order, first,” Lewrie told him. “The soldiers you saw in the woods surely have reported our presence, and it’s time to drive the point home.”

By mid-afternoon, the wee squadron was two miles off St. Augustine, temptingly trailing their coats within Range-To-Random Shot of the heavy guns of the Castillo de San Marcos, and daring the Spanish to waste powder and shot. They had worked together long enough by then to be able to tack or jibe about in line-ahead whenever Reliant hoisted a flag signal for “Tack In Succession” or the riskier “Tack, Reversing The Order Of Sailing In Column”. It was their way of showing off to the Dons, or “cocking a snook”, whilst honing their ship-handling.

“Sail Ho!” a lookout shouted down after their third parade down the coast. “Off the larboard beam!”

Westcott and Merriman had been below, napping through the day’s warmth in the wardroom, but came boiling up in curiosity to join the officer of the watch, Lt. Spendlove, and Lewrie, at the bulwarks with their telescopes to their eyes.

“Aloft, there!” Spendlove bawled. “How many sail?”

“Just the one, sir!” the lookout wailed back.

“Looks t’be a large jib… no, two jibs, and a large mains’l,” Lewrie speculated aloud. “She’s bows-on to us, so… her mains’l’s winged out, on a ‘soldier’s wind’.”

He glanced up at the commissioning pendant to determine that the winds were from the East-Sou’east, so if the strange sail was on a winged-out run, she was coming from the Bahamas.

“I think she’s almost hull-up,” Lt. Spendlove commented. “And I think I can almost make out a speck of colour at her mast-head.”

“Red and orange?” Lt. Merriman asked, wondering if the colours of Spain were in the offing.

“All I can make out is red,” Spendlove told his compatriot.

“She might be one of ours,” Lewrie said, catching the tiniest flash of colour in his ocular, too. With the wind directly astern of the strange sail, any flag aloft would stream directly at Reliant, and only a slight fluke of wind could display it properly. “It does look red.”

“Odds are, sir, no Spaniard would be coming from the Bahamas,” Lt. Westcott announced. “Any of their ships, naval or merchant, would approach Saint Augustine from the South.”

Oh, Christ! Lewrie thought with a sinking feeling; Forrester’s got the collywobbles that the Dons’re about to invade his patch, and wants my frigate t’back him up! When Bury came back from Nassau, he said the bastard was anxious about something! The fubsy toad!

“Whoever she is, she’s coming right for us, sir,” Spendlove said, closing the tubes of his telescope and returning to the middle of the quarterdeck to resume his attentive watch-standing duties.

“Deck, there!” the lookout shouted down. “She’s hull-up from the cross-trees! Sail is a one-masted cutter!”

“An aviso from Nassau, with orders, most-like,” Lt. Merriman concluded, his telescope still glued to his eye. “Aye, sir! I can definitely make out a Red Ensign at her mast-head, now. She is one of ours.”

Lewrie shut the tubes of his day-glass, too, his mouth screwed up in mild disgust. Forrester was ordering him back to Nassau, with his prime mission incomplete. He’d better have a damned good reason! Lewrie fumed.