CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The single-masted cutter, which proved to be HMS Squirrel, came close-aboard Reliant, within easy speaking distance as the squadron jogged slowly North up the coast a bit beyond St. Augustine, and her commanding officer, bellowed, “I have despatches and mail and some men of your squadron!”

“I will receive them all!” Lewrie shouted back, then turned to Midshipman Warburton. “Hoist signals to the other ships, sir. Make ‘Send Boats’ and ‘Have Mail’.”

“Aye, sir!” Warburton eagerly said. Reliant had not received any word from home since departing Portsmouth nigh six months before, and word of mail, or newspapers, set everyone to rubbing their hands in expectation.

The seas were running light, the winds were soft, and the space between the frigate and the cutter was not an hundred yards, with no rushing, foaming wakes to conjoin, so Squirrel ’s boat made a quick and easy transit to hook onto Reliant ’s main chains and send a Midshipman and ten of Thorn ’s long-lost sailors aboard.

“Allow me to name myself, sir-John Bracegirdle,” the new-come Midshipman said, doffing his hat and bowing from the waist.

“Lieutenant Darling will be very glad to have you and your men back, Mister Bracegirdle,” Lewrie told him, saluting him back. “You have the squadron’s mail in that bag, do you?”

“Aye, sir,” Bracegirdle replied, unslinging it from round his neck and shoulder. “And I have a despatch addressed to you, sir.”

That wax-sealed letter was brought from Bracegirdle’s pocket and handed over. It was from Captain Francis Forrester. Lewrie took a breath, held it, then let it out through pumped-out lips before he turned away to rip it open and read it, dreading the worst.

I thought I told the toad my squadron had Admiralty orders, and I ain’t his junior, butwhat the Devil ? Lewrie thought, stunned by the letter’s contents.

Forrester would not hook him or net him. He had bigger fish to fry…; so did every Royal Navy warship in the West Indies! The note was more by way of a warning that the French were on the prowl!

Since early May, rumours of the presence of a squadron of Third Rate 74s, some frigates, and troop ships, had come up the island chains of the Windwards, from Trinidad, Barbados, and Grenada. Was it eight or ten warships? Or, was it only four or five? Were they come to stiffen the garrisons of the French colonies of Guadeloupe and Martinique, or would they come to invade British islands, or reclaim the islands taken from the French after the war had re-begun in 1803? No one knew.

Captain Francis Forrester’s brief letter said that he was summoning the few brig-sloops under his command, and would lead them South as far as Antigua to re-enforce any Royal Navy squadron he encountered.

Since you made it so evidently plain that you are not under my Command, I must trust that you possess enough Sense to see your Duty clearly, and, if you will not join me out of Patriotism, then in my Absence you will abandon your insignificant Quest after spurious Privateers and take upon yourself the temporary Protection of the Bahamas until my return.

“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie said with a snort. “Put the onus on me, and dash off for glory, will you?” He was torn, though, by the temptation to dash off South and participate in a real battle, whether he had to place himself under Forrester’s haughty and vindictive command or not, for doing so beat his fruitless patrolling and the uncertainties of American collusion all hollow. Except for their few shore raids, he’d been doing the dullest sort of blockade duty with not a blessed thing to show for it, nothing of consequence, anyway.

It’s impossible to protect the whole Bahamas with one frigate and a handful of sloops, he furiously thought; any more than Forrester could with a pair o’ brig-sloops and his own shipand her damned near aground at Nassau for months on end!

But, he quickly realised, if he did dash off to Antigua or St. Kitts, that would leave the Bahamas with nothing but sloops like his and a parcel of cutters like Squirrel to challenge an French invasion, not the Spanish invasion that Forrester had dreaded when he’d spoken to him in the early Spring!

And just why the Devil would the French even care to take the Bahamas? he further asked himself. If they had sent a small squadron to the West Indies, re-enforcing the islands they still held made a lot more sense. So did invading one or more of the British Windward Isles.

The big sugar trades! Lewrie thought, getting a leap of his stomach in his chest, and a touch of cold chill. If the French took Nassau and New Providence, Bimini and the Berry Islands, perhaps even Grand Bahama and the Abacos, they could dominate the Florida Straits! No convoy, no matter how well-escorted, would survive, and it would not be the odd privateer preying on them, but frigates, too! There would go a large portion of British trade.

Guerre de course,” Lewrie muttered, recalling the French concept of commerce raiding to disperse the strength of the Royal Navy, which would give their fleet an even chance to sail out and fight on more-equal terms, even weaken Channel Fleet to the point that their Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s vast invasion armada could succeed in landing that two-hundred-thousand-man army of his in England and destroying the last opponent between Napoleon and world domination!

If I were “Bony”, that’s what I’d do, Lewrie told himself; but, Christ, we’ve at least twenty ships in the West Indies, and the Frogs are still over one thousand miles from here. It’s no use borrowin’ trouble. Or, jumpin’ at shadows.

“Mister Warburton?” Lewrie said, shaking himself free of his fretting, and returning to the here-and-now. “Pass the word for my clerk, Mister Faulkes, to attend me in my cabins, instanter.”

“Aye, sir.”

He dashed below and sat down at his desk in the day-cabin with no mind for the cats, who were glad to see him, but disappointed by his inattention. He opened the ink-well, dipped a pen, and began to write the gist of Forrester’s note for each of his subordinate captains.

“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 ’emif 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 Otarie? Catching him would be sweet! From Charleston, where he had first seen that schooner, to the Bahamas was close to the suspected aid and comfort of the lower Georgia coast.

Lewrie looked cross the quarterdeck to the shore. The coast of Spanish Florida was a thin green streak, and of late, not a very productive one. He contemplated leaving Bury in Lizard, and Lovett in Firefly, to continue the patrolling and partial blockading of St. Augustine, but… if he did run across a privateer in Bahamian waters, he would need them and their shoal draughts to chase the foe where his frigate could not dare go. Besides, if he did manage to find a real enemy, it would be unfair to deprive them of the excitement!

Long ago, he in Alacrity and his old friend Benjamin Rodgers in Sloop of War Whippet had raided on Walker’s Cay to suppress piracy, and it was Alacrity that had to strike from the West at dawn. “Lewrie, I dasn’t risk the Banks,” Rodgers had said of the treacherously shoal Bahama Banks. There was shelter for a privateer up yonder, and only a sloop of shoal draught, and the new gunboats, would be able to get at it.

Might he leave HMS Thorn? No, he rejected that, too, for there might be need of her heavier firepower closer to the shoals that ever Reliant could get. Hang it, I’ll take ’em all! Lewrie thought.

“Mister Warburton,” Lewrie said of a sudden, “pass word for my cook, Yeoviil, and hoist a signal to all ships. ‘Captains To Supper,’ at the start of the Second Dog Watch. Then, ‘Alter Course’ to Seaward.”

“Aye, sir.”

This was the sort of thing that he would have to impart to all of them, face-to-face, this change of their area of operations, and a new mission.

Now in much surer takings, Lewrie began to pace from the head of the starboard gangway to the taffrails and back again, working up his appetite for supper, and pondering just what he should serve, and what Yeoviil could come up with on short notice.

“Look at that!” Midshipman Warburton whispered to Midshipman Munsell, who shared the watch with him. Both slyly grinned, and then caught Lt. Merriman’s attention, jerking their heads in Lewrie’s direction, bringing a grin to Merriman’s face, too. “I wager he doesn’t even notice!”

The ship’s dog, Bisquit, had slunk up the ladderway to the quarterdeck, that tempting forbidden territory, had hidden by the binnacle cabinet ’til Lewrie’s back was turned, and had then begun to pace along a few steps behind Lewrie’s shins, mouth wide open in what could be construed as a grin as he looked up with his ears perked, and darting ahead of him whenever Lewrie turned about to continue his slow pacing, then “take station” off his quarter once more, and with Lewrie so lost in his thoughts that he was all un-knowing.

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