Hostile Shores (3 page)

“Hmmm…,” Lewrie pondered, then shook his head. “I fear that your presence may block the fire from Fort Fincastle’s guns, which are already sited to cover those beaches. Best we stick together to the end.”

“If they do bring troop ships, sir, why not have a go at ’em?” Lt. Lovett said with a chuckle, and a feral look on his long Cornish face. “If we could get round, or past, the escorts, we could make a
very
bloody
meal
of ’em! What say to that, hey?”

“Damned good idea, Lovett!” Lt. Darling congratulated him, with a hearty thump on the shoulder. “Kick them in their ‘nut-megs’, while they expect us to box them toe-to-toe!”

“A forlorn hope,” Lt. Bury intoned most gravely, as was his wont. “I believe that is what the Army terms such fights. But…” For once, Bury smiled, adding, “such battles win undying glory for the participants, and gild their honour forever.”

Mad as hatters, the lot of ’em,
Lewrie thought, but feeling a pride in their courage.

“Very well,” Lewrie instructed. “If there are transports, and I see a chance to get at them, I will hoist the ‘General Chase’. If we face ships against which it appears we stand a chance, I will make ‘Engage The Enemy More Closely’.

“If, however, we are hopelessly out-matched,” he went on with a shrug, “and the best we could do would be to deny them entrance to the harbour,
Reliant
will hoist—”

“How about the ‘Church’ flag, sir?” Lt. Darling puckishly japed, making them all bray with gallows humour, and amazing Lewrie, again.

“‘Church’ it is, then,” Lewrie allowed. “Gentlemen, my steward left no glasses, but I do have a decanter of aged American corn whisky. Let’s pass it round t’larboard like we do the port, and take a bit of liquid cheer.”

“Most welcome, sir!” Lovett roared his approval.

“And, if this is the last time we may stand together in this life,” Lewrie concluded, “let me just say that I have never served with a group of officers more energetic, more daring and skillful, and full of courage.”

“Hear him, hear him!” Darling crowed.

Lewrie took a gulp from the decanter, savouring the whisky as it burned its way down to his gullet, telling himself that there was no spirit to match aged corn whisky. He liked the look of it in a glass, its smoothness on the palate, even its slightly sweet aroma. He passed the decanter on to Lovett, who glugged down a good measure. Darling was next, and he grimaced when the whisky’s bite reached his throat. Bury took the decanter, but paused.

“Gentlemen, recall when first our little squadron was formed, and we first dined together,” Bury stiffly said. “I give you the toast we made then. ‘Here’s to us, none like us, a bold band of English sea-rovers!’”

Bury took his drink then as the rest loudly echoed their agreement with his sentiment.

“Now, let us prepare our ships for sea,” Lewrie ordered as he got the decanter back. “Up-anchor and make sail, quick as you can, and follow me out in line-astern.”

They shook hands, then departed. Lewrie lingered in the great-cabins for a moment, looking round at how bare it appeared with only the painted black-and-white deck chequer canvas nailed to the planks, and the 18-pounders resting on their carriages, un-manned so far. Even the pillows and padded seats of the transom settee had been sent below for safekeeping, and he wondered if he would ever see his cabins set up properly, again … if anyone aboard
Reliant
would.

He took another gulp of whisky, then went on deck, carrying the decanter to the quarterdeck, popping the stopper into place.

“Take it down, sir?” Bosun Sprague asked at the foot of the larboard ladderway.

“Aye, Mister Sprague,” Lewrie agreed, and the last deal-and-canvas partitions were taken down, the dining table was collapsed and put to one side, and the great-cabins were now open to the weather deck, just an extension to the rows of guns to either beam.

Lewrie stowed the decanter in the compass binnacle cabinet forward of the double-wheel helm, nodded to the two Quartermasters’ Mates already manning the helm, noting their avid interest in where liquour would be if no one noticed them pilfering, and walked over to Lieutenant Westcott.

“All’s in order, sir,” Westcott crisply reported, raising one hand to knuckle his cocked hat in salute. “Hands are ready for ‘Stations To Weigh’ and make sail.”

“Hands to the capstans, then, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered.

“Bosun!” Westcott bellowed. “Pipe hands to weigh anchors!”

“And God help us all,” Lt. Westcott muttered to himself.

*   *   *

Even with the best will in the world, getting a ship under way took time; time to nip a messenger line to the thigh-thick anchor cable, wrap the messenger round the capstan, place sailors round it to breast to the capstan bars, and haul in the heavy cable, with more hands to lead the in-board end of the cable down below to the tiers where it would be stowed, where it could drip seawater and spread its accumulated mud and gritty bottom sand, and reek of dead fish and tidal flat miasma. The ship would be hauled in to “short stays”, increasing the angle of the cable through the hawsehole, where the strain would be heaviest, and the hands had to dig their toes in and grunt the vessel the last few yards ’til the cable was “up and down”. Then came the order for the “heavy haul” to break the anchor’s flukes, and its weight, free of the bottom. Up it would come, at last, streaming muck, to be “fished” round a fluke or cross-bar to draw the anchor horizontal, so it could be “rung up” and “catted” to the stout out-jutting timber of the cat-head, and the now-empty hawseholes be fitted with “bucklers” to plug the possible in-rush of seawater in heavy seas.

As the cable came “up and down”, more sailors, young and spry topmen, would be piped aloft to make sail, to scramble up the shrouds and rat-lines of each mast to the top platforms and beyond to the cross-trees where they would trice up and lay out along the yards, balancing on the precarious, swaying foot-ropes with their arms locked over the yards, where they would remove the harbour gaskets and let the canvas fall. Yards were hoisted off their rests while the topmen were aloft, clews hauled to draw down the bottoms of the sails, and even more men on deck manned the yard braces to angle them to the wind.

In all, it took the better part of an hour for
Reliant
to make sail and begin to ghost across the waters of Nassau Harbour, heading for the entrance channel, with the three smaller warships following in her scant wake.

As the sheets, halliards, jeers, and braces were belayed, then stowed in loops over the pin-rails or fife rails, or coiled on the sail-tending gangways, Marine Lieutenant Simcock called for the ship’s musicians, his fifer and drummer and a pair of fiddlers, to hoist the men a tune. He did not call for his favourite, “The Bowld Soldier Boy”, which accompanied the rum cask on deck when “Clear Decks And Up Spirits” was piped, but “Spanish Ladies”, and he requested a rousing lilt.

To watchers ashore who had not yet fled inland or to “Overhill” behind the town, to the soldiers and gunners who stood their posts upon Fort Fincastle’s ramparts, their little squadron made a brave but desperate show. Fresh and bright Union flags fluttered in the wind from every stern gaff or spanker, and larger ones flew from the foremast trucks of the smaller warships, and from
Reliant
’s main mast tip. The long red-white-blue commissioning pendants stood out like slowly curling snakes.

The thin, bracing tune reached shore, almost lost in the rustle of sails and trees along Bay Street. A private gunner who served one of the heavy 32-pounders in a lower embrasure of the fort put his head out the stone port to cock an ear, and savour a faint snatch of cooling breeze. “Gawd ’elp ’em, Corp,” he said to his gun captain.

“Aye, them poor bastards ain’t got a ’ope in ’Ell,” the Corporal sadly agreed, and spat tobacco juice into the swab-water tub.

CHAPTER THREE

The prevailing wind was nearly from the Nor’east, forcing the squadron to stand Nor’west for a time ’til they made a goodly offing, then altered course Sou’east, tacking in succession to larboard tack for a short board to make progress Easterly.

Good Christ!
Lewrie thought when he got his first look seaward, clear of Hog Island by two miles or more;
If it ain’t a whole fleet, it’ll do a fair impression o’ one.

The un-identifed ships were almost hull-up above the horizon already, no more than six miles to windward, and even at a leisurely pace under reduced sail could be off the harbour entrance in no more than two hours.

“Time to beat to Quarters, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said as he dug into a side pocket of his coat for the keys to the arms chests. “I will be aloft for a bit.”

Lewrie slung a day-glass over his shoulder and climbed atop a gun-carriage to the top of the larboard bulwarks, then up the mizen mast’s windward shrouds to as far as the cat-harpings below the fighting top. Looping a steadying arm through the stays, he brought the telescope to his eye and felt even less hope than he had evinced at his quick conference with his officers. From his higher perch, he could make out at least seven distinct sets of sails, all of them of three masts. The three leading the line-ahead formation seemed to be one-decked ships, which he judged to be frigates. Astern, though …

Oh, mine arse,
he groaned to himself;
Those two aft o’ those frigates are
two-deckers
!
Seventy-four-gunned Third Rates? Two more astern o’ them, they look t’be … three-masted sloops of war? What the Frogs call
corvettes
?

If they were lighter ships, from his own Navy, by this time of the war they would be two-masted brig-sloops, below the Rates, with fewer than twenty guns. But French warships below the Rates would be three-masted, still.

We’re going t’get massacred,
he mourned as he shoved the tubes of the telescope shut, re-slung it, and began a slow and cautious descent to the quarterdeck.

“Deck, there!” a main mast lookout shouted down from the cross-trees “Th’ count is seven sail! Seven sail!”

“Rather a lot,” Lt. Westcott softly commented.

“Two of ’em are two-deckers, t’boot,” Lewrie muttered to him. “What looks t’be three frigates in the lead. Hmmm. Unless the pair astern are transports.
Might
be better odds. But, I don’t see how we could get at them if they are … not past three frigates and two Third Rates. Unless…”

For pity’s sake,
think
o’ something, ye damned half-wit,
Lewrie chid himself.

“Ahem, sir,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Caldwell, interrupted, “but we are standing in toward shoal waters, and should come about to starboard tack to make a long board.”

“Aye, Mister Caldwell,” Lewrie replied with a jerk of his head, impatient to be interrupted whilst he was scheming for some way to go game and hurt the foe, even a little. “Mister Munsell?” he called to the Midshipman standing aft with the Afterguard and the signalmen. “Do you hoist ‘Tack In Succession.’”

“Aye, sir!”

“Ah!” Lewrie exclaimed as one idea did come to him. “The wind is more Nor’east by East, Mister Caldwell?”

“Aye, sir, it is,” Caldwell agreed.

“And our new course would put us on North by West, beating to windward, until—” Lewrie hustled over to the binnacle cabinet, where a chart was pinned to the traverse board for quick reference. “We’ve bags of sea-room all the way to Grand Bahama, so … do we stand on for a good while, then come back to larboard tack when the enemy squadron is no more than a mile or two to windward of us, we will cross their hawses at almost right angles, perhaps close enough to serve them one or two broadsides. Bow-rake the
lead
ship, at any rate, before wearing alee, and returning to the starboard tack to do it again, before we are overwhelmed … or have to cut and run to block the entrance to the harbour, at last. If we can’t fight ’em on equal terms, then at least we can bloody their noses and let ’em know they’re in for a hard fight!”

“Maybe we should release the weaker ships now, sir,” Wescott suggested in a whisper, leaning his head close to Lewrie’s. “We are the only ship that can engage them with our eighteen-pounders, whilst
Lizard
’s and
Firefly
’s six-pounders would have no effect beyond one cable. As for
Thorn
’s carronades, well … to get them in close enough to do
any
damage, those lead frigates could just bull on and pass through our line. Simply brush them aside like toy boats.”

“I know it’s hopeless, but we have to
try,
” Lewrie bleakly said in response, hands folded in the small of his back, and his eyes upon the toes of his boots. “Perhaps at two cables’ range. That’s still cuttin’ it
damned
fine, but perhaps they don’t know that
Thorn
only has carronades, and will take the blasts as
long
eighteens. Just one good broadside from everyone, and then we’ll put about.”

“Very good, sir,” Lt. Westcott replied, his harsh face fixed in stone. There was nothing else he could say that would not be deemed an expression of cowardice in the face of the enemy, or insubordination to a captain’s legal order … no matter how suicidal.

“Sorry I ruined your morning’s pleasure, Mister Westcott,” Alan Lewrie whispered with a faint sketch of a smile. “And, all this.”

“Ah, but you didn’t, sir,” Westcott brightened, his grin flashing a brief show of white teeth. “The alert gun came after the first two main bouts, and only interrupted a second breakfast. One hopes that
you
at least got to grips, as it were—”

“Never even put a foot ashore, no,” Lewrie rued. “But then, I do admit that you were always quicker off the mark.”

Lucky bloody bastard!
Lewrie thought in envy;
He’ll go to his Maker, or Hell, much eased, whilst I’ve been without so long, there’s semen squirtin’ from my ears do I sneeze!

*   *   *

The squadron stood on North by West for a good quarter hour as the strange ships continued up the Northeast Providence Channel, still with no flags flying to identify themselves.