Dewey Lambdin - Reefs and Shoals

“Aye, sir,” the First Officer replied.

“Speak of the Devil, sir,” Mr. Caldwell said, pointing towards Town Cut, the very narrow entry channel into harbour. “There’s one of the harbour pilots coming to us, just now.”

Lewrie fetched his telescope and spotted a singled-masted boat coming out of the channel ’twixt St. George’s Island, tiny Biggs Island, and St. David’s Island which formed the Southern shore of the harbour. Its jib and gaff-headed mainsail did an uncertain shiver as it left the Cut, a sure sign to Lewrie that it would be a right-bastard set of swirls and back-eddies in there, too uncertain a wind to risk Reliant, this day at least. Once clear, the boat’s sails cracked wind-full, and she began to bound over the choppy inshore waters like a running stag, bound for his ship. As she drew closer, Lewrie could espy three occupants; a lad about twelve or so to handle the sheets, one even younger at the tiller, and an older man in the boat’s amidships.

“I say, that looks fun,” Midshipman Munsell tittered. “Should we ever have the time, we could stage boat races.”

The pilot boat-if that was what it was-passed ahead of Reliant, swung about in a wide turn, and jibed about to swan close to the starboard main chains, and the opened entry-port.

“Hoy, what ship, there?” the older man shouted up, using an old brass speaking-trumpet.

“The Reliant frigate, Captain Alan Lewrie!” Mr. Caldwell called back for them. “You are a pilot, sir?”

“Warrick, and I am!” the fellow replied, beaming broadly under a wide-brimmed straw planter’s hat. “Shall I come up, sir?”

“Aye! Come alongside.”

The lad at the tiller, no older than ten, deftly put the tiller over and brought the boat to within inches of the channel platform as the slightly older boy hooked on with a gaff. A second later and Mr. Warrick was scrambling up the boarding battens, and the boat sheered off to stand alee.

“Good morning, all,” Warrick said, doffing his hat to the officers gathered on the quarterdeck.

“Good morning, Mister Warrick,” Lewrie said, stepping forward and doffing his own hat in salute. “Your servant, sir.”

“Nay, I’m more yours, Cap’m Lewrie,” Warrick replied, “if you wish to enter port. Though the wind’s not good for that, today. We can find you a good anchorage, just off yonder, ’til the morrow, and guide you in then. What’s your draught, sir?”

“About eighteen feet, right aft,” Lewrie supplied.

“Good, long scope, to a bower and kedge, I’m thinking? Good,” Warrick said, noting that the hawse-bucklers had been removed, a kedge was already attached to a stern cable, and the best, larboard bower anchor was swinging free of cat and fish lashings. “There’s many the cautious masters that’ll anchor out, anyway, and send their boats in through the Cut for provisions. Do you not have need of lading cargo, or landing goods, the anchorage’ll suit you fine.

“Mind, sir, my fee’s the same for either,” Warrick said with a smug grin, naming a goodly sum for his services, one which made every officer, and Lewrie, wince. “These are dangerous waters, gentlemen, more so than most. Without a pilot aboard, you’d be lost and wrecked in a twinkling.”

“Carry on, Mister Warrick,” Lewrie said. “Do you require cash, a note of hand, or an Admiralty chit?”

“Cash is topping fine, Cap’m Lewrie,” Warrick breezed off, then turned his full attention to the sails, the course, and the sea-marks. “Hoy, lads. A half point loo’rd, if you will,” he said to the men on the helm, bypassing the watch officers. Reliant was now wholly in his hands.

The frigate swung off to starboard a bit as she came level with Little Head, standing out to avoid a shoal noted as the Spit. To the West was revealed a maze of islets; Paget and Biggs, the larger Smith’s Island, and behind that, in the harbour proper, little Hen Island, all in clear green waters as shallow as six to nine feet, and even the Town Cut entrance looked suspiciously shallow, to Lewrie.

Damned right I’ll not move without a pilot aboard, he vowed to himself; no matter how much they charge me!

“Cap’m sir,” Warrick said at last, “do you let go your kedge and let it pay out half a cable about here, then you’re good to swing up to windward, go flat a’back, then drop the bower on a short scope for the nonce, ’til you’ve balanced between them, you’ll find good holding ground.”

“Very well, sir, and thankee. Mister Westcott? Let go the kedge, half a cable scope.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Do you wish to enter port proper tomorrow, sir, it’s good odds that the wind’ll shift astern of you, and you can trust your kedge to hold you at full scope whilst you take up the bower,” Warrick suggested. “Then, it’s smooth sailing right up the Cut, holding Sugarloaf Hill fine on your bows. You hoist a flag for a pilot, and me and my boys’ll see you right.”

“I’d not try it on without you, Mister Warrick,” Lewrie said, which seemed to please the man. “Once we’re anchored, might I offer you a glass of something, and ask you a few questions about Bermuda? This is, I believe, the first time any of us have put in here.”

“That’d be right kindly of you, sir,” Warrick replied.

It lacked half an hour ’til “Clear Decks and Up Spirits” by the time Reliant was safely anchored, and all her sails at long last brailed up in harbour gaskets or handed and stowed. The crew would get the rum issue a bit later, but Lewrie’s wine cabinet was open, and he kept a stone crock of rum for just such a purpose.

Warrick’s boat had come alongside, and the two lads, his sons, had scrambled aboard to peer about and josh Munsell and Rossyngton, the ship’s youngest Mids. They were bronzed by the sun, bare-legged and shoeless, in faded old breeches with the knee buttons long gone, open and sleeveless linen shirts, and straw hats much like their father’s.

“Ah, but that’s fine,” Warrick said after a tentative sip from his glass of rum. “Navy issue’s stronger than most, Strong enough to make a man’s ears itch, har!”

“We noted some compass variation,” Lewrie began to probe, and Warrick let go with a plethora of local lore. “Mistifying, that.”

There was no explaining the variations, for one thing. With a chart spread on the dining table, Warrick went over the string of islands. Some were so close to each other, like North and South Ireland, Boaz, Somerset, and Watford Islands on the West end of the chain, that if the Crown ever thought to spend money on bridges, the distances between could easily be spanned. Inside the shoals to the Nor’east there was a vast expanse of deep, somewhat sheltered water, Murray’s Anchorage, and there were at least two good deepwater channels that led to a very good sheltered anchorage in Grassy Bay, and the Great and Little Sounds, out to the West.

“During the Peace of Amiens, the Leavder anchored there, sir,” Warrick said. “She’s an old two-decker fifty gunner, and draws more than you. But, there’s not much in the way of provisions, or entertainment, for your sailors from Somerset, or Sandys Parish, either. Nor is there much joy in Hamilton, do you send your ship’s boats through Two Rocks Passage into Hamilton Bay. ’Tis a sleepy little place. You can send your people ashore with little fear of desertion, though. You will note there’s several forts, and a sizeable garrison, on Bermuda.

“Not that there’s much call for them,” Warrick went on, holding out his glass for a top-up. “Keeping order, and rounding up the drunken sailors, mostly.”

“Is Leander still here?” Lewrie asked. “Is her captain senior officer present?”