Dewey Lambdin - Reefs and Shoals

“One to either beam, sir,” Spendlove reported, “and the barges and cutters waiting astern of them for boarding.”

“Let’s get on with it, then,” Lewrie ordered, resisting an urge to pull out his pocket watch. It was so dark that that would be bootless, for the night’s gloom did not allow even the faintest hint of starlight by which to read it; there had been a warm and steady rain offshore that afternoon, and the skies were solidly overcast after its ending.

Sailors and gunners descended the man-ropes and battens to the gunboats, followed by files of Marines with muskets. Lewrie waited ’til the last had left the ship before clumsily descending, himself, burdened with both his double-barrelled pistols and a cartridge pouch and brass priming flask, his rifled breech-loading Ferguson musket and a second cartridge pouch and priming flask for that, as well, along with his hanger on his left hip.

“There is a hooded lanthorn under a scrap of canvas aft, sir,” Spendlove offered, “do you wish to determine the time.”

“Good. You have your copy of the river chart?” Lewrie asked.

“Right here, sir,” Spendlove assured him, patting his chest coat pocket, “though it may be some time before we may refer to it,”

Before Thorn had returned from Nassau to rejoin the squadron, Lt. Westcott with his draughting skills, and Bury with his artistic talents, and Lewrie’s clerk, Faulkes, had made free-hand copies of the chart for all officers and Mids in charge of the boats, distributed to all captains at a planning conference aboard Reliant the day before they departed the Northwest Providence Channel for the Georgia coast. Once the slightly brighter pre-dawn greyness came, they might prove useful.

“Shove off, there, bow man,” Spendlove ordered in a theatrical loud whisper. “Ship oars… and give way.”

The converted fishing boat moved off only a long musket shot before the hands rested on their oars, and let her lie rocking on the tide and current, making room at the entry-ports for the cutters and barges to be manned and rowed off to join her.

As Lewrie waited, he peered out to either beam, searching for Lizard and Firefly to see how they were coping with disembarkation. Clear of the ship, he could barely make out the faintest ruffles of slightly whiter water breaking along their waterlines, and further off, the hint of lazy lake-like waves breaking on the shores of Cumberland Island and Amelia Island. Ahead of his gunboat, the river was as black as his boots!

He sat himself down on a damp thwart near the tiller, fighting the urge to duck under the canvas to check his watch by the light of that hooded lanthorn. The less of that, the better, but… this sort of complicated operation could not be done in complete darkness.

The final plan that they had threshed out at the conference in Reliant ’s great-cabins made allowance for some signal lights during the darkest part of the night and the wee hours of the morning. Once all the various boats were manned and on the water, bobbing about like so many sleeping ducks, Lewrie would order two flashes from that lanthorn to the rowing boats to head up the entrance channel. A second series of three flashes to Lt. Westcott’s gunboat and he would begin to row after the boats in his division. Four flashes would be directed to Lizard, Firefly, and Thorn to begin to make way in their rear, with the two smaller sloops employing their rarely used sweep oars, and Thorn doing her best against the current and ebbing tide under sail.

What sort of shambles, what sort of pot-mess that several hours could produce almost could not be contemplated! If Thorn could not breast the current, she and her heavy guns might end up too far back when dawn broke, and might end up using her original ship’s boats and more of her reduced crew to towing her into action!

The longer that Lewrie sat and pondered, fretting and squirming, the dafter his plan became, and he began to feel sure that when dawn did come, he began to feel torn as to which would make him look even more foolish-how badly it had fallen apart, or that they had stumbled in to find no sign of privateer, prize, or criminals!

“I’ll take a peek at the time,” he whispered to Spendlove, at last, ducking under the canvas, opening the shutter of the lanthorn, and discovering that it was almost 4 A.M.

If Caldwell’s right about the tides, he thought, dredging up one lean scrap of hope, slack-water’s over, and it’s beginning to make.

“I think that I can make out two of our boats astern, sir,” Spendlove said, his whisper muffled by the canvas, “and there are two more off the starboard beam. Lizard ’s, I think.”

“Are they sparking?” Lewrie asked, emerging from the cover of the suffocating canvas, glad for the sudden rush of cool night air.

“They are, sir!” Spendlove said, sounding not only relieved, but amazed that the boats from Lizard assigned to his division would be able to find them in the dark and link up. He drew out an un-loaded Sea Pattern pistol-a heavy and clumsy weapon of such poor accuracy that it was best when fired against a foe’s chest or belly-blew on the pan just to make sure that there was no priming powder, and drew it to full cock. Holding it aloft he pulled the trigger, and the flint created a brief but bright shower of sparks as it scraped down the raspy face of the frisson. That was another necessary violation of complete black-out, but a useful one suggested by Lt. Lovett. “All our boats answer, sir!”

Lewrie stood, resting a steadying hand on Spendlove’s shoulder, and peered far out into the North, looking for a matching set of sparks between Lt. Westcott’s gunboat and his assigned rowing boats.

“Yes, I think I see them!” Lewrie eagerly hissed. “Three… four. They’re all assembled, too. Show two flashes from the lanthorn, Mister Spendlove, and let’s get this procession under way.”

The plan laid out was for assorted rowing boats to lead, with a gunboat close astern of each group. Once past the entrance channel Westcott’s group would take the centre of the river, whilst the boats under Spendlove would press towards the shore of Amelia Island, and the mouth of that river, in case any privateers or prizes were moored there, closest to a quick exit from Cumberland Sound.

Astern of the two boat groups, Lizard and Firefly would try to row in abreast using their longer, greater sweep-oars, with Lovett’s Firefly stationed near the North Bank, and Bury’s Lizard , with more 6-pounders, would provide support for Spendlove’s group should they run into awake and well-armed resistance.

At least it looked good on paper, Lewrie miserably thought as he recalled the last briefing to his officers, his over-sized sketch of the entrance channel, the rivers, and their bends, with pecan shells to represent the major vessels, all moving along in parallel columns abreast, with Thorn trailing closely. What it looked like now in the dark, what it would look like when false dawn greyed the sky, would be a sloppy other matter.

Silence was essential, yet the oars still creaked as they were hauled despite the rags over the thole-pins to muffle the skreak! of wood-on-wood. Oarsmen had to breathe hard, and sometimes cough. The Marines had to fidget and rattle their weapons and accoutrements, and the gun crew of the 6-pounder carronade now and then created wee rumbling noises as they swivelled the slide platform about. The rush of the river seemed a loud rush-gurgle as the boat ploughed through it, the bow lifting at each rhythmic stroke of the oars.

“I think I can make out our boats, sir,” Lt. Spendlove whispered close to Lewrie’s ear, almost making him jump out of his skin.