Dewey Lambdin - Reefs and Shoals

“Some of these that ran off must have poled their boats into the marshes, and are firing from cover of the reeds,” Spendlove guessed aloud.

“Yes, well it won’t do ’em-” Lewrie began to say, when the hum of a musket ball sang past, and some shots were fired at them by someone hiding in the marshes on the South bank! Puffs of smoke rose as if by magic, and a ball caromed off the gunboat’s gunn’l, taking a divot of painted wood.

“Warnt us t’shoot back, sir?” a nervous Marine private asked.

“Waste o’ shot and powder,” Lewrie told him. “We can’t see ’em ’til they pop up just long enough t’fire. They’re wastin’ powder, too, if that’s any comfort.”

Lt. Lovett obviously was not quite as sanguine. Firefly ’s larboard 6-pounders erupted one at a time, each evidently loaded with a charge of grape, musket balls, or langridge, for the marshes twitched and shivered in wide swathes. Lovett had turned those four cannon into shotguns. A minute or so later, there were two musket shots from the marshes, another broadside from Firefly that must have been carefully aimed at roughly the same point, another great parting of reeds and marsh grasses like a full gale, and after, that… nothing.

There was still some sniping going on against Westcott’s boats. The boat carronade at his gunboat’s bows erupted, and his Marines and sailors let off a volley of musketry.

It was Lt. Darling’s Thorn that settled the matter. She had slowly worked her way past where the first privateer and the prizes had been anchored and turned her much heavier guns, the six 18-pounder carronades of her starboard battery, loose on the sharpshooters with much the same results that Lovett had. There were no more shots fired at Westcott’s boats!

“They’re almost at the narrows, the bend of the river, sir,” Lt. Spendlove pointed out, holding up a length of spun-wool to judge the wind’s strength and direction, and tautening the main sheet just a bit snugger.

The prize brig was showing her larboard side as she made the turn that led South, with her captor, the other privateer brig, in her wake. As the privateer began her turn, her sails shivering, she let loose with a stern chase gun and the after-most of her larboard battery. The round shot passed so close to the few fleeing barges that two of them shied away off course for a moment, and one sheered North to run for the marshes. Lewrie did a quick estimate of where it might run aground and found that there was a spit of dry land behind all the marsh, perhaps only a tenth of a mile for her small crew to scramble before reaching some woods. Ahead, Firefly was running out her starboard battery in hopes of smashing her to kindling once level with the grounded barge!

Firefly was beginning to make good progress in her chase, closing the distance on the remaining sailing barges and the bend in the river. Astern, Lewrie could see that Lizard had a wee mustachio of foam under her forefoot as well; the wind was freshening just a bit. All of Westcott’s boats were now under sail, the thirty-two-foot barge with two lugs’ls footing away from the single-masted cutter and the gunboat. As Lewrie watched, Westcott put his oarsmen to work once more for just a bit more speed!

The two fleeing brigs might have gotten round the bend, but were still in plain sight above the grasses of the marshes, showing themselves in profile. The privateer opened fire with her larboard guns and roundshot howled overhead, mostly aimed at Firefly, which had little in the way of bow-chasers with which to reply. The wind was on their beams, whilst the pursuing vessels had the winds astern in a sudden shift. The sun was not quite risen, but the East horizon showed a lighter blue-grey streak of clearing behind the darker gloom of the night’s overcast.

“Try a shot with the carronade, sir?” Spendlove asked, eager to be doing something other than tending the sheets.

“Still too far for a light carronade,” Lewrie decided as Lovett opened fire on the barge which had indeed grounded on the North bank, near that long narrow spit of dryer land. Firefly ’s four 6-pounders on her starboard side raised great splashes all round the barge, scoring at least one hit that tore her transom open; the range was not one hundred yards from mid-channel to the marshes. Two or three sailors on the barge had been going over her bows to wade through the clinging mud and silt, but two of them whirled and fell, likely splintered by the shards from the shattered transom. The barge began to sink.

A minute later and Firefly was at the bend of the river, with Lizard striding up to join her, passing both gunboats, much to the frustration of Lewrie, Spendlove, and, obviously Westcott, who held up a fist and shook it at the sloops, shouting something best not heard by gentlemen.

Firefly quickly went about, her sails luffing and re-filling on a new course, with Lizard nipping at her heels.

“Should we continue, sir?” Spendlove asked, sounding weary.

“As long as we can, sir,” Lewrie told him. “I want t’see how it ends. Be in at the kill, even if we can’t contribute much to it.”

Two minutes more and their gunboat was at the bend, too, and going about. Lewrie consulted the hand-drawn chart once more, noting how short this leg was to the South, just over half a mile, with the best channel nearest the Spanish bank, and a long, narrow, and shallow shoal in mid-channel that widened and shoaled further where the river made a turn to the Nor’west for a bit, then bent again to the West. Lewrie saw what they might be driving for; on the North bank there was dry and neutral ground on the American side of the St. Mary’s, right down to the river, with over twenty feet of depth! They hoped to ground there!

“Whoa, that’s a close’un!” One of the gunboat’s sailors cried, snapping Lewrie’s attention ahead once more.

The privateer was nearest to them, still firing, slowly overlapping her prize brig, stealing her wind. It looked as if the two of them were abreast, and close enough to scrape hull paint!

“She’s run t’other’un aground!” the sailor exclaimed a moment later.

“There’s no room for both in the channel!” Lewrie crowed. “It’s not an hundred feet wide! We’ve got the prize, at least!”

“We will board her, sir?” Spendlove asked.

“No, she’s a dead’un. Leave it,” Lewrie laughed aloud. “We’re after the privateer.”

Lovett and Bury were ahead of their gunboat, by then, and when they came level with the prize, they veered East of her. Lovett could not resist the urge to hear loud bangs, it appeared, for he fired his starboard battery into her to make sure that she would not be worked off the shoal. The range was almost hull-to-hull, and the brig flung parts of herself into the air when struck. A minute later and damned if the phlegmatic Lt. Bury didn’t do the same thing!

First Firefly, then Lizard, reached the deep channel that led round to the Nor’west in pursuit of the privateer, slewing far to the South to follow the deep channel, then wearing to take the wind on the other quarter and hardening up a bit to claw over to the North shore to follow the channel to the American side. As each wore, they fired a full broadside at the privateer, which was stern-on to them.

“Got ’er, they did! They ’it ’er ’twixt wind an’ warter!” the garrulous sailor cheered. “Huzzah, Firefly, huzzah Lizard, ha ha!”

The privateer’s main tops’l’s yard was shattered, and her top-mast swung a full 180 degrees to hang inverted. Across the marshes all could see her stern chewed up, with gouts of old paint, dirt, and shattered planking flung out in clouds.