Dewey Lambdin - Reefs and Shoals

“Sa-safe. Saint Aug-Augustine,” Treadwell whimpered so faintly that Lewrie had to bend to hear him. “Spanish have…”

“Good,” Lewrie said, leaning back. “Thank you for that. Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Lewrie cheerfully added. “Give my regards to the Devil.”

Lewrie stood up to return to his boat, but took a moment for looting, instead.

“Would you care for a Pennsylvania rifle, Mister Spendlove?” he said, lifting Treadwell’s piece, its powder horn, priming flasks and leather pouch. “It’s a rather fine one, custom-made, I’d expect.”

“Ehm… thank you, sir,” Spendlove hesitantly said, stunned by his captain’s revelation of a very ruthless nature. “We will simply leave him, sir?” he asked once Lewrie was back aboard.

“Like the Vikings saw off their kings,” Lewrie told him with a grin. “Set his boat adrift to get snagged in the marshes, or waft out to sea. It was his river…; let it have him. Let’s go see if Bury and Lovett are done with the privateer. She should’ve struck by now.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Spendlove replied, much subdued.

Lewrie sat down on the after thwart once more and dug into his cartridge pouch for a worn-out toothbrush, an oily rag, and a length of twine with a small weight on one end and a brass slot for a cleaning patch on the other, opened the breech of his Ferguson rifle-musket, and began to clean the bore, the pan, and touch-hole.

He looked up, distracted by the cries of marsh birds. The sun was fully up, at last, and the sounds of combat had silenced, allowing the myriad flocks of gulls, terns, sandpipers, herons, ibises, egrets, and skimmers to soar up from hiding. The clearing sky was teeming with them in their swirling thousands. Beyond round the bend of the river, Firefly, Lizard, and the privateer were close together, the smoke from the last broadsides still risen above them, as if from eye-level from his boat a naval battle was occurring on a vast green lawn, with the last of the river mist hazing the vast and verdant marsh grasses.

Damme if this ain’t the best day I’ve had in months! he happily thought; And a right-handsome one, t’boot!

“Expulsis piratis-Resituta Commercia”

“He expelled the pirates and restored Commerce”

– M OTTO OF C APTAIN W OODES R OGERS, FORMER G OVERNOR OF THE B AHAMAS

“I’ve the fair copies of your reports ready, sir, if you would care to glance them over,” Lewrie’s clerk, Faulkes said.

“Aye, thankee, Faulkes,” Lewrie agreed, seated on the settee to starboard of his great-cabins. Reliant and her small squadron were quietly anchored in West Bay below Fort Charlotte in Nassau Harbour, at long last, and he could lounge at ease in his shirtsleeves and a comfortable old pair of white canvas trousers, with a tall glass of cool tea sweetened and lemoned the way he liked it.

The most important of his correspondence was to Admiralty, far off in London, which described all his actions over the last few weeks, the capture of three French privateers, the Insolent, Otarie, and the Furieux, the amphibious landings his squadron had made, and the raid up the St, Mary’s River. Included was his evidence against the late, un-lamented Edward Treadwell and his Tybee Roads Trading Company, and details of the nefarious plan to aid enemy privateers for profit, in violation of American neutrality.

A second set of evidence had to be sent to the British Ambassador at Washington City, with a briefer report that covered his raid, and its results, which proved the existence of Treadwell’s plot, and justified his “kind of, sort of” skirting of American neutrality in the narrows of the river, so the ambassador could present the matter to the American government. That would be tit-for-tat and “so there” for American complaints that British forces still garrisoned the upper reaches of the Michigan Territory, ages after the peace treaty that had ended the Revolution in 1783!

Despite his distaste for the necessity, Lewrie would have to send a copy of the evidence, the ledgers, account books, and all, to their Consul at Savannah, that “top-lofty” idler, Mr. Hereford, with a cover letter that most carefully disguised Lewrie’s loathing of the man and referred to him as a colleague. Hopefully, Hereford would stir up his lazy arse and present the matter to the city officials in Savannah, perhaps to their state government, too, who might lodge accusations and prosecutions against the Tybee Roads Company and all of its subsidiaries. Did they seize the properties and assets, there was a good chance that their seizure and sale, or fines, would make someone in state government a tad richer when it was dissolved!

Thud! went his Marine sentry’s musket-butt on the deck beyond the door to his cabins. “Midshipman Munsell, SAH!”

“Enter,” Lewrie idly said without looking up from his reading.

“My duty, sir, and I am to tell you that a Navy brig-sloop is entering harbour, sir,” Munsell reported, hat under his arm. “She’s made her number… the ah, Delight, sir. I believe she is listed as being assigned to the Bahamas Squadron.”

“One of Captain Forrester’s?” Lewrie asked with his head over to one side in curiosity. “I thought he took both of his brig-sloops South. Hmm. How far off is she, Mister Munsell?”

“She’s hull-up at the moment, sir,” Munsell informed him, “an hour or more from anchoring, or firing a salute.”

“That’ll give me time enough t’read all this over before whoever it is comes callin’, then,” Lewrie decided, yawning. “Thankee, Mister Munsell. Come report to me when I should have t’be up and dressed.”

“Aye, sir.”

Lewrie quirked his mouth in faint frustration once Munsell had departed. He had planned to finish reading the reports and see them, along with his personal letters, to the packets bound for Savannah, the Chesapeake, and England, then put his head down for a long, lazy nap, but Delight ’s arrival put paid to that idleness.

Damn! he thought; I wonder if her captain is important enough for me to put on my bloody star and sash?

Thankfully, it was a whole two hours before Delight came into port, fired her salute… a cautious one of twelve guns befitting a Post-Captain of a Fifth Rate frigate… and came to anchor. She made a hoist of “Have Despatches”, then another of “Permission to Board”, which Reliant answered with “Captain To Repair Aboard”, and a boat made its way to the frigate’s starboard entry-port.

Lewrie awaited the newcomer on deck in the warm early-August sun, shoved into his everyday uniform, with the lesser concession of the star of the Order of the Bath pinned to his coat breast.

Bosun Sprague and his Mate, Wheeler, did the ship proud with their welcoming calls, the fully-uniformed Marines and sailors of the side-party saluted smartly, and the on-watch hands doffed hats as the officer, a Commander with a lone gilt and fringed epaulet perched on his left shoulder, doffed his hat in reply.

Midshipman Rossyngton saw him from the entry-port to the quarterdeck where Lewrie stood, whispering to the new arrival.

“Captain, sir,” Rossyngton glibly said, making the introduction, “allow me to name to you Commander Isaac Gilpin of the Delight sloop. Commander Gilpin, allow me to name to you Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of the Reliant frigate.”

“Your servant, Sir Alan,” Gilpin said with a slight bow as he doffed his hat once more.

“Good t’make your acquaintance, Commander Gilpin,” Lewrie said in turn. “At long last, that is, since your ship was out on patrol whenever I came in to Nassau, and our paths never crossed ’til now.”