Dewey Lambdin - The Invasion Year

“Permission to mount the quarterdeck, sir?” Pettus asked Lieutenant Westcott, who had the watch. “Cool tea’s up!”

“Aye, Pettus… come,” Westcott agreed.

“Oh, good!” Sailing Master Caldwell chimed in, rubbing his paws together in expectation that he’d get a glass, too, as was the custom that had developed aboard, as Spring, and its heat, advanced.

In this manner, nearly fourty-five minutes elapsed. The ship’s bell struck Seven Bells of the Forenoon, and Marine Lt. Simcock’s favourite tune, “The Bowld Soldier Boy,” was heard as the rum keg came from below. The Master’s Mates, and the Midshipmen, came up with their sextants and slates to prepare for Noon Sights, to be taken when the bell struck Eight Bells to end the Forenoon and begin the official Noon-to-Noon ship’s day.

“One hopes you’ll place us in the West Indies, today, Mister Munsell,” Lewrie teased the thirteen-year-old Middy. “Should be very easy… what with Cape Saint Nicholas still in plain sight. And not in the middle of the Caicos Bank, hey?”

“Closer than usual, sir… he’s improving,” Mr. Caldwell said with a wink. Mr. Munsell was an eager, and tarry, lad, but still iffy when it came to the mysteries of celestial navigation and sun sights.

“Signal from Modeste, sir!” Midshipman Warburton piped up. “It is General…” Sure enough, two guns were fired aboard Modeste, to all to gather their attention, and precede a new signal to all seven ships. “Ehm… the frigate captain’s gig is rowing back to her, sir,” Warburton added, swinging his telescope down from the peak of the signal halliards to Modeste ’s side.

“Oh, here it is, sir… ‘Windward Column… To Alter Course to… West-Sou’west, Half West… Leeward Column…’ ”

“That’s wordy, even for Captain Blanding,” Lewrie commented.

“ ‘… the Leeward Column Will… Wear About to Due South,’ sir,” Warburton read out slowly.

“Confusing, too, sir,” Westcott pointed out. “Do both columns alter course together, when the hoist is hauled down, the lee column yonder had better be quick about it, or it will be us who tangle our bow-sprit with yon lead sloop!”

“Hoist the ‘Query,’ Mister Warburton, not ‘Acknowledged,’ and be quick,” Lewrie snapped.

“Aye, sir.”

“Lord, sir… he can’t explain with a fresh hoist, without he lowers the one now flying, and that’d be sign for ‘Execute’!” Lieutenant Westcott further worried aloud.

It appeared that Captain Blanding realised his unclear error, for yet another series of flags went up probably the last spare halliard aboard the flagship; it was “Leeward Column First.”

“ Now you may reply with ‘Acknowledged,’ Mister Warburton,” Lewrie directed, letting out a whoosh of relieved wind. “And, thank God he had enough spares in his taffrail lockers t’say ‘Leeward Column’ twice!”

“The frigate captain’s back alongside his ship, sir,” Warburton reported. A minute later, and he could inform them that that worthy, whoever he was, was back on his quarterdeck, and his gig led round to be towed astern.

“Mister Westcott… just t’be on the safe side, we’ll continue on this course perhaps a whole minute after the ‘Execute,’ ” Lewrie said to his First Officer in a close mutter. “Get a bit more separation to the South as they wear about. The rest of our ships should stand on in line-ahead astern of us. Mister Warburton, send to Modeste … ‘Submit,’ then ‘Alter Course In Succession, Lead Ship First’ and ‘Query.’ ”

“Aye aye, sir!”

He won’t like me for that, Lewrie told himself, peering aft to see what the flagship would reply… if she could at that moment; I’d not care t’be second-guessed, publicly, either, but…

“Signal’s struck, sir!” Warburton cried, even before he could sort out the proper flags and bend them onto the halliards. He and his signalmen jumped to hasten it along.

“The lead sloop is wheeling to leeward, sir,” Wescott said.

Sure enough, the brig-sloop was swinging to take the Nor’east Trades right up her stern, then swinging even wider to the West, with the winds on her starboard quarters, whilst the frigate and the trailing sloop stood on. The leading sloop could not complete a full turn over her own wake, but would harden up on almost Due North for a bit so the others could wear in succession, putting their helms over as they reached her disturbed patch of water where she’d begun her turn. All would stand on for a spell, then tack, in succession again, to end up with their bows pointed Sutherly for Jeremie and Cape Dame Marie, and passing well astern of Modeste ’s column of ships.

“New hoist, sir… our number… ‘Alter Course in Succession.’ ”

“Let’s give it yet another minute, Mister Westcott, then we’ll come about,” Lewrie directed. “One one thousand… two one thousand… three one thousand…”

It was only when the second ship in the lee column swung away to wear about that Lewrie ordered his frigate to alter course. Like a pack of those strange beasts, elephants, Pylades, Cockerel, and Modeste changed course in Reliant ’s swash, as if holding the tail of the first with their trunks, and plodding single-file round a bend of a narrow juggle trail.

“Your sextant, sir,” Pettus said, after getting permission to mount the quarterdeck, again. His assistant, the fourteen-year-old waif of a cabin servant, Jessop, carried the precious box which contained Lewrie’s personal Harrison chronometer, clutching it with both arms close to his chest as if it was part of King George’s royal paraphernalia.

“Almost forgot all about it,” Lewrie admitted as his chronometer was set beside the Sailing Master’s and those of the few officers who could afford their own. He barely got his sextant out and held up to his eye, and drew the image of the sun down to the horizon, when the ship’s bell began to chime at the last trickle of sand through all the hour, half-hour, and quarter-hour glasses up forward by the belfry.

“Time!” Mr. Caldwell snapped. “Lock, and record, sirs.”

With sextants stowed away, the people on the quarterdeck broke apart into singletons or “syndicates” of two to figure out their readings with chalk on small slates, or with pencils on scrap paper. The Midshipmen huddled together, helping each other (or cadging solutions on the sly when they seemed more probable), to show the Sailing Master when summoned.

“Uhm… about here, sir,” Mr. Caldwell said, making a mark on a chart pinned to the traverse board by the binnacle cabinet. Lewrie compared his own, as did Westcott, Spendlove, and Merriman, to the latitude and longitude discovered. Captain Alan Lewrie, he had to admit to himself, was only a fair navigator; the mathematics involved had not come to him as easily as it had to his contemporaries aboard his first ships. His feelings, and his bottom, had suffered daily during his time as a Midshipman ’til the right way had been “beaten” into his brain. Today, he was pleased to note that he was only a few minutes off in both longitude and latitude. Nonetheless, he quickly folded up his scribbled cyphering and shoved it into a coat pocket, nodding and harrumphing as if pleased to be in “agreement” with Caldwell, who was indeed a dab-hand navigator, worthy of Trinity House.

“Mister Munsell?” Caldwell asked. The lad offered up his slate with the air of a puppy about to be whipped for leaving piddles on the best Turkey carpet. “Oh, now this is novel, young sir. Your latitude is right, but, my word , sir… you have us nigh ashore on the coast of Cuba… round the Bay of Guantanamo! Better than yesterday, but…”