Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH

"Then you'd better take care she doesn't trip on a shoal and wet herself, mustn't you, Mister Coltrop?" Lewrie smiled back at him. "Go board your Aemilia and set course for Little Ambergris while we still have some light. And mind your soundings."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Poxy bastard!" Gatacre grumbled once he was gone. "I've never seen such a worthless, idle…"

"A well-connected bastard, though," Lewrie grunted. "I can't wait to read his report on the action. Damme, Mister Gatacre, if we don't find these pirates, if they take a ship under our noses, he'll have my nutmegs on a silver tray!"

"Best do what all the good captains do, then, sir," Gatacre chuckled as they walked forward to go on deck. "Plaster a confident grin on yer phiz an' dare anybody to gainsay ya!"

Of course, nothing went that easily. There were signs of recent human habitation on Big Ambergris, much like the abandoned camp on West Caicos. Their suppositions the pirates were still around were fulfilled, but just where they had gone remained a mystery.

For another week, Alacrity and Aemilia prowled in company, back up Turks Passage toward Drum Point on East Caicos, along the spectacular coral reefs by Lorimers Point and Joe Grant's Cay, which sheltered the mouth of the Windward-Going-Through channel between East and Middle Caicos Islands. The bluffs were high enough behind the reefs to provide excellent watch-posts. When they went ashore in luggers and ship's boats they found sources of water. There were deeps very close inshore where looted ships could be scuttled to avoid detection. But no pirate band.

Lewrie was getting extremely frustrated. It was not the sneer on Lieutenant Coltrop's face which upset him, though that irked him every time he had reason to talk with him. He realized he had made the pirates, and their destruction, a personal quest. There was Commodore Garvey to please, to impress with what he could accomplish. And capturing or destroying these buccaneers would be a way to expunge the chagrin he felt about his bargain with the American Captain Grant, turning a blind eye to his violation of the Navigation Acts. And, in that first flush of exultation he'd shown to his crew after sinking those luggers, he'd overstepped himself and promised they would get the rest. Now, if he did not, he felt the men would lose confidence in his abilities, and his captaincy of Alacrity would become a drudgery instead of a delight.

Being someone else's junior officer felt so damned good, Alan told himself in the echoing privacy of his cabins aft. Without Caroline aboard, he was severely limited now in whom he could confide. Oh, he could dine in bags of people and share jests with them as the most genial of hosts. But it wasn't the same as being able to unburden his cares and worries on someone else.

But then, that's why they pay me five grand shillings a day!

"Sir!" Lieutenant Ballard said, coming to Alan's seat on the taffrail signal-flag lockers. "Aemilia has put about and is bearing down on us."

Lewrie rose and made his way forward. It had just gone five bells of the second dog-watch, Evening Quarters had been stood, and the hands had eaten and were now entertaining themselves in the cool afterglow of sunset. Mr. Midshipman Shipley and his mostly hapless colleague, Mr. Midshipman Joyce, were doinghornpipes in the waist for the amusement of the people forrud, part of the larboard watch's price as losers at drills that afternoon.

"Was he not to peek into Highas Cay and Bottle Creek, sir?" Ballard inquired. "Perhaps he's seen something at last."

Lewrie snapped a quick look at Ballard to see if his "at last" was a subtle condemnation, but Ballard had a telescope to his eye and was intent upon the ghostly shape of Aemilia as she sailed back east to join them.

"He was, Mister Ballard. As you say, perhaps this hopeless search of ours will be rewarded… at last," Lewrie could not help rejoining.

"They're somewhere out here still, sir," Ballard said quickly. "I know you're correct about that. It's just the 'where,' or how long they might remain if they fear a new, more active warship is stationed in the Turks and Caicos. I'd hate for them to run before we nab 'em."

"Thankee, Mister Ballard," Lewrie relented with a shy grin. "I was beginning to fear I was the only one who wished to continue this chasing of wild geese. Chasing shadows, more like."

"Most deadly shadows, sir," Ballard intoned with a sober nod, but with a quirky little grin of his own. "Should Lieutenant Col-trop be the bearer of glad tidings, do you wish the taffrail lanterns lit, sir? Or should we proceed darkened?"

"There's a ninety-foot-tall bluff at the extreme west end of Middle Caicos, just by Highas Cay," Lewrie pondered. "Do not give a possible watcher anything to bite on. And alter course to seaward. If Aemilia has news for us, he'll come to us out there. I only wish there was a way to signal him without a fuzee to stay dark, himself."

"Here, sir!" Coltrop jabbed exultantly at the chart. "Just under the headland overlooking Highas Cay and the narrow channel between Middle and North Caicos. There were cook fires! I saw the smoke, sir!"

"Did you stand close inshore?" Lewrie asked, unable to hide his mounting excitement. "Did you see a camp?"

"Didn't want to blow the gaff, sir," Coltrop laughed, for once almost pleasant to be around. "I stood north for a time, as if to go to seaward of North Caicos, then doubled back. But as far as I know, there should be no one there. A few farms so far on North Caicos, a fish camp or two… but none on Middle Caicos yet."

"What do they call this area, Mister Gatacre?" Lewrie asked.

"Conch Bar, sir," Gatacre replied. "There's rumoured to be some caves there that Indians used in Columbus' time. 'Tis a barren place now, though."

"Watered, though," Fellows insisted. "And where you find water, you'll find our pirates. Look, sir, it's perfect! Bluffs to spy from, just as we deduced. Deep water, about an hundred fathoms, close up to the reefs and shoals. An inlet between Highas Cay and Conch Bar Bluff where ships may moor. An escape run down this salt-creek between North and Middle islands to the Banks. And their main camp would most likely be about a mile in from the shoal-water line, out of range of random shot."

"Depth, though, Mister Fellows," Lewrie implored.

"Unsurveyed, sir," Fellows had to admit, deflating. "A fathom, maybe less, once inside Highas Cay."

"And it may be a fish camp, after all," Lewrie fretted out loud. "But, then again… we must examine it If their main camp is inland, about a mile or better, that would put them… here… down by this last point, opposite the second islet past Highas Cay. They see us coming, they run through this passage for the Banks where we cannot follow. To prevent that, we must use all the ship's boats and our surveying luggers, and land a party between them and the escape route. Cross the shoals above Bottle Creek, wend our way under the shoreline into that channel, to… here. At dawn, Alacrity must be just without the shoals to cover Highas Cay and deliver unaimed fire on this inner point as a diversion. And to flush them out, if they get the wind up. Mister Coltrop, I want Aemilia inshore even further. Make the best of your way across the shoals with your seven-foot draught nor'west of the inner point of land, to block any possible escape up Bottle Creek and out to sea off North Caicos. And scour the beach under the bluffs with your four-pounders."

"Good God, sir, I'll rip her bottom out, sure!" Coltrop gasped.

"Close as you may, without holing yourself. Make a demonstration. Frighten them into running straight at me," Lewrie decided.

"You, sir?" Fellows goggled. "Sir, it's… well, it's been the traditional thing for the first officer to…"