“The entire French Toulon fleet? What’d that be, I wonder?” Lt. Darling had speculated. “And did he pick up any Spanish ships of the line with him? Twenty, twenty-five sail of the line, and at least half a dozen frigates?”
“If Jamaica’s their intent, the Bahamas will be safe,” Lewrie had told them. “And when Nelson lays into them, so will the rest of the West Indies, perhaps the Med, too, once the French have nothing left.”
“Hear hear!” Lt. Lovett had exclaimed, raising his wine glass on high. “Gentlemen, allow me to give you Nelson, and a bloody battle!”
“Nelson, and victory!” Lt. Bury had soberly amended.
All in all, it had been a cheering supper, but for the dessert, for neither Yeovill nor Cooke had been able to master the receipt for pecan pie, despite their experimentations.
Once Squirrel had departed them, the squadron had sailed on out the Northeast Providence Channel, past the lower-most tip of Great Abaco, the Hole-in-the-Wall, then up the Eastern coast past Cherokee Sound, Little Harbour, Hope Town, and Marsh Harbour, the main settlement, and seaward of the chain of cays; Man O’ War, Great Guana, Green Turtle, and Powell Cay, bound for the Northern-most end of the Bahamas where the Little Bahama Bank continued beyond Little Abaco and Fox Town and Walker’s Cay, where lay the East entrance to the inner Bank, Walker’s Cay Channel.
This should be good lurkin’ grounds, Lewrie told himself as the seventh day of their search went on with nothing to show for it.
Ships bound in or out of Nassau had to use either of the Providence Channels, and if one did not have enough ships to watch each of the channels simultaneously, the best bet would be to cruise north of the Little Bahama Bank, making long transits to the East-Sou’east to watch one channel, and to the West-Sou’west to watch the other, with a “hidey-hole” round Walker’s Cay should a warship turn up. It was the very place Lewrie would have chosen, had he been a privateer in search of prey, but… perhaps the French didn’t think like him, he was beginning to doubt.
They had seen several American ships bound for New Providence, or returning to home ports from the island, and had stopped and taken a look at them to ask if they had seen any privateers. Despite his cautions to treat the Yankee Doodles and “Brother Johnathans” with respect, and to eschew the urge to check the bona fides of their crewmen to determine if any of them were British, none of them had departed from those encounters happily, even if none of their sailors had been press-ganged. Stopping them for what seemed no cause was irritating enough! Some of the boarding parties reported that they had been accosted with shouts for “Free Trade, and Seamen’s Rights!” no matter how politely they had been handled.
Should he give up this search and head South? he speculated. The pickings for a privateer further down the island chain would be leaner, the prizes almost too small to be worth the effort, if the Prize Courts which served the enemy were as parsimonious as the ones he’d dealt with. Or, by late afternoon, they might put about and go Nor’east round the top of the Little Bahama Bank to do it all over again.
Reliant was at the North end of a line-abreast patrol line with only four or five miles between ships, with little Firefly the closest to the pale green waters of the Bank. The weather was clear and the winds a touch lively, strong enough to mellow the heat. The seas were sparkling, glittering in medium-length waves not over three or four feet in height. All in all, it was a pretty morning, but it didn’t appear as if it would be an eventful one. Lewrie was just about to decide to send down for his deck chair when a lookout shouted down to the deck.
“Signal from Thorn, sir!” Midshipman Grainger added from his perch halfway up the larboard shrouds of the main mast.
Lewrie fetched his telescope and peered outward, trying to read it for himself. There was Thorn four miles off the larboard beam with a hint of Lizard four miles further off, almost hull-down and perched off Thorn ’s stern, almost masked. She, too, flew the same signal. The Firefly was only a tops’l over the horizon, completely masked by HMS Thorn, the originator of the alert relayed up the patrol line.
“The hoist is ‘Enemy In Sight’, sir!” Grainger shouted.
Lieutenant Lovett was not the skittish sort; if he said that he could see an enemy ship, then an enemy there was in the offing.
“Mister Spendlove,” Lewrie ordered the officer of the watch, “Beat to Quarters”
“Another signal, sir!” Grainger shouted once more. “Enemy Is A Brig’, and ‘Enemy Is Flying… South’!”
“Mister Eldridge?” Lewrie said, turning to the older Midshipman aft by the taffrail signal-flag lockers. “You’re fluent and fast by now, I trust?”
“I will try, sir,” Eldridge replied.
“This is going t’be complicated,” Lewrie told him, taking one quick look at the chart on the traverse board. “First, a hoist for Firefly and Lizard, their numbers, for ‘General Chase’, adding ‘Inshore’.” He wished his smaller ships to pursue, slanting toward the Little Bahama Bank to deny that brig a chance to get into shoal water. He hoped that “Inshore”, would convey that desire, and had to trust to Lovett and Bury to want to cut her off.
“Second hoist will be to Thorn, ” Lewrie explained, waiting impatiently as Eldridge scribbled it down on a scrap of paper. “Her number, and ‘General Chase’, adding ‘Seaward’.”
“I relieve you, sir,” Lt. Westcott told Lt. Spendlove as he gained the quarterdeck in a rush, still fumbling with his coat, sword belt, and hat. He knuckled the brim of his hat in salute, Spendlove replying as casually, before dashing to the waist where the gunners were assembling by their pieces. “We’ve found something, sir?”
“It appears we have, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told him. “Do you wait ’til the hoists are completed, then shape course Due South to pursue. The Chase is a brig that Lovett deems a foe.”
Lewrie looked aft as the signal halliard blocks squealed. The first signal was soaring aloft to be two-blocked. While Lewrie was waiting for it to be repeated, Pettus came up with the keys to the arms lockers, which Lewrie passed on to Lt. Merriman, and his sword belt, and his pair of double-barreled Manton pistols.
“I’ll see your cats to the orlop, sir,” Pettus promised.
“Have Jessop see to the damned dog, too,” Lewrie ordered.
Thorn hoisted a repeat of the first signal, and then there was a long wait ’til the mast-head lookouts could report that Lizard had made the hoist to Firefly, and an even longer wait ’til Lizard made a single-flag hoist for “Affirmative” back to Thorn and then to the frigate.
This is one hellish-poor way t’speak with each other, Lewrie thought, regretting that he had spaced his patrol line so far apart; This command of a squadron, and sendin’ orders and hopin’ for the best, is enough t’tear my hair out! But, if Firefly hadn’t been down South so far, we might’ve missed the Chase altogether.
The blocks were squealing again as the first signal was lowered and the second was hurriedly bent on to the halliards. With commendable despatch, Eldridge got the second one to Thorn two-blocked not a minute later. With only four miles between them, Lt. Darling’s ship was quicker to respond with the “Repeat,” and no “Query” or “Submit” to delay the process.
“Strike it, Mister Eldridge,” Lewrie ordered, which was the order for Thorn to execute. As soon as Thorn whisked her Repeat down, her helm was put over and she wheeled Sutherly, hardening up her gaff sails and bracing round her tops’l and wee royal for drive.