“I’m torn between whether the armed ships’ boats will lead, or whether the gunboats should,” Lewrie mused. “It could turn out to be a cutting-out, if all goes accordingly, and we might let some of the sloops’ crew manage that, with some of our Marines parcelled out with them. With the gunboats very close astern, with our hands and more Marines in them. Perhaps all at once, ships’ boats and gunboats working in concert.”
“Hmm… depending on whether we achieve complete surprise or not, sir,” Westcott seemed to agree. “Though, once we anchor, there is the very real possibility that it will take longer than planned to get everyone ready to go. It always does, sir, or seems to.”
“Aye,” Lewrie said. “There’s many a slip ’twixt the crouch and the leap.”
“Our cutters and barges, sir,” Westcott went on, “that’s four. Two boats of decent size each from the other ships, that makes a total of ten.”
“Lovett’s Firefly has no Lieutenant, and only one Midshipman,” Lewrie pointed out. “Perhaps only eight boats, divided into two divisions, or flotillas, or what-you-call-’ems. It’d be best did Lovett keep his small crew together. That will require an aggressive officer to command one division, on the water and closer to the action.”
“Aye sir, it would,” Westcott said through taut lips.
“I think you’re best for that, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie told him. “You’ll take one of the gunboats. I assume that’s what you’re drivin’ at?”
“It is, sir, and thank you!” Westcott exclaimed in relief that he would not remain aboard the frigate and miss out on the action.
“Merriman’s junior. He’ll command Reliant, ” Lewrie decided. “Spendlove can take the other gunboat, and we’ll put our oldest Mids in charge or our boats, leaving Munsell and Rossyngton behind, to aid Merriman. Thorn can spare Lieutenant Child and one of her Mids, and Bury can place Rainey and a Mid in her boats. We’ll speak with Simcock as to how many Marines he can spare for it.”
“Ehm… Merriman will command our ship, sir?” Westcott asked. “Where will you be?”
“I think I’ll go in aboard one of the gunboats,” Lewrie said, “either yours, or Spendlove’s.”
“You will, sir?” Westcott gawped.
“Spendlove’s,” Lewrie announced. “I’d not wish t’crimp your style, Mister Westcott.”
“Ehm, well… thank you, sir,” Westcott said, grinning.
“I’ve been bored shitless, I’ve been insulted, demeaned, and I’ve been rebuffed and dismissed at every port we’ve called at,” Lewrie went on. “Not to mention discumbobulated and mystified, and, now that there is a good chance the privateers, their prizes, and this blood-thirsty Treadwell bastard might be there with some of his damned barges, damme if I’ll miss a shot at settlin’ their business for good and all!”
He paused a moment to look up at the commissioning pendant and the top-masts, rocking on the balls of his booted feet.
“Besides, Mister Westcott, even if they ain’t there, and we hit an empty bag, at least we’ll be doin’ something!”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“Anchored by best bower and kedge, sir, with springs on the cables, and the guns will be manned and loaded once all our boats are clear,” Lt. Merriman reported. The night was so dark without a moon, and the usual lights at forecastle belfry, binnacle cabinet, and the taffrail lanthorns extinguished, that Lewrie could not see that officer’s glum expression, though he could hear the disappointment in his voice.
“Very well, Mister Merriman, you have charge of the ship until our return,” Lewrie told him. “Mister Spendlove, Mister Westcott, are the gunboats alongside?”
“One to either beam, sir,” Spendlove reported, “and the barges and cutters waiting astern of them for boarding.”
“Let’s get on with it, then,” Lewrie ordered, resisting an urge to pull out his pocket watch. It was so dark that that would be bootless, for the night’s gloom did not allow even the faintest hint of starlight by which to read it; there had been a warm and steady rain offshore that afternoon, and the skies were solidly overcast after its ending.
Sailors and gunners descended the man-ropes and battens to the gunboats, followed by files of Marines with muskets. Lewrie waited ’til the last had left the ship before clumsily descending, himself, burdened with both his double-barrelled pistols and a cartridge pouch and brass priming flask, his rifled breech-loading Ferguson musket and a second cartridge pouch and priming flask for that, as well, along with his hanger on his left hip.
“There is a hooded lanthorn under a scrap of canvas aft, sir,” Spendlove offered, “do you wish to determine the time.”
“Good. You have your copy of the river chart?” Lewrie asked.
“Right here, sir,” Spendlove assured him, patting his chest coat pocket, “though it may be some time before we may refer to it,”
Before Thorn had returned from Nassau to rejoin the squadron, Lt. Westcott with his draughting skills, and Bury with his artistic talents, and Lewrie’s clerk, Faulkes, had made free-hand copies of the chart for all officers and Mids in charge of the boats, distributed to all captains at a planning conference aboard Reliant the day before they departed the Northwest Providence Channel for the Georgia coast. Once the slightly brighter pre-dawn greyness came, they might prove useful.
“Shove off, there, bow man,” Spendlove ordered in a theatrical loud whisper. “Ship oars… and give way.”
The converted fishing boat moved off only a long musket shot before the hands rested on their oars, and let her lie rocking on the tide and current, making room at the entry-ports for the cutters and barges to be manned and rowed off to join her.
As Lewrie waited, he peered out to either beam, searching for Lizard and Firefly to see how they were coping with disembarkation. Clear of the ship, he could barely make out the faintest ruffles of slightly whiter water breaking along their waterlines, and further off, the hint of lazy lake-like waves breaking on the shores of Cumberland Island and Amelia Island. Ahead of his gunboat, the river was as black as his boots!
He sat himself down on a damp thwart near the tiller, fighting the urge to duck under the canvas to check his watch by the light of that hooded lanthorn. The less of that, the better, but… this sort of complicated operation could not be done in complete darkness.
The final plan that they had threshed out at the conference in Reliant ’s great-cabins made allowance for some signal lights during the darkest part of the night and the wee hours of the morning. Once all the various boats were manned and on the water, bobbing about like so many sleeping ducks, Lewrie would order two flashes from that lanthorn to the rowing boats to head up the entrance channel. A second series of three flashes to Lt. Westcott’s gunboat and he would begin to row after the boats in his division. Four flashes would be directed to Lizard, Firefly, and Thorn to begin to make way in their rear, with the two smaller sloops employing their rarely used sweep oars, and Thorn doing her best against the current and ebbing tide under sail.
What sort of shambles, what sort of pot-mess that several hours could produce almost could not be contemplated! If Thorn could not breast the current, she and her heavy guns might end up too far back when dawn broke, and might end up using her original ship’s boats and more of her reduced crew to towing her into action!
The longer that Lewrie sat and pondered, fretting and squirming, the dafter his plan became, and he began to feel sure that when dawn did come, he began to feel torn as to which would make him look even more foolish-how badly it had fallen apart, or that they had stumbled in to find no sign of privateer, prize, or criminals!