“Thankee for saying so, sir,” Yeovill replied, pleased that his efforts had garnered praise. Yeovill had come aboard from an inn that had burned down, losing his position, and fancied himself a chef in the French restaurateur style; he’d even come with a large chest containing his own pots, pans, knives, and an host of sauces and seasonings.
For a man who knew his way with victuals, Yeovill was a thin’un, with a rough complexion and a shock of light brown hair so curly that it looked like friz… especially so since he had let it grow out into a seaman’s queue; the hair bound back at the nape of his neck stood out like a bottle brush, or a frightened cat’s tail.
“Oh, I’ll be having five supper guests tomorrow night, Yeovill,” Lewrie told him. “First Officer, Purser, Lieutenant Simcock, and two Mids. Thought I’d warn ye now, not wait ’til breakfast.”
“Supper for six, sir?” Yeovill said, perking up devilish-glad. “Depend on me, sir!”
“Excellent!” Lewrie rejoined. “I knew I could.”
“Well, I will leave you to it, sir,” Yeovill said with a satisfied sniff, and a slight bow from the waist. “If Jessop can return the servers to the galley when you’re done? Oh! Forgot to mention, but there’s a wee apple turnover to go with your port and cheese, sir!”
“You spoil me, Yeovill, ’deed ye do,” Lewrie praised further. Once Yeovill had left, Lewrie cast a wry grin at Pettus, who was filling a plate with his entree.
“Aye, sir,” Pettus agreed with a roll of his eyes. “But, he is a wonder, even so, sir.”
Lewrie had dined later than usual, later than his officers, as was the custom. Barely had he finished a single glass of port and a meagre slice of cheddar that had not gone red-wormy yet, than the ship’s Master At Arms, Mr. Appleby, and the Ship’s Corporals, Scammell and Keetch, began their rounds to assure that all lanthorns and glim candles were doused for the night at 9 P.M., as soon as Two Bells of the Evening Watch were struck. He took himself on deck for one last turn, with his coat on this time against the cool wind and damp.
“Captain’s on deck,” Midshipman Houghton warned the others.
Lt. Spendlove shifted from the windward bulwarks to amidships of the quarterdeck to accommodate Lewrie’s presence. “Evening, sir,” he said.
“All’s quiet, Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie asked, once settled by the main-mast shrouds.
“Mostly, sir, though… I was about to send for you to ask if I might post a lookout aloft,” Spendlove hesitantly said. “The lookouts on deck… we’ve spotted several lights, the last few hours, sir. Ships passing Sutherly inshore of the convoy, at least three for sure. And, there was one ship bound South on the windward horizon.”
“More American merchantmen?” Lewrie asked with a scowl, and one lifted brow. “How far off, the inshore ones?”
“Very possibly, sir,” Spendlove replied, shrugging. “As to the ones to leeward of us, they seemed to be at least ten or twelve miles off, right on the horizon. The one up to windward, sir…,” Spendlove added, sweeping an arm out to starboard.
“Aye,” Lewrie said, stepping up onto the slide of a carronade carriage, then atop the barrel to the top of the bulwarks, clinging to the thick tarry cables of the shrouds, and of half a mind to go out-board and clamber up the rat-lines for a better view.
For that mysterious set of ship’s lights was still visible from the quarterdeck, and a higher vantage point might tell them more about the strange ship that displayed them.
“No signal from Modeste?” Lewrie asked, chiding himself for the uselessness of his question at once. If the flagship had been worried, there would have been blue-light fusees burning in her main tops, and signal rockets whooshing skywards by the dozen; alerting guns would be roaring and ruining his supper!
“None so far, sir,” Lt. Spendlove told him in a neutral voice.
Most-like he’s bitin’ his cheek not t’laugh at such a hen-head question, Lewrie thought.
Coming down was harder than going up, in the dark; Lewrie went at it gingerly, so he didn’t crack an ankle by jumping down. He was not as spry as he’d been in his Midshipman days.
“Aye, post lookouts aloft, in the fore and mizen tops,” Lewrie directed, rubbing his hands with a cheap calico handkerchief to remove the cold tar that had stuck to him from the shrouds. “Have we night-glasses to spare?”
“Do I lend mine, sir, aye,” Spendlove volunteered.
“Mister Westcott will be taking the Middle for Mister Merriman tonight,” Lewrie remembered. “When he relieves you, my compliments to him, and he’s to post lookouts aloft as well.”
“Aye, sir!”
“Carry on, Mister Spendlove. Pay me no mind,” Lewrie bade him. “I only came for the air.” He paced aft down the starboard bulwarks, right to Reliant’s own glowing taffrail lanthorns, shielding his eyes from the brightness to peer seaward at the strange set of lights, with his hands cupped to either side of his brows.
Those lights were faint, and very far off, and about four or five points abaft of amidships. It was too dark to spot her sails to determine if the strange vessel was bound South, or was idling under reduced sail on a course matching their own… waiting for a chance to crack on and dash up to the convoy during the dull hours of the Midle Watch.
Still shielding his eyes, Lewrie crossed over to larboard and peered out at the other lights. From the height of the quarterdeck above the ebony-black sea, all he could determine of them was that one set of lights was only a point or two abaft, and the two South of her were even further astern of Reliant, and far astern of the bulk of the convoy. The newly-posted lookouts aloft might be able to see more of them, but only a little more.
As Lewrie watched, the Sutherly-most set of lights winked out, making him stiffen. Had she doused them? No, they winked to life one deep breath later-both that distant vessel and Reliant had sloughed into wave troughs at the same time, he realised-then winked out again, and did not re-appear, even as the frigate rose atop the waves.
Hopefully over the horizon, and innocent as a baby chick, Lewrie thought… with fingers crossed; Damme, forget a decent hour or three o’ sleep! I’ll be up half the night in fret!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Oh, dear Lord, what a bloody…!” Lt. Westcott began to shout, then thought better of it. “They’re all a pack of ninnies and…!”
“All I ask is you don’t let us be rammed or trampled, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said, with his fingers crossed again, and a look of sheer stupefaction on his phyz.
A quarter-hour before the start of the Forenoon Watch at 8 A.M., Modeste had put up a flag hoist that would release the merchant vessels bound for Georgian or Carolinian ports. Unfortunately…
Civilian shipmasters were, in the main, not used to the customs of the Royal Navy. The flag signal, two-blocked at the peak of the halliards, should have been taken as the Preparative, put up early enough for even the dullest, sleepiest lookouts or mates of the watch aboard the trading vessels to have time to, One; See it. Two; Look up what it meant in their signals book and read it. Three; grasp what the Devil it meant. And Four; Act upon it when it was struck down, not before!
As soon as the signal went aloft, however, and two guns were fired to direct all ships’ attention to it, some of the Americas-bound vessels hauled their wind that instant, going broader on the breeze; some with the winds fine on their starboard quarters, some others settling on a “soldier’s wind” to the Nor’west with the breeze square on their sterns, and “both sheets aft.” Yet a few others wore about to take the Sou’easterly wind on their larboard quarters, bound Due West for Savannah, Port Royal, and Beaufort.