Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey

"Shirt's worse, sir," Aspinall meekly informed him. Kershaw's great-cabins had been close, airless and humid, without canvas ventilation scoops; even the overhead skylights in the coach-top had been closed. Obviously, Kershaw, from already muggish Charleston, was used to perspiration; perhaps even had a Froggish fear of night airs and their miasmas… especially in the tropics, since Yellow Jack and malaria were no strangers to the Carolinas.

"Well…" Lewrie said at last, lowering the garment in defeat. "It seemed like a good idea. In broadcloth wool, I'd have turned to soggy gruel hours ago. Live and learn, I s'pose. Try and wash 'em, but… damme." Lewrie began to strip off his shirt, too.

"I'll give it a go, sir, but I ain't promisin' much." Aspinall said. "Uhm… yer breeches're in the same shape, sir."

"Still have white stockings, do I?" Lewrie asked, feeling the need to laugh the tiniest beaten snort of sour amusement. It was that or scream to high heaven!

"I'll fetch yer nightshirt, sir."

"And a basin of water, Aspinall. Before I show up on deck tomorrow, as blue as an old Druid."

"Aye, sir… lots o' soap, too."

Once coolly bathed and clad in his thin nightshirt, Lewrie bent once more to his drawing, adding curved diagonal lines atop the cross-hatchings of a ship's skeleton, thinking that even if the matter of his cotton uniform coat hadn't exactly worked out, the evening hadn't been a total loss. He had learned more than he had expected, had elicited some sort of promise of cooperation from a Yankee captain that could in future apply to the others as they assembled a squadron.

He eyed the small wash-leather purse of coins that Bantams captain had given him; Ј100 in various English, French, Spanish, and Dutch specie that, so far, took the place of a trustworthy United States currency.

It was what some-should they ever come to know of it, and he would be damned if they did!-might call a bribe. Taking Bantam and restoring her to her owner would involve reams of paperwork at the nearest Prize Court, at Kingston; placing a value on ship, fittings, cargo, and such to determine Proteus's official reward, with poor Wilder paying court fees and demurrages for swinging at anchor for weeks in that port, 'til the matter was adjudicated and his ship returned to him.

Easier all 'round, really, for Lewrie to write his report, saying that in the spirit of "cooperation" he had surrendered precedence and possession to the arriving American frigate.

They had, after all, the value of L'Oiseau to reckon with, with eight great-guns and over one hundred privateers brought to book, with "head money" for each, along with the schooner's worth as a tender to a larger ship; why, with any luck, they'd buy her in, perhaps even let Proteus claim her as a tender, and if they did…!

Lewrie leaned back from his artwork with a satisfied smile, in full "scheme." With L'Oiseau, he could run the same subterfuge he had in the Mediterranean when captain oн Jester, with a captured lugger on the Genoese and Savoian coasts; as an "innocent" harbour raider to cut out merchantmen who thought themselves safe in a friendly port, or as a tempting piece of "cut bait" trolled before a privateersmen, flying a French Tricolour flag, looking for "rescue" from those horrible English

"Bloodies"!

He hefted the coin purse, calculating in his head; two-eighths of Ј100 was Ј25, a captain's share of the bribe. Who knows, it might just cover the cost of the ruin of his wardrobe!

B y noon of the next day, Hancock and Bantam were out of sight in the South, and L'Oiseau was hull-under on her way to Port-Au-Prince to report her capture… and dump her hundred-odd prisoners on somebody else. And with any luck at all, Lewrie imagined that HMS Halifax and her irascible Captain Blaylock would become their gaolers, now that she was stripped of even more guns and would have bags of room below. It was piquant to picture Blaylock's phyz turning purple at that news… and, Lewrie further surmised, that Captain Nicely, who already despised Blaylock worse than cold, boiled mutton, would be more than happy for a chance to "slip him a bit of the dirty" one more time. And perhaps even think fondly of the officer who'd made it possible! Again, with any luck, Proteus might have L'Oiseau back as her "unofficial" tender within the week; and then they could really hit their stride!

The winds had backed a full point from Nor'eastly to Nor'east-by-East, as well. Proteus had loafed Sou'easterly after their meeting with Hancock during the night, closer to Cape St. Nicholas, so a "beat" close-hauled to the North-by-West could take them up to Matthew Town at the western tip of Great Inagua, where Proteus could once more keep an eye on both the Windward Passage and the Old Bahama Passage, before tacking and heading Sou'east for Tortuga. Then she could slowly zigzag her way Easterly between Turk's Island and Saint Domingue towards the tempting Mouchoir and Silver Bank passages, where arriving French merchantmen and privateers must appear, sooner or later.

"Mister Langlie, we'll stand in as close as we may to the Cape of Saint Nicholas before tacking," Lewrie announced. "Claw us out all the ground you can to weather, before we come about to North-by-West."

"Aye aye, sir."

"Ah, now that is Monte Cristi, sir," Mr. Winwood pointed out as he fiddled with his charts at the binnacle cabinet, "bearing, uhm… Sou'west-by-West. And to the East'rd…"

" Cape Isabella," Lewrie supplied, "which now bears, ah… Sou'east-by-East, or thereabouts. I make it… eleven miles, if the chart is correct as to its height." He lowered his sextant and fiddled with it for a moment. "Then we are here, sir… nine miles offshore of Spanish Santo Domingo, 'twixt Monte Cristi and Cabo Isabella," Winwood opined. "And the depths shown are still abyssal. First real soundings with a deep-sea lead don't begin 'til we're within the three-mile limit, Captain."

"Three miles, hmm," Lewrie muttered. "Mister Wyman, we'll haul our wind and stand due South, for a piece…'til Mister Winwood says we're near 'soundings.' After that, we will wear and reduce sail, to scud back along the coast towards Cape Francois and see what's stirring."

"Aye aye, sir," Wyman said, reaching for a speaking-trumpet with which to relay orders to the watch.

"And let's hope something is out of harbour, Mister Winwood." "Indeed, sir."

Lewrie's familiar old stomping grounds about the Turks Islands had been nearly empty of all but local fishing boats and small traders, the Caicos, Turk's, Mouchoir, and Silver Bank passages glittering but barren, and conversations with local boats had revealed that it was a rare day when they'd seen any sail at all. Such stops had allowed the Purser, Mr. Coote, to purchase a bonanza of fresh fish and sea turtles, now trussed with their flippers threaded together, and all for a song, but useful intelligence was nil.

"Once we take a good, long look into Cape Francois, we'll head back to the Old Bahama Passage," Lewrie decided aloud. "Yankee merchant-men'll be floodin' South this time of year, and most-like that will be where the Frog privateers'll be thickest, too. So many of 'em tradin' at Havana, and other Spanish Cuban ports… before heading further South to the Leewards, ey, Mister Winwood?"

"Always a wrench, to cede the windward station, sir, but in the circumstances…" the Sailing Master said with a noncommittal shrug, as he carefully, almost lovingly, stowed away his own precious sextant in its velvet-lined rosewood box.

"Shortest distance, we might've been better off in the Gulf of Gonave, if they're comin' from Havana," Lewrie griped, "most-like sailing right past us. Or passing far to the East'rd of the Bahamas and Puerto Rico."

"Well, sir, there's great risk in that," Winwood replied, digging out another chart and spreading it on the traverse board. "There are reefs and shoals aplenty near Puerto Rico, and the Danish Virgins, and our own. Anegada and Virgin Gorda are infamous wrecking grounds, and the north shore of Saint Thomas? A rocky maze, sir!"

Mr. Winwood used a closed divider as a pointer as he indicated the dangers, sketching courses from America.

"Do they leave New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, the Chesapeake, or even the Carolinas or Georgia, their best course would be very far Easterly, out to beyond Bermuda, before taking a slant across, abeam the Nor'east Trades, with hopes to fetch Anguilla or Saint Martin just a touch alee of them, and close to all those lee-side harbours."

"Which'd put them in our Antigua squadron's bailiwick, then," Lewrie said, nodding, "and we'd never see 'em…'til on their way back home, through these waters."

"Aye, sir."

"But they can't all sail that far East and South first. There must be some who trade closer to home," Lewrie griped. "Witness those Yankee men o' war and Treasury cutters convoying merchantmen here. Or are you saying we've been handed a bill of goods, Mister Winwood?"

Winwood winced and sucked his teeth; it was a cold day in Hades when he ventured an opinion outside his own expertise.

"It might not have been the most productive area to patrol, sir. How else may one explain why, with over seventy or eighty men o' war on the West Indies Station, we've been so unsuccessful in eliminating the many French privateers?"

"Sloth and indolence," Lewrie scoffed, with a sour laugh. "So little profit in it, such hard work… when it's more exciting, more profitable, to hunt enemy merchant ships and warships! Prowling about for such- even if it's fruitless-holds the greater honour, and a chance t'get your name in the papers back home. Make a great show, with all the huffing and puffing? 'By God, we almost had 'em but for a slant o' wind, but we'll do better next time, wot?' Surely you know their sort by now, Mister Winwood."

"Indeed, sir," Winwood said in response, very even and flat.

And by God, was he lookin' at me cutty-eyed when he said that? Lewrie thought, trying to recall six months of bombast or excuses.

"Sail ho!"

Lewrie's head snapped upward to the mainmast lookout's perch.

"Where away?"

"Four points orf th' starb'd bows!" the spry young topman wailed back. "Three… four sail! They'm sloops and luggers, there!"

"And we're inshore of them!" Lewrie exulted. "Where bound?" he shouted aloft through cupped hands.

"Standin' North, sir!"

"North, hmmm…" Lewrie mused, riffling through the charts for one of Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo. "Fishing boats, perhaps. Out of a French or Spanish port. Either sort, they're fair game."

He traced the reciprocal course back to the coast, but found no point of origin, other than a few coves or inlets, and those were two-a-penny. He glanced at the commissioning pendant high aloft, which was flowing to the wind, now steady out of the Nor'east once more.

"A point higher than we could manage, goin' close-hauled. That fits," he muttered. "Now, Mister Winwood. Were you wishin' to coast to the East, you'd have to zig-zag, wouldn't you?"

"Aye, sir. A short board along the coast, but a long one, out to sea, to make any ground to weather," Winwood agreed. "Even with a sloop or lugger rig, it would be an all-day chore to make twenty miles to the good."

"Sooner, sooner or later, they'll have to come about onto larboard tack and head Sou'east, would they not? Right into our range, so to speak, sir?" Lewrie snickered.