Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey

It was predawn, with only the palest streak of lighter sky to the East, astern, and everything else buried in a hazy blue-grey, just enough light to see from bow to stern, with a gibbous moon still low on the horizon, a few bright stars still aglow, aloft. The galley chimney fumed lazily, as the men's oatmeal gruel was boiled up, and coffee for the officers was kept warm, and shore bread was toasted for them.

Lewrie sipped at his mug of coffee, savouring the stoutness of Saint Domingue beans; savouring the blessed, windy coolness before the tropic sun burst over the edge of the sea to fry and roast them for another day. Hat off, clad only in breeches and shirt, he could almost feel a faint chill as the Trades whisked up the frigate's stern to waft her Westward towards Cuba once more.

Good pickings round Cienfuego in the last war, he thought; why not just stand on, both sheets aft? Old Captain Lilycrop and 1 took more than one prize there, in '82. On West… round-about Jamaica 's west cape and into Kingston to wood and water. The people need a joyful diversion, God knows, and…

"Deck, there!" a lookout shouted down. "Lights ashore, on the larboard quarter! Looks like signals!"

Lewrie set his mug down on the binnacle and returned to the aft rails with a telescope, hearing the scrubba-dub and hiss of the bibles and bears cease as he spied out the mysterious light.

Proteus was enough West of Cape St. Nicholas to see into a long inlet that led to the British-held harbour of Mole St. Nicholas. High hills on either side of the inlet, the island that formed the northern shore, were blue-black and forbidding at predawn; only a tiny lighter shade were the waters leading inward. There were the usual wee winks of lanthorns ashore in windows, but there was also a brighter light… no, a pair! Wheeling about each other, first in one position, then another.

"Mister Wyman," Lewrie called, his glass still to his eye; "I think you said you were familiar with those new semaphore towers back home, did you not?"

"Aye, sir," the Second Officer replied, sounding unsure.

"Know how to read them?"

"Well, just a bit, sir," Wyman admitted. "But I've a book below in my cabins," he more-hopefully concluded.

"Do you please have it fetched, then, sir. In the meantime, lay us on larboard tack, abeam the wind."

"Aye aye, sir!"

"Ahem… excuse me, Captain," Marine Lt. Devereux said, clearing his throat.

"Ah, Mister Devereux!" Lewrie brightened, turning to face him. "Didn't know you were on deck, sir. An early rising, for one who gets 'all night in' and doesn't stand watch."

"The freshest coffee, and the coolest part of the day, sir," the Marine said with a modest shrug, and a wave of his own mug of steaming coffee. He, too, was dressed in only breeches, shirt, and waistcoat at that early hour. " 'Twas originally an Army signal system, Captain, to alert the coastal garrisons, should the French invade cross Channel."

"One that our local Army leaders didn't deem fit to share with us, I gather?" Lewrie posed, a touch sarcastically. "What a surprise."

"I know a bit of it, though, sir. If I may?"

Lewrie gave Devereux the telescope, and ambled back over to the double-wheel and binnacle to retrieve his coffee before it got cold. A moment later, up came Midshipman Elwes with Lieutenant Wyman's book, and both officers began to confer; with a deal of "What the Devil?" and "Goodness gracious" commentary, a deal more page-turning, and some scribbling on a slate.

"They're not signalling to us, sir," Lt. Wyman reported at last. "Can't even see us way out here, I expect. From what I, and Lieutenant Devereux, may construe, all that waving is meant for vessels still in port. The nubbin, Captain, is an order for all ships to begin loading supplies, and prepare to extricate our garrison."

"To pull out?" Lewrie puzzled.

"They seem to be hard-pressed by a slave army, sir, and things are going against them. The signals say that the troops ashore are at the outskirts of the town, that they've been driven back from the outer entrenchments. And Mole Saint Nicholas ain't that big, sir. More like a hamlet than a thriving seaport."

Lewrie nodded and pursed his lips, turned away and took another sip of coffee, pondering his options. He turned back to them at last.

"Mister Wyman… ah, Mister Langlie, there you are! Stow away the holystones, and 'vast scrubbing. We'll let the deck go hang, just this once. There's a problem ashore. Fetch the ship to, for now, and pipe the hands to their breakfast. Once they've eat, we'll short-tack our way inshore to the port."

Aye, sir. "Aspinall, just some toast for me," Lewrie bade.

The long inlet leading to Mole St. Nicholas was frustrating in the extreme. The first part ran roughly Sou'east, an easy sail across the wind for the first few miles… until the hills and the taller inland mountains, blocked the Trades and created one contrary zephyr after another, leaving Proteus chasing patches of sea that were still cat's-pawed by wind, and each weakly wafting from the opposite direction of the last one.

Then came the Nor'east leg, directly into the Trades, meaning a short board to either larboard or starboard, no closer to the wind than sixty degrees, the channel narrowing and shoaling, so that each attempt at making ground to the East'rd was measured in mere hundreds of yards to the good after each pair of tacks.

And the worst part were the sounds coming from shore; the faint, echoing sputter of musketry now and then, and the thin Crump! of field artillery that tolled like minute-guns at a steady pace. Someone needed them… soonest! But it took forever to get there. And as the day progressed, and the land and sea warmed, the thin skeins of smoke from ashore, drifting upwards through the jungley tree line went vertical, and the winds died away to nothing.

"Damme, we'll row her into range!" Lewrie snapped, pounding his fist on the cap-rails overlooking the waist. "Mister Langlie, do you lower the ship's boats and pay out towing cables!"

"Sir, there's a rowing boat coming offshore for us!" Midshipman Grace cried. "I can make out Army officers… I think!"

Through his glass, Lewrie could see at least two dozen rowboats already working 'round the few ships in harbour. There was a brig, and at least three large schooners, a small and dowdy three-master swinging at single anchors… hired ships, and lightly armed, thinly manned by civilian seamen with little experience-and even smaller will-to turn their pop-guns ashore. It was all they could do to stow supplies belowdecks, as fast as they could be stripped from the canvas-covered piles near the piers and the beaches.

"Topmen aloft! Hand all sail! We'll row her in, bare-poled!" Lewrie shouted to his crew.

"Uhm… the depth, sir," Mr. Winwood pointed out, coughing in his fist.

"How shoal does it get, sir?" Lewrie growled, turning on him.

"I'd not get closer than two cables from the docks, sir, else we run her into the mud. Mole Saint Nicholas can't dock deep-draught ships. They anchor out in the roads. I've hands in the chains, heaving the lead already, sir. Just wished you to keep it in mind, Captain."

"Damn!" Lewrie spat, making Winwood wince at the profanity. He was a sober hymn-singer. "Very well, Mister Winwood… two cables, no more. Our guns can range a mile inland. And, from the look of things, what targets we engage'll be a lot closer than that. Just beyond the town, more-like. Keep me apprised."

"I will, sir."

The rowboats were hoisted off the mid-ships tiers, then swayed out with the main-course yard as a crane, and slowly lowered into the water, with snub-lines to check the swing and sway. It took forever, it seemed! By the time even his own gig had been wetted, and the boat crews began to scramble over the side to man them, Bosun Pendarves had gone hoarse from shouts and curses.

"Pass the word for the Master Gunner, Mister Carling," Lewrie ordered. And once the Master Gunner had come up from the magazines to the rare privilege of the quarterdeck, Lewrie pressed him at once.

"We may have to fire over the heads of our own troops, Mister Carling."

"Dear Lord, sir," Carling said, grimacing and glancing ashore.

"I know," Lewrie said, in sympathy for the great risk of killing British soldiers with a graze or a short round. "Quoins full out, breeches resting on the carriages, for more loft. But with the foe so close to the town… what about reduced charges, perhaps saluting charges? So we don't throw iron half a mile beyond?"

"Could do that, sir, but… that'd be indirect fire, Captain," Mr. Carling countered, rubbing at his close-shorn scalp, "and no way to know the fall of shot. Could waste a deal of shot and powder and not ever hit a Godd-. A blessed thing, sir. Like firing mortars!"

He had stammered, noting that the prim Mr. Winwood was nearby.

"It worked for a Frenchman who sank my ship at Toulon, back in '93," Lewrie said with a snort, and his first real moment of humour of the morning. "Bastard spotted fire for his guns from a bluff. If the Army could signal us, were we long or short, on target or not…?"

So it's their responsibility, not mine! Lewrie could not help but conjure.

"Towing cables are ready, sir, and we're prepared to haul away." "Thankee, Mister Langlie, carry on. Smartly, now. So if they could signal us… would it work, Mister Carling?"

"Aye, sir… I s'pose, but…" Carling answered, rubbing his scalp more vigourously. "The six-pounders on the forecastle and here on the quarterdeck. Main battery twelves'd not be able to elevate in the ports high enough."

"The carronades!" Lewrie insisted. "They'd elevate. Even with a full charge, they don't throw much more than four hundred yards. If we loaded with reduced charges, but with star-shot, bar-shot, and chain-shot… grape or cannister atop those…!"

"Excuse me, sir, but the rowing boat with those Army officers is now close-aboard," Lt. Wyman interrupted.

"Very well, Mister Wyman!" Lewrie snapped, exasperated with all the demands upon him. "Pipe 'em aboard! Dust 'em off, and trot out a tot o' rum for 'em, I don't bloody care!"

"Uhm… aye, sir!"

Proteus began to move as the pair of Army officers appeared at the larboard entry-port, and took the hastily gathered salute from a much-reduced side-party. Lewrie hoped that they were unfamiliar with proper naval custom, and wouldn't know that they'd been slighted. He was more concerned with the helm, and the gelatinously slow creeping pace that the towing boats could generate. A fiddler and fifer atop the roundhouse overlooking the beak-head began to give them a tune to slave by, as the hands dipped their oars and strained red-faced for a yard-by-yard advance.

"Captain Lewrie," Lewrie said, announcing himself.

"Major James, sir… Captain Ward," the older officer replied, doffing his hat. "Damn' fortunate you were bound here, sir. We need a bit of help."

"Wasn't bound here, just saw your signalling in passing. Once in range, I intend to swing abeam the town and anchor with springs on the cables, so I can throw shot."

"That'd be most welcome, Captain Lewrie, most welcome, indeed. Though…'tis a hellish risk, d'ye see," Major James told him. "We are now entrenched not an hundred paces beyond the farthest houses on shore, and the Blacks are perhaps one or two hundred paces beyond."

Now that Proteus did not make her usual noises under way, nor had the wind-rush to mask sounds, Lewrie could hear the boom-boom-boom-b-boom of voudoun drums, far back in the forests. Much louder and closer than any he'd heard at Port-Au-Prince.