"It'll be 'Beat to Quarters' in the next hour or so, Westcott," he said, shrugging off his memories.
"At long last, sir!" his First Officer said with eagerness. "If they're here. If!" Lewrie replied, staring at the impossibly green mountains of Santo Domingo. So far, all their landfalls had been French islands; only one of them, Guadeloupe, he had been at all familiar with. Here, though…! Here were islands he'd known at coasting distance, every bay, fishing port, inlet, and shoal, close to an host of other places he'd known at first-hand; the Turks and Caicos isles to the North, and the Bahamas further North of them. And when he was prowling these shores, it had been Antigua, the Danish or British Virgins, Kingston, Jamaica, the coast of Cuba, Apalachicola Bay in Spanish Florida so long before… they all sprang to mind in a flood of remembrance, from his Midshipman days in 1780, the hired-in Parrot schooner, the Desperate Sloop and half-mad Capt. Tobias Treghues, then old HMS Shrike and Lieutenant Lily-crop and all his damned cats, and his first, the sullen William Pitt, the best mouser in the Fleet! And when he'd gone to the Far East, India and China in Telesto under Capt. Ayscough, he'd left Pitt with Caroline to care for him, long before their wedding in Anglesgreen when he returned in…
That didn't hurt, he thought; should've, but it didn't. Callous, hardhearted bastard! Or… what am I feelin?
Happy memories. Joyous recollections of past ships and former associates (for the most part, Treghues, Blaylock, and "the Wine Keg" excepted) and days like this in aquamarine and gin-clear waters, with the wind in his hair and the sun on his skin! In the West Indies!
Hmmpf! Wonder if I did pack my penny-whistle in my traps? he wondered.
"Carry on, Mister Westcott," he said, and ambled away towards the starboard bulkheads.
Just off Cape Franзois, with Reliant at Quarters four hours later, they encountered two ships. One was a British brig-sloop keeping an eye on the port, to which Captain Blanding sent a blizzard of flag signals, summoning her captain aboard Modeste. The other vessel was an American brigantine, just clearing the harbour and offshore by at least five miles. Blanding ordered Reliant to close her and "speak" her. "Hermaphrodite" brigs, they called them, neither one nor t'other, with crossed yards and square sails on their fore masts, and fore-and-aft, schooner-like, on the after masts. For a bit she looked as if she might wish to run as Reliant bore down on her, but, working out of port against the Nor'East Trades, she was already slow through the sea, and did she haul her wind and flee Westerly, she would never work up enough speed to escape. Lewrie could understand her master's wish to get out of it… a call to fetch-to from a Royal Navy ship to have his papers and muster book read usually resulted in the impressment of some of the crew and a search for contraband that could result in seizure.
Lewrie turned the deck over to Lt. Westcott and was rowed over to her, instead of loftily summoning her master to come aboard his own ship. His only escort was his boat crew, who remained in the boat as he scaled her sides.
"Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy," he began with a pleasant smile on his face, doffing his cocked hat to both flag and quarterdeck. "Morning!"
"Ansel Vincent," her master sourly announced himself, with his papers already under one arm. "The brigantine Seneca, outta Mystic, in Connecticut, bound home with rum, molasses, and sugar. I s'pose ye wish t'see my papers, Cap'm Lewrie? My muster book?" he added suspiciously, almost accusingly as he glowered in displeasure.
"The muster book's not necessary, sir," Lewrie told him. "We're fresh out from England with full crews, so far. I will look at your papers, however. You are part-owner?"
"Haw!" Captain Vincent rejoined. "I wish! She's a sweet sailer, and a fast'un. I'm hired on, with a 'lay' of the profits, for now."
"And her owners?" Lewrie asked.
"The Crowninshield brothers o' Mystic, as ye can see," Vincent said, waving at the papers in Lewrie's hands.
"Ezekiel and Gabriel Crowninshield!" Lewrie exclaimed, delighted. "I met them at Antigua in Ninety-Eight, when America and France almost went to war with each other. Two of their trading schooners had gone missing, and I helped recover them from the French. Mohican and… I forget the name of the other," he added with a shrug.
"You did?" Vincent barked in surprise, and doubt. "A Britisher helpin' Yankees? I thought it was our navy done it."
"We… cooperated, for a time. On the sly," Lewrie said with a grin and a wink as he handed back the ship's papers, mostly un-read. "You've been in port a while now? We're hunting for a French squadron that left Holland a bit before the war was declared. You didn't share the harbour with them, did you? They were bound for New Orleans, to be there for the official hand-over of Louisiana to the United States… might have landed some troops here, as well."
"We're gettin' Louisiana?" Vincent gawped. It was news to him!
"Lock, stock, and barrel, sir," Lewrie assured him, and news of that stirred Seneca's small crew to glad buzzing.
"Well… hallelujah!" Capt. Vincent exclaimed, removing his old tricorne-style hat to scratch his head. "And… ye wish to stop it by takin' 'em, don't ye?" he accused a second later.
"No, sir," Lewrie told him. "The last thing the United States or Great Britain wishes is to have the French Empire in the Americas. If they have everything west of the Mississippi, how would your nation continue to grow? My country prefers the French not have a large army present for the ceremony of exchange, but… more power to you, and the best of good fortune for your acquisition.
"So… did a French squadron put into Cape Franзois while you were here?" Lewrie asked again. "Or were they here and re-victualling before sailing for New Orleans? Even from here, I can spot the masts of a number of ships in port. I don't ask if they're ships of war… They're not my pigeon at the moment."
"Aye, there's a lotta ships in port," Vincent reluctantly said. "Two-deckers and frigates and Indiaman-sized transports. Don't have all their guns, though. They come from France en flute without 'em or landed 'em t'buck up the defences. Gen'ral Rochambeau won't let any sail. He needs 'em all if he has to surrender to the Blacks and get as many of his people away before they all get massacred-men, women, and kids t'gether. Gen'ral Noailles over to Mole Saint Nicolas is in the same straits. Dessalines-he took over after the French captured L'Ouverture and took him away-has 'em hemmed in damned close. The Mole and 'Le Cap' here is all the French have left on the island.
"You Brits had an ounce o' Christian mercy, ye'd leave off yer hunt for that squadron an' fetch as many ships as ye can to help the French get away before the Blacks slaughter 'em all," Captain Vincent groused.
"I trust Rear-Admiral Duckworth, on Jamaica, is aware of that and will do all he can to help," Lewrie said, hoping that was so. His brief exposure to the savagery of the rebel slaves, and the atrocities the French had dealt out in reply, had been spine-chilling. He wished he could help, but…
"Believe it when I see it," Capt. Vincent drawled, though his anger was growing. "There weren't no cause for you to make war on the French again! Napoleon wanted peace! But I reckon your country just can't abide republics, where the people have rights and freedom, 'stead o' kings, queens, and titled fools tellin' folk what to do!"