He would pretend to have no qualms during supper, or when taking his last turns on deck, but he was certain that even large measures of whisky could not gain him a single wink of sleep!
Chapter 6
Fortunately, not only had Lt. Bury and Lizard not seen anything during the night, but he had taken it upon himself to shorten sail and let HMS Thorn close the distance between them to about four or five miles. Lizard’s appearance hull-up above the night horizon, with her taffrail lanthorns in plain sight from the deck, had been cause for Lewrie and Lt. Darling to be roused by the Middle Watch.
“Knacky fellow, is Bury,” Lewrie commented, much relieved to see Lizard’s lights. The very last warmth of a semi-tropic day had vanished, and the light night winds from the larboard quarter were cool, almost nippy in the wee hours before dawn, making him shiver.
“Knacky, sir?” Lt. Darling asked, yawning.
“To shorten the separation between us, just in case,” Lewrie told him, concealing his qualms over his decision for ten miles separation once again. To explain would be tantamount to admitting that he was fallible. “Well, I don’t know ’bout you, sir, but I’m for a few more hours of sleep.”
And when he’d clambered atop the dining table and had rolled into his hammock once more, Lewrie did fall into a deep and dreamless sleep, delighted that Lt. Bury had solved his trouble for him. When Eight Bells was struck at 4 A.M. to rouse all hands, he felt as if he was being dragged up from the bottom of a quicksand bog.
* * *
The two ships had passed below Great Inagua by dawn, altering course to the Nor’west, barely in sight of the lights of Matthew’s Town, where the salt cargoes were loaded, and almost in sight of the coast of Spanish Cuba to the Sou’west. They would stride out towards the Southern tip of Acklins Cay, across the empty hundred-mile gulf between the islands, then go back onto the wind to beat up the Mayaguana Passage once more.
With nothing to be seen, Lewrie had time for a leisurely breakfast, a sponge-off with a stub of soap and a pint of water, and a shave before returning to the deck just before the start of the Forenoon at 8 A.M. He could look round the well-ordered decks of Thorn with satisfaction, and had time to appreciate once more the beauty of the morning.
Here, in deep waters, rare in the shallow-banked Bahamas, the sea was a rich, clean blue and flecked with a myriad of white caps and cat’s-paws, under lovely cloud-dappled skies. The winds were piping up lively, more so than the day before, promising a fast passage.
“Deck, there!” the lookout in the foremast cross-trees cried. “Signal from Lizard!”
Lieutenant Darling hurriedly put his telescope to one eye to spot it, leaving Lewrie impatient, for his own glass was still stowed below in his sea bag, not in the binnacle cabinet as it would be.
“She makes ‘Strange Sail To Windward’, hah!” Darling barked in glee. “Stand on as we are, sir?”
“No, come to weather, as if we’re out-bound through the Mayaguana Passage,” Lewrie decided after a bit of thought. “If she is our Spaniard, she may take us for exportin’ ships. Not worth as much as inward-bound European goods, but maybe she’ll take the bait. I’d admire did you make a hoist to Lizard to close the distance even more, to about one or two miles—before yon strange sail can see us signallin’ each other.
The flag signal was bent on and hoisted; Lizard repeated it a moment later, then it was quickly struck, to indicate “Execute,” and Lizard turned up closer to the Trade winds but did not sheet home her fore-and-aft rig as closely as she might, slowing most lubberly. By the time that the strange sail had loomed hull-up two hours later, she was just a little over a mile ahead of Thorn and two points off the starboard bows.
“Permission to beat to quarters, sir?” Lt. Darling asked.
“Any time you like, sir,” Lewrie said with a nod. “I’ll go below and fetch my weapons, just in case.”
When he returned to the deck amid the bustle of the guns being run in and loaded then run back to the port sills, Lewrie could espy the strange ship plainly and make her out to be a smallish brig. She still showed no flag, but she was coming on almost bows-on to Thorn as if she would ram right into her.
“She could pass right between us, sir,” Lt. Darling said with a frown of concern, or concentration, on his face.
“Fire on both of us in passing?” Lewrie speculated out loud. “Then, she’d have to wear about right quickly t’catch us up again. Bad odds o’ takin’ either of us.”
Both Lizard and Thorn were on starboard tack, close-reaching, but not yet hard on the wind, or “full and by”. Lewrie wondered whether the strange ship could score any hits if she was their Spanish privateer, or even if she could man both her broadsides at the same time with a crew reputed to be only around eighty or ninety men. Once the stranger discovered that she was up against two Royal Navy ships, she might just keep on running all the way to one of the many “pocket harbours” on the coast of Cuba, and it would be a long stern chase after her.
Force his hand? Lewrie thought. Keep him level with us?
“She’s only one mile off, now, sir, and coming on fast,” Lieutenant Darling announced, sounding a tad anxious. “She still shows no flag.”
“Signal to Lizard, sir,” Lewrie snapped. “She’s t’haul her wind to larboard, and steer Westerly!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Darling obeyed, sounding a touch confused but calling aft to the sailors by the signal halliards. “Won’t they see it and sheer off, sir?” he asked, once the signal was made up.
“Too late for that,” Lewrie said with a lift of his brows and a puckish grin. “If she’s innocent, we scare ’em out of their breeches. If she’s a privateer—”
“Deck, there!” the foremast lookout yelled. “Strange sail shows Spanish colours!
As soon as the hoist appeared, Lt. Bury ordered his ship off the wind, wheeling Westerly and starting to cross Thorn’s
“Got the bastard! Lewrie whooped. “She’s after Lizard first! Hold course a bit longer, Mister Darling, then haul your wind and go after her. With luck, we might get t’windward of her starboard side and double on her!”
“Hoist our true colours, sir?” Darling asked, now afire with battle-lust.
“Wait a bit longer,” Lewrie said, chuckling. “Let our Don believe we’re ‘Brother Johnathans’ a minute or so more, ’til there’s no way he can wiggle out of the trap.”
The privateer brig had wheeled Westerly, too, in chase of HMS Lizard. It took her crew time, though, to secure and abandon her starboard guns and man her larboard battery, her gun-ports opening slowly after a long minute or two. Just showing guns, though, wasn’t enough; to prove her hostile nature she would have to—
“There’s the proof o’ the pudding,” Lewrie exclaimed as her bow chaser fired a shot under Lizards’s forefoot. “Strike the Yankee flag and hoist our own, Mister Darling! Stand on as you bear ’til we’ve crossed her stern, then go right at her!”