“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.
“Two bloody hours to herd them back together… for this!” Lt. Westcott grumbled some more, astounded by the chaos that that Preparative hoist had engendered.
“Just fire into the most threatening, sir,” Lewrie told him with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, as the somewhat orderly nature of the convoy shredded in an eyeblink.
It was regrettable that those Americas-bound merchantmen weren’t all in the landward columns; they were scattered throughout the convoy like raisins in a duff. To obey that signal, assuming they had seen it or paid the slightest bit of attention, they had to wheel about onto a new course, whilst the bulk of the ships bound for ports further North or for England stood on to the Nor’-Nor’east.
Well, they did ’til the ship that was waddling along two cables to windward decided to haul her wind and come down, or the ship wallowing ahead altered course, forcing the vessel down for the long voyage to wheel about to avoid a collision, too! Which wheel-about frightened the ship astern or to starboard to duck away as well, which laid her on a collision course with one of those departing ships that had come swanning leeward in dumb-very dumb!-obedience to that signal.
“Harden up windward two points, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie snapped as that idiotic, half-rotten Turtledove, which had been lagging astern all through the night, put her helm over to wear to Due West; as slow as she was, she would be beam-on to Reliant in another minute, as good as shouting, “Hit me amidships, I dare you!”
“Another two points!” Lewrie ordered half a minute later as the Turtledove’s sorry collection of gammers and clueless teens took an age to complete their wear-about to larboard tack, and was making as much a rate of knots as a drifting log.
“Thankee for the escort, Reliant!” her aged captain whinnied as the frigate shaved past her at long musket-shot. “We will take it from here!”
“I hope ye bloo…!” Lewrie began to shout back through a brass speaking-trumpet, but forebore. “I hope you have a safe passage!” he said instead. “You cunny-thumbed, cack-handed clown!” he muttered to himself.
“Oh God, I can’t stand it!” Lt. Merriman said, holding his arms round his middle and wheezing with laughter. “What an idiot!”
“I say now, don’t the columns look rather… queer?” Marine Lt. Simcock, on the quarterdeck to take the morning air, pointed out. “One would think they’d seen a privateer, or something. Normal, is it?”
Reliant indeed had a fine view of sheer terror; after-most of the escorts, at the tail-end of those four long columns which were now haring off in penny-packets no larger than two or three, and all on disparate courses, they could witness it all.
“Modeste has struck her signal, sir,” Midshipman Munsell reported. “The Execute is ordered.”
“About bloody time!” Lewrie snorted. “Mister Westcott? We’ll ‘Spanish reef’ the main course and tops’l for a bit, and get a way off her, else we’ll tangle with the after-most ship of the windward column.”
She was a large three-master, nigh the size of an Indiaman, and had ended up at the end of her column due to her lack of speed, and was looming up quickly. Her master and mates on her quarterdeck were peering astern with their eyes so blared open that Lewrie fancied that he could see the whites of their eyes at a full cable.
Hands aloft quickly clewed up Reliant’s main course and main tops’l to reduce the spread of canvas, and her own speed, turning the wind-full sails into lubberly bags, even as the merchantman’s sailors scrambled aloft to shake reefs from her own sails and get a way on. It would make her fast enough to avoid collision with the frigate, but it would also push her along a knot faster than the ship ahead of her in column, which would “put the wind up” that one, forcing her to spread more canvas or turn alee, threatening whichever vessel lay ahead or to leeward of her, and…! It was like watching an overly hopeful child’s stack of wooden blocks come crashing down!
“Ehm… should someone have planned for…?” Lt. Simcock hesitantly asked, looking about completely clueless. “Isn’t there anything to be done?”
“Cross your fingers, Arnold,” Lt. Merriman said, tittering with now-subdued amusement. “Say a prayer, if you like.”
“Cross your legs and guard your ‘nut-megs,’ too, sir,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Caldwell, guffawed. “Gawd, I haven’t seen the like in all my born days! Like a pack of headless chickens!”
“About all we can do is sit back and watch it play out,” Lewrie decided aloud. “And if no one goes aboard another, and if we don’t have to render assistance, I expect it’ll take ’til mid-afternoon to herd ’em back into proper order.”
I could send Blanding a signal, with a humble “Submit,” but… I don’t think he’d be very receptive, Lewrie thought, trying very hard not to laugh out loud; It’s all up to him. Just an obedient old sailor, me. Yarr, and belike, har har!
“We’re safe, sir,” Lt. Westcott opined. “We’ll be clear of yon three-master in a minute, and up to windward of her, a bit.”
“Very well, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie replied. “Once clear, we will shake the ‘Spanish reefs’ out, and stand to windward of the convoy… t’keep the most of ’em from dashin’ off for bloody Africa!”
“Ooh! That was a close’un!” Lt. Merriman groaned.
“Aah! I was sure they’d tangle!” Lt. Spendlove, drawn on deck by the commotion, said of another close call ahead of them.
“Aha! Signal rockets in the daytime?” Mr. Caldwell pointed out.
“Mmm! Pretty!” Midshipman Munsell enthused.
It was a miracle that all ships came through without a scratch in their paint, or a scrape down their hull scantlings. Twenty-five vessels left the convoy (wheezing with relief, cursing like Billingsgate fish-mongers, or fanning with their hats in shuddery “damme, I’ve cheated death, again!” laughter); that left eighty-four bemused or frightened-out-of-their-wits ships remaining, which Captain Blanding in Modeste tried to re-assemble. Lots of powder was expended in alerting guns, and every signal flag was employed from Modeste’s taffrail lockers before it was managed.
Blanding ordered the remaining ships to fetch-to and await his new directives. Reliant, Cockerel, and Pylades were ordered to “Send Boats”-not “Captain(s) Repair On Board”; their senior officer was most-like too abashed to face his juniors at that point-which took at least an hour or more.
“We’re to what?” Lewrie asked, once Midshipman Houghton returned.
“We’re ah… to enquire of all vessels their ports of call, sir,” Houghton told him. “Captain Blanding has supplied us with the names and numbers he’s assigned to each, and we’re to sort them out in their order of departure from the trade, sir. He will re-assemble the convoy with all ships due to leave us for American ports into the lee-most column, or columns, sir. So they may haul their wind, and peel off as we approach the latitude of their destinations, sir, avoiding another, ah…”
“Oh, aye! Avoidin’ that again!” Lewrie scoffed, dubious.
Wish he’d thought o’ that beforehand, Lewrie thought; damme, I bet he does, too. Or… I should’ve, if no one else did.
Captain Blanding had vowed that not one of the merchantmen entrusted to his care would be lost, and, despite that morning’s debacle none had been. What happened to the lightly-armed “runners” that left the convoy was not the Navy’s responsibility, of course, but it looked as if keeping that vow would take several tons of luck… and Lewrie strongly suspected that they’d used a fair parcel of that luck up!
“Bosun… Mister Sprague? All ship’s boats in the water, and manned!” Lewrie called down to the frigate’s waist. “I’ll send you in one, Mister Houghton, Mister Entwhistle, and Mister Warburton. Pass the word for them, pray, and I’ll explain their duties once here.”
“Ehm… Captain Blanding also wishes that the trade be ordered into eight columns, sir,” Mr. Houghton went on, shambling his feet at being remiss in mentioning it.
Lewrie just goggled at him for a bit.
“Well, that’ll keep ye busy ’til sundown, Mister Houghton. Oh, take joy of it, do, young sir!” Lewrie could not help from saying, and laughing right out loud, after a long moment.
Christ, what a shitten pot-mess! he thought.
They’d been given a list of names of the remaining ships, and the names of their masters, and would have to go aboard each one that was within sight in the rear of the convoy, assign them their proper new numbers, then tell them to assemble to leeward, if they were down for Wilmington, North Carolina, the James river, or the Chesapeake, or ports further North. Lewrie was mortal-certain that his Mids would be greeted with goggle-eyed, astonished stares, and splutters asking how they were to work their way leeward through the others.
Then, they would have to shepherd them to their new placings, then report to Captain Blanding in Modeste the names and numbers of the ships sent to the leeward columns so some clerkish-soul, likely Chaplain Brundish, could write it all down, with little ovals representing each ship, with ship names, numbers, and destinations jotted in tiny script beside each, to be checked off like landed crates from a cargo manifest as each departed them.
Hell, it might be dawn tomorrow ’fore we’re back under way and in proper order! Lewrie groaned to himself. It would be yet another very long night, and the chance of an enemy privateer showing up-Lewrie had let that threat escape his mind for some time-did not even bear imagining!
And what some curious and bemused American merchant ship that stumbled onto them during all that sorting out thought of the efficiency of the Royal Navy didn’t bear thinking about, either!
Reliant was fetched-to, along with their convoy, rolling and wallowing most sickly. Lewrie’s cook, Yeovill, came onto the larboard gangway from the galley up forward. He was not a good sailor with a cast-iron constitution if the ship was not under way. He “cast his accounts to Neptune” overside.
Damme, that says it all, don’t it? Lewrie cynically thought.