Hostile Shores

“Let’s make sure the starboard watch division has their breakfast before we shut the galley down,” Lewrie said. “I suppose Mister Westcott has got his coffee, at last? Hah, good! Pass word for my steward. I could use a bowl of porridge, and a mug of coffee, too.”

Four Bells were struck at 6 A.M., as the skies astern lightened even more, and the indefinite greyness of the sails, the ship, and the sea took on vivid “early-early” colour, as if this day would come fresh-laundered after the worn drabness of the day before. The airs were cool and refreshing, the nippiness of night quickly forgotten as a breeze scented with deep-sea iodine and salt freshened. Inshore, in the estuary, there would be fogs and overcasts, but this far out to sea, the skies promised lots of sunshine and few clouds.

“Deck, there!” a lookout called down. “Th’ Chase’z doused ’er lights! One point orf th’ starb’d bows!”

Lewrie paced down to the helm, and the chart pi

“Seven minutes ’til dawn proper, sir,” Caldwell adjudged.

“By the casts of the log, we’ve made up fifteen miles of Westing, and should be about twelve miles astern of our spook,” Lewrie determined. “She should be spottin’ us soon, now, if our top-masts are above the horizon … unless they’re blind as bats, o’ course.”

“There is a chance, sir, that they’re so used to peering shoreward that they may not take too many glances over their shoulders, and we could get very close before they spot us,” Caldwell offered.

“Well, that’ll never do,” Lewrie jovially objected. “I want us t’be seen, and draw her too far out for her to run for Mar del Plata or Bahía Blanca and get away.”

“Deck, there!” the mainmast lookout in the cross-trees yelled. “Th’ Chase’z goin’ about! ’Er bows’z pointin’ South, beam-onta us! She’s fine on th’ starb’d bow!”

“Should we alter course more Sutherly to cut her off, sir?” Lt. Spendlove asked. “Make more sail, perhaps?”

“Hold course for a bit more, sir,” Lewrie told him. “Let’s see if she runs, or she comes about towards us. We’re loafin’ along like a transport, under reduced sail for the night, and on a rough course for enterin’ the Plate. Let’s see if she bites.”

“Deck, there! Chase’z wearin’ about!” came a call from aloft. “Turnin’ Easterly!”

“Well, now!” Lewrie said, beaming with delight. “If the people have finished their breakfast, I’ll have the galley fires cast overboard, Mister Spendlove. Stand on for a bit more, like we’re blind as bats, ’til we can spot her sails above the horizon from the deck, then we can sham panic, and go about. Mister Westcott? I will fetch you the keys to the arms lockers, now. We’ll wait, though, to ‘Beat To Quarters’ ’til she’s much closer. Once I’m back on deck, you can begin to strip down the ship for action.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Westcott crisply replied with a feral gleam in his eyes, eager for the fight to start.

Lewrie went to his cabins, unlocked his desk, and fetched out the keys to the arms lockers and crammed them into a side pocket of his coat. He went to his own weapons rack and strapped on his plain hanger sword, primed his pre-loaded double-barrelled Manton pistols, and stuck them down into his coat pockets, too.

“Is it begi

“It appears t’be, Pettus,” Lewrie told his steward. “You and Jessop box up the last of my things, and see everything to the orlop, Chalky and the dog, too.”

“I been drillin’ with the other lads, sir,” Jessop piped up. “I can run powder cartridges from the magazines, good as any, now.”

Lewrie paused and cocked his head to look Jessop over; he had come aboard a twelve-year-old waif, and was now almost sixteen, and nigh a grown lad as much like the teenaged topmen who served aloft.

“Very well, Jessop,” Lewrie said with a stern nod. “You wish to do a man’s part, you have my leave t’do so.”

“Thank ye, sir!” Jessop cried, looking so happy that he could turn St. Catherine’s Wheels in delight.

“Luck to the both of you,” Lewrie bade them, stopping to give Chalky a parting petting. The cat was crouched atop his desk, curled up into a wary meat loaf shape, as if he sensed something ominous in Lewrie’s weapons, or the sight of the domed wicker cage that was used to bear him below and out of harm.

Lewrie got back to the quarterdeck and handed Lt. Westcott the arms locker keys. Westcott grimly nodded, then bellowed for word to be passed for the Master-At-Arms and the Ship’s Corporals to come to fetch them. With another nod to Bosun Sprague and his Mate, Wheeler, he gave permission for Quarters to be piped. Lt. Simcock’s Marine drummer and fifer began the Long Roll, then a gay martial air that drew off-watch hands back on deck. One of the ship’s boats was hauled from towing astern and filled with chickens, ducks, rabbits, and quail from the manger, with the na

Half an hour later, and the frigate was ready for combat, and the only step left was to load, prime, and run out. Lewrie called for everyone to stand easy. He went to the lee bulwarks to larboard and raised a telescope to peer at their stranger past the wind-curved jibs.

“I can make out her t’gallants and tops’ls, now, from the deck,” he said to Lt. Westcott as he crossed back to amidships. “She’ll be hull-up in the next half hour. Time t’shake our lazy night reefs out, Mister Westcott, like our idle merchantmen do, and make more sail … except for the main course, which we’ll have to brail up before fire is opened, anyway. Chain slings on the yards whilst you’re at it, and rig the boarding nettings in-board of the bulwarks, out of sight ’til needed.”

“Aye, sir. Colours?” Lt. Westcott asked, peeking aft at the bare gaff and spanker boom line.

“Not ’til she breaks out hers,” Lewrie decided, pausing, then gri

I’m pretty sure she’s Spanish, Lewrie mulled over to himself as his First Officer tended to making more sail, and the rigging of the slings and anti-boarding nets; I don’t think there’s a Dutch warship in the entire South Atlantic, and God only knows what’d draw a French ship this far afield. A British merchant flag t’lure her on, or show them a Spanish flag, and bring her out to warn a fellow countryman to the British invasion? God, that’d be rich! And she’d be put off her guard, her gun crews stood down.

“Deck there!” a lookout called down. “Th’ Chase’z hoistin’ British Colours!”

“The Devil ye say!” Lewrie barked, going back to the bulwarks to lift his telescope once more. Sure enough, even from the deck, he could make out the merest hint of bright bunting, an imitation of the Union Flag.

“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie hooted. “I’ll wager ye that her captain thinks he’s a clever ‘sly boots’, Mister Westcott! Hoist the Red Ensign, if ye please. Show him we’re a fat, dumb merchantman. And everyone look relieved, haw!” he called to the officers and men on the quarterdeck. He looked aft to watch Midshipman Sha