Hostile Shores (45 page)

Hard as it was to get a despatch boat up to Buenos Aires, all three ships posted to cruise the mouth of the estuary had sent reports of those strange sails on the horizon, but this was the first that Captain Donnelly had heard of them. Lewrie quickly filled him in.

“Hmm, in that case, it might be best did we cut our supper short,” Donnelly pondered, looking concerned, “and I make my offing in the dark … lights extinguished. From nine
P.M.
, say, ’til dawn tomorrow, does this stern wind hold, I could be seventy miles out to sea by six
A.M.
”

“The last sighting was late this afternoon, twenty miles or more off Cape Saint Mary, up to the Nor’east,” Lewrie advised. “We don’t know what she is, but she is persistent. With any luck, she’ll pop up round mid-channel, leagues from where you intend to be.”

“Excuse me, sirs, but supper is ready to be laid,” Pettus announced, and Yeovill came bustling in with his metal food barge.

“You’ve broached my anker of Bordeaux, have you?” Donnelly asked Pettus. “Good ho, then! Let’s sup, for I am famished!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

“Sighted her again, sir,” Lt. Merriman reported as Lewrie came to the quarterdeck, spurred by the lookouts’ cries of “Sail Ho!” days after
Narcissus
had departed with her precious cargo. “Her royals or t’gallants only. Can’t spot her from the deck, so she’s over fifteen miles seawards.”

Lewrie extended his telescope anyway, looking not towards their mysterious stalker, but at HMS
Diomede,
the old 50-gunner, several miles to the North.

“I’m growing tired o’ that bastard,” Lewrie spat. “What does her captain think he’s playin’ at? If she’s a Spanish warship, there is nothing t’be gained by hangin’ about this long after we conquered the bloody place. She should be scuttlin’ off t’warn the other Spanish colonies … go find other men o’ war and come back t’take us on.”

“Unless she’s been left to keep an eye on us whilst the other ships are preparing to come to the Plate, sir,” Lt. Merriman speculated. “Perhaps the word has already been passed?”

“Where are we this morning, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie asked the Sailing Master, going over to peer at his charts.

“About ten sea miles East of Lobos Island, sir,” Caldwell offered, “and our lurker would be about fifteen miles further seawards of that, is Mister Merriman’s estimate correct.”

Lewrie concentrated on the much-thumbed and pencil-marked sea-chart, looking for inspiration, or a single clue, for long moments. From the port of Maldonado and Cape St. Mary to Cape Norte on the South, the Plate Estuary was over 120 miles wide, narrowing between Montevideo and Point Piedras. It was an impossible distance to cover with three warships, even sailing independently of each other, and their stranger could pop up just temptingly out of reach each dawn and dusk wherever she willed along that line, coming up as near as Point Piedras sometimes, without any risk of interception. Did
Diomede, Raisonnable,
or
Reliant
attempt to beat up to her, she would go about and run over the horizon, but, a day or two later, there she would be again, sniffing round the mouth of the estuary.

“Here,” Lewrie muttered, jabbing a finger at the chart, “off Cape Saint Mary, then … here, round mid-entrance, then the next day or so later, she pops up down to the South, like she’s standing on sentry-go, same as us. North, in the middle, in the South … hmm. Not always, though. Her captain must have a pattern to his madness, but I don’t see it. Clues, anyone?” he asked his officers.

“Well, sir, there have been times when she appears in the South at dawn, then comes back within sight not too far away from there at sundown,” Lt. Westcott pointed out. “The next dawn she might be near the middle of the estuary’s mouth, and appear in the North by dusk. At other times, she will make her probes off Cape Saint Mary at dawn
and
dusk, then pop up to the South. I’m not all that sure that there
is
a discernible pattern.”

“Perhaps her captain is trying to avoid showing us a pattern, sir,” Lt. Merriman said with a shrug, “but, he seems to have but three places where he closes the coast for a look-see … Cape Saint Mary, Cape Norte, and the middle of the estuary mouth.”

“She was off the middle yesterday?” Lewrie asked. “Then, it may be good odds she’ll either be off Cape Saint Mary just before sundown tonight, or round the middle. Hah!” he barked. “Let’s gamble! We will stay near Cape Saint Mary and Lobos Island the rest of the day, standin’ off-and-on, but slowly make our way seaward a few more miles. Not enough t’frighten her off. Whether she appears off the Cape, or further down towards the middle of the estuary mouth, I intend that we dash out once it’s full dark.…” He paused, looking aft at the taffrail lanthorns either side of the stern. “We won’t light the lanthorns but replace ’em with small hand-held lamps. That’ll make us look as if we’re further off from her. Once she’s had her evening look-see, we’ll douse ’em, one at a time, as she makes her way back seaward for the night, then douse the last ’un, show no lights at all, and chase after her, get seaward of her, and catch her on a lee shore! Pin her ’twixt us and the other ships!”

“Even if we don’t bring her to action, we might give her such a scare that her captain tosses in his cards and sails away,” Lieutenant Westcott chortled.

“Mister Merriman, I’d be much obliged did you alter course to seaward, nothing too drastic … perhaps no more than two points. We have all day,” Lewrie ordered. “
Diomede
is bound South, the same as us, and I wish t’stay within signalling distance of her, perhaps no more than six or seven miles off ’til sundown.”

“Very good, sir! Bosun! Pipe all hands to the braces, and be ready to alter course!” Lt. Merriman shouted down to the waist of the ship.

“Hah!” Lewrie exulted, clapping his hands together. “I will be below, Mister Merriman, finishin’ my breakfast. Carry on. Drill on the great-guns in the Forenoon, finishin’ with live fire.”

“Aye, sir.”

Damme, I feel like a feagued horse!
he thought as he trotted down the ladderway to the waist, stopping to pet Bisquit and let him stand on his hind legs with his paws on his chest, ruffling fur and telling him what a good dog he was.

Days on end of boredom and frustration, with very little news of what was transpiring round Buenos Aires, denied any part in the landings at Point Quilmes, left to cruise fruitlessly … now, all of that was swept away by the prospect of discovering just who, or what, had been lurking just out of reach, by the possibility of a sea-fight, broadside-to-broadside … or the imagined shock they might cause when they appeared to
seaward
of their mysterious lurker, and cutting off her escape!

Very much like an aged horse, dosed by shrewd traders with a plug of ginger up the rump to appear young and lively, Lewrie felt as if he’d suddenly shed ten years and could prance in circles!

“A warm-up of your coffee, sir?” Pettus offered as Lewrie swept the tails of his coat back and sat himself down at the dining table once more, tucking his napkin into his shirt collar, then rubbing his hands in delight.

“I’d much admire it, thankee kindly, Pettus!” Lewrie happily replied, so loud that Chalky, at the other end of the table, started and crouched behind his food bowl. “Oh, don’t be such a scaredy-cat, puss. It’s only me, in high takings for once.”

“High takings, sir?” Pettus asked as he poured the coffee.

“Our spook is back, but tonight we’re goin’ t’have a go at ‘smoaking’ her out,” Lewrie explained, beaming in glee. “Once I’ve eat, Pettus, we’ll see to my weapons. There’s a good chance I’ll have need of ’em on the morrow. Oil, brushes, rags, and flints. And, do see that I’ve a clean silk shirt and stockings, and a fresh-washed pair o’ breeches, just in case.

“Damme!” he cried. “With any luck at all, I’m going t’catch that bastard ghost ship out yonder if it kills me!”

CHAPTER FORTY

“Sir? Sir?”

“Uhmph?”

“Seven Bells of the Middle Watch, sir,” Pettus prompted by the edge of Lewrie’s hanging bed-cot, with a small candle lanthorn in his hand. “You said to wake you half an hour before the change of watch.”

“Um, aye,” Lewrie agreed with a curt nod. “I’m awake.”

Don’t
want
t’be,
Lewrie thought, for he had been having one of the grandest dreams of a neck-or-nothing steeplechase, soaring like a falcon over hedgerows, stone walls, and stiles in company with boisterous old friends; even stout Clotworthy Chute, his old school chum who’d been expelled with him from Harrow, could keep up and keep his saddle like a born horseman—which he most certainly was not! There had been naked ladies, full tits bouncing most wondrously, too, all of them handsome. No one he’d
known,
but it had felt
damned
promising!

“Cold tea, sir,” Pettus offered.

“Cold, and scant, comfort,” Lewrie muttered, whisking back the covers and rolling out of the bed-cot barefoot, clad in nothing but his underdrawers. As he sipped the tea he looked round his cabins to assure himself that all the sash-windows in the stern, and both the windows in the quarter-galleries, were covered with jute sacking, and would show no light out-board. It was stuffy, humid, and almost cool to the shivering point belowdecks, in those hours before sunrise.

With the pewter mug of tea in hand, he went to the larboard quarter-gallery, had a long pee, swished and gargled with tea, then spat into the “necessary” to clear his mouth.

“Let’s shove me into order, Pettus,” he bade, stripping off the underdrawers and donning a fresh-washed set. He sat in his desk chair to pull on silk stockings and bind them behind his knees, stood to pull on clean breeches, then his Hessian boots. Pettus offered him a silk shirt, then helped tie the neck-stock. With the addition of a waist-coat, uniform coat, and cocked hat, he was ready to go on deck, just a quarter hour before Eight Bells and the change of watch, and the call for all hands to “wakey-wakey, lash up and stow”.

“Cap’m’s on deck!” the Master’s Mate of the watch alerted the the others on the quarterdeck as Lewrie made his way up from the waist.

“Good morning, sir,” Lt. Spendlove said in a soft voice.

“Good morning, Mister Spendlove,” Lewrie replied, tapping his fingers to the brim of his hat. “Now, where away is our spook? And what is our heading?”

“As at midnight, when you went below, sir,” Spendlove answered. “Course Sou’west by South, making six knots by the last cast of the log, and about fourty miles seaward of the estuary, by Dead Reckoning. The lookout at the main cross-trees reports that he has our stranger’s taffrail lanthorns in sight, just barely …
inshore
of us, sir! Not twelve miles off! Three points off the starboard bows, at the last hailing.”

“So she
is
makin’ for the middle of the estuary mouth!” Lewrie exclaimed, clapping his hands together in satisfaction, a sound much too loud for the wee hours, and the tense anticipation of the entire on-watch crew. “Any idea of her course?” Lewrie asked, going to the starboard, lee, bulwarks to peer out, even if nothing could be seen in the deep darkness from the deck.

“She seems to be plodding along on roughly the same course as ours, sir,” Lt. Spendlove said as he followed Lewrie to the rails, “though if she intends to close the coast to visual range of
Diomede
or us … were we there, of course … she may haul her wind at any time.”

“Uhm, aye,” Lewrie agreed. “We’re fourty miles offshore, and she’s twelve miles closer … twenty-eight miles off. Even at a plod under reduced sail, she could get within twelve miles of the middle of the estuary mouth just before dawn … if she goes about soon. Is she a warship, she surely stands the same watches as us. At Eight Bells…”

He pulled out his pocket watch, but couldn’t read its face in the darkness. The wee lanthorn at the forecastle belfry was shrouded, as was the light from the compass binnacle, with just enough of a slit in the cloth covering for the helmsmen to steer by. He gave the idea up and shoved it back into his pocket.

“Ye know, Mister Spendlove, I think this is goin’ t’work!” he said in a low voice, though one tinged with humour.

*   *   *

He hadn’t been all that sure and confident at sundown the evening before, wasn’t even sure that their mysterious ghost would appear near Lobos Island, or had in the meantime made off South nearer the mouth of the Plate Estuary. When within signalling distance of HMS
Diomede,
he had spelled out his intentions to her captain, requesting that
Diomede
play the anvil whilst
Reliant
would be the hammer, or the beater. The frigate had slowly made her way a few miles further offshore, waiting.

Lewrie had felt
real
hope when the stranger’s uppermost sails had arisen over the horizon, six leagues to the Sou’east of Lobos Island, her royals or t’gallants lit amber by the last rays of the descending sun.
Reliant
lay to her West with her sham taffrail lanthorns already lit, making her easy to spot, but not so far out to sea near her to give their ghost alarm. Playing the peek-a-boo game too long, their stranger had lulled herself into complacency … or so Lewrie prayed. One last look before supper, and a turn out to sea to wallow along South to the mid-point of the estuary entrances, out of sight for the night, and she would be safe as houses ’til the morrow, when she closed the coast and came in sight once more, still too far aloof and seaward to risk any real danger.

Or so her captain would think!

Once night had fallen, the sea had turned to ink, and the only light came from a myriad of stars, the Southern Cross most prominent, their stranger was below the horizon and out of sight, and Lewrie had ordered a change of course to stand out Sou’-Sou’east, and the reefs shaken from her courses and tops’ls, and the hand-lanthorns at the stern extinguished.

He’d gone below just long enough to shave and take a sponge-bath, then had returned to the quarterdeck, to pace and fret ’til one of the lookouts had called out that he espied their stranger’s stern lights on the horizon, down to the South, and two points off the starboard bows. An hour and a half later, and the report was that their ghost was abeam, and Lewrie had gone below again for a light supper, sure that they would be to seaward of her when the dawn came. They’d altered course at 9
P.M.
, had cracked on sail for a time, and Lewrie had finally gone below at midnight for a few hours’ rest.