"Should the Admiralty require it, then let them buy it for me," Alan scoffed. "Let's go select some wines."
"Very good, Captain sir."
The spirits shop was set up much like a coffeehouse, or an inn's public room, with tables and chairs. The walls were lined with barrels and wooden cases of bottles, with a combination counter and bar at the rear.
"Well, damme!" Alan was forced to exclaim as he espied an oil painting over the counter. It was his harem scene that Caroline had traded off, to the life! There were the same buxom darlings on the same draped couches, with a slender lass featured in the foreground standing to be toweled after her bath, the one who so-muchresembled his first whore in Covent Garden, the infamously handsome " 'Change Court Betty" in all her bare splendor.
"Inspiring, ain't it, sir?" the clerk simpered. "Here, Davie, the captain would like to sample some wines this day."
"Aye, sir," the vendor smiled, wiping his hands on his apron as he came from behind his counter. "Pray, have a seat, sir, and take yer ease. Tell us yer wants, sir, an' we'll trot 'em out for yer to select those as best suits yer palate."
Lewrie took a seat and removed his cocked hat. "Let's begin on port. I'll need one case."
"Going back t'sea, are we, sir?" the vendor clucked. "Got a fine 'Rain-Water' Madeira just in. Got a lovely nose, ain't it, sir? Try a sip of that, now."
A door in the back that led to the storerooms opened, and Alan paused with a sample glass to his lips as John Finney emerged, intent on a loose sheaf of papers. He looked up, spotted Lewrie, and smiled hesitantly, then put a bold face on it and stepped forward.
"Captain Lewrie, the top o' the mornin' t'ya, sir," he lilted in an Irish brogue. " Tis delighted I am t'see you again, sir, and in my… establishment, at that," Finney stumbled, seeming to be trying to recall a lesson in elocution, to sound more English, though with a hard emphasis on those "break-teeth" words not common to his everyday speech.
"Mister Finney, good morning," Lewrie nodded, willing to sound at least affable in reply. He even threw in a small grin.
"I trust me… my clerk David is satisfactory, sir?" Finney continued, laying his papers down on the counter.
"Most satisfactory, sir, thankee," Lewrie rejoined.
God, but he's an imposin' bastard, Lewrie thought as he sipped the Madeira! Finney stood a full six feet tall, broad of shoulder and deep-chested as a yearling steer. He was sailor-dark in complexion, with a full head of bright blond hair drawn back into a queue as low as his shoulder blades. His face was angular and square, and in his chin there was a pronounced cleft. For someone who'd come up from a stew, he had remarkably good white teeth. And penetrating, sometimes mocking blue eyes. With that heft, he could have looked day-labourer common, but he was flat-stomached, lean in the hips and thighs, and showed a very shapely calf in his silk stockings. His hands and his feet betrayed his origins, though; huge, clumping-long feet and hands square and thick as a bricklayer's, roughened by a lifetime of hard work, no matter the heavy and expensive rings he now sported.
"That'd… that is the 'Rain-Water' Madeira, David?" Finney inquired, coming to the table to pick up the bottle. "A pleasing and tasty selection, Captain Lewrie. Not as dry as some. Like it?"
"Quite good, yes," Lewrie agreed. "Though a guinea the bottle is a trifle steep, Mister Finney."
"We could arrange split-cases, sir," Finney assured him, pulling out a seat. "Allow me, sir? Thank you. Say, four bottles or so of the Rain-Water, and the rest made up from a lesser vintage, for guests who can't 'predate the best, ay? Why deprive y'self o' fine port just 'cause ya dine alone aft most o' the time. And is it sailin' soon y'll be, Captain Lewrie?" he asked, lapsing into brogue.
There was a craftiness to the set of Finney's eyes, at least to Alan's suspicious imagination. And yet, there was almost a pathetic eagerness, too. The eagerness of a seller, he wondered? The pandering of the outsider towards a better, Lewrie took a moment to sneer? Or that of a basically lonely man risen out of his element and trying to fit in? To make contact with newcomers who didn't spurn him?
"I have no orders at present, but…" Lewrie shrugged, giving Finney the same smile he'd bestow upon any acquaintance. "We've been so long at anchor, it's bound to be soon."
"Davie…" Finney said, whirling on his chair, "David, bring out last year's Oporto for Captain Lewrie to try. Four shilling the bottle, I'm that sorry t'say, but nigh as tasty, and a grand bargain. Now wot ya say t'that, sir?"
"Mmm, rather nice," Lewrie had to agree. "Let us say eight of this Oporto, and only four of the better Madeira. And I'll simply have to treat myself less often."
"Done!" Finney exulted, slapping the table top as if he had won a trick at ecarte. "Now, wot else will ya be desiring?"
Lewrie spent almost an hour in the wine shop with Finney as bis eager-to-please host. Away from formal affairs, the salons and dance-floors where he most likely felt strangled and out of place, he proved a likable enough fellow, Alan had to admit, as they compared voyages, ports of call, and past storms, as sailors ever will.
"An' wuz ya niver t'India, now!" Finney had exclaimed with joy. "An' Canton, too? Gawd, 'twas a time, a grand time, I had 'mongst the heathens meself! Topman, I wuz, then… main topmast captain."
Then Finney would catch his accent and affect his more genteel persona, striving for more civil speech. Until his next enthusiasm which put the lilt and Gaelic structure to his words again.
"So, your reckoning, sir," Finney said at last, after Alan hadmade his final selection. "The split case of port, one cask of brandy, two of claret… le'ssee, one cask of Bordeaux… damn' good St. Emilion, thet is, an' tastes young f rever. Two cases Rhenish, one of hock, and the odd case of cordials, sherries, Holland gin and such…"
Lewrie saw why Finney had such a scrawl for a handwriting- he was a cack-hand, a left-hander! Another unpopular trait to rise above!
"Twenty-four pounds, six shillings, and… ah, the divil with it, let's say twenty pound even, an' be square, sir! Ain't that a handsome bargain for ya, now, Captain Lewrie?" Finney loudly decided at last.
That statement, such an eldritch echo of Billy 'Bones' Doyle's own words from the cave at Conch Bar, nearly set Lewrie's nape hairs on end, bringing back his every nagging suspicion.
"Twenty it is, though I fear 'tis at your loss, sir," Lewrie found wit to reply, without betraying the cold fear-trill that took him.
"Don't go bruiting it about the town, though, Captain Lewrie," Finney chuckled. "Or the rest'll think they've been cheated. We're to have this delivered aboard Alacrity t'day, then?"
"If you could, that would be fine," Lewrie replied.
"A final glass with ya, then, sir," Finney smiled, reaching for a sample bottle of brandy. "Wot yer hunters call a 'stirrup cup'?"
"Topping," Lewrie allowed as Finney filled their glasses.
"Fine little ship you have there, sir," Finney congratulated. "May I be so bold as t'offer a toast, now? To Alacrity. Long may she swim in safety on the King's business." They clinked glasses.
"Thankee, Mister Finney."
"Ah, call me John," Finney cajoled. "Or Jack. 'Tis how I'm known best in the islands."
"Jack. Thankee for the thought, then," Lewrie said, restless to leave as Finney became bolder. Damme, the next I know he'll name me "Alan, old son" and I'll have to be pleasant to him in public, or have him in for a home-cooked supper! Brrr!
"Before you sail, Captain Lewrie," Finney suggested, "You and your wife must attend one o' my little gatherings. A pleasant meal. Some cards… a little dancing, should you be able to stay later."
Aha! Lewrie thought! So that's your chummy game, is it?
"I heard you weren't entertaining lately, Jack," Lewrie told him. "Nor do I recall you attending anything in the last week."
"Well, life goes on, don'… does it not, sir?" Finney said, eyeing Lewrie sharply, and the geniality leaving those blue eyes.
"I'm told some of the men who were hung once worked with you," Lewrie was emboldened to say, with a sad and sober expression of shammed sympathy.
"And so they did, sir," Finney told him, speaking slower, and choosing his words and their pronunciation more guardedly. "What my old Gran told me is true, y'know; you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink? There's some in this world will seize an opportunity to better themselves, and some as won't. For privateering, they were a grand crew, all tarry-handed and smart as paint, as willing to dare as any I'd ever seen, sir. When the war ended and I paid 'em off, I told 'em they'd have an honest berth with me whenever they needed it. Some signed on. Some went their own ways."
"Like Doyle," Lewrie needled, sporting a commiserating smile.
"Aye, like William," Finney sighed, looking wistful for what might have been. "Me… my bosun at one time. Met him, Lord, thirteen year ago when we were topmen on a Liverpool 'Black-Birder' on the Middle Passage. I made third mate, he made bosun's mate. He was the grandest seaman of all. But not a thinker, God have mercy. You know sailors, Captain Lewrie. They live from shilling to shilling. What would you find of yer fellow men from one of yer old ships, were ya all to get t'gither? Who among 'em'd prospered, and who among 'em'd sunk? The Fleet can't afford t'be picky when it needs seamen, an' I couldn't turn me nose up at the lads as signed aboard with me. And, when ya get right down to it," Finney shrugged with a sad grin, "ya can't be yer brothers' keeper. A man'll go his own way, divil a try ya make t'redeem him."
"Quite so," Lewrie had to agree with the sentiment, and the sense of what Finney said. "Well, I must take my leave, sir. Thank you for a most enjoyable morning, and a most pleasing reckoning."
"Wotiver yer needs, think o' Finney's first," the man insisted as they rose from the table. "There's no finer selection, an' for you and your fine wife, Captain Lewrie, there'll always be some specials held back, at the same pleasin' prices, break me though they might!"
"I shall keep that ever in mind, Mister Finney," Lewrie said.
"You tell yer missus t'try us first, 'stead o' Misick's, or Frith's," Finney rattled on as he walked him toward the door. "Those stores on Shirley Street'd sell 'Ratty' his own pelt, charge extra for a good fit, an 'im niver knowin' 'twas skinned soon as he entered their doors!"
"I shall tell her that, sir."
" 'Dobe planters from Santo Domingo, lime fertilizers…" Jack Finney rhapsodized about his merchandise. "The latestfashions, just about anything the new homemaker needs for a burgeoning house, for the ball, for…"
"Good day, sir," Lewrie beamed, offering his hand, which Jack Finney took and pumped vigorously. "And once again, thankee."
"I've a drum planned for Saturday, sir," Finney announced of a sudden. "I would be honored should you and Mistress Lewrie be able to attend. Late afternoon's cool, stand-up buffet, champagne…"
"Ah, I fear not," Lewrie replied, though they had no current plans for the weekend. "Should Alacrity still be in port, we will dine some guests in on Saturday," Alan lied easily. "There's a scheme afoot to introduce my first officer Lieutenant Ballard to a young lady of our acquaintance, and see how they progress over cards and music. A fearsome business! But, let a young wife see others unattached, and…" he concluded, making a face and faking a shiver. "Some other time would be more convenient, perhaps?"
"Some other time, then, sir," Finney replied with a shrug of his own, finally dropping Alan's hand. "And good day to you, sir, and thank you for your trade. Do come again, mind."
Lewrie stepped out the door which David the wine clerk held for him, doffed his hat in farewell once more, and strode away towards his horse. He undid the reins from the hitch-rail and looked across the saddle towards Finney's store idly as he fumbled with a stirrup.
Finney stood just inside the still-open door. In an unguarded moment, before he realized that Alan had glanced back at him, he was caught glaring at him from beneath blond brows beetled together with hate. And when caught, Finney put a shadowing palm over his eyes, as if the sun's glare had caused it, made his face bland with a smile of seeming sincerity, and used that shadowing hand to wave him goodbye.
Chapter 4
"You shopped at Finhey's?" Caroline goggled once he was home. "Whatever possessed you to enter that man's stores, Alan?"
"Call it curiosity, my dear," he allowed, stripping off his coat and waistcoat, undoing his neck-stock and taking his ease in a chair on the front porch where it was cool. Caroline had a pitcher of sweetened limewater near at hand. "Damme if he didn't have good prices, too. And a wider selection. You do not?"
"Only with Wyonnie to accompany me," she frowned. "I find good bargains along the docks, directly off the trading ships."
"Uhm, Caroline, those that sell direct off the ships…" Alan complained. "Those goods aren't landed or bonded. The imposts aren't paid. Those are Yankee traders!"
"So I noticed," she grinned between sips of limewater.
"They're violating the Navigation Acts, Caroline," he pressed. "Laws I'm sworn to enforce! Damme… dash it all, how does it appear, for the wife of an officer holding the King's Commission, to… to…!"
"Commodore Garvey's wife shops right alongside me, Alan," she told him. "As does the cook from the Governor's mansion, the butlers for every household that've ever invited us, the…"
"Well, I'm damned!"
"Would you rather have my eight pounds gone in a twinkling at Bay Street or Shirley Street shops, then, Alan?" she queried without a qualm.
"Do you need more money, then?" he asked.
"Not a farthing!" she chuckled, leaning back into a chair and putting her feet up on a padded footstool. "Darling, I manage quite well, with more than enough left over at the end of each month. But I could not without seeking out bargains. Alan, I will not break you to support me. I am not spendthrift."I know that, Caroline," he softened, reaching out to take her free hand. "And I'd not begrudge you our entire fortune, were you to need it."
"I know that, too, love," she purred. "And that is why I will never ask of you until it is needful. I am quite content on my house allowance. And too much in love with you to ever wish to lose your regard by being extravagant. I don't think I'm much for extravagance, anyway," she chuckled. "I'm a country girl at heart."
"I love you, too, dear, for so many reasons," he cooed back at her. "Every day I recognize a new'un."
"I shall send Wyonnie and her husband to shop the docks for me in future, then, love," Caroline promised. "So we do not give the impression that you condone anything illegal. Now it's cooler, I'll bake more at home, 'stead of buying bread from the baker's. Though summers, I will have to trade with the bakeshops. And local dishes are tasty and filling. I need no heavy imported dishes when fish, rice and all are just as nourishing, and the open-air markets are much cheaper. I love it here in the Bahamas! And Shirley Street stores are closer and just as economical, if one looks carefully at imported goods."
"Misick's and Frith's," Alan nodded in agreement.
"How did you know where I market, Alan? Have their bills at the end of the month bothered you?" she teased.
"I heard they're a little higher than Finney's, but not so dear as to rival Bay Street," Alan stumbled, feeling a flush of color as he wondered just how Jack Finney had known the exact stores she favored.
Damme, has the man been following her? he shuddered.
"I have a surprise for you, dear," Caroline blushed. "Two, to be truthful. Sit right there and close your eyes."
Hope 'tis a better surprise than the ones I've had this morning, Alan thought, going back over his long conversation with Finney.
"I know Christmas is supposed to be a time of sober reflection, and in England, people spend it with their noses in the prayer book," she said as she came back to the front porch. "No, keep your eyes shut for a space longer!"
She bent down to kiss him for a moment, giggling at his temporary helplessness, and mistaking his agitation for impatience.
"But the Klausknitzers, that German couple, have the most wonderful traditions. That carpenter fellow who made these chairs? They exchange gifts such as the Magi brought the infant Jesus, Alan, and I thought it a grand idea. And the perfect season for mine to you."
"May I look now?" he grinned.
"Now."
First he beheld a shiny tube that she held out to him.
"A flageolet," she said proudly. "Made from tin. You always said you wished you could play a musical instrument, and I thought it the perfect one. There's a little chapbook of tunes and instructions in how to read musical notes."
Now there's reason for a crew to mutiny, Alan thought, though smiling happily! I'll make a bloody nuisance of myself, bad as some noisome Welsh harpist!
"Darling, it's wonderful, I had no idea…!" he said instead.
"And this," she said, sweeping a drop-cloth away from something that was leaned on one of the support posts.
"Gawd!" he could but exclaim in awe.
What he beheld was Caroline's portrait, an oval-framed oil of her from the waist up. She was depicted standing in her flower garden by the front gate, dressed in a gauzy white off-shoulder sack gown and flowered straw hat. Potter's Cay and Hog Island were hinted in the background behind overhanging tropical flowers and palmettos in a hazy spring morning.
"Damme, that's Alacrity anchored there!" he gasped out first, as he recognized the ketch in the far background which flew the Red Ensign and streamed a red-white-blue commissioning pendant.
Bloody hell, wrong thing to say, he winced within himself!
"My God, Caroline, the artist has captured you to the life, I swear," he added quickly, kneeling down to look closer. "Why, he did you so true I'd expect your eyes here to blink any moment. And he caught your smile perfectly! 'Tis like having you looking at me from your mirror scantwise, as you do of a morning. When you're looking pleased and full of ginger!"
"I told you Augustus Hedley was a wonderful artist."
Alan rose and took her in his arms, lifting her off her feet to swing her about as he kissed her.
"I take back everything I ever said about him, darling," Alan laughed heartily. "You're right, as always. He is damned good!"
Alan had been married long enough to know to forbear mention that the waters east of Potter's Cay were too shallow for anchoring a warship, or that Alacrity did not sport t'gallant yards above her tops'ls.
"Darling Alan, do you really like it?" she teased.
"Like it, God yes, what a magnificent gift!" he assured her. "Now, every time I look up from my desk, or dine in my cabins, I'll have you there, so fresh and lovely I'll ache for want of you."
"Mmm, having you ache, and miss me when you're at sea wasmy main idea, darling," she murmured coyly in his ear. "Do you still begrudge giving up your awful old harem picture, hmm?"
"Not one whit."
"Augustus'd done so many island scenes, he practically gave our Sunset Over Nassau Harbour away in trade," she boasted, pleased with herself, and with his enthusiastic reaction to her gift. "And he did my portrait for only five pounds, and a dozen crocks of my pineapple marmalade. Now, am I not economical, my love?"
"Uncle Phineas would be proud of you," Alan snickered as he let her down to her feet again, though still draped against him. "I am, too. There's only one place I know you to be spendthrift. And thank God for it!"
"You don't have to go aboard ship until after dinner?" Caroline whispered with a suggestive smile. "Then why do we not go and be spendthrift for the rest of the morning?"
"That's my lass!" he beamed, lifting her off her feet again to carry her inside.
"Bring the portrait," she said between long, seductive kisses. "We'll stand it up against my dressing table mirror and see if I look as full of ginger as you think."
Chapter 5
"Oh, poor little fellow," Midshipman Parham said to himself as William Pitt escaped the great-cabins by the quarter-deck ladder and sat on the deck to scratch at his good ear. The sound of their captain practicing the scale on his tin flageolet came stumbling to their ears through the open skylights aft. "Sound like another ram-cat to you, does it, poor puss? Poor afterguard. Poor me!"
"And I thought you would appreciate music, Mister Parham," Lieutenant Ballard said, hands behind his back and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as Alacrity rolled along.
"Music, aye, sir, but…" Parham shrugged as he grimaced his opinion. Below, Lewrie broke off doing scales and started a halting attempt at the chorus from "The Jacobite Lass," which prompted their surgeon's mate Mr. Maclntyre to sing along, equally badly.
1 gi'ed ma love, the white white rose, that's growin' at ma father's wa. It is the bonniest flow V that grows where ilka flow 'r is braw. There's but ae bonnier than I ken, fae Perth unto the main, an' that's the flow'ro' Scotland's men that's fetchin 'for his ain.
"Oh, don't encourage him, Mister Maclntyre," Parham tittered. "Lord, Mister Ballard, sir. The captain cannot play, and Mister Maclntyre can neither sing, nor speak the King's English of a sudden. A proper shambles, that is."
"That's enough, that is, Mister Parham," Ballard smirked.
"And a Jacobite tune, too, sir," Parham continued. "Disloyal to King George, is it not, Mister Maclntyre?"
"Next time ye hae a boil on yer bum, Mister Parham," Maclntyre warned, " 'twill be ma dullest lancet, an' I'll nae be gentle!"
"Masthead, Mister Parham?" Ballard intoned with a cock of his head and frown enough to let him know his antics had best stop.
There was another verse, without vocal accompaniment this time, before the music ended with an embarrassed cough. Lewrie emerged on deck moments later in breeches and shirt, and looked around as the afterguard and watch-standers suddenly found something vital to do, or something fascinating to see over the side.
"Sea's getting up," Lewrie stated, scanning the horizon about them. "She swims a mite more boisterous than in the forenoon."
"Aye, sir," Lieutenant Ballard replied primly. "Winds are yet steady from the nor'east. Some backing in the gusts to east. Might be half a gale, no more, sir. The weather horizon's clear, for now, though we are getting whitecaps now and again."
The rigging whined with a sudden gust of wind that came more from the east, with perhaps a touch of southing. Alacrity rolled a bit more as the winds picked up from astem, and the normally lumpy waters of the Northwest Providence Channel were now long sets of rollers, windward faces rippled like hides by the gusts, and capped with white spume where a borning chop collided with itself.
"Smell rain, Mister Fellows?" Lewrie asked, twitching his noseaweather as the gust faded and the winds clocked back to the expected nor'east of the Trades.
"Sweet water somewhere, Captain," Fellows agreed. "Just a hint now and again. I'd wager squalls by seven bells."
"Have the hands eat?" Lewrie inquired.
"Aye, sir," Ballard reported.
"Topmen aloft, then. Take in the tops'ls and brail up secure. Then we'll have gun-drill as we planned. But no more than one hour," Lewrie ordered, face wrinkled wary. "We'll practice wearing ship to either beam and firing broadsides at a chase."
"Aye, aye, sir," Ballard agreed. "Bosun, pipe 'All Hands!' Do you send topmen aloft! Trice up, lay out, and brail up tops'ls!"
"If this is a late cyclone, Mister Fellows, could we shelter in a hurricane hole on Grand Bahama north of us?" Lewrie asked as the men thundered up from the mess deck. "What about Hawk's Bill Creek?"
"Hmm," Fellows squinted, taking off his cocked hat to scratch at his gingery scalp. "Do we stand on west-nor'west the rest of the day, sir, we'd be too far to loo'rd of Hawk's Bill Creek, and would have to beat back to it, with Grand Bahama a lee shore to larboard. And Grand Bahama's a graveyard for an hundred ships caught such. Nasty coast in a southerly wind. But… Cross Bay on the western tip should be abeam by late afternoon, sir. 'Round behind Settlement Point in Cross Bay, there's a good holding ground. Low-lying land, with nothing to break a gale, but much calmer waters behind the breakers and mangrove swamps."
"Keep that in mind, if this isn't your regular gale. We could ride a gale out, reaching south. After gun-drill, we'll lay out four anchor cables, just to be safe," Lewrie decided.
"Very well, sir," Fellows agreed.
By six bells of the Day Watch, three in the afternoon, it was clear that this was no average tropic squall line. The horizon astern had darkened to a deep slate gray, shot through widi ragged sizzles of distant lightning at the base. The high-piled white clouds of morning had turned gray and lowering, and raced themselves overhead to loo'rd. They took in the outer jibs, reefed the gaff courses once, then for a second time, before wearing ship north for shelter, with Alacrity laid over on her larboard side, the wake creaming within arm's reach of the deck as she swooped and bounded fast as a Cambridge Coach, darting for safety like a low-flying tern. It was one thing to trust their stout little vessel in deep water in a full gale, but this had the smell of a bad 'un… an out-of-season hurricane.
The first sprinkles of rain hit them as they beat into harbour around Settlement Point, short-tacking easterly, and the wind gusted from the east-sou'east hard enough to make it difficult to breathe.
"About here, sir!" Fellows had to shout in Lewrie's ear. "Best bower, then second bower out there, to south'rd of the first!"
"Ready, forrud!" Lewrie yelled through a speaking trumpet "Mister Neill, be ready to tack her. Ready, Mister Harkin? Helm up and meet her 'midships! Jesus, let go forrud!"
Alacrity rounded up, everything lashing and flogging, and came to a stop in her own length against the winds as the best bower anchor splashed into the harbour.
"Larboard your helm! Let go main course halyards! Back forrud sheets!" Lewrie called. Alacrity almost spun like a fallen leaf over to the opposite tack, and began to sail away to starboard, driven by a triple-reefed after-course and an inner jib reduced to little more than a storm trys'l, the best bower hawser paying off abeam, howling through the hawsehole! "Round up, Mister Neill! Meet her! Let go second bower!"
And pray both the bitches bite, Lewrie thought, as Alacrity paid off the wind, with both anchors out, each placed forty-five degrees off her bows!
"Hand the courses, hand the jibs!"
Down came the last scraps of sail, leaving Alacrity drifting to the west, at the mercy of Cross Bay's sandy bottom. Should the anchors fail to hold, she would be wafted onto coral a couple of miles astern before they could get a way on her again!
She snubbed! The best bower anchor, weighted with thirty feet of fist-thick chain and a two-pounder brass boat-gun to ease the jerking which might dislodge the flukes, had held! And a moment later, so did the second bower, similarly weighted on its rode.
"Mister Harkin, pay out half a cable on each hawser and even the scopes!" Lewrie called, then turned to Ballard. "You wanted delegated action at Conch Bar, Mister Ballard? Now you have it! Off you go! Make it quick before the storm's really upon us!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" Ballard replied, summoning his boat crews. They would row out the stream and kedge anchors from astem and set them down to match the angles from the bow cables. "Cony, Odrado, let's go!"
* * *
It took an hour of juggling and pulley-hauley to equalize scope on the cables. By then, as the hands fell exhausted from the capstans, the storm was upon them, and a curtain of furious rain sheeted over the decks, blanking out all vision beyond a couple of feet, blowing so hard it was nearly horizontal. Lightning forked and arced around them, one explosion striking the island, the next so close-aboard their hair went on end, and the thunderclaps were so loud and continuous it felt like Alacrity was being hulled by thirty-two-pounder fortress guns, making the deck tremble and leap as the rigging and masts wailed an unearthly, eldritch chorus of harpy's shrieks.
Lewrie was wet right through, the rain driving past tarred tarpaulin coat and hat like they were gauze, soaking breeches and shirt. Cool as the rain was in the winds, he was clammy and hot beneath, and stiff with blown salt-water, cloth flogging painfully.
With the storm had come unnatural, eerie nightfall, a yellow-green dusk torn by lightning bursts on either hand. Trees ashore bent and tossed, sickly green. Palmetto fronds and leaves came slapping in the air to cling wetly for a moment, then be torn away to swirl aft.
Alacrity jerked, trembled and snubbed on bow cables, on stern cables, tossing her head like a colt being held to be saddled.
"What's astern should we drag?" Alan asked Fellows in one of the few partings of the rain in which they could take bearings.
"Little Bahama Bank, sir!" Fellow shouted back. "What the Dons called 'The Great Shallows'! Miles and miles of coral heads and reefs!"
Alacrity was whirled by a gust, drove forward, and snubbed on a stern cable hard enough to make them stumble before paying back to jerk on best bower, then second bower, making the cables groan on the bitts!
Hellish sunset became black night, blue black with lightning frying iron gray rain clouds that brushed the mast-trucks, with the winds moaning all about like a witches' coven. But it was not a cyclone, not a hurricane-just a terrifying winter storm, and it finally blew out by four bells of the evening watch. The rain drummed vertical and with less punishing force, thinned at last, then ceased. The clouds parted to the east, revealing a late moon and a few kindly stars, even though Cross Bay still tossed and churned, and Alacrity continued to quiver.
Soon, the winds eased to half a gale, with lulls between gusts. They could see the storm astern now, a spectral sea battle raging on the leeward horizon as it tore across the Gulf Stream and the Florida Channel, a wall of blackness supported by a thousand legs of flaring lightning strokes, like blue fires on dark velvet.