“And what did you discover on Crooked Island, Mister Bury? Has Captain Martin traded there in the past?” Lewrie eagerly asked.

“No one on either Crooked Island or Acklins Cay have ever heard of him or his ship, Santee, sir,” Lt. Bury gravely replied, as was his wont; he could be a sober-sided fellow, most of the time. “I was told that some of the failed traders and merchants might have dealt with American vessels in the past, but most of those have sold up and moved away, so there is no way of telling. The isles are rather gloomy and desolate, really. Less than half the plantations are still growing a crop, and most are played out and fallow. I saw many very fine plantation houses, as fine as country mansions back home, abandoned, falling to ruin. The grandees sold up and moved away, too, leaving the oldest or youngest of their slaves on the land, and sold off the rest to Jamaica, to make their passage money, most-like, sir.”

“Hah, the callous bastards,” Lt. Darling harrumphed. “That’s a backhanded form of manumission, and the abolition of slavery!”

“I was told that small merchantmen put in there, now and then, sir,” Lt. Bury went on, “perhaps every two months or so, and most of those are from Nassau—food and the very basics for what few bales of cotton are still grown.”

“Tradin’ at Crooked Island’s not the only thing I suspect our Captain Martin was lyin’ about,” Lewrie scoffed. “See how this seems more plausible. I think Martin’s ship was taken on her way out, not when enterin’ one of the passages.”

He laid out his ideas about their suspect privateer preying on imported goods, not exports, and that the Spaniard would have lurked closer to the Inaguas, to leeward of the passages, where an intercepted merchantman would be unable to wheel about and beat back to weather to make her escape, and why and where—looted import goods would fetch greater profits than anything the “sugar isles” could export.

“The Santee still could have been on her way into the passages, sir,” Lt. Bury commented, after pursing his thin lips and frowning. “An American-flagged vessel could have been bringing in desirable imports to sell at Havana, Cap Francois on Haiti, or somewhere on Santo Domingo or Puerto Rico. Americans, as neutrals, trade openly with our enemies. Perhaps it was just Captain Martin’s bad luck to run afoul of a Spaniard who didn’t give a toss for her neutrality.”

“Still, I doubt if Santee was taken this side of Mayaguana,” Lewrie countered, clinging to his original theory. “I think we will come across our Spaniard alee of the Inaguas and the Caicos Islands.”

“Hmm,” Bury studiously opined, “where traffick from each of the passages converge, aye, sir, making for the Windward Passage. That is the most probable place to search.”

“Good enough for me!” Lt. Darling exclaimed, clapping his hands. “Now we’re together once more, shall we set off at once, sir?”

“Aye, let’s do,” Lewrie agreed. “We’ll double back and take the Caicos Passage, sail down to West Caicos Island, then begin a patrol line to the West-Nor’west and back, skirtin’ close to Little Inagua, for starters. Hmm, I will wish you to lead, Mister Bury, about ten miles ahead of Thorn, within easy signaling distance. And…

“We’ll hoist false colours,” Lewrie ordered with a sly grin. “If our Spaniard’s already taken one Yankee Doodle ship, then perhaps he’s developed a taste for ’em. We’ll pretend t’be American merchant vessels! When, and if, the Don shows up, we’ll playact as lubberly and cunny-thumbed as village idiots! Act and look completely unlike British men o’ war!”

“Then, does this Spaniard close us from leeward, and we begin to flee back to windward, we can close up with each other,” Darling eagerly added. “Lizard will be the first to run, and I, and Thorn, will pretend to be deaf, dumb, and blind ’til we take fright, and he’ll think he’s caught himself a feast, not a meal, ha ha!”

“If that’s the way he finds us, aye, Mister Darling,” Lewrie happily agreed. “If we stumble upon him under other circumstances, then we’ll have to improvise. Let’s let Mister Bury return to his ship, then we’ll come about to the East-Sou’east-Half-East, under all plain sail. No need to rush, for once.”

And if our Spaniard finds us another way? Lewrie had to ask himself; Lord help us, then. I hope one of us is clever!

*     *     *

Near the middle of the First Dog Watch, after the second issue of rum had been doled out, and after the belfry, binnacle, and taff-rail lanthorns had been lit for the night, Lewrie found Lt. Darling peering up at the unfamiliar American flag, which now flew from the peak of the spanker boom. He was frowning quizzically.

“I wonder, sir,” Darling muttered with a shrug, “just how many stars we’re supposed to have on that flag?”

“Hmm?” Lewrie asked.

“Well, sir, are there only the original thirteen states in their United States, or more, I mean to say?”

“Well, I know for certain that they added Louisiana two years ago,” Lewrie puzzled, looking up at the flag more intently himself. “Before that, they added Tennessee and Kentucky, and I think that I read that they’d carved off part of Maine—or was it Vermont—to make either Maine or Vermont. I haven’t heard if Mississippi and Alabama are still territories, or have been made states. Why, sir?”

“If our Don gets close enough to count the stars, sir, what if he knows how many should be displayed and is put on the alert if the count’s wrong?” Darling fretted.

“He gets that close, sir, and you’ll have loosed your first broadsides long since,” Lewrie barked in amusement. “I’d imagine that he sees the flag as un-important compared to the ship and our possible rich cargo.”

Hope so, anyway, Lewrie thought, still wondering just how many stars an American flag now had.

He turned to look forward over the bows and jibs to appreciate the lovely sunset, now all but guttered out. Bury and Lizard were out there in the darkness, and when the scend of the sea lifted Thorn atop a long-set wave, he could just make out two tiny black silhouettes of Lizard’s tops’ls. Only the lookouts in the cross-trees could make her out plainly now, or perhaps find her by the glow of her taffrail lanthorns.

Oh, Christ! Lewrie suddenly realized: If Bury stumbles over the Spaniard in the dark, he has no way t’signal us, ’less he looses rockets or shows blue-light fusees aloft! And Navy night signals made to another ship’ll give the whole game away! The Don’ll scamper off and we’ll never see him, again! Why, the Hell did I order ten miles of separation, when two or three at night is almost too far? Speakin’ of village idiots, here I stand!

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.”