Mad as hatters, the lot of ’em, Lewrie thought, but feeling a pride in their courage.

“Very well,” Lewrie instructed. “If there are transports, and I see a chance to get at them, I will hoist the ‘General Chase’. If we face ships against which it appears we stand a chance, I will make ‘Engage The Enemy More Closely’.

“If, however, we are hopelessly out-matched,” he went on with a shrug, “and the best we could do would be to deny them entrance to the harbour, Reliant will hoist—”

“How about the ‘Church’ flag, sir?” Lt. Darling puckishly japed, making them all bray with gallows humour, and amazing Lewrie, again.

“‘Church’ it is, then,” Lewrie allowed. “Gentlemen, my steward left no glasses, but I do have a decanter of aged American corn whisky. Let’s pass it round t’larboard like we do the port, and take a bit of liquid cheer.”

“Most welcome, sir!” Lovett roared his approval.

“And, if this is the last time we may stand together in this life,” Lewrie concluded, “let me just say that I have never served with a group of officers more energetic, more daring and skillful, and full of courage.”

“Hear him, hear him!” Darling crowed.

Lewrie took a gulp from the decanter, savouring the whisky as it burned its way down to his gullet, telling himself that there was no spirit to match aged corn whisky. He liked the look of it in a glass, its smoothness on the palate, even its slightly sweet aroma. He passed the decanter on to Lovett, who glugged down a good measure. Darling was next, and he grimaced when the whisky’s bite reached his throat. Bury took the decanter, but paused.

“Gentlemen, recall when first our little squadron was formed, and we first dined together,” Bury stiffly said. “I give you the toast we made then. ‘Here’s to us, none like us, a bold band of English sea-rovers!’”

Bury took his drink then as the rest loudly echoed their agreement with his sentiment.

“Now, let us prepare our ships for sea,” Lewrie ordered as he got the decanter back. “Up-anchor and make sail, quick as you can, and follow me out in line-astern.”

They shook hands, then departed. Lewrie lingered in the great-cabins for a moment, looking round at how bare it appeared with only the painted black-and-white deck chequer canvas nailed to the planks, and the 18-pounders resting on their carriages, un-manned so far. Even the pillows and padded seats of the transom settee had been sent below for safekeeping, and he wondered if he would ever see his cabins set up properly, again … if anyone aboard Reliant would.

He took another gulp of whisky, then went on deck, carrying the decanter to the quarterdeck, popping the stopper into place.

“Take it down, sir?” Bosun Sprague asked at the foot of the larboard ladderway.

“Aye, Mister Sprague,” Lewrie agreed, and the last deal-and-canvas partitions were taken down, the dining table was collapsed and put to one side, and the great-cabins were now open to the weather deck, just an extension to the rows of guns to either beam.

Lewrie stowed the decanter in the compass binnacle cabinet forward of the double-wheel helm, nodded to the two Quartermasters’ Mates already manning the helm, noting their avid interest in where liquour would be if no one noticed them pilfering, and walked over to Lieutenant Westcott.

“All’s in order, sir,” Westcott crisply reported, raising one hand to knuckle his cocked hat in salute. “Hands are ready for ‘Stations To Weigh’ and make sail.”

“Hands to the capstans, then, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered.

“Bosun!” Westcott bellowed. “Pipe hands to weigh anchors!”

“And God help us all,” Lt. Westcott muttered to himself.

*   *   *

Even with the best will in the world, getting a ship under way took time; time to nip a messenger line to the thigh-thick anchor cable, wrap the messenger round the capstan, place sailors round it to breast to the capstan bars, and haul in the heavy cable, with more hands to lead the in-board end of the cable down below to the tiers where it would be stowed, where it could drip seawater and spread its accumulated mud and gritty bottom sand, and reek of dead fish and tidal flat miasma. The ship would be hauled in to “short stays”, increasing the angle of the cable through the hawsehole, where the strain would be heaviest, and the hands had to dig their toes in and grunt the vessel the last few yards ’til the cable was “up and down”. Then came the order for the “heavy haul” to break the anchor’s flukes, and its weight, free of the bottom. Up it would come, at last, streaming muck, to be “fished” round a fluke or cross-bar to draw the anchor horizontal, so it could be “rung up” and “catted” to the stout out-jutting timber of the cat-head, and the now-empty hawseholes be fitted with “bucklers” to plug the possible in-rush of seawater in heavy seas.

As the cable came “up and down”, more sailors, young and spry topmen, would be piped aloft to make sail, to scramble up the shrouds and rat-lines of each mast to the top platforms and beyond to the cross-trees where they would trice up and lay out along the yards, balancing on the precarious, swaying foot-ropes with their arms locked over the yards, where they would remove the harbour gaskets and let the canvas fall. Yards were hoisted off their rests while the topmen were aloft, clews hauled to draw down the bottoms of the sails, and even more men on deck manned the yard braces to angle them to the wind.

In all, it took the better part of an hour for Reliant to make sail and begin to ghost across the waters of Nassau Harbour, heading for the entrance channel, with the three smaller warships following in her scant wake.

As the sheets, halliards, jeers, and braces were belayed, then stowed in loops over the pin-rails or fife rails, or coiled on the sail-tending gangways, Marine Lieutenant Simcock called for the ship’s musicians, his fifer and drummer and a pair of fiddlers, to hoist the men a tune. He did not call for his favourite, “The Bowld Soldier Boy”, which accompanied the rum cask on deck when “Clear Decks And Up Spirits” was piped, but “Spanish Ladies”, and he requested a rousing lilt.

To watchers ashore who had not yet fled inland or to “Overhill” behind the town, to the soldiers and gunners who stood their posts upon Fort Fincastle’s ramparts, their little squadron made a brave but desperate show. Fresh and bright Union flags fluttered in the wind from every stern gaff or spanker, and larger ones flew from the foremast trucks of the smaller warships, and from Reliant’s main mast tip. The long red-white-blue commissioning pendants stood out like slowly curling snakes.

The thin, bracing tune reached shore, almost lost in the rustle of sails and trees along Bay Street. A private gunner who served one of the heavy 32-pounders in a lower embrasure of the fort put his head out the stone port to cock an ear, and savour a faint snatch of cooling breeze. “Gawd ’elp ’em, Corp,” he said to his gun captain.

“Aye, them poor bastards ain’t got a ’ope in ’Ell,” the Corporal sadly agreed, and spat tobacco juice into the swab-water tub.

CHAPTER THREE

The prevailing wind was nearly from the Nor’east, forcing the squadron to stand Nor’west for a time ’til they made a goodly offing, then altered course Sou’east, tacking in succession to larboard tack for a short board to make progress Easterly.

Good Christ! Lewrie thought when he got his first look seaward, clear of Hog Island by two miles or more; If it ain’t a whole fleet, it’ll do a fair impression o’ one.

The un-identifed ships were almost hull-up above the horizon already, no more than six miles to windward, and even at a leisurely pace under reduced sail could be off the harbour entrance in no more than two hours.

“Time to beat to Quarters, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said as he dug into a side pocket of his coat for the keys to the arms chests. “I will be aloft for a bit.”