Mutineer

by Sutherland, J. A.

  “Yes, sir! Aye, sir!”

  “I’ll inspect this berth in one hour’s time, sergeant! Do not disappoint me.”

  “Aye, sir! No, sir!”

  Alexis turned to the other side of the warehouse and found the rest of the crew still and staring at her. She ran her gaze over their faces until she saw the man she wanted.

  “Lain!”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re bosun now, Lain! Pick two mates and do I need to tell you what I want in an hour’s time?”

  “No, sir! Aye, sir!”

  Alexis watched the sudden flurry of activity with satisfaction. “That’s what Lieutenant Thiebaud was here for, wasn’t it, Isom? None of the other officers would speak to him about the men, so he came to me?”

  “I expect so, sir.”

  Damn me for a self-indulgent fool. “All right, then.” She walked over to one of the guards. “I’d like to speak to Lieutenant Thiebaud when he’s time for it, if you please.”

  “Que?”

  “Oh, don’t you ‘que’ me. There’s not a one of you doesn’t understand every word we say, I can see it in your eyes. Now my compliments to Lieutenant Thiebaud and I’d be pleased to speak to him at his convenience.”

  The guard looked at her, swallowed once, and then nodded.

  Alexis looked around, pleased to see that there wasn’t a man in sight who wasn’t involved in some task. Even the line for the head had disappeared.

  “How much of that soap did you say you had, Isom?”

  * * * * *

  “You wished to speak to me, Mademoiselle Carew?”

  Alexis nodded and gestured for Thiebaud to sit, she’d had a pair of chairs added to the space partitioned off for her in preparation for this meeting.

  “Thank you for coming, lieutenant. Yes, there are some things I’d like to speak to you about.” She settled herself in the other chair. “First, I think, is this ‘mademoiselle’ business. I do not believe, Lieutenant Thiebaud, that you refer to fellow officers in your own service in such a way.” She hurried on as she saw him start to speak. “I do not mean that I think you intend any disrespect with it. I truly don’t. But I do believe that it … is a different sort of respect, and not at all what you would show to a midshipman in your own service. Am I mistaken?”

  Thiebaud hung his head. “Non, you are not mistaken. I have spoken to you not as the fellow officer, but as the beautiful woman.” He looked at her without raising his head. “You must forgive me, it is my nature … I am French.”

  Alexis had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from smiling, even as she felt her face flush. The man was entirely irrepressible, it seemed.

  “Tell me, lieutenant, this ‘I am French’ — does it work well on the girls in Hanoverese ports?”

  Thiebaud raised his head, grinning broadly. “Très bien, Aspirant Carew. Very well.”

  Alexis laughed despite herself. Irrepressible, entirely too handsome, and the devil himself was in that smile. “You are a bad man, lieutenant.”

  Thiebaud shrugged. “I—”

  “You are French. Yes, I begin to understand, I think.”

  “It is good for you to laugh, Aspirant Carew. The day is brightened.”

  Alexis felt herself blush again and took a deep breath. At least she’d won the first round and he’d stopped the ‘mademoiselle’ business. Aspirant was likely French for her rank. She sat up and squared her shoulders. “To business, I think, lieutenant?”

  “Bien sûr, of course. What do you wish to speak of?”

  “Toilets.”

  Thiebaud blinked. “Les toilettes?”

  “There are two.” She saw his shocked look. “For seventy men. And myself.” She lifted a bucket from behind her chair and placed it between them. “There are no showers. I bathed in that today.” She slid the bucket toward him and raised her eyebrows. “This is acceptable to the French?”

  “Non,” he stammered. “No, not even to le Hanovre.”

  “Did no one review these facilities before you put my crew here, lieutenant?”

  “We asked the town for a place —”

  “And received an empty warehouse with no facilities. This must be corrected.”

  “It will take some time to find another place, I think.”

  “No,” Alexis said. “My men have already suffered here. There’s room enough for more heads, bring in workers and have them built.”

  “Non, this is not possible. So many are at the war, there are none to spare for this.”

  “Then bring in the tools and supplies,” Alexis said. “My men are idle and it would do them well to have some honest work.”

  Thiebaud looked shocked. “Give to prisoners the tools?” He shook his head. “Non, this is not done.”

  “Well one or the other must be done, lieutenant. I want ten ‘toillettes’ out there within the fortnight and a dozen or more showers.”

  “Aspirant Carew,” Thiebaud said stiffly. “You forget yourself. You are aspirant and I am lieutenant — it is not for you to give to me the orders.”

  “I apologize, lieutenant. But I am, as I’m sure you’ve found, the highest ranked New London officer here who gives a bloody fig about those lads.” She sighed. No, there were likely all sorts of rules the Hanoverese had about such things. Thiebaud would have to want to help her, and that wouldn’t come as an enemy officer. Well … winnings are only worth it if you spend them on something useful, I suppose. “If my asking you as a fellow officer will not move you, then I am afraid you leave me no other choice but one.”

  “And what is this?” Thiebaud asked.

  “I will ask you as a beautiful woman,” Alexis said, grinning broadly. “You are French, are you not?”

  Thiebaud regarded her for a moment. “You have just this moment demanded I address you as aspirant, not as the beautiful woman. And now you seek to use it for what you want?”

  Alexis nodded. “Yes. Though it would have been far simpler if you’d just agreed to what I asked in the first place.”

  The corners of Thiebaud’s mouth twitched then he nodded. “This thing, I cannot agree to, but my commodore, perhaps.” He stood. “Come, we will ask.”

  “Now?”

  “Deux toilettes? This very minute, I think.”

  He led Alexis past the guards and out of the warehouse. It was her first view of the town, though a brief one as they immediately boarded Thiebaud’s boat. Like most ship’s boats, it had no windows in the passenger compartment, but Alexis was able to see a bit of the town as they walked to it.

  The town of Courboin was larger than the village she’d grown up near on Dalthus, but smaller than the main port town there of Port Arthur. Based on what she saw of it, she estimated there were, perhaps, a thousand people living in the town itself. Set in a long, narrow valley, she could see fields stretching away in all directions, smaller near the town, for the workers, and much larger farther away where the more mechanized farms for export were. Much like Dalthus. She could look down the road from the warehouse toward the main street and see the town square no more than a kilometer away.

  “Hermione’s other officers are there?” she asked.

  “Oui,” Thiebaud said. “They share a house there, near the square.”

  So close and couldn’t be bothered.

  They boarded the ship’s boat and Alexis settled into her seat.

  “Lieutenant?” she asked.

  “Non.” Thiebaud sat next to her and adjusted his seat straps. He looked at her sternly. “You have decided to work your — the word, wiles, yes — upon me, mademoiselle. You cannot do this and still I am Lieutenant Thiebaud to you and you are Aspirant Carew to me. We must now be Delaine and Alexis, oui?”

  Alexis narrowed her eyes. It was a bit surprising that he knew her given name. It was in her records, of course, but would he have remembered it from weeks before when she was first captured? Or had he looked it up more recently? And did she really care? It had been quite some time, since she’d left Merlin,
in fact, since she’d been on a first name basis with anyone. Certainly she’d never met anyone who spent nearly as much effort trying to charm her, obvious and flamboyant as his efforts were. It was, in fact, a relief after the stiff formality and thinly veiled hostility of Hermione’s gunroom. Her earlier resolve that he respect her rank wavered. Is it so very wrong to want a friend?

  “Very well … Delaine.” She restrained a smile and waved a finger at him. “But do not make presumptions or it will be right back to lieutenant and aspirant for you, understand?”

  “I shall be always on the best behavior, Alexis.”

  He very definitely — and deliberately, I’m sure — put more of his accent into her name than was absolutely necessary, something she found, to her surprise, that she rather liked. It is not so very wrong to want a friend. Or just someone that she could talk to. She realized suddenly that Delaine, a foreign officer — an enemy officer — was the first person she’d felt comfortable talking to in … How long? More than six months aboard Hermione and another month here. Nigh half a year with no one to speak to but those other midshipmen and not even a message from someone else. How she longed for news from home. No one save a paid evening with Cort Blackmon?

  “Your face is clouded, ma petite.”

  “It has been a trying time. And odd that capture and imprisonment have been the least of it.” She forced a smile. “What was that you called me?”

  Thiebaud shrugged. “It is a way of naming someone. It is no matter.” He gestured forward. “We will arrive at my commodore’s ship soon.”

  Alexis studied him, but he looked steadily forward, betraying nothing. Which for someone so expressive, betrays quite a lot, doesn’t it. I shall have to find out what this ma petite actually means … and all his other French bits. What she’d just thought struck her and she felt her face grow warm.

  “Are you well, Alexis? Your face has colored.”

  She studied the seatback in front of her, face as expressionless as she could manage. “It is no matter.”

  They sat in silence for a while until the boat docked with Commodore Balestra’s flagship. Alexis realized that she had been so concerned with other things that she had paid no attention to the ship when last she was aboard.

  “Delaine, what is the ship? I should have asked before.”

  Delaine smiled. “She is Forte, fifty guns, for your Navy they would be of twenty-four and eight pounds.”

  Alexis followed him down the companionway and then aft to the commodore’s cabin. She noted the guns, larger and more numerous than those on Hermione. Half again as many, I’d not want to meet this ship in combat.

  She also noted the looks from the crew, mostly suspicious or angry. She didn’t blame them, she was the enemy, after all, but listening to their muttered comments led her to notice something else. The crew, all of them that she heard, seemed to be speaking French — or, at least, as near to French as she could recognize — and not the German of Hanover.

  “Delaine, the crew — are you all French?”

  “Oui, we are the … the word, force for local defense, you understand?” He glanced at her, sliding a hatch open. “All are from these worlds nearby, le Baie March.”

  Alexis nodded. She began to suspect, despite Delaine’s claim that these systems were taken from that French Republic in his “grandfather’s grandfather’s time,” that the folk here did not yet think of themselves as Hanoverese. I wonder what difference that makes in the war with New London.

  The marine guarding the door announced them, looking odd to Alexis in a blue uniform instead of the scarlet she was used to New London’s marines wearing. Delaine motioned her to wait and stepped inside, closing the hatch behind him. Alexis waited patiently until Delaine reopened the hatch and waved her inside.

  “So, Aspirant Carew” Commodore Balestra said when she entered. “You wish tools for your men, so that they may improve the prison?”

  “Yes,” Alexis said. “And some other things, commodore.”

  Balestra frowned. “Other things?” She raised an eyebrow at Delaine, who shrugged and shook his head.

  “Yes, if you please. Since I’m here, you understand, and so as to not have to bother you again.” Alexis had thought about this on the trip up. Isom had been a font of information he’d garnered from former prisoners and his own reading of the regulations, if she were going to ask, she should ask for everything she could think of that would make the men’s lives in captivity easier. “I understand that the other officers may draw on their pay to support themselves in the town — that the pay will not arrive until you have informed New London of Hermione’s capture, but that they may borrow against its arrival?”

  Balestra nodded.

  “I should like to do the same in order to purchase supplies for the men’s mess. The food you supply is quite good, please don’t mistake me, but they could do with a bit of meat now and again, I think.” What was the term the guards used? “We are ‘bifteck’, after all.” The term had not been used in a pleasant way when she’d heard it, no more than the spacers who referred to their captors as ‘frogs’. She tried to gauge Balestra’s reaction to this, but the commodore’s face was impassive. “And they should have some opportunity to get out and about instead of being cooped up forever inside.”

  “This is all?”

  “Perhaps they could be allowed to send messages home. To their families?”

  Balestra regarded her steadily and Alexis fought to keep her own face impassive.

  “When last you are here, I ask you for your parole. I say to you, you may shop in the market, you may walk in the hills. Very nice, yes?”

  Alexis nodded. Her stomach fell at the thought that her decision to refuse parole might now jeopardize her crew.

  “Now you ask of me to shop in the market and walk in the hills. Is this all to change this decision?”

  “I …” Alexis wasn’t sure how to respond or what Balestra wanted to hear. If she gave her parole now, it might seem that her requests were merely for herself, not for her crew — and truthfully she still felt parole was not the right decision. “If you prefer, commodore, I will not profit by this. Someone else may shop, I only ask for access to my pay so that supplies may be bought. I will eat only the food you provide. I will remain in the prison, I only ask that my men be allowed some small amount of time outdoors. I do not ask these things for myself, only that I do not wish to see the men remain in these conditions.”

  Balestra half rose, her voice angry. “Do you say I mistreat these men?”

  “No, I—”

  Delaine coughed loudly and ran a hand over his mouth. “Deux toillettes.”

  Balestra glared at him, but sank back into her chair. “I was not informed of this.”

  “That is what I meant, commodore,” Alexis said, “not that you mistreat them, but that those who should have informed you of … oversights did not do so.”

  “Non, I have heard nothing from your capitaine or lieutenants of this. Nothing from them but asks for more of their pay. Les putes of Courboin grow rich from them.” Balestra took a deep breath. “I will not ask for the parole entièrement — by force, it has no honneur. But you must give the parole in these things you ask. The treatment of your men is a matter of honneur, oui?” She frowned. “The soldiers, I know for them it is not so, but we in navies may still hold to older ways, you understand?”

  Alexis thought she did, but Balestra continued.

  “Messages, I may not allow. Until New London is aware of your ship’s loss, we will not tell them. You will have the tools, but you must give your word, as le officier — the tools are for the building, no escape and no harm to the people, you understand?” Alexis nodded. “You will have your pay and may go to the market, but you will return, yes? Your word on this?” Alexis nodded again. “You and your men may go and … frolic in the sun as you wish. Of the men, one in three, only for two hours a time, oui? At the end, all return to la prison. Do you agree? Your word?”

&nbs
p; Alexis nodded again. “Yes, my word on it, commodore. Thank you!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The next morning, Alexis wakened to shouts and the slamming crack of steel on concrete. She threw on her uniform and rushed from her blanket-walled cubicle to find a dozen men swinging picks into the warehouse’s concrete floor near the head. The rest of the men were crowded around, laughing and yelling encouragement.

  “Put yer back into it, mate!”

  “Put yer wife’s backside into it and make a real swing!”

  Alexis made her way to the back of the crowd. “Make a lane!” she shouted, jabbing the two nearest men in the back. They stepped aside, grinning, and she walked through to the front. Delaine was there and made his way to her side.

  “The tools must be returned to the truck outside each day, mon mignon, and will be counted by the guards, you understand?”

  Alexis nodded, a little surprised that the tools and supplies had arrived the very day after she’d spoken to Commodore Balestra. “You wasted no time. Thank you.”

  Delaine grinned. “I am not so foolish as to waste time in pleasing you, Alexis. And now I shall escort you to the market, yes?”

  Alexis was a bit shocked. She’d expected an escort, but hadn’t thought it would be Delaine. The ease with which he’d gained a meeting with Commodore Balestra made her suspect that he was not simply any lieutenant, but was, perhaps, the commodore’s Flag Lieutenant, an officer designated as her personal assistant. Though he might also have simply been given responsibility for the New London prisoners, and that would explain his presence. Regardless of the reason, she was pleased to see him.

  She followed him out of the warehouse and saw Lain and a number of her crew unloading a truck full of supplies under the eyes of the French guards. Bags of concrete, piping, and plumbing fixtures. She smiled. Clearly the men had things in hand, they could keep a ship repaired and running after all, and she could tend to the market. They’d be glad of some real meat for once.