Troubled Waters l-14

by Dewey Lambdin

  I know I'm not livin' right t 'earn such luck, but just thankee, Jesus! he thought.

  The fortification near Le Verdon sur Mer indeed was unfinished. There were no crenellations atop its low wall for guns, yet; in fact, it appeared that the sloped stone walls were still being erected, and were barely above the height of a tall man, so far. There were Frenchmen in uniform, but very few of them, all now engaged in using their telescopes to peer at Savage, waving their arms, and most-like blathering agitated Frog, with much use of "Sacre Bleu" "Mort de Ma Vie" "ZutAlors," and "Nom d'un Pipe!" Almost everyone else over there, now scuttling to the rear and into the shelter of the village, seemed to be civilian Frogs, and workmen!

  "Make a note, Mister Winwood," Lewrie said, lowering his glass. " 'Til we know their weight of metal, once they get their fort completed we go no closer than three miles to the Pointe de Grave peninsula, either."

  "I will see to it, sir," Winwood replied with a grunting moo. "Deck, there!" a lookout called. "Brig t'larboard! Three mile off, an' fetched-to! She's runnin' up 'er flag, an' makin' a hoist!"

  "Midshipman of the watch?" Lewrie demanded, though still unsure of which of his new-comes would respond.

  "Aye, sir!" Midshipman Dry, their youngest, piped up.

  "Make our number to the brig, and conjure me who she is," Lewrie ordered. "And decypher her signal hoist from this month's book."

  Midshipman Dry quickly referred to his loose bundle of private signals, and the Navy's list of ship names and numbers, then crisply announced, "She is the brig-sloop Erato, sir. Commander James Kenyon."

  "Aha," Lewrie said, tensing up a little, for he had hoped that she would be Mischief, that he and Hogue could share a glass or two as they conferred, and re-lived old times. "And her hoist?"

  "Her number and this month's recognition code, sir," Dry said.

  "Very well," Lewrie said with resignation. "Any idea of how long 't will be before we crawl up abeam of her, Mister Gamble?"

  "Half an hour, sir?" Gamble replied with a cock of his head and a shrug.

  "Once we do stagger up abeam of her, Mister Gamble, we'll come about and fetch-to. Mister Dry, assumin' it doesn't take so long that the watch changes, be ready to hoist 'Captain Repair Onboard' to her. Just now, though, young sir, I'd admire did you pass word for my cabin servant, and inform Aspinall we'll have a guest, aft. Perhaps even two for supper."

  "Aye aye, sir!" Dry chirped.

  Assumin' I don't kill the bastard fore the soup! Lewrie thought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  One could usually tell a lot about a sea-captain by how well his ship was kept, despite the ravages of sun, storm, or the inevitable depletion of Bosun's stores after a long voyage, or, in this case, a long time on-station. HMS Erato seemed at first to prove that truism, once Savage had fetched-to to seaward of her, about a cable to windward.

  She was a trim little ship, perhaps 110 feet on the range of the deck, maybe 135 to 140 overall from taffrails to the tip of her bowsprit, about 30 feet abeam, and might draw no more than 12 feet. Lewrie could count eight gun-ports along the beam facing him, and pick out the light 18-pounder carronades she mounted in place of chase guns on her fo'c'sle and flush quarterdeck. Her masts were well painted, her spars oiled, but… her sails were the colour of ancient parchments. The running and standing rigging was geometrically taut, the standing well tarred, and the running looked fat and amply slushed with fats skimmed off the cauldrons as salt-meat rations were boiled up.

  So far, so good, for no matter his dislike of Kenyon, the man had always been a proper sailor. Yet, it was the little things that made Lewrie wonder.

  Erato's figurehead was not an approximation of a Grecian legend, but a simple, rather crudely chopped crowned lion torso, the sort that got churned out by indifferent woodworkers by the dozen, and bore not a single flake of gilt paint trim. The same went for Erato's beakhead rails, entry-port, quarterdeck bulwarks^ and counter. Lewrie had not kept track of Kenyon's career, but could only conclude that he either didn't care about the niggling details of decoration, or had no money beyond his naval pay, and could not afford such niceties.

  A brig-sloop could not store much more than three months of victuals, rum, beer, or water, so she could not have been standing guard over the Gironde much longer than that, yet… her gunwale hull stripe paint was fading, flaking, and peeling, the original blue colour now so pale that she looked as if she hadn't seen a lick of Admiralty-issued paint in over a year, and had gone through several whole gales to boot!

  In reply to his hoist of "Captain Repair Onboard," a twenty-five-foot cutter was being rowed over from Erato to Savage, with Kenyon in the stern-sheets, sitting upright in a boat cloak against the sullen rain.

  The cutter, in comparison, was a pristine thing of beauty, with a shiny white hull and royal blue gunn'ls, and the oars being plied by her crew were painted white, with bright blue blades, and the shafts where sailors' horny hands gripped had been turned-down at least a foot with ropework.

  The boat's crew and Cox'n were equally rigged out, dressed in a uniform manner as clean and natty as Sunday Divisions. Slop-trousers that had never seen slush or tar, so white they might have been pipe-clayed like Marines' kit; bright red solid-colour shirts under the typical short blue jackets with white tape or piping on every seam, and glittering brass buttons. As the boat came alongside, oars aloft and dripping, Lewrie could see that every man aboard her wore white cotton stockings and fresh-blacked shoes with newly polished brass buckles.

  "They'd do an Admiral proud, sir," Lt. Gamble commented.

  "Indeed," Lewrie drawled back. "Though I dare say Savage makes a much better impression, compared to her shabbiness."

  "Erm… they're awfully… handsome lads," Midshipman Dry said in an aside to Midshipman Grisdale.

  "Indeed," Grisdale agreed in his top-lofty, nasal voice.

  Lewrie raised a handy telescope and quickly scanned Erato's bulwarks and gangways. Those sailors yonder were nowhere near as natty as the boat crew, their slop-clothing the usual stained, patched, and ragged motley, their shirts mismatched from several baled lots of calico or gingham, and from appearances, stripped from dead beggars and turned down by rag-pickers. The most slovenly of Savage's people looked like footmen at a formal supper by comparison.

  Captain's "pets "? Lewrie silently sneered as he stowed the telescope back in the binnacle cabinet; Kenyon's hareem? Well, a captain is second next to God at sea, and sets the rules.

  He returned to the head of the starboard gangway ladder just as the Bosun's calls began to shrill, the officer of the watch, Lt. Gamble, presented his sword and the Marines stamped and slapped their boots and palms. Commander James Kenyon's hat had just loomed over the lip of the entry-port, and the ritual was on.

  Damn, he's got old! was Lewrie's first impression. In 1780 he had been a trim and lean figure of a man, a fellow who certainly could have been considered handsome and fetching, but now…!

  As Kenyon doffed his hat in return salute, he revealed heavily salt-and-pepper hair, more salt than anything else, greatly receded at his temples, thin atop, and worn long and combed straight across like seaweed… pomaded to stay in place to cover his advancing baldness in strands!

  Kenyon's features, once so regular and dashing-handsome, had a sad old hound's thick and flaccid droopiness, heavily lined and just a touch pale, too. His body looked to be as lean as Lewrie dimly recalled; perhaps a touch too lean, for his uniform seemed to hang upon his frame, as if he was ill with something.

  "Welcome aboard Savage, sir," Lt. Gamble said.

  "Thank you, sir," Kenyon replied, though looking aft at Lewrie with what could be taken for a wry, secret smile.

  "Commander Kenyon, welcome aboard," Lewrie was forced to say as he walked up to him, lifting a hand to his hat.

  "Captain Lewrie," Kenyon responded, doffing his hat again. He sounded a bit bemused, and still wore that taut, wry expression as if he found the situation funny, which immediately raised Le
wrie's hackles. "I am glad to see that the French did not put a ball or two through yer hull when you swanned into their range. Didn't anyone warn you of the fort on the north shore?" No, yer not! Lewrie thought, irked at once; you 'd've adored it!

  "Well, perhaps we should go aft to my cabins, then, Commander," Lewrie all but snarled, though keeping a smile on his own phyz whilst he said it, "so you may impart t'me your vast store o' knowledge about the Gironde defences… and save me from myself!"

  Lt. Gamble, and Midshipmen Dry and Grisdale, all winced or made moues over that retort, sure that their captain would put this fellow in his place, right smart, though it didn't seem to have any effect on Kenyon, whose face still bore that bemused look.

  "But, of course, Captain Lewrie," Kenyon said, allowing himself a broad, tooth-baring grin.

  Damn my eyes, is he drunk? Lewrie thought as he caught a whiff of wine on the man's breath; and, teeth so grey, it looks as if he's been on the fifteen shillin' Mercury Cure for the Pox!

  "This way… Commander," Lewrie offered.

  "A glass of something, sir?" Lewrie asked once they were seated at their ease in the great-cabins, at the collapsible settee and matching chairs. "Claret? Brandy? American bourbon whisky? Cold tea?"

  "Cold tea?" Kenyon asked with a brow up, seemingly appalled.

  "Quite refreshing in summer," Lewrie told him, "as I discovered in the West Indies. With an admixture of sugar and lemon."

  "Brandy, I s'pose," Kenyon allowed, then, as Aspinall fetched a brandy for him, and a glass of white wine for Lewrie, swivelled about to look at the cabins' furnishings, that brow still up in nigh-mocking appreciation; just one more thing that raised Lewrie's dander. Maybe Kenyon liked the wine-cabinet and the desk in the day-cabin, the table and chairs, and the side-board in the dining-coach, or Caroline's portrait hung on the bulkhead… the wide-enough-for-two hanging cot?

  "Heard you married," Kenyon said after a deep sip. "Your wife, there? Handsome woman."

  "Aye," Lewrie said. "And you?"

  "No… not yet," Kenyon said with the same sort of easy smile that Lewrie could recall. "What's the old saying, 'marry in haste, repent at leisure'? Besides," he simpered, crossing his legs and shifting rather uneasily in his chair, "between the Navy, and merchant service, and long spells of half-pay ashore, I never seemed to be able to amass the wherewithal to set up a proper household, and it always felt wrong to me to force a trusting lass to share my poverty, hah hah!"

  Same old Kenyon, Lewrie thought whilst keeping a straight face; still playin' the upright, rugged sort o' man, knowin 'just the right dissemblin' blather t 'say.

  "You, though, Lewrie," Kenyon continued in a jovial manner, "I must imagine you're rolling in prize-money by now, and have got right famous, to boot, so. maintaining a household for wife and kiddies is no bother. Pocket change, what? Though, your recent legal matter is…"

  "Tell me all you know of the fort by Saint Georges de Didonne, Commander Kenyon," Lewrie coldly rejoined. Damme, does he imagine I'm still his raw "Johnny New-come "Midshipman? "And, tell me all you know of a French fisherman name of Jules Papin… or any others of his ilk. Who you think are spyin' on us, who you think are disaffected, and a reliable source of information. Give me all the cautions."

  It was as if he'd reached over and slapped the man in the face! Kenyon recoiled, and for a revealing second, allowed his face to slip from that taut, self-controlled bemused expression to one of hot, slit-eyed hate! Which was as quickly erased; with a step between anger, and the requisite subordinate's blandness, that came across as stunned and blank as that worn by someone head-butted and concussed!

  "I see," Kenyon at last said, nodding slowly in recognition of his place in the universe, as if he'd expected better, but Lewrie (the top-lofty, lucky bastard!) would always be a disappointment. "Papin, well… he and four or five others dare to fish almost out of sight of land, sir. Most are to be distrusted, really, for anything beyond wines, or fresh victuals from shore. I've attempted to vary my routes about the estuary, the times I appear, and the boats I stop, so, are any of them passing information to our opposition in the French Navy… to a merchantman wishing to slip past the blockade, Erato, and the cutters, are unpredictable.

  "It may make no difference, though," Kenyon continued, shaking his head in the negative, "for any fool with a telescope may lurk atop the dunes, back in the shadows of the pine forests, up in any church's bell tower, and take our daily measure. For all the famous vineyards, and the great chateaux up-river, this portion of Medoc, or Aquitaine, is a bleak and grim place, near the sea. Rather boring, I expect, in peacetime, for blockading it is boring enough now."

  "My first impression of this coast does put me in mind of the American Car-olinas, aye," Lewrie cautiously allowed, squelching anger at the recent lack of respect and proper deference; but, ready to slap Kenyon down sharply if he presumed again. "Pine forests, settlements miles apart, and barrens between… salt pans and salt works?

  "What of the small-boat fishermen, then?" he asked. "Any o' them t'be trusted?"

  There were a few, Kenyon informed him, but they knew little and did not come far out to sea; one had to go to them, sometimes in one's jolly boat, launch, or oared cutter, and even then, they didn't venture far from their seaside villages, and rarely went up-river, so they had little of value to impart.

  The fort by St. Georges de Didonne? It had only been completed the year before, and was reputed to be thinly garrisoned, with only the French equivalent of British 18-pounders and 24-pounders, perhaps no more than nine guns altogether atop the main ramparts, with about half a dozen 6-pounders and swivels in the sea-level water battery. Kenyon had heard rumours that the French had re-enforced the place with a few 32-pounders so they could close the narrows, but no one really knew if that was true, or what the French wished the British to think.

  The smaller fort on Pointe de Grave, less a fort than a battery, really, had been under construction only a few months before Erato had come to the Gironde, and the work seemed to be going slowly. Certainly the French were even more months away before any artillery was put in place, or its magazines filled with powder.

  "Saint Fort sur Gironde," Lewrie speculated over a second glass of Rhenish,; "up where the river isles split the channel, and force any ship into close range… might they be stripping it of guns and shot, Commander Kenyon? After all, it's not all that likely that our Fleet'd barge that deep towards Bordeaux, and surely the Frogs can see that it doesn't serve 'em any use. Move its guns and garrison up here to the bay, instead… shift some warships up from Bordeaux to… what the Devil's its name? Talmont, that's it. Cutters, gunboats, or galleys into the shelter of the cove in the lee of Le Verdon sur Mer? That'd provide a quicker response. You ever see any Frog warships this far down-river, sir?"

  "Very rarely, Captain Lewrie," Kenyon replied, almost wincing as if using the younger, but senior, officer's rank galled him. "And, if a merchantman is trying to thread through the blockade, they, or so I have been told by local fishermen… so I you may put as much stock as you may in the truth of it… anchor under the battlements of Saint Fort sur Gironde itself, and let slip round ten o'clock of an evening… and only on nights when it's as black as a boot, sir."

  "Do we get all that many 'runners,' Commander Kenyon?"

  "Not really, sir," Kenyon told him, musing nose-deep over what had to be his third glass of brandy since coming aboard. "The French need so much of their own produce or manufacture to support their wars that they cannot spare much to export, beyond their wines and brandies. The bulk of the ships we've seen and made prize… or frightened off… have been so-called neutrals trying to get in"

  And, so Kenyon informed him, while the French still built ships of war at the Bordeaux yards, and refitted and maintained a substantial number of older and lighter frigates, corvettes (the French term for sloops of war) and gunboats for local defence, there didn't seem to be good odds for that glorious yardarm-to-yardarm battle of which Admiral Lord Box
ham had spoken so longingly.

  "Not a promising place to reap a pot of prize-money, here, sir," Kenyon said with a sullen sigh. "One hopes…," he trailed off, deep in his cups of a sudden, as if the brandy had snuck up upon him like a pick-pocket. "The outer squadrons catch most. We're nigh pointless."

  "Well, if the French won't amuse us, we'll just have to amuse ourselves," Lewrie determined with a chuckle, and thanking his stars that Kenyon was sinking so fast that it would be impossible to offer him supper, else he'd be charged with drowning the bastard in the aforementioned soup course, as he went face-down in it, and utterly comatose. "Raise some mischief… keep our hands in, hey? What operations have we conducted against them, since you've been on-station, Commander?"

  "Huh? Oh, we… keep our eyes peeled," Kenyon replied with a sleepy slur "stop fishing boats and do inspections, don't ye know… ask questions of 'em and confiscate any contraband. Things like that."

  "That's about t'change," Lewrie declared. "Now I've been put in command of the close blockade, hereabouts, we'll come up with some devilment for the Frogs."

  "You in charge?" Kenyon blurted out, sounding stunned, again; or sarcastic, it was hard to discern which. "Thought Lord Boxham or Commodore Ayscough'd sent you in to… snoop about, make a report…?"

  "Yes, Commander. I am in charge," Lewrie took great delight in telling the man.

  "Always were a lucky bastard," Kenyon could barely be heard to mutter under his breath.

  "I will call for your boat, Kenyon," Lewrie snapped, getting to his feet, and if that wasn't a bald hint for Kenyon to stir himself as well, he didn't know what it was. Kenyon slurped down the last of his current brandy to heel-taps, throwing his head far back to get it all, then shambled to his own feet, reeling on the gentle scend and roll of the frigate as she drifted. "Look at me, sir! In the eyes, sir!"