Troubled Waters l-14

by Dewey Lambdin

  Might the French think that it had been Captain Charlton's work, forcing them to send more troops to La Tremblade, Marennes, the lie d'Oleron, for it had been in his watching squadron's bailiwick, after all. Well, close to it, anyway; quibble, quibble, quibble, he scoffed.

  Was there a sizable garrison at Royan already, and that unit had been a part of it, the French might despatch company-sized road patrols to the Cote Sauvage peninsula, find the newly felled trees, the signs of. a British presence round the spring, and to counter any new landings, might even shift some light guns, a flying battery, to lay an ambush of their own, which would weaken the infantry force that could defend the fort at St. Georges de Didonne!

  Might it spur the French to rush the completion of the battery on Pointe de Grave? That would mean more barges loaded with stone or timbers coming to Le Verdon sur Mer… vulnerable barges, open to a night-time cutting-out expedition by Bartoe, Shalcross, and Umphries.

  What would that do, though? Lewrie wondered as they reached the beach and the waiting boats; result in a whole regiment sent into the area from St. Fort sur Gironde, down-river? From Saintes, or up from Bordeaux, too?

  "'Ave a bit o' fun, Cap'm sor?" his Cox'n, Liam Desmond, asked as he brought the jolly boat to ground its bows on the beach. "Sure, an' we heard th' shootin'. Furfy, here, sor, was all outta sorts ya went an' danced wi' th' Frogs an' left us aboard!"

  "Niver 'as any fun, does Furfy," Willy Toffett teased, tousling Furfy's hair.

  "We'll make it up to him, Desmond… soon," Lewrie promised as he swung a leg over the gunn'l. "The last water butt aboard?"

  "Aye, sor, it is, 'bung up an' bilge free.' " Desmond chuckled.

  "Then let's be off," Lewrie ordered. "Mister Locke?"

  "Sir?" the Midshipman replied from the launch, alongside.

  "Everyone present and accounted for, sir?" Lewrie asked.

  "Aye, sir," Locke firmly replied, beaming with pleasure as the sailors who had been denied a scrap oohed and ahhed and made much of his prize shako and hanger. "I called my muster list, and all of the hands answered, sir. And, not a scratch on any of our people, sir!"

  "Very good, Mister Locke!" Lewrie said in exuberant praise, as much for Locke's quick recovery as for his attention to duty. "We'll make a scrapper of you, yet! And half a clerk!"

  Might not be able t'use that place t'water anymore, Lewrie had to imagine as he discharged his pistols overside, once back aboard HMS Savage. Pity 'bout that, he thought, for his one taste from the creek and spring had been marvellously fresh and pure. Use it or not, I'll send one of the brig-sloops, one of the cutters, cruisin' close ashore, and maybe draw French troops there, away from Royan. Let 'em hope to hurt us back!

  Yet, as he returned to his cabins for a well-deserved glass of something wet, there was a thought that troubled him. He had queried only two men about a good place to wood and water; one was Papin, and the other was Brasseur. Perhaps Kenyon, Hogue, or one of the cutters' captains had asked the same, but… he could not quite silence the nagging qualm that one of those two Frenchmen had mentioned it to the military commanders charged with the defence of the Gironde mouth. Why else would French soldiers he taking the coast road, not one of the more direct routes?

  One of those two had set him up! Now, which one of them could he trust?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Aye, I've known of that spring since Erato took station here," Commander James Kenyon said with a frown as he and Lewrie dined aboard Kenyon's brig-sloop, cruising slowly about five miles off the Cote Sauvage. Kenyon paused over his plate with knife and fork poised mid-way 'twixt mouth and meat. "The captain of a departing ship related its existence to me, in his parting briefing."

  "Did you ever avail yourself of it?" Lewrie asked.

  "I always judged that too risky, sir," Kenyon replied, showing Lewrie that enigmatic, "I know how to do this better than you" smile. "A mile inland of the beach, within a mile of the coast road, and deep in rather thick woods? Or, so I was told, sir. When the stores ships and water hoys arrive from neutral Lisbon, or from England, we humbler ships of the Inshore Squadron usually are summoned seaward for replenishment," he said with a dismissive shrug. "Top up your wine, sir?"

  At Lewrie's nod, an extremely handsome, chisel-featured steward of about eighteen or so, too frail to Lewrie's lights for pulley-hauley or sail-tending aloft-almost a beautiful young blond fellow!-poured Lewrie's glass of Chateau Margaux full again.

  As Lewrie took an appreciative sip, he let his eyes dart about Kenyon's great-cabins… not so great, really, aboard a flushed-deck brig-sloop that small, compared to his. And, in keeping with "stoic" Royal Navy suspicion of too much idle luxury (which translated to distrust of any comforts!), Kenyon's quarters were Spartan in the extreme.

  Dove grey paint over ship-lap panelling, with dove grey canvas and deal partitions as plain as an artist's un-used frames, with nary a stab at attempting to make them look like false moulding or plaster walls. Below the panelling the inner faces of the hull scantling and timbers were the usual blood-red. There was a scuffed old black-and-white chequerboard canvas nailed to the deck, but no colourful figured carpets in sight. The table at which they sat, the chairs, the wine-cabinet, and desk in the miniscule day-cabin looked as dull and utilitarian as the chart-space cabinets; second- or third-hand cast-offs of a poor chandler's stocks, or built from scrap lumber some Bosun hadn't missed.

  The glasses from which they sipped, though, were good quality, and spotless, the dinnerware rather elegant Meissen china from Hamburg, the flatware a particularly showy and heavy sterling silver, not cheap pewter or iron, and even the tablecloth was as white as new-fallen snow with not a single faint smut from previous spills and washings.

  Like Erato herself, Lewrie thought; either grand or shabby.

  Lewrie could not fault the care lavished upon the brig-sloop; as he came aboard, the man-ropes were golden-new Manila, served elaborately with Turk's Head knots, the battens fresh-painted and sanded for a firm foothold. The decks were nigh as white as the tablecloth; every gun was new-blacked, and everything involved in sail-tending or gunnery was in Apple-Pie Order. Paint? Kenyon did not seem to care, though.

  And the crew… either beggars in rags, or fresh as Sunday Divisions, and that seemed to depend on how young and fetching the sailors were. They had mustered to doff hats and welcome Lewrie aboard, but it had been a sullen endeavour, dutiful but lacklustre.

  Well, I ain 't a famous actress, nor a Nelson, but still… / he had thought at the moment.

  And, with so many smugglers eager to sell, and the prices so low on their goods, the dinner was excellent. A French onion soup loaded with fresh cheese and shredded bread bits; de-boned chicken breasts in wine and cream sauce, a fresh, picked-that-day salad to clear the palate, followed by boiled, unshelled shrimp with horseradish sauce, then medallions of veal with haricot beans, upon which they fed, that moment. Lewrie was sure that a pear or apple confection would follow that, and another exquisite choice of wine. Kenyon did not dine "Spartan"!

  "I'm troubled by the presence of French soldiers, when I landed for wood and water," Lewrie said after a bite or two more of the veal.

  "To be expected, though, sir," Kenyon said back. "The presence of a British frigate so close ashore simply must have drawn their attention."

  "I don't think so," Lewrie countered. "Oh, it could have been a company sent out t'shake off the barracks dust and sloth, I do allow, but… it happened just days after I enquired of our smugglers or our informants of a place to water. Jules Papin…"

  "That rogue!" Kenyon scoffed, cynically amused.

  "Or Jean Brasseur. Know of him, sir?" Lewrie asked.

  "We might have come across him and his boat a time or two, sir," Kenyon hesitantly supplied, rubbing his chin as he tried to remember.

  "I suspect one of those two passed word to the French army, so they could lay an ambush, Commander," Lewrie told him, setting aside his knife and fork for a while. "Too few men to spa
re… doubts that his information was true… for whatever reason, something put a half-company of infantry on the coast road. And, I could not have alerted them to my intentions, for I closed the coast from the North, so no one watchin' for us on the South shore would have seen our approach, like I was from Captain Charlton's flotilla, come t'poach on my area. Thank God our sentries along the coast road spotted 'em before they were up level with the spring, and we could lay our ambush well short of where they might have been put on the qui vive by their officer.

  "Try to recall what impression this Jean Brasseur made on you, sir," Lewrie pressed. "Or, whether you think Papin is the culprit."

  "Well, I still think it mere coincidence, sir, but…," Kenyon said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, and taking another deep drink from his glass. "Brasseur, hmm… Brasseur, oh! Fellow who claimed'his family was once English?"

  "That's the one," Lewrie answered as Kenyon summoned his cabin steward for another refill of wine. Kenyon this day had a close shave, had taken pains with his appearance, but could not hide his thirst for very long, making Lewrie wonder how long the meal, and their conversation, would continue before he went face-down in the apple pie.

  "Didn't really make much of an impression on me, at all, sir," Kenyon said, after smacking his lips. "Just another hulking, ignorant Frog fisherman… all brawn and 'beef to the heel.' "

  Didn't ask d'ye find him fetchin'; Lewrie thought, but kept his face neutral.

  "Gloomy sort… sort of hang-dog," Kenyon went on, waving his glass about slowly. "Eager enough when it came to selling us something, but… he made no impression, sorry."

  "Didn't offer you any information, then?" Lewrie enquired.

  "Can't recall, sir. But then, I don't remember asking for any." "No sad tale about suff'rin' under the Terror? No fears expressed 'bout his sons conscripted into their Army?" Lewrie prodded.

  "Don't think he did, no," Kenyon said. "Sir," he added. "Well, for a thinly populated piece of coast, I don't think it coincidental that troops were there the very day that we were, sir," Lewrie objected. "And, to smoak them out, here's what I wish you to do tomorrow… or, weather allowing, Commander Kenyon," Lewrie told him.

  Mr. Winwood, his ever-cautious Sailing Master, had expressed doubts of how closely they could lurk off a lee shore, now that the seasons were changing, and a more boisterous Autumn was advancing. "The next clear and calm-ish day, I wish Erato to close the coast, 'bout four miles to the South of the Maumusson Channel 'twixt 'the Savage Coast' and the lie d'Oleron…'bout where we anchored… and pretend to go ashore for a few kegs of water, and a cord or two of firewood."

  "Pretend," Kenyon said, blankly goggling at him.

  Lewrie went back to his veal and beans for a bite or two, then a sip of wine. "If the French now guard the spring, and that stretch of beach and forest, I wish to know it," he told Kenyon. "So far, I don't know the strength of the local garrisons, but I do desire to discover whether the local commanders have posted troops and guns there to prevent future landings, and a rough idea of in what strength, d'ye see."

  "Uh, aye, sir," Kenyon replied.

  "Close the coast," Lewrie instructed. "Savage and I will stand off a mile or so further out. Come to anchor, or fetch-to, whichever you deem the weather will admit of, put down all your boats, and act as if you're sending an armed party ashore for wood and water. This side of the estuary is yours, and Erato's movements are, by now, mostly taken for granted by the Frogs. Do you make your approach from the North, as I did, and there is no response, then I may assume there aren't any Argus-eyed watchers lurkin' in the woods… clingin' t'tree tops like Red Indians?" he japed, after another sip of wine. "Do you provoke a response, though, then we'll know for certain that the French now have a guard over the creek and the spring, and that that half-company was sent out there a'purpose, after one of 'em, or both Papin or Brasseur, played us false."

  "But, Lew… but, sir… after you massacred those soldiers t'other day, of course they'd be guarding the springs," Kenyon pointed out, much like a tutor exasperated with a particularly dull student. "Revenge… 'once bitten, twice shy'… call it what you will. They see an opportunity to get their own back, assuming we're silly enough to try it on again, well… I don't think their presence now will be enough to prove your assumption of betrayal."

  "Humour me, Commander Kenyon," Lewrie told him with a wink and a nod. "Do they shift troops and guns there, that's a few less round Royan, the Saint Georges fort, and Pointe de Grave. Fifteen miles of hard, quick march from where they skouldbe, when the time comes, hmm?"

  "I should see whether the French are there… and what their strength is," Kenyon grumbled, not quite finished chewing on a clump of fresh, buttered shore bread. "Because you envision an assault upon the forts, eventually?" He looked slightly aghast.

  "Exactly so, sir," Lewrie gladly told him. "If the Frogs don't shift troops, I'd be very much surprised… but we must know. And… I still hold that they had no business being there in the first place, unless I was directed to the spring on purpose, and set up for killing."

  "Uhm… how much of a charade must I play, then, sir," Kenyon asked, sounding loath to even go through the motions, and looking sick. "Should I actually land on the beach? March inland a ways, sir? And, how far? All the way to the spring? How close to shore do you wish?"

  "There's enough depth for a brig-sloop to come-to within a half-mile offshore. Savage fetched-to that close, certainly. A short row for your boat crews, and an even quicker return aboard should the Frogs be tempted to fire upon you. If they're there, of course. Lay on yer oars within musket-shot of the beach, if you wish, as if you were wary, and lookin' the place over right-sharp, before committing. I surely do not wish you to really land, unless, in your considered opinion at the moment, the French aren 't there. Your judgement, completely, sir."

  "Trail my skirts… serve as 'bait'!" Kenyon gravelled sourly, and all but spat "bait" like a piece of gristle. He shot Lewrie a dubious and bleak look for an unguarded second, before passing a hand over his face, which had broken out in a sickly sweat.

  "I'll have Savage within a half-mile of you, and will swoop down to cover your withdrawal," Lewrie assured him. "Your own six-pounders can engage, shootin' over the heads of your landing-party as they row out. Who knows? With any luck at all, our guns will slaughter a few more o' the bastards! Our seeming attempt, and its repulse, may lead the French to re-enforce their 'success,' luring even more troops away from the narrows."

  "Or, result in them sending a brigade up from Bordeaux to garrison every point, sir," Kenyon gloomily supposed aloud.

  "Then we tried, at the least," Lewrie told him, "and will have to content ourselves in cruising off this miserable place 'til the next Epiphany. At least the victuals and wines'll be tasty!"

  "The next calm day, then, sir?" Kenyon resignedly said.

  "The next calm day, aye."

  Suitable conditions did not come, though, until nearly a week later, for with the arrival of Autumn came more boisterous seas, with gusting winds, now and again round-the-clock showers, and tall curlers breaking on the beaches of Sou'west France so hard the sands thudded.

  Savage, perforce, had to stand further out from the coast, and tack sentry-go North and South under reduced sail, with the shore lost in the mists and swirling rain. The brig-sloops and cutters attempted to maintain their vigils on the Gironde, but the weather, now and again, drove them out beyond the "invisible line" 'twixt Pointe de la Coubre and Pointe de Grave, and even several more miles to seaward, to avoid the risks of grounding on a lee, and hostile, shore should a real storm howl in from the open Atlantic.

  Finally, the skies cleared, the violence of the wind-whipped sea subsided, and the tiny squadron could stand in to take up their guard positions once more.

  "Erato signals 'Affirmative,' sir," Midshipman Grisdale eagerly reported.

  "Very well, Mister Grisdale. Lower the hoist," Lewrie ordered. "A point more to loo'rd, Mister Urquhart. Follow Erato
shoreward."

  "Aye, sir," the First Officer glumly replied, then relayed that to the Quartermasters on the helm.

  Is he still sulkin? Lewrie thought, part amused, part put out.

  Lt. Urquhart's nose was out of joint over missing the opportunity for notice and glory by participating in the ambush. The sight of souvenir shakoes, hangers, and such nigh-made him growl and grind his teeth! He was even "pettish" over Lt. Gamble's small part in the action, even if all that worthy had done was trundle water kegs back from the woods to the beach without losing a single sailor to sprained fingers, loading the boats, and merely standing by… most-like anxiously and enviously himself!

  Wasn 't my fault I wanted t 'walk on solid ground, Lewrie thought with a weary groan; wasn't like /knew the Frogs 'd turn up just then, and I gave him credit in my report to Ayscough, for re-stowin'so damn'quick. Told him so, damn my eyes!But no, he'speeved as a drunk bear!

  "A fine morning for it, eh, Mister Urquhart?" Lewrie assayed.

  "S'pose so, sir, aye," Urquhart dutifully replied.

  "Winds light enough to fetch-to, 'thout any risk of drifting on the beach," Lewrie commented once more, hoping for a better response. "A mile off, and North of Erato, so our guns aren't masked by her, and ready to get back under way, quick as a wink. Think the French really have set themselves up yonder, sir? A fine morning for killing, have they done so."

  "Aye, sir, a fine morning for that," Urquhart answered, sounding a tad perkier. "Our larboard battery's ready for it, sir."

  I'm babblin'like a ninny! Lewrie chid himself; and who the Hell cares how he feels? Only one set o 'feelin 's aboard this barge. Mine!