Troubled Waters l-14

by Dewey Lambdin

  "At least you two still respect me," Lewrie muttered to them as he gave each some stroking. "Christ!" He leaned back in his chair again, running both hands over his hair, looking up at the slowly swaying lanthorns and the deck beams for inspiration. "Should've stayed a Lieutenant… a. Midshipman! Or, stayed ashore on half-pay and become a buttock-brokerin' pimp, after the Revolution!"

  It was one thing for him to spin moonbeam fantasies of blood and mayhem over the wine-table, but quite another to set a plan on paper, with a dozen copies saved for later revelation, a plan that could get a lot of good men killed or wounded if it was a half-baked shambles, ending in an egregious failure. The Country's, the Navy's, and Capt. Alan Lewrie's repute could go smash like Humpty-Dumpty, and its author cashiered for hen-headed incompetence.

  Think… think, ye bloody half-wit! he chid himself; what is it ye wish t'do? More t'the point, what d'ye wish the Frogs t'do? Smash those forts on the narrows, that's what, but.. . how? I need a few o'Lord Boxham's "liners," Marines, and sailors, hmmm…

  He considered that, like the sketchy plan he'd formed a year or more ago to seize New Orleans, and Louisiana, from the Spanish… one now most-like mouldering in an occasionally flooded basement at Admiralty, or Horse Guards, this one might never be implemented, thankee Jesus! Lord Boxham might look at this one and reject it out of hand. But, if he liked it, and it turned out to be a farce…!

  The local tides, he considered. The deep-draught ships of the line had to get within practical gun-range, close enough to the shore to frighten the French into thinking that a massive invasion force was going to be landed. Deep-draught ships would have to back up his own light ships in the Gironde, too, close ashore.

  He shifted tables, books, and such on the desk, and his personal mail, still bound in twine and unopened, fell off the desk to hit the deck with a loud thud. "Ow!" he yelped as Chalky sprang off the desk, as Toulon abandoned his lap in a prodigious leap to larboard, and his claws dug in deep into his thighs for a sure launch, right through his breeches, and damned close to his "wedding tackle"!

  "Say somethin', sir?" Aspinall asked, drawn from his pantry as he was getting ready to hang up his apron. "Oh, the wee poltroons got a scare on, poor darlin's."

  "Ow," Lewrie sarcastically reiterated as he checked his thighs for blood. The cats landed with legs wide-spread, low to the deck with tails bottled up and whisking rapidly, looking at each other as if to ask, "What the bloody Hell was that?" before stalking on stiffened legs to sniff noses with each other, then sniff each other's arses.

  "Was about t'say, sir, 'tis nigh on Two Bells," Aspinall reminded him. "Will ya be needin' anythin' more this ev'nin', sir?"

  Two Bells of the Evening Watch, 9 p.m., was the time for all lights below decks to be extinguished, every lanthorn and every glim, so no accidental fire could break out, the worst danger for a wooden ship chock-full of pitch, tar, resin, gunpowder, and sailcloth. Soon, the Master-at-Arms, Mr. Neale, and his Ship's Corporals, Burton and Ragster, would start their rounds.

  "No, nothing more, Aspinall. You go turn in," Lewrie told him. "Leave the coffee warming on the candle, d'ye please. I'll work a bit longer. Tell Mister Neale I'll try not t'burn us to the waterline."

  "Aye aye, sir, and g'night," Aspinall replied, and departed… after a last, reassuring set of "wubbies" for the cats.

  "Start of the flood-tide," Lewrie muttered to the empty cabins, once Aspinall was gone. "Dawn's always the best time, but…"

  No, according to the local tide tables, the flood-tide would be strongly making after the time of dawn shown in the ephemeris, and the top of high tide, and the slack, would not come 'til 9:55 a.m., or thereabouts, depending on Lord Boxham's iffy approval, the weather, and the state of the moon's tug. A week from then, the slack would not arrive 'til 10:03 off the Cote Sauvage, and probably ten or twelve minutes later off Royan!

  Worse yet, line-of-battle ships, on a decent Westerly wind, had fifteen sea-miles to sail from the tip of Pointe de la Coubre to Royan; three hours or better before they could take up bombardment positions facing Fort St. Georges, and even if the French came down with a serious case of la chiasse-"the runs"- and scurried to the Cote Sauvage like a whole flock of beheaded chickens, they'd still have three hours to see right through the ruse.

  "Unless…," Lewrie grumbled, "we turn it round on 'em. Like a 'Three-handed Jenny,' yes! Watch this hand!"

  He set all his sources aside, fetched a blank sheet of paper from a drawer, opened his inkwell, and wetted a captured French steel-nib pen. "To Rear-Admiral Lord Boxham, aboard HMS Chatham (he wrote)… My Lord, allow me to lay before you a plan for an operation against the French in the Gironde the object of which will be to reduce both Fort St. Georges, and the presently unfinished battery on-"

  Slam! went the Marine sentry's musket butt on the main deck oak.

  "Master-at-Arms… SAH!"

  "What?" Lewrie barked impatiently.

  "Yer lights, sir?" Mr. Neale ventured through the closed door. "'Tis just been struck Two Bells, sir, and…"

  "Workin' late, Mister Neale. I'll be careful," Lewrie promised.

  "Aye aye, sir," Neale replied, sounding daunted but dubious, and Lewrie could imagine him shrugging and rolling his eyes at Burton and Ragster, and the Marine private.

  "Now, bugger off," Lewrie whispered as he began to lay out his scheme. He laid the start of the letter aside for a moment, to sketch out a drawing of the plan, and begin a rough draft, on separate pages from his desk drawer. It would be a long night, so he rose and poured himself a cup of that sour and bitter, too-long-on-the-heat coffee to prompt his wits, and wishing that there was any sweet goat's milk, or that he'd kept Aspinall a bit longer. There wasn't even time to unlock his sugar, tea, and coffee caddy, so he drank it black.

  Hours later, he leaned back, eyes burning and his buttocks numb. He flexed the fingers of his writing hand. Lewrie yawned widely, just as Seven Bells of the watch chimed, spaced in three quick pairs, with a short pause between each set, then a final ding that echoed on and on.

  Half-past eleven? he marvelled; bugger it, I'm too tired t 'read it now. Do the final draft in the mornin', and let Padgett's fingers cramp for a change. What captains ' clerks are good for, damn 'em.

  The coffee pot had simmered itself dry long ago, and he feared that Aspinall would have a real chore to scour it fresh, come morning. Lewrie fetched a cheap pewter candle holder from the pantry and lit a taper off the warming candle, then snuffed it. The swaying lanthorns over his desk were snuffed, as well, then he lit his stumbling way to the sleeping space as Savage gently rolled and bowled along.

  Might not even make a lick o'sense in the mornin', he thought as he tugged off his Hessian boots, breeches, and shirt, flinging all atop his sea-chest. He pinched the candle at last, and rolled naked into the cool, damp hanging-cot's box, setting it swaying wildly for a minute or two. The upper halves of the sash windows in the transom were open, and the night was almost nippish. To get under the sheet and coverlet, though, involved displacing the cats, who had snuggled up into a ball with each other. Awakened, Toulon and Chalky assumed that it was time for a hit more adoration from a human, and even after he had rolled over on one side and punched his pillow into shape, they were damned persistent. Whose bed was it, after all?

  Sleep on it, Lewrie thought, once they had settled down in the lee of his knees, and the nape of his neck, and Eight Bells, signal for the change of watch, and the start of the Middle, peacefully chimed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Zut alors, Capitaine La… m sieur, but you mak ze grand emmerdement" Jules Papin chortled over his first tall glass of rum, "mon cul eef you do, hawn hawn! Officiers de I'Armee, you give la chiasse, 'ow you say, ze 'runs'? All Medoc, all Saintonge, is be like ze 'eadless chicken, an' soldats be march de long en large, uhm… ze backward an' forwards?"

  Papin gleefully related that a demi-brigade, perhaps two thousand men, was rumoured to be on the way to re-enforce Rochefort, Marennes, and La Trem
-blade. More troops, about three or four companies, had come up from Bordeaux by barge, at least as far as Meschers sur Gironde, and heavy guns with them, at least six pieces that he'd seen himself, and judged to be 12-pounders. They had all gone down the coast, afoot or upon extemporised gun-carriages, though, for he'd seen them on the coast road, a bit west of St. Palais sur Mer when he'd run a trawl near the shore; perhaps, Papin speculated idly, to set up their guns by the site of his murderous ambush, and his humiliatingly sprung trap.

  There was some anger and sadness among the locals over the death of so many soldiers, no matter they weren't local boys themselves, he related; too much a reminder of what had happened, could happen to their own husbands, fathers, sons, and kinsfolk conscripted into the Army, and now very far away.

  "More barges, Capitaine? Mais oui," Papin went on, eying that fresh rum bottle jealously. "Nord bank of river, to Pointe de Grave not so much, hein? Some say guns for zere are… detourner. Diverted? An' beaucoup de travailleurs… many workers ze Arme'e hire to make fort on ze point, I see go in boats do Le Verdon to Royan. I do wot go to Le Verdon, moi, for people 'oo live zere are tous les fumiers, an' ze regime des hautains salauds degueulasses!"

  All of them were shits, and a bunch of stuck-up, disgusting bastards, Papin meant; Lewrie's time off the Gironde was doing wonders for his command of colloquial French, if not the drawing-room variety!

  "And, what about Fort Saint Georges, M'sieur Papin?" Lewrie said as he poured the man's glass full with his own hand.

  "Is open at rear, as I say before," Papin said with a sly look. "Wiz I'arsenal hid-ed in woods, an' zere is a furnace for heat ze shot in centre. T'ree wall, t'ree eighteen-pounder. Two each ze twelves on each wall, aussi… make six twelve-pounder. Six of ze six-pounder down in beach battery at foot, n 'est-cepas?"

  Seven… let's say nine gunners per 12-pounder, Lewrie hurriedly speculated to himself, all but counting on his fingers for a bit; eleven for each 18-pounder, and eighteen French equivalents for powder-monkeys runnin' cartridge from their magazine. Five men on each 6-pounder, another dozen boys… say, four Lieutenants, two Captains, and a Major, and that's, uh… 'bout 150, all told.

  He named that figure to Papin, who frowned over it, shrugged in the Gallic manner, and guessed a lower number, perhaps only 125. "An', M'sieur Law… uhm, ze 'alf compagnie infanterie zey 'ad to guard zem, you 'ave already massacre, an' I see no more come, encore… still. Peut-etre, no more zan eight or nine remain of zem, hein? "

  Well, that's encouragin', Lewrie thought, leaning back to take a sip of his cold tea, his "mock rum."

  " Un autre, m 'sieur," Papin idly said, sipping deep and scratching his unruly hair at the same time. "Ze ozzer t'ing. Before you massacre, before you bombard… rumour say beaucoup de soldats, beaucoup d'artillerie are to go nord, au Channel coast, but now? Non."

  And, that's… int'restin', Lewrie thought. Could their new Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, so fear a British invasion cross the Dover Straits that he was fortifying Artois and Picardy against such? Or, was Bonaparte amassing an invasion army of his own against England? In either case, whatever pin-prick or "flea-bite" launched here off the Gironde could disrupt either of Bonaparte's plans.

  "Merci, merci beaucoup, Capitaine Papin, for all your tidings," Lewrie warmly told him.

  "T'anks, mon cul!" Papin growled. "Tanks be damn, m 'sieur. I pass you' 'school assign-e-ment,' better ze rum, ze gold, be ze reward, hein? Aussi, non to expect you buy from me ze bon marche … ze cheap, no more, non. Gendarmerie 'ave spies, are now angered, an' are now soupconneux, uhm… ze suspicious? Cannot bring you much, an' risk mus' be repaid, hein? I curse zose fumiers, bad as I mus' curse you, comprendre?"

  Two hours later, as Savage made her daily rounds of the estuary, the lookouts espied Jean Brasseur's boat, just as shabby and dowdy as she ever was, but, this time flying a much-faded pale blue long pendant from her mast-tip, the agreed-upon sign that Brasseur had information to sell, along with fish.

  "Fetch-to, Mister Urquhart," Lewrie ordered. "We shall let our fisherman come to us. Nine-pounders and swivels to be manned and loaded, just in case. Pass the word for Desmond, and he is to ferry an inspection party over to his boat. Mister Devereux, do you oblige me to send four Marines and a Corporal with my Cox'n."

  "Directly, sir," Lt. Devereux crisply replied. "Though I fear they must be de-loused once back aboard. She's a filthy thing."

  "Permission to mount the quarterdeck, sir?" Mr. Maurice Durant, their emigre French Surgeon, asked from the foot of the larboard ladder from the waist. "Aye, Mister Durant," the watch officer, Lt. Gamble, allowed. "Ah, Captain," Durant said, once near the binnacle cabinet. "I hear we will fetch-to, out? Might I enquire how long this stillness may last, sir? Able Seaman Brough, 'is teeth are very bad, and I must extract three of zem, all at once, quel dommage. I wish to do this on deck, sir, not in ze cockpit or my sick bay."

  And Brough had put off the Surgeon's suggestions that he suffer those teeth to be removed several times, 'til the pain was blinding, and Brough could not even take his daily rum ration without groaning. Lewrie strongly suspected that Brough's mates, and more than a few of the crew who served under the Quarter-Gunner, wished to see him howl.

  During her conversion from a French frigate to a British ship, Savage had, at Mr. Durant's urgings, re-made the starboard half of the deck under the foc's'le into a most modern sort of sick bay, near the galley for warmth, but fairly open and airy, which all the authorities deemed healthier than a lower-deck compartment. There just wasn't as much room for spectators as was the frigate's waist! "Very well, Mister Durant," Lewrie decided. "Carry on, sir." "Merci, Captain!"

  Brasseur came almost empty-handed this time, apologising over the quality and quantity of his smuggled goods, the indifference of the assorted bottles of wine, the day-old loaves, and the paucity of fresh cheese.

  Even the tightly woven straw basket of oysters, clams, mussels, shrimp, and crabs-along with a few gasping and weakly flopping fish, caught that morning-was only half full.

  Brasseur took his ease in Lewrie's great-cabins, silently accepting two bottles of rum and one of Spanish brandy from Lewrie's stores, and a glass of a better brandy, a cognac from Normandy smuggled to England by British scoff-laws. The cats, of course, once Brasseur was seated, made their usual great fuss over him… damn 'em.

  "You fly your pendant, Capitaine Brasseur," Lewrie said by way of a beginning. "You have news for me?"

  "Oui, Capitaine Lewrie," Brasseur replied, rolling his glass in his hands after a couple of sips. "Pardon, but time mus' be short… ze gendarmerie, n'est-ce pas? Zey watch us now, and to spend much time togezzer will be suspect, so…

  "Say on, quick as ye must, sir," Lewrie urged.

  Barges, yes; more barges were coming down-river from Bordeaux. Artillery was rumoured aboard them, hastily stripped from idle ships of the line along the city piers, and troops were being moved by barge or roads to the Cote Sauvage, and the banks of the Gironde; all of which confirmed what Jules Papin had told Lewrie not an hour earlier.

  It was the details that were contradictory… disturbingly so.

  Lewrie pretended to nod, grin a bit, and utter "Aha!" here and there during Brasseur's rushed description of French preparations for repelling a British "flea-bite"; he even bothered to make notes of the salient portions of the tale, but…

  Jean Brasseur laid out a strong reaction to his ambush and his bombardment, with little mention of how his fellow locals felt, which Lewrie thought odd; but, perhaps because the French people had no say in the matter, and no one was asking their opinion, anyway.

  A demi-brigade was rumoured moved to Rochefort and the Cote Sauvage, and a second demi-brigade, gathered from Bordeaux and the provincial capital of Saintes in Saintonge, was to come to Royan and Talmont, to St. Palais sur Mer to erect new fortifications, supposed to be armed with proper 24-pounder and 32-pounder guns. The fort at St. Georges would give up its 12-pounders and 18-pounders for heavier pieces, an
d those lighter pieces would be sent cross the Gironde to the unfinished battery at Pointe de Grave. With his own eyes, Brasseur swore that he had seen the stone blocks meant to raise the ramparts higher being laid flat for gun platforms, and some blocks of the low walls would be removed to make embrasures for firing.

  "I fear, m 'sieur, zat a half-bataillon of soldats will come to my poor village," Brasseur moodily told him, "an' take over 'ouses of our people. Officiers 'ave mark-ed doors wiz chalk. So many soldats of which compagnie to each, an' my 'ouse zey will take, an' we mus' feed zem, hein?" he bemoaned, looking frantic for a second. "Mon Dieu, Capitaine Lewrie, zey stay long, ma famille will starve! An, if zey suspect anyone of disloyalty, of consort wiz enemy… if false accusations are made, ze arrests, ze massacres in ze Vendee, may 'appen all over again. You see why I mus' not be suspect by dealing wiz you?"

  "Might you wish to be taken aboard and taken elsewhere, sir?" Lewrie asked; he didn't want the fellow "scragged"! "If you are in danger, an escape for you and your family can be arranged."

  "Mon Dieu, Capitaine Lewrie," Brasseur said as he set his cognac aside and wrung his hands. "Leave La Belle France? We mus' be curs-ed, our famille. Long ago Anglais outcasts, now, toujours outcast from new country. But… it may be zat, or face ze guillotine. Merci, m'sieur, merci beaucoup! Per'aps I mus' ask you for zis."

  "Well, then," Lewrie said, reaching for his coin purse to shake out three guineas. "I'll not keep you so long that your police become suspicious, Capitaine Brasseur. Daunting as the information you bring is, putting yourself to further risk will not be necessary."

  "No 'flea-bite,' Capitaine Lewrie?" Brasseur asked. "A pity. But wiz ze re-enforcements 'oo come…?" He heaved a deep, negative shrug.

  "Don't see how we could accomplish anything, now," Lewrie found himself saying. Disgruntlement, perhaps, or a faint, peevish suspicion of his own, but he added, "Nice idea, but no future in it. Not anywhere near where you live, m'sieur. There are better places… no matter." He cryptically cut himself off, still wondering which to take as Gospel… Papin's version, or Brasseur's.