"Could be a neutral, I s'pose, sir," Mr. Winwood cautioned from near the darkened binnacle cabinet.
"Then we're about to scare some poor Yankee or Dane out of his shoes, and a year's growth," Lewrie japed. "But I doubt that. Mister Adair said she was ghosting along behind Pointe Allegre, well within sight of Guadeloupe from her own decks, and what neutral'd risk that?"
"Mmm," Winwood pondered. Lewrie could hear his new footwear, a handsome pair of Hessian boots he'd bought at English Harbour, creak as he rocked on the balls of his feet. "Then perhaps our last raid makes them sail after sunset, hoping to be a good half-day's sail out to sea before false dawn, Captain. Beyond the ken of any blockaders?"
"I'd be gratified to hear that our last visit resulted in such a panic, aye, Mister Winwood," Lewrie snickered. "Good God, who's that?" he asked as a meaty thud, two grunts, and a faint "Dammit!" arose from the larboard ladder.
"Bosun, sir," Mr. Pendarves reported in a harsh, gravelly voice. "Ship's at Quarters, Mister Catterall begs me t'report."
"Very good, Mister Pendarves! And who's that with you?" "Me, sir," Mr. Peel told him in a loud, theatrical whisper. "I beg your pardon, Mister Pendarves, for colliding with you. Seems this set of stairs isn't wide enough for two at the same time, what?"
"Ladder, sir… ladder!" Pendarves snarled as he made his way forward. "Bloody damned civilian… lubbers, by…!" They could all hear him seethe under his breath. "Clumsy, cack-handed, cunny…" "Midshipman of the watch?" Lewrie softly asked, hugely amused, but holding in his guffaws. "Do you take my keys to the arms lockers forrud to the Bosun, will you? He is to arm waisters, brace-tenders, and landsmen, and be ready for a boarding action to larboard."
"Oi, sor," Mr. Larkin said, stumbling forward to take the keys, and not even bothering to disguise his sniggers as he deftly sprang to a ladder and sprinted forward.
"Now, where's our spook, goin' bump in the night?" Lewrie asked, lifting the heavy night-glass, again. She was right ahead, smothered by Proteus's jibs. Quartermaster Austen and Quartermaster's Mate Toby Jugg were on the large helm, and steering as if to ram her just abaft of her starboard anchor cat-head. They could all see her without the use of telescopes, now, not two cables distant. And still as blind as a bat, it seemed! Lewrie could see people round her helm and compass binnacle, ghostily underlit by the binnacle lamps, see the amber glow of a pipe bowl as a watchstander took a deep draw on it. Her taff-rail lanthorns were merrily agleam, and another glow of light loomed below her rails and bulwarks, up near her forecastle belfry, like the lamps of a lighthouse just under the horizon.
"Dear God, but they're clueless!" Lt. Langlie chortled softly.
"Quartermasters," Lewrie bade. "We'll round up alongside her at about a third of a cable, thankee, our mizen even with their mizen then let wind and sea push us down hull-to-hull. Gently, and I leave that to your best judgement t'just kiss her."
"Aye, sir," Austen and Jugg both chorused in tense whispers.
"At a cable, Mister Langlie, let fly all to get our way off, so we don't scud right past her," Lewrie continued. "Grappling hooks and boarding parties to be ready… the larboard bow-chaser to fire, when I call for it."
"Aye aye, sir," Lt. Langlie replied, leaning over the rail and nettings to pass the word forward and below to the crew. Barely had he done so when the unidentified ship's watchstanders stiffened and froze in surprise, having spotted Proteus bearing down on them, at last, and began to fling their arms about and tumble out a string of orders.
"Mon Dieu, qu'est-ce que tues fous? Ca va pas, non?" the senior watchkeeping mate howled with the aid of a brass speaking-trumpet, his voice a horrified screech. "Detourner, detourner, maintenant!"
" 'What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy? Turn, now,' " Mr. Peel was translating, quite enjoying the Frenchman's discomforture.
"Bow-chaser, Mister Langlie," Lewrie drawled.
"Larboard chase-gun… fire!" Followed by a loud bang!
"Open the larboard gun-ports," Lewrie instructed, "and begin to round up on her, if you please. Mister Peel, you speak good Frog. Do you inform her that we're British, and I'll blow her to kindling if she doesn't surrender, this instant. Ici la fregate anglaise Proteus, and all that. And we'll see which gives 'em the collywobbles… our artillery, or dare I hope, our fearsome name!"
Peel took Lt. Langlie's speaking-trumpet and went over to larboard-not without a new tangle with a ring-bolt and a curse or two-and shouted their identity and demands. At the same time, Proteus seemed to roar and snarl as the heavy gun-carriages' trucks thundered forward, as the gun-ports swung upward to bare blood-red squares above, and the sight of glossy-black muzzles below them, run out in battery.
"Putain! Mon Dieu, merde alors! Mort de ma vie ! Aack!" could be made out among screeches, shrill screams, and distressed howls of sudden terror as the off-duty watch came boiling up from below to gape at the slaughter which lay not a ship-length from them. "Oui! Not to fire, we are the surrender! Reddition, please!"
"Ease us alongside, Quartermasters. Mister Devereux! Ready to board her and round her rabble up!" Lewrie chortled. "Ready, boarders!
Order was being sorted out of the French crew's panicky chaos. Braces and sheets were being released from the pin-rails to allow her sails to flag and luff, powerless, as Proteus thundered again with the roar and snarl of defiance, from every hand's throat, this time. With throat-tearing, savage yells of triumph!
CHAPTER TWENTY
Why the Devil are they lookin' at me that way?" Lewrie groused as the French captain of their latest prize and a seedy-looking Dutch "trullibubs" continued to goggle at him and shrink into themselves whenever he paced near them on the quarterdeck.
"Frankly, sir, you scare the piss out of them," Mr. Peel replied.
"Well, hmm…" Lewrie mused, shooting his cuffs and re-setting the line of his coat. "Good."
"And who wouldn't be, I ask you, Captain Lewrie," Peel smirked. "Considering, hmm?"
Lewrie had grabbed one of his bled-out sky-blue coats, had slung his hanger's waistbelt over his chest like a cutlass's baldric, and had a pair of his double-barreled pistols shoved into his waistband. Still without stockings or neck-stock, and still bare-headed, he had to admit that he just might present the slightest image of an unshaven, tousled buccaneer of the last century, of the bloodthirstiest piratical bent!
For a fillip, Lewrie screwed his face into a murderous grimace, glared at the pair of them, and uttered his best theatrical "Arrr!"
Peel had to turn his back before he laughed out loud. After he had mastered himself once more, he crossed the quarterdeck to Lewrie's side up to windward, as Proteus and her prize "trailed their colours down Basse-Terre's leeward coast, just a cable or two outside the range of the French forts, but well within plain view, and with their Union Flags flying atop every mast, as well as over the biggest French Tricolour they could find aboard the merchant ship.
"Captain Fleury, I strongly suspect, did piss himself after he got to his quarterdeck, sir," Peel said in a confidential murmur. "He had heard the rumours about our last raid, and taken the Dutch captain of that ship we sank aboard as a passenger, who'd told him all about how brutal we, and you, were. Haljewin is his name, and a fount of information, he is. Though he did manage to contain his bladder."
"Actually pissed himself?" Lewrie snickered. "My word!"
"Let's just say that his stockings are yellow, and his breeches buttons are rusting, sir," Peel said with a chuckle. "This Haljewin, though… Choundas and Hugues had chartered his ship to bear munitions to Rigaud, at Jacmel or Jeremie, and we cost them sore when it went up in flames. Haljewin had a rather unpleasant tete-a-tete with Choundas afterward, and fled aboard Captain Fleury's ship for safety, and a way off the island, soonest. Before Choundas murdered him for letting him down, d'ye see. And before Fleury set sail, they had a week or two to hear other interesting bits, come down to the waterfront."
Dammit, but Peel was beginning to play his superior's game, that pre
gnant pause and brow-arched leer that would force the other person to ask him to continue, that would allow Peel (or Pelham) to make the un-informed party twist slowly in the wind, give them their moments of smug superiority… that, or slap 'em silly for holding out!
"Arrr?" Lewrie growled, with a black-visaged grimace at Peel.
"Won't work on me, sir," Peel assured him. But Peel did relent and inform him of how they had removed Choundas's frigate from the equation; that Choundas and Hugues were at deadly logger-heads; that there were now two corvettes and two additional vessels converted to privateers in Choundas's little "squadron"; and that the lack of powder and shot, of boots, tents, blankets, muskets, and such with which to bribe or bedazzle the lighter-skinned, French-educated Gen. Rigaud on St. Domingue to be Gen. Hedouville's instrument, was most effectively ruining French hopes to reclaim the island colony outright.
"Captain Fleury's ship, though, sir," Peel continued. "Just a general cargo. He'd gotten into Jacmel and back out with sugar and coffee, cocoa, molasses, and rum, and had come back to Basse-Terre in hopes of selling some of it to local merchants, getting an escort from Hugues out to the open seas, past our patrols round Hispaniola, and getting his goods back to France."
"Aye, tight as the French are blockaded, here and there," Lewrie surmised, "that sort of cargo would be worth its weight in gold."
"Even more relishing, sir, Fleury was chartered by Hugues," Peel added, beaming with pleasure. "He and this Captain Fleury were to split the profits. Dare I say, this loss will anger Hugues, no end. And drive another wedge 'twixt Hugues and Choundas."
"Where was their escort?" Lewrie asked.
"None available, since Hugues's own frigate is off far west, on the Spanish Main, searching for American prizes, sir," Peel said, ''and Choundas was so stung by Hugues's criticism that he sent all his ships to sea. Six of one, half-dozen of the other. Either way, Choundas is sure to be held responsible, no matter what he did or didn't do."
"So, does this Haljewin fellow, or this Fleury, know where we'd find Choundas's privateers?" Lewrie demanded, eager to crack on sail, secure his prize with the Admiralty Court not half a day's sail South on Dominica, and start hunting them down.
"Another matter, first, sir," Peel insisted, a finger raised.
"Arrr, Mister Peel!" Lewrie gravelled.
"Impressive, sir, truly," Peel mocked. "No, from what Haljewin says, Choundas is turning the island inside-out, seeking a spy. 'Twas Choundas's conviction that you, sir, are simply too dim to have pulled off our raid, with such an exquisite timing as to estop a vital and secret cargo, and catch their most powerful frigate at the exact moment she was being moved from the harbour at Pointe-a-Pitre to Basse-Terre, without the aid of a spy in our employ. Someone close to Choundas, d'ye see, sir?"
"No, Mister Peel, I don't," Lewrie peevishly groused. "I'm just too dim… d'ye see. Lucky t'know how t'pee without Foreign Office assistance. Damme!"
"My pardons, sir," Peel replied. "Perhaps that could have been better phrased… firstly, that you had, uhm, directions and intelligence from British agents, in contact with a French turncoat, on which to base your actions. Rumours are, though, sir… dear as Guillaume Choundas'd wish to harvest your liver, he holds you to be more lucky than brilliant. He was heard to speak of Mister Zachariah Twigg… rather disparagingly… and was rumoured to suspect that his staff had been,
uhm… compromised, and that Mister Twigg, or someone in Twigg's employ, was pursuing him and dogging his every move, just as he was dogged and confounded in the Far East, then the Mediterranean."
"Oh, the poor, crippled old bastard!" Lewrie chortled. "Damme, is he feelin' persecuted?"
"And looking over his shoulder, now, sir," Peel insisted. "You shook him by the ears, right considerable. Put him off his paces. We have partially succeeded in un-nerving him."
"Well," Lewrie queried, turning to face inward, with his elbows on the cap-rails, and not feeling quite so demeaned any longer. "Does your, uhm… department, bureau, or whatever actually have a spy close to him? Someone in your pay on Guadeloupe?"
"Now, sir," Peel demurred, sniffing. "That would be telling."
"Right, then… be insufferable," Lewrie snapped. "And may ye have much joy of it! Tell me this, then. Now that we've got the evil shit half-confounded, where do I go t'find his ships so I can plague him some more?"
"Gone South, both Fleury and Haljewin suspected," Peel told him. "Bags of Yankee trade down that way, in the Spanish South American possessions, and the Dutch islands. They're half-starved for lack of any Spanish or Dutch ships able to put in with goods. Half-starved of new trade goods, the last three or four years, and half-starved for real by way of foodstuffs on the Dutch isles. Couldn't grow half of what they needed, even before the wars began. With no takers for their formerly valuable exports, 'tis a buyer's market."
"Aye, trust the skinflint Yankees to make a killing off of 'em," Lewrie said with a sneer of distaste natural to any true Englishman of gentlemanly pretensions; money was fine and all, but one could not get caught directly engaged in anything so mundane as "trade" and all the "filthy lucre" that came with it. One hired factors too common to be further sullied; one invested, at arm's reach.
"And the Frogs to make their 'killing' off the Americans, sir," Peel rejoined.
"Not if we can help it," Lewrie vowed. "This suspicion of a spy lark, Mister Peel… think it'd be worthwhile to put a flea in one of our captives' ears, and land Fleury or this Haljewin character ashore, before we get to Dominica? Spin 'em a tale of how we knew they'd sail without escort, and when, and laid in wait for them?"
He waved an idle hand at the shoreline whipping by to windward.
"Well, I don't quite… hmmm," Peel commented, frowning deeply and steepling wide-spread fingers to his lips as he bowed his head in thought. "Must admit, it does entice, does it not, sir. Not exactly in my brief, though. Without approval from Mister Pelham, I'd rather not 'gild the lily,' as it were, with too much finesse."
"Your superior, Mister Grenville Pelham, sir, is a pie-eyed idiot " Lewrie shot back, turning so that only one arm rested on the cap-rails to face him. "One who's hundreds of miles alee, and hasn't any idea of what's transpired since we sailed from Kingston… just what he wished to happen, and that merely in a general way. Do we sit round twiddlin' our thumbs waiting for specific direction from Pelham, we might just as well sail back to English harbour and swing about/ our moorings 'til Epiphany. You sent him a report by fast packet, soon as we entered Antigua harbour, I take it?"
"I did," Peel agreed, "and I am mortal-certain that he would approve every step we have taken so far, and praise our industry…"
"The boy might as well be in London, for all the good he is to us, Mister Peel," Lewrie pressed, "with three or four months 'twixt our correspondence. Now, do we let one or both o' these fools go ashore to tell Choundas how we took 'em, and how 'twas a traitor offered them up on a plate to us, same as his precious frigate, and Haljewin's cargo was, it'll have him tearing his hair out by the roots. You know how brutal Choundas is… recall what Twigg surely told you about him at that long meeting you had before you sailed out here? His 'charming' little… diversions? Like child rape, child buggery, making people suffer as he takes his pleasure, worse than that Marquis de Sade sonofabitch of theirs? Aye, he's most-like got fucking and torture as equal partners in his head, by now. Most-like gets a cock-stand at the smell of hot irons and melted lead.
"Most-like set himself up a dungeon and a torture chamber, soon as he lit out here. Might've been his first priority for all we know,' Lewrie argued with impatient haste as the lee port of Basse-Terre loomed up, and the tiny islets of the Saintes could be made out before the bows; time, geography, and the Trade Winds were stealing any opportunity to fetch-to and send Fleury and Haljewin ashore, before they were too far Sou'west of Guadeloupe, and spend hours beating back. To drop under the horizon, then return to land captives would be too suspicious a move, but to drop them off now would app
ear natural.
"He's a vicious beast, certainly Captain Lewrie, but…" Peel attempted to counter.
"Choundas would adore searchin' for a spy in his midst, Mister Peel! They could tell him we were bound South t'hunt his privateers, too. Us, sir; Lewrie, and Proteus, out to harm him, personally! And all he can is stew and fret that we'll find one or all, and eliminate his little squadron, and there's no way he can warn them. He's lamed, but he ain't paralysed. He's not the sort to sit patient and trust to Fate. Damme, sir, he'll be forced t'do something to keep his hand in, to prove to Hugues that he's vital, capable…! He's truly convinced there's a spy responsible for his troubles, Choundas will move Heaven and Earth t'find him. Does he produce one, he's vindicated, don't you see? 'Weren't my bloody fault, 'twas those damned British and a damn' traitor done it!' He'll have weeks and weeks to sit idle, 'fore those ships of his report back, and he's not the man to take his ease in an armchair and catch up on his reading."
"Hmmm…" Mr. Peel said, maddeningly dithering while gnawing on a ragged thumbnail, and all the while time, position, and advantage were passing by at a rate of knots! "There's truth in what you say, I grant you, Captain Lewrie, but…"
"But, mine arse, Mister Peel!" Lewrie spluttered. "The chances are passin' us by, 'long as you hem and haw. We could fetch-to right this minute…!"
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