The camp could boast a few rare tents, but most huts were of fresh-cut saplings and thin limbs, over which scrap canvas or blankets had been draped… more lean-tos, hastily thrown up by their sailors or built for them by the many wild rovers who made a precarious life along the bay and the inland lake. Wild, eerie, and isolated as these remote isles were, some few people did reside there and even more camped temporarily. And Barataria had been a pirates' lair and "hurricane hole" for ages. And where there were pirates and bold buccaneers, there would be the chance for quick profits off their witless free-spending.
Almost as soon as their mast heads had been spotted, red-sailed luggers had veered down to them, and somehow the word had spread, drawing rowing boats, swamp craft, and pirogues full of hopeful entrepreneurs. Cooks had built lean-tos and fires, shrimpers and crabbers had turned up with their catches, farmers had arrived with bushel baskets filled with pod peas and corn for boiling or "roasting ears." Fruit, backcountry wines, pigs, chickens, and goats, carefully hoarded bottles of costly cognac or apple brandy from dearest la belle France, turned up for sale. Flounder, mullet, and mullet roe, even humble meat like muskrat, 'possum, rabbit, and raccoon sizzled on little spits and peeled twigs, their aromas blending with that of fresh corn-breads.
There were half-naked Spaniards and Canary Islanders, very poor Acadians, and even a few French Creoles who'd fallen on hard times; some light-skinned Free Blacks, swarthier negres who just might be Maroons escaped from their masters' plantations and eking out a meagre existence as honest runaways, or even a few sly-eyed ex-slaves now in a predatory armed marauder gang like that of the devilish Saint John, whose murderous horde were known to lurk along the west shore of the bay.
There were cooks, there were gamblers, and there were putains, too, of all nations and races. Some of those women danced singly as the drunken sailors danced to the music of the itinerant musicians. Some, nude and glistening, put on a show to music to lure tossed coins, then the "socket-fee from the pirate who was the most enflamed. They flung themselves down under a lean-to and grunted in time with whoever had found them fetching, then sponged off in the salt water of the bay, standing knee-deep between the many grounded boats before going back to look for a fresh customer.
"Capitaine Lanxade said they only think they know how to celebrate," Helio ventured to say, now that Charite seemed to be her old self again, after her hysterical tirade of a day or two before. "This is nothing to the old days, he said. These modern buccaneers of ours can't hold a candle to the wild men he knew in his youth."
"And we've only seen three fights," Don Rubio added with a disappointed sniff. "And none of them to the death." Warily, Don Rubio still distanced himself from Charite's side. For if she could forgive her brothers and her cousin, even speak civilly to them again, yet she still gathered her brows together and scowled at him whenever it was necessary for them to converse, her voice distant and cold.
"The night is still young," Jean-Marie Rancour commented with a hopeful chuckle and shrug. "One never knows…"
"Hmmph!" Charite said, turning to look at Helio and Hippolyte. "Even if this is only a dim shadow of an old-time pirate gathering, it is still a wondrous show. Tortuga and Topsail Island… Port Royal, before the earthquake destroyed it. Nassau, on New Providence, before Capitaine Woodes Rogers cleaned it out. And him an old pirate, too!"
"No honour among thieves, the saying goes, cherie," Helio cited.
"The firelight, the Blacks," she rhapsodised in spite of him, quite romantically taken by the scenes, the smells. "So much nudity on display! Why, one could almost imagine us transported among those savage corsairs of High Barbary… in Algiers, where the sultans buy beautiful virgin girls for their hareems!"
"Christ!" Hippolyte sneered with a disparaging groan. "Novels! Romances written mostly by eunuchs in a Parisian garret! There's not a single thing worth a sou in fiction books!"
"Most written by Anglais eunuchs!" Jean-Marie guffawed. "French writers at least have the 'necessities' to write romances. From experience, not their imagination."
Charite frowned over that comment, her lips pursed in an argumentative moue as she thought of telling them a thing or two about how equipped with the "necessities" some Englishmen were, but didn't.
What was done was done, she told herself, and she'd never see her Englishman again. There was tonight, though, this heady and rapturous pagan display to savour. Tonight, she was not a patriotic revolutionary, she was… Mary Read or Anne Bonny, notorious girl pirates of ancient fame!
She sat cross-legged on the ground in breeches and boots, with a sheathed dagger in her sash, a blade up her sleeve, pistols at her hips, and her trusty sword standing close at hand. In her lap there was a coin-silver charger for her supper plate, looted from a Spanish captain's quarters, and she used heavy, ornate silver utensils from a dead man's sideboard.
She dined on roast goat and pork, like the bold Caribbean boucaniers had, on peeled shrimp and rice, corn on the cob, peas, and cornbread. By her right knee stood a large silver tankard, the piratical rogue's sort with a clear glass bottom, so big it could hold a whole pint of beer, half a bottle of wine, or an entire flask of brandy or rum. This night, it was strong, heady, amber rum.
Dining alfresco but hearty, swigging rum in a savage firelight, witnessing a bawdy, raucous carnival to celebrate a victory, a grand coup, a magnificent adventure. Oh, it was simply wondrous!
The bonfire smoke and cook-fire smoke wreathed and melded with a rising mist to encapsulate the scene, as if Nature made for them a ghostly theatre. She would remember this all the rest of her life!
CHAPTER THIRTY
Fog, dammit t'hell!" Lewrie growled under his breath, clinging to a larboard shroud aboard his borrowed shalope. "Should've expected that. Should've known better!"
They were standing into the deepwater channel between the isles, both of which were now invisible behind the dank banks of mist; astern of them would be Proteus, but she was invisible, too, and just before dawn there would be very little sea breeze and a next-to-nothing land breeze, either. On what dying wind-memory that still stirred the sea, they barely made steerageway, and their shalope's, gaff mains'l and jibs limply sagged and rustled like a too-large shirt on a starving man.
Lewrie peered astern, past the vessel's tiny quarterdeck, where the enigmatic Toby Jugg tended to her tiller-bar. Proteus spread acres of sail and had a much longer waterline; even on this slack wind she'd amass a knot or two more forward progress and, unless her lookouts were keen might loom up blind and trample the shalope under her forefoot. Even if she avoided colliding, a drastic hauling-off would steal all her hard-won speed, and it would take a quarter-gale to get her moving, again! Worse, sheering away cross-channel could strand her on one of the invisible shoals, and she'd be out of the fight before it had even begun, leaving Lewrie and his small party vastly outnumbered.
"The bay's shallower, sir," Lt. Adair said, coming aft from the leadsmen in the bows who swung for soundings, passing their discoveries aft by hand signals, not the usual cries.
"Yes, and?" Lewrie snapped, wondering if there was a way to recall the landing party, wait for a better, fogless morning.
"Shallow water heats faster than deep, sir," Adair said on. "As the bay heats, it should make a touch more breeze and thin this fog."
"This humid air, though, Mister Adair," Lewrie countered. "As the bay water warms, it'll make for a thicker fog. To clear would take hours… far past dawn. Round noon, by the looks of it."
"It has thinned a tad, sir," Lt. Adair hesitantly opined. But, as if to bely that hope, a thicker bank of fog loomed up ahead, slowly rolling down to swallow them and cut their visibility to a mere stone's throw ahead of the jib boom and bowsprit. But it had been driven down to them by a slightly stronger breath of wind, and the sails rustled and meagrely filled out; tackle blocks and parrel-balls clink-clanked or groaned, and for a few moments Lewrie could hear the burbling sound of the shalope's hull making a knot more way throug
h the water.
And the fog seemed to thin a trifle!
" 'Bout a full cable's visibility now, sir!" Lt. Adair pointed out. "Aye, sir… thinning. With a touch more wind now, too."
"Fine for us," Lewrie muttered, looking aft as if he could sear through the foreboding mist. "We're gaff-rigged, fore-and-aft, but… it might be a 'dead muzzier' for Proteus, square on her bows. She'll be stalled in-irons, and helpless."
And without his frigate's artillery, there'd be no support for his assault on the buccaneer's camp, no support for the landing party, either. If Lt. Langlie could not even row her into range, much less in sight in this fog, using her 12-pounders at Range-To-Random-Shot, then Lewrie's small and divided assault force might be massacred, half by half, and there'd be nothing Lewrie could do to prevent it. Worse, it would take much too long to send a boat to shore to recall Captain Nicely's men, to go about and try to find Proteus in the fog!
Lewrie crossed his fingers behind his back, knowing that, for better or for worse, they were now committed. But the breeze did feel fresher, and the fog did look just that much thinner, so…
"Damme, that smell…" Lewrie said, as a sour odour arrived on that slight wind. He lifted his face and sniffed deep like a hound.
"Cook-fires, sir!" Lt. Adair exclaimed in a guarded whisper as he, too, picked up the reek of wood-ash and smoke, spilled, fried-out fats and cast-off gristle from meats, and the low-tide tang of boiled shellfish. "We must be very close to the Nor'east tip of Grand Terre, sir… almost onto the camp!' "Alert the hands, Mister Adair," Lewrie bade, forcing down his frets and donning the steely, determinedly confident air of a leader sure of success. "Muskets and pistols loaded, but not yet primed. Do you and Mister Larkin oversee that personally, sir. Mister Jugg, helm over a bit… pinch us up to larboard half a point, no more."
In for the penny, in for the pound, Lewrie grimly thought as he tried the draw of his sword in its scabbard; and pray God don't let me get half these men killed in the next hour!
Lt. Catterall simply bloody hated snakes and felt his skin go icy as he shied from another particularly dangerous-looking serpent, his sword-point aimed at its hideous cotton-white mouth and fangs as he gave it two sword lengths of berth, eyes darting all round to avoid stumbling into another as he fled the latest one.
Grand Terre Island was working alive with the bastards, and Lt. Catterall was already miserable enough. From the moment he'd stepped ashore, he'd been swarmed by midges, gnats, whining mosquitoes, and wren-sized moths. His exposed skin itched like mad from their stings or bites, his face felt puffy and "pebbled" with mosquito welps. Grit and mud still filled his shoes from wading sightless through the marshes, puddles, and rivulets. His feet chafed and squished with every step, and he'd splashed mud and foul-smelling wet something higher than his knee buckles. Catterall even vaguely envied soldiers; they could wear "spatterdashes" from their shoe soles to the crutch. Boot would have been better, but his single pair were new, and he hadn't imagined he'd need them this badly, so…
Their extremely slow, groping march from the beach on the south shore through the forest's tangles, thorny shrubs, and clinging vines had been a horror, too, utterly mystifying and confusing. For hours, it had been black as a boot, and he'd barely been able to see his hand in front of his face. Everyone was forced to shamble, shuffle, and put each foot ahead of the next on sheer faith, led by a few Marines who'd been woodsmen.
The halts were many, the progress treacle-slow, and the forest was an eerie foe to seamen, Marines, and civilised gentlemen used to open fields and sensible terrain. Owls hooted, un-named things cawed and chirped; insects sawed and squeaked all about them, and armed men shivered and took fright at every unexplained rustle close by in the underbrush. Once off the beach, the air had been dank and close, too warm for woolen uniforms, too dense to breathe comfortably, stinking with raw, oozing dankness and putrefaction, with foul, sappy odours.
Then had come the fog, just as it was almost possible to see, making the march even more ominous, and each scampering rodent was an enemy scout dashing off to give the alarm, and…!
There were bare-tailed rat-like things that grinned, as big as bloody spaniels scurrying away almost at their feet; ring-tailed and masked beasts that chittered and growled; 'possums and raccoons, Lt. Devereux had whispered to calm them, and all quite harmless. Humped, hard-shelled lizardy creatures called armadillos, disturbed squirrels in the trees, whose sudden barks could startle Catterall to crying out!
"Halt here," a Marine hissed ahead of him, "passin' th' word, we halt here fer a bit."
"Hold here," Catterall repeated as loud as he dared, both arms outspread to indicate a ragged skirmish line for his men. It was all taking too long, he thought; in the dark and this pre-dawn fog it was possible they'd gotten hopelessly lost, and when the sun rose they'd find themselves far from where they were needed, unable to hit the pirates' camp in time to coordinate with Captain Lewrie's seaward attack. The pirates would be awake and ready for them, it'd turn into a disaster, and…!
"Passin' th' word, there… awf'cers, front," the Marine said in a raspy, weary whisper.
Lt. Catterall almost tiptoed forward, trying to go quiet, but the many scrub bushes and palm-like swishing greenery made that a forlorn hope. He finally made out two men who stood before the kneeling sailors and Marines, men in cocked hats peeking round a thick cypress at something: Devereux and Capt. Nicely.
"Smell them, sir?" Devereux asked with a happy grin. "We are there. They are there, just yonder, the other side of this wall."
"A wall, sir?" Catterall said, trying not to sound "windy" to his comrades-in-arms. "Damme, not a fortification, is it?"
"Irregular," Capt. Nicely hesitantly opined, wiping sweat from his brows with a calico handkerchief. "Not laid stone, perhaps…" "A dug entrenchment, with a firing step behind it?" "Damme," Capt. Nicely groused softly. All evening long, all during the ferrying, then the arduous trek through the swampy wastes, Nicely had practically boiled over with energy and enthusiasm. Now he was taken aback by an un-looked-for obstacle. This fog, though it was thinning as a light wind sprang up, combined with the fearsome-looking fortification, was almost the last straw, and his eagerness seemed flown from him; the imperturbable Capt. Nicely was just about ready to chew on a thumbnail in worry. In the fog, the frigate and the shalope could not support them, or even find them, and now this! And it was impossible to call off the ships, to withdraw. If the fog dissipated and the ships attacked without the shore party, the pirates might just sail farther up the bay, beyond reach, without the landing party ravaging and surprising their encampment!
"No sentries, though," Devereux took note.
"Might've heard us thrashin' about and already mustered behind this wall, just waitin'," Catterall grumbled.
"Don't croak, Mister Catterall," Capt. Nicely chid him.
"Their fields of fire haven't been cleared," Lt. Devereux said in further assessment, pointing at the stumps of downed trees and the many small trees that still stood, the irregular clumps of scrub bush that remained. "Damn' shoddy way to maintain a fortification, really. The low places here and there could mask small cannon, but…"
"We're too few to attack that." Capt, Nicely sighed. "If it is manned, our villains are alerted. Might there be a way around?"
"No time for that, sir," Lt. Devereux said with a hitch to his voice and a fatalistic shrug. He began to strip off his red coat and bright brass gorget, unwind his scarlet officer's sash, and discard his sword baldric with its rectangular brass plate, removing his sword from the frog and holding it scabbarded in his left hand. "You gentlemen will excuse me for a few minutes, sirs?"
Devereux crouched down and warily sneaked from one large tree to the next 'til he'd reached the scrub, his spotless white shirt and breeches melding into the mists, hoping that he was mostly invisible, briefly praying that no marksman or sentinel behind the forbidding wall had already taken aim at him.
"Sweet Jesus," Devereux whispered
as he steeled himself, then rose to a half crouch and sprinted to the cover of a clump of bushes. Halfway there! Dry-mouthed, panting, fear-sweat popping on his skin, he scanned the wall for danger. It was one thing for him to stand by his men and order volleys. He stood the same odds as a private facing enemy fire then, but this!
There was more sand than grass near the foot of the irregular, rough-surfaced impediment… as if a lane had been cleared. Nearer-to, it didn't exactly look intentional, its forward slope too gentle to impede a determined infantryman. So what…? Sprint again!
He crunched to the base of the wall, gasping like a hound, fears gibbering at his brain, his nerves twanging like harpsichord strings, chest upon its lumpy, irregular roughness as he tried to quiet the bellow's roar that came from his own frankly scared breathing, wanting to shush noises that his slightest movement made, the hollow tinkling and gravelly-
What the bloody Hell?
His left hand came up from his sword hilt to take up a palm full of loose, broken, sharp-edged but weathered shells! Clam and mussel, larger sun-bleached oyster shells. The smaller shells he rolled in his hand like dice before very quietly putting them back in place. Fighting to contain his giggles, he crept to his left under one of the high heaps 'til he reached a low saddle between mounds, peeked cautiously over it, and felt another giggling fit swell up, which he quickly stifled, then got to the business of reconnaissance, wishing he'd thought to fetch away pencil and paper.
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