'Junior to old Mister Simon Silberberg, hmm?' Lewrie chuckled in knowing understanding, recalling one of Mr. Twigg's old aliases.
'Just so, sir,' Peel replied, nodding and tipping him a wink.
'And since I also bank with Coutts, my being seen with you is perfectly innocent, I take it, Mister Peel?' Lewrie said, grinning.
'Exactly, sir,' Peel agreed. 'My presence is also, uhm… to be a voice of reason and temperance upon the impetuous Mister Pelham. Serving a second role as a
'His governess, aye,' Lewrie could not help suggesting with a leer. 'Such a frenetic,
'Ahem,' Pelham objected to be so characterised, despite a role of a light-headed young wastrel as his agreed alias.
'My, how believable,' Lewrie went on, cooing. 'It has such a… versimilitude.'
'Quite,' Peel agreed, hiding a smile; which made Lewrie wonder what an experienced agent such as Peel, himself once a protege under Twigg's tutelage, thought of being supplanted as the senior man on the mission by a less-experienced 'comer' with better connexions, interest, and patronage.
'So, what's the plan, then?' Lewrie asked, deciding they might as well get down to it. 'What part of Choundas d'ye want me to lop off this time?'
Dammit, though-there was another of those guarded looks back and forth 'twixt Pelham and Peel.
'This does concern Choundas, doesn't it?' Lewrie pressed.
'Well, it is, and it does,' Pelham answered with an inscrutable smile. 'Though not completely,' he maddeningly hinted.
'There's bigger fish to fry than him?' Lewrie asked, puzzled.
'Indeed, Captain Lewrie,' Pelham told him with a condescending little chuckle. 'There still remains the larger matter of winning the French colony of Saint Domingue for the Crown.'
'We just
'Nothing is ever
'With what?' Lewrie petulantly demanded, trying to picture the Saint Domingue soldiery and Pelham on a cricket pitch. 'We sending in another army?'
'What may not be gained by force of arms, sir,' the elegant wee Pelham chuckled, in a conspiratorial whisper, 'may yet be won with the application of guile, bribery, and diplomacy.'
Lewrie had a sudden sinking feeling that this would not be in any way a straightforward proposition-and why he had hoped that it would, he couldn't imagine. He knew in his bones that this time, he would really be in for a spell of 'war on the cheap.'
CHAPTER SIX
'To all intents and purposes, it does appear so,' Pelham said, 'but appearances can deceive, sir. We have our sources in France who tell us that the Directory in Paris, and the Assembly, have their suspicions as to whether Saint Domingue
'The United States is at war with France,' Lewrie pointed out.
'Not officially,' Pelham countered, 'and American merchantmen, along with Portuguese, Danish, and Swedish traders, enter the colony's ports daily. As captain of a blockading frigate you surely know how impossible it is to stop supposedly neutral trade, so long as their cargoes are innocent, and no military supplies are discovered.'
'Granted,' Lewrie moodily agreed.
'A return to profitability, though, a quick one,' Pelham continued, Would require a return to the
'A horse, showed well at New Market?' Lewrie quipped.
'The former governor of Saint Domingue,' Pelham exclaimed, not sure if Lewrie was being witty, or sublimely un-informed. 'Soon as he kicked our forces off, L'Ouverture finagled to send Sonthonax back to France to represent the colony. Sonthonax is a staunch revolutionary, the bloody sort, who
'Then who better to send to Paris,' Lewrie assumed aloud.
'Laveaux, t'other ranking Frenchman in the colony,' Pelham said. 'He, at least, is a cultured, aristocratic holdover from the old days of the
'Robespierre, d'ye say!' Lewrie cried, perking up. 'The ogre finally got his, hey? Why, that's marvellous news.'
'But did L'Ouverture
'And, with Sonthonax chopped first, would L'Ouverture despatch Laveaux to face the wrath of the Directory next,' Peel chimed in with a sage expression, 'leaving him in sole control?'
'No matter,' Pelham said with a disappointed sniff. 'Sonthonax survived the latest power shift, and is recently returned, with fresh orders from the Directory. But with his power diminished in favour of another… so we are