Havoc`s Sword

the Yankee Doodles aspire to dominate the colony's trade, without spilling a drop of blood, after we did all the-'

'Well, we won't share all our information, of a certainty,' Mr. Peel warned. 'For instance, our agents in Paris smuggled us the French private signals for the next three months, and those we shall not tell the Jonathons about.'

'Really!' Lewrie exclaimed, a slow, devilish grin spreading on his face as he contemplated the opportunities for mayhem those signals codes might open to him.

'For now, we must be grateful the United States Navy is so tiny and weak, and most of her captains inexperienced,' Mr. Peel snickered. 'They barely make a show of force against the few French warships here, and those are few and far between, as we both know. Poor-cast cannon, perhaps green-timbered new-built ships…' he scoffed.

'You'd be surprised,' Lewrie was happy to counter, recalling a visit aboard their 44-gun two-deck frigate Hancock. 'We sell 'em modern artillery, coppering, everything they wish. A year from now, they will be a daunting challenge. We get into a new war with 'em and out come their privateers. Bad as the Frog privateers are, they're flea-bites by comparison. Do they get their hands on the exclusive Saint Domingue trade, it might be our merchantmen swept from these seas. If you scratch the Jonathons, you'd find they'd rather have another good bash at us than the French.'

'Hmm… may not signify,' Peel replied, grunting his skepticism at that declaration. 'I doubt L'Ouverture will trust any slave-holding nation not to do him harm, in the long run. Adams's representations to him may goad the French into a real war, or force them to send an army and a fleet out here to quash any attempt to declare Saint Domingue's independence… or alliance with the Yankee Doodles. Which would put a better face upon our, uhm, sudden evacuation as well.'

'I doubt that's possible,' Lewrie scoffed.

'Actually, when Mister Pelham and I were about to depart, there was a lengthy article just ready for publication in all the newspapers,' Mr. Peel told him with a mystifying grin. 'It had been prepared by a government committee. Well, not an official committee, hmm? I saw a copy of it, and fetched it along. Would you care to read it, sir?'

'Total shite, is it?' Lewrie asked.

'You must understand that it was devised to be read in Paris by the Directory,' Peel related, 'to create a rift, or widen the existing rift, 'twixt France and L'Ouverture, firstly. The secondary aim would be to mollify our own populace. Matter of fact, I have it here,' Peel said, reaching into the breast pocket of his coat to produce a sheaf of hand-copied script.

Lewrie took it warily, sure that it would be rank drivel; and the ink would be runny, in this damp. Toulon, at least, was quickly fascinated with anything that crinkled, and pawed at the papers, and his master's hand, mouth open for an experimental nibble.

' 'No event has happened in the history of the present war of more interest to the cause of humanity or the permanent interests of Great Britain than the treaty which General Maitland has made with the Black general Toussaint upon the evacuation of San Domingo'… that's what they're calling it, now? Thought it was Saint Domingue.'

'Less French, more Caribbean and… exotic,' Peel explained. '… the independence of that most valuable island is in fact recognised and will be secured against all the efforts which the French can now make to recover it. Not merely without the expense to England of fortifications or of armies but with the benefit of securing to us its exclusive commerce'… oh, rot!' Lewrie spat.

L'Ouverture was lauded, though a 'mere Negro and brigand,' but one born 'to vindicate the claims of his species and to show that the character of men is independent of exterior colour'… 'the late events will soon engage the public attention, and please all parties…'

'Oh, please!' Lewrie gravelled, more agitated. ' 'It is a great point to rescue this formidable island from the grasp of the Directory… it is a great point gained to the cause of humanity that a Negro domination is in fact constituted',' he read, disbelief and bile in his voice, in equal measure. ' '… that the Black Race whom the Christian world to their infamy have been accustomed to degrade… Every Liberal Briton will feel proud that this country brought about the happy revolution! 'What unutterable gall! Tripe! God-rotted… shit!'

'Ain't it,' Peel rejoined, as if amused by Lewrie's naivety.

Toulon pounced upon the papers, now held in a limp right hand, with a glad little cry of victory, and many brisk 'digging' motions.

'No, no, little man,' Lewrie chid him, snatching them away with his left hand, and shoving them down-table to Peel. 'Not these. Make you sick to your stomach. Bad as a hair-ball. Damn my eyes, Peel, who'd believe that?'

'Don't much signify,' Peel admitted. 'Once in the papers, it's official, and who's to say diff rent? The next generational take this account for gospel. Think of the widows and orphans,' Peel said with a dismissive sniff. 'Suddenly, the kin of those hundred thousand dead, crippled, or debilitated have a crumb to cling to… that their lads went for the good of… humanity. 'Twas in a good cause/' Peel said, scornfully pontificating, as all the ministers, parish vicars, Members of Parliament (Lewrie strongly suspected) would soon tearfully declaim.

Lewrie picked up his refilled wineglass and leaned back from the table. Oh, he could have pretended to be so sickened by the whole affair that he'd been put off his victuals, but that wasn't the case; he Was still hungry. Disgust had no effect on his digestion.

'I s'pose,' he finally said, after three moody sips that nearly drained his wineglass, 'the same sort of devious cant was spread in the last War… back when I was just commissioned, or a Mid. Cant that I most-like believed.'

'A glass with you, Captain Lewrie,' Peel proposed, summoning Aspinall to top them up. 'To… an honourable world.'

'Honourable world,' Lewrie intoned, touching glasses with him… but pausing before drinking. 'To the salvation of our personal honour, instead, Mister Peel. Despite the bloody world.'

And the sardonic Mr. Peel surprised him by sighing, 'Amen.' 'Uhm… those private identity signals, Mister Peel,' he asked after draining his glass and waving for a refill. 'Ye wouldn't happen t'have those in another pocket… would you?'

'In point of fact, I do, Captain Lewrie, but…'

'Another toast, then, Mister Peel,' Lewrie proposed. 'To, ah… mischief. Mischief, and confusion to the French!'

CHAPTER NINE

Something dragged him up from the depths of an almost dreamless sleep-a commotion on deck? No, it was the faint groan of working timbers, and the motion of his sybaritic hanging bed-cot that was made almost wide enough for two, a most suspect luxury in the spartan world of the Navy. Proteus was still on larboard tack, her decks heeled to starboard as she rolled and ranted, and the bed-cot, hung fore-and-aft, swayed left-to-right, but with a snubbing little jerk, and a yawing, a twist every now and then. One opened eye revealed utter blackness in the closed windows of the overhead coach-top. Toulon, not liking what the cot was doing one little bit, fussed and fretted on the wood edge, ready to jump down. Lewrie flung back the single mildewed sheet that covered him and put a leg over, a foot on the deck, ready to roll to his left and leave it. There was a thud of a musket butt outside his forrud cabin door.

'Awf'cer o' th' watch… Mister Adair, SAH!'

'Come,' Lewrie called back, groping in the darkness for a pair of canvas trousers he'd left draped over a convenient chair back.