notice and leap away in alarm, crossing themselves in dread that some poor devil under the pile still lived and was trying to worm out from under that crushing weight, calling for aid from his shipmates, with whom he had laughed and japed just a few hours before.
And sailors of any nation were superstitious. They could quite easily believe that somewhere among those bundled, shattered husks the confused, terrified spirits of the slain were beginning to stir, to walk and wail as night drew nigh to torment the living until properly buried ashore.
The stench of the dead lay over Le Bouclier like a harbour fog, and the Trade wind, fading with the heat of the day, could not disperse it leeward. Belowdecks, the air was even closer and hotter, even more foetid despite the rigging of wind-scoops, and the liberal use of vinegar and wash-water to scour the decks. A miasma from wounded sailors stashed below continually welled up like hot smoke from a chimneypot, as if driven by their wails, moans, and frantic, fretful mumblings, as they weighed their odds of living, or faced the certain prospect of dying. Half-drunk on rum or cheap brandy used to dull their pains or allay the shock of amputation, their desperate prayers and weepings seemed to create the wind that wafted the stink of their wounds aloft through companionways, scuttles, and limber holes, ever renewable, no matter what brief relief a gust of the Trades might bestow.
Screams and half-shrieked pleas soared upwards, too, as the surgeon and his mates, civilian surgeons from the town of Basse-Terre, and even an exalted physician or two plied their gruesome trade. Bone-saws rasped now and then when amputations were necessary. They were necessary quite often; they were quicker than any attempt to draw out shards of wood splinters, bits of cloth, shot-scraps or shattered bone chips, leaving time to deal with those who needed careful attention. Supposedly, a healthy young man could recover, could live without use of a foot, a hand, an arm, or a leg.
Guillaume Choundas kept station well up to windward, as best he was able, clumsily perched atop the breech of a quarterdeck gun as doleful reports came to him. His monstrous countenance was set in a grim and stoic, brooding death-mask, broken only by a snarling decision or abrupt jerk of his head as the messengers stood near, shivering in dread of him. His cane was leaned on the gun-carriage, so he could use his remaining hand and a silk handkerchief to whisk the swarms of flies, and the stinks, briefly away.
The flies, large and pustulently bottle-green, had found them even before the frigate had begun to limp shoreward, two whole miles offshore; moments after the thrice-damned British frigate had jauntily sailed out of arcs, or reach, of their guns. The flies' numbers had only increased once they had anchored within a cable of the quays.
Though their numbers were equal to a Biblical Plague, Choundas noted that they no longer darted about quite as frantically as before. He imagined they were now sated, merely buzzing about to boast another of their… victories. Another of their mortal feasts!
'… able to get one boat down before the fire got so hot that we had to abandon her, mynheer' grizzled Dutch captain Haljewin was explaining, a dirty, rumpled handkerchief to his own nose.
'Lost your ship, lost the munitions and rations for our General Rigaud and his Mulatto Republic,' Choundas rasped, not even bothering to glance at the man. 'Better you pretended to strike, and fetched-to.
'The British devil gave us no chance, mynheer' Haljewin protested. 'He crossed my stern and shattered us, crushed our side in with a second broadside, then sailed on without a second glance, as if they'd known whose cargo it was! Had they fired a warning shot and ordered me to strike, I would have, believe me. It would have given you half an hour to come to my rescue, while they were fetching-to and boarding us, but…'
'You knew we were here, Citizen Haljewin,' Choundas said, looking up at last, his one eye ablaze in accusation. 'You saluted us as you cleared the port, when we came in plain sight, rounding Le Vieux; Fort! Had you been the slightest bit clever, scared to save your…'
'He gave me no time, I tell you, mynheer!' Haljewin interrupted. 'Perhaps he recognised you as a frigate, and would not…'
'I'll take no back-talk from you… Citizen!' Choundas bawled. 'Citizen… not mynheer' he insisted, sneering over the word. 'You utter, spineless failure. You idiot! Get out of my sight!'
'I did save your sailors off L'Abeille … Citizen,' Haljewin pointed out, though gulping with sudden dread.
'But not the fool in charge of her, who should pay with his head I for her loss,' Choundas barked.
'In the beginning, she did fly French flags, she looked so…' the Dutch merchant master all but babbled in deepening dread. 'I was fooled, as were the shore watchers, I gather. She displayed the proper identity signals. I suspect there is a British spy on Guadeloupe who told them everything. If that is the case, Citizen Kaptein, I do not see how I was so much at fault. I've lost my ship and half my stalwart lads, my livelihood… and I saved at least a dozen of your poor sailors. One would hope that counts for something. One would hope that some recompense is made, in recog-'
'Go to the Devil!' Choundas roared, fumbling for his cane as an impromptu weapon. 'You knew the risks and you took them, eagerly, I for gain, you wheedling… shop-keeper! Get… off… this… ship… and… off… Guadeloupe… Island, before I kill you myself!' he thundered, so irate that he was almost breathless, spacing out his words more in need than emphasis.
The Dutchman backed away, eyes saucered in stark terror, breaking into a quick scamper for the entry-port as soon as he was past the reach of Choundas's cane. A naval officer coughed into his fist, and scraped his feet, having waited with his news until the dread harangue had ended.
'What?' Choundas snapped. 'You are?'
'Pardon a moi, m'sieur Le Capitaine' the officer, with an arm in a sling, and his coat draped over his shoulders. 'I?m Lieutenant Mercier, Second Officer? Lieutenant Houdon, our First Officer, wishes to report that the shot-holes on the waterline are now plugged, with no need for entering the graving dock, m'sieur. If she is careened at the beach, permanent replacement planking can be done quickly. Pointe-a-Pitre's storehouses can supply us with new top-masts. Enough rope of sufficient thickness and quality to replace stays, and the running rigging may be a difficulty, unless…'
'We will take it from some merchantman,' Choundas gravelled as he looked aloft in the fading light to assay the gaps in the maze of rigging and masts. 'Why isn't Lieutenant Houdon reporting to me?'
'The First Officer, m'sieur, is aft in the great-cabins, with Capitaine Desplan,' Mercier explained. 'The Capitaine goes away from us,' he said, using the squeamish euphemism for 'dying.'
Choundas had despaired. For a brief minute or two, he thought that Le Bouclier had won through, after all, and had gotten organised for a single- ship battle…'til that first, devastating broadside in her masts and rigging that was so un-English an opening move. Draped in wreckage, gun-ports masked and artillery smothered, making it too dangerous a risk of fire to reply, he and Capitaine Desplan could do nothing but stand on the quarterdeck and grieve, wincing at the coming broadsides, which had killed or wounded nearly an hundred of her crew. The sad grimace on Desplan's honest, Celtic-Breton face…! A moment later, and the mizen top-mast and shattered cro'jack yard crashed down on him, mashing his midsection and hips, breaking both legs in several places. Manful, without a cry, Desplan had been freed, borne aft by loyal, weeping matelots who truly admired him, uttering faint gasps, flinching, and going 'ah-ah-ah!' at each seating jounce. He had known, even as the masts came down, that the gallant Desplan would be dead by sundown. It had been a fellow Breton's 'sight.'
Perhaps Desplan had felt one, himself, for he had not tried to move out of the way, but had just gazed upwards as if transfixed before being enveloped and crushed. Had he had a sudden foreboding that his race was run? Choundas idly drew the brass foot of his cane over the irregularities in the splintered and warped deck. Omens and portents. Signs and messages from elder Celtic gods… in whom Choundas still believed. For had not the ominous raven cawed and alit, on his right, just minutes before that salaud Lewrie had all but blown his arm away with an impossible single shot, three times the best musket range, the last time they had crossed swords in the Genoese hills?
