Havoc`s Sword

were minor Scots aristocracy. Most-like landed gentry, in the 'squirearchy' with but dim and distant relation to a proper 'laird.' In France, though, 'til the Revolution, they were awarded the title of Chevalier. Or, bought it. King Louis's court at Versailles was as corrupt as the Ottoman Turks'. But, Captain MacPherson is Catholic! A breast- beater of the staunchest sort, hmm?'

'A fallen aristo, and a Papist, to boot?' Lewrie said with a chuckle. 'That'd make him doubly suspect to the Directory in Paris… all the anti-religion cant they spout. There's bishops back home now calling France the Anti-Christ, already. He your choice, then?'

'In a pinch, he'd serve main-well, I do confess,' Peel laughed, 'though he's reckoned a superb officer and ship-handler. Rather popular with his officers and men. Well thought of, in general.'

'Oh well, then,' Lewrie said with a shrug, and a sip of beer.

'Should a well-liked and trusted man be labeled a spy and traitor, sir, and were enough proofs manufactured to convince Choundas and Hugues of his guilt,' Peel merrily plotted, 'the implications of that strike much wider and deeper than Guadeloupe. Firstly, if a man like MacPherson can't be trusted, then who can? And secondly, would it not set off a frenzy of Jacobin revulsion 'gainst Catholics in France? Or create a Catholic resistance to the Directory, and the Revolution? Do you see the possibilities, sir? They're breathtaking!' Peel exulted.

'Oh!' Lewrie gasped. 'It'd set off another Terror, worse than the one of Ninety-three! Half their people'd be witch-findin' among the other half, and everyone'd be suspect. They'd keep their guillotines workin' round the clock!'

'Decimating their officer corps, purging it all over again, of capable people, and promoting the rabid fools most loyal to the Republic from the rear ranks to the officers' mess,' Peel chortled in glee as he contemplated the reach of his scheme.

'Turning Ordinary Seamen into Post-Captains,' Lewrie added with an evil snicker.

'Aye, he'd do right-wondrous, this MacPherson fellow. But he may be a bit too straight for our purposes,' Peel went on. 'Choundas maintains a very small staff, as I said. There is his aide-de-camp, his flag-lieutenant I suppose you'd say in naval parlance. Jules Hainaut. A Lieutenant de Vaisseau, now. Just a midshipman, an Aspirant, the last time we dealt with Choundas in the Mediterranean. Recall him, do you?' Peel asked, tongue- in-cheek sly.

'No, not really,' Lewrie replied, frowning.

'You should. You captured him,' Peel informed him, enjoying a look of surprise on Lewrie's phyz. 'Thatch- haired lout, looked like a swineherd? Tattered uniform, all out at elbows and knees?'

'Perhaps,' Lewrie had to confess his ignorance. 'Can't really say. Hmmm… wasn't Dutch or something, was he? My old clerk Mister Mountjoy had to interview him? Hmmm, it'll come to me.'

'The very fellow,' Peel insisted. 'The sort who'd sell his own mother, did she fetch a good knock-down price, Mister Twigg determined. Parrots the right slogans, toadies with the best of 'em, and fawns on Choundas, so he can trade on his fearsome repute, so the Frog prisoners say. A right bastard, in their opinion, one of the charming rogues. For some reason, though, Choundas has sent him away from him, after near-doting on the young sprog all these years. Appointed him aboard that new auxiliary man o' war schooner, and he's most-like at sea now.'

'Think Choundas has tumbled to him, at last?' Lewrie enquired. 'Or gotten fed up with his ways?'

'It happened after Captain Haljewin first brought up the topic of a spy who'd betrayed his ship, and that frigate we smashed,' Peel hinted, tapping the side of his nose. 'If this Hainaut would sell up his mother for pocket-money, perhaps Choundas suspects he'd be open to a shower o' British guineas, hmm?'

'But he's at sea, now, like you said,' Lewrie pointed out to him. 'How could he have betrayed our prize to us?'

'Unless Hainaut was part of a whole cabal of agents,' Mr. Peel countered, 'and the very thought of that'd have Choundas, and Hugues, puttin' half the island through 'questions' worthy of the Spanish Inquisition… torture chambers, and all.'

'Is that what you intend, then, Mister Peel?' Lewrie asked, in awe of his daring, now that Peel was hitting his full devious stride.

Dear Lord, what've I started? Lewrie had to ask himself.

'Lastly, there's Choundas's long-time clerk,' Peel told him in a less enthusiastic manner, after a calming sip of tea. 'He's known as 'The Mouse.' Frightened to death of working for Choundas, but too scared to leave his employ by now, I'd reckon. Knows where too many bodies are buried, all that. Meek as a catch-fart, scorned and abused by one and all. There's no love lost 'twixt him and Choundas. None lost where Hainaut's concerned, either. Who better to make a target than Choundas's sorry little long-suffering clerk, who has access to every secret and every move, and Choundas's every idle musing, hmm?'

'So,' Lewrie posed, growing tired of Peel's machinations; there was a surprise to spring, a ship to get under way before dark, and the precious time in which to do both was quickly wasting. 'I defer to you as to which you intend to give to Choundas, if you haven't done so already… let something 'oh so accidentally' slip to our prisoners? Or will you require them to stay aboard a while longer before clueing them in?'

'Impatient for them to go, Lewrie?' Peel asked him.

'The longer they're aboard, the more they might pick up of our doings, is all,' Lewrie countered with a minor lie of dis-interest in them. 'You can't keep secrets for very long aboard a ship, without a hint of it leakin' forrud, you know that. You've seen it. Better if we foist 'em off to the Prize Court ashore, on parole or gaoled, like we would with your run-of-the-mill enemy civilian prisoners. Else, we make 'em wonder why we treated 'em diff'rent, and start thinkin' about the 'why' of it, and there's your scheme taken with a grain o' salt as soon as Choundas grills 'em. Mind you, Mister Peel, he's a suspicious old shit. What's kept him alive and thrivin' all this time, hey?'

'You're absolutely right, Captain Lewrie,' Peel responded, perking up with new determination and energy. 'We can't risk them picking up the slightest thing that might blow the gaff, as you sailormen are wont to say. They must be put ashore at once. But with no unseemly haste, of course.'

'Of course,' Lewrie agreed, much relieved that Peel was amenable to his suggestion.

'With strict instructions that the Prize Court officials repatriate them soonest,' Peel schemed on, rising to his feet to pace. 'A week or so, do you think would be the customary usage?'

'Well, good luck with that,' Lewrie said, sorry to disabuse him. 'The Court officials are the worst pack o' drunk, slovenly layabouts lever I've encountered. Might take 'em weeks to recall they have prisoners. Might have t'bribe 'em. They're venal enough.'

'Damn!' Peel spat, knocking his fists together in frustration. 'The scheme must be put in play at once. Well, we'll try bribery, and see what haste the Court officials can mount then.' Now that he was 'aboard' the scheme, indeed its principal author, he could brook no delay in its deployment. 'Choundas will be sure to believe Fleury, if not Haljewin, I'm certain of it. Or do their accounts agree with each other-'

'Thought Haljewin fled before Choundas had his arse cheeks for breakfast?' Lewrie asked. 'You send him back, he's most-like dead I as mutton, no matter does Choundas eat his tale up like plum duff.'

'B'lieve there's a French sayin', Captain Lewrie,' Peel said in a cynical drawl, ' 'bout how one can't make an omelette without breaking an egg or two. He dined with the Devil… with a short spoon.'

'Ah,' Lewrie commented to that ultimate cold-bloodedness. 'Oh well, then. There goes one egg… Who's the other? Your target.'

'With MacPherson and Hainaut both at sea, we're left with just one possibility: Choundas's clerk. Name of Etienne de Gougne. He'll do… the covert vengeance of the meekly oppressed, the under-paid and un-appreciated,' Peel sketched out, in a world-weary tone. 'A hint of others already in place, who contacted de Gougne once he came ashore. The ones who run the messages out to sea… all that? Vast conspiracy. Secret Royalists and their lackeys, waging their secret war 'gainst the Revolution, and the Republic. Revenge, for those who already died under Hugues's guillotine when he retook Guadeloupe and lopped off over a thousand heads? With the ghost of Zachariah Twigg and his evil minions the master puppeteers behind it all with gold in plenty? Oh, perfidious Albion!' Peel mockingly cried from the French point of view. 'The despicable, grasping, conniving anglais, we… rosbifs