French sailors, just as amazed as Hainaut, guarded them, now stunned to garrulousness and loose lips.
'Someone go shut those scum up!' Hainaut shouted, for want of a better idea at the moment. 'This prize can go into Basse-Terre with no survivors and no one the wiser if they keep that up, tell them!'
'What shall we do, m'sieur Lieutenant?' the petty officer asked from below him, standing by the transom lockers.
'Do?' Hainaut replied. He might have meant to sound angry, and properly indignant, but it came out more as a question, too. 'What can we do?' he finally snarled, after chewing on his lower lip. 'We have barely enough hands to man this prize and guard our captives… there are only six cannon aboard, and those half-rusted. We must… uhm, place discretion above valour. Much as it pains me, of course, Timmonier.'
'Of course, m'sieur' the older petty officer replied, sounding just the faintest bit disgusted, despite the horrible odds. 'We must run for port, oui.'
'Choundas and Hugues must know that the Americans and 'Bloodies' work together against us, now, Timmonier' Hainaut claimed, striving to make it sound like an honourable, but reluctant, duty.
'Oui, m'sieur.' Stiffly and coolly, blank-faced obedient.
'Hands aloft to… no,' Hainaut flummoxed, thinking to deploy the cross-yard tops'ls for more speed, but perceiving that they were already on the eyes of the wind. 'Maintain course, Timmonier. Signal Petty Officer Manon on Chippewa to stay close up with us and hold his course. At least two of our prizes will make port. And our terrible information. Take heart, m'sieur. Not all our profit is lost, hein?'
His senior petty officer did not look as if the retention of a pittance of their expected prize-money would satisfy him, but he did as he was bade, turning away with the sketchiest of hand salutes.
La Vigilante surely would be lost, Hainaut thought as he went forward to the helm and the compass binnacle cabinet. He waved off the ship's boy who had come to snuff the night lanthorn, long enough to produce a Spanish cigaro from a waist-coat pocket and lean into the cabinet to puff it alight off the flame. Lt. Pelletier would not come ashore to bolster his reputation with praise, alas. Pelletier and Digne would be exchanged, sooner or later, but that might be months in the future. In the meantime, though, whatever he, Jules, would say would be Gospel.
A modest and self-deprecating description of his own part… with a praiseworthy display of anger that he could do no more to save them, perhaps a show of shame that there, was nothing he could do, and play the part of the innocent man who chides himself as guilty… hmmm. Hainaut thought that would redound to his continuing good credit. Well-meaning people would surely clap him on the shoulder and say that he had no reason to scathe himself. Mere bad luck, n'est-ce pas? And, Hainaut calculated, with even more capable officers in British or American prison hulks, there would be more ships in need of captains than there were men to command them. Mohican surely must be his, after all!
Now, had he a full crew and the weight of metal to match against the upstart Americans, if not that British frigate, then who knew what he could have accomplished, if only…
'Oh, if only,' he whispered, beginning to rehearse, and script, how he would wring his hands in anguish once he stepped ashore. Jules Hainaut stood looking outboard, puffing on his cigaro, secretly savouring the richness of South American tobaccos, but trying on the opening 'scene' and facial expressions to evince frustration and bitter sadness for his first small 'audience,' his own prize crew.
Yes, some good could come of this disaster, after all; good for him all round, had he the wit and panache with which to play it, Jules Hainaut smugly thought.
'Allo!' the mainmast lookout shrilled to the deck again.
'What?' Hainaut barked back in instant irritation, with a scowl on his face; he quickly amended his tone of voice and expression to one more suitable and… tragically heroic. 'Our friends have a chance?'
'The anglais frigate, Lieutenant… I see her before. She is that Proteus! That 'Bloody' Devil!'
'Ah, mon Dieu' Hainaut gawped in true shock, a sinking feeling in his innards. 'Then they are truly lost, quel dommage. Merci' he had wit to shout to the lookout.
'A great pity, indeed, m'sieur Lieutenant,' the petty officer said, shaking his head in fearful awe. 'How can that salaud be everywhere, as if he reads our minds, as if…?'
'Perhaps he does, Timmonier,' Hainaut suddenly responded, with a suspicious frown-then a wry and rueful grimace of understanding. 'Perhaps this was not mere bad luck, but… betrayal! We must get word back to Guadeloupe that this devil ship and that cochon Lewrie have struck again, as if by a miraculous coincidence. No, this cannot be credited. He must have been told our every move by a traitor.'
Poor Pelletier, and poor Digne, Hainaut thought, scowling over this chilling explanation for all their troubles of late. It is all up with them-Pelletier must have had the shortest captaincy in history, and Digne in his borrowed lieutenant 's coat… he'll still owe a tailor for the uniform he ordered, if he survives British captivity.
Quel dommage … I never liked them, anyway.
'We've the angle on them, by God, sir!' Lt. Catterall exulted as they watched the sails of the French ships, the slivers of hulls on the horizon, heave up high enough to be seen with a glass. 'Sharp eyes, the Oglethorpe had aloft, t'spot 'em so quick on the false dawn.'
'Sharp eyes, indeed, sir,' Captain Lewrie agreed, 'we'll be up with them in another half hour. Do you concur, Mister Winwood?'
'Uhm… the Oglethorpe, in a half hour, Captain. Proteus, not a quarter-hour later, I'd estimate,' the Sailing Master answered after a long ponder, in his usually mournful 'mooing' cautiousness.
'Then we'll take at least one prize, thanks be to God,' Lewrie chuckled, 'unless Sumter overtakes us.'
'Can't share out equally, though, sir,' Lt. Langlie speculated. 'All three ships will be 'in sight' at the time of capture, but we've no formal alliance with the Americans which allows for sharing. And there is the strong possibility that those French prizes yonder are the missing American merchantmen they reported, so… might not Captains McGilliveray and Randolph demand that we return the re-taken ships to their custody, Captain?'
'Damn my eyes, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie said, turning on him, in mock anger, 'but you've a quibblesome bent before your breakfast, or your coffee. Do I ask my man Aspinall to fetch us all a pot, will you let me keep just one?'
'Well, sir, I hardly…' the well-knit young man began to… quibble, but stopped, red-faced among his fellow officers' mirth.
'I know there's no profit for us this morning, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie went on, awarding him a wider grin, 'and indeed I shall return what American ships are possibly re-taken to our… cousins. Is there any actual profit in our gesture, perhaps it'll come later, in a real alliance 'twixt our countries against the Frogs, d'ye see, sir. Best all round, really, if we don't even take public credit for assisting the Yankees. But their President Adams, their naval Secretary, and their Congress will learn of it, eventually. As will Admiralty, and the Crown. Secret gratitude from the Americans, and tacit approval by His Majesty's Government may be all we may
