Havoc`s Sword

arise, their workers only half-starved this time, paid next-to- nothing, if not re-enslaved outright… after the requisite bloodbaths and 'taming' massacres.

Hedouville craftily hoped to divide, conquer, and weaken, play rivals off in another 'War of the Skin,' then crush the feeble winner. To stave him off, to counter that brute, there was only one course of action open, though Toussaint L'Ouverture dreaded the price his people would have to pay. But St. Domingue-Haiti-must be one, or it was doomed, so the island's reluctant, unschooled master of war could not shrink from it if he wished his people's fragile freedom passed to their future generations.

So… in the morning, before first light, his sleeping soldiers must march on South Province, make a pre-emptive 'War of the Skin' on those who would rule a breakaway part of the whole, for the profit of a few, armed, succoured, and beholden to the re-enslaving outsiders, and make all the blood, fire, and horror suffered so far-enough for the entire world, enough for a millennium!-to have been in vain.

Before first light, Toussaint L'Ouverture would march against the Mulatto Republic, and faithless General Andre Rigaud.

Under that same moonlight, HMS Proteus snored her way Sutherly under all plain sail, to the West of Guadeloupe, her eerie ghost-grey sails spiralling metronome-fashion against the star-strewn sky. Five Bells of the Evening Watch were struck up forward, slowly tolling half past Ten-dong-dong… dong-dong… dong-that the ship's boy at the belfry let echo brassily on as he turned the half-hour glass, and went back to nodding.

Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, lay nude under a sheet in his swaying wide-enough-for-two bed-cot, flat on his back with his hands enlaced under the musty down pillows, striving for sleep. He'd dined on fresh red snapper that Gideon, the frigate's talented cook, had caught in a slack-wind hour that morning; he'd washed it down with a whole bottle of tangy, fruit-sweet Beaujolais from a mixed case that the Georgian, Capt. Randolph of USS Oglethorpe, had presented to him off one of those rich prizes they'd taken. He should have been snoring, but he wasn't.

He should have been pleased-yet he wasn't.

Lewrie could congratulate himself that he had his great-cabins to himself, that he'd rid himself of that callow idiot the Honourable Grenville Pelham, even Mr. James Peel, as if he'd made them 'walk the plank' or marooned them on infamous and desolate Sombrero Cay like the pirates of old. He could happily savour, too, the fact that his part in their schemes, the do-able part of all-but-impossible orders from the Crown, was over and done with, and he could not imagine a reason why they'd call on his services, ever again. Sometimes surliness and truculence had their uses, he could gleefully contemplate!

Yet he still heaved frustrated sighs, stretching and wriggling to wring wakefulness from his body, his mind still stewing on his one failure. For Guillaume Choundas, though captured and defanged, still lived, damn his eyes! The look on the bastard's face, when he at last tumbled to how confining a gaol his parole had committed him to, was simply priceless. Yet…

Choundas was still so very clever! Lewrie was mortal-certain he'd find a way to delude his Yankee captors, then do something that'd prove to his masters in France that he was still useful and effective. Play-act meek, crippled, and inoffensive, spy on them, then sneak his observations to the Directory somehow?

Or would Choundas think that revenge against him mattered more? Did he discover that Desmond was his, so young and trusting, he still could find a way, even in ball-and-chain, and…!

'And what am I doing with a half-grown son?' Lewrie groaned in the darkness. 'Haven't known him a Dog- Watch, so why's he so dear?'

Lewrie hoped that his hastily penned letters might bear fruit. One to James Peel, boasting his victory, yet suggesting that, had he ever done HM Government good service, could he shepherd the lad when he stepped ashore on Antigua, if Choundas was landed there as well… that James Peel should do what should be done with Choundas s life if there was a way, before that monster could get to his new-found son.

Several letters, copies of the same one really, to Christopher Cash-man; to every seaport town he'd mentioned before sailing away to a new life in America-Savannah, Charleston, Georgetown, or Port Royal in South Carolina, Wilmington or New Bern in North Carolina; Beaufort, however differently pronounced, in both states. Letters which pleaded with him, that, should he ever have loved him as a friend, Kit might take time from establishing himself to ascertain in which naval port that ogre Choundas would spend his parole. Hire a crew of bully-bucks, for which Lewrie would gladly reimburse him, and '… I implore you my dearest friend, for my peace, and the peace of the world, slay him!'

A letter to warn Desmond, though how fearfully on-guard a bold, callow 'tween would bear himself did not bear thinking about. One to his adoptive uncle and captain, too, though no matter how careful that Capt. McGilliveray had vowed to be, he simply couldn't grasp just how dangerous Choundas was, and…

Something heavy up forrud slid, then went thump! Thence came a Crash-Thud that roused Lewrie to his elbows. 'What the bloody Hell?' he groused, rolling out of bed and wrapping himself in the sheet, then padding towards the sounds to see what was the matter.

Even by moonlight streaming in through the overhead coach-top, Lewrie could see that his chart-space was a mess. Rolled charts were scattered, several books from the fiddle-rack shelves were now on the slanted desk-top, and brass dividers and rulers were underfoot, along with several pencils, and Capt. McGilliveray's parting gift of a brace of rare and costly steel-nib pens he thought he'd carefully stowed.

'Good God A'mighty,' he muttered, padding aft again. And there were his house- breakers! Two sets of eyes peeked over the rim of the hat-box, reflecting moonlight like four green glimmers of fox- fire… wide and innocent 't'weren't us yer honour, sir, honest!' eyes.

'Boys, boys,' he said, sighing as he knelt before their hat-box lair; Toulon taking up most of it. 'I expect such from Chalky, he's a new-come, but I thought you knew better, Toulon. Settle down to sleep like cats're supposed to, can't you?'

Some eagerly received pets and strokes, and they did curl up in a furry heap, Chalky the kitten swarming over Toulon to cuddle and lick his elder's head, which prompted grooming licks in return from his partner in crime…and how they'd come to such a close, mischievous companionship so quickly, Lewrie couldn't fathom; though it beat the first few days' slanging matches and hostilities all hollow, he could gladly admit to himself as he clambered back into bed and settled his sheet.

Thumps and grunts, slaps and high-toned trills, and deep meows. Then the hat-box was overset and a new romp was on, paws thundering on the canvas deck-cover, from the transom settee to the gun-deck door.

'Gawd,' Lewrie implored the night and the overhead deck beams as he pummeled his pillows. 'Give me patience…'