H.M.S. COCKEREL

doesn't mean you're any less out of the Navy's eye. We're not here to gambol, we're not here for a 'Rope-Yarn Sunday.' I, or any officer, will read the Articles of War the same as if we were on Cockerel's decks,' he said, turning to glare a warning to Scott. 'We may guard the harbour and basin, or we might end up in those bloody great hills behind us, manning guns, eye to eye with French soldiers, living rough as any Redcoat. And the man who forgets that, the man who acts like this is a lark, the one who doesn't believe I'm a taut hand, well… God help his soul. And his back.'

He made an effort to lock eyes with every hand, even those back in the rear of the guardroom who were shying sheepish and hangdog at his sternness.

'Right,' he concluded. 'Let's be about it. Mister Scott? A word with you, sir.'

'Aye, sir,' Scott nodded, clenching his massive jaws.

'Outside, sir,' Lewrie ordered, walking out on him. He paced a good ten yards, well out of ear-shot, before rounding on him. 'Damn you, sir. Don't you ever make mock of me in front of the hands. Don't you ever dare make light of why we've come ashore. Heard of Yorktown, have you, Mister Scott?'

'Aye, sir, and I know you made a name-'

'Damn you, that is not what I mean, sir!' Lewrie thundered. 'Take a good look about, Mister Scott. Fifteen bloody miles of border, and we mean to hold it with less than four thousand men? With three armies on the way to crush us? Aye, they're Frog armies, peasants in rags to you, not worth the powder to blow their tag-rag-and-bobtail arses away, hey? And we're here, you and I, with charge of twenty hands. And if one of them dies because you didn't take this bloody serious… damn it! They are our men, sir! We own the grave responsibility to care for them, to feed 'em, tuck 'em in, fight 'em… and maybe die with 'em, if it comes to that.'

'I see, sir,' Scott sobered, a little of his rancour receding.

'Nothing like a lark, is it, Mister Scott?' Alan demanded, though more softly. 'You may resent me to the Gates of Hell if you wish. Feel sorry for yourself gettin' slung ashore all you want. I mean to keep as many of these men alive as I can, sir, do we win or lose. But I can't do that with you sulking behind my back, and giving them the impression we're off to 'Fiddler's Green.' They're as much your responsibility as a sea officer as they are mine, you know. I will have your support and your loyalty, sir, no matter your grudges. Or else. As my father'd say, 'Shut up and soldier.' '

'Aye, aye, sir,' Scott grunted, nodding vigorously, his face red. Whether with more resentment or shame, Lewrie didn't much care at that moment. Just as long as Scott did his job.

Chapter 5

The first use of their services, though, was nothing even close to bellicose. Toulon was still plagued by the presence of nearly 5,000 truculent French sailors, most of whom either openly or secretly supported the Revolution, with a fair minority who might not have adored the Republic, exactly, but were mortal certain they could not abide British or Spanish troops on the sacred soil of La Belle France. The town rang to their disobedience, their drunkenness, daily. And, seeing how many they were, even disarmed, and how few Coalition troops were present, it would only be a matter of time before they arose, weaponless or not, or began to engage in sabotage.

Lewrie's party, with others, readied five ships from the basin to take them away. Five of the least serviceable- an eighteen-gunned brig of war named Pluvier, the 3rd Rate 74's Orion, Entreprenant, Patriote and Trajan-were taken out of ordinary, stripped of all their guns but two eight-pounders, stripped of all their powder but for twenty light, saluting or signalling charges, and stocked with food and water. Then they were warped or towed to the Great Road, and the French seamen, and those officers who wished to depart, were put aboard. Under flags of truce, they departed for Bordeaux, for Rochefort, L'Orient and Brest, on the Biscay coast, on 14 September.

'And that,' Lewrie told himself over a glass of wine that evening at Lieutenant de Crillart's favourite open-air bistro, 'will make Toulon a much quieter place, all round.'

Fumm! Umumm. Crack-whish!

'What the Devil?' Alan cried, leaping from his bed. He flung the shutters to his room open to peer out, to look down at the seaman sentry at the door of the guardhouse below him in the small courtyard.

Fumm, fumm! And echoes. Followed by two more crack-whishes.

'Some'un's firm' cannons, I reckon, sir,' the sentry called up to him in reply to the perplexity on his face. 'Soun' like h'it's ah comin' fum yonner, sir.' The sentry pointed vaguely sou'west.

Clad in only his shirttails, Lewrie fetched his telescope and leaned out the window. Bang went the shutters on a neighbouring room and Scott peered out blearily, rubbing sleep from his face with rough hands. He'd made a rare night of it in the city, a proper, caterwauling 'high ramble.' A moment later, a pert female face, capped with a mass of dark brown curls, appeared next to his. She was clad only in a sheet. Wide-eyed and excited, she seemed equally curious as to the source of the noise and what her neighbour looked like.

'Morning, Mister Scott,' Lewrie took time to smile.

'Argh,' Scott muttered, wiggling his tongue and grimacing with the taste of cognac still in his mouth. 'Morning, Mister Lewrie, sir,' he managed, thick-headed. 'What the Devil's goin' on?'

'Bonjour, m'sieur Luray,' the girl called cheerfully.

'Bonjour, mademoiselle,' Lewrie replied with an approximate bow.

'Phoebe,' Scott supplied gruffly, dry-swabbing his face some more and knuckling his eyes, child-like. 'I think she said. Scrawny little chit, but…' He shrugged and gave her a pinch, making her yelp.

But damned fetching, Lewrie took more time to note.

'Sounds like it's coming from beyond Fort Malbousquet,' Alan said, returning to professional matters. 'Maybe that General Carteau finally marched from Marseilles, got his guns up during the night. I…'

There was a slowly rising tumulus of powder beyond Mal-bousquet, and the hills to the sou'west, sour-looking, greyish tan. Fummjummjumm! this time in rapid succession, and another belch of smoke rose into the sky, a twining, twisting ball to join the rest. Umummum they echoed on the hills. Yet there were no strikes on Fort Malbousquet, the most important redoubt which guarded the western approaches. Lewrie swung his telescope right and left, to see what they were shooting for. There!

Crack-crack^crack!

Explosive shells burst when their fuses burned down. But burst in the Little Road, around the anchored prize- frigate Aurore and two floating batteries. Two went off very close to the water, roiling the road waters with spreading trout splashes of ripples; the third burst too high, due to a shorter fuse, scattering iron slivers that created a miniature hail storm across the waters beneath an unfolding rose of powder smoke.

Fwnm-fumm! came a double report, from a second set of guns this time, a little farther off to the south. These were improperly fused, too. They fell into the roadstead, erecting tall twin candlesticks of spray as they struck and sank. Followed a moment later, as the fuses reached their powder charges, by dirty humps of smoke grey foam, which hoisted aloft in gigantic feather-like plumes as tall as mast trucks.

'Masked batteries,' Lewrie said to one and all. 'Heavy guns, by God.'

'Siege guns,' Scott opined, awake now. 'Twenty-four-pounders?'

'Firing masked, though…' Lewrie countered, shaking his head.

Fumm-fumm-fumm! He began counting the seconds to himself. Now that he was listening for it, Alan could hear the faint shrieking moan of shells lofted through the early morning air. Three new pillars rose in the Little Road, hopelessly wide of the ships. So far.

'Mile and a half, I think, Mister Scott,' he called out. 'Don't think they're siege guns. Firin' masked, they'd have to elevate high, and anything over what? eight degrees or so'd-burst the barrels.'

'Howitzers,' Scott guessed.

'What's an army lug about,' Lewrie shouted back, getting excited there might be some action at last. 'Six, eight, or twelve-pounder howitzers? Little too far, even for them. I think they must be mortars.'

He'd experienced mortars; all those weeks under the drumfire of a French artillery train at Yorktown, aiding the Rebels. Twelve- or thirteen-inch they'd been, some as big as sixteen-inch. Massive shells they'd fired, solid shot, bursting shell, their fuses glowing in the night like fiery banshees-and carcases; flaming wads soaked in anything