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that'd burn… and keep on burning once they buried themselves in a house… or a ship.

'Les Republicains?' little Phoebe asked fearfully, pulling her sheet up higher about her. 'Mon dieu!'

'Well, they ain't the Royal Horse Artillery,' Scott sneered.

'Oui, mademoiselle, ils sont les Republicains,' Lewrie told her. 'Mister Scott, get the hands mustered. I'll dress and run up to headquarters to see what's what.'

'Ve 'ave brea'fas', Barnaby?' Phoebe asked. 'Le petit dejeuner?'

'Run along, squirrel, there's work to do,' Scott said.

That shelling had started on 18 September. Next day, more batteries had opened fire upon the tightly packed ships in the Little Road-batteries masked by the sheltering heights of La Petite Garenne and another middling hill a little sou'west of the first. Twenty-four-pounder siege guns joined in, too, firing direct, though at maximum elevation on their trunnions, from high ground near La Seyne, the civilian harbour.

This forced some of the shipping to move, out through the Gullet to new anchorages in the Great Road to the east, or closer in towards the jetties of the basin. A brace of gunboats, floating batteries, were got out of the yards, manned and sent to the nor'west arm of the Little Road near Fort Millaud and the Poudriere, the powder-magazine. And they were reinforced by a full crew of gunners on the Aurore, and the presence of Rear-Admiral John Gell's flagship, the mighty ninety-eight-gunned, three-decker St. George.

The French had the advantage, though, of being masked, their exact position unknown, and were able to fire with more or less scientific accuracy from stable, fixed positions, with observers to correct the fall-of-shot. Sooner or later, trigonometry, ballistics, and the right guesstimate on powder measure to be ignited, and the right length of fuse to be fitted, would score a hit, and that a devastating one.

The British gunners could only roughly guess where behind the masking hills the batteries were, firing from ships which, even at anchor, shifted and recoiled with each massive discharge. They had to probe with their shells, much like a blind man must feel for the kerb with his cane, hoping for the best.

French fire was so gallingly accurate, towards the afternoon of the 19th, that the gunboats had to slip their cables and retire. They returned to the duel on the morning of 20 September. And by midday, one of the floating batteries was hit and damaged, and the second was sunk outright.

This they watched from a post on the basin's western jetty, engaged in trundling powder and shot out to the thirty-two-and forty-two-pounders, just in case… Between trips, during a dinner break, or a rest stop with mugs of appallingly piss-poor French beer, Lewrie and his men had ringside seats, right up to the ropes, as it were, where they could best see the opponents toe up and square off.

'Hmm, I wonder…' Lieutenant Scott grimaced, turning to peer towards the west beyond Fort Malbousquet, then to the heights to the north.

'Wonder what, Mister Scott?'

'Your pet… did that Crillart fellow say how many men they have yonder, in Carteau's army?' Scott inquired.

'Two divisions… maybe six thousand or so, if they're up to the old establishments yet, I think I heard.'

'And we've barely five thousand so far, guarding…'

'Guarding bloody everything,' Lewrie snorted. 'Lapoype from the east might be about the same size.' He sat uneasily, trying to at least appear calm for his men, on a massive granite block of the jetty's breastworks, swinging his heels over the waterside. 'Least this bugger's not done much else but shell, so far. No infantry probes to speak of.'

'Maybe Carteau's leadin' us by the nose, waiting for all the men coining down from Lyons. Keep our attention fixed here, whilst…'

'Oh, there you are, Mister Lewrie, sir!' the teenaged mid-

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shipman cried, the same little pest they'd met their first day ashore. 'Been searching all over Creation for you,' he panted. 'Rear-Admiral Goodall's finest compliments to you, Lieutenant Lewrie, and he begs me to direct you to his presence, as soon as is practicable, sir.'

'Something useful for us to do, at last?' Lewrie wondered aloud.

'One may not presume to, uhm… presume, sir, but…' the midshipman shrugged.

'Mister Scott, take charge of the hands. Keep 'em busy, whilst I toddle off,' Lewrie said, swinging his legs back over the bulwark.

'Aye, sir,' Scott replied. 'And whatever business they wish of us, sir…?'

'Aye, Mister Scott?'

'Well, damme, we're sailors… keep us out of those hills, could you, at least?' Scott implored.

'I'll do my best, sir,' Lewrie smiled.

Chapter 6

Lewrie had kept them out of those forbidding hills, though he wasn't exactly sure he'd done them any favours. Rear-Admiral Goodall had only the briefest sketch of Lewrie's career, and had been intent upon a large map of the area, in the middle of a conference with his opposite number, Rear-Admiral Gravina of the Spanish Navy, and a host of subordinates, all of whom had a loud opinion of what should be done, and at that very instant before…

'Commanded two bomb ketches, I see, sir,' Goodall had commented.

'Yes, sir, but-'

'Batt'ry at Yorktown, by God. Land service.'

'Yes, sir, although-'

'That folderol in the Far East, shellin' pirates an' such?'

'Well, in fact…'

They'd been converted bombs, reduced to tiny but stoutly built ketch-rigged gunships; his two-gun batteries at Yorktown hadn't fired a single shot, much less had a target; the folderol in the Far East was not exactly mortar work now, was it, but…

'Cheesy-lookin' raft,' Lewrie muttered. 'Ain't it.'

They'd given him a floating battery. They'd also given him an 'all-nations' to sort out. Lieutenant de Crillart showed up, full of ginger and good cheer, eager to be doing something at last, out on the water once more. He brought with him about forty men-all Royalists, thank God-former members of the Royal Corps of Marine Gunners, once a body of 10,000, the most expert and perfectly trained naval artillery known. With cunning, the latest scientific artifice, lavish support from the greatest minds and mathematicians, the most modern gun foundries, they had developed a complete 'lajeune ecole,' a New School for gunnery.

The Revolutionaries, though, had broken them up, parcelled them out in tiny leavenings to land units, unable to abide any elite superior to the Common Man, nor any organisation left over from royal days.

There was a further complication, an equal draft of artillerists more experienced with mortars, for which Lewrie might have backhandedly thanked God. Unfortunately, they were Spanish bombardiers under a lean, haughty coach-whip of an officer; one Comandante (Major) Don Luis Emiliano de Esquevarre y Saltado y Perez. To make matters even worse, he was not a naval officer but a military artillerist, and had about as much English as Lewrie had Spanish. Which wasn't saying much, beyond 'dos vinos' and 'sucar tusputas.' El Comandante would be in charge of the pair of massive thirteen-inch brass mortars sunk in the middle of the waist, where the mainmast used to be, whilst Lieutenant de Crillart and his grizzled veterans would service the six heavy thirty-two-pounders, three to either beam.